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Authors: Lisa Childs

Tags: #Contemporary romantic suspense, #Harlequin Intrigue, #Fiction

Bridegroom Bodyguard (9 page)

BOOK: Bridegroom Bodyguard
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He folded his arms around his bride, holding her close, while music played softly around them. His hips brushed hers and his body tensed, aching for her. He wanted to be alone with her, away from all the watchful eyes of his family, which was also hers now. But maybe it was better if he wasn’t alone with her....

She stared up at him, her eyes dark and dazed, as if she was as surprised and overwhelmed by her desire as he was by his. They definitely should not be alone.

But his mother walked up to them, a sleeping baby in her arms. “You two should leave now,” she said. “I will take care of him for the night.”

Sharon seemed startled at the thought, but Parker wasn’t sure if it was because she was panicked over being separated from the child or over being alone with her new groom. “But what if he wakes—”

“He’s going to have to get used to spending time with his grandma,” said his mother.

He should have known this was where her matchmaking was leading. She had wanted her kids married so she could get grandkids. Well, he’d already done his part, albeit unintentionally.

“Mom, I appreciate everything you did to make this seem like a real wedding, but—”

“It
is
a real wedding, sweetheart,” she said. And she patted his cheek with her open palm. “It is a real wedding. You have a license to prove it.”

So the wedding had been real, but the marriage wouldn’t be. He couldn’t let anyone hurt Sharon—not even him. “Mom—”

She smacked his cheek again—a little harder—and leaned in closer to him to whisper, “The marriage has to look real, too, so a court can’t challenge it.”

What was she asking him to do?

“Just leave together,” she suggested. Then she turned toward Sharon and patted her cheek, but gently. “You are as beautiful a bride as you are a person.”

Sharon’s face flushed at the compliment. But she shook her head, denying it.

But Parker realized his mother was right. Sharon’s beauty came from the inside out. If he was alone with her, he might be the one in trouble. But as his brothers had already learned, there was no arguing with his mother. Amid a shower of birdseed and glittering confetti, she ushered them out the doors to the front steps of the church.

Parker kept close to Sharon—not just because he was so drawn to her, but because he had already nearly been shot on these very steps. Logan had thought that those shots had been intended for him, but they had actually been meant to kill Parker.

“We set up a perimeter around the church,” Logan said. “Nobody could get near it. You’re safe here.”

“Maybe we should stay,” Sharon murmured, turning back toward the baby clutched in his mother’s arms. She started reaching back, but Parker clasped her hand in his and led her down the stairs. A car waited for them at the curb—someone had attached cans to the back bumper along with a sign that read Just Married.

Nikki stepped forward and pressed the keys into Parker’s hand. “It’s safe,” she assured him. “Cujo and I checked it out thoroughly.”

He pointed toward the cans and the sign. “I see that....”

She grinned and then reached up and kissed his cheek. “Be safe....”

She turned toward Sharon and kissed her cheek, as well. “Be careful....”

Parker helped his bride inside the car, making sure her dress was all in before he closed the door. Then as he ran around the front of the car to the driver’s side, more birdseed and confetti struck him—stinging his face. He laughed and ducked and slid behind the wheel. As he shut the door, more birdseed hit the window.

But his laughter died and his hand stilled as he slid the key into the ignition. Nikki had checked out the car, and he trusted her. But he wasn’t just trusting her with his life; he was also trusting her with the life of his new bride.

“It’s okay,” Sharon said. And she put her hand over his and turned the key.

The motor sputtered and then turned over, revving as he gave it gas. He uttered a sigh of relief. His family had kept them safe. He waved at them as he pulled away from the curb. To keep other cars away from the church, a big truck blocked the end of the street. It pulled forward as he neared, and Candace waved from the driver’s seat. Payne Protection had surrounded the perimeter. But once he passed her truck, he was on his own. He would have to make sure that they were not tailed. He wasn’t bringing Sharon back to the condo, though. He had found another place—a place nobody else knew about.

So he had to make extra certain that they weren’t followed. He had to stay focused on the mirrors, watching for cars. But his bride kept drawing his attention to the passenger’s seat. She was quiet, probably because she was scared. Maybe she didn’t trust him to protect her alone. Or maybe she was upset about leaving Ethan with his mother.

It was when he turned to assure her that everything was all right that he saw the black SUV. It wasn’t behind them. It was coming right at them—blowing through a stop sign to slam into the passenger’s side—into Sharon. The big SUV struck with such force that glass shattered and metal crunched and then the car spun, turning over and over—scattering those cans tied to the back of it across the road. Glass struck his face and metal smashed against his arm and his head. He fought to stay conscious.

But Sharon was not. Her eyes were closed and blood streaked down from a cut on her head. Was she unconscious or dead?

Glass crunched beneath shoes as someone rushed toward the car. He didn’t believe it was someone coming to his aid—it was someone coming to make sure he could collect that reward for a double murder.

Parker reached for his gun, but the seat belt, which held him in as the car landed upside down, was now also holding down his jacket so he couldn’t get to his holster. He had no way of defending himself and Sharon.

He may not have wanted to get married, but now that he had, he damn well wanted it to last more than a few short hours. And the whole purpose of marrying had been to protect his bride, not to get her killed. But it was probably already too late for him to save her.

Now he couldn’t save himself, either.

Chapter Twelve

Gunshots blasted, rousing Sharon from unconsciousness. The windshield now lay in pieces that were scattered on the pavement beneath the upside-down car. She sucked in a quick breath of panic. The car had turned over—and over—glass and air bags exploding while metal crunched.

Ethan!
Had his child seat protected him?

No, no...

Ethan hadn’t been with them. Mrs. Payne had kept him for their
honeymoon.
How had she forgotten?

She must have hit her head. She lifted her fingers to it now and they came away sticky and stained with her blood. But the cut was the least of her concerns with someone shooting....

She had hesitated to turn toward Parker, terrified that he hadn’t survived the accident. But she turned now, as more shots rang out, and she realized that he was the one shooting. That he had drawn his weapon from his torn jacket, and, bleeding and pinned in the car, he was defending them.

“You’re awake,” he said with a ragged sigh of relief. But then he asked, “Are you all right?”

She replied with honesty. “I don’t know....”

“If you can move, you have to get out of your seat belt,” he said. “We have to get out of here.”

“How many are they?” she asked. She wasn’t naive enough to believe the SUV hitting them had been an accident—it had been another attempt on their lives. And since the accident hadn’t killed them...

So many gunshots rang out, ricocheting off the exposed undercarriage of Parker’s vehicle. Maybe it had been a blessing that they had landed upside down because it was harder for the men to fire bullets inside the vehicle.

Before Parker answered her question, he fired again, and a man’s body, dressed all in black, dropped to the pavement in front of the car. He joined another darkly clothed man already lying there in a pool of blood.

A scream burned in her throat, making her eyes water. But she held it in and tamped down the fear that threatened to overwhelm her. She had to be strong now.

So she steadied her trembling hands and reached for the seat belt. But the car door had crumpled against it despite the side air bag that had opened on her seat. If not for the air bag, she would have undoubtedly been crushed. She had to push her hand between the now deflated air bag and the jagged metal—wincing as the metal scraped her skin—before she found the mechanism and released her belt.

She dropped onto the roof of the car—which was littered with glass and blood. Whose blood? Just hers or Parker’s, too?

Like her, she noticed, he had a cut on his head. But he must not have lost consciousness as she had, or they would have already been dead.

“My seat belt is stuck,” Parker said. “You need to cut me loose.”

Fear and helplessness overwhelmed her again. “How?”

“I have a knife in my jacket pocket,” he said. “Can you reach it?”

She slid her hand inside his torn jacket. And as she did, he fired again. She flinched against the earsplitting noise. That was probably why he hadn’t wanted to fight with the belt himself—he was too busy defending her. So she found the knife. And careful to not slice him with the blade, she hacked at the belt until it shredded and tore and finally freed her groom.

With a grunt, he dropped to the roof of the car with her. Because there wasn’t much room in the crumpled space, their bodies touched everywhere. She waited for a rush of pain from all of her bumps and bruises and cuts, but she felt nothing but the heat of his body and the reassuring protection of his presence. With him—with her husband—she felt safe, no matter how much danger they faced.

“We have to get out of here,” he said again. “But we have to be careful. We don’t know how many are left....”

Left? Two of them already lay on the ground in front of the car. Were they dead or just hurt?

She didn’t let herself care about their conditions. These were men who killed for money, who didn’t care that they would leave a child alone in the world just as she had been left alone.

“Stick close to me,” he ordered her as he crawled through the shattered windshield.

She moved to follow him, but the glass left in the frame caught the lace on her wedding gown—trapping her inside the wreckage. She couldn’t follow him. And he wouldn’t leave without her.

More shots rang out. Would Parker die defending her?

* * *

“J
UST
TEAR
IT
,”
Parker yelled at her, as he kicked away the weapons of the men lying on the ground. Their cartridges were spent or he would have grabbed them to replace his gun. He was about to run out of ammunition. He was down to his last clip, and when that was empty, they would be helpless to defend themselves.

“I can’t rip it,” she protested as if horrified. “It’s your mother’s dress.”

The dress his mother had worn when she’d married his father. It should mean something to Parker, but he didn’t care about it as Sharon seemed to. He cared only about Sharon.

But then she was sliding onto the pavement with him. She had freed herself the same way she’d freed him. She had been knocked out. She was bleeding. But she’d rallied.

How had he ever thought that she was fragile? She was definitely the strongest woman he’d ever known—and he had known some damn strong women. He tugged her down beside him, where he crouched behind the wreckage of the SUV that had struck her side of his car. Three armed men had climbed out of the wreckage and he’d dealt with them.

Regret flashed through him that he had taken lives. But the men had left him no choice. They would have killed him and Sharon if he hadn’t killed them first. Ideally, he would have rather taken them alive, but he’d been trapped in his seat in an upside-down car. He wouldn’t have been able to fight them, to overpower them—especially when he’d been outnumbered. Even now, he had no idea if there were more....

Then he noticed something. Their driver’s head had gone through the windshield. He stared down at him, his eyes open but unseeing. He hadn’t survived the crash like Parker and Sharon had.

“I didn’t rip the dress,” she murmured, as if he cared about the damn dress. “But I think I’m bleeding on it....” Her voice cracked with regret and fear...and probably the horrific memory of her mother’s murder.

“Are you hurt?” he asked. When he’d asked her earlier, she hadn’t known. He could understand that because he had no idea if he was hurt, either—if any of the shots fired at him had even struck him. Adrenaline rushed so quickly through his veins, it was all he could feel besides the concern for her safety.

“I don’t think anything’s broken,” she said. “What about you? Are you hurt?”

He shrugged and winced as pain radiated from his shoulder to his neck. He probably had whiplash from the car flipping over, but it was the least of his worries now.

He heard footsteps—a lot of footsteps running on asphalt. More than one person was coming. Had there been another car of assassins following this car?

And his ammo was running low. He had lost at least one clip when he’d ripped his jacket to free his holster. The shells had dropped onto the roof and rolled away. He was going to run out of bullets. “Sharon, you said nothing’s broken?”

“It doesn’t feel like it,” she said.

Which didn’t offer him much reassurance. But she was a survivor. She wouldn’t have survived twenty years ago if she hadn’t been smart, and she wouldn’t have survived all these recent attempts on her life if she wasn’t resourceful.

“I want you to run,” he ordered her.

“Where?”

“Toward the houses, through the yards—find an unlocked shed or a garage or basement—someplace to hide.” Like her mother had hidden her all those years ago. He hated that he kept bringing up those tragic memories for her.

But she wasn’t worried about herself because her only question was “What about you?”

“I’m going to cover you,” he said. “And then I’ll come find you.” Unless he ran out of bullets before the assassins did....

But then someone from his family would find her. They would protect her as he wished he could. But he could only watch as she ran through the gathering darkness as night finally fell. But the darkness was no protection for her as her white dress glowed like a beacon, drawing all attention to her presence and the direction she had taken between the houses.

It was more likely that one of the assassins would follow her, that he would find her before she even had a chance to hide.

Damn it...

The sound of the footsteps, growing louder as the people came closer, drew his attention back to the street. He clutched his gun and raised the barrel and hoped like hell he had enough bullets left.

* * *

H
ER
LUNGS
BURNED
as Sharon ran, and the skirt of the wedding gown tangled around her legs, nearly tripping her. Gravel stung the soles of her bare feet. She must have lost her shoes in the car—probably when she’d been hanging upside down. But she didn’t dare stop as gunfire rang out again behind her. Should she go back and make sure that Parker was all right? Or would her presence only distract him?

He had defended them earlier. He had to be able to continue to defend himself. And then he would come for her once it was safe.

So she had to hide. She had to find a place where she would be safe until he came. He would be furious if she didn’t, just like her mother would have been had Sharon come out of the cupboard where she had hidden her all those years ago.

Parker was a protector like her mother had been. She had worried more about Sharon’s safety than her own. Parker was the same way; that was why he had stayed behind despite undoubtedly being outnumbered. And that was why he had told Sharon to hide.

She stopped running, but her bare feet slipped on the grass and she skidded across the lawn of someone’s backyard. At least she assumed it was a backyard. It was so dark that she couldn’t see much—and this house was dark, too. Nobody was home, or if they were home, they weren’t awake anymore.

How late was it?

She could have tried the house, could have seen if one of the doors opened. But she didn’t dare risk waking someone—someone who might be as armed as the assassins who’d just tried to kill her and Parker.

Instead, she continued through the backyard, tripping over flagstones and garden statues. And because they had such a garden, she wasn’t surprised to see another shadow in the backyard—that of a shed.

She fumbled around in the dark, searching for the door with her hands. But all she found were the wooden walls, and jagged splinters dug deep into her palms. She winced, but that pain was nothing compared to her fear.

She wasn’t afraid for herself; she was afraid for Parker. The gunfire had stopped. She hadn’t run so far that she wouldn’t still hear it if they were shooting.

What did that mean?

That he was already gone?

Pain and loss filled her, pressing down heavily on her chest so that she could hardly breathe—so that her heart could barely beat.

Her hands skimmed across trim. She had found the door. But she had to fumble around even more to find the knob. Her fingers jammed against the metal handle. She tugged on it; the door rattled but didn’t budge.

Another clank echoed in the eerie silence. And she found the padlock holding it closed on the top of the door. The lock refused to budge, too, but the little hook through which the lock slid was loose. She dug a fingernail into the head of one of the screws and turned it. It was so stripped that it fell to the ground. Then she tore the hook from the wood and pulled open the door.

She hurried inside the shed, but not to hide. She wasn’t going to cower and hide again. She had already done that too often in her life. This time she was going to fight. Finally. So she fumbled around in the windowless shed until she found something to use to protect herself.

And when she heard the footsteps coming toward her, she didn’t wait for the person to shoot at her or grab her. Like swinging a bat at a ball, she swung the shovel out, hoping to make contact. Even with the shovel, she couldn’t overpower a man. However, maybe she could knock him out.

But she missed.

The handle was caught, grabbed in a strong fist and wrenched from her hands, leaving her with no weapon. No defense.

This man was undoubtedly armed like the others had been. So, really, what defense was a shovel against a gun?

BOOK: Bridegroom Bodyguard
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