by Paula Graves
“Jesse thinks.” Her father grimaced. “Jesse thinks a lot of things.”
“He’s right about this. You know he is.”
“He thinks the men who took you were SSU agents.” There was little skepticism in her father’s voice, despite his obvious dislike for Jesse. He knew as well as anyone just how ruthless the mercenaries who’d once worked for MacLear Security could be. One of his most trusted colleagues had already died at their hands, and another had spent nearly a month as a captive of the deadly soldiers of fortune, along with his wife and daughter.
“I’m pretty sure Jesse’s right about that, too.”
Her father touched her face, his fingers gentle. “You’re not keeping anything from me, are you? They didn’t hurt you more than you’ve said—”
“No, they didn’t. But given time, they would have.”
Her father met her gaze for a long, electric moment, then looked away.
“You need to talk to Jesse about General Ross’s journal.”
Her father’s mouth tightened but he didn’t answer.
Evie gave a little growl of frustration. “I don’t know why you’re being so stubborn about this, Dad. Look what happened today—you think they won’t go after us again? Maybe Rita this time, or Mom. And Jesse Cooper won’t be there to save them.”
His gaze snapped up to meet hers, pain vibrating in his blue eyes. “I’m doing what I can to protect us all.”
“By staying silent? That’s not enough for these people. You have to know it’s not. I don’t understand why you don’t just tell people what you do know, even if you don’t have proof.”
“I’ll increase our security team,” her father said, ignoring her last comment.
“Are you going to make them aware of the level of the threat against us?” She shook her head. “If you put the average security guard up against the SSU, he’ll lose every time.”
She knew her father couldn’t argue. He’d been around for the downfall of MacLear Security, a once well-respected private security firm that had done business with the Pentagon for years. MacLear Security’s training corps had been made up of top-notch former military and law-enforcement personnel. Even the company’s legitimate agents had possessed the knowledge and skills of elite soldiers. And the Special Services Unit, MacLear’s secret unit of guns for hire, had layered those skills in with an utter lack of a moral compass.
Ruthless and violent, the SSU had been a wickedly efficient private army for a corrupt State Department official named Barton Reid. Their work for Reid had eventually led to the company’s downfall, thanks to Jesse’s cousins, who’d thwarted the secret soldiers’ plans to abduct a child as leverage. The Coopers had exposed MacLear’s seamy underbelly and brought the company down, but not before several of the SSU operatives had made their escape and formed a new alliance.
Funded by a mysterious company called AfterAssets, LLC, the dirty operatives had recently been involved in at least one assassination and another assassination attempt. They’d kidnapped an Air Force general and his family and now had tried to kidnap Evie, as well.
“They want General Ross’s journal,” she said.
“Do you know where it is?” her father asked.
She shook her head. “But they think you do.”
“I don’t know where it went after Cooper took it from Lydia Ross,” the general murmured, glancing toward the door. “I bet he knows.”
“Probably so. But it’s important nobody else knows where it is, because you seem determined not to tell us what you know.”
He bent toward her, as if he was going to tell her something, but a soft knock on the door interrupted. Evie crossed to the door. “Yes?”
“It’s me,” Jesse said from the other side of the door.
She let him in. He slipped inside, handing her a cup of water.
“Thanks.” She downed the two ibuprofen tablets her father had given her. “That took longer than I thought—did you get a call? Any news?”
He glanced at her father briefly, then looked back at her. “Rick and Megan found the truck abandoned on the side of the road two miles up from the gas station where I found you. We’re processing it for prints, but it’s not likely we’ll find anything.”
“You should bring the real police into this,” Evie’s father said with a grimace. “You’re screwing up any chance of a court case against these guys.”
“A court isn’t going to stop these guys. Half of them were already indicted along with Barton Reid, and you see how well that stopped them,” Evie told her father. “The bigger picture is what matters. We need to stop whoever’s funneling money to them to pull these jobs.”
“I know you think the Espera Group may have something to do with it.” Jesse looked at her father. “I know you want to expose their real agenda. But to do that, you have to let me help you.”
Evie winced as her father’s expression grew stony. “I don’t have to do anything,” he snapped. “Except make sure my daughter gets married today to a fine man who treats her like a queen.”
Jesse didn’t flinch outwardly, but Evie didn’t miss the slight flicker of anger that darkened his eyes. “Very well.” He turned to Evie. “I’ll wait outside until you’re dressed, then I’ll escort you to the chapel.”
“That won’t be necessary,” her father said. “I’ve already assigned one of my security guards to stick with Evie wherever she goes today.”
Jesse’s eyes narrowed. “Because they did such a good job before?”
Evie put her hand on her father’s arm. His muscles were hard with tension, but he remained silent as she looked at Jesse.
“I’ll be okay,” she said, although she wasn’t sure she was right. But having Jesse around today of all days was too stressful for everyone. Despite her earlier reassurances, Rita couldn’t be happy about Jesse crashing her wedding, however good his reasons.
“I’ll just go back to what I was doing earlier today, then,” he said.
She hid a smile. Back to the convenience-store parking lot, then. Watching over the wedding from afar.
A part of her wished she could believe his concern was specifically for her and not her family in general. Like Rita, she’d never been immune to Jesse Cooper’s sexy strength and leatherneck sense of honor. But unlike Rita, Evie didn’t find his hard-driving, adrenaline-soaked lifestyle a deal breaker. In fact, she craved the sort of meaning and purpose he seemed to find in risking his neck to help people. It was one reason why she’d taken him up on the offer of a job at Cooper Security.
But not the only reason.
Unfortunately, Jesse clearly saw her as Rita’s little sister and nothing more. So that was that. Time to get over her schoolgirl crush on Jesse and move on.
Still, her gaze remained on the bride’s room door long after he’d closed it behind him.
Chapter Three
The bride and groom emerged from the back of the church to a cheering crowd of well-wishers tossing birdseed. Jesse couldn’t resist the urge to raise his binoculars for a closer look, focusing on the pink cheeks and bright eyes of the bride.
Rita was stunning. At thirty-two, she looked nearly a decade younger, her fair skin unlined. Her cornflower-blue eyes glowed with a joy he could see even through the impersonal lenses of the binoculars.
She was happy. It radiated from her like sunshine, warming him from a distance. There had been a time when he’d have resented her finding someone else who could make her happy, but those days were long gone. Maturity and experience had softened the edges of his jealous nature and time had taught him that real love was unselfish.
He would always love Rita and want the best for her, but that didn’t mean he had to be the one to give it to her. If he’d been able to do that—and if she’d been able to make him happy as well—they would still be together.
Suit-clad men surrounded the bride and groom, guiding them down the sidewalk toward a limousine parked nearby. The reception would take place at The Lodge on Gossamer L
ake, a sprawling resort on a scenic overlook with a stunning view of the lake. Jesse already had agents positioned there to augment General Marsh’s security contingent.
He watched the limousine move with a stately lack of urgency, the bride and groom waving at their well-wishers as they passed near the front of the church on their way out.
Jesse’s phone rang. Isabel. “You got the limo?”
“I’m on it,” she said. “You’re going to keep an eye on Evie and her parents?”
He spotted Evie waving at the passing limousine. Her face was still a little puffy and red, but her makeup job had hidden the worst of it, and her small, compact body looked amazing in the dark red gown she’d worn as her sister’s maid of honor.
Sometime in the past ten years, Rita’s gangly little sister had grown into a woman. She wasn’t tall and willowy like Rita, but what she lacked in height, she made up in lush curves in all the right places.
She’d been working out at the Cooper Security gym; Jesse had spotted her there a few times when he’d been working out himself. She’d taken the fitness ethic of Cooper Security seriously, even though her work was confined to the accounting department, and he’d seen the results of her efforts a few weeks ago when she’d been caught in a late-night ambush at the office.
She’d held her own, despite being injured and drugged by an SSU operative who’d been part of a siege on the building. Jesse had been impressed.
So why hadn’t he told her so?
Evie followed her parents to a black SUV driven by one of the security guards Jesse had seen earlier outside the bride’s room. But she didn’t get inside, shaking her head as her father clearly tried to coax her to join them. Finally, he stopped arguing and joined her mother in the SUV.
Frowning, Jesse watched the SUV drive away, his chest tightening with alarm. What the hell was she thinking? He sent a quick text to his brother Rick, who was parked nearby.
General and wife in black SUV. Follow.
He adjusted the binoculars and saw Evie was holding her cell phone in her hand. She punched a button and lifted the phone to her ear. A second later, Jesse’s phone rang.
He didn’t bother with a greeting. “Have you lost your mind?”
“Stop worrying.”
“Where’s your bodyguard?”
“On his way.” She pointed to a lanky man approaching from her left. “I just thought it would be better if we didn’t all go in the same vehicle to the reception. I keep thinking about what happened to the Harlowes.”
She had a point. General Emmett Harlowe, his wife and his daughter had all been kidnapped together from the north Georgia vacation cabin they owned. Spreading the Marsh family into different vehicles would make it hard for the SSU to get to them all.
“Be careful, okay?”
“You going to join us at the lodge?” she asked, falling into step with the guard as they walked toward a navy SUV parked nearby.
“That’s the plan.”
“There’s not a convenience store across the street where you can lurk.”
He smiled at the humor in her voice. “That’s okay. I know that area about as well as I know any place in the world. I’ll figure out something.”
“My guard is giving me the stink eye. I guess I need to get off the phone.”
“Be careful.”
“You, too.” She sounded serious.
He hung up and lifted the binoculars again, watching until she was safely inside the SUV. He started his car and pulled up to the road, waiting for Evie and her guard to pass. He didn’t bother trying to keep his distance. If the guard spotted him, Evie could explain his presence.
No way was he letting Evie out of his sight this time.
* * *
“HE’S NOT A DANGER,” Evie told the guard in the driver’s seat, a lanky, quiet man in his early forties. Her father had introduced him as Alan Wilson, a former Jefferson County prison guard. “He’s my boss.”
“Jesse Cooper?” Wilson asked.
“You’ve heard of him?”
“Everyone in the security business has heard of him.”
She felt a surge of pride and had to remind herself that she had little right to feel flattered by any praise for Cooper Security. She’d worked there less than half a year as an accountant, and she certainly had no right to take pride in any of Jesse Cooper’s accomplishments.
He was just her boss. Not even her direct boss—there were a couple of layers of middle management between them at least. And any personal connection between them had been severed completely less than an hour ago when her sister had married someone else.
She turned to look behind them, spotting Jesse’s car only forty yards back. She couldn’t see him through the glare on the windshield, but she took comfort knowing he was there. They started around a curve, temporarily hiding Jesse’s car from view. With a sigh, Evie turned back to face front.
And gasped as she spotted two cars sprawled across the road ahead.
Wilson spat out a couple of quick profanities, slamming on the brakes. Only the seat belt and her feet planted on the floorboard kept Evie from pitching through the windshield.
The brakes shrieked, the chassis shuddered as the SUV’s wheels struggled for traction, eating up a terrifying amount of the narrow distance between them and the cars ahead. Evie braced herself for a collision.
They stopped a few yards short of impact. Wilson’s hands trembled on the steering wheel.
Evie pressed her hand to her pounding heart. “My God.”
She looked behind them, expecting to find Jesse’s car right on their bumper. But he’d stopped well short. Of course. Nothing ever seemed to catch Jesse Cooper by surprise.
A cracking sound, incredibly close, drew her attention away from the car behind her. She felt something warm and wet splash her and looked at Wilson for an explanation.
For a moment, she couldn’t process what she was seeing. He was still upright, still facing forward, just as he’d been a moment before. But where his head met the headrest, blood and brain tissue splattered the upholstery.
Another cracking sound made her duck behind the dashboard. The window beside her disintegrated, pebbles of glass falling around her. In rapid succession, two more shots rang in the air.
Oh God oh God oh God!
She was still in her bridesmaid dress, shackled by the tight bodice and long skirt. Her feet tangled in the folds of satin as she unbuckled her seat belt and tried to crawl onto the floorboard to protect herself from more gunfire.
She needed a weapon. Some way to fight back.
She eyed the butt of the Smith & Wesson 9mm pistol peeking out from beneath Wilson’s bloodstained jacket. Tamping down a flood of nausea, she grabbed the weapon, grappling with the holster until she’d tugged it free.
She dared a quick peek over the dashboard. The two cars remained where they were, blocking the road. She could see a couple of men crouched behind the cars, the tops of their heads barely visible. Another gunshot rang out and they disappeared from sight.
Jesse, she realized. He was giving her cover fire.
If she could get back to his car, she had a chance. He’d get her out of here, away from the ambush. He’d take her somewhere safe.
But only if she could get to him.
The dress was a liability. She couldn’t run in the long skirt and didn’t have time or room to undress without putting herself in the line of fire. But if she could get rid of the skirt, she might have a chance.
She grabbed the fabric at the seam where the bodice met the skirt, took a deep breath and pulled as hard as she could. The satin tore away with a satisfying rip. She found the tear and pulled harder, separating the skirt from the bodice until it fell away completely. Wriggling free of the skirt, she grabbed the Smith & Wesson and took another peek over the dashboard just in time to see one of the assailants take another shot.
The bullet thudded against the frame of the car, shaking the whole vehicle. She swallowed a fresh flood of n
ausea and ducked again.
Okay, think. You’ve got to get back to Jesse. That means you may have to do a little shooting of your own.
She wasn’t a great shot, but thanks to her recent orientation training at Cooper Security, she knew how to lay down cover fire. Of course, doing that while running was a whole other thing altogether, but what choice did she have? Wait for Jesse to run to her rescue? That would just put him in the line of fire, too. And if she didn’t make her move soon, that was exactly what Jesse would do.
He wasn’t the kind of guy who’d hang back and let the situation unfold.
She took a deep breath and visualized her next moves. Open the door. Use it for cover as she fired off a couple of rounds, forcing the men behind the cars to duck. Then run like hell to Jesse’s car and hope she could get out of the line of fire before the ambushers got a chance to shoot back.
She tugged the door handle but nothing happened. It was locked.
She swallowed a frustrated curse and shoved the lock open. Gunfire split the air, making her flinch, but it seemed to come from behind her, so she made her move, swinging the door open.
Scrambling out, she kept her body behind the door and rose just long enough to fire a couple of shots through the shattered window. Then she whipped around and started running.
She spotted Jesse crouched behind his car door, his gun already firing a rapid fusillade of cover fire. Reaching the passenger door, she jerked it open and dived inside, hunkering on the floorboard.
Jesse fired three more rounds, already sliding behind the steering wheel. He fired a final shot as he turned the key in the ignition and slammed into Reverse.
Evie curled into a knot on the floorboard as they rocketed backward for a few endless seconds. Then the car whipped around, flinging her sideways into the door, and shot suddenly forward.
“Stay down!” Jesse barked.
She did as he asked, her pulse thundering in her ears, drowning out the roar of the car’s engine and the squeal of tires as Jesse navigated the winding mountain road at breakneck speed.