Groom Under Fire

He wasn’t doing the greatest job protecting her. Maybe Logan had been right and he wasn’t ready yet for a field job. But he couldn’t imagine anyone else protecting her. Or marrying her.

She lifted her hand and skimmed her fingers over his throat, making his pulse leap even more wildly. And her eyes widened with shock and horror. “You’re bleeding! You’ve been hit! We need to call an ambulance!”

He brushed away the trickle of blood. “It’s just a scratch from the flying glass.”

He brushed some of those glass fragments from her silky blond hair and his fingertips tingled. He didn’t even notice the bite of the glass. All he noticed was the fresh flowery scent of her and the soft feel of her. She was so close. He only needed to lean down a few inches to close the distance between them and press his lips to hers.

“I’m fine,” he assured her. But he wasn’t. He was tempted to kiss his best friend’s bride while the man was missing. But hell, Cooper was the one who was going to marry her. Tomorrow. He drew in a deep breath to steady his racing pulse. “We should call the police.”

“He’s gone?” she asked hopefully.

He wasn’t certain about that...even though he had heard the squeal of tires as a car sped away.

“We still need to call to report the shooting.” There could be shell casings recovered. Witnesses questioned that might be able to identify the shooter. He reached for his cell phone.

And then he heard the footsteps, the stairs creaking beneath the weight of the person stealthily climbing up to Tanya’s apartment. Maybe the shooter hadn’t sped off in the car with the squealing tires. Maybe he had come upstairs to make sure he’d killed his intended victim.

Cooper drew his weapon from the holster on his belt. He pointed the barrel at the door as he scrambled to his feet and helped up Tanya. He shoved her toward the only other room in the studio apartment. The bathroom.

“Get in the tub,” he ordered her in an urgent whisper. Where he’d been, grenades were routinely tossed in houses. Or machine-gun fire that cut through walls like scissors through paper. “And stay down.”

He didn’t know if she did as he told her because she closed that door. And another opened, slowly, the old hinges creaking in protest. His finger twitched on the trigger as he prepared to pull it, especially as the first thing that entered the apartment was the barrel of a gun.

He waited to get a target before he took his shot. But just as he was about to squeeze the trigger, the intruder stepped from the shadows and revealed himself.

“Damn it, Logan!” he cursed his brother. “I almost shot you!”

Logan holstered his gun and gestured toward the broken window. “Looks like you got a little trigger-happy already.”

Cooper begrudgingly admitted, “I didn’t fire my weapon.” Then he pointed toward the holes in the drywall ceiling. “The shooter was down on the street.”

Which had probably saved Tanya’s life and his, because the trajectory of the bullets had sent them tunneling into the ceiling instead of into their bodies.

Sirens blared and blue and red lights flashed, refracting off all the broken glass. “And now the police are down there,” Logan pointed out with a slight sigh of relief.

Either the landlord or a neighbor must have called them. Cooper hadn’t had the chance to dial yet. He’d been too distracted. Tanya had distracted him.

“Why are you here?” he asked his older brother, who was also now his boss. “You checking up on me?” He couldn’t blame him if he was. His first assignment with Payne Protection and he was already blowing it. First, he’d lost Stephen, and he’d nearly lost Tanya more than once.

“You said you were going to get some information for me,” Logan reminded him. “Tanya’s list of difficult cases and exes.”

Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.

Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».

Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.

Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.