Bridegroom Bodyguard

“I know there were injuries,” she said, “but I haven’t seen any follow-up reports to see if everyone recovered.”

That muscle twitched in his cheek again and he replied slowly, with reluctance, “Someone was killed....”

She sucked in a breath. “That’s two people,” she murmured. “Two people killed because of me....”

“Today two people were killed because of me.” He slid his hand from her wrist up her arm and squeezed her shoulder, offering comfort and sharing her guilt. “Two friends—two family men—lost their lives because someone wanted me dead.”

Tears stung her eyes, but she blinked them back. Long ago she had learned that crying was a waste of time. And she had never had anyone offer her a shoulder to cry on or arms to hold her. She had been left alone with swollen eyes and a red face.

“Why does someone want you dead?” he asked and then repeated his question again. “Who are you?”

“You have a copy of my license. You know who I am.”

He shook his head. “I know your name and your old address. But that doesn’t tell me why someone would want you dead. Are you involved with the wrong people?”

She hadn’t thought so...until now.

“Do you have a crazy boyfriend?” he asked, firing questions at her like bullets. “A dangerous career? Do you lead a life of crime?”

She laughed at the wild image he painted of her. It could not have been further from the truth. He had to have been kidding again like he had when he’d acted as if he would consider killing her for the money.

From the little time she had spent around his family, she had noticed that they teased each other as a way of communicating. But what did she know about family? She had never really had one.

“You think this is funny?” he asked, his voice gruff with disapproval.

“Of course I don’t,” she said. With all the guilt and fear she felt, she was barely holding it together. If she let herself think about those people...

Tears stung her eyes, but she blinked them back. If she gave in to them, she wouldn’t be able to stop. “I think this is surreal. None of this is my life. None of this has anything to do with me. I am only the messenger delivering your son.”

He laughed bitterly. “You make yourself sound like FedEx, like you’re just delivering a package.”

That was what she had been told—how the baby had been referred to—as a package. She cringed now as she remembered Ethan’s mother’s careless words.

“And that’s bull,” he said, “because you have an undeniable bond with...” His throat moved as if emotion choked him. He visibly swallowed and continued. “...my son.”

He had already claimed his child. Where did that leave Sharon? If she admitted everything to him, it would leave her alone again as she already had been for so much of her life. But she shrugged off the self-pity and focused on what was important: Ethan would have a parent who would love and protect him.

And if Parker were to protect his son, he had to find out who was trying to kill him and stop that person. So she had to tell him everything she knew—the little that it was.

“I have been taking care of him,” she said, “pretty much since he’s been born.”

“You’re a foster mother?” he asked.

She shook her head.

“A nanny?”

She sighed. That wasn’t the job she had started out with, but it was the one she had wound up doing. “I’m a law student.”

“So you work as a nanny on the side?”

“I work as a law clerk for a judge.” And she watched realization dawn on his handsome face. He knew who the mother of his son was.

He cursed. But then he tensed and glanced toward his son, as if regretful of swearing in front of the child. Ethan slept on, though. “Judge Foster?”

He had slept with the woman but didn’t address her by her first name?

She nodded.

And he shook his head. “She told me that she couldn’t have kids....”

“She was actually having fertility treatments so that she could,” Sharon said, flinching as she remembered the judge’s mercurial mood changes. She had been so thrilled to get the position clerking for the infamous Judge Brenda Foster...until she’d actually had the job. But the job as clerk had turned into the nanny job when Brenda had been unable to keep any other nannies working for her.

He cursed again but under his breath. “I need to talk to her.”

“Good luck,” she murmured. “I haven’t been able to reach her for the past two weeks.”

“Two weeks?” he echoed in shock. “She hasn’t seen her child in two weeks?”

With all the hours the judge worked and socialized, two weeks wasn’t the longest she had gone without seeing her son. “She sent me and Ethan away with enough cash to stay in hotels for two weeks. She didn’t want me using credit cards to buy anything.”

“Because she didn’t want you to get tracked down,” Parker said, his blue eyes narrowing. “She must have known someone was after you.”

Sharon shook her head. “Nobody was after me.”

He clutched the paper in his hand so tightly that he crumpled it. “This newspaper article proves otherwise. And so does your car getting blown up in the hospital parking lot today.”

Sharon shuddered as she faced the reality that someone definitely wanted her dead. Why?

“What else did the judge tell you?” Parker asked.

Sharon sighed. “Just that if I hadn’t heard from her before those two weeks were over, I was to bring Ethan to you.” It wasn’t exactly what the judge had said, but he was already so angry with Brenda—and rightfully so—that Sharon didn’t want to make the situation worse.

But then, she wasn’t certain that it could get much worse...until she heard the creak of footsteps on the stairs. Parker heard them, too, because he reached for his gun. Obviously, he hadn’t been expecting anyone.

He had promised that they would be safe here. But Sharon was beginning to fear that they wouldn’t be safe anywhere—not with someone determined that they die.

The steps squeaked again. There was more than one person coming up the stairwell. While Parker was armed, he was outnumbered. And even if he had another gun, Sharon had never touched one, let alone knew how to use one. She could only watch helplessly as he moved toward the stairs—putting himself between her and Ethan and the threat to all their lives....

Chapter Five

Curses echoed inside Parker’s head. He had been so certain that he hadn’t been followed. He’d been so certain that he had done everything necessary to keep his son and Sharon Wells safe. He hadn’t even told his family where he was bringing them, just that he had a place.

As a head rose above the stairwell railing, the curses slipped through his lips. “Damn you, Logan! I could’ve shot you....” His twin had admonished him many times for sneaking up on him. Why hadn’t the lesson applied to himself?

“I wasn’t sure if you knew about this place,” Logan said. “But Mom was insistent that I find you.”

And her head rose above the stairwell railing as she pushed past her oldest and rushed over to the youngest Payne. The new grandmother uttered a wistful sigh as she stared down at the sleeping baby.

She had known about her grandchild for only a few hours, but it was obvious she already loved him. Something gripped Parker’s heart, squeezing it tightly, and he realized he loved the baby, too. Ethan was a part of him.

And a part of Brenda Foster. She had lied to him. She had tricked him. Those tactics had made her such an effective district attorney that she had been one of the youngest judges ever appointed to the bench. And her ruthlessness had made her both one of the most respected and most hated judges ever.

Parker had been flattered that such a successful woman had been attracted to him. But while he’d been her bodyguard, he had refused to act anything but professional with her. So she’d fired Payne Protection. He had been attracted to her combination of beauty and brains, and once he no longer worked for her, he had acted on that attraction.

And, unbeknownst to him, they had created a child. She hadn’t just lied to him once; she had continued that lie with every day she had kept his baby’s existence from him. What had compelled her to finally have Sharon Wells bring the baby to him?

What kind of trouble was she in? Because of her ruthlessness as a judge, she had made many enemies and had constantly received threats to her life. But why would those criminals threaten the life of the father of her child and her nanny?

“I’m actually glad you showed up,” Parker begrudgingly admitted to his overprotective twin.

“What?” Logan reached for his gun and glanced around the condo as if looking for intruders hiding in the shadows. “Were you followed?”

“No. I was careful.” If he hadn’t been, he and Sharon would already be dead. “But I need to leave for a while. I need to go see someone.”

And find out what kind of game she was playing....

This was about more than a criminal with a grudge or the hit would have been on Brenda. Not on her nanny and the father of her child.

“So I need you to protect Sharon and...my son....” He could say those words that he thought he would never say because he couldn’t not claim that beautiful little boy as his. Like his mother, he already loved the child. “I need you to protect them while I’m gone.”

“Where are you going?” Logan asked.

Sharon just stared at him because she obviously knew where. She knew that he would have to go to Brenda. He would have to see her and maybe have a few choice words with her.... He couldn’t believe how she had lied and tricked him and cheated him out of Ethan’s first months of life.

“I’m going to see Judge Foster,” he admitted. “She’s part of this whole mess.” He wasn’t going to share that she was also a part of Ethan. He wouldn’t share that news with his family until he talked to the judge herself.

“Judge Foster fired us over a year and a half ago,” Logan recalled. “What would she have to do with anything going on with you and Sharon?”

“I work for her,” Sharon said. But like him, she didn’t divulge any more information. Maybe she was following his lead; maybe she didn’t want his family to know that Ethan wasn’t her son.

Logan dragged his hand through his hair in frustration and warned him, “You can’t just go traipsing off alone when you’ve got a bounty on your head.”

“I’ll be fine,” Parker assured him. “Nobody’s touched me yet.” Not for lack of trying, though.

“He won’t be alone,” Sharon said. “I’m going with him.”

Parker shook his head. “Nobody’s touched me,” he repeated. “But a lot of other people got hurt or worse because they were too close to me.”

So there was no way he would let her go along, no way that he would put Sharon Wells in any more danger than she already was.

* * *

SHARON SHOULDN’T HAVE left the baby...because she worried that she might never see him again. But at least she knew that he had a family—a real family. They would protect him and take care of him—not out of obligation but love.

Mrs. Payne had clearly fallen for her grandson. He wasn’t an inconvenience for her. Or evidence of her son’s mistake.

That was all Sharon had been to her grandparents—proof of their perfect daughter’s fall from grace. The mistake that had ruined and eventually claimed her life. After Sharon’s young mother had died, they’d taken over responsibility for raising her. Not out of love but out of fear that their friends and colleagues would think less of them if they had given her up for adoption like they had once urged their daughter to do. Even if she hadn’t overheard their heated debate about whether or not to keep her, she would have figured out how they’d felt about her.

“You should have stayed with Ethan,” Parker said as if he’d read her mind. Or maybe he had seen the fear and doubt on her face.

But darkness had fallen. And he had shut off the car so not even the dash lights illuminated the interior. He had also parked down the street from the judge’s house but put some distance between the car and the lamps that burned outside the gates.

Then he admonished himself. “I shouldn’t have brought you here.”

“You had to,” she reminded him, “or you wouldn’t have gotten past the security system.” He had tried calling the judge, but she hadn’t answered any of her phones, not the one at the house or her office or her cell. Brenda either wasn’t home or wasn’t in any condition to let them in. Panic pressed on Sharon’s lungs. What if something had happened to Ethan’s mother?

He had family that would take care of him. But Sharon had taken care of him for the judge; the Paynes wouldn’t need her help like Brenda had. She would no longer have any connection to the child she had come to love as if he was her own.

Parker groaned. “That damn security system...”

Payne Protection had installed the high-tech system that didn’t use codes but fingerprint recognition. Sharon was surprised that Parker’s print wasn’t able to deactivate it. But then, Brenda hadn’t wanted him to have access to her house because she hadn’t wanted him to know about his son.

She had wanted a child but no husband. No family. While Sharon respected the woman, she hadn’t understood her desire for a baby. All Sharon had ever wanted was a career—one as successful as Judge Foster’s. But then she’d met Ethan and had fallen for him.

“I still shouldn’t have brought you,” Parker said.

“You would have had to cut off my finger, then.” She shuddered at the repulsive thought.

Parker chuckled. “I think my brother’s new in-laws might be able to find a less gruesome way to bypass it. I doubt there’s a security system that a Kozminski can’t compromise.”

“But they would need time to do that, and I haven’t heard from the judge in two weeks,” Sharon reminded him.

“And that’s out of the ordinary for her?” he asked.

Not wanting to criticize the judge, she hesitated. “She’s always very busy. But usually she would just have me take Ethan back to my place if she wanted us out of the way. But this time she wanted us out of town for those two weeks,” she reminded him in case he still suffered short-term memory loss, “and she wanted me to use cash for everything—for the hotel and for food.”

“She didn’t want anyone to be able to track you down,” Parker said. “She was hiding you and Ethan. So she must have known you were in danger.”

Sharon shook her head. “I wasn’t in danger before those two weeks. I wasn’t the reason that she sent me and Ethan away.”

“But you work for her and she is always in danger,” Parker said. “You could have gotten caught in the cross fire.”

“I’m kind of invisible. People don’t usually notice me.” Ignoring the sting to her pride, she admitted, “You obviously didn’t notice me since you keep claiming to have never seen me before.”

“I claimed to not have slept with you,” he clarified, “which is true.”

Maybe it was true, but he made it sound impossible. Of course, it probably was. “And that you never saw me before, and that’s not true.”

“When didn’t I notice you?” he asked.

“When you were Brenda’s bodyguard,” she said. “I was working in her office then.” Even then she had done little law clerking and more coffee-and lunch-getting. “I saw you a few times.” Those times had admittedly been brief, but his ridiculously handsome image had lingered in her mind.

His eyes glinted in the darkness as he stared at her. “No, I would have remembered....”

“Maybe it’s the concussion,” she said. But she knew it was her being unremarkable. She had learned long ago to be unobtrusive and quiet, but she’d still felt like such an inconvenience and disappointment to her grandparents.

He touched his head. “Maybe the concussion is why I brought you with me when I should have left you with Logan for protection.”

“And you would get into the estate...how?” she wondered.

“The Kozminskis...”

“Won’t be able to deactivate the system that quickly,” she pointed out. “Do you really want to wait any longer to talk to her?”

Even in the darkness, she noticed the muscle twitch in his cheek. He had to be furious with Brenda for having tricked him into helping her conceive Ethan and then for keeping the little boy from him.

His voice was gruff when he replied. “No.”

Then he opened the driver’s door. He had done something to the dome light because it didn’t come on, leaving her in the darkness.

She fumbled for the handle on her side, but as she did, the door opened. He wrapped his fingers around her arm and helped her from the car.

“I’m taking you with me,” he said. “But you need to stay close to me.”

Her breath caught at his words. She had no problem sticking close to his side—for warmth and protection. His tall, muscular body blocked some of the cold wind that whipped at her loose hair and penetrated the thin material of her suit. And his gun, clutched tightly in his free hand, offered some security as fear chilled Sharon even more than the wind.

Sharon was tall but she had to quicken her pace to match Parker’s long strides down the street. As they stopped at the gate, she drew in a quick breath before reaching for the security panel. But Parker caught her hand, holding her back from touching it.

“What’s wrong?” she asked. Her skin tingled and warmed from the contact with his. He didn’t let her go, continuing to hold her hand.

Didn’t he want to go inside? Hadn’t that been the point of coming to Brenda’s estate?

Parker glanced around the area, his gaze scanning the street before he peered through the wrought-iron gate at the dark mansion on the other side.

“I wish I had Cujo,” he murmured.

“Cujo?” Just how badly had he been concussed that he was longing for a fictional dog?

“My sister-in-law’s former K9 German shepherd,” he explained. “He’s great at sniffing out bombs.”

“You think there could be one inside?” she asked, turning her attention to that large brick residence. “But nobody could have gotten past security.”

He studied the panel now, as if trying to determine if it had been tampered with. Still holding her hand, he lifted it toward the panel.

She pressed her index finger to the glass. A light flashed as the machine read her print. The lock clicked, then a motor revved and metal rattled as the gate drew open. Parker stepped inside but held Sharon back with a hand on her shoulder.

“You can’t leave me out here!” she said, her voice cracking with fear as she imagined being alone in the dark.

It brought back memories of another lonely night long ago. She had been in the dark that night, hidden away. She reached out and clutched his arm.

“Don’t leave me!” She had said the same thing that night but she had been too late. “You need me to open the house door, too.”

“I won’t leave you here,” he assured her. “But you have to be careful. We don’t know what we’re going to find inside.”

Her stomach muscles tightened with fear and dread. “You think she’s dead?”

“It would have been on the news,” he said, “if the judge had been killed or even if she’d gone missing.”

She shook her head. “She had taken a leave of absence from work.”

“Brenda Foster?” he asked, obviously incredulous.

He wasn’t the only one who had been surprised. Brenda had taken only a couple weeks off after having Ethan.

“I think she was writing her memoirs or some kind of book,” Sharon said. “She told me that I would have to do some proofreading for her when she was ready. But she hadn’t asked me to look at anything yet.”

“How long had she been off work?” he asked.

“Her leave started two weeks ago,” Sharon said, “so nobody at the courts would have been alarmed that they hadn’t heard from her.”

“Would anyone else?”

“Are you asking me about her boyfriends or lovers?” Irritation eased some of her fear. He had kissed her, but now he was questioning her about another woman’s social life. Of course, he had only kissed Sharon to prove the point that she couldn’t be the mother of his child and not because he had actually been attracted or interested in her enough to want to kiss her.

“I’m asking if anyone would have reported her missing if they hadn’t heard from her.”

Guilt clutched her at the realization that she had been so petty as to be jealous of another woman—a woman she had always respected. But Sharon was one of very few who’d actually been close to the judge. “I don’t know....”

She didn’t know who would report her missing, either. With the hours she worked, she had little time to socialize. Not that she had ever socialized much. She had been more focused on school and studying and work than on making friends.

“Probably me,” she said. As Ethan’s primary caregiver, she was closer to his mother than anyone else. “But she told me to go to you if I didn’t hear from her—and to trust no one else.”

“Not even the police?”

She shrugged and then shivered. “No one but you.”

Parker turned back toward the mansion. He cursed and reluctantly admitted, “I should have let Logan send backup with me.”

“But there’s no hit out on Brenda,” she reminded him. “There is no reason to think anyone’s trying to kill her.”

“There isn’t,” he agreed. “But I know that someone’s trying to kill us.”

“They don’t know that we would come here,” she said. “And you made sure we weren’t followed.”

“So I could leave you out here....”

“You need me to open the door,” she reminded him. So she got that far with him—to the massive double front doors. After she pressed her index finger to the security panel, they opened slowly and creepily as if a ghost played butler for them.

Parker stepped over the threshold first, his gun drawn. He’d turned on a flashlight that was attached to the barrel, which he swung in every direction he turned, as if ready to confront a threat. But the house was eerily quiet. He must have thought so, too, because he asked, “Doesn’t she have any live-in staff?”

“No.” She wanted Sharon on call 24/7 but she hadn’t wanted her to live with her. “She prefers her privacy, so she just has a cleaning service.”

But that had obviously been canceled because as they crossed the foyer, it was clear that no one had been in to straighten up. Brenda’s stilettos had been abandoned on the marble floor and her coat lay a little farther inside the house at the foot of the double stairwell leading to the second story. Parker lifted his foot to the first step, but Sharon grasped his arm.

“She won’t be up there.”

“But it’s late and all the lights are off.”

Brenda wouldn’t have been in bed yet, though, unless she had company, and in that case, there would have been lights on. “She would be working,” she said, and she started across the expansive living room toward the double doors that led to the den.

But Parker caught her arm, jerking her aside before she could reach for the door handles. He swung the beam of the flashlight around the doors.

“What are you looking for?” she asked.

“Trip wires—anything that could trigger a bomb.”

She shuddered.

“It’s clear,” he said.

But she didn’t reach for the handle again, so he had to turn it. He pushed open the doors and swung the beam around the room. It glanced off books and papers. But they weren’t on the bookshelf or the desk. They were strewn across the floor.

“Someone’s ransacked the room,” he said.

She shook her head. “No. Her chambers often look like this.” Each of the books was open to a specific page. But as she stepped inside the room with Parker, she noted that these books were ripped apart.

“Someone was looking for something,” he said. “Can you tell if anything’s missing?”

“Her laptop.” It wasn’t on the desk or the floor in front of it.

“She must have taken it with her,” Parker said. “She must have taken off.”

Sharon stepped carefully over the books and papers to move around to the back of the big mahogany desk. If Brenda had taken the laptop, she would have put it in the case that she usually dropped behind her chair.