The Men In Uniform Collection. Barbara McMahon
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was cold and heavy and uncomfortable to grasp. She hadn’t been deployed like Cooper, but as a social worker she’d seen more than her share of tragedies—many of them caused by guns. She wanted to shove it back onto Logan. But she didn’t want to keep him from checking on Cooper and Parker. So she held on to it despite her revulsion.
“And lock yourself in the bedroom,” Logan ordered her. “If anyone tries coming through the door without identifying himself, squeeze the trigger and keep shooting until you run out of bullets.”
What then?
She would have asked if she hadn’t already known the answer. If she used all the bullets and not a single one struck her target, even though she’d tried hard not to break Mrs. Payne’s superstitions, she was still out of luck.
* * *
“WHAT THE HELL was that?” Parker griped as he lay sprawled across the asphalt of the complex parking lot. “You knocked my phone out of my hand and probably destroyed Stephen’s computer.”
“You’re welcome,” Cooper replied.
Parker cursed him as he stretched his arm under a car, grappling for his phone. He cursed again as his fingertips brushed against it and pushed it farther from his reach.
“What’s a phone when I just saved your life?”
Parker scoffed, “Sure, you saved my life.”
“Someone was firing real bullets at us,” Cooper reminded him. And might fire some more if they lifted their heads above the car they crouched behind for cover. “If you think they were blanks, maybe I should have let one hit you.”
“You really expect me to thank you?” Parker asked in astonishment.
“That’s the usual custom when someone saves another person’s life,” Cooper said. Maybe he hadn’t been gone that long, since he was easily falling back into the old pattern of bantering with his family. “In some countries, that would make you my indentured servant. You would have to wait on me hand and foot in reward for my heroism.”
But even as he teased Parker, he listened for more gunshots, for the sound of a car’s engine or tires, or a person’s footsteps...
“All those damn medals and commendations went straight to your head,” Parker griped. “You wouldn’t have had to save me if you hadn’t put me in danger in the first place.”
Cooper sputtered, “How is any of this my fault?”
Parker jammed his shoulder against the rocker panel of the car and stretched his arm farther toward the phone. “You wanted to come here—”
“You came here earlier tonight,” he reminded his brother, “and nobody shot at you.”
“Yeah, because I’m not getting married tomorrow.” He shuddered as if the mere thought of marriage horrified him, and inadvertently pushed the phone farther to the other side of the car.
If they were certain that the shooter was gone, they could have gotten up and walked around to the other side. But maybe that was what the assailant was waiting for...a clear shot.
Cooper had knocked Parker down so quickly and dropped to the ground himself that the shooter had only managed a couple of shots.
Had no one else heard them? No sirens wailed—not even in the distance. Parker needed that phone to call 911 since Cooper had left his in the car with the battery pulled out of it so that nobody could track it. Their car was parked on the other side of the lot.
Struggling to keep his face straight as he uttered the lie, he said, “I thought those shots were meant for you.”
“Me?” Parker was all astonished sounding again.
“You’re the playboy.” He had been in high school, and according to the letters he received from Nikki while he was overseas, that hadn’t changed. “You must have pissed off a husband or boyfriend lately.”
Parker shuddered again as if in remembrance. “Not lately.” He hesitated as if considering. “No, not lately.” He nudged Cooper’s shoulder. “Those shots were meant for you, little brother. You’re the one marrying the Grim Reaper bride.”
“Hey!” He smacked his brother upside the head, like Logan so often had his twin and Cooper. “Don’t call her that!”
Parker smacked him back. “I know she’s hot and you’ve always had this crush on her, but you need to remember that you’re not marrying her for real. And if that shooter has his way, you’re not going to marry her at all.”
They paused in their scuffle to listen. Had a door opened and shut? Was someone here?
“I was supposed to take you right to that safe house,” Parker said in a low grumble. “If that shooter doesn’t kill us, Logan will...”
Something scraped against the asphalt, and Cooper peered under the car to see a pair of dark shoes advancing toward them. The man stopped on the other side of the car, then leaned down and picked up Parker’s phone.
“Hey, Paula, Cathy—quit your bickering and stop cowering behind that car,” Logan said with a chuckle of amusement and relief.
“We are not cowering,” Cooper informed his eldest brother. But his pride stung over how Logan had found them arguing behind a vehicle. He must have secured the scene first, though, so Cooper jumped up from the pavement. “We took cover.”
“While I was on the phone with Parker, I heard the shots,” Logan said. “I take it you’re both okay.” He narrowed his eyes and studied Cooper then glanced down at his twin. “Neither of you got hit?”
Parker stood up and rubbed his ear. “I wouldn’t say that. I took quite a hit from our little brother.”
“Where’s Tanya?” Cooper asked. He didn’t have time for their teasing. He peered around the parking lot, looking for Logan’s vehicle. “You didn’t bring her along, did you?”
Logan shook his head. “She’s at the safe house.”
His pulse quickening with anxiety, he asked, “Alone? Did you leave her alone?”
“There’s another guard on perimeter duty.”
“Someone sitting in a car out front?” he asked. “Like he couldn’t be compromised...” His stomach lurched as a horrible realization dawned on him. “What if these shots were a diversion? A way to lure you away from her?”
Logan shook his head. “Like the shooter would know I would be on the phone with Parker. Hell, he probably doesn’t even know Tanya was with me.”
“He could have been watching back at her place.” From the threats Cooper had found packed away in that box, it looked like this person had been stalking her for years. “He could have seen who she left with and followed you.”
Logan’s pride was obviously stung now. He lifted his chin. “I was not followed.”
“Even you can’t be sure of that,” Cooper challenged him.
Just the tiniest flicker of doubt flashed in Logan’s eyes. “Damn it. Damn you...”
“Tell me where she is!” he demanded. The first light of dawn streaked across the dark sky. It was now his wedding day. His mother’s superstitions be damned, he had to check on his bride—to make sure that he hadn’t already lost her.
* * *
THE HOTEL SUITE had been eerily silent for so long that Tanya had become aware of noises she had never heard before—like the sound of her own blood rushing through her veins. The soft thump of her racing pulse. The whispery whoosh of her breaths coming in and out of her nose.
How long had Logan been gone? Too long for Parker and Cooper to be all right. If they hadn’t been hurt, he would have come back by now.
Unless the shots