Marching Orders. Delores Fossen
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be. It was yet another contingency, a bad one, in a day already filled to the brim with contingencies.
“I won’t be long.” He gave her arm a gentle squeeze, turned and went to his boss.
“Problem?” Shaw asked the moment Rafe joined him on the other side of the church.
Rafe hesitated, debating how much he should tell, but from his boss’s demeanor, he already had enough to deal with. “I can handle it. What’s the situation with the shooter?”
“The guy’s alive but not talking. No ID on him, but they might be able to get something when they run his prints.”
It was a long shot, and they both knew it. “Any idea what he was doing out there?”
“He tried to tamper with the communication equipment. The team scoured the area and didn’t find anyone else. Seems he was working alone.”
Rafe had already figured that part out for himself, but it was good to hear his commanding officer verify it. If there had been others, they wouldn’t be having this conversation, and his bride wouldn’t be in the pew staring craters in him. The three of them would still be in the dark waiting for the remainder of Alpha Team to contain the situation.
He almost wished they were still waiting it out. Then, he’d have a second chance to take back what he said to Anna.
“I’ve got someone checking over the equipment to make sure everything is fine,” Shaw said, his explanation low enough that Anna wouldn’t be able to hear. “And it looks as if we’ll have an all clear for you two to leave in a couple of minutes. I’ll stay here to wrap up things.”
Rafe made a sound of agreement and issued an obligatory thanks and farewell to the photographer when he hurried out the door. The guy looked scared out of his mind, and probably was. A definite case of the wrong place at the wrong time, but at least everyone was alive. It could have been much worse.
Much worse.
Shaw tipped his head to Anna and kept his voice to a whisper. “Is she all right?”
Rafe wanted to say yes, but he couldn’t. Besides, with that stunned expression on her face, it was obvious that she was far from all right. “I called her by the wrong name.”
“Hell,” Shaw mumbled. “How did you explain that?”
“Slip of the tongue. The pressure of the situation. Imperfection.” But it wasn’t the explanation or excuses that mattered. “Sir, I’m not sure she believes me.”
The colonel added another four-letter profanity. “I’ll do some damage control,” Shaw assured him, his voice a low, rough bark. “Anna trusts me.”
It was true, but Rafe almost wished she didn’t. If Shaw had been just another officer assigned to Alpha Team and hadn’t been close friends with Anna’s late father, then maybe the colonel would have come up with a different plan.
One that didn’t involve a wedding by direct order.
“She’ll find out, eventually,” Rafe said more to himself than to Colonel Shaw. From all accounts Anna was a bright woman, and he was bound to make other slipups. Sooner or later, she’d catch on.
If she hadn’t already.
Shaw looked him straight in the eye. “But she won’t find out until this is over, understand? I won’t have you jeopardize the lives of those men—or her—because your conscience is bothering you.”
“It isn’t my conscience that’s giving me a problem, sir. It’s the notion that we could have gone about this in a different way. We shouldn’t have involved her in this.”
“She’s involved whether you want her to be or not,” Shaw declared. “Besides, Anna wanted this marriage.”
He could have argued that. He could have reminded the colonel that Anna Caldwell actually wanted to marry Captain Rafe McQuade. When Anna learned that he wasn’t that man, she wouldn’t be pleased. Worse, there was nothing he could do to stop it. Things had already been set into motion.
Hell, legally he was married to her.
“Just stick with the plan,” Shaw continued. He motioned for a team member, Special Agent Luke Buchanan, to join them when he entered the church. “We’re too deep into this to back out now. Other than putting her under lock and key, this is the best way to keep her safe.”
Rafe was afraid that’s what the colonel would say. It didn’t make it easier to swallow. “But what about the reception? We’re expected there.” In fact, it was more than expected. It was a vital part of the plan to generate some publicity.
Shaw blew out a long, frustrated breath. “We’ll postpone it. I don’t want you out in the open, not after what just happened. I’ll come up with an excuse why neither of you can be there.”
Rafe followed that through to its logical conclusion. If Anna and he didn’t go to the reception, there would be no public appearance. No picture of the happy bride and groom in tomorrow’s newspaper. No illusion to build a safety net for Anna and the others. And no diversion for him to make a much-needed exit.
Rafe repeated the four-letter word the colonel had just used.
Shaw checked his watch. “The limo will take you and Anna to the VIP quarters at the base. I’ll be here for the next few hours if you need to get in touch with me.”
VIP quarters. That wasn’t the way things were supposed to work tonight. Shaw didn’t give him a chance to remind him of that, but instead stepped away and headed toward Anna. Rafe watched as his boss took his bride’s hand and urged her to her feet. Shaw leaned closer and whispered something that had her offering him a thin smile.
“It’s apparently show time,” Special Agent Buchanan mumbled when he walked closer to Rafe. “Again.”
Yep. Show time was the right term for it. For the last three days, that was pretty much what all of them had done. It turned Rafe’s stomach.
“By the way,” Buchanan went on, “have I mentioned that I’ll tear you limb from limb if you don’t do everything in your power to stop Anna from getting hurt?”
“At least a hundred freaking times.” But Rafe didn’t hold the man’s Neanderthal threat against him. Buchanan knew Anna and the other Alpha Team members. They weren’t friends exactly, but this had to be taking a toll on him.
Too bad, though, that Rafe didn’t see a way around this. He had to continue this charade, which would likely end with an innocent woman having her heart broken. It was the epitome of a rock and a hard place. And Anna was in the middle of it simply because she’d had the rotten luck to fall in love with the wrong guy.
He glanced over Buchanan’s shoulder and saw the colonel and her making their way toward them. For a brief second, their gazes connected, but she quickly looked away. So, despite Shaw’s confidence in his pseudo-fatherly relationship with Anna, he hadn’t been able to smooth things over, after all.
“I was just telling Anna about that mud-for-brains idiot who thought it was a good idea to try to steal our equipment,” Shaw announced. “Rafe winged the guy, but he’ll be all right.” The colonel passed the bouquet to her, and she gripped on to it as if it were a lifeline. “She’s still a little shaken up. Heck, we all are. Right, Rafe?”
He mumbled a mandatory agreement and even tossed in one of his grins.
“How about it—are you sure you’re okay?” Buchanan asked her.
Rafe didn’t think it was his imagination that she gave Buchanan a suspicious glance, as well. With reason. Anna was probably trying to decide if she could trust any of them.
She finally nodded in response to Buchanan’s question. “So, I guess you anticipated something like this might happen, or you wouldn’t have had men outside the church?”
Rafe didn’t even try