by Julie Miller
Always the bridesmaid,
never a killer’s target...until now.
Back in his hometown for a wedding, Detective Conor Wildman reunites with his ex-girlfriend’s sister, Laura Karr, once the tomboy next door. Now Laura is a beautiful woman...and someone wants her dead. Conor is the man to protect her and catch the killer, but will one heated kiss jeopardize their precious friendship? Or will it prove that he can trust her with his wounded heart?
“I think you caught me off guard again,” he whispered.
“Is that a bad thing?”
“No.” He straightened, and Laura finally gave him the space he needed by releasing him and crossing her arms in front of her. The sun hadn’t come up yet on this blustery February morning, and her skin was suddenly awash with goose bumps. “But I’m not sure what to make of it yet. You’re not...”
“Lisa?”
“I just never thought...” His shoulders lifted with an apologetic shrug. “It was always her.”
She nodded her reluctant acceptance of the facts. “And I remind you of her. That kiss was a trip down memory lane for you.”
“No. You’re not anything like her. That kiss was nothing like anything she and I ever shared.”
But Lisa was the sister he’d loved. She wasn’t anything like the woman he loved. “It’s okay, Conor. I’ve just always...wanted to kiss you.” That much she would confess. “I knew you’d be good at it. We’re cool, though.”
He didn’t look entirely convinced.
DO-OR-DIE BRIDESMAID
USA TODAY Bestselling Author
Julie Miller
Julie Miller is an award-winning USA TODAY bestselling author of breathtaking romantic suspense—with a National Readers’ Choice Award and a Daphne du Maurier Award, among other prizes. She has also earned an RT Book Reviews Career Achievement Award. For a complete list of her books, monthly newsletter and more, go to juliemiller.org.
Books by Julie Miller
Harlequin Intrigue
Rescued by the Marine
Do-or-Die Bridesmaid
The Precinct
Beauty and the Badge
Takedown
KCPD Protector
Crossfire Christmas
Military Grade Mistletoe
Kansas City Cop
The Precinct: Bachelors in Blue
APB: Baby
Kansas City Countdown
Necessary Action
Protection Detail
The Precinct: Cold Case
Kansas City Cover-Up
Kansas City Secrets
Kansas City Confessions
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CAST OF CHARACTERS
Conor Wildman—This KCPD detective’s sarcasm is a line of defense he’s built around his battered heart. When he attends a wedding, he’s reunited with the girl next door. But Laura Karr isn’t a freckle-faced teenager anymore, and he struggles to reconcile their lifelong friendship with the desire he feels. When a killer targets her, he becomes Laura’s personal protector. But is he willing to risk his heart again?
Laura Karr—Although her friendship with Conor feels as familiar as ever, she’s always wanted something more. But her project to get Conor to see her as a grown woman is derailed when her best friend is murdered. When key evidence falls into Laura’s hands, the murderer sets his sights on her. With a killer in hot pursuit, do Laura and Conor have any chance at a happily-ever-after?
Chloe Wilson—When Laura’s friend turns up dead, her questionable choices become Laura’s problems, too.
Isaac Royal—How jealous can this mild-mannered accountant be?
Vincent Orlando—Chloe’s boyfriend swept her off her feet with money, romance and promises he might not be able to keep.
Marvin Boltz—Vincent’s attorney.
Deputy T.J. Cobb—Is his good-ol’-boy charm covering up something sinister?
Thank you to my readers who were so kind to help me figure out Conor Wildman’s story. I needed a few details on the fly, and you found them for me. I appreciate you taking the time to find the answers I needed from Protection Detail and getting back to me so quickly. You’re the best!
To Anu-Riikka Henriksson, Jeriann Fisher, Kathy Brown, Kay Singletary, LaJuonna Sirk, Danielle DePierre, Mary Birchwood Lawson, Lanita Idrus, Diana Roman and April Fowler.
Contents
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Excerpt from Rules in Rescue by Nichole Severn
Prologue
The honor of your presence is requested...
“You’ve got to be kidding me.” Conor Wildman skimmed over the details of the wedding invitation. Embossed pink hearts and lilac ribbons adorned the paper and the little RSVP card. This had to be a joke. Only it wasn’t.
It took a lot of gall for his ex to invite him to her wedding.
It took even more gall for said ex to be marrying his former best friend.
But he wasn’t bitter. Conor snorted the hot coffee he was drinking up his nose and cursed. Yeah. That was about how good he felt at reading Joe and Lisa’s names linked together—like a hot, black brew scalding his sinuses.
He should have left yesterday’s mail sitting on the counter and come back to it after work this evening. Better yet, after a drink after work this evening. No. He should have dumped the pale pink envelope in the trash and then skipped straight to the drink after work at the Shamrock Bar where he and his new friends at KCPD often hung out after hours.
That was why there’d been no return address on the envelope—so he wouldn’t automatically trash it. If it wasn’t pre-coffee time in the morning, he might have thought to check the envelope for the Arlington, Virginia, postmark. But since he’d just come from the shower and poured himself his first cup, he’d been blindsided by the reminder of all he’d lost these past two years.
It didn’t matter that he logically understood why Lisa had dumped him—too many necessary lies, too many absent nights with his former job at WITSEC. Dumped was dumped. There was no logic that could ease the pain of being told he wasn’t good enough, he wasn’t right enough to make a good husband to her.
It wasn’t the first time he hadn’t been enough to make someone stay.
He was no longer with the US Marshals service, no longer in Virginia, no longer brooding over the life that had been denied him. But a wedding invitation?
There was no one in his life who’d be sending him a Valentine this February. Had he hoped he’d picked up a secret admirer? That his mother had arranged for someone to send him a missive before her death eight months ago? She’d known the breast cancer was winning, that it had metastasized beyond any hope of saving her. She’d spent a lot of those last few weeks getting her affairs in order, trying to get his life shipshape, too, knowing she was the last of his family. Had Marie Wildman been in collusion with his ex’s mother? The two women had been friends for as long as Conor had been alive. Had his mom asked the K
arr family to keep an eye on her only child? Make sure he was happy?
If so, what was the point of inviting him to a weekend wedding extravaganza back home? A torturous weekend trapped in awkward conversations with well-meaning friends and painful memories wasn’t his idea of fun. There was a reason he’d moved halfway across the country to take an assignment in Kansas City, Missouri. A reason why he’d left the Marshals Service to become a cop with the KCPD instead of moving back to Arlington after his assignment in KC had wrapped up.
Lisa Karr had rejected his ring and said he wasn’t the kind of man a woman who wanted a normal life should marry. Hell, she’d quoted some statistic about how a man with his temperament and job skills would be divorced in a couple of years if they’d gone through with their engagement. He didn’t think either Lisa or Joe Gerhart was the rub-our-noses-in-Conor’s-pain kind of cruel. But he could see them doing a favor for his mom, feeling sorry for him. Poor Conor. We didn’t mean to hurt you. We know it’s been a tough year. We want you to know we will always care about you.
It didn’t matter that Lisa had officially broken up with him before she’d started dating Joe. It still felt like his friend had stolen his girl. Knowing the two had kept the relationship quiet while he’d been dealing with his mom—seeing them together for the first time at Marie’s funeral—felt like Lisa had cheated on him.
It made no sense, but that was what he felt. He’d been one raw emotion, keeping it together for so long that he wasn’t sure he knew what he felt anymore. Except pissed that Lisa and Joe had invited him to their wedding. In one week. Like he was a problem they needed to fix.
Conor considered taking another hit on the hot liquid caffeine he lived on. But he wasn’t that much of a masochist. He carefully set the mug down on the kitchen counter and stepped away to finish dressing.
Striding into the bedroom, he dropped the towel cinched around his lean hips and pulled on his shorts and slacks. The white shirt with the button-down collar came next. He crossed to the mirror over the dresser and combed his short, wheat-blond hair into place before looping a tie around his neck. He stopped mid-Windsor knot and eyed the brown-and-navy stripes before pulling it off and tossing it onto the bed.
Lisa had given him that tie.
He’d settle for the solid blue tie with the tiny food stain on it. That would have driven her nuts. She’d fuss over his incompetence when it came to dressing himself before catching on that it was just a ploy to get her to put her hands on him. Then they’d laugh. And there would undoubtedly be a kiss.
Conor tugged that tie off, too. Nope. Better opt for the completely neutral, no-history-involved tie he’d picked up at a Christmas party.
He’d once been amused by Lisa’s tendencies to have the details of her life arranged so that there were no surprises. His inability to guarantee her that home-for-dinner-every-night predictability was one of the reasons she’d broken off their engagement. The possibility that he might not come home at all one day because of the inherent dangers of working in law enforcement had sealed the coffin on their future together.
But he couldn’t give up his job—couldn’t surrender the gun and the badge and the crazy hours he’d once worked as a US marshal, tracking down fugitives and protecting witnesses. He wouldn’t give up the man he chose to become after the father who hadn’t wanted him or his mother had abandoned them. He couldn’t give up who he was. Not even for the girl he’d loved since college. His promise that she would always come first in his heart hadn’t been good enough for her. She needed a sense of security that his gun and badge couldn’t provide.
Ironically, now that she was no longer a part of his life, he’d resigned from the Marshal Service. His last case guarding a witness relocated to Kansas City had made him question too many of his supervisor’s decisions. If his boss didn’t have his back, and wouldn’t put the woman he’d been protecting first, then the oath he’d taken—Justice, Integrity, Service—meant nothing. Conor had lost too much for his work and his life not to mean anything.
He thought Lisa had understood that. That she accepted his job was a big part of who he was as a man. But maybe she’d been in love with a version of him he just couldn’t be.
He understood Joe and Lisa’s need to mend fences and make the past right, so they could move on with their future—to their new life. But why was their happiness his problem? He slipped his holster and badge onto his belt, grabbed his suit jacket and headed back to the kitchen.
Conor finished off his tepid coffee in one long draft. He shrugged into his jacket and picked up the wedding invitation to toss it into the trash.
That was when the note that had been tucked inside fell out and drifted to the tile floor. Conor’s shoulders lifted with a wary sigh before he stooped down to retrieve it.
He unfolded the handwritten note—with messages from both Joe and Lisa.
Con—If I was marrying anyone else but Lisa, you’d be standing by my side as best man. I let this go because I know you’ve been dealing with your mom this year. But it’s killing me that you aren’t a part of our lives anymore. Hell, Lisa talks about how much she misses the three of us hanging out the way we did in college so much that I’m getting a complex. I finally told her to send you an invitation. Bail me out, bro. Lisa needs to see you’re okay with her own eyes. Come to the wedding. Do it for yourself, too, and show everyone here that you’re okay.
—Joe.
He flipped over the paper to Lisa’s flowery handwriting. What was this? An intervention to help him get over how sucky they thought his life had become?
Dearest Con—I know things ended badly between us. Deep down in your heart, you know I couldn’t make you happy in the long run, nor you me. But we were friends long before we were something more. We were practically family. Marie and Mom were like sisters. Your mom would want you to be happy, not stewing in anger or grief or whatever it is that is keeping you away from home.
If you don’t care about me or Joe, then think of your mother. We all miss her. Mom most of all. Seeing you here, representing Marie, would make her so happy.
You may think there’s no one in your life who worries about your well-being. But we do.
I hope we can be friends again. I’d love to have a big brother like you in my life. Please come. We miss you.
Yours truly,
Lisa.
Big brother? He hadn’t felt brotherly toward Lisa since she’d sprouted breasts in middle school.
Brotherly was what he felt toward Lisa’s tomboy little sister, Laura. The squirt always seemed to be around when he’d come over to hang out with Lisa, and she’d even tagged along on a couple of dates in college. He’d taught her to swing a softball bat and spit watermelon seeds from the tree house that hovered over both their backyards. Laura had freckles and braces and snorted through her nose when she laughed. Lisa was feminine right down to her painted pinkie toes. Not in any universe could he equate brotherly with his feelings for Lisa.
But his heart hadn’t been enough. He hadn’t been enough.
He wasn’t sure he could handle the friendship she wanted. The pain of her rejection compounded by his mother’s death, the guilt of not seeing how unhappy she’d been with him, wouldn’t allow friendship to flourish again. But maybe he could give Lisa one day.
Show everyone here that you’re okay.
“You played me like a fine violin, Joseph.” Shaking his head, Conor scooped the invitation up and stuffed it into his pocket. His decision was made.
Time for a road trip to Virginia.
Chapter One
The Methodist church was packed with enough guests that Conor could easily slide into the last pew without drawing attention to his arrival.
He’d convinced himself that taking a few vacation days and driving to Arlington for Joe and Lisa’s wedding was a necessary thing. It was a matter of pride to show them that he wasn’t so gri
ef-stricken about his mother’s death or wounded by Lisa that he was too weak or vulnerable to wish them well.
So, here he was, in the flesh, back at the church where services for his mother had been held, the same church the Wildmans and the Karrs had attended growing up. Detective Conor Wildman was doing just fine on his own, thank you very much.
But he wasn’t going to make a spectacle of himself. He might be proving that he was a gracious loser, that he had made the right choice to move on, but those emotional scars were still fresh.
One of the hazards of standing six foot three, though, was that blending in wasn’t always an option. When Joe walked in from the waiting room beside the altar with his best man and a groomsman—one a fraternity brother he recognized from college, the other probably an accountant friend from work—he adjusted his dark-rimmed glasses on his nose and looked again, letting Conor know he’d been spotted. Joe beamed at seeing Conor in the back row near the exit. Conor offered his former college roomie a thumbs-up and a wry grin.
But when Joe took a couple of steps to come down the aisle toward him, Conor shook his head and pointed to the back of the church, reminding Joe of his priorities as the organ music finished with a dramatic flourish. The best man pulled Joe back into place, rubbing Joe’s shoulders and teasing him about putting the kiss-the-bride stuff ahead of the “I dos,” which sent laughter through the pews like a wave.
Conor didn’t laugh. The organist began playing the overture to the traditional processional. But he wasn’t ignoring the joke or appreciating the music so much as he was distracted by the sudden shuffle of commotion in the narthex just outside the sanctuary’s open doors. From his vantage point he could turn and see what the fuss was about while the congregation buzzed with chatter, waiting for the grand entrance of the bridal party.
“Put down your cell phone.” That terse whisper would be Lisa. Something wasn’t going according to her no-doubt meticulous plan for the day. Conor’s chest expanded with a steadying breath at hearing her voice again. He knew all her tones and what they represented. That one was her nervous-that-everything-is-about-to-fall-apart-but-I’ll-cover-my-fear-by-sniping-at-someone-else tone. “If she chooses not to be here to oversee the guest book, then...why isn’t Chloe here?”
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