The Men In Uniform Collection. Barbara McMahon
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Cooper...
She never should have agreed with his becoming her groom. But she’d worried that she might need that money to pay a ransom for Stephen’s safe return. But there had been no call, no demand. She glanced at her phone and noticed that the screen had gone dark. Was it just in sleep mode?
She tapped the screen, but it remained black. She had plugged the phone into the charger, but maybe the charger wasn’t plugged into a live outlet. Was it one of those that was connected to the wall switch?
What if she’d missed the ransom call because her phone was dead?
She wanted to flip on the switch by the door, but then the lights would come on, too. And she preferred sitting in the dark. That way, if someone got inside the suite, they might not check her room since there would be no light streaking beneath the door. They might think that she had left with Logan.
She should have left with Logan. Then she wouldn’t be helplessly waiting for news about Cooper. She couldn’t lose Stephen and him in one night.
Her heart was beating harder now, so loudly that it deafened her to the other noises she should have heard. The noises, like the door to the hall opening, like the footsteps that might have warned her that she was no longer alone in the safe house.
But she had no clue she wasn’t alone anymore until the doorknob rattled. She’d locked it, but the lock was flimsy. Heck, so was the door. It wouldn’t take much for someone to force his way inside. Or shoot his way inside...
But she had a gun now, too. She clasped it in hands that had gone clammy and numb from holding the heavy weapon. Could she uncurl her fingers enough to pull the trigger?
Could she pull the trigger at all? And fire bullets into another human being?
Suddenly, the door opened. And she squeezed...
“Damn it,” was the least offensive of Cooper’s curses as he ducked. The bullet tunneled into the woodwork near his shoulder.
And Tanya screamed and dropped the gun.
Instead of ducking again, Cooper launched himself at her—knocking her back onto the bed in case the gun fired another round when it hit the ground. But it only spun across the threadbare carpet like a bottle at a game of spin the bottle. It stopped with the barrel pointing at them.
Cooper cursed again because he was tempted to kiss her—especially when she cupped his face in her hands and stared up at him as if she wanted his kiss, too.
“You’re alive,” she murmured.
“No thanks to you,” he reminded them both. “I guess Logan was right when he said I needed protecting from you.” He’d known she was lying when she said she wouldn’t hurt him. He’d had no doubt she would hurt him—just as she had when they were kids and she’d so readily agreed with him that they were just friends. “I didn’t think you would shoot me, though.”
Tears sprang to her eyes, brightening the already vivid green. Her hands dropped from his face to the bed where she grasped the sheets. “I’m sorry! I’m so sorry! I thought you were someone else...”
“My brother? I was tempted to shoot him myself when I realized he’d left you alone.” Since the guard Logan had stationed outside had fallen asleep in a car parked in the lot, he had essentially left her all alone.
“I shouldn’t have fired the gun until I saw who it was,” she said. “But your brother told me to shoot anyone who came through the door without announcing himself.”
“And announcing myself in Afghanistan would have gotten me killed for sure,” Cooper mused. “But I’m beginning to think I was safer there—I actually may have gotten shot at less.”
She shuddered. “Logan was right? He heard shots on the phone?”
Cooper nodded.
“Outside Stephen’s condo?”
Cooper nodded again. “Just as we were leaving the complex, someone started shooting. Neither of us got hit. They may have only been firing to scare us.”
“To scare you,” she said, “so you won’t marry me.”
“Don’t worry,” he assured her. “I don’t scare easily.”
“That’s not good,” she said. “Because if he can’t scare you off, he’ll try to kill you.”
The way he had her.
“That’s why I have to call off the wedding—to keep you alive,” she said.
“What about a ransom demand on Stephen? You won’t be able to meet it if you don’t marry.”
Her hips arching into his, she wriggled beneath him until she slid out from under him. Then she grabbed up the phone and charger and plugged it into another outlet. “No missed calls,” she said with a sigh of relief. Then her brow furrowed. “No ransom call...”
“We don’t know that there won’t be one,” Cooper pointed out.
“Wouldn’t it have been made already?” she asked anxiously. “Why would they wait?”
He shrugged. “To see if you actually can get the money together.”
“But if they don’t want money to give Stephen back, we’ll have gotten married for nothing.”
His pride stung—at least that was all he hoped it was—that she obviously did not want to marry him. But then, Cooper hadn’t wanted to marry her either. “We can fix that then.”
“An annulment,” she said with a sigh of relief. “I was going to tell you that you don’t have to worry that I’ll think this is permanent. As soon as I get my inheritance, we’ll get divorced. But an annulment is better...”
Because with an annulment, it would be as if they had never been married. But the only way an annulment could be granted quickly was if the marriage was never consummated. He ignored the flash of disappointment he felt; he’d known this wasn’t going to be a real marriage.
He wasn’t the real groom. Stephen was. Cooper was just the stand-in groom. Stephen was the man she loved; she’d told him herself. Cooper was...just the man she’d nearly shot.
“Fine,” he agreed just as readily as she had agreed that they were just friends all those years ago. “We’ll get an annulment. But first we have to get married.”
She shivered as if the prospect terrified her. “I don’t want to put you in danger, though.”
And he realized she was terrified for him. He reached out for her hand and then tugged her back down onto the bed next to him. “You’re not putting me in danger.”
She shook her head. “By marrying you, I am.”
“You’re not the one trying to shoot me,” he said. “Well, at least not until just now.”
“I’m really, really sorry,” she apologized again, her beautiful face tense with regret and fear. “I never should have taken the gun from your brother.”
Anger surged through Cooper again. “He never should have left you alone.”
Logan was the boss, but Cooper wouldn’t let bad decisions like that go unchallenged—professionally or personally.
“He was worried about you and Parker when he heard the shots,” she defended. “I was worried, too.” She entwined her fingers with his. “I don’t want anything to happen to you.”
She probably only said that because of their past friendship—because they had once been so close. But they hadn’t been for years. She’d written letters after he left, but he hadn’t replied to hers. He hadn’t wanted to think about her moving on with