GROOM UNDER FIRE (7 page)

Chapter Seven

“Damn it,” was the least offensive of Cooper’s curses as he ducked. The bullet tunneled into the woodwork near his shoulder.

And Tanya screamed and dropped the gun.

Instead of ducking again, Cooper launched himself at her—knocking her back onto the bed in case the gun fired another round when it hit the ground. But it only spun across the threadbare carpet like a bottle at a game of spin the bottle. It stopped with the barrel pointing at them.

Cooper cursed again because he was tempted to kiss her—especially when she cupped his face in her hands and stared up at him as if she wanted his kiss, too.

“You’re alive,” she murmured.

“No thanks to you,” he reminded them both. “I guess Logan was right when he said I needed protecting from you.” He’d known she was lying when she said she wouldn’t hurt him. He’d had no doubt she would hurt him—just as she had when they were kids and she’d so readily agreed with him that they were just friends. “I didn’t think
you
would shoot me, though.”

Tears sprang to her eyes, brightening the already vivid green. Her hands dropped from his face to the bed where she grasped the sheets. “I’m sorry! I’m so sorry! I thought you were someone else...”

“My brother? I was tempted to shoot him myself when I realized he’d left you alone.” Since the guard Logan had stationed outside had fallen asleep in a car parked in the lot, he had essentially left her all alone.

“I shouldn’t have fired the gun until I saw who it was,” she said. “But your brother told me to shoot anyone who came through the door without announcing himself.”

“And announcing myself in Afghanistan would have gotten me killed for sure,” Cooper mused. “But I’m beginning to think I was safer there—I actually may have gotten shot at less.”

She shuddered. “Logan was right? He heard shots on the phone?”

Cooper nodded.

“Outside Stephen’s condo?”

Cooper nodded again. “Just as we were leaving the complex, someone started shooting. Neither of us got hit. They may have only been firing to scare us.”

“To scare
you,
” she said, “so you won’t marry me.”

“Don’t worry,” he assured her. “I don’t scare easily.”

“That’s not good,” she said. “Because if he can’t scare you off, he’ll try to kill you.”

The way
he
had her.

“That’s why I have to call off the wedding—to keep you alive,” she said.

“What about a ransom demand on Stephen? You won’t be able to meet it if you don’t marry.”

Her hips arching into his, she wriggled beneath him until she slid out from under him. Then she grabbed up the phone and charger and plugged it into another outlet. “No missed calls,” she said with a sigh of relief. Then her brow furrowed. “No ransom call...”

“We don’t know that there won’t be one,” Cooper pointed out.

“Wouldn’t it have been made already?” she asked anxiously. “Why would they wait?”

He shrugged. “To see if you actually can get the money together.”

“But if they don’t want money to give Stephen back, we’ll have gotten married for nothing.”

His pride stung—at least that was all he hoped it was—that she obviously did not want to marry him. But then, Cooper hadn’t wanted to marry her either. “We can fix that then.”

“An annulment,” she said with a sigh of relief. “I was going to tell you that you don’t have to worry that I’ll think this is permanent. As soon as I get my inheritance, we’ll get divorced. But an annulment is better...”

Because with an annulment, it would be as if they had never been married. But the only way an annulment could be granted quickly was if the marriage was never consummated. He ignored the flash of disappointment he felt; he’d known this wasn’t going to be a real marriage.

He wasn’t the real groom. Stephen was. Cooper was just the stand-in groom. Stephen was the man she loved; she’d told him herself. Cooper was...just the man she’d nearly shot.

“Fine,” he agreed just as readily as she had agreed that they were just friends all those years ago. “We’ll get an annulment. But first we have to get married.”

She shivered as if the prospect terrified her. “I don’t want to put you in danger, though.”

And he realized she was terrified for
him.
He reached out for her hand and then tugged her back down onto the bed next to him. “You’re not putting me in danger.”

She shook her head. “By marrying you, I am.”

“You’re not the one trying to shoot me,” he said. “Well, at least not until just now.”

“I’m really, really sorry,” she apologized again, her beautiful face tense with regret and fear. “I never should have taken the gun from your brother.”

Anger surged through Cooper again. “He never should have left you alone.”

Logan was the boss, but Cooper wouldn’t let bad decisions like that go unchallenged—professionally or personally.

“He was worried about you and Parker when he heard the shots,” she defended. “I was worried, too.” She entwined her fingers with his. “I don’t want anything to happen to you.”

She probably only said that because of their past friendship—because they had once been so close. But they hadn’t been for years. She’d written letters after he left, but he hadn’t replied to hers. He hadn’t wanted to think about her moving on with her life when he had just moved.

“I survived three deployments,” he reminded her. “I’ll be fine.” And he intended to make sure that she would be, too.

She lifted her other hand to his face and skimmed her fingers along his jaw. Her fingers trembled. “I don’t want anything to happen to you...”

His heart lurched. Could she actually care about him?

“Your family worried so much when you were gone,” she said. “If something happened to you now...”

“It won’t.” Because he wasn’t going to risk his heart on her again. She was more concerned about his family than she was him.

She nodded. “Okay, then, if you’re certain you’ll be safe, I’ll marry you.”

He wouldn’t be safe—not even with his resolve to not risk his heart on her. She was so damn beautiful that he doubted he would be able to control his attraction to her. Even now he was so tempted to lean forward, to close the distance between them and press his lips to hers.

But then she was the one arching up and forward and closing the distance between them. “Thank you,” she murmured.

Maybe she meant to kiss his cheek.

She probably meant to kiss his cheek.

But Cooper turned his head, and her mouth met his. It should have been just a quick peck then. But she gasped and the kiss deepened. Cooper couldn’t help himself—he dipped his tongue between her parted lips and tasted her.

She was even sweeter than he remembered.

Her fingers clasped his face and she kissed him back, her tongue flicking across his. Touching. Teasing...

They weren’t teenagers anymore. A kiss wasn’t just a kiss. They knew where it could lead, and they were sitting on a bed. Cooper fought for control and pulled back, just as Tanya did the same.

Her face flushed and eyes widened, she panted for breath. She moved her lips, but no words formed. Obviously she didn’t have any idea what to say either.

Cooper glanced down to where the gun barrel pointed at them like that spin-the-bottle. But that wasn’t why she’d kissed him. She had obviously only meant to kiss his cheek—probably out of gratitude.

But Cooper was less concerned about why she’d kissed him than he was about why he’d kissed her. He knew she loved another man—a man who had always been a good friend to him, even when Cooper had physically and emotionally let distance grow between them. Kissing the man’s fiancée was an act of betrayal.

Unless...

No, he had no proof. Not yet. He had no reason for his suspicions. Except maybe he wanted to think the worst so that he wouldn’t feel so damn guilty.

Shaking his head, he murmured, “That didn’t happen.”

Her eyes still wide, she nodded in agreement.

“I wasn’t even here,” he said.

“What?”

“If my mother asks, you didn’t see me last night or this morning...”

Her lips curved into a slight smile. “Her wedding traditions?”

“Superstitions,” he corrected her. “We are not to see each other until...”

Light streaked through the blinds at the hotel room window. It was his wedding day.

“Until we meet again at the church,” she finished for him.

“Try to get some sleep,” he suggested.

“What about you?”

He shrugged. After that kiss? He doubted he would be able to close his eyes without imagining where that kiss could have led, without anticipating a honeymoon that would never happen, thanks to her wanting an annulment. “I don’t need much sleep anymore.”

“Even after today?” she asked, her thick lashes blinking as she struggled against exhaustion to keep her eyes open.

He’d had longer, more dangerous days. He gently pushed her back until she lay down on the bed. Then he pulled the blanket over her, as exhaustion overwhelmed her and she fell asleep. He needed to stand up, needed to step away from the bed before he was tempted to crawl into it with her and hold her. But he couldn’t stop staring at her beautiful face. It had been so long since he’d seen her. And tonight he’d nearly lost her—twice.

But then he sighed as he remembered that she wasn’t his to lose. A shadow fell across the floor, and he reached for his weapon.

“I thought you didn’t want to come to their wedding because you didn’t care anymore,” Logan remarked from the doorway. “But that’s not the case at all. You didn’t want to come because you care too much.”

He pulled his hand away from his holster and replied to his brother, “She and Stephen were my best friends in high school. They helped me through losing Dad.”

“She’s more than a friend to you.”

He shook his head in denial, but still he couldn’t stop staring at her. “No.”

“Maybe I’m wrong,” Logan said, but his tone indicated he thought otherwise. “But she was right. You should get some sleep.”

“I need to make sure she stays safe.”

“I’ll do that,” Logan said.

When Cooper turned toward him, his older brother lifted his hands as if to ward off an attack. “I won’t leave her again even if you’re begging me for help.”

“I won’t...” If he wound up begging, it wouldn’t be for Logan.

“Take my help tonight,” Logan said, “because you’re going to be primary protection for her at the wedding and after...”

On that honeymoon. But they wouldn’t get to that if they didn’t survive the wedding. Someone was so determined to stop that, judging from the recent shooting attempts, he or she didn’t seem to care who died—the bride or the groom.

* * *

H
OURS
HAD
PASSED
, but Tanya’s lips still tingled from that kiss. What had she been thinking to kiss Cooper Payne?

He wasn’t the teenage boy with whom she had once been friends. He was a man now, and his kiss had proven that. But then, even as a boy, he’d kissed like a man.

She released a shaky breath.

“It’s going to be okay,” Mrs. Payne promised as she opened the bride’s dressing room door and ushered Tanya inside. Sunshine bathed the room, setting its soft pink walls and white wainscoting aglow.

And Tanya nearly believed her. She had always had so much admiration for Mrs. Payne. Tanya’s mother had wallowed in self-pity after her husband chose money over a life with her and her daughters. But Cooper’s mother had lost the love of her life through a horrible tragedy and yet she had put aside her own anguish and heartbreak to be the rock her children had needed her to be.

Tanya had leaned on her all those years ago herself. And she leaned on her now, giving her a big hug. “Thank you for everything you’ve done.”

Mrs. Payne patted her back. “You’re like one of my own, sweetheart. I would do anything for you.”

That was the kind of mother Tanya hoped to be someday. But when would that day be? She had to live through this wedding and subsequent annulment to have hope of ever having another wedding—a real one.

“I’m so sorry that I’m putting your family in danger,” Tanya continued. The Paynes had already been through too much tragedy. She hoped she wouldn’t bring another one upon them.

“You are not responsible for any of this, Tanya.” Mrs. Payne chuckled. “And, honey, my boys have been putting themselves in danger since the day they were each born. Climbing trees too high. Riding bikes too fast. Then joining the police force and the Marines.” She shook her head and sighed.

When Cooper had joined the service after high school, Tanya had been almost relieved that they had never taken their relationship beyond friendship. She would have been so worried about him, so devastated if anything happened to him...

“Isn’t that hard on you?” Tanya asked. “After what happened...”

“To their father?” Mrs. Payne uttered another sigh, a wistful one, and her face softened—the faint lines she had entirely disappearing so that she looked like the young girl she must have been when she fell in love with Mr. Payne. “Having them act so much like their father has kept him alive for me—and probably for them.”

“But they put their lives at risk...”

Mrs. Payne let out an indelicate snort. “Living puts our lives at risk—driving a car, taking a bus, going to the mall or a movie...bad things happen everywhere. Not just Afghanistan. Cooper survived that—he can survive anything.”

Tanya wasn’t as confident of that as his mother.

The older woman gave her a slight nudge toward the garment bag hanging from the hook on the wall. “Start getting dressed, honey. Your sister and Nikki are on their way.”

“Rochelle?” She tensed with shock and concern. “She’s still going to stand up there with me?”

“She’s your sister. Family sticks together.”

The Payne family definitely did, but not the Chesterfield family. Money had always divided them and probably always would.

Knuckles wrapped against the door. “That better not be Cooper. I told him to stay away from you until the wedding.” She opened the door to Tanya’s grandfather’s lawyer.

“I’m sorry to interrupt,” Mr. Gregory said. “But I really need a word with Ms. Chesterfield.”