The Bride's Bodyguard

Jake scrambled forward and seized the. 38. The fake detonator lay beside the dead terrorist, forgotten.

Over the gunfire and screams, Jake heard the bride shout, “Brent! Someone help me!”

As he rushed toward the bridal couple, lying together on the floor, Jake spotted the blood spreading at Scofield’s tuxedo collar.

He reached his client at the same time as Matt. The other man muscled him out of the way. “I’m a doctor! Let me help him!”

Jake yielded to the doctor but assisted in ripping open Brent’s ascot and tux collar. He balled his own cravat to stanch the flow of blood from the wound at Brent’s jugular vein.

The bride huddled beside Brent, crying and clutching her groom’s hand. “Hang on, Brent. Stay with us. Matt will help you.”

Brent’s fading gaze found his bride’s, then shifted to Jake’s as he rasped, “McCall…”

Guilt kicked Jake hard in the gut. He gritted his teeth in frustration and self-reproach. “I know. You hired me to protect you, and I didn’t.”

“Listen to me!” Scofield grabbed Jake’s wrist with a grip that was surprisingly strong considering how much blood he’d lost.

Jake hesitated when he met the determined fire in his client’s eyes.

“New…assignment. Paige has…what they want. Get her… out of here. Hide her.” Brent struggled for a breath, the life light in his eyes dimming. “Keep…the bead safe…at all costs. National security.. ”

Jake frowned, straining to hear over the continued tumult in the sanctuary. “What bead?”

“Homeland compromised. No police—”

“What bead?” Jake demanded. “Where is it?”

“In…her.” Scofield paused, gasped, gurgled on the blood in his throat. Brent’s gaze darted to something behind Jake. “Go!”

Jake whipped a glance over his shoulder in time to see one of the riflemen approach the altar, then pause to take aim on them.

Hooking an arm around the bride’s waist, he hauled her to her feet and shoved her behind the pulpit. He took cover with her, shielding her with his body as the bullets whizzed past, missing them by inches. Peering around the side of the pulpit, Jake fired back at the rifleman. Hit him in the chest. The man slumped to the floor.

Burying his mouth in the bride’s hair, he shouted directly into her ear. “We’re going out that side door to the limo. Move fast and keep your head down.”

She shook her head, her eyes wide with terror. “But Brent—”

“Just do as I say! We run on three. One, two, three!”

Numb with shock and fear, Paige stumbled as Brent’s hulking best man tugged her arm, propelling them toward the sanctuary’s side exit. Her foot caught the hem of her Vera Wang gown, and she immediately tumbled to her knees. She bit her tongue as she landed with a jarring thud.

Jake sent her a dark scowl of impatience, as if she’d tripped on purpose, as if running in high heels with yards of satin and lace draped around her legs should have been easy.

Shaking from head to toe, she fumbled to untangle herself, fighting the billows of her skirt out of her way. In a daze of disbelief, she watched Jake knock away the muzzle of the rifle that a thug by the side door had swung toward them. Lobbing a fist to the thug’s chin, Jake sent the guy sprawling on the floor, then turned to her. His square jaw was taut, and a lethal intensity blazed in his dark eyes.

Without warning, Jake planted his shoulder in her stomach. Wrapping his arm around her legs, he tossed her over his shoulder in a fireman’s hold. The air whooshed from her lungs, and her world turned upside down. Dangling over his shoulder, she scrabbled for something to hold as he charged out the door. Paige fisted his tuxedo coat, but as Jake raced down the steps and across the churchyard, the heavy stomping of his feet bounced her like a rag doll. She groped frantically for a more secure hold, wrapping her arms around the expanse of his wide back.

Jake’s shoulder gouged her belly. His fingers dug into her thighs. His feet and the ground filled her line of sight with a dizzying blur of motion. The bright sunshine and thick humidity of the Louisiana summer day beat down on them as he ran toward the front driveway.

A beautiful day for my wedding, she’d thought that morning when she arrived at the church. The perfect day for my perfect wedding.

Now bile and adrenaline soured her stomach and threatened to come up as she clung to Jake for dear life. The surreal screams from her friends and family, under assault in the sanctuary she’d been dragged away from, faded as they made their escape.

But the deafening gunfire followed them. A series of blasts thundered through the air. Paige winced as bits of concrete flew up at her when bullets peppered the ground. Bullets aimed at her and at Jake.

“Start the engine! Go, go, go!” Jake shouted to someone. He staggered to a stop, but before she could catch her breath or regain her bearings, he dumped her, unceremoniously, onto the backseat of the bridal limo.

“Let’s move!” Jake yelled.

She battled away the curtain of ivory satin that had her tangled in an awkward knot, obscuring her vision. As she scooted across the seat, righting herself and restoring air to her jostled lungs, Jake lunged onto the seat beside her. He swung a handgun out the open car door and fired a couple of earsplitting shots. The limo driver hit the gas, and they rocketed down the church driveway, even before Jake had closed the limo door.

As the limo hurtled down the streets of Lagniappe, weaving through traffic and taking turns at a high speed, Paige was tossed about like a sock in the dryer. Her mind spun as well, reeling from the macabre turn of events. Her wedding had become a bloodbath. Brent had been shot. And her groom’s high school friend, a man she’d met only four days ago, had bodily carried her out of harm’s way like some tuxedoed superhero.

Dear God, was her sister hurt? Her parents? Her friends? And poor Mr. Diggle had been murdered in cold blood!

She must be dreaming. If this is some anxiety-induced nightmare, please let me wake up now!

For the first time, Paige said a prayer of thanks that her youngest sister hadn’t been at the wedding after all. At least Paige knew Zoey was safe.

The limo’s back window shattered. Startled by the loud crash and rain of broken glass, Paige screamed.

“Get down!” Jake palmed her head and shoved her to the floor, covering her with his massive body. His weight pressed her back into the plush carpeting and biting shards of the window while his rock-hard chest and wide shoulders ground against the galloping beat of her heart. The heat of his exertion and the faint scent of sandalwood surrounded her. Despite the hell breaking loose around her, the solid wall of his body created a warm cocoon where, for a few moments, she felt marginally protected, fractionally less frightened.

She squeezed her eyes closed, only to see haunting images of Brent’s blood, spraying bullets and crushed flowers. Chaos, death and destruction. At her wedding.

She shuddered.

You know what we want, Scofield.

Keep the bead safe at all costs.

Why had Jake brought a gun to the wedding? Had he expected trouble?

Who were those armed men, and what was Brent’s link to them?

None of it made sense.

“Hit the highway out of town and don’t stop until you’re sure you’ve lost them!” Jake shouted to the driver.

Time kaleidoscoped, and Paige couldn’t be sure if she’d huddled beneath Jake’s protective cover for one minute or twenty. When the assault of gunfire stopped, he rolled off of her and sat back to take off his tux jacket and rip open the shirt at his throat. Her gaze gravitated to the pulse throbbing on his thick neck. A muscle in his jaw jumped as he gritted his teeth and eased forward to peer over the backseat.

She rubbed the spot at her temple where her head pounded.

“I think we lost them.” Jake expelled a deep breath of relief as he pushed up to the seat at the back of the limo. He raked a hand through his short, inky-black hair and lifted a penetrating gaze to her. “Are you all right?”

Paige could only stare back at him, too stunned, too shaken, too confused by the violent attack at her wedding to know what to do or say. This kind of thing was only supposed to happen in the movies, not in real life. Not in her staid, well-planned, organized, boring life.

Jake extended a large hand to her. She studied the crimson smears on his fingers, and her stomach roiled. “You have blood on your hand. Brent’s blood,” she said stupidly, still too shell-shocked to edit her thoughts for statements of the obvious.