Frankie Forrest’s cry echoed through the thin mountain air and towering pines. A blue jay screamed in raucous reply. As Frankie slammed the car door and lunged toward the chapel, she stepped on a patch of ice. Feeling herself sliding, she shifted her weight, overcompensated, lost her balance and fell onto her right knee. Her teeth clacked, jarring her skull.
Pain jangled from kneecap to hip. Stars burst before her eyes. Arms outspread, her back at an awkward angle, she lifted her face to heaven.
A very bad sign, she thought in dour superstition. Dark forces conspired to keep her away from her sister.
Wary now, she got to her feet. She gingerly tested her right leg. Her knee throbbed, but it bent the way it should and she could walk.
A long, white limousine idled in the parking lot. The exhaust formed crawling clouds. The driver most likely kept the interior warm for the bride and groom. Frankie shivered. It had been a mild forty degrees when she left her apartment in Colorado Springs, but here, at an altitude of eight thousand feet, the temperature hovered in the low twenties. She wore a fleecy sweatshirt, but the cold pierced the thick cotton and pricked her flesh. Her blue jeans might as well have been made of nylon net—already her thighs were tingling. She glanced toward the chapel. Its roof and spire were visible through the trees. She jammed a key into the trunk lock and gave it a hard twist. The trunk snapped open. She grabbed her parka and shoved her arms into the puffy sleeves.
Her sister hated this parka and urged Frankie every year to buy a new coat. Frankie had owned it since high school and hadn’t found another that felt as good. Its age showed in faded blue nylon, permanent stains and numerous small tears. She had repaired the big rips, but used whatever thread was handy, so clumsy stitches in black, white, red and green marred the ragged fabric. Penny called it the Frankenstein coat.
She noticed logos printed on the driver’s-side doors of two vehicles in the parking lot. A blue circle with a bugling bull elk, its rack of antlers overlapping the circle perimeter—Elk River Resort.
“Traitors,” she growled. She’d learned about the wedding only a few hours ago. A terse, anonymous voice on her answering machine had said, “Penny is marrying Julius at Elk River Resort today. Are you going to let it happen?” She’d be damned if she would let it happen.
She limped up the path to Sweet Pines Chapel. With each step her hurt and anger swelled. Penny knew exactly how Frankie felt about Julius and his family, and Penny knew why. Despite all her promises—her lies!—the brat had gone behind Frankie’s back and married that perverted loser anyway.
As she neared the chapel, she grudgingly admitted that winter was a good time to hold a wedding. She’d been to this chapel twice before, once for her cousin Ross Duke’s wedding and then again for her cousin Megan’s. Those weddings had taken place in the summertime when wildflowers popped through the forest floor, and the scrub oaks and aspens were bright green with leaves. Snow, however, turned the forest into a magical place, a study in charcoal with blacks, whites and grays brushed by green and framed by a porcelain sky.
Magical, that is, if this were a wedding that should take place. Which it wasn’t. If Frankie had any say in the matter, it wouldn’t.
A man stood on the chapel stoop. He wore a black cashmere greatcoat over a black suit. Black wraparound sunglasses shaded his eyes. Black hair glinted in the sun. She recognized J.T. McKennon and stopped dead in her tracks.
McKennon’s presence meant Max Caulfield attended the wedding. An image of her ex-fiancé’s smirking face swam before her vision, and her calves itched with the urge to run. Tom between saving her sister or saving her dignity, she hunched inside the parka.
McKennon nodded. A slight gesture, noticeable only because she was so intently staring at him.
Determined that not even Max Caulfield could stop her, she continued up the path. McKennon stepped to the center of the chapel’s double doors. At the base of the steps she waited for him to open the door and welcome her inside. He stood as rigidly as a solider guarding a post.
“Move over, McKennon,” she ordered. “I’m stopping this charade.”
Swarthy and unsmiling, McKennon looked like a mob enforcer. Two years ago, when she’d first met him, she’d dismissed him as the tall, dark and stupid type. Tall and dark fit, but it hadn’t taken long to figure out he was in no way a stupid man. He had an engineering degree and was an expert in electronic security. He’d served with valor in the marines and for a while had operated his own martial arts studio. He was an expert marksman with firearms ranging from pistols to grenade launchers.
He possessed a dry sense of humor and an oddly appealing detachment from the world, as if he were an alien observing the natives. Frankie used to marvel over his cool head and objective world view—his mild temperament was so very different from her own hot-headed impulsiveness. Nothing rattled McKennon.
It looked as if that much hadn’t changed in the past six months. “I said, move, McKennon.”
“I can’t do that, Miss Forrest.”
She huffed. She kicked a chunk of snow. “You’re guarding the door? Who do you think you are?”
His aristocratic mouth thinned. “I have my orders. Nobody goes in.”
“She’s my sister! I have a right—”
“Especially you.” He folded his arms over his chest.
McKennon’s sunglasses reflected her angry image. From far away a jay screeched a mocking note. Frankie clenched her teeth to keep them from chattering. Her jaws ached. The corners of her eyes watered, and her cheeks felt brittle. She strained to hear what was happening inside the chapel. She couldn’t hear any music—another bad sign.
“Come on,” she pleaded. “We’re friends. You know me.” As soon as the words emerged she felt stupid. Of course he knew her, since they’d worked together for almost two years, but they were not friends. He still worked for Max, and Max had dumped her like yesterday’s garbage, which McKennon had witnessed in all its humiliating glory. They would never be friends.
Embarrassment settled like a lump of dough in her throat. Countless times she’d replayed The Big Dump in her head, trying to figure out what had gone wrong. She’d come to the conclusion that Max had insisted McKennon stay in the room because Max enjoyed making her crawl in front of an audience.
She climbed another step. She stood five feet, ten inches tall. Few men physically intimidated her. Unmoved, McKennon gazed down at her. She sized him up. He had five inches and at least sixty pounds advantage, plus, she’d seen him in action at the gym.
She lifted her chin in an attempt to look down her nose at him. “I want to speak with Max right now.”
“Mr. Caulfield isn’t here.”
One of Max’s biggest ego trips lay in having his very own, personal, trained ape following him wherever he went. McKennon’s quietly deadly presence made Max feel like a big shot. In dark moments Frankie imagined McKennon accompanying Max to the toilet, holding the newspaper for the boss while Max did his business.
“You’re lying. I know he’s in there.”
“No, he’s not.”
His calm assurance irritated her tattered nerves. “If Max isn’t here, why
