Single Mum's Bodyguard

He walked around the white brick building to the back and found the window to the nursery. The woodchips beneath it had been disturbed, some brushed aside enough that he could make out a footprint.

He leaned down and peered into the window, and his gaze met Emilia’s pale blue one through the glass. He nodded. And it was as if her shoulders slumped with relief when she should have been tensing with fear.

What the hell was going on with her?

Lars had been right to worry about her. Dane had thought that her brother had just become overly protective of her after the abduction. But maybe Lars wasn’t being protective enough. She had that bruise on her shoulder, marring the pale silk of her skin.

“What are you doing?” Jordan “Manny” Mannes, the dark-haired bodyguard, joined Dane near the window. “I already checked that window. It’s secure.”

“It was you?”

“Yeah, I’m a perimeter guard,” Manny said. “I thought you were interior.”

Dane nodded. “Yeah. Yeah, I am.”

“Then what are you doing out here?”

He glanced back at the window. “Someone saw you,” he said. “And thought you were trying to get in, not making sure that no one else could.”

After what she’d been through, it was no surprise that Emilia had suspected the worst. But was that because of her recent past or her present?

Manny leaned down and looked in the window, too. “Ah, I didn’t even realize anyone was in there. Is that Lars’s little sister?”

He said it like she was a child. But she wasn’t a child. She was twenty-something and already a mother. She and her son were a ready-made family.

Dane waited for the shudder, but fear didn’t grip him like it usually did whenever he thought of family. His experience with family had been nearly as bad as some of his missions with the Marines.

Where was that shudder? He needed the fear. It was all that had kept him alive during his deployments. Being afraid had kept him alert, had made him cautious.

He had never needed to be more cautious than now, when Lars had asked him to stick close to Emilia. He suspected he needed to be more afraid of the beautiful blonde than any enemy he had ever faced.

* * *

While his friend continued to lean over and stare into that window at Lars’s sister, Manny straightened up. No. He hadn’t missed her. If she had been inside the room earlier, he would have noticed her. Sure, she was off limits because she was Lars’s sister. That didn’t mean he would’ve failed to spot her, gorgeous that she was.

“No, man, I’m sure there was nobody in there when I checked that window earlier,” Manny said. “The room was empty.”

Dane shook his head. “How is that possible? She saw you just a few minutes ago and those kids were already inside the nursery then.”

Manny tensed, every one of his bodyguard instincts at attention. “I checked that window over an hour ago when I first arrived at the chapel.”

Dane cursed. “Did you see anyone hanging around this side of the chapel?”

He didn’t even have to think about it. “Hell, no. I would have investigated if I had. It’s just been me and Cole patrolling the grounds with a few of the guards from Parker’s agency.”

Each of the Payne brothers had their own franchise of the security business now. Parker, a former vice cop, had all former police officers on his team. Cooper’s unit consisted of former Marines like himself, with the exception of his sister, Nikki, who was as badass as any Marine that Manny had ever known. Then Logan, the brother who’d started the security business, had all family members working for him. But that family was all inside the church for the wedding of the Payne matriarch.

A wedding that couldn’t be interrupted. Manny cursed now. “I hope like hell we didn’t miss someone getting inside who shouldn’t be in there.”

He wasn’t sure if Dane heard him. His friend was still staring through that window, at Lars’s sister. Friends’ sisters were off limits to Manny, but Lars had broken that bro rule when he’d fallen for Cooper’s sister.

Dane, though?

He was the last one Manny would have thought would break a bro rule. Or fall for anyone...

He was a bigger commitment-phobe than Manny and that was saying something. No. Something else about the blonde beauty had to be bothering Dane.

“If someone’s trying to get inside the church, it’s about the groom or bride, right?” Manny asked.

He had heard the story about the wedding party that had been taken hostage in the chapel, and that this groom had nearly died that day. Of course all of the hostage takers had died. None of them had survived to storm the church again.

That reason alone would keep anyone else from crashing this wedding. They wouldn’t survive if they tried to break in now, not with so many Paynes and other bodyguards present.

Dane must have come to that same conclusion because he shook his head and murmured, “No, if someone’s trying to get into the church, I think it has something to do with someone else....”

With Emilia Ecklund?

But why?

She’d already been abducted and held hostage for weeks. And the man responsible for that was dead. Who could be after her now?

Chapter 3 (#uc05cb37c-2b30-5223-86da-38ad6719cf4b)

Dane Sutton was staring at her through the glass, like she had begun to stare at herself in the mirror the past few days. With concern.

With fear.

She couldn’t look into his dark eyes anymore, but it was hard to look away from him, hard not to look at him. He was so big. So handsome...

His features were chiseled. His dark hair almost shorter than the standard military brush cut. He wasn’t on active duty anymore, but he still looked like a Marine. Still no-nonsense. To the point. That was why she hadn’t been able to look at him anymore and see the doubts she already felt.

Was she losing her mind? Obviously it had only been the other bodyguard checking the window earlier. Nobody was after her baby.

She forced herself to release him and hand him back to one of the irritated babysitters. “I’m sorry,” she murmured. “I saw the man.”

The girl nodded and took Blue from her.

Emilia had to get back to the wedding. But she couldn’t leave the nursery with the commotion she’d caused. Fortunately Penny—who thought of everything—had had the room soundproofed. Emilia must have left the door ajar when she’d rushed inside, or Dane wouldn’t have heard her scream.

While his assurance to check things out had momentarily made her feel better, now she wished he hadn’t heard her. He was certain to tell Lars how paranoid she was. And her brother already stared at her as if she was so fragile that she would shatter at any minute.

But she was stronger than that. She was capable. She didn’t want Lars or Penny to think otherwise. So to quiet the startled nursery, she began to sing. She sang a popular kids’ song from a musical she’d done in school.

The teenage girls looked more astonished now than they had when she’d screamed. The kids must have been equally surprised, for they’d all fallen silent with awe now.

Emilia smiled and headed toward the door. But then she saw that Dane had returned and was leaning against the jamb. He’d heard at least some of the song.

Heat rushed to her face, and she hurried past him. “I need to check on things now,” she murmured. “Make sure the ceremony is going well.”