by Lisa Childs
The wedding planner really did think of everything. Like her daughter had said, she even had a plan for armed gunmen invading her chapel.
“Don’t!” Megan protested.
But Gage ignored her and closed the bookcase, locking Megan inside. The little key charm Penny had used to open the case was still inside the lock. He left it there. It wasn’t like anyone would notice it.
And from inside Megan couldn’t reach it, even if she had been untied. She wouldn’t be able to escape. She wouldn’t be able to put herself in harm’s way. And knowing that would help Gage. He couldn’t afford any distractions now, not when he was about to risk his life.
But hell, he would much rather risk his life than his heart again. And if he’d stayed on that couch with Megan, he would have lost his heart entirely.
* * *
Anger coursed through Megan, heating her already hot skin. She had wanted Gage so badly, her head clouded with love and desire, that she hadn’t realized he’d been tricking her. He’d tied her up. He’d hidden her away.
She strained against the binding around her wrist. But the zip tie was tight, the plastic so hard that it bit into her skin—just like Gage had nipped her bottom lip.
So seductively...
Had it all just been a ploy? A way to distract her so that he could tie her up and tuck her away? Maybe none of it had been real, the kisses or his admission.
She shouldn’t have trusted him, just like Richard had warned her. When she’d broken up with him for Gage, he’d told her that they would stay friends because he knew she would need one. He knew that Gage would break her heart, that he had an ulterior motive in going after her.
She’d been hurt but realistic enough to suspect that Richard was right. She was no great beauty. No exciting lover. But with Gage, she actually had been. Making love with him had made her needy and bold. She’d touched him and kissed him. She’d climbed all over him, sliding his erection inside her, riding him...
A moan slipped out as she felt needy all over again. Her skin tingled, and her body ached. She wanted him even after what he’d done. How he’d tricked her...
Had he tricked her before? Had he just been using her like Tucker and Richard had warned her?
She had begun to doubt that. She’d begun to believe that Gage really had loved her. He’d quit his job, he’d reenlisted—because of her. He’d admitted that now. And he really had no reason to lie to her.
So if he’d been telling the truth...
Had Richard been lying?
But what reason would he have had? He wasn’t a jealous man, like Tucker Allison, who had obviously been jealous of Gage and his success in the Bureau. Richard had never been in love with her, so he’d had no reason for jealousy. Just concern because he had been her friend.
Guilt flashed through her. She’d been so worried about Nikki Payne taking her place that she hadn’t given Richard much thought. He was her friend. And he was in every bit as much danger as Nikki and the other guests.
But then Richard wasn’t likely to put himself in danger. He wouldn’t try to play the hero like Nikki or Gage would. He probably wouldn’t do or say anything at all. If he wasn’t the groom, the gunmen might have never noticed him.
* * *
Derek pushed the button on the walkie-talkie. “Ralph? Ralph?”
“Where the hell is he?” Andrea demanded to know. “He should have brought her up a while ago.” Her long body that he’d always found so sexy was tense almost to the point of being sharp—like her voice when she asked, “Do you think she got away?”
“I think she’d be here if she hadn’t.” And so would Ralph. Unless he couldn’t...
“What the hell happened?” Andrea asked—as if he’d been there.
He hadn’t, but he suspected he knew. “The father of the bride, the bureau chief...” How the hell had he not known that? Of course he’d been locked up in prison with limited access to the outside. Andrea had done the research. How had she not known? “And the best man... I suspect he’s an agent, too.”
“Not anymore,” the petite brunette remarked from where she sat on the floor.
“Got fired for banging the boss’s daughter?” Andrea asked with a smirk.
Nikki Payne shook her head. “Quit to reenlist. He got deployed almost immediately and then went missing for six months. But he survived those six months of captivity and torture and escaped on his own. He’s like Rambo.”
“Just because he survived torture doesn’t mean he’s Rambo,” Derek replied with a glance at the groom. “Some people are just like cockroaches—hard to kill.”
Sweat streaked down the groom’s face.
“That’s not the case with Gage,” the girl said. “He’s a killer. It doesn’t matter how many guns or guards you have around here. He’ll take them all out.”
Andrea laughed.
But Derek’s blood had chilled with her ominous warning. And he shivered instead.
Andrea tugged him aside. “Are you letting her get to you?” she asked. She lifted her gun. “If she is, I’ll shut her up—permanently.”
He pulled down the gun. “No.”
For some reason he liked the young woman; he respected Nikki Payne’s spunk and sass. She was the kind of woman he’d thought he’d married.
Only now he realized Andrea was a stranger to him. Just like someone else was pretending to be...
He gestured toward the profusely sweating groom. “Does he really think I don’t recognize him?”
“He doesn’t look the same,” Andrea said. “Are you sure it’s him?”
“It’s him,” he said. He had recognized him from his engagement notice. Seeing him in person, he was even more certain. “You confirmed it.”
Andrea nodded. “Of course.”
She’d found the plastic surgeon who had treated Richard’s burns. Even the blowtorch hadn’t been able to get Richard to admit where he had stashed the loot from their last heist. It had been the biggest.
Would he give it up if they tortured his bride instead? Andrea thought so, but Derek was beginning to doubt it. Richard was nervous but not scared. He wasn’t terrified for himself or for his bride.
Derek wanted him scared, scared like he’d been years ago. Derek lifted his gun, but like he’d done with hers, Andrea held the barrel of his. “No. You can’t shoot him.”
“I went to prison because of him.”
She shook her head. “He never testified against you. You went to prison because you were matched to the security footage on the jewelry store cameras.”
“Security footage he was supposed to hack in and erase.” That was why Richard had been involved. He’d been their computer hacker, their security expert. He’d never held a gun or driven a getaway vehicle. But they wouldn’t have gotten into the places they had without his help. He was good—too good to have made a simple mistake like he’d claimed when the security footage had hit all the news outlets.
Derek tried to lift his gun again. He wanted to shoot the bastard—a lot of times. He wanted to take out his knees, then drill holes into his arms until he fired the kill shot right between the bastard’s little beady eyes.
“I know you want to kill him,” Andrea said.
Want wasn’t a strong enough word. He needed to kill him.
“But this isn’t just about revenge,” Andrea reminded him. “We’re here for something else.”
“But where are they?” Did Richard even have them? Or had he pawned them and blown all the money already?
“We’ll find them,” Andrea said.
Derek sighed. They had to at least try. Without them they wouldn’t be able to get away like they planned—to a country with no extradition.
Glancing down the aisle at the lifeless FBI agent, he sighed. He had already killed. He would drop a lot more bodies to find what he was looking for...
Chapter 18
Except for some rare instances usually involving her kids and Woodrow’s agents, the majority of the wedd
ings at Penny’s white wedding chapel went very well. Her staff had as much to do with it as she did. She had her own caterers, waiters and bartenders in the reception area of the basement. It was where she’d brought her bag of guns and walkie-talkies.
“We knew something was up,” Jimmy the bartender said. “The waiter claimed you’d hired him because you needed extra staff.”
Penny shuddered, grateful that the guy hadn’t killed Jimmy for asking too many questions.
“He’s the only one down here who’s a stranger, right?” Woodrow asked.
Penny already knew. She’d recognized everyone else in the hall.
Jimmy replied, “Yeah. But I don’t know where he’s gone.”
“He’s no longer a threat,” Gage said as he joined them in the reception hall. He glanced around at the fairy lights and flowers. It was beautiful. Was he thinking of how Megan would have married another man here? Or of how she should have been marrying him?
“Where’s Megan?” her father anxiously asked. “You didn’t send her alone through the tunnel?”
“Of course not,” Gage replied. “I stashed her where no one will find her, though.”
Behind the bookcase, Penny instinctively knew. She imagined Megan was not happy in the small space. Hopefully, she wouldn’t be there long.
“Who’s this guy?” the bartender asked, his eyes narrowed with suspicion.
“Gage Huxton,” Penny said. “He works for my son Logan.”
“A bodyguard,” Jimmy said with a slight sigh of relief. “And this guy...” He pointed to Woodrow.
“Father of the bride,” Penny said. “And an FBI agent—he’s in charge of the Chicago office.”
“Okay, we can do this then,” Jimmy said.
Penny wasn’t so sure she could ask so much of her staff. “It’s still going to be dangerous,” she warned him and the waiters, waitresses and chefs who’d gathered around them.
“You said Nikki’s up there,” Jimmy reminded her. “That she’s in danger.”
“I wondered why our phones weren’t working...” one of the waitresses murmured.
“Cell jammer,” Penny said. “We can’t call out and we can’t go out. All the doors are blocked.”
“So we can’t call for help and we can’t expect any help to get in,” Jimmy said. “Sounds like we have no choice.”
“You do,” she assured them. “You can hide.”
Like Gage had hidden Megan. There were more nooks and crannies than the bookcase in her office and the secret passageway at the end of the hall. She could find safe places for all of them.
Jimmy shook his head. “No. We can’t. Nikki’s in danger. She’s family.”
That was the way Penny had always felt, like her staff was family. That was why she struggled with the thought of putting them in danger.
Woodrow had no such struggle. “Let me tell you the plan then,” he said. And like a colonel, he began directing his makeshift army of her trusted waitstaff.
But the only real soldier of the group was the most impatient. “We’ve got to go,” Gage said. “We can’t waste any more time.”
He was probably eager to get back to Megan. But there was no guarantee that he would. There was no guarantee that any of them would survive. They all started off after Gage anyway. When she moved to follow, Woodrow caught her shoulders. Staring down into her face, he ordered her like he had the others, “You are staying here.”
She shook her head. “I can’t ask my staff to risk their lives unless I’m willing to risk mine.”
“I’m not willing to risk yours,” Woodrow told her.
She could have said something about his risking Nikki’s. But she knew he hadn’t done that lightly. Nikki had been insistent and convincing that she could handle the danger far better than Megan could.
Penny would be insistent and convincing, too. “I am going,” she said. “Nobody knows this place like I do.”
“We know where we’re going,” Woodrow said. “And we know what we’re doing.”
“And I know where I’m going and what I’m doing, too,” she insisted as she tried to tug away from him and step around his long body.
His hands tightened on her shoulders, easily holding her in place. “You’re stubborn,” he said. “Do I need to lock you up like Gage did Megan?” As big as he was, he could probably easily toss her over his shoulder.
But Penny wouldn’t go down without one hell of a fight. She ignored the flash of excitement she felt over a physical struggle with Woodrow Lynch.
“Your daughter is safely locked away,” she said. “Mine’s not. Mine is up there with that crazy woman who already tried to shoot her.”
“Penny—”
She shook her head. “But she hasn’t been shot,” she said with a little breath of relief. “Not yet.”
He looked at her as if he wanted to believe her, but he’d been in law enforcement long enough to be a cynical man. And he’d seen Nikki at her most stubborn and fearless.
If anyone would have tested the gunmen, it would have been Nikki. If anyone had been shot, it hadn’t been her.
“I would know,” she said.
Maybe Woodrow would think she was crazy—like some others did. But she had never hidden who she was. “I would know if one of my children was hurt.”
“You’re saying you’re psychic?”
She shook her head again. “If I was psychic, I never would have called Nikki to help me.” She would have known the danger in which she would be putting her only daughter. “But I have a special connection with my kids. I know when one of them is hurt.”
He nodded. “You’re empathetic.”
She grabbed up one of the guns left atop the prettily set table.
“And impatient,” he added.
“I am also a damn good shot,” she said. Her husband had taught her when they were first married. Then she had been the one to teach their sons, because her husband had died before he could. “You need me up there.”
* * *
Woodrow was beginning to think that he just needed her too much to let her put herself in danger. She was also too strong and determined for him to argue with her anymore. Before she could pass him, he caught her shoulders and swung her back around to face him.
Ready to fight, she opened her mouth. And he kissed her. His lips slid over hers, stroking back and forth. He enjoyed the friction—the sensations that he hadn’t felt in so long. His blood heated; his pulse beat faster. He’d never been so excited by just a kiss. But then, Penny Payne was special. He’d known it the first moment he’d met her.
Finally, he pulled back and stared down at her.
“Why did you do that?” she asked.
He could have told her that he’d meant it just as a distraction. But he knew that was a lie. He just hoped he wasn’t lying when he assured her, “We’ll get Nikki out safely.”
“You don’t know that’s possible,” she said. “Don’t make promises to me that you can’t keep.”
Another man had done that to her. He’d promised—in this very church—to be faithful. But he’d fathered a child with another woman. He’d betrayed her in the worst way a spouse could be betrayed.
Woodrow knew her pain. He’d experienced it himself. It didn’t matter to him that Megan wasn’t his child. And he’d been careful that no one else realized the truth. But he worried that Megan suspected. She might not have remembered her mother, but she’d seen photos. Hell, she’d seen Ellen, who looked exactly like her. Blonde. Like Woodrow had been before he’d gone gray. And blue eyed. Like Woodrow. He worried that was why Megan had always considered herself unattractive—because she didn’t look like them.
But she was his. No matter that she didn’t have his DNA, he loved her like his child. He loved Penny Payne, too, but in an entirely different way.
“I don’t make promises I don’t intend to keep,” he told her. He’d promised his dying wife that he would raise Megan like his own. And he’d kept that promise. Not out of o
bligation. But love. He would keep this promise to Penny for the same reason—because he loved her.
He held her chin in his hand, his fingertips stroking over her silky skin, until she met his gaze. She stared at him for a long moment before she finally nodded, accepting that he spoke the truth.
He drew in a breath, heavy with the responsibility he’d just accepted. But before he could turn away, she reached up and kissed his lips.
* * *
With a smile, Gage glanced away from the older couple. He’d figured something was going on with Woodrow and Penny Payne. He hadn’t known for certain what it was until he’d gone back to see what was keeping them and caught them kissing.
There was attraction between them, but it was more than that. It was deeper. It was real.
Watching Woodrow and Penny made Gage long to see Megan before they headed up to the chapel. He wanted to make certain she was all right, that she hadn’t cut her wrists trying to get off the zip tie. That she wasn’t panicking in the close confines of the cramped closet.
And more importantly he wanted to see her again, to look deeply into the fathomless depths of her dark eyes. He wanted to touch her again, the silkiness of her skin, the softness of her hair. He needed to be with her—just one last time—in case he didn’t return from his mission.
But if he took her out of her hiding place, he doubted he would be able to get her back in. She would be like Penny, insistent on putting herself in danger.
As much as he wanted to see her again, it was better that he not risk it. It was better that he not be distracted with thoughts of her, either. With how beautiful she looked in that damn wedding gown...
With how badly he’d wanted to get her out of it, and not just so that she wouldn’t marry another man. Despite everything he’d gone through because of her, he wanted her. But she wasn’t his.
Even though her wedding had been hijacked, she’d intended to marry another man. Gage had to push that thought from his mind, too, or he might not try as hard to save Richard as he would the others.
And if he let her groom die, he doubted Megan would ever forgive him. She must have cared about the guy to have been his friend even before she’d become his fiancée. She wouldn’t want to lose him.