Hook, Line and Shotgun Bride

“What was he after?”

“Being apprehended wasn’t the intruder’s primary concern. He wanted to frighten Angela. He might be a stalker. Or somebody who has a personal grudge.” He turned to Angela. “Have you received threats?”

She shook her head. “Not that I recall.”

“Maybe from a disgruntled employee,” he suggested. “Or someone associated with the restaurant. A supplier. Even an angry customer. Take your time. Think about it.”

She sank into a chair beside the table. Her shoulders slumped. A moment ago, he’d been critical of Neil for treating her like a patient. Now, he was interrogating her like a victim.

As her friend, he knew what she needed. He’d seen Angela through the worst time in her life—after her husband was killed. She needed his support. Even though her fiancé was standing right there, Shane sat in the chair next to her and gave her a hug. “If you don’t want to deal with this now, it’s okay. We can wait until—”

“I want to get it over with,” she said. “I’m thinking. But I can’t come up with anybody who wants to hurt me. A couple of months ago, I fired a waitress, but she got another job.”

Gently, he said, “Have you noticed anything unusual? Maybe had the feeling you were being watched?”

“I’ve been kind of spooked. Nervous, you know. Especially at night.”

He considered the possibility of a peeper. Not usually a violent criminal. But this guy had opened windows. He seemed to be planning something more than just watching. “Earlier, we talked about moving you and Benjy to Neil’s house.”

“It’s the obvious solution,” Neil said. “I suggest that we get everything packed up and make that move right now.”

She stood and confronted them both. “I don’t want to frighten Benjy. We’re staying here tonight, and that’s final.”

A muscle in Neil’s jaw twitched, but he conceded. “All right, Angela. We’ll do this your way. Have you at least called the police?”

“I don’t want to,” she said stubbornly. “There’s nothing the police can do.”

“You’re being unreasonable.”

Shane wouldn’t have been so blunt, but he agreed with Neil on this point. “The police can dust for fingerprints, look for trace evidence and talk to your neighbors.”

“I don’t want any more investigating. Not now. Not ever again.” Her eyes flashed with anger. “The police did plenty of investigating when Tom died. To what end? They still didn’t find his killer. All their poking around was a waste of time. If you gentlemen will please excuse me, I’m going to bed.”

She turned on her heel and left the room.

Shane’s natural instinct was to follow her, to soothe her worries and offer comfort. But that wasn’t his job. He looked toward Neil, expecting him to follow his fiancé and make sure she was all right.

Instead, Neil checked his wristwatch. “This is a waste of time. I have a lot going on with work, especially since I’ll be gone for a couple of weeks on honeymoon. Coming here tonight was incredibly inconvenient.” He glared at Shane. “And I didn’t expect to find you.”

Shane offered no excuses for his presence. Though he’d been planning to stay at a motel, he’d responded to the urgency in Angela’s voice when she invited him.

“I suppose,” Neil said, “that you’ll be staying the night.”

“I’m not going to leave her and Benjy unprotected.”

“Fine. I’d stay myself but I’m in the midst of some very important meetings.”

What could be more important than the safety of his bride and her son? Shane kept that opinion to himself.

“Tomorrow, we’ll get them moved,” Neil said. “I have plenty of room at my house. You’re welcome to stay there until the wedding.”

Considering what had happened tonight, it was generous for him to offer. “I appreciate your hospitality.”

“It’s no trouble. My housekeeper hired people to help out until after the wedding, and I have other houseguests. I believe you know one of them—Dr. Edgar Prentice from Aspen.”

“We’ve met.”

“He’s a fertility specialist and an ob-gyn. Your cousin Tom sought my uncle out when he decided that he and Angela should go through the process of creating frozen embryos.”

“I know.”

“In a way, Uncle Edgar was Angela’s midwife, even though he didn’t deliver Benjy. Ironic. Now, I’ll be Benjy’s father.”

“Stepfather,” Shane corrected. Nobody but Tom should be recognized as the father of Angela’s child.

“I’ll see to Angela now.”

As he watched Neil stride toward Angela’s bedroom, Shane wanted to stop him. Neil wasn’t the right man for her. He was cold and arrogant and sure as hell didn’t put Angela first. None of my business. Shane didn’t have the right to tell her who to marry or what to do with her life.

He sat at the kitchen table, took the last macadamia nut cookie from the plate and bit into it.

When Angela lashed out against law enforcement, he hadn’t been surprised. Shane had listened to hours of her complaints about how the Park County Sheriff’s Department had failed to bring her husband’s murderer to justice. She’d gotten to the point where she refused to even talk to them.

That had been his job.

The investigators had compiled quite a bit of evidence. The flat tire was caused by three nails that could have been picked up from any number of construction sites in the mountains. The indentations in Tom’s SUV indicated that he’d been hit by a truck, and the crime scene investigators found bits of black paint. From the tire tracks, they could tell that after Tom was hit, the truck backed up and hit him again.

The police theory was that the driver of the truck was drunk or otherwise incapacitated. After he hit Tom, he backed up to see if he could help and accidentally ran into Tom a second time. The driver had gotten out of his car and had left a fingerprint in Tom’s blood on the Toyota.

The print matched nothing in the database, and the cops had other factors working against them: It had taken over two hours to locate Tom’s body. There were no witnesses. They’d never been able to locate the black truck.

The final conclusion from the Park County Sheriff’s Department was vehicular homicide. The driver of the black truck was never found.

Shane understood Angela’s pain and frustration, but he knew the investigators had done their best to solve the case. A hit-and-run accident was cold-blooded—the kind of case that would haunt the investigative team almost as much as it troubled Shane.

His instincts told him that Tom’s death wasn’t an accident. He was targeted, mowed down on purpose. Shane believed that Tom’s death was premeditated murder.

THE NEXT MORNING, Angela felt like a new woman. Her usual schedule meant jumping out of bed at four in the morning and dashing like mad to have Waffles ready for business at six-thirty. Not this week. While planning the last details of the wedding, she had enough on her plate, so to speak. Though she might stop by the restaurant and help out, they weren’t expecting her.

With no need to rush, she took a long, luxurious shower. When she meandered into kitchen after eight o’clock, Shane had already made coffee and fed Benjy. He greeted her with a grin and a joke about sleeping late. What an amazing friend! He made her laugh, always made her feel comfortable.

And he wasn’t bad to look at in his jeans and cowboy boots. His black hair was in need of a trim before the wedding. Not that any of the women in attendance would notice. They’d be too busy swooning over his sky-blue eyes and rugged masculine features. It was hard to believe Shane was still single. There had been a couple of live-in girl-friends over the years, but he’d never once walked down the aisle.

After they dropped off Benjy at the babysitter, she slipped behind the steering wheel of her van and turned to Shane. “Before I stop by Waffles, I have to pop into the dress shop for a final fitting on the wedding gown. You don’t mind, do you?”

“Bring on the ruffles and lace,” he said. “I told you I’d do anything to help, and I meant it.”

“Oh, good.” The very idea of super-macho Shane in a dress shop amused her. “After the gown, we can go to the florist, then stop by the lingerie store.”