Chapter 18
For Kimberly Duffy – with great appreciation
for all your years of friendship. Without your
support and your wonderful sense of humour,
I don’t know how I would have survived all
the ups and downs in my career and in my life.
Thank you!
How the hell had he survived? It wasn’t possible. It just wasn’t possible…
But the proof was in the photo. Sure, he looked different. Then again, who wouldn’t, after what he’d been through? He’d been tortured to death. At least Derek had thought he’d killed the man…
Cockroaches were like that, though; they could survive the most extreme extermination attempts. The only thing they couldn’t survive was getting crushed.
The picture crumpled in a big fist. He better be enjoying his last moments of life—because he wasn’t going to stay alive. And this time when he died, he would damn well stay dead.
Derek Nielsen hurled the wadded-up photo against the bars of his cell. An alarm rang out. He hadn’t set it off—directly. But indirectly he had. The alarm was sounding because of him, according to his carefully orchestrated plan.
This was it—his escape.
With a buzz and a clank, the cell door slid open. He slipped through it like other prisoners stepped through theirs. They were confused, though, standing in the hall outside their cells. Derek hurried past them. He knew where he needed to be: the laundry room. He had only minutes to get to the vent leading out from one of the commercial dryers. After his efforts, it was big enough now for him to crawl through and escape.
Derek would be out soon to the vehicle that waited outside for him. The one that would slip through the gates and bring him to freedom.
Derek wouldn’t be returning to prison, although he fully intended to commit another crime. He was going to kill the man responsible for sending him to jail.
Gage Huxton had survived six months in hell for this? Since becoming a bodyguard on his return from Afghanistan, his assignments had been a mixed bag. His first job with the Payne Protection Agency had been to protect an elderly lady with Alzheimer’s, who had only been in danger from her disease and not her imagined threats.
But then he had also been assigned to follow the man who was now his brother-in-law. That job had nearly gotten Gage killed. But he had survived being shot at and nearly run down.
He wasn’t sure he would survive this: wedding duty. He slid a finger between the bow tie and his skin, trying to loosen the stranglehold it had on him. An image flashed through his mind, of a noose tightening around his neck, squeezing off his oxygen until oblivion claimed him. But, unfortunately, oblivion had never lasted. He grimaced as he remembered other horrors.
“Are you okay?” a soft voice asked him.
He blinked away those horrific images and focused on Penny Payne. She sprang up from her chair and walked around her desk in the office in the basement of her white wedding chapel. It was in River City, Michigan—where his friend Nick had moved and where Gage now lived.
Not wanting to worry her, he jerked his chin up and down in a quick nod.
Her brown eyes warm with affection and concern, she stared up at him. “You look very handsome in the tuxedo.”
He probably should have shaved the scruff from his jaw so he’d fit in more with the wedding guests when they arrived. But he hadn’t had the time or the inclination. “I must be crazy,” he said.
“Why’s that?” she asked, and now there was a twinkle of amusement in her eyes.
“To let you talk me into playing a bouncer for your wedding business.” Penny was his boss’s mother, so he probably hadn’t had much choice. But it hadn’t been any easier for him to tell her no than it probably would have been for her son.
She reached up, and he reacted as he did whenever someone moved to touch him. He flinched. Sympathy dimmed the usual brightness of her smile. “Gage…”
Instead of pulling back as so many other people did, she gently laid her palm against his cheek. “I’m sorry,” she murmured.
He shook his head and dislodged her hand. “I don’t want pity,” he said. “I just want to do my job.”
“That’s not what—”
He forced a smile. “It’s okay.” Nobody had known how to react to him since he’d been back. So maybe it was good that not many people knew he’d survived.
“Where do you need me?” he asked. “Do I need to make sure the bride and groom’s mothers don’t get into a catfight?”
Penny’s smile dimmed more, and she replied, “The bride’s mother passed away years ago.”
“That’s too bad.” He didn’t see his mother often since she and his dad had moved to Alaska, but he could call her anytime. He rarely called, though; he didn’t want to worry her. “So no catfights between the mothers. What about the bridesmaids?”
Penny’s lips curved into a bigger smile. “Why do you sound almost hopeful?”
