The Men In Uniform Collection. Barbara McMahon
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Then she reached out and squeezed his arm. “I’m sorry about Stephen. Do you have any idea what happened?”
“We don’t know anything for certain. There’s a hell of a lot of blood in the groom’s quarters. But until the crime lab does a DNA test, we don’t even know for certain that it’s his.” Except if it wasn’t, where the hell was he, then? If there wasn’t all that blood, Cooper might have believed his friend had just gotten a case of cold feet. He might have believed that if Stephen was marrying any woman but Tanya.
“Mom confirmed he was the only one in the room,” Nikki said.
“Where was his best man?” Cooper asked.
Nikki lifted a reddish brow. “Where was he?” she asked, obviously referring to him.
“I told him I couldn’t do it,” Cooper reminded his little sister.
“Why not?”
“Why?” Cooper asked. “Why did he even ask me? We haven’t seen each other in years.”
“He showed up at the house to see you every time you were home on leave,” Nikki said. “He stayed in touch.”
But they’d both been busy. The letters few and far between and Cooper’s visits home even more infrequent. He shrugged. “I just thought it was weird that he didn’t have a closer friend he wanted to stand up there with him.”
And weirder that he wanted Cooper. They had been good friends in high school—so good that Stephen must have realized how Cooper had really felt about Tanya. Had he wanted to rub his face in the fact he’d gotten the girl Cooper had wanted? And if so, then they hadn’t really been that good of friends.
But Cooper still cared about him—still wanted him safe—which he probably would have been had Cooper actually been his best man. Then Stephen wouldn’t have been alone in the groom’s quarters.
“There are a couple of guys who were planning on standing up there with him,” Nikki said. “A friend from his office and a cousin, but I recruited them to help me find Rochelle. We’d been searching all the bars in River City.”
“How’d you know that’s where she was?” Maybe Logan was underestimating their sister’s potential as a security expert.
“She left me a drunk voice mail.”
Cooper glanced over at the crying woman and sighed. “So interrogating her would probably be a waste of time until Mom gets more coffee in her.”
“You don’t need to interrogate her,” Tanya said as she rejoined them with an ice pack pressed against the cheek her sister had viciously slapped.
Apparently his mother was prepared for every wedding emergency—even catfights between the bride and maid of honor. What was her plan to handle a missing groom?
“I can tell you whatever Rochelle can,” Tanya said.
But would she be truthful with him? “You’ll tell me why she thinks you’re just using Stephen to get your inheritance?”
Nikki nudged his arm. “Easy. She’s not a suspect.”
Maybe she should have been. As he’d already noted, she wasn’t nearly as upset as a madly in love bride should have been when her groom mysteriously and apparently violently disappeared. When Cooper had quietly, so she wouldn’t overhear him, questioned her reaction earlier, his mother and brother had insisted she was in shock.
But her green eyes were clear now and direct as she replied, “I’m not using Stephen.”
“What about the inheritance? Your grandfather died a decade ago—don’t you already have your money?” But if she did, why pick his mom’s place for her wedding? The chapel was small and the reception hall in the basement was hardly elegant enough for a billionaire bride.
She shook her head.
“Not yet,” another voice chimed in to answer for her. A burly gray-haired man joined them inside the church. With his muscular build and military haircut, he looked more like a cop, but Cooper recognized the lawyer, Arthur Gregory, who’d made countless house calls to the mausoleum. “Neither she nor Rochelle will inherit until they marry.”
If Rochelle was right and her sister was just after her inheritance, wouldn’t she have gotten married ten years ago? Wouldn’t Rochelle have?
“He’s trying to control us even after his death,” Rochelle murmured. “Mean son of a—”
“Miss Chesterfield,” the lawyer admonished her. “Your grandfather had only your best interests at heart.”
“He had no heart,” Rochelle retorted. “The only reason he wanted us married was because he didn’t think a female had enough brains to handle the kind of money he was leaving to us.” She uttered a derisive snort. “Like our father did such a great job. He blew through all that money Grandfather gave him to divorce Mom and take off.”
Cooper had never known what had happened to Tanya’s father. She had always avoided talking about him. He’d been sensitive to that since he’d never wanted to talk about how he had lost his dad either.
“Mr. Gregory, is there a way around the will?” Tanya asked the lawyer.
Her sister gasped. “We don’t even know what’s happened to Stephen and all you care about is the money?”
“I care about him,” Tanya said. “That’s why I need the money. In case this is a kidnapping, I’ll need it to pay the ransom to get him back.”
Arthur Gregory sighed. “There is no way to inherit that money unless you’re married, Miss Chesterfield. And as you know, you only have a few more days...”
Tanya flinched as if the lawyer had slapped her, too.
“Why only a few more days?” Cooper asked.
“If she doesn’t marry before she turns thirty, she forfeits her half of the inheritance,” Rochelle replied. “Then I’ll get it all when I marry.”
The young woman must have been too drunk yet to realize that she’d just announced her motive for getting rid of her sister’s groom. But if she was behind Stephen’s disappearance, why was she so distraught over it?
“I need that money,” Tanya repeated, “in case there’s a ransom demand...”
If Stephen was alive...
But if he wasn’t, why wouldn’t his body have been left in the room? Someone had taken him for a reason. And what better reason than money?
“The only way you can access your funds is to marry,” the lawyer insisted.
“Then she’ll have to marry,” Cooper’s mother said as she joined them inside the church. She carried a tray with cups on it—probably filled with coffee, judging by the rich aroma wafting from the tray.
Rochelle seemed to have already sobered up. But Cooper was tempted to reach for a cup. He suspected it was going to be a long night.
“But if Stephen’s been kidnapped, we won’t get him back until I’ve paid for his return,” Tanya pointed out.
“So you’ll marry someone else,” the wedding planner matter-of-factly replied as if it were easy to exchange one groom for another.
“Who?” Cooper asked.
His mother turned to him, her eyes wide with surprise that he hadn’t already figured it out. “You, of course.”
Cooper had had no intention of attending this wedding, let alone participating in it. He hadn’t wanted to be the best man...and he sure as hell wasn’t going to be the groom.
Tanya’s heart stung with rejection.