The Bride's Bodyguard

He leaned forward and put a hand under her elbow, helping her off the limo floor and onto the long seat ninety degrees from where he sat. “Good question. The sooner we get those answers, the better I’ll be able to protect you and the bead.”

“Protect me?”

Jake gave her a tight nod. “Those are my orders. That’s what Brent asked just before we made our big exit.”

“Your orders?” She hated sounding like some parrot, repeating everything Jake said, but her brain was still struggling to comprehend the horror of the past half hour and make sense of the insanity. “Who the hell are you really? And why did you think you had to bring a gun to my wedding? ”

Jake flexed and balled his hand restlessly. “I really am an old friend of Brent’s. But not his best friend—just the one with the most military training. He hired me a couple weeks ago to protect him until after the wedding. My being his best man was my cover. So you wouldn’t ask questions.”

Paige shook her head, more confused than ever. “Then. why are you here instead of protecting him?”

“Didn’t you hear what he said before we made our exit? He told me to hide you and keep the bead safe at all costs.” He narrowed a sharp gaze on her and extended his hand. “In fact, you should give me the bead for safekeeping.”

Her head throbbed, and she swallowed the urge to scream her frustration with the endless riddles. “What bead?”

Jake’s jaw tightened, and his dark eyes reflected his own frustration and impatience with the situation. “The one the terrorists who crashed your party were after, of course! The one you’re protecting for Brent. Give it to me.” He wiggled his fingers, urging her compliance. “Come on, Paige. Brent asked me to guard it. He said something about national security.”

Paige barked a humorless laugh. “What does some bead have to do with national security? And what makes you think I have this…this bead? ”

Squeezing his eyes shut, Jake massaged his right knee again and exhaled an irritated huff.

“Brent said you have what those guys who shot him were after,” he said quietly, clearly struggling to keep his tone calm, though tension vibrated from him in palpable waves. “That’s why I got you out of the church so fast. According to Brent, you have what the terrorists want, and it is my job to keep this bead—whatever it is—safe.”

His wording smacked her between the eyes, and she flopped back on the seat, her chest aching, as if from a physical blow. “That’s what he said? Keep the bead safe? That’s why you hustled me out of there so fast? Why you risked your life to save me?”

Protect the bead. Not her. She was merely a pawn in Brent’s dangerous secret agenda.

Jake rolled his eyes and groaned. “Isn’t that what I just said? This conversation is getting old, Paige. Just give me the bead, okay?”

Something inside her snapped. Her patience, her composure, her illusions of her safe, orderly world shattered, and she grabbed her head, fisting her hands in her hair, further destroying the salon styling she’d received that morning. “I don’t have any bead! I don’t know what Brent thinks I have or why he told you I have it!” She hated her shrill tone, her loss of control. But getting shot at, learning the safety of some bead was more important to your fiancé than your safety, having your entire world thrown into chaos did that to a girl. “I don’t know why armed men attacked my wedding! And I don’t know why my fiancé thinks he has something to do with national security! None of this makes sense to me!”

Jake’s head snapped up, his attention drawn to something out the back window.

“What—”

Before she could finish her question, he grabbed her arm and yanked her back toward the floor. Paige gritted her teeth. She was getting tired of his manhandling.

“Stay down!” he shouted as he lowered the side window and leveled his handgun at some threat outside.

She heard the roar of an engine, too loud and high-pitched to be a car. It sounded more like a motorcycle. Then a hail of bullets hammered the limo, shattering more windows and pocking the far wall of the back compartment.

“I thought you said we’d lost them!”

Jake spared her only a brief glance. “Clearly, they found us again.”

He pitched backward as the limo veered suddenly and bumped along the shoulder. His eyes widened, and he bit out a curse. Lunging forward, he climbed over her and shouted, “Hold on to something! Our driver’s been hit.”

Jake turned on the seat and rocked backward. With a hard kick, he knocked out the Plexiglas window partition between them and the front seat.

Paige scrambled across the floor, groping for a handhold as the vehicle swerved and bumped. She grabbed the pit of a wet-bar cup holder over her head and braced her feet on the long side seat on the opposite side of the compartment. Jake slid headfirst through the opening he’d created, dragging the driver— oh, God, was he dead?—off the steering wheel and into the passenger seat.

Paige bit down hard on her bottom lip, praying for a miracle, praying she and Jake weren’t about to be shot or killed in a car crash. Praying she’d wake up from this far-too-realistic nightmare.

Bile rose in her throat, and tears burned her eyes as two truths clarified in her mind.

Brent was involved in something terrible and clandestine.

And her fiancé's dangerous secret might cost her her life.

Chapter 2

Jake fought the limo back under control and steered onto the highway. Checking the mirrors for any more surprise assailants, he took the first exit and headed in the opposite direction from the way the motorcyclist departed.

At his earliest opportunity, Jake pulled the limo off the road and stopped long enough to check the driver for signs of life. He pressed his fingers to the man’s carotid artery, despite the glaring hole in his head that screamed proof that the driver was dead.

Paige appeared at the windowless gap between the front and back seats. “Why’d we stop? Is the driver—?”

“Don’t look,” he barked, harsher than he needed to, but tension had him wound tight. Tact was not at the top of his priorities at the moment. “Get down and stay there. You don’t need this image in your head, and I don’t know when we may get attacked again.”

The rustle of satin and lace told him she’d complied.

“So what do we do now? Where are we going?” The tremble of fear in her voice sucker punched his gut.

“This is a work in progress, darlin'. I’ll tell you when I know. First thing we have to do is get rid of this limo. It’s conspicuous as hell.” He whipped a quick glance over his shoulder to the backseat. Paige’s wide green eyes made her look vulnerable, yet he also saw keen intelligence and stubborn determination in her expression that told him she was no frail flower that would wilt at any moment. Good. If this situation was half as dangerous as the past thirty minutes purported, she’d need a little starch in her to survive the coming days.

“First thing you need to do is lose the dress.”

“Excuse me?” she said, her tone rife with offense.

He dismissed her misunderstanding with a twist of his mouth and a short sigh. “You do have other clothes, don’t you? Like in a suitcase in the trunk? Packed for your honeymoon?”

“Oh…right.”

He heard her embarrassment in her voice, and though he kept his eyes on the road, he imagined her ivory cheeks, flushed red as they had been the night before at the rehearsal dinner when she was the butt of her friends’ and family’s good-natured ribbing. Her modesty and discomfiture had struck him as unusual for a woman with so much going for her—beauty, brains, wealth, ambition and family and friends who clearly adored her. Most women he knew with so much going for them seemed to feel they were entitled to their privileged lives.

For someone who’d scraped and fought for everything he had, such arrogance was a huge turnoff to Jake.

He cleared his throat. “Not only is the dress conspicuous when we need to blend, it’s hardly made for speed if we have to make a break for it on foot again.” He searched the side of the road for a place where he could hide the limo.

“Do you think we will…have to flee on foot, I mean?”

He met her gaze in the rearview mirror. “I don’t know what we may be up against. But we need to be ready for anything, and we can’t call attention to ourselves. They’ll be looking for us. So we’ve got to go to ground until we either figure out what they want,” he said thinking aloud, “or know for certain they’re not hot on our asses anymore.”

“We should just call the police and let them handle it.”

“Can’t. Scofield said Homeland was compromised. I assume he means Homeland Security, which is exactly who the police will call if they think national security is at stake.” He shook his head. “For now, at least, we do this alone.”

Jake spotted a vacant gas station and parked the limo behind it, out of sight of the road. Hauling himself out of the front seat, he clenched his teeth in pain as his bum knee, the reason the navy had kicked him out of the SEALs, throbbed a protest. Sprinting for the limo with an extra hundred or so pounds over his shoulder hadn’t been kind to his old injury. Refusing to let his pain get in the way of his duty, he tried not to limp as he retrieved a floral-print suitcase from the trunk.

When he yanked open the back door of the limo, she gasped.

“I assume this one’s yours.”

Paige pressed a hand to her chest and sucked in several deep, restorative breaths that drew attention to the low neckline of her dress and the gentle swell of cleavage the dress had clearly been designed to maximize.

A hot stab of lust jabbed him in the gills, and he gritted his teeth. Now was hardly the time to get distracted by Paige’s assets.

“Yeah, that’s mine.” She reached for the luggage, and he batted her hand away before setting the suitcase flat on the seat.

“Pick something practical that you don’t mind getting dirty. Something you can run in, even sleep in if necessary. That includes shoes. No high heels.”

“What about you? Your tux doesn’t say blend in or ready for action to me.”

“Well, a tux isn’t my first choice of attire for this debacle either. But since I’m a good six inches taller and fifty pounds heavier than Scofield, I doubt anything he had packed will fit me, so I’ll have to make do for now.”

She glanced away and worried her bottom lip with her teeth.

He cocked an eyebrow. “What’s that look for?”

“I…need to call someone—my dad or my sister Holly—to see how Brent is. To see what happened after we left, to make sure everyone else is all right, to—” Her words caught on a sob, and her face crumpled. “Oh, God. Mr. Diggle was murdered! At my wedding! I—I can’t even stand to think of anyone else being hurt…or worse. And B-Brent—”

She dissolved into tears, and Jake’s gut pitched. He could handle blood and bullets. But tears left him floundering like a plebe on his first day of training.

Not that he couldn’t understand her concern. She had every right to be upset about her family’s safety, about her fiancé's condition. He rubbed his suddenly sweaty palms on his tux pants and slid onto the seat beside her. Taking her by the arm, he pulled her onto his lap and gave her back an awkward pat.

There, there, sprang to mind, and he clenched his teeth, refusing to mutter any such asinine mumbo jumbo.

But somehow shake it off or suck it up, soldier didn’t seem appropriate, either. Comforting Damsels In Distress 101 hadn’t been part of his SEALs training. And while he was as compassionate as the next guy, expressing his feelings and dealing with other people’s softer emotions were as foreign to him as some of the locales where he’d served before a wellplaced bullet left him with a career-ending knee injury.

Paige’s fingers curled into his tux shirt, and she nestled her head in the curve of his throat, collapsing against him and indulging her crying jag. He plucked a few shards of the broken window from her hair, noticing the tiny cuts the shattered glass had caused on her neck and hands. His hands, too, for that matter.

They were damn lucky broken glass was all that hit them. The driver hadn’t been as fortunate.

The fragrant white flowers woven into her hair tickled his nose, and he turned his head so that his cheek rested against the top of her head. Tightening his hold on her, he savored the crush of her curves and soft skin against him. He stroked her back, her bare arms, the soft tumble of hair that escaped carefully placed bobby pins.

When she trembled, he absorbed the tremor, feeling an answering quake reverberate at his core. Jake closed his eyes and inhaled deeply, clearing his mind, focusing on the problem at hand. What the hell was he supposed to do with Paige? Where would they go? Considering he’d been lusting after her since Scofield had introduced his bride earlier that week, how could he survive the next few days with his sanity intact?

Adrenaline had his nerves jumping. But the press of her body against his spiked his blood pressure and had heat flashing over his skin. He’d barely had a chance to catch his breath since Trench Coat and his merry band of thugs had opened fire, and comforting Paige wasn’t helping him focus.

As he fought down the desire that wound him tight, his thoughts jumped back to the scene at the church, and a shudder racked him. Jake had been part of a convoy in Iraq that was ambushed. The gun-and mortar fire had been deafening, the casualties high and the resulting chaos devastating to morale. But today’s attack, with so many civilian lives at stake, had shaken Jake far worse. Against such lopsided odds, Jake had felt overwhelmed…and useless. An unsettling sensation for a man trained by the navy to be among the most deadly, the most effective, the most skilled.

When Paige’s tears subsided to sniffles, she backed from his embrace and sent him a chagrined glance. “I’m sorry. I just…it’s all so—”

He shook his head and twitched his lips in an dismissive grin. “Forget it.” He rubbed the back of his neck and blew a deep breath from puffed cheeks. “I’ll…give you a minute to change and pull yourself together. Then we need to make tracks.”

She nodded, and he climbed out of the backseat, scanning the surrounding area for anything suspicious, anything helpful. A moment later, she opened the back door and stepped out, wearing a pair of formfitting blue jeans and a New Orleans Saints T-shirt. Sports-team apparel had never looked so good. Paige had taken the rest of the bobby pins from her hair, and raven ringlets hung around her shoulders. Finger-combing her hair back from her face, she gave him a quick nod. “I’m ready.”

Before they left, Jake searched the dead driver, found the man’s cell phone and dialed 911. He told the operator where to find the body, and when asked for his name, Jake set the phone on the front seat, line still open, and signaled for Paige to follow him.

She hoisted her suitcase, which he immediately took from her, and as they started toward the road, she gave the bullet-riddled, ribbon-and-paint-decorated honeymoon getaway car one last sad look before falling in step next to him.

For an instant, sympathy plucked at him. No one deserved to have their wedding day ruined, and Paige’s disappointment was palpable.

Then the bigger picture reared its head, and he shook off the silly sentimental lapse.

National security. Well-armed terrorists. His client shot and bleeding.

What was a spoiled wedding compared to the life-and-death stakes they faced? He had no business letting emotion interfere with his duty to his job.

Keep the bead safe at all cost.

Jake hesitated.

Paige has what they want.

“Wait.” He turned back to the limo. “Get the dress. Bring it with us.”

Paige tipped her head, her gaze querying. “Don’t you think it’s a bit cumbersome to carry? Not to mention still as conspicuous in our arms as on me.”

He frowned. “I’m not looking forward to dragging it with us, but Brent said protect the bead. Your dress is covered in beading.” He scowled. “I don’t see how the beads on the dress could be what he wants protected, but after getting shot at because of this bead already, I’m not willing to take the chance that it’s not one of the embellishments on your gown. How about you?”

Her shoulders slumped. “I see your point.”

He grabbed the dress and slung it over his arm, bunching up the yards of flowing satin to keep from tripping over it as they headed toward the street.

She sent him a side glance that asked, “Now what?”

Good question. When he’d signed on to be Scofield’s bodyguard, he’d imagined the job would be a cushy assignment, indulging an old friend’s belief that he was being followed, that he needed protection. All Brent had told him was that a business deal had gone sour, and he suspected the other party might try to hurt him. Jake hadn’t asked questions, dismissing Scofield’s concern as paranoia. His first mistake.

And he’d never bargained for extended duty, guarding his client’s bride, a woman whose guileless green eyes and body built for sin were distractions he didn’t need if he wanted to keep them alive.

“We’ll thumb a ride back to town,” he said, answering her unspoken question and trying not to grimace when pain from his knee shot fiery bolts through his leg. “From there, we’ll rent a car to get…wherever.”

“Look, I…I have two tickets to Jamaica in my purse. The plane leaves in three hours. Why don’t we use the tickets to get out of the country and—”

“No.” Jake imagined Paige in a bikini on a white-sand beach with a fruity island drink in her hand, and another blast of heat slammed him in the gut. “Do you think those thugs don’t know where you were headed on your honeymoon?”

She raised her chin, blinked, then frowned her consternation. “But that’s—”

“I guarantee they also know where you live, what you drive, where you eat lunch with your girlfriends, where you buy your four-dollar coffee and what route you use to get to the office.”

Her troubled look grew stormier, an edge of panic creeping into her gaze. Slowing her pace, Paige pressed a hand to her chest and wheezed, her breathing shallow.

“Hey, don’t do that. You’ll hyperventilate.” Jake seized her arms and drilled her with a hard look. “I need you to keep it together for me, all right? ”

She closed her eyes and nodded. Sucking in a few deep breaths, she flexed and balled her hands at her sides, and when she met his gaze again, she seemed in better control.

“I won’t. I’m not going to fall apart on you. I promise. This is just all so overwhelming, so out of the blue. I don’t understand any of it, and—” She cut herself off with another deep inhalation. “I’ll be fine. Really.”

The rumble of a car engine called his attention to the road, where a late-model sedan rolled past. He stepped toward the traffic lane and waved the car down.

“Are you sure hitching’s the best idea? How do we know we can trust them?” she asked.

Jake nodded toward the elderly occupants of the car. “Look at them. What’s not to trust? Besides, if grandma and grandpa do give us trouble, I can take them both down before they know what hit ‘em.”

The elderly driver slowed to a stop and rolled down his window. “You kids all right?”

“We could use a ride into town. We had a bit of car trouble a little ways back.” He hitched his thumb down the road, and when the older man’s gaze drifted to the wedding dress, the blood on Jake’s shirt and the tear tracks on Paige’s cheeks, Jake added, “Our honeymoon’s not off to a very good start. I got a nosebleed and ruined my shirt, then the car broke down.” He glanced at Paige, sending her a silent signal with his eyes, asking for her cooperation. “And my wife is convinced we’re going to miss our flight to Jamaica.”

The older man turned to Paige. “Don’t cry, sweetheart. We’ll take you back to town, and if you call the airline, I bet they could reschedule you for a later flight.”

Paige forced a smile. “I hope so. Everything else has gone wrong today. I’d hate to think we’ll miss our plane.”

Jake opened the back door for Paige, and she climbed into the car. Once they were settled in the sedan, Paige and Jake listened to the older couple regale them with stories of the mishaps from their wedding fifty-two years ago and many of the disagreements since.

As they approached town, their elderly driver turned from the main road onto a side street that led into a residential area.

“Henry, where are you going? This isn’t the right way!” the woman fussed.

“It’s a shortcut.”

Henry’s wife harrumphed. “Shortcut, my fanny. Shortcut is your term for lost. Turn around and go back to the highway.”

Paige sent Jake a worried side glance, and he lifted a corner of his mouth in amusement before returning his attention to the middle-class houses they passed.

“I’m not lost. Stop worrying,” Henry returned.

“That’s what you always say. I’m telling you—”

“Wait a minute,” Jake interrupted, spotting a for-sale sign in one of the front yards. “Stop here.”

Henry stomped the brakes, and the sedan stopped with a lurch. “Something wrong?”

Paige gave Jake a curious look.

“I just remembered that a friend of mine lives on this street.” He opened the car door and tugged on Paige’s hand. “We’ll go to his house, use his phone to call the airline, arrange for a tow truck and so forth.” He tugged harder on his “bride’s” hand, encouraging her compliance. “We appreciate the ride, folks.”

“I can—” their driver started, then fumbled, as Jake hauled Paige’s suitcase from the backseat. “Well, all right. Good luck, kids.”

Jake gave the couple a friendly wave as they drove away, then faced Paige’s confused scowl. “You don’t have a friend in this neighborhood at all. Do you?”

“No.”

“Then why did we get out?”

“Because I found a place for us to lay low until we can regroup and plan our next move.” Jake lifted her suitcase and headed across the street to the small Acadian-style house with the Realtor’s sign in the front yard.

Paige grabbed his arm. “Hang on a minute. Where are—?” Her gaze darted to the for-sale sign then back to him. He could see the wheels turning in her mind. “Whoa! You are not thinking about breaking into this house, are you?”

“That’s exactly what I’m thinking. There are newspapers in the driveway, the grass hasn’t been mowed. It’s obvious the house is vacant.”

He jogged to the backyard, and Paige stumbled to keep up. “I don’t care if it’s vacant! It’s still breaking and entering. I won’t do it!”

Pulling a small army knife from his pocket, Jake got to work jimmying the lock on the back door. “I don’t think you’re in a position to be picky about your accommodations, princess.”

She grabbed his wrist as he worked, and he met her fiery glare. “Who died and made you boss of me?”

His jaw clenched. “Scofield.”

Paige drew back with a gasp as if slapped. The wounded look in her eyes burrowed to his marrow.

“I’m sorry.” He ducked his head and rubbed the back of his neck. “That was uncalled for.” Jake squeezed her shoulder and drilled her with a stare that brooked no resistance. “I don’t like the idea of breaking the law any more than you do, but this house is the safest cover we have right now. We’re not here to rob it or deface it. In fact, we’ll leave it better than we found it. We’ll clean up the yard before we go, so it doesn’t scream ‘vacant’ anymore.”

With a last wiggle of his blade, the lock popped, and the door swung open. “After you.”

Paige hesitated, glaring at him with righteous indignation. “This isn’t right. We could go to a hotel.”

Jake struggled to keep his cool. “Nothing about this situation is right. But we can’t fix anything if we’re dead and, for now, this house is our best chance to stay alive. By now, those thugs have every hotel within a hundred miles under surveillance or on their radar in some way. I’m not willing to risk being spotted at a hotel.” He planted a hand at the small of her back and nudged her inside. “Now get in before the neighbors see us and call the cops.”