Beauty And The Bodyguard

Chapter 5

Frustration knotted Gage’s stomach muscles. The damn little buttons were driving him crazy. His fingers were too big to grasp them, let alone push them through the little loops wrapped tightly around them. The edge of the glass or crystal was sharp, scraping his fingertips. He glanced at the scissors she’d set on the vanity table.

“I should cut it off,” he said.

“You should,” she eagerly agreed.

But he liked Nikki’s plan to change places with the bride. Hell, maybe he just liked it because Megan would no longer be the bride. He shouldn’t care that she was going to marry another man. While he’d once considered asking her to marry him, he never would again. She’d said she hadn’t loved the man he’d been. She certainly wouldn’t love the one he had become. “We can’t.”

He’d been at it for long moments and had only undone one button. They were spaced so closely together that even with the couple that Nikki had undone, only a little more than an inch of Megan’s skin was visible through the slight opening.

Megan was never comfortable showing much skin. She always dressed in layers. Skirts with tights beneath and tall boots. Blouses buttoned to her throat with sweaters over them. She dressed like the librarian she was. For some reason Gage had found that super sexy. Just like he’d always taken his time unwrapping presents, to draw out the anticipation and excitement, he’d taken his time getting Megan out of her clothes.

He’d toyed with the zippers on her boots before lowering them and pulling them off her curvy calves. He’d taken his time with the buttons on her cardigan sweaters and on her blouses beneath them. Even with the layers, she’d never had as many buttons as this, though.

And at least then his efforts had been rewarded. He’d been able to stroke and taste all that honey-colored skin he’d exposed. He’d been able to elicit soft moans and cries from her as she’d pressed her hot, naked body against his.

Remembering the sensations—the heat, the tension, the pleasure—had a groan slipping from his throat.

“Use the scissors,” she told him.

But his frustration wasn’t with the buttons. It was with the fact that even if he managed to undo all those buttons, he wouldn’t be able to kiss and touch the skin he exposed. She wasn’t his anymore.

She’d never really been his, because she’d never trusted him. She’d never trusted what they’d had. Or she wouldn’t have accused of him using her.

“I can’t...” he said.

She tilted her head and peered over her shoulder at him. “Can’t cut it off?”

He couldn’t keep thinking about what they’d had, what they’d done to each other. How he hadn’t ever been able to get enough of her.

Heat rushed through him, making his blood warm, his skin tingle. He’d bared less than an inch of her silky skin, but he wanted her as obsessively as he’d always wanted her.

Maybe it was her shyness that had appealed to him the first time they’d met. When her father had introduced them, she hadn’t met his gaze, and she’d ignored his outstretched hand, hers shoved deep into the pockets of her skirt. Used to women seeking his attention, flirting with him, he’d been intrigued by the novelty of Megan Lynch. She’d challenged him.

And Gage had never been able to walk away from a challenge...until the end. Until he’d realized there was no way he would ever win her trust or her heart.

He just shook his head.

And her face paled. “You’re giving up again?”

“Again?” he asked. “When did I give up before?”

Unless she was talking about them. But she’d given him no choice then.

Now color flushed her face. “You quit the Bureau.”

After they’d broken up, he hadn’t been able to work for her father. Not only would it have been awkward but it would have killed his pride. He’d learned what everyone thought of him—that he was doing the boss’s daughter in order to get ahead. Megan had believed those vicious rumors. So maybe that was another reason he’d quit, to prove her wrong.

“I had my reasons,” he reminded her.

She jerked her chin up and down in a nervous nod. “I thought it was my fault. The reason you quit, the reason you reenlisted, the reason you...” Her voice cracked, cutting off whatever she’d been about to add.

“The reason I what?”

“Got killed,” she said. “I thought you were dead.”

And she’d blamed herself. He shouldn’t have been surprised, though. He’d blamed her, too. Getting mad at her had eased some of his pain.

“I didn’t die there,” he said. He wasn’t so certain that he wouldn’t here, though. He glanced to the door, wondering if those armed people were out there yet, waiting to force their way inside.

“Do you think it’s that dangerous?” she asked.

He didn’t have Penny Payne and Nick Rus’s notorious instincts or he wouldn’t have fallen for Megan in the first place. Nor would he have spent six months in captivity in Afghanistan. But maybe those six months had helped him develop some kind of sixth sense as well.

Because he knew Megan Lynch’s wedding day wasn’t going to end well—for anyone.

She expelled a shaky breath. “You do...”

“Nikki has a good plan to switch places,” he said. But Nikki had been gone a long time. Had one of those gunmen taken her out?

He pulled his cell from his pocket and glanced at his blank screen. She hadn’t gotten the jammer turned off yet. They still had no backup. No way of knowing if Ellen had even been able to reach Nick.

Gage flashed back to those six months that he’d spent wondering if anyone was going to come to his rescue, if they knew where he was or even that he was alive.

They hadn’t. There had been no help coming. So he’d had to rely on himself. Then. And now.

“We need to get you out of here,” he said. Maybe it was time to cut off the wedding dress. He reached for the scissors.

But she caught his hand, her fingers sliding over his. “No.”

“It was your idea,” he reminded her.

Her face flushed. “I know. But now I don’t think it’s a good idea...”

He thought he understood, even though it knotted his stomach, this time with dread. It was still her wedding gown. She must have been having second thoughts about destroying it.

“You want to wear it again,” he said. “For Richard.”

“Richard.” His name slipped through her lips on a gasp. “Richard—what if he’s in danger?”

Gage didn’t give a damn. But then guilt flashed through him. Richard Boersman had never done anything to him. It had been the other way around. Gage was the one who’d stolen Megan from Richard. But he hadn’t been able to keep her.

“You really think anyone has a beef with Richard?” he asked with disbelief. “I’m sure he’s perfectly safe.” There was no doubt why she’d agreed to marry him. Richard was safe and boring and dull, and she didn’t have to worry about him breaking her heart like she’d constantly worried Gage would.

The irony was that she’d broken his instead.

She squeezed Gage’s hand around the scissors. “Please make sure he’s okay.”

“I’m not leaving you,” he said. If he walked away and left her alone and unprotected, he might never see her again. And he couldn’t risk that.

Couldn’t risk never seeing her beautiful face again, never touching her soft skin...

His free hand moved up to cup her cheek. He skimmed his thumb along her chin and tipped up her face. Then he began to lower his head...just as the doorknob rattled. Someone was trying to get inside.

* * *

Déjà vu. Nikki wasn’t like her mother or half brother with all their premonitions and instincts. She hadn’t ever experienced any psychic phenomena until now. Now she had that weird sense of déjà vu. Walking inside the bride’s dressing room gave Nikki the exact same feeling she’d had walking inside her mom’s office just moments ago. And she murmured, “I keep interrupting.”

Gage tensed, and his hand tightened around the weapon he’d drawn from beneath his tuxedo jacket before opening the door for her. “What did you interrupt? Are they making a move?”

She suspected that Woodrow Lynch had been thinking about making one on Penny before Nikki had burst into the basement office. But Penny hadn’t been very happy with the man for drawing a gun on her only daughter. She’d been even unhappier with him when he’d agreed with Nikki’s plan to switch places with his daughter.

If something happened to her, she doubted her mother would ever forgive the FBI chief. So she had to make sure nothing happened to her.

She shook her head. “Not yet.”

“What do they want?” Megan asked.

Nikki exchanged a glance with Gage. They were both pretty sure they wanted the bride. Even Woodrow and Penny had agreed about that.

“It doesn’t matter what they want,” Gage said. “We’re not going to let them get it.” He held up his cell. “It’s completely dead now. Didn’t you find your mom’s jammer?”

“It’s not hers.”

He sucked in a breath.

“Her landline was cut, too.”

Still standing guard at the door, he opened it a crack and peeked out. “Where are all the guests?”

“The wedding isn’t supposed to start until noon,” Megan said. “We have a half hour yet.”

“People usually arrive a half hour early,” replied the daughter of the wedding planner. Nikki had grown up knowing about weddings—and never planning to have one herself.

Even before she’d learned about her dad’s betrayal, she’d never wanted a husband of her own. She’d had enough males in her life with her overprotective brothers. Occasionally, she got lonely, though...

Occasionally, she missed that kind of tension she’d felt in her mother’s office and when she’d walked into the bride’s dressing room. Then again, she wasn’t certain she’d ever felt that kind of tension herself.

“Do you think they have someone posted outside the doors?” Gage asked. “Turning guests away?”

“They’ve planned this out,” Nikki said. “So yeah, probably.”

“Wouldn’t that draw suspicion?” Megan asked.

“They’re probably telling everyone the wedding was canceled,” Nikki said. “And the guests who know about your past—” she jerked her thumb at Gage “—and his return from the dead probably wouldn’t question it.”

“But how would those gunmen know about that—” her face reddened as Megan asked “—about us?”

Unless...

Maybe this siege on the church wasn’t about revenge on the bride’s father. Maybe it was about revenge on the bride’s ex-lover.

Because it was clear that hurting Megan would hurt Gage. Nikki narrowed her eyes and studied Gage’s face. He was even tenser now than when he’d opened the door to her, his handsome features so tight his face looked like a granite mask—hard and sharp—like his green eyes.

He’d obviously considered the same thing she had. And he didn’t like it.

“It doesn’t matter,” Nikki told them both. “What matters is everyone getting out of here alive.”

Gage looked at her then, his glance one of pity for her naïveté. She wasn’t so stupid that she hadn’t considered the other alternatives. She already knew there was a strong possibility that they wouldn’t survive.

Then she would never experience that tension she’d felt in her mom’s office and in this room. But you couldn’t miss what you’d never had.

She held up the one useful item she had retrieved from her mother’s office.

Gage stared at the small tool. “What the hell is that?”

“Crochet hook,” she replied. “This’ll get those buttons undone.”

“That’s what your mom used to do it up,” Megan said. And she released a ragged breath, as if the dress was constricting her lungs. Maybe it was. It looked tight and heavy and uncomfortable as hell.

Nikki couldn’t wait to get it on and put her plan into motion, even though it could quite possibly be the last thing she would ever do.

* * *

Megan jerked away as Nikki reached for her. Sure, she wanted out of that dress—so badly that she hadn’t even cared if Gage was the one to cut it off her. But it was different now, different since he’d nearly kissed her again.

Wasn’t that what he’d been about to do before Nikki had started turning the doorknob? He’d been lowering his head, and his eyes had gone dark, the pupils dilating as he’d stared down at her. He’d looked like he’d wanted to kiss her, just like he’d looked that first day in her father’s kitchen.

Now that all the old memories and feelings and longings washed over her, she couldn’t bear it, couldn’t stand to have him watch her get undressed and know that he wouldn’t touch her—wouldn’t kiss her.

Not that she wanted him to.

She didn’t want to put herself through all that pain again, no matter how much she probably deserved it. She’d hurt Gage. And now she was about to hurt another man, if he hadn’t already been harmed.

“You said you’d check on Richard,” she reminded Gage.

“I said that I couldn’t,” he corrected her.

“Because you couldn’t leave me alone,” she said. “But I’m not alone.” Nikki had a gun. And Megan had the scissors. Gage had pressed them back into her hand before he’d drawn his gun and opened the door.

Nikki nodded. “I’ll protect her and get her out of the dress,” she said. “You should check on the groom. We don’t know what the hell could have happened to him.”

Megan’s stomach lurched, and a gasp slipped through her lips.

And Gage’s jaw tightened. He thought she loved Richard. And she did—as a friend. Nothing more. But he was a friend and had been one for a long time. So she was worried about him.

His blond head jerked in a sharp nod. “Sure, I’ll check on him.”

“Gage...” She wanted to call him back, wanted to explain that she didn’t love her groom. She didn’t love anyone but Gage. She never had.

But the door slammed behind him.

Nikki jumped. “So much for not drawing any attention to himself.”

It wouldn’t have mattered if he’d slammed the door or quietly slipped out. Gage Huxton was the kind of man who drew attention with his height and his handsomeness. He wasn’t like Megan, whom people rarely noticed.

Why had he ever been interested in her? It was no wonder she’d doubted his feelings. She couldn’t believe even now that he’d ever really wanted her.

Richard claimed he did, that he wanted to be her husband, wanted to build a life with her. He’d anticipated that this day would be the first of the rest of their life together. And now the man who’d stolen her once from him was about to take her away again...

Only for her own protection.

But she wasn’t sure he would tell Richard that. She wasn’t sure what Gage would say to the other man. She only knew that she was the one who should tell Richard that she couldn’t marry him. “I need to get out of this dress,” she told Nikki.

“I know,” the other woman replied. But even with the tool, the buttons weren’t opening easily.

During the long moments Nikki struggled with the dress, Megan imagined Gage walking toward the groom’s dressing room. Now she didn’t worry about what he would say to Richard. She worried about what could happen to him before he got there. She worried that he would take on those gunmen alone.

“No,” she said, as she jerked away from the other woman. “We’re wasting too much time.”

“We still have a half hour before the wedding is supposed to start,” Nikki said.

But Gage had already been gone too long, long enough for Megan to worry that he would never come back. She’d lived through that nightmare once. She didn’t want to live through it again.

Panic filling her, constricting her lungs even more than the heavy dress, she rushed toward the door and pulled it open. And just like the last time she’d tried to leave, the barrel of a gun stopped her.

Unlike last time, this barrel pushed into her abdomen. And she had no doubt that this woman, who stared at her with cold blue eyes, would pull the trigger and bore that hole right through her.

Chapter 6

Just as Nikki had remarked, the church was too empty for a wedding that was less than an hour away from beginning. Gage didn’t know much about weddings, but he knew that people usually liked to get to them early so they could get the good seats. As he passed through the vestibule, he noticed that some of those front pews were occupied by little gray-haired people.

Older people were always early. It was the younger ones that weren’t on time. Like the Paynes. Where was Logan or Parker or Cooper? Or had any of them even been invited?

They were Penny’s kids. Not Woodrow’s agents. Of all the Payne Protection bodyguards, only he and Nick had worked for the Bureau.

What about the agents, though? Where were they? Woodrow would have invited them for certain. Sure, Dalton Reyes hated weddings. But Gage had heard that after finding a bride in a car trunk, the agent had gotten married himself, so he must have changed his mind.

And what about Agents Campbell or Stryker or Bell? They were all close with Woodrow. They wouldn’t have missed his daughter’s wedding.

But the only one Gage saw from the Bureau was the ass kisser. The young guy had been even more of a rookie than Gage. But he’d been desperate to get ahead and jealous that Gage had. He was the one who’d spread the lies that Gage was only dating Megan for a promotion.

Because it didn’t matter how much ass Tucker Allison kissed, he would never make special agent. There was nothing special about him. He didn’t have the guts for the job. Or to help Gage and Woodrow take down the armed suspects.

Where the hell were they? He hadn’t noticed any of them as he’d crossed the vestibule. But as he stepped through the doors at the back of the church, a man straightened away from the wall. He wore a suit that didn’t fit him well. Even as big as it was, it couldn’t conceal the bulge of a weapon.

Acting oblivious, Gage forced a smile. “Hi. Bride’s side or groom’s side?”

He’d like to know who the hell the guy was here for. But he had a sick feeling that he already knew. It had to be for the bride.

But why? Because of Woodrow?

Or because of him?

Keeping the grin plastered on his face, he studied the stranger. The guy’s hair was nearly shaved, just stubble showing on his skull. He could have been military. But what army? And more importantly, what side?

“Are you an usher?” the guy asked. His thin lips curved into a faint, mocking grin. “I thought you were the best man.”

Did he know Gage? And how? Had they met on opposite sides of the law or a battlefield?

He could have been a supporter of the group that had taken him. He and the other gunmen could have been determined to carry out what the others had begun. For some reason his captors had thought he’d had information they’d wanted. But no matter how badly they’d tortured him, he hadn’t been able to tell them what they’d wanted to learn.

That didn’t mean they’d given up, though. He resisted the urge to reach for his weapon and drop the guy. For one, he didn’t know if he would be fast enough, and for two, he didn’t know where the other armed people were.

“It’s a small wedding,” Gage replied. “We’re all pulling double duty.”

The guy nodded as if he believed him. But he doubted he’d taken him at his word any more than his captors had.

“So which side?” he asked again. “Bride or groom?”

He shrugged. “I’m the plus one, just waiting for my wife. She went to the restroom.”

With her big purse with her heavy gun inside? Gage hoped like hell that was really where she was. The guy had answered easily, as if he were speaking the truth.

Some people believed their own lies. Like the little FBI agent who nervously glanced back at him...

Tucker had believed the lies he’d spread. Maybe that was why Megan had believed them so easily as well.

But if she’d trusted Gage, if she’d loved him like she’d once claimed she had, she never would have doubted him. Like Gage doubted this guy.

“Well, I hope your wife returns quickly,” Gage said. “The wedding will be starting soon.”

The guy arched a brow as if skeptical of Gage’s claim. “Really?” he mused. “I’ve never known a wedding to start on time. Usually brides take longer to get ready than they plan for, especially if they’re nervous.”

How did this guy know that Megan was nervous? Because he was giving her every reason to be?

“You must have never attended a wedding here,” Gage said. “Mrs. Payne’s events always start on time. She has a way of quelling every fear of even the most nervous bride.” Or at least that was what he’d been told. But knowing Penny, he didn’t doubt it.

It was clear she had her doubts, though. She and Woodrow stepped into the vestibule from the basement stairwell. His arm was around her waist, as if he’d had to help her up the steps. But her body was stiff—not trembling—and she pulled away from him. Penny was proud and tough. She had raised her kids alone and had survived her fears over all their brushes with death.

And he knew they’d had many just since he’d met them.

“Well, if you won’t let me usher you to a seat, I better assume my best man duties and check on the groom,” Gage said.

“That’s who should be nervous,” the man remarked beneath his breath.

Gage turned back. “What? Why would you say that?”

The guy shrugged again, and a small, mocking grin curved his thin lips. Gage didn’t recognize the man but he recognized the look: condescension. Like he thought Gage was an idiot because he didn’t know what he knew.

What the hell did he know?

The guy shrugged again. “In my experience the guy always has more reason to be nervous when he’s getting married, especially when the best man keeps going into the bride’s dressing room.”

Innuendo joined the condescension now. The man’s dark eyes gleamed.

Anger coursed through Gage, making him tense. He didn’t give a damn that the guy was armed and had armed friends. He stepped closer to him.

But then a small hand gripped his forearm. “Gage, you need to make sure Richard is ready. The ceremony will be starting soon.”

His stomach lurched at the thought of that actually happening, of Megan actually marrying her old boyfriend. But Richard wasn’t her old boyfriend anymore.

Gage was.

He stepped back and turned to Penny, who was smiling at him. But unlike all the times she had before, the smile didn’t warm her brown eyes, didn’t dispel the fear widening them.

“Hurry up,” she urged him.

But then his stomach lurched for another reason, at the thought of leaving her alone with an obviously dangerous man.

“Go,” she said and her tone brooked no argument. She was stubborn.

And he knew better than to argue with a stubborn woman. Annalise—his sister—had taught him that. So he turned and headed down the aisle toward the front of the church. The groom’s dressing room was behind the altar. Sun shone through the stained glass windows, sending a kaleidoscope of colors dancing around the room with its sparkling marble floor and whitewashed oak pews.

It really was a beautiful chapel—a beautiful venue for a wedding. Too bad there would be no wedding today. He only hoped there would be no funeral, either.

* * *

Penny lifted her chin and stared into the stranger’s cold eyes. She was good at pretending to be brave when she was actually quavering with fear. When her husband had died in the line of duty, she’d had to pretend to her kids that she was fine, that she wasn’t scared of raising them alone. That she had everything under control when she’d actually had no idea how she was going to manage.

“Well, you’re obviously the one running the show,” the man replied.

She wished that were true—then her daughter wouldn’t be intent on using herself as a decoy. And her bride would be marrying the man she really loved, the one who was so stubborn he was probably going to get himself killed. That was why she’d intervened. She’d seen the anger course through Gage. She’d worried that he was about to lose more than his temper.