Paula Graves - Secret Intentions

“It’s just stupid you’re sitting over there instead of here where you can see what’s going on.”

“I’m hoping nothing happens and all this worry was for nothing.”

“But you don’t really think that’s true, do you?” Evie asked. Jesse could tell she wanted to hope for the best, but she had never been a cockeyed optimist. Little Evie Marsh had always been a realist, even as a gangly teenager following Jesse and Rita around during their courtship.

“It’s best to prepare for any eventuality,” he answered.

He heard Evie’s soft sigh over the phone. “I’d better check on Mom and Rita. I don’t know who’s more high-strung today.”

“Is she really happy?” he asked before he could stop himself.

There was a long pause on Evie’s end of the line. “Yes, she’s really happy. She loves Andrew a lot.”

Jesse waited for a familiar twinge of pain, but it never came. “Good,” he said, meaning it.

“I’ll check in again before the ceremony,” she said and hung up.

Jesse closed his phone and picked up his binoculars, scanning the area for trouble and praying he’d find none.

* * *

E VIE LAID HER PHONE on the dressing table and eyed the closed door of the bride’s room’s inner dressing room. Rita was in there, talking with their mother as they finished the last touches on her hair and makeup. Evie wondered if her mother was asking the same question of Rita that Jesse had just asked of her.

Was she really happy?

There’d been a time Rita would have answered no. She’d spent a lot of time mourning her breakup with Jesse Cooper, although she’d been the one to end things when Jesse wouldn’t give up his Marine Corps career for her.

Rita shouldn’t have tried to force Jesse to be something he wasn’t. He was a leatherneck through and through, even now, years after leaving the Marine Corps. It was written all over him, from his masculine bearing to his hard-toned body and high-and-tight haircut. It had never made sense to Evie that the same qualities Rita had found so irresistible were the very qualities she’d wanted him to change to be her husband.

She supposed everything worked for the best. Rita had found a man who adored her and treated her like a queen. A woman could do a lot worse than Andrew Kingsley.

Evie eyed her bridesmaid dress. She didn’t relish the idea of squeezing herself into the tight bodice until absolutely necessary, but she didn’t want to mess up her hair again by re-dressing in her T-shirt and jeans just to go take a look at the sanctuary. The florist had delivered the flowers earlier that morning, so she hadn’t been able to get a look at the final decorations during the rehearsal the night before. She knew from her sister’s description that the sanctuary was going to be beautiful. She just wanted to see it for herself.

She compromised by slipping Rita’s white silk bathrobe over her slip before she padded barefoot into the corridor.

The sanctuary was at the far end of the hall, accessible by a double door that opened into the auditorium next to the piano by the altar. Evie stuck her head inside and took a quick look around.

Rita had selected an autumn palette for her wedding, her flower arrangements consisting of gold, russet and burnt-orange roses, lilies and chrysanthemums. The bridesmaid dresses were a rusty red that reminded Evie of dogwood trees in autumn. The pews were adorned with simple copper bows and the unlit unity candles at the front were a soft peach.

“Pretty, isn’t it?”

Evie turned to find a man in a black tux watching her from the front pew. On the pew beside him sat a large black trumpet case.

“Beautiful,” she agreed.

“I’m a little early. Or the rest of the orchestra is late.” He shrugged.

He was nice-looking. Early thirties, pleasant features, trim and masculine. Also friendly and uncomplicated. She’d had about all she could take of complicated, she thought, her mind wandering to the oh-so-complicated man watching for trouble from a convenience-store parking lot.

“You’re in the wedding?” the musician asked.

“Sister of the bride.” She smiled. “Guess I’d better go get dressed.”

She backed out of the sanctuary and started down the hall toward the bride’s room. She’d gone about ten feet when she saw a rush of movement through the windows facing the church’s side parking lot.

Security guards, she recognized, though the men her father had hired were in plain clothes rather than uniforms. They shared a fierceness of purpose as they streamed toward the door at the end of the corridor.

Panic tightened Evie’s gut. Had something happened?

As she started sprinting toward the bride’s room, someone grabbed her from behind in a strong, rough grip. She tried to struggle free, but her captor sprayed her in the face with something that stung on contact.

Pepper spray, she realized with shock, gagging as she tried to breathe. Her eyes slammed shut, burning as if on fire, and when she tried to scream, her voice came out in a tortured croak. She tried to remember the evasion methods she’d learned during her Cooper Security orientation training, but the pain in her eyes and her lungs overwhelmed her so that it was all she could do to draw her next breath.

A second captor grabbed her feet and lifted, turning her sideways and sending the world around her spinning off its axis. Blinded, gasping for air and disoriented, she landed on something solid and clawed for a foothold before realizing she was lying on her side rather than standing. She heard a solid thud of something closing, and what little light had been able to seep through her streaming eyes disappeared, plunging her into utter darkness.

The smell of pepper spray remained strong, and the skin around her face burned. She needed water, something to rinse off the residue of the spray remaining on her skin and around her eyes, but when she tried to move, she found herself confined.

She was in some sort of box. Feeling around the tiny confines of her cage, she felt the nubby texture of hard vinyl—like a case, similar to the trumpet case that had sat on the pew next to the musician in the sanctuary. But she was too large to fit into any sort of musical-instrument case. It had to be something else.

A sudden shift of position sent her sliding upside down. She put out her hands to keep her head from hitting the side of the box.

She was being moved.

* * *

A SUDDEN RUSH OF MOVEMENT across the church parking lot caught Jesse’s eye. He focused his binoculars on several men racing toward the side entrance.

He dialed Evie’s number. It rang three times before someone answered. “Hello?”

Not Evie, he realized with dismay. “Rita?”

There was a long pause. “Jesse?”

“I was calling Evie.”

“She’s not in here.”

Damn. He needed to know what was going on, but he could hardly ask Rita. She’d know he was there watching the church, which would make him look like a stalker. He compromised. “Is something wrong?”

“I don’t know.” Rita sounded unexpectedly vulnerable. “I’m in the bloody bride’s room at the church, trying to prepare for the most important day of my life, and there’s an intruder supposedly prowling around the church. Now the bodyguards Daddy hired to cover the wedding have converged on the room, and I don’t even have my hair done yet. The wedding is only two hours away.”

Jesse frowned. An intruder?

He picked up his binoculars and scanned the area, looking for the unexpected. A few more people had arrived while he watched, bridesmaids and groomsmen either dressed for the wedding already or carrying their clothes. Parked near the sanctuary was a white panel truck with a black logo that read Audiovisual Assets—someone filming the wedding? Probably.