Single Mum's Bodyguard
But then Lars and Nikki had that same kind of love—that soul-deep connection. She glanced back at Dane, and something shifted in her chest. But his handsome face remained expressionless.
Unfeeling.
She doubted she would be lucky enough to find a love like Penny and Woodrow’s or Lars and Nikki’s for herself. No. She wasn’t going to love a man like she was going to lose him. She would love her son like that—because she knew what it felt like—because she had already lost him once.
She couldn’t lose him again.
If not one of the bodyguards, who had been outside the nursery window and why? Was someone trying to take her son? Or her?
* * *
She wasn’t singing to him. She sang instead to the bride and groom. But her surprisingly sexy voice enveloped and overwhelmed Dane. His heart twisted in a tight fist of anxiety. Maybe it was her anxiety that he felt. Since she’d disappeared and Lars had given him that photo, Dane had had an almost eerie connection to her.
Despite what she’d said, he didn’t think she was nervous about singing. Her voice was too clear, too strong—and so compelling that all the guests were riveted, staring up at her in awe. Dane couldn’t take his gaze from her.
And maybe that was why he saw the fear he’d heard when she’d screamed in the nursery. Was it just post-traumatic stress disorder like her brother thought? But that bruise wasn’t PTSD. Something had happened. She’d been hurt again.
Recently.
Heat rushed through him, his temper heating his blood and his skin. He wanted to hurt whoever had hurt her. First he had to find out who that was. Somebody slid into the church pew next to him and bumped his shoulder. Mentally cursing himself for not being aware of the person approaching, he reached for his weapon.
“Hey,” Lars whispered. “You don’t need that.”
He wasn’t so sure. Who the hell had Emilia seen outside the nursery window?
His friend emitted a soft gasp. “I forgot how she sings...”
“...like an angel,” Dane murmured.
Lars glanced at him, his pale blue eyes narrowed.
A bead of sweat trickled down Dane’s back, beneath his tuxedo jacket. The monkey suit was why he was so damn hot—because it wasn’t like he was scared of his best friend. After nearly losing her once, Lars was bound to protect Emilia using whatever means necessary. Even murder...
Dane wouldn’t hurt her. He wanted to make sure she didn’t get hurt. Again.
Dane asked, “What happened to her shoulder?”
His brow furrowing, Lars glanced at him again then back at Emilia, who effortlessly held the last note of the song. Had her brother not noticed the bruise? But then, in a whisper, Lars replied, “She hit it on the doorjamb when Blue’s crying woke her up.”
That explained it, if Emilia had told her brother the truth. The tension clutching Dane’s guts didn’t ease at all. He suspected Emilia had left something out. Or maybe he was just thinking of all the abused women who claimed walking into doors had caused their bruises.
He needed to find out what was really going on with Emilia. Thinking of that—of sticking close enough to learn the truth and protect her—Dane’s tension increased. This might prove the most dangerous mission he’d ever had.
* * *
Nikki Payne had spent most of her adult life dodging bouquets. This time, while the bride prepared to throw her flowers, Nikki was not hiding in the bathroom. She was out on the dance floor with the other single women. And as the brightly colored bundle of tiger lilies and calla lilies catapulted through the air, Nikki didn’t duck behind any of those shrieking women. Nor did she keep her hands linked behind her back as she had every other time she’d been forced onto the dance floor.
Nobody had coerced her to join the others. Even as the maid of honor, she wouldn’t have had to participate in this tradition. But she wanted to catch these flowers. So she lifted her hands in the air and actually elbowed aside some of those screaming single women to snag this bouquet from the air. Holding the flowers aloft, she let out a squeal of her own—of victory.
The bride, Nikki’s mother, had tossed the bouquet over her shoulder. Now Penny turned fully around, and when she saw who’d caught her flowers, her eyes—the same brown as Nikki’s—widened in shock. She wasn’t the only one staring mutely at Nikki. Her brothers and sisters-in-law all gaped, their eyes and mouths wide.
Only Lars didn’t look shocked. He appeared delighted, his sexy lips curving into a grin while his pale blue eyes sparkled. She loved him—so much. More than she’d thought it possible to love anyone.
She’d fallen for him when he’d been at his worst, desperate and guilt-ridden over the disappearance of his sister. He’d blamed himself for not protecting her even though he’d been deployed in a war zone at the time Emilia had gone missing. His sense of responsibility and honor had impressed her so much that Nikki had been unable to resist him.
And she couldn’t resist him now as he dropped to one knee in the middle of the dance floor in front of her. Before he even opened his mouth, Nikki threw her arms around his neck. On his knees he was nearly her height.
“Yes!” she said. “Yes!”
“I don’t believe it,” a deep voice, belonging to one of her brothers no doubt, murmured. “I thought she’d be running the other way from that bouquet.”
“And she’s so impatient to say yes, she didn’t even wait for him to propose,” another brother chimed in.
Heat rushed to her face and she pulled back. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have presumed—”
Lars pressed his fingers over her lips. “It’s not like I’m down here looking for a missing contact,” he assured her. “I’m on my knees because I thought you were going to make me beg you to marry me.”
“And you were prepared to beg?” she asked in amazement. As well as having an overblown sense of responsibility and honor, he also had a lot of pride. Sometimes too much. But it was just another thing she loved about him.
He nodded. “I would do whatever it takes to convince you to be my wife, Nikki. I want to spend the rest of my life making you happy.”
“You already make me happy,” she assured him.
He tensed for a moment. Maybe he’d forgotten that she’d already said yes and thought she was going back to her earlier anti-marriage stance. She hadn’t ever really been anti-marriage, though. She had been anti–getting hurt.
But just as she loved Lars, she trusted him more than she’d ever thought it possible for her to trust anyone. He wasn’t going to hurt her.
“So you don’t have to do anything to convince me to marry you. I’m ready,” she said. And that was something she’d thought she would never say. She was ready to get married. Ready to be a bride and, more important, a wife.
His pale eyes glittered as if with a sheen of tears. She blinked furiously as tears of her own stung her eyes and tickled her nose. She would not cry, not in front of her brothers. Later, when she laid her head on Lars’s mammoth chest, she would soak his skin with her happy tears. But she was too proud to give in to them now...until Lars popped open the velvet case and revealed the most beautiful ring she had ever seen. Stacy Kozminski-Payne must have made it. Logan’s wife was so damn talented. As Nikki stared at the square diamond and twisted gold band on which it was mounted, a tear spilled over and trailed down her cheek—until Lars brushed it away.
“Oh, sweetheart,” he said, his voice gruff with emotion. “I don’t want to make you cry.”
“Happy tears,” she assured him. She suspected that was all she would cry once he became her husband.
“Good,” he murmured. “Then I’m already doing my job.”
“I’m not so sure about that,” her brother Cooper, who was also their boss, called out. But he was over being mad at Lars for breaking the bro rule of not going after another friend’s sister. She hoped.
Penny tapped her youngest son’s shoulder and shushed him. “Don’t interrupt.”
“They interrupted your wedding,” Cooper pointed out.
“Lars got my permission,” Penny haughtily informed him.
In the past, Nikki would have been annoyed over the chauvinistic tradition of asking the parents for permission before asking the woman. But she understood that wasn’t what Lars had done. He’d been asking permission to propose at Penny’s wedding.
Of course, her mother hadn’t hesitated to say yes and share her special day and spotlight with them. She had always been too selfless. But Nikki didn’t mind being selfish right now—not as Lars slid that beautiful ring on her finger. Then he stood and swung her up in his arms before lowering his head to kiss her.
Passion and love overwhelmed her, and more tears leaked from beneath her closed lids. Those tears nearly turned to frustration when the kiss ended way too soon as well-wishers rushed the dance floor. Guys slapped Lars’s back. Maybe her brothers slapped a little too hard. But Lars was bigger than all of them. The grin never slipped from his face so Nikki could tell he felt no pain.
Everyone hugged Nikki, who usually would have squirmed away from all the show of emotion. She wasn’t a hugger. But she was too happy to mind the affection she was being showered with. Penny hugged her tightly.
“You really didn’t mind him proposing here?” Nikki asked. She wouldn’t have infringed on her mother’s special day for anything.
Penny shook her head. “Nothing could have made this day more perfect for me.”
Nikki snorted. “Of course not. You’ve wanted me to get married since the day I was born,” she accused her mother.
Penny shook her head again. “No. I wanted you to find the man worthy of your love, the man who wouldn’t betray your trust—who would cherish you forever. And, in Lars, you’ve found that man.”
“Yes, I have,” Nikki wholeheartedly agreed. Her fiancé was amazing. And soon he would be her husband.
Penny’s new husband stepped forward and pulled Nikki into an embrace, as well. She had always respected the former FBI chief, but now she loved him, as well. He was going to be as wonderful a stepfather as he would be in his new position as chief of the River City Police Department.
“Do you want me to threaten him?” Woodrow Lynch asked. “Make sure he never hurts you?”
“He won’t.”
“He won’t,” Emilia promised as she stepped forward for her hug. “My brother loves you so much.” Tears streamed down the blonde’s face, washing away the makeup she’d used to disguise her dark circles.
Lars was already worried about his sister. And Nikki knew he wasn’t just being overprotective. She was worried, too. And it wasn’t just because of the dark circles. Since the young woman had an infant, she wasn’t bound to get much sleep.
Nikki had other concerns, as well. The singer not showing up hadn’t been the only thing to go wrong with the wedding. There had been countless other things Emilia had screwed up or, like the singer, that she’d canceled. As maid of honor and the daughter of the consummate wedding planner, Nikki had stepped in to fix those mistakes.
But why had Emilia made them? She didn’t even seem aware that she had. What else was on her mind?
Was it just the ordeal she’d been through?
Or was something else going on?
Nikki had been reluctant to talk to Lars about it; she didn’t want to worry him any more than he already was. But she noticed someone else carefully watching the blonde. And she suspected she and Lars weren’t the only ones concerned about Emilia.
Dane Sutton was anxious, as well.
What the hell was going on with Emilia?
Chapter 4
How could she have messed up so badly? Emilia had been certain that she’d had everything under control. But she’d overheard the caterer and bartenders talking to Nikki about how Emilia had canceled their services just like she’d canceled the singer.
It wasn’t true. But why would they all lie?
She looked at her cell phone now, scrolling through her call log. She had made calls at strange times. In the middle of the night, which was when the caterer and bartenders and the singer claimed she’d called and left voice mails canceling their services.
If Penny heard about any of it...
Emilia would lose her job.
At the moment, as she stared down at that phone log, she was more worried about losing her mind. She didn’t remember making those calls. And she couldn’t have done them in her sleep since she hadn’t been sleeping. She’d been lying awake every night, listening to that crying that wasn’t Blue’s. Whose crying did she hear? Why was it haunting her?
She could hear it now...as she lay in her bed. Like always, she wasn’t sleeping. Adrenaline from the wedding hummed through her veins yet. Despite all her sleepless hours, she wasn’t tired. So much had happened tonight. Penny and Woodrow had gotten married, and the ceremony had been beautiful—apparently no thanks to Emilia. And then Lars and Nikki had gotten engaged. She’d known it was coming, but still it had taken her by surprise. It was all happening so quickly. Everyone was moving on with their lives.
Everyone but her. She couldn’t get beyond the past, beyond what had happened to her all those weeks she’d been held captive without her son. Maybe that crying she heard was her own.
She felt like crying now, as her world began to crumble around her. If she lost her job...
How would she support herself and her son?
If everyone considered her an incompetent wedding planner, would they also consider her incompetent as a mother?
Was she?
She shivered as she allowed the thought to cross her mind. A chill passed through her body along with it. No. She would do anything for her son—even get help. Most of her life she’d turned to her brother when she’d needed help, except for when she’d discovered she was pregnant. He’d been deployed then and unavailable. While he was in the country now, he was equally unavailable.
Of course if she called him, he would rush immediately to her aid. But she couldn’t do that to him. He’d already worried about her enough. For weeks he’d thought she was dead. She didn’t want him to worry about her ever again. So to whom could she turn?
Not Nikki. She couldn’t expect or ask the newly engaged woman to keep a secret from her fiancé. She would have asked her boss, but Penny was gone now for a long honeymoon.
Penny had trusted Emilia to keep the business running while she was gone. She probably shouldn’t have done that. Undoubtedly she wouldn’t have, if Nikki had shared with her how much the maid of honor had had to step in to make sure the wedding ceremony ran smoothly.
Emilia glanced down at her phone again, but she couldn’t see the screen through the tears blurring her vision. She wasn’t crying because she was sad or scared, though. She was crying because she was mad. There was no way she would have called and canceled those wedding services.
Sure, the numbers were on her phone. She couldn’t see them now—through her tears—but she had seen them. Just because her phone had been used didn’t mean she had used it, though. Someone else must have.
But how?
How had they used her phone in the middle of the night? She would have seen them—would have known. Unless...
She heard a noise, one she barely heard over the sound of the crying. But it was there—the telltale creak of a door opening. Someone was breaking into the house. Like they had broken in before?
* * *
Nightmares?
What the hell had Lars been talking about? Dane didn’t have nightmares. Sure, sometimes he woke up in a cold sweat with his heart pounding so hard it felt like his ribs might break.
But he was never able to remember what he’d been dreaming about, or if he’d been dreaming at all. He’d probably just been reliving some of those missions. Or maybe even things that had happened before that.
Like identifying his adoptive parents’ bodies in the morgue after the terrible car accident that had ended their lives. He’d barely been eighteen at the time.
He hadn’t thought about that in years, until that day he’d gone to the morgue to identify Emilia Ecklund’s body.
But it hadn’t been Emilia’s. Just as he had that night, he expelled another ragged breath of relief that it hadn’t been her. He had been relieved for Lars. His friend had already been in agony worrying about her. If he’d lost her forever...
Lars would have never forgiven himself.
But Dane had also been relieved for himself. He’d wanted to meet the young woman whose photo he’d been using as the screen saver on his cell phone. Of course he’d only been doing that so he would recognize the person for whom he’d been looking. Once she’d been found, he’d deleted it...
As his screen saver.
And yet he hadn’t been able to force himself to send her photo to his recycle folder. He still had it on his phone—in its photo album.
Even though he’d seen her that day, looking beautiful in that pale blue dress that matched her eyes, he needed to see her again. So he reached out in the darkness, fumbling around for the cell sitting on the crate next to his king-size bed. Usually he loved having the extra space to sprawl out, like he hadn’t been able to sprawl out all those months spent sleeping on cots. If they were lucky, they’d had cots. Sometimes they’d just had a hard floor or dirt.
Tonight his bed felt especially empty. He felt alone like he hadn’t since he was kid. But he knew now that it was better to be alone like he’d been back then—with nobody to worry about, nobody to care about...
He’d already spent too much time worrying about Emilia Ecklund. Now he was worried again, especially after the newly engaged Nikki Payne had caught him alone.
Her concern furrowing her usually smooth forehead, she’d said, “Something’s going on with Emilia.”
“I know,” Dane had readily agreed. “Lars is worried, too.”
“Should we be worried?” she’d asked.
He’d shrugged then because he wasn’t certain. Maybe she hadn’t seen anything outside that window. Maybe she’d only banged into that doorframe like she’d told her brother because it had been dark and she’d been tired.
Nikki had told him about the other things—about her slipping up on her job—a job in which she had seemed to be taking pride. He doubted she would have messed that up purposely.
What the hell was going on with her?
He’d followed her when she’d left the chapel. He’d made certain she’d gotten safely inside her house with her son. But then he’d forced himself to drive away. She was fine.
Wasn’t she?
He needed to see that picture. Not that seeing her smiling face would make him feel any better. It usually made him feel worse, made his pulse quicken and his heart flip. But he didn’t pull his hand away; he kept reaching for his phone. His fingers skimmed over cold metal, his gun. He always had it within reach, which had saved his life more than once.
That weapon wouldn’t save him from Emilia, though. But how dangerous could she be?
She was his friend’s sister. And unlike Lars, that meant something to Dane. That meant she was off limits.
And she had a baby.
Dane had no intention of being a father to anyone. He wouldn’t make the mistake his adoptive father had. He wouldn’t take on a responsibility he really didn’t want. He wouldn’t do to a kid what had been done to him.
No. Emilia Ecklund was no danger to him. But was she in danger?
The crate began to vibrate beneath his phone, and he finally found it. His screen lit up with the photo he had of her—because she was calling him. Lars had put her number in Dane’s phone—just like he’d put his in her phone—in case she ever needed help and Lars wasn’t available.
Feeling like he’d been sucker punched, he expelled a gasp of air. Then he pushed the button. “Hello?”
“Dane?” she asked in a raspy whisper.
A chill raced down his spine. “What is it?” he asked. “What’s wrong?”
“I—I think someone’s in the house,” she whispered, her voice cracking with fear. “I heard the door open...”
He shivered again but kicked off the sheet that had tangled around his body. “I’m on my way,” he promised. “Stay on the phone with me.”
But the line clicked. Maybe she’d just been afraid that the intruder would hear her. Or maybe the intruder had already found her.
When he arrived at her house, Dane couldn’t find her. Not that many minutes had passed since she’d called, but she was gone.
Maybe someone had dragged her through the front door that stood open. Or maybe she was hiding somewhere.
He hoped like hell she was hiding.
“Emilia...” he called out softly, not wanting to alert her intruder to his presence. But was his voice too low for her to hear him?
Because she did not answer.
He hoped that was only because she hadn’t heard him. But as he stepped inside the house, a strange sensation passed through him. Maybe he was having one of Penny Payne’s premonitions.
Because instinct warned him something bad had happened or was about to happen.
To him...
Emilia might not have heard him. But perhaps her intruder had.
* * *
For the second time that day, Penny stared at her reflection in a mirror. The first time she’d wanted to look beautiful. This time she wanted to look sexy.
A breeze fluttered through the white curtains, making them billow around the window. It carried the scent of hibiscus and the sea. While Woodrow had left it to her to plan their wedding, he’d taken charge of the honeymoon.
He’d found a beautiful beach house on a nearly deserted island. There were some other inhabitants, but she hadn’t noticed them. She wasn’t aware of anyone but her handsome groom. He was so tall. So fit. With short graying hair and kind, blue eyes. Not a bright blue like the Paynes’, but a deep, soulful blue.
Woodrow had stepped outside for a few minutes. To give her time to get ready for their wedding night... But probably also to make a call. He wouldn’t be able to stop himself from checking in with Nicholas Payne, from making sure his friend and former employee was managing the River City Police Department in the new chief’s absence.
Penny had no desire to make calls. She had no desire for anyone but Woodrow. In the mirror, she could see how her face was flushed, her eyes bright.
Maybe that was embarrassment, though. She wore white now, a thin silk gown that skimmed her curves while leaving her shoulders bare. Would Woodrow find it sexy or ridiculous?
Because she knew her groom well, she smiled. She had no worries about how he would react when he saw her. But she was gripped by a sudden fear that chilled her skin despite that warm breeze. As she watched her reflection in the mirror, all the color drained from her face.
The door opened, but she didn’t tense. She knew she wasn’t the one in danger.
“Damn,” a deep male voice remarked as a whistle hissed out with his breath. “I am a lucky man.”
She was the lucky one.
He stepped closer—probably close enough to see her face—because then he dropped to his knees next to the chair at the vanity table.
“What is it?” Woodrow asked. “Who’s in danger?” His handsome face had turned pale, as well. “One of our kids?”
They weren’t his kids or her kids. They were theirs, even the ones who weren’t related at all to either of them. The orphans, the agents, the bodyguards...
They both loved and worried about them all.
She reached out and gripped his hand, and their matching wedding bands glinted in the light from the vanity table. She hadn’t wanted diamonds, just simple gold. Stacy had designed a beautiful infinity pattern in yellow gold to represent their endless love.
But everything wasn’t endless. Penny knew that too well.
“Who?” Woodrow asked again anxiously.
“Emilia...”
It was more than a feeling that she was in danger, though. It was a feeling that something bad had already happened. That no matter who they called to rescue her, that person would be too late to save her.