Beauty And The Bodyguard. Lisa Childs

moan rumbled in her throat. And her hands clasped the back of his head, her fingers sliding over his short hair. She stilled as she touched one of the scars. Those wounds hadn’t hurt, though, at least not in comparison to what she’d done to him.

      Remembering the pain she’d caused him, he dragged his mouth from hers. Then he lowered her until her feet touched the floor again. When he released her, she swayed and her palm pressed against his chest. His heart leaped beneath her touch, and she must have felt it because she jerked her hand away.

      “Gage,” she murmured, and she stared up at him as if she still couldn’t believe he wasn’t an apparition. Then her gaze scanned him, over the tuxedo he was wearing, the damn bow tie choking off his breath.

      “Why are you here?” She looked both fearful and hopeful, and he realized what she thought.

      A chuckle of bitterness slipped through his lips. “Don’t worry,” he assured her, “I’m not here to stop the wedding.”

      “Then why are you here?” she asked.

      “I work for a security firm now,” he said. “The Payne Protection Agency. Penny hired me to make sure nothing stops this wedding from happening.” Actually, he suspected just the opposite—that she had imagined some romantic reunion between him and Megan. Since she was a wedding planner, she probably believed in romance and happy endings and all that stuff Gage had given up on nearly a year ago.

      There would be no happy ending for him.

      Like she had so many times before, Penny tugged the dress over Nikki’s head and zipped her into it. “Thank you, honey, for helping me out.”

      Nikki grimaced. Like she had a choice…

      Like anyone could say no to Penny Payne. Even Gage Huxton hadn’t been able to, and he could have come up with more excuses than Nikki had.

      Her small hands gripping Nikki’s shoulders, Penny spun her around to face her. “You look beautiful.”

      After having three boys, Penny must have been very happy to finally have a girl so she could dress her up like a doll. But having three brothers, Nikki hadn’t wanted anything to do with dresses or dolls. She’d wanted to play the sports her brothers had played. She’d wanted to wrestle and fight. She couldn’t do that in the dresses Mom had constantly tried to zip her into then—or now.

      “Mom…”

      Penny’s palm cupped her cheek. “I know you don’t want to be, but you are beautiful.”

      Her face flushed, but she couldn’t deny that she was beautiful—not without insulting her mother. She looked exactly like Penny.

      “I want to be taken seriously,” she said. And that was hard when she looked like the doll her mother treated her like she was. She was petite and delicate looking with big heavily lashed eyes. And now her mother had zipped her into a blue satin dress so she looked like a curly auburn–haired Barbie doll.

      “I want you to be happy,” Penny said.

      “I am,” Nikki insisted.

      But her mother just gave her a pitying smile. Penny didn’t think it was possible for Nikki to be happy unless she was all in love like her brothers were. Her brothers had been lucky to find their perfect mates. Nikki didn’t think there was anyone out there who would be perfect for her.

      She’d once thought another man had been perfect—her father. Of course she only had a child’s memories of him, since he’d died when she was nine, so she’d idealized him. When she’d learned that he had cheated on her mother, Nikki had been more upset than Penny had been. Her mother had been able to forgive him. Nikki couldn’t.

      Nor could she trust any other man.

      “Well,” Nikki amended her statement, “I’m not happy to be here.”

      “I appreciate your helping out,” Penny said.

      “What happened?” Nikki asked. “Why did a bridesmaid get tossed out of the wedding party? Did she sleep with the groom?” And the stupid bride had forgiven him but disowned her friend?

      Penny shook her head. “The matron of honor. She’s sick. Either food poisoning or…”

      “Or? Regular poisoning?”

      Penny laughed. “You’re hopeless. You’d rather think of the worst than the obvious.”

      To Nikki, the worst was the most obvious. “What is the obvious?”

      “She’s pregnant.”

      Nikki groaned. Fortunately, she wasn’t as fertile as the women she knew, like her sisters-in-law and apparently the sick matron of honor. Of course she’d have to actually be involved with someone to have the possibility of becoming pregnant. And she wasn’t going to risk that again. She’d had boyfriends, even a fun fling or two. But despite what her mother thought, she didn’t need a husband or a family.

      “And no one else could fill in for the sick matron of honor?” Nikki asked.

      Penny shrugged. “I didn’t bother to find out.”

      That wasn’t like the wedding planner who always went the extra mile to make sure the bride’s special day was extra special.

      But then Penny always enlisted Nikki before any of her other kids to help out at the chapel. She’d probably expected her only daughter to go into the wedding planning business with her instead of into the bodyguard business with her brothers. Even before she’d learned of her father’s betrayal, Nikki had never had any interest in weddings.

      “Is there any particular reason you want me to step in as maid of honor?”

      “It’s because of the bride,” Penny said. “She’s Woodrow Lynch’s daughter.”

      Woodrow? The first name basis caught Nikki by surprise. “Do you mean Chief Special Agent Lynch? Nick’s old boss?” Her half brother had been an FBI agent before he’d recently quit to join the Payne Protection Agency.

      Her mother’s face flushed slightly, and she nodded.

      How did that make this bride special? And she obviously was to Penny. Nikki had never seen her mother so worried about a wedding, not even the one she’d planned as a ruse to flush out a sadistic serial killer.

      “Do you think she’s in danger?” Nikki asked. Had her mother enlisted her not as a dress-up doll to play wedding party but as a bodyguard?

      Penny’s teeth nipped her bottom lip, and she nodded. “I have a feeling…”

      Nikki’s blood tingled with excitement and nerves. Her mother’s feelings were legendary, because they were rarely wrong. If Penny Payne thought the bride was in danger, then Ms. Lynch was definitely in danger.

      Megan was scared. Even though she lived a relatively boring life as a school librarian, she knew fear well. She had been very frightened when she’d broken up with Gage. She’d had a horrible feeling then that she was making a mistake. And when he’d reenlisted and been immediately deployed…

      She’d been scared out of her mind that something would happen to him. Even worse, he’d gone missing and had been presumed dead…

      She had nearly lost her mind. She wasn’t that scared now, because she knew what she had to do. She was going to thwart Gage’s assignment. There was no way she was going through with this wedding.

      Minutes ticked away on the clock hanging on the yellow wall of the bride’s dressing room. She was still alone inside—although she didn’t feel alone anymore. While Gage had been gone for long moments, his presence was palpable in the room, which was