Single Mum's Bodyguard

They all loved Penny Payne.

Emilia hadn’t known her as long as everyone else had, but she loved her, too. Loved her like the mother she’d never really had, because Mom had gotten sick when Emilia had been so young.

Penny was youthful and vivacious and affectionate. She was everything Emilia wished her mother had been and everything she wanted to be as a mother. Emilia didn’t want to let down the woman she admired so much.

But at the moment the wedding was the least of her concerns. She had to make certain Blue was safe. He was what mattered most to her now.

“Emilia...”

A deep voice murmured her name. She ignored it. She had no time now for questions about the colors of the napkins or when to serve the cake. She would answer all those again after she held her baby, after she made certain that Penny’s ominous premonition hadn’t been about Blue.

She was in such a rush that she nearly passed the door to the nursery. But she drew up short and reached out, grasping the knob. Her hand trembling, she turned it and pushed open the door. Little kids chattered and laughed. A soft voice sang. Small hands clapped.

Like the kitchen and the banquet hall, this room was abuzz with excitement, too—the excitement of little kids and babies.

One of the teenagers glanced up from where she played patty-cake with a black-haired, blue-eyed toddler. So many of the kids looked like that, with the blue eyes and black hair of the Payne males.

“Miss Ecklund, is everything all right?” the babysitter asked. With black hair and blue eyes, she might have been a Payne herself. Some of the kids were getting older now.

“That’s what I came to ask you,” she said. “Is everything all right?”

The girl’s brow furrowed. “With your son?”

“Yes.”

Looking at her as if she were being overly anxious, which she probably was, the girl nodded. “He’s fine.” She gestured toward one of the cribs against the wall. “He’s napping.”

Emilia stepped around children so she could get to her son. Like a few nights ago when she’d heard the crying, she approached the crib with fear and dread. And expelled a breath of relief when she found him sleeping peacefully.

She had overreacted to Penny’s premonition. It probably had nothing to do with Emilia. With a family that comprised of all bodyguards, Penny’s children were all exposed to danger.

Now Lars was a bodyguard, too. And she suspected he would soon be an official member of the Payne family if he was smart enough to ask the amazing Nikki to marry him. Her brother was smart.

She wished she was as smart as he was, as strong. She felt like she was losing her mind. But she’d rather lose that than her son.

He was here, though. He was safe just like he had been that night she’d been so worried she’d wound up bruising her shoulder crashing into doorframes. She glanced down at the bruise now. Maybe she shouldn’t have worn a sleeveless dress. Or at least she should have remembered to put on the sweater she’d left hanging over the back of her chair in her office.

She hadn’t needed to worry that night. Or now.

But yet she couldn’t step back. She had a million and one things to double-check. And she didn’t want to miss the ceremony, either.

She wanted to see Penny marry her soul mate even as she felt a pang of envy that she might never find hers. Her judgment was as poor as her mother’s had been. Just like her father, Blue’s father hadn’t been a man she could count on. He’d wanted only one thing from her. And it hadn’t been her heart.

Now her heart belonged to another male. To her son. She continued to stare down at her beautiful baby...until a shadow fell across him.

Then she glanced up at the window. Since this was the daylight section of the basement, the window was halfway up the wall. So she didn’t see a face. She saw only legs standing in front of that window. Then she saw the black-gloved hands reaching down to try to lift the sash.

To try to get inside that nursery full of children.

And a scream slipped from her throat.

* * *

Her scream tore at Dane’s heart, making it race with the fear he heard in her voice. Other cries echoed hers, startled cries of kids. He pushed open the door he’d seen her enter moments ago—as he’d followed her mad dash down the stairs and hall toward this room.

Toward her son...

He saw her hurriedly step back from the window with the baby clasped in her arms, nearly falling over the children sitting on the floor behind her.

This was Dane’s worst nightmare. A room full of crying kids. But the fear he’d heard in Emilia’s voice drew him to her side. “Emilia,” he said.

After he’d seen her nearly tumble down the stairs, he’d called out to her in the hall. But she’d ignored him. She ignored him again.

So he reached for her. And yet when his hand closed around her shoulder, she flinched and jerked away from him. Now anger churned in his guts. What had happened to her those long weeks she’d been missing?

How badly had she been abused?

She had a bruise on her shoulder, which was bare. Her pale blue dress had thin spaghetti straps. If she’d gotten that injury in captivity, the bruise should have faded by now. Why did it look so fresh and painful?

She blinked and stared up at him, the dread still in her pale blue eyes.

“What’s wrong?” he asked her.

Clutching her son tightly against her with one arm—maybe too tightly, if Dane could guess from how hard he was crying—she gestured with her other hand at the window. “Someone was there, trying to get in.”

He glanced at the window. Sunlight glinted off the glass. “Nobody’s there.”

“There was,” she insisted, her voice tremulous. With fear or doubt?

He glanced around the room, at the teenage girls who struggled to comfort crying babies and toddlers. One of the girls shook her head. “I didn’t see anyone.”

“There was a shadow,” the other babysitter, the one with the black hair, said. “I’m not sure...”

If it was human, or just a shadow...

Emilia reached out now and clasped Dane’s arm. His skin tingled beneath her fingers. “There was someone there trying to open the window.”

He nodded. “I’ll check it out.” But she held tightly to his arm, so he couldn’t pull away and escape her and all those crying children.

If he didn’t leave soon, he might do something stupid...like reach for her again, like try to hold her like he had tried the night she’d awoken in the hospital, screaming. That had been a mistake on his part. He wasn’t made for comforting—women or kids. He couldn’t give what he’d never received.

He glanced down at her hand on his arm, and she jerked it away as if embarrassed that she’d been holding on to him. As he passed her, she murmured, “Thank you.”

He wasn’t certain if there was really anything to check out. But when he headed outside, he found other bodyguards walking the grounds. His invitation really had been an assignment. Security was high at this wedding.

High enough?

Why would someone have been trying to get inside the nursery? Or had they just been looking for an open window to get inside the church undetected?