Bridegroom Bodyguard (17 page)

Chapter Twenty

Parker had a tight knot of fear and dread in his gut and he didn’t know why. It was all over. Even the judge had known it was over and had confessed everything, as if that might make amends for all the evil he had done, for all the innocent lives that had been lost because of him.

Parker pushed open the door to the house where he had grown up, and that knot eased slightly when the little boy in his mother’s arms smiled at him as if he knew him, as if he was beginning to love him as much as Parker already loved him.

Parker stepped closer, and the little boy reached out for him. Long strands of caramel-colored hair dangled from his pudgy fingers. And that knot eased even more. “Sharon’s here?”

He took the little boy from his mother, welcoming his slight weight and his warmth. Ethan smelled like sunshine and rain, like Sharon.

His mother shook her head. “She’s gone....”

She said it with a finality that had that knot tightening in his gut again.

“Where? How?” She had no car, no place left to go. “Did Nikki take her somewhere?” he asked since his sister’s car wasn’t parked in the driveway.

Mom sighed. “No. Nikki left first....”

He heard the distress in his mother’s voice, and cradling his son with one arm, he slid his other one around her shoulders. “She’s not upset with you.”

“I’m not so sure about that,” she replied, her voice cracking with emotion.

“It’s not your fault....” That their father had an illegitimate son. “It was his.”

“Is it your fault that Sharon left?” she asked him. “Because I can’t believe that she would leave....”

“She’s really gone?” he asked. That knot tightened so much that he couldn’t draw a deep breath. He shook his head. “She wouldn’t leave Ethan.”

She loved that little boy so much. She had also said that she loved
him.
But he hadn’t said the words back to her. It was his fault.

“She thinks he doesn’t need her because he has us,” Mrs. Payne replied. She shook her head as if she found the idea as ridiculous as he did.

“That’s crazy,” Parker replied. “He loves her like she’s his mother.”

As if in agreement, the little boy shook his fist full of those strands of hair. Parker could not blame his son for wanting to hang on to her. Sharon Wells Payne was an amazing woman—a strong, loving woman.

“Do you love her?” Mrs. Payne asked.

Parker shook his head.

“You don’t?” she asked, her voice full of shock as her eyes widened.

“It doesn’t matter what I feel for her,” he explained. “She’ll be better off without me.”

“Why would you say that?” she asked. “The danger is past, right? The judge has been arrested?”

“Yes.” Thanks to Nicholas Rus. “He’ll go away for the rest of his life, at least.” He would be serving time with criminals. But the only ones of them that he had put behind bars would have been the ones unable to afford his bribes. Parker couldn’t imagine they would be very happy or forgiving.

His mother’s usually smooth brow furrowed with confusion. “Then why in the world would you think she would be better off without you?”

“Do you know why I never intended to get married and have kids?” he asked her.

She nodded. “Because of how we lost your father...” She gently touched his cheek. “You always acted the silliest of all the kids, but I think that’s because the loss of your father affected you the most.”

“It affected
you
the most,” he said. “And I didn’t want to do that to my wife. I didn’t want to leave someone behind to mourn me like you did Dad.” And now, knowing what he did, he was surprised that she had. He was surprised that she had been able to forgive him at all.

“That’s crazy,” his mother said, dismissing his fears as easily as she had when he’d been a kid afraid of the boogeyman in his closet.

“You don’t know that anything will happen to you,” she said. “You could live to be an old man.”

Like his father should have....

He shrugged. “No, but the protection business is about protecting other people, not ourselves.”

“The past two weeks you have been in more danger than you ever were on the police force or as a bodyguard,” she pointed out with a shiver of residual fear. “You had a price on your head.”

“A big price,” he admitted with a shiver of his own. Garek and Milek had promised to get out the word that there was no way anyone could collect that reward with the judge in jail for the rest of his life.

“And you survived these past few weeks,” she pointed out. “You’re a survivor. We all are....”

He nodded in agreement. She was right. Cooper had survived a few deployments to war-torn countries. Logan and he had both survived numerous attempts on their lives.

“But dying is not the only way I might hurt my wife,” he said.

Her hand stilled on his cheek. “What do you mean?”

“Of all of us kids, I’m the most like Dad.” He reminded her of what she had always told him. Now he finally understood why she had thought that. “I’m a playboy. I’m not husband or father material.”

But his arm tightened around his son. He
wanted
to be, for Ethan and for Sharon.

“Sharon will be better off without me.” Because she had fallen for him, just as he had feared she would, he could hurt her so badly...like his father must have hurt his mother.

Her hand moved again and softly struck his cheek. “You’re an idiot.”

“Just another way I’m like Dad,” he bitterly remarked. “I can’t believe he cheated on you.” And that she must have forgiven and taken him back since Nikki was younger than the federal agent.

Her breath shuddered out in a shaky sigh. “He regretted that so much. It happened when he was undercover. He had gotten so caught up in the assignment. And he was in so much danger. He and Carla both were. If he hadn’t acted his part completely...”

Parker nodded in sudden understanding. “He could have given himself away.”

“He told me right away.” She shuddered. “I was already pregnant with Cooper. And I loved him so much....”

“So you forgave him?”

“On one condition,” she said. Her voice cracked as if that condition had cost her.

He lifted a brow and waited.

“That he would never go undercover again,” she said. “He went back to being a uniformed officer. And that’s what killed him. My one condition...”

“Mom...”

“If he hadn’t been in uniform, he wouldn’t have had a partner—the partner who betrayed him.” Tears streamed down her face. “It’s all my fault.”

He tightened his arm around her. She must have spent the past fifteen years blaming herself for her husband’s death. No wonder she had mourned him so much. “Mom, it’s not your fault. None of what happened was your fault. Not his cheating and not his death.”

She leaned against his side, and her tears wetted his shirt. “When I told you that you were the most like your father,” she said, “I meant that you are protective and loving. I forgave him for what happened, but he never forgave himself. He spent the rest of his life making it up to me and loving me. He was the best husband and father, and you will be, too, Parker.”

“But what if I...?” He couldn’t even say it; he would never even consider cheating on Sharon. He loved her too much to ever want another woman.

His mother must have seen it dawn on him because she smiled. “Go find your bride,” she urged him.

But he didn’t know where to look for her. She had no car. No house. No job. She had nothing to keep her in River City...but him and their son.

He passed Ethan back to his grandmother and kissed the boy’s forehead. “I’m going to go find your mama,” he said. “And bring her home, where she belongs.”

With their family...

* * *

S
HARON
HAD
SPENT
most of her life alone, so she didn’t know why it felt so strange to her now. She didn’t know why her new apartment was so quiet and empty....

She had once appreciated silence in order to study. But she didn’t care to study now. She had no intention of trying to pass the bar again. She had only studied law in order to please her grandfather, but she should have known there would have been no pleasing him—even when he’d been alive. There was definitely no pleasing him now.

But she couldn’t please herself, either...or she would be back with Ethan. She would be holding her little man. But she would also be begging Parker for his love. And she had begged for love for too much of her life. She wanted it given freely to her.

She dropped one of the pillows she had bought onto the couch and stepped back. The orange looked good against the chocolate suede. Maybe she could become a decorator.

But it didn’t matter what she did to the apartment; it would never be a home like Mrs. Payne had made for her family. But Sharon didn’t have a family....

She glanced down at the ring on her finger, the ring Parker Payne had slid there when they had said their vows. She needed to take off the gold band. It wasn’t as if their marriage was real....

That was why she hadn’t contacted a lawyer yet to start divorce proceedings. She doubted anything Judge Munson had signed would prove legal. Of course, it had been only a couple of days since she had kissed Ethan goodbye. A couple of days that she had filled with finding an apartment and buying a car and clothes. She’d intended to stay so busy that she didn’t miss the little boy or his father.

But it hadn’t worked. They were both forever on her mind. She grabbed the pillow and wrapped her arms around it. But it wasn’t warm and squirmy like her little man. Or hard and hot like her big man...

They weren’t hers, though. They had never really been hers.

Tears stung her eyes, but she blinked them back. Then she breathed a sigh of relief when the doorbell rang. Whatever delivery had come was certain to distract her from her self-pity. But when she opened the door, the reason for all of her pain stood on her doorstep.

He looked so handsome—even with dark circles beneath his blue eyes and his black hair tousled as if he’d been running his hands through it. He also looked angry. And his words confirmed it. “I am so damn mad at you.”

“Why?” she asked, stepping back as he pushed his way inside her apartment.

He slammed the door behind himself and followed her, backing her up until she ran into the new sofa. “I thought you loved Ethan.”

Tears stung her eyes again. “I do. Of course I do. Is he all right?”

“No,” he said.

And panic struck her heart. She had thought the little boy would be safe and happy with his family. “What’s wrong? What’s happened to him?”

“He misses you,” Parker said.

She closed her eyes to hold in her tears. She missed him, too—so very much. “He’s so young,” she pointed out. “He’ll soon forget all about me.”

“What about me?” he asked with such forlornness that she opened her eyes and stared up into his face.

He was so handsome that it wasn’t fair. How could she have not fallen in love with him? She wasn’t as weak as everyone always thought her, but she wasn’t strong enough to resist a man like him.

“What about you?” she asked, unable to understand his question.

“I miss you, too,” he said.

“You’ll forget me, too,” she assured him. She was actually surprised that he hadn’t already. That he hadn’t already moved on to the next woman—one far more beautiful and carefree than his bride.

He shook his head. “I’ve been going crazy trying to find you. I was worried that you had left town, maybe even the state.”

“Agent Rus told me that I might need to testify at the judge’s sentencing hearing.” She had gone down to the department to give her statement. Seeing the agent looking so much like Parker had been hard. But she’d wanted to do the right thing. Had the agent? “Did Rus tell you where to find me?”

Parker cracked his knuckles. “With a little coercion...”

“You didn’t fight with him, did you?” Not over her. They needed to build a relationship, not destroy the tenuous bond they’d formed over the judge’s arrest.

He sighed. “That pain in the neck loved it, loved to see me beg.”

“You begged?” she asked. And now she was totally confused. First by his anger and now by the look in his eyes. They were so intense, so focused on her.

“Are you going to make me beg, too?”

“For what?” If he wanted her, she was powerless to resist him. Since she had opened the door to find him on her doorstep, her pulse had been racing. And her skin was hot and tingling just from the touch of his gaze....

His eyes were such a bright blue—like his son’s. She had always been a sucker for those eyes.

“For you,” he said. “For another chance...”

“Another chance?” She hadn’t realized they had ever had one.

He stepped closer to her, so that his body brushed against hers. “Tell me you love me again.”

Now her skin heated with the flush of embarrassment, and she shook her head.

“So you only told me that because you thought you were going to die?” he asked, his voice gruff with disappointment. “Not because you really have any feelings for me?”

“What does it matter now?” she asked. He didn’t return her feelings.

“I thought you were only saying them because you thought you were going to die,” he said. “And I was sorry that I couldn’t let you know that I hadn’t come alone, that Logan and Cooper were waiting for their chance to come to our rescue.”

She didn’t know what to say. Should she admit that fear had had nothing to do with her admission? That she really loved him? But if he had come to her only out of pity...

He continued, “But then Logan and Cooper didn’t come in....” And he shuddered as he must have recalled those horrible moments they’d believed they were dead.

“Your other brother came to the rescue,” she reminded him.

He flinched as she said it, so she lifted her hand and touched his chest, her palm over his heart. It pounded hard and fast as if he was in danger.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “Sorry that you didn’t know about him.”

He shrugged. “Nicholas Rus is a Payne—whether he wants to be one or not.”

So there were other issues with the federal agent. But Parker shrugged and focused on her again with that intense gaze.