Читать книгу: «Beauty And The Bodyguard»

Chapter 1

Gage Huxton had survived six months in hell for this? Since becoming a bodyguard on his return from Afghanistan, his assignments had been a mixed bag. His first job with the Payne Protection Agency had been to protect an elderly lady with Alzheimer’s, who had only been in danger from her disease and not her imagined threats.

But then he had also been assigned to follow the man who was now his brother-in-law. That job had nearly gotten Gage killed. But he had survived being shot at and nearly run down.

He wasn’t sure he would survive this: wedding duty. He slid a finger between the bow tie and his skin, trying to loosen the stranglehold it had on him. An image flashed through his mind, of a noose tightening around his neck, squeezing off his oxygen until oblivion claimed him. But, unfortunately, oblivion had never lasted. He grimaced as he remembered other horrors.

“Are you okay?” a soft voice asked him.

He blinked away those horrific images and focused on Penny Payne. She sprang up from her chair and walked around her desk in the office in the basement of her white wedding chapel. It was in River City, Michigan—where his friend Nick had moved and where Gage now lived.

Not wanting to worry her, he jerked his chin up and down in a quick nod.

Her brown eyes warm with affection and concern, she stared up at him. “You look very handsome in the tuxedo.”

He probably should have shaved the scruff from his jaw so he’d fit in more with the wedding guests when they arrived. But he hadn’t had the time or the inclination. “I must be crazy,” he said.

“Why’s that?” she asked, and now there was a twinkle of amusement in her eyes.

“To let you talk me into playing a bouncer for your wedding business.” Penny was his boss’s mother, so he probably hadn’t had much choice. But it hadn’t been any easier for him to tell her no than it probably would have been for her son.

She reached up, and he reacted as he did whenever someone moved to touch him. He flinched. Sympathy dimmed the usual brightness of her smile. “Gage…”

Instead of pulling back as so many other people did, she gently laid her palm against his cheek. “I’m sorry,” she murmured.

He shook his head and dislodged her hand. “I don’t want pity,” he said. “I just want to do my job.”

“That’s not what—”

He forced a smile. “It’s okay.” Nobody had known how to react to him since he’d been back. So maybe it was good that not many people knew he’d survived.

“Where do you need me?” he asked. “Do I need to make sure the bride and groom’s mothers don’t get into a catfight?”

Penny’s smile dimmed more, and she replied, “The bride’s mother passed away years ago.”

“That’s too bad.” He didn’t see his mother often since she and his dad had moved to Alaska, but he could call her anytime. He rarely called, though; he didn’t want to worry her. “So no catfights between the mothers. What about the bridesmaids?”

Penny’s lips curved into a bigger smile. “Why do you sound almost hopeful?”

He chuckled. “Just looking for the upside in this assignment.”

“Cake,” she told him, and she patted his cheek again as if he was a little boy she was promising a treat if he behaved. Her kids were grown now, but she had raised three boys and a tomboy pretty much on her own. So she knew how to handle kids.

He wasn’t a kid, though. He hadn’t been one for a long time—not since he’d joined the Marines at eighteen a decade ago. Then there had been that stint with the FBI. But he didn’t like to think about those days, because then he inevitably thought about her.

The hell he’d endured the past six months was nothing compared to what she had put him through. No. He would rather think about the horrors of his six months in captivity than about Megan Lynch.

He exhaled a ragged breath and shook off all the memories. He had to leave the past in the past—all of it, but most of all Megan.

“So,” he said as he focused again on the present. “You want me to guard the cake?”

Dessert was probably all anyone considered him capable of protecting yet. Why else had he been assigned wedding chapel duty?

Penny shook her head. “Of course not. You have the most important job here.”

He narrowed his eyes and studied her, wondering if she was patronizing him. “And what’s that?”

“Guarding the bride, of course.”

“Guarding her?” He couldn’t imagine what danger she might be in, but then he had no idea who she was. “Or do you mean making sure she doesn’t run?”

He wouldn’t blame her if she did. He would never risk his heart on love again. But then he no longer had a heart to lose. Megan had destroyed it.

Penny sighed. “I almost wish she would…”

“The groom’s a tool?”

She shook her head. “He seems nice.”

So maybe the bride was a bridezilla. “Why does she need protecting?”

“Her father is a very important man,” Penny said, and as she said it, her face flushed.

“Who’s her father?” he asked. And more importantly, why had the fifty-something-year-old widow reacted with a blush at the very thought of him?

“He’s a man who’s made some enemies over the course of his career.”

Gage should have picked up one of the programs from the basket outside the chapel. He’d passed it on his way downstairs to Penny’s office. Then he would know the names of everyone in the wedding party. But he’d wanted to get his assignment before any of the guests arrived.

Now he had it: bridal protection.

“So he thinks some of these adversaries might go after his daughter during her wedding?” The guy had made some seriously ruthless enemies if that was the case.

Penny nodded. “He’s the kind of man who wouldn’t care what someone did to him.” Her face flushed a deeper shade of red.

Who was this guy to her? Apparently, someone she knew well. How well? Just how closely did Penny work with widowed fathers of the brides?

She continued, “But if someone hurt his daughter…”

Gage understood. His best friend, Nicholas Rus, had thought that someone was going after Gage’s sister for vengeance against him—because Nick loved Annalise and she had always loved him. But that hadn’t been about revenge, at least not against Nick or Annalise.

“If this guy has so many enemies,” Gage said, “why am I the only one from the Payne Protection Agency here?” Especially when he knew his boss didn’t trust that he was at a hundred percent yet. But Logan Payne wasn’t the only one who thought that; Gage didn’t entirely trust himself.

He was getting better, but it was still a struggle to sleep, to suppress the flashbacks, to forget the pain…

Penny tilted her head and stared up at him. “You’re the bodyguard the bride needs.”

Gage’s stomach lurched as realization suddenly dawned on him. And even without reading the program, he knew who the bride was. Penny had given him enough clues. He should have figured it out earlier. Hell, he should have figured it out when Penny asked him to help out at the chapel. He’d known she was planning a wedding for someone he’d known. Or at least, he’d thought he’d known her.

He guessed the wedding wasn’t all Penny Payne had been planning. Nick had warned him that she was a meddler. Her kids might not mind that she meddled in their lives, but he damn well minded.

He shook his head. “No…”

“Gage,” she beseeched him.

But he just shook his head again, refusing the assignment. He didn’t care if Mrs. Payne went to his boss and got him fired. He couldn’t protect this bride—not when he was the one against whom she most needed protecting.

“He’s gone,” Penny said.

Woodrow Lynch released a ragged breath and closed her office door behind him. “That’s probably for the best.”

“How can you say that?” Penny asked, her usually soft voice sharp with indignation. “She’s miserable.”

“She’s miserable because of him.” Anger coursed through him as he thought of the pain Gage Huxton had put his daughter through. Some of it had been inadvertent, like getting captured.

But the rest…

Quitting the Bureau.

Reenlisting.

Those had been Gage’s choices.

“Yes.” Penny stalked around her desk to stand in front of him. She was so petite despite the heels she wore with a silky bronze-colored dress. Her eyes were nearly that same color bronze. Her hair, chin length and curly, was a deeper shade of brown with red and bronze highlights. She was beautiful. She was also infuriating as hell. The woman always thought she was right.

And even more infuriating was the fact that she usually was.

“So, it’s for the best that she move on,” Woodrow said.

It had to be for the best, because the wedding was due to start in less than an hour. And he would rather walk his daughter down the aisle to a man who would not make her miserable.

Penny shook her head and tumbled several locks of hair into her eyes. The curls tangled in her long lashes. Instinctively, he reached out to extract them, but her hand collided with his. Her skin was as silky as her hair. Her fingers trembled beneath his, and she pulled away from his touch and stepped back until his hand fell away from her face.

He’d known her long enough—had attended enough weddings in her chapel—that he’d seen how warm and affectionate she was. With everyone else…

With him she was guarded and skittish. Usually. Right now she was also annoyed.

“Megan can’t move on,” Penny said, “unless she has closure.”

“Are you speaking from experience?” He hadn’t meant to ask the question. It had just slipped out, probably because he’d wondered for a while why she had never remarried after her husband died sixteen years before.

Her big eyes narrowed. “We are not talking about me.”

She never did. He’d noticed that, too. She only talked about other people: her kids, his agents and now his daughter.

“Our concern should be only about Megan,” Penny continued. “I’ve never worked with a more miserable bride.”

Now he narrowed his eyes with indignation and pride. “Are you saying that she’s difficult?”

“Of course not,” Penny said. She reached out, almost as if she couldn’t help herself, and touched his arm. She probably only meant to reassure him about his daughter. But then she added, “She’s sad. So sad…”

He shouldn’t have been able to feel Penny’s touch, not through his tuxedo jacket and shirt, but his skin tingled as if he’d felt the heat and silkiness of her skin against his. What the hell was wrong with him?

Maybe he’d been single too long. Like her, he’d lost his spouse. She had died, more than twenty years ago, when their girls were little. But he didn’t need closure—or anything else—but his daughters’ happiness. Ellen was older and settled with a good husband and three beautiful little girls.

But Megan…

He’d always worried the most about Megan and never more than when she got involved with Gage Huxton. She’d fallen so hard for him that it was inevitable she would get hurt.

“She’s marrying a good man,” Woodrow insisted. He wasn’t too proud to admit that he’d used Bureau resources to check out the kid. He was a computer nerd—as introverted and shy as she was. “They’re perfect for each other.”

They’d met in college, in a computer class. They’d been friends for years before they’d started dating. They hadn’t been going out very long before Gage had swept her off her feet.

Damn Gage…

Penny shook her head.

“They are perfect for each other,” he insisted.

“It doesn’t matter how compatible you are,” she said, “if you’re not in love.”

“Love is what made her miserable,” Woodrow said. He could relate to that. Love had made him miserable as well. “Compatibility is more important in a marriage—wanting and expecting the same things. That’s what will sustain a relationship.” And not send one outside the marriage looking for something else.

“Are you speaking from experience now?” she asked.

He wished. He shook his head. “We’re not talking about me.”

“No,” she agreed. “Megan, and her happiness, is our only priority. You need to tell her that Gage is alive.”

“Why?” he asked.

Nothing good would come of her knowing the truth; it wouldn’t change anything. She and Gage had broken up nearly a year ago—before he’d quit the Bureau, before he’d reenlisted, before he’d gone missing in action.

Penny’s grasp on his arm tightened. Her hand was small but strong. He felt her grip and the heat of her touch. “She deserves to know before she marries another man that the man she really loves is alive.”

He hadn’t seen Gage yet. But Woodrow’s former agent and Gage’s best friend, Nicholas Rus, had warned him. Gage had come back alive, but he hadn’t come back the same.

Woodrow shook his head. “No, the man she loves is gone.” And maybe it was better that she never learned the truth.

Megan Lynch stared into the oval mirror, studying the woman reflected back at her. Wasn’t she supposed to look beautiful? Weren’t all brides?

The gown, while not her style, was certainly eye-catching. With twinkling rhinestones sewn onto the heavy brocade, it sparkled. The lacy veil was beautiful and softened the sharp angles of Megan’s face and hid some of the severity of the dark hair she’d pulled into a tight knot to tame. But she didn’t look beautiful. She shouldn’t have expected that she would; she had never looked beautiful before. Why should her wedding day be any different?

No matter how much makeup the beautician had applied, the dark circles were still visible beneath her dark eyes. Tears brimmed in them, but she blinked them away. She wouldn’t feel sorry for herself anymore. She had done enough of that the past several months. She’d nearly drowned in self-pity and guilt.

The knob rattled as someone turned it and began to open the door to the bride’s dressing room. She hurriedly tugged the veil over her face to hide the hint of tears she couldn’t quite clear from her eyes. They kept rushing back—every time she thought of him.

She had to stop thinking about him. He was gone. But even if he wasn’t, he wouldn’t have ever come back to her, not after what she’d done. She had to stop thinking about the past and focus on the future, not that she deserved one.

Because he didn’t have one…

Marrying Richard was the right thing to do. He’d always been there for her. Even after she’d broken up with him, Richard had remained her friend. And when her heart had been broken, he’d tried to piece it back together. Eventually, he had even accepted that there was no patching a heart as shattered as hers. He’d insisted that their friendship was a stronger and safer foundation for a marriage than love.

Safe had sounded good to her. And there was no one safer than Richard. He was quiet and shy and nervous and cautious. He wouldn’t put himself or her in any danger for any reason. He would always be there for her—like he’d always been.

Not like Gage…

The door opened fully, but she didn’t turn toward it. She suspected it was her matron of honor, who was supposed to have arrived with the beautician an hour earlier. Her sister, Ellen, was always late. She also had three little girls she’d needed to get ready besides herself, though.

Megan’s heart swelled with love for her nieces. They and the kids she worked with every day made her yearn to have children of her own. She wanted to be a mom like her sister—loving and fun.

She didn’t remember her own mom. Dad had been both a father and mother to her.

Since whoever had entered was quiet—it couldn’t be her sister and nieces. It had to be her dad.

“So what do you think?” Megan asked as she focused on the mirror again. The lace distorted her vision, so she nearly saw it: the beauty of being a bride.

But then a shadow stepped behind her. It was tall and dark in a black tuxedo. The mirror showed only his long legs and his chest. He was too thin to be her father. Too tall to be Richard. She had no idea who he was until he stepped closer yet. Then she saw his head—the short golden hair, the bright green eyes, the darker blond stubble on his jaw…

Just how badly had the veil distorted her vision? Who was she mistaking for a dead man?

Her hands trembling, she fumbled with her veil, pulling it back so she could focus on the apparition. She whirled around to face him.

It couldn’t be…

Gage was dead. He had died months ago, his body lost in some foreign country. But that hadn’t stopped her from seeing him everywhere, every time she’d closed her eyes and tried to sleep.

She shouldn’t be seeing him here—not on her wedding day to another man.

“No…” she murmured. Her knees trembled and weakened, threatening to fold beneath her. “No…”