bile and adrenaline soured her stomach and threatened to come up as she clung to Jake for dear life. The surreal screams from her friends and family, under assault in the sanctuary she’d been dragged away from, faded as they made their escape.
But the deafening gunfire followed them. A series of blasts thundered through the air. Paige winced as bits of concrete flew up at her when bullets peppered the ground. Bullets aimed at her and at Jake.
“Start the engine! Go, go, go!” Jake shouted to someone. He staggered to a stop, but before she could catch her breath or regain her bearings, he dumped her, unceremoniously, onto the backseat of the bridal limo.
“Let’s move!” Jake yelled.
She battled away the curtain of ivory satin that had her tangled in an awkward knot, obscuring her vision. As she scooted across the seat, righting herself and restoring air to her jostled lungs, Jake lunged onto the seat beside her. He swung a handgun out the open car door and fired a couple of earsplitting shots. The limo driver hit the gas, and they rocketed down the church driveway, even before Jake had closed the limo door.
As the limo hurtled down the streets of Lagniappe, weaving through traffic and taking turns at a high speed, Paige was tossed about like a sock in the dryer. Her mind spun as well, reeling from the macabre turn of events. Her wedding had become a bloodbath. Brent had been shot. And her groom’s high school friend, a man she’d met only four days ago, had bodily carried her out of harm’s way like some tuxedoed superhero.
Dear God, was her sister hurt? Her parents? Her friends? And poor Mr. Diggle had been murdered in cold blood!
She must be dreaming. If this is some anxiety-induced nightmare, please let me wake up now!
For the first time, Paige said a prayer of thanks that her youngest sister hadn’t been at the wedding after all. At least Paige knew Zoey was safe.
The limo’s back window shattered. Startled by the loud crash and rain of broken glass, Paige screamed.
“Get down!” Jake palmed her head and shoved her to the floor, covering her with his massive body. His weight pressed her back into the plush carpeting and biting shards of the window while his rock-hard chest and wide shoulders ground against the galloping beat of her heart. The heat of his exertion and the faint scent of sandalwood surrounded her. Despite the hell breaking loose around her, the solid wall of his body created a warm cocoon where, for a few moments, she felt marginally protected, fractionally less frightened.
She squeezed her eyes closed, only to see haunting images of Brent’s blood, spraying bullets and crushed flowers. Chaos, death and destruction. At her wedding.
She shuddered.
You know what we want, Scofield.
Keep the bead safe at all costs.
Why had Jake brought a gun to the wedding? Had he expected trouble?
Who were those armed men, and what was Brent’s link to them?
None of it made sense.
“Hit the highway out of town and don’t stop until you’re sure you’ve lost them!” Jake shouted to the driver.
Time kaleidoscoped, and Paige couldn’t be sure if she’d huddled beneath Jake’s protective cover for one minute or twenty. When the assault of gunfire stopped, he rolled off of her and sat back to take off his tux jacket and rip open the shirt at his throat. Her gaze gravitated to the pulse throbbing on his thick neck. A muscle in his jaw jumped as he gritted his teeth and eased forward to peer over the backseat.
She rubbed the spot at her temple where her head pounded.
“I think we lost them.” Jake expelled a deep breath of relief as he pushed up to the seat at the back of the limo. He raked a hand through his short, inky-black hair and lifted a penetrating gaze to her. “Are you all right?”
Paige could only stare back at him, too stunned, too shaken, too confused by the violent attack at her wedding to know what to do or say. This kind of thing was only supposed to happen in the movies, not in real life. Not in her staid, well-planned, organized, boring life.
Jake extended a large hand to her. She studied the crimson smears on his fingers, and her stomach roiled. “You have blood on your hand. Brent’s blood,” she said stupidly, still too shell-shocked to edit her thoughts for statements of the obvious.
But Jake didn’t laugh off or dismiss her banal comment. Instead, his expression darkened, and his jaw tightened. “I did what I thought was best, considering I was outnumbered, outgunned and had the lives of three hundred of your friends and relatives to factor in to my response to those thugs,” he said bitterly. He massaged his knee and winced. “I know I screwed up. I know your fiancé is likely dead because of my screw up.”
Paige’s breath hitched, and a sharp ache sliced through her. Brent could be dead.
Jake jerked his gaze to the side window and huffed. His nostrils flared, and pain flooded his face for a moment before he schooled his expression and turned back to her. “I’m sorry.”
She blinked, saying nothing for long seconds, realizing he’d taken her comment as condemnation and accusation. His tortured expression, his guilty confession twisted in her chest.
“I—I only meant…you have blood—” She pointed to his hands, then stopped when she saw the blood on her own fingers. She gaped at the red stains, her stomach seesawing as she discovered the smears on her dress, as well—the garish reminder of the violence she’d witnessed, of her futile attempts to help Brent when he’d been shot, of the unknown carnage she’d left at the church. It was her wedding. Didn’t that make it her responsibility to see to the safety of her guests? How could she flee like a coward and leave everyone else to die?
And what choice in the matter had Jake given her, hauling her away like a duffel bag over his shoulder?
“Are you hurt? ” Jake repeated, his tone demanding.
Paige drew a slow breath, forcing air into lungs paralyzed by shock, terror and grief. “I—I don’t know.” She looked up at Jake, needing answers. “What just happened? How…Why…?”
He leaned forward and put a hand under her elbow, helping her off the limo floor and onto the long seat ninety degrees from where he sat. “Good question. The sooner we get those answers, the better I’ll be able to protect you and the bead.”
“Protect me?”
Jake gave her a tight nod. “Those are my orders. That’s what Brent asked just before we made our big exit.”
“Your orders?” She hated sounding like some parrot, repeating everything Jake said, but her brain was still struggling to comprehend the horror of the past half hour and make sense of the insanity. “Who the hell are you really? And why did you think you had to bring a gun to my wedding? ”
Jake flexed and balled his hand restlessly. “I really am an old friend of Brent’s. But not his best friend—just the one with the most military training. He hired me a couple weeks ago to protect him until after the wedding. My being his best man was my cover. So you wouldn’t ask questions.”
Paige shook her head, more confused than
