Secret Weapon Spouse

“Caroline?” Alex called after his sister as she walked ahead of him. The afternoon sun hung over the brightly painted buildings along the street, the day uncomfortably hot and humid. It was only June. He hated to think what August would be like. Palm fronds rustled in the hot breeze off Biscayne Bay. Somewhere in the distance came the screech of tires, the blare of a horn. Had she not heard him?

“Caroline?” She’d said little since he’d met her here and he wasn’t going to let her get away until they talked. Really talked, something his family avoided at all costs.

She’d stopped and seemed to be leaning against a wrought-iron bench as if she felt ill.

Alex caught up to his sister and saw that she was flushed and appeared close to tears. He took her arm. “Hey, are you all right? You don’t look so good. What’s going on?”

He couldn’t shake the feeling that his sister asked him here today to confide something in him—and changed her mind.

“I told you, I’m fine,” she snapped, pulling free. “I just need to get to the car and sit down for a minute. The heat.” She blew out a breath and fanned herself, stepping away to head for her car and driver waiting at the curb. “I’ll call you later,” she said over her shoulder, her pace increasing as if she couldn’t wait to get away from him. “Thank you for meeting me here.”

Alex swore under his breath, wondering what he’d done. Nothing. They hadn’t even spoken two words from the time he’d met her in the Weddings Your Way lobby. It wasn’t him this time, he told himself. She was upset about something else. Being forced to change the date of the wedding?

He saw her look around as if she’d been expecting someone. Her fiancé?

Where was he anyway? Why hadn’t he met Caroline here? Alex had the feeling she’d been expecting him. Maybe that’s what had her upset—the fact that he hadn’t showed.

Alex had yet to meet his sister’s soon-to-be-husband but he already disliked him based simply on the man’s name: Preston Wellington III. He, no doubt, was a clone of their brother, Brian, which meant that once Caroline married him she would be spending most of her life never seeing him. Just as they had hardly ever seen their father. He was always too busy making more money to spend any time with them. Alex couldn’t bear to think what his sister’s life would be like. He’d wanted more for her.

He sighed and started after her, hoping he could change her mind about leaving. Maybe they could go somewhere, have a cool drink, talk.

Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed a white limo pull up to the curb behind his sister’s car. He slowed, thinking it was probably the missing Preston Wellington III.

The driver got out to open the rear door. An attractive dark-haired young woman stepped out onto the curb. Caroline had stopped as if she also thought the limo contained someone she knew.

And then everything happened too fast. At first Alex heard rather than saw the commotion that ensued. He turned as a black limo pulled up behind the white one. Two men leaped from the rear doors. They grabbed the woman who’d just exited the limo in front of them. Her driver tried to fight them off but was knocked to the ground as they dragged the woman to the open doors of the black limo.

Alex charged across the lawn toward the two men who’d shoved the woman into the backseat of the waiting black limo and jumped in after her. The limo engine roared, then to Alex’s horror, the large black car jumped the curb as if aiming directly for the woman’s limo driver who was still on the ground.

The driver managed to roll out of the way as the limo shot toward Alex. He yelled to Caroline as he dived aside, hitting the ground and rolling, coming up in time to see that the speeding car had turned and was aimed directly at his sister.

Caroline seemed frozen to the spot. He let out a howl of anguish as he heard the limo hit her, her body flying off to the side.

The dark limo had no rear license plate and the windows were too tinted to see inside as it crashed between two cars at the curb and sped off down the street. Everything had happened so fast, he didn’t even get a good look at the two men who’d taken the woman.

“Caroline. Oh God, Caroline.” Alex was on his feet, running to where she was slumped on the grass. He dropped to the ground next to his sister and felt for a pulse with one hand as he fumbled out his cell phone and dialed 911 with the other. “Oh, Caroline,” he whispered as he brushed her hair back from her beautiful face.

He felt a hand on his shoulder but it wasn’t until later that he recalled the feel of the woman’s touch, let alone remembered her name. Samantha Peters.

INSIDE THE SPEEDING black limo, the man in the back made the call. “We’ve got the girl,” he said when the phone was picked up at the other end.

There was no reply. Just a soft click. In the backseat Sonya Botero’s eyes fluttered.

“Give her more of the drug,” the man ordered. “I don’t want her waking up.”

He leaned back and closed his eyes. The job hadn’t come off as clean as he’d planned. Unfortunately, he’d left loose ends, he thought glancing back.

CRAIG JOHNSON SAT on the grass in front of Weddings Your Way and watched the black limo disappear down the street, tires squealing and engine roaring.

The limo driver-bodyguard was too shocked to move. The blow to his head had left him dazed but not so dazed that he didn’t realize what had just happened.

The men had taken the woman he’d been hired to protect and there would be hell to pay.

But what was utmost in his mind was one startling realization: the men had tried to kill him. If he hadn’t rolled out of the way when he had…

Suddenly he couldn’t catch his breath at just the thought of how close it had been. He gasped, the weight of the knowledge like a weight on his chest.

He was glad that no one was paying any attention to him now. They’d all crowded around a woman on the ground a dozen yards from him and he realized that unlike him, she’d been hit by the car.

He felt light-headed, his stomach weak and queasy. That could be him over there on the ground.

He tried to get up but his legs wouldn’t hold him. Sitting back down heavily on the ground, he watched people rushing around, calling for help. More people were running over. He heard voices above him asking if he was all right. Did he need an ambulance?

He was shaking so hard he couldn’t answer. He closed his eyes and lay back on the ground, lucky to be alive. But for how long?

Chapter Two

Samantha Peters pushed her tortoiseshell-rimmed glasses up as she sat at her usual spot at the table in the soundproof room on the second floor of Weddings Your Way, watching the monitors on the wall.

The police had left hours ago. Now the only illumination came from the security lights that bathed the long palm-lined entry into the shop.

Weddings Your Way had been in an uproar all afternoon and evening. No one could believe that Sonya Botero had been abducted right out front and client Caroline Graham had been injured in the hit-and-run that followed.

“We are prepared for a ransom demand,” Rachel Brennan was saying now to the elite group of undercover agents positioned around the table. “Everything is in place. Since the abduction took place here, the kidnappers might contact us first. If it is a kidnapping.”

Samantha found herself only half listening as she watched the monitors that provided surveillance. She focused on the two that covered the front of the building.

“I’ve heard from Sonya’s father as well as her fiancé,” Rachel was saying. “Both are flying in tomorrow. Both will demand answers. Let’s do our best to have some for them.”

The air conditioner hummed in the large room devoid of windows. One end was a wall of computers and electronics. This was the command center, the heart of the true operation with Weddings Your Way being the front. Not that each agent didn’t perform wedding-related duties, living and working in the community while working undercover as part of the Miami Confidential team.

Rachel Brennan, tall, ebony-haired with sparkling blue eyes, in her early forties, was head of the elite group.

“I’ve looked at the surveillance tapes,” Rachel said. “The men knew about the cameras. They were careful to keep their heads down, faces in shadow. It was all very well planned and executed. We can’t rule out that Sonya’s abduction is connected with the recent assassination attempt on her fiancé.”

“So are we assuming this is politically motivated?” Sophie Brooks asked. Sophie, tall, willowy with long blond hair, had been sketching on a pad in front of her and now looked up. Along with being an agent, she was also Weddings Your Way’s invitation designer.

“It has to be connected to politics,” Julia Garcia said in a quiet voice at the end of the table. Julia was friends with Sonya when they were young and now worked as a seamstress for the wedding shop along with being an agent. “When you’re about to marry a politician from Ladera who has been making war on drug dealers throughout South America, you can’t help but be a target.”

The room fell silent for a long moment. Samantha continued to watch the monitors, the tragic events of the day weighing heavily on her. She knew what she was waiting for. Her instincts told her it wouldn’t be long now.

“Any word on the condition of Caroline Graham?” Isabelle Rush asked. The agent was small with shoulder-length strawberry blond hair and light brown eyes. She’d been handpicked for the Miami Confidential team as an expert in criminology.

“Still unconscious,” Samantha said without looking from the monitors. “The doctors aren’t sure she’s going to make it.”

“Is it possible she was a target, as well?” Isabelle asked.

Samantha recalled how the car had careened up onto the curb, just missing the limo driver and Alex Graham but hitting Caroline. “I don’t see how. Caroline didn’t even have an appointment. I had to fit her in at the last minute so no one could have known she was coming here.”