Task Force Bride

USA TODAY bestselling author Julie Miller’s The Precinct: Task Force series heats up when a plain Jane and an experienced cop pose as an engaged couple.

Something about Hope Lockhart fascinated Officer Pike Taylor. The cop and his canine companion had been patrolling the neighborhood around Hope’s bridal shop for months, trying to capture the criminal who targeted her. Was it the way she hid her voluptuous beauty beneath a plain Jane exterior?

Hope bore the scars of a troubling past. And despite a profession steeped in romance, she’d never known the love of a man. But when Pike is assigned to protect her by posing as her live-in fiance, his tenderness may give Hope the courage to open her heart for the very first time.

“Do you feel it?”

“Feel what?”

“Someone watching.” She tipped her head back to see his sharp gaze swinging back and forth. He was looking, too. “Do you think I’m paranoid?”

That clear blue gaze settled on her. “No. I’ve felt it, too.” His hands tightened at her waist and he pulled her into his chest, winding his arms behind her back and resting his chin at the crown of her hair.

Her arms caught between them and she whispered against the KCPD logo embroidered on his chest. “Did you see someone? What do you need me to do?”

“Easy, partner. I need you to let me hold you for a minute. Okay?”

Hope nodded. She willed herself to relax against him. “I’m okay with that.”

“You’re not alone, Hope. It’s you and me, remember? This guy’s going to try to come after you, but he won’t get to you, understand? I won’t let him.”

Whatever the reason behind this show of support, Hope curled her fingers into the back of his shirt and held on. She needed to feel safe for a few moments. She needed to know she’d made the right decision to agree to helping the police.

She needed to hear him say it again, in that deep, husky voice that danced across her eardrums and soothed the fear from her heart. “You’re not alone.”

Task Force Bride

USA TODAY Bestselling Author

Julie Miller

www.millsandboon.co.uk

USA TODAY bestselling author JULIE MILLER attributes her passion for writing romance to all those books she read growing up. When shyness and asthma kept her from becoming the action-adventure heroine she longed to be, Julie created stories in her head to keep herself entertained. Encouragement from her family to write down the feelings and ideas she couldn’t express became a love for the written word. She gets continued support from her fellow members of the Prairieland Romance Writers, where this teacher serves as the resident “grammar goddess.” Inspired by the likes of Agatha Christie and Encyclopedia Brown, Julie believes the only thing better than a good mystery is a good romance.

Born and raised in Missouri, this award-winning author now lives in Nebraska with her husband, son and an assortment of spoiled pets. To contact Julie or to learn more about her books, write to PO Box 5162, Grand Island, NE 68802-5162, USA or check out her website and monthly newsletter at www.juliemiller.org..

MILLS & BOON

Before you start reading, why not sign up?

Thank you for downloading this Mills & Boon book. If you want to hear about exclusive discounts, special offers and competitions, sign up to our email newsletter today!

SIGN ME UP!

Or simply visit

signup.millsandboon.co.uk

Mills & Boon emails are completely free to receive and you can unsubscribe at any time via the link in any email we send you.

CAST OF CHARACTERS

Hope Lockhart—Wedding planner and owner of Fairy Tale Bridal Shop. A shy, secretive woman who makes happily-ever-after’s happen for everyone else. After escaping a close encounter with the Rose Red Rapist, the neighborhood spinster becomes the task force’s best chance at capturing him. But agreeing to be the bait in KCPD’s trap means facing off against her own private fears…and a man who wants her dead.

Edison “Pike” Taylor—K-9 cop with KCPD. Nobody protects and serves Kansas City the way a Taylor can. This neighborhood cop has got his work cut out for him when he’s assigned to go undercover as Hope’s fiancé. Teaching the inexperienced Hope how to act like a woman in love is challenging enough. Keeping her alive might be the toughest—and most important—mission this cop could have.

Hans—Pike’s canine partner. A well-trained officer who likes playing tug-of-war and chasing down bad guys.

Hank Lockhart, Sr.—Hope’s father wants his daughter’s forgiveness.

Nelda Sapphire—Hank’s girlfriend.

Brian Elliott—Hope’s mentor and friend. His vision for revitalizing downtown KC doesn’t include a serial rapist.

Adam Matuszak—Hope’s attorney. Where do his loyalties really lie?

Leon Hundley—The neighborhood handyman has fixed a lot of things in Hope’s shop.

Gabriel Knight—Reporter at the Kansas City Journal. What’s his deal with KCPD, anyway?

Vanessa Owen—Television news reporter. She’s got the lead on a story that could make her a star.

The Rose Red Rapist—Will he finally be brought to justice?

For the wonderful pets who have blessed my life: Purr, Bobbi, Boots, Frosty, Cocky, Peanut Butter, George, Anxious, Butterscotch, Reitzie, Duke, Patches, Sherlock, Shasta, Padre, Maxie and Maggie.

Please consider supporting your local animal shelter, and open your heart to a new furry friend.

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

Excerpt

Prologue

Today was a bad day to be a bride.

“Hello?” Hope Lockhart pressed her phone to her ear and inched her way toward the door, quietly seeking an escape as her perfectly executed plan for her client’s wedding blew up in an explosion of harsh words and wailing tears. “Hello?”

Click.

Hope cringed as the mysterious caller hung up without saying a word. She didn’t need this today. She tucked her phone into the hip pocket of the gray suit she wore and hurried her steps.

“Cold feet is not an option, young lady,” Dale Barrister lectured his daughter over the chamber music drifting down from the sanctuary upstairs while the mother of the bride wept right alongside her daughter. He pointed his white-gloved finger to the ceiling. “Everyone who’s anyone in Kansas City is in that church right now, waiting for us.”

“Daddy!” Deanna Barrister wailed, pushing her veil away from the mascara running down her cheeks. “I don’t think I can do this. Not today.”

“Well, we’re not doing it tomorrow or any other day.” The skin above his starched white collar turned red with anger. “I spent more money on this shindig than you’re worth, and this is how you repay me?”

Hope curled her fingers around the doorknob behind her and paused at the cruel words. Raised voices always twisted her stomach into knots. Tension like this usually suffocated the breath from her chest and scattered coherent thoughts right out of her head. The anger, pain and frustration filling the room reminded her of things she’d worked long and hard to forget.

“You stupid cow! When I tell you to do a thing, I expect—”

Uh-uh. Hope slammed the door on that particular memory and forced herself to take a deep breath and intervene. “Mr. Barrister, perhaps if we give Deanna a few minutes—”

“Miss Lockhart!”

It wasn’t a great day to be a wedding planner, either.

Hope flattened her back against the door as the father of the bride whirled around and stalked across the dressing room toward her. “I’m paying you a boatload of money.”

She turned her head from the finger jabbing near her face.

“You make today happen.”

As much as every frayed nerve inside her longed to bolt to a place of silence and solitude, she’d also worked long and hard to learn how to cope with volatile emotions and uncomfortable situations like this. She was stronger than her past. She could do this. Her client needed her. And if someone needed her, she had to help. That had always been her Achilles’ heel. Hope released the door, keeping her voice calm and her smile serene.

“Of course.” She gestured to the woman wiping at the tears that dripped on her taupe lace gown. “Perhaps you could take your wife to the restroom to freshen her face,” she suggested, needing to clear some of the emotions from the room if she was to have any chance of saving the big day. Ignoring both the father’s impatient curse and the doubt in the reluctant bride’s red-rimmed eyes, Hope pulled out her phone and texted her assistant upstairs. Tell organist to play another 15 min.

Send groom down. Keep smiling. Pray.

Hope hit Send and looked up to see the fractured family all staring expectantly at her. A mixture of compassion and trepidation filled her. She’d worked miracles in the past to make a bride’s wedding dreams come true. She hoped she had another miracle up her sleeve today. “Mr. Barrister? Please.”

With a grunt and a nod, he swung open the door and pulled his wife into the hallway with him. Hope closed the door softly, studying the grain in the fine old walnut, racking her brain for the next step in this impromptu wedding rescue.

A soft sniffle from the young woman behind her provided an inspiration. Adjusting her narrow-framed glasses on the bridge of her nose, Hope spotted a box of tissues on a shelf and retrieved them before sitting in the Sunday school chair beside her client. “Here.”

Deanna pulled a handful of tissues from the box to wipe her face and blow her nose. “It’s too much. I can’t take this kind of pressure. What if I’m wrong?”

“About Jeff?”

“About getting married. I’m only twenty-two.”

A decade younger than Hope. Her client had so much life ahead of her. She had two parents who loved her, even if they were having a hard time expressing it on this particularly stressful day. She was slender, beautiful—stunning in the mermaid-style gown Hope had helped her select. Deanna had a handsome young doctor who wanted her to be his wife.

Not for the first time in her life, a pang of envy nipped at Hope’s thoughts. And not for the first time, she pushed aside that longing and focused on what needed to be done at that moment.

She found a discarded florist’s box for Deanna to toss her soiled tissues into, and offered her another handful as the tears quieted into silent sobs. “You know, Deanna,” Hope began, “today isn’t about those people upstairs. Or the gifts or the doves or the champagne we’ll serve at the reception. It isn’t about how worried your father is that this won’t turn out to be the happiest day of your life.”

“He just wants it to be over.”

“He wants it to be perfect. He’s about to lose his little girl to another man, and today is his way of showing the world how much he loves you and how much he’s going to miss you. He’s worried that you won’t be happy.”

“Dad’s angry with me, not worried. Today is a business opportunity for him, publicity for his company. He doesn’t care what I’m feeling.”

Hope’s phone vibrated with an incoming call, setting off a chain reaction of startled gasps. She apologized before reading the incoming number, and then felt the warmth drain from her blood. How? Why? She had a pretty good idea who the unknown caller harassing her today might be. The Fates must be mocking her for sitting here and defending fathers.

“Do you need to take that?”

“No.” Hope purposefully ended the call as temper brought heat back to her body. She’d have to change her cell number. Again. She buried the phone in her jacket pocket, politely masking the urge to hurl it across the room. Hope inhaled a deep breath and remained calm for the woman beside her. “Some men—some people—don’t know how to express what they’re feeling in a way we all understand. For fathers, I think the wedding day is that one last hurrah that he can do for you. He’s trying to show his love by giving you everything he thinks you want. But I’m guessing—behind the frustration and anger—that he’s afraid.”

Deanna sniffed. “Of what?”

“That he’s failed you. That if he’d done something more or less or different, then you wouldn’t be having second thoughts about getting married.”

Deanna blinked a few last tears from her dark brown eyes and looked at Hope. “Dad never failed me.” Lucky woman. “It’s just that today has gotten so out of hand. There’s so much that has to happen.”

“There’s only one thing that has to happen.” Hope reached over and patted Deanna’s hand. “Don’t think about the pressures of the day—that’s what I’m here for. Think about yourself, and the future you’ll have with your husband.”

A soft knock at the door ended the conversation. “Dee?” The groom covered his eyes as Hope let him in. “Your dad said you were freaking out. Is everything okay?” he asked, peeking between the fingers of his crisp white gloves.

Hope pointed to the woman rising to her feet. “I thought maybe you two could use a quiet minute alone.”

He dropped his hand and turned to his bride-to-be. “Wow.”

Deanna blushed at his unabashed appreciation for the image she created in the subtly blinged gown she wore. “Jeff. You shouldn’t see me before the wedding.”

“There is going to be a wedding, right?”

Hope politely faded into the woodwork when the bride’s and groom’s eyes locked onto each other’s. There was so much love, acceptance and desire in Jeff Stelling’s eyes that she didn’t see how any woman could hesitate to commit to a man who looked at her that way.

“That’s all that has to happen today.” Deanna repeated Hope’s words and met her fiancé in the middle of the room. “You and me. I want to spend my life with you.”

“I love you, Dee. Come upstairs and start that life together with me. Please?”

“I love you.” He leaned in for a kiss before Deanna shooed him out. “Okay. Go up to the church. Tell Dad I’ll meet him upstairs. Hope? Can you make me gorgeous again in five minutes?”

Crisis averted. Tally up one more happily-ever-after. For someone else. The phone was vibrating against her hip again. Her past was calling. Ignoring it, Hope smiled. “You bet.”

Chapter One

“Really?” Hope squinted and averted her eyes from the bright headlights that filled up her rearview mirror. “You’re following a little close, buddy.”

She gripped the steering wheel more tightly and pressed on the gas to put some distance between them. She wasn’t a nervous driver at all. But normally she wasn’t out this late, and she didn’t take the shortcut off the interstate through the heart of the city. But cleanup after the Barrister-Stelling wedding had run long past the end of the dinner and dancing. And though she wasn’t the one actually bussing the tables, there were family pictures and table decorations she’d promised to hold on to until after the honeymoon. Then the gifts had to be delivered to their parents’ hotel rooms. Other than the hotel staff, she’d been the last person to leave the reception.

So what if her panty hose had long since cut off the circulation to her toes? Or if she’d have to unload every last box in the trunk and backseat of her car herself because she’d sent her assistant home. Hope had earned a tidy fortune with this event. Earned every last penny playing fashion consultant, wedding planner and family counselor. The sooner she got home, the sooner she could celebrate with a glass of wine and a long, hot bubble bath. Or maybe she’d skip them both and just fall straight into bed and sleep until Monday.

“What the heck?”

The same lights rushed up behind her a second time, nearly blinding her. “Jackass.”

Hope blamed the unlady-like condemnation on the length of the day and the unwanted calls piling up on her cell phone that bothered her more than she cared to admit. She must have a stamp on her forehead that said “Pick on me” today. Just because she tended to be shy and soft-spoken didn’t mean she lacked backbone or a brain or a temper. When the driver flashed his lights through her rear window, she muttered another word in the Ozark accent that crept into her voice whenever she got a little too angry or afraid. She double-checked her speed. She wasn’t poking along, by any means. Still, if the guy was in that much of a hurry...

Pulling closer to the parking lane so he could pass, Hope adjusted her charcoal-framed glasses to try to catch a look at the driver and license plate on the beat-up white van. But it veered so close as it sped past that it nearly clipped the side mirror on her car. “Hey!”

The van shot back into the lane in front of her, forcing Hope to stomp on the brake and skid to a stop. Glass rattled and boxes shifted behind her as several brief images printed like snapshots in her brain. A shadowy figure dressed in dark clothes sat behind the steering wheel. He wore a black knit cap pulled low over his forehead and a white scarf across his nose and mouth, hiding all but his eyes. In those brief milliseconds when he’d looked down into her car, she was certain their gazes had met, although he flew on by before the details completely registered. A shiny silver bumper that seemed at odds with the rusting wheel wells and dinged-up back doors was the last image she saw before it disappeared into the night.

“Where’s a cop when you need one?” She sighed, fighting a niggling sense of unease that her sleep-deprived brain was keeping her from recognizing something important.

“Need some help, sugar?” A trio of young men, dressed in hoods and jeans and more jewelry than she owned, knocked on her passenger-side window.

Startled by their approach and frightened by their leering smiles, Hope stepped on the accelerator and did a little speeding herself—leaving a trail of rubber, laughter and catcalls in her wake.

She drove three more blocks before she eased up on the gas. Hope inhaled a deep breath and ordered herself to get a grip. It was probably just the neighborhood she was driving through that had made her suspicious of the van and driver. Besides the three young men, she’d passed a homeless man pushing his cart along the sidewalk, and at least one scantily clad woman who’d been leaning into a parked car—either picking up a client, making a drug buy or both.

If Hope wasn’t so darned nearsighted, maybe she could have read the van’s license plate, even on the dimly lit street. If she wasn’t so distracted by those unwanted phone calls, she could have gotten a useful description of the driver. If she wasn’t so worn-out, maybe she would have taken the long way home and bypassed this run-down neighborhood where she had no business driving alone, anyway.

Hope breathed a sigh of relief as she finally left the less savory section of the city behind her and drove past the familiar landmarks of renovated art deco buildings, solid midcentury brownstones and converted warehouses that now housed trendy new businesses and condo apartments like her own. Her company improved, too. Instead of the prostitute and gangbangers, and rude drivers crowding her on the street, she drove past a busy bar with a neon green shamrock sign and a group of friends standing outside the front door, sharing a laugh and a smoke.

She stopped at the next light and waited for a young twentysomething couple to cross in front of her. They were holding hands, out on a Saturday night date to a restaurant or coffeehouse in the next block. Or perhaps they were meeting a group of friends to go dancing at one of the newly opened clubs in the trendy Kansas City neighborhood where Hope lived over her own shop.

A little pang of longing squeezed at Hope’s restless heart. Even if she had a date, or a whirlwind social life that included dancing and barhopping, she was too tired to do more than drive herself home tonight. She couldn’t wait to kick off her heels, slide into that bath and curl up with a good book.

Still, it would be nice if just once she had something more to look forward to than a hard day of work and a quiet night at home. She wanted something more—something a little more exciting, something a little less lonely.

Almost as soon as she thought the wish, she regretted it.

She knew she was lucky to have built a successful business. Lucky to have a solid roof over her head and plenty to eat every day. She was lucky to have a few friends and a younger brother she was so proud of serving in the Marines. Hope’s gaze dropped to her right hand where it rested on the steering wheel. A familiar web of pale scar tissue peeked above the cuff of her tan trench coat. She touched her fingers to the collar of her silk blouse, knowing there was more scarring underneath. All along her arm, her foot, her thigh—there were scars there, too.

She was lucky to be alive.

Hope was grateful to be where she was now, considering where she’d started. She was pushing her luck to dream of something more—like holding hands or being the recipient of a look like the one Jeff Stelling had given his bride, Deanna, today.

“Damn lucky,” she whispered out loud as the light changed. And she meant it. As long as other people kept falling in love, she’d have a job—and the security she’d been denied growing up. What would she do with a man, anyway? Embarrass herself? Shy, plump and partially disfigured—what man wouldn’t want to get all over that?

With a healthy dose of mental sarcasm to sharpen her dreamy focus, Hope turned onto her street. The familiar brick facade and storefront windows she’d decorated herself welcomed her as she slowed to pull into the parking lot beside Fairy Tale Bridal.

Hope parked her car in the reserved space next to the side entrance and climbed out, keys and pepper spray in hand. As stylish and reborn as this neighborhood might be, it, unfortunately, had become the hunting ground of a serial rapist that the press had dubbed the Rose Red Rapist. She had the unwanted distinction of being responsible for the horrid nickname because one of his first victims had been abducted right outside her shop. So much for fairy tales. Several more women, including a friend who’d worked just across the street at the Robin’s Nest Floral shop, had been blitz attacked, driven to another location, sexually assaulted and then dumped back here on this very block as if they were so much trash.

A client of hers, Bailey Austin, had been that first victim. Hope still felt guilty about the night more than a year ago when Bailey—then an engaged woman having a tiff with her fiancé at the shop—had stormed out of Fairy Tale Bridal and been assaulted. Although the younger woman had assured Hope that she in no way held her responsible for the attack, Hope was still looking for a way to make restitution.

Hope unlocked the vestibule and picked up the mail off the floor that had come through the slot. Then she unlocked the inner door to her shop and set the bills and letters along with her purse inside before returning to her car to unload the boxes from the wedding reception. She tilted her gaze to make sure the security lights and camera monitoring the entrance were working before opening her trunk and grabbing the first box of family mementos from her car.

With each trip to and from the shop, she made a point of scanning her surroundings and locking her car. KCPD had formed a task force to track down and arrest the elusive rapist, and they had stepped up patrols in this particular neighborhood. The Rose Red Rapist had received plenty of press on television and in the local papers, although facts about the attacks often got less coverage than the reporters’ negative opinions on the police department’s handling of the case. But every woman in town knew the dangers lurking in the darkness. Every woman who lived here knew the details of the crimes—what to look for and what to avoid.