The Bride's Bodyguard. Beth Cornelison

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       Chapter 2

      Jake fought the limo back under control and steered onto the highway. Checking the mirrors for any more surprise assailants, he took the first exit and headed in the opposite direction from the way the motorcyclist departed.

      At his earliest opportunity, Jake pulled the limo off the road and stopped long enough to check the driver for signs of life. He pressed his fingers to the man’s carotid artery, despite the glaring hole in his head that screamed proof that the driver was dead.

      Paige appeared at the windowless gap between the front and back seats. “Why’d we stop? Is the driver—?”

      “Don’t look,” he barked, harsher than he needed to, but tension had him wound tight. Tact was not at the top of his priorities at the moment. “Get down and stay there. You don’t need this image in your head, and I don’t know when we may get attacked again.”

      The rustle of satin and lace told him she’d complied.

      “So what do we do now? Where are we going?” The tremble of fear in her voice sucker punched his gut.

      “This is a work in progress, darlin'. I’ll tell you when I know. First thing we have to do is get rid of this limo. It’s conspicuous as hell.” He whipped a quick glance over his shoulder to the backseat. Paige’s wide green eyes made her look vulnerable, yet he also saw keen intelligence and stubborn determination in her expression that told him she was no frail flower that would wilt at any moment. Good. If this situation was half as dangerous as the past thirty minutes purported, she’d need a little starch in her to survive the coming days.

      “First thing you need to do is lose the dress.”

      “Excuse me?” she said, her tone rife with offense.

      He dismissed her misunderstanding with a twist of his mouth and a short sigh. “You do have other clothes, don’t you? Like in a suitcase in the trunk? Packed for your honeymoon?”

      “Oh…right.”

      He heard her embarrassment in her voice, and though he kept his eyes on the road, he imagined her ivory cheeks, flushed red as they had been the night before at the rehearsal dinner when she was the butt of her friends’ and family’s good-natured ribbing. Her modesty and discomfiture had struck him as unusual for a woman with so much going for her—beauty, brains, wealth, ambition and family and friends who clearly adored her. Most women he knew with so much going for them seemed to feel they were entitled to their privileged lives.

      For someone who’d scraped and fought for everything he had, such arrogance was a huge turnoff to Jake.

      He cleared his throat. “Not only is the dress conspicuous when we need to blend, it’s hardly made for speed if we have to make a break for it on foot again.” He searched the side of the road for a place where he could hide the limo.

      “Do you think we will…have to flee on foot, I mean?”

      He met her gaze in the rearview mirror. “I don’t know what we may be up against. But we need to be ready for anything, and we can’t call attention to ourselves. They’ll be looking for us. So we’ve got to go to ground until we either figure out what they want,” he said thinking aloud, “or know for certain they’re not hot on our asses anymore.”

      “We should just call the police and let them handle it.”

      “Can’t. Scofield said Homeland was compromised. I assume he means Homeland Security, which is exactly who the police will call if they think national security is at stake.” He shook his СКАЧАТЬ