knew there was a strong possibility that they wouldn’t survive.
Then she would never experience that tension she’d felt in her mom’s office and in this room. But you couldn’t miss what you’d never had.
She held up the one useful item she had retrieved from her mother’s office.
Gage stared at the small tool. “What the hell is that?”
“Crochet hook,” she replied. “This’ll get those buttons undone.”
“That’s what your mom used to do it up,” Megan said. And she released a ragged breath, as if the dress was constricting her lungs. Maybe it was. It looked tight and heavy and uncomfortable as hell.
Nikki couldn’t wait to get it on and put her plan into motion, even though it could quite possibly be the last thing she would ever do.
* * *
Megan jerked away as Nikki reached for her. Sure, she wanted out of that dress—so badly that she hadn’t even cared if Gage was the one to cut it off her. But it was different now, different since he’d nearly kissed her again.
Wasn’t that what he’d been about to do before Nikki had started turning the doorknob? He’d been lowering his head, and his eyes had gone dark, the pupils dilating as he’d stared down at her. He’d looked like he’d wanted to kiss her, just like he’d looked that first day in her father’s kitchen.
Now that all the old memories and feelings and longings washed over her, she couldn’t bear it, couldn’t stand to have him watch her get undressed and know that he wouldn’t touch her—wouldn’t kiss her.
Not that she wanted him to.
She didn’t want to put herself through all that pain again, no matter how much she probably deserved it. She’d hurt Gage. And now she was about to hurt another man, if he hadn’t already been harmed.
“You said you’d check on Richard,” she reminded Gage.
“I said that I couldn’t,” he corrected her.
“Because you couldn’t leave me alone,” she said. “But I’m not alone.” Nikki had a gun. And Megan had the scissors. Gage had pressed them back into her hand before he’d drawn his gun and opened the door.
Nikki nodded. “I’ll protect her and get her out of the dress,” she said. “You should check on the groom. We don’t know what the hell could have happened to him.”
Megan’s stomach lurched, and a gasp slipped through her lips.
And Gage’s jaw tightened. He thought she loved Richard. And she did—as a friend. Nothing more. But he was a friend and had been one for a long time. So she was worried about him.
His blond head jerked in a sharp nod. “Sure, I’ll check on him.”
“Gage...” She wanted to call him back, wanted to explain that she didn’t love her groom. She didn’t love anyone but Gage. She never had.
But the door slammed behind him.
Nikki jumped. “So much for not drawing any attention to himself.”
It wouldn’t have mattered if he’d slammed the door or quietly slipped out. Gage Huxton was the kind of man who drew attention with his height and his handsomeness. He wasn’t like Megan, whom people rarely noticed.
Why had he ever been interested in her? It was no wonder she’d doubted his feelings. She couldn’t believe even now that he’d ever really wanted her.
Richard claimed he did, that he wanted to be her husband, wanted to build a life with her. He’d anticipated that this day would be the first of the rest of their life together. And now the man who’d stolen her once from him was about to take her away again...
Only for her own protection.
But she wasn’t sure he would tell Richard that. She wasn’t sure what Gage would say to the other man. She only knew that she was the one who should tell Richard that she couldn’t marry him. “I need to get out of this dress,” she told Nikki.
“I know,” the other woman replied. But even with the tool, the buttons weren’t opening easily.
During the long moments Nikki struggled with the dress, Megan imagined Gage walking toward the groom’s dressing room. Now she didn’t worry about what he would say to Richard. She worried about what could happen to him before he got there. She worried that he would take on those gunmen alone.
“No,” she said, as she jerked away from the other woman. “We’re wasting too much time.”
“We still have a half hour before the wedding is supposed to start,” Nikki said.
But Gage had already been gone too long, long enough for Megan to worry that he would never come back. She’d lived through that nightmare once. She didn’t want to live through it again.
Panic filling her, constricting her lungs even more than the heavy dress, she rushed toward the door and pulled it open. And just like the last time she’d tried to leave, the barrel of a gun stopped her.
Unlike last time, this barrel pushed into her abdomen. And she had no doubt that this woman, who stared at her with cold blue eyes, would pull the trigger and bore that hole right through her.
Just as Nikki had remarked, the church was too empty for a wedding that was less than an hour away from beginning. Gage didn’t know much about weddings, but he knew that people usually liked to get to them early so they could get the good seats. As he passed through the vestibule, he noticed that some of those front pews were occupied by little gray-haired people.
Older people were always early. It was the younger ones that weren’t on time. Like the Paynes. Where was Logan or Parker or Cooper? Or had any of them even been invited?
They were Penny’s kids. Not Woodrow’s agents. Of all the Payne Protection bodyguards, only he and Nick had worked for the Bureau.
What about the agents, though? Where were they? Woodrow would have invited them for certain. Sure, Dalton Reyes hated weddings. But Gage had heard that after finding a bride in a car trunk, the agent had gotten married himself, so he must have changed his mind.
And what about Agents Campbell or Stryker or Bell? They were all close with Woodrow. They wouldn’t have missed his daughter’s wedding.
But the only one Gage saw from the Bureau was the ass kisser. The young guy had been even more of a rookie than Gage. But he’d been desperate to get ahead and jealous that Gage had. He was the one who’d spread the lies that Gage was only dating Megan for a promotion.
Because it didn’t matter how much ass Tucker Allison kissed, he would never make special agent. There was nothing special about him. He didn’t have the guts for the job. Or to help Gage and Woodrow take down the armed suspects.
Where the hell were they? He hadn’t noticed any of them as he’d crossed the vestibule. But as he stepped through
