GROOM UNDER FIRE (9 page)

She held her breath. And the church grew eerily quiet again.

Cooper cleared his throat and finally spoke, “I do.”

For a moment Tanya let herself believe it was real—that Cooper Payne was so in love with her that he wanted to become her husband. That he wanted a happily-ever-after with her—and not just until the annulment.

Tears of happiness burned her eyes and she furiously blinked as she tried to clear her vision. But the tears kept burning her eyes and the back of her throat.

She coughed and choked, struggling to breathe. Finally she realized that it wasn’t tears of emotion but smoke that was blurring her vision.

The church was on fire.

Tanya knew it couldn’t be an accident, not after everything that had happened last night. It was arson. Someone had purposely set the church on fire. The only question was, had the exits been blocked or would they be able to escape the building before flames engulfed the guests and the groom?

She would be dead long before the flames claimed her. Tanya’s lungs burned and her airway swelled as she struggled for breath. The asthma that had haunted her childhood flared again, choking her. Usually her asthma only acted up in the spring with seasonal allergies or in the winter if she was unfortunate enough to catch a cold.

But smoke had always been her biggest trigger. Cigarette smoke and bonfires had brought on embarrassing and life-threatening attacks during her teenage years. Back then, her inhaler had saved her. But she didn’t have it with her now. It was in her purse, which she had left in the bride’s dressing room.

She would never make it that far before passing out—before dying. Mrs. Payne had definitely been right to be superstitious. Seeing the groom before her wedding had brought Tanya terrible, fatal luck...

Chapter Nine

Cooper caught the man’s arm, holding him in place before he could run as the others had toward the vestibule. “Do it!” he ordered the minister. “Pronounce us man and wife!”

The man choked and sputtered, the words whispered and hoarse, “I now pronounce you man and wife.”

It was official. Tanya Chesterfield was not just his bride—she was now his wife. But she was coughing harder than the others, her shoulders shaking and body trembling as she struggled for breath.

Would he soon become her widower?

He caught her up in his arms and followed the others toward those doors at the back of the church. Logan carried their mother. With an arm around each of them, Parker helped both Rochelle and Nikki while the lawyer and the minister hurried out ahead of Cooper and his bride.

The air was thick in the church, burning Cooper’s eyes and nose. He recognized this kind of smoke too well—it brought horrible old memories crashing over him. Parker held open the doors so Cooper could carry Tanya over the threshold and through the vestibule. Logan held open the doors to the outside while also trying to hold his mother from rushing back inside the church.

“We have to find the source of the fire,” she said, tears streaming from her eyes. It probably wasn’t just the smoke making her cry but fear for the chapel she had already fought so hard to save once. “We have to put it out—it’ll take too long for the fire engines to arrive.”

Cooper shook his head. “There is no fire.”

Mom stared hopefully up at him. “But all the smoke...”

“There’re no flames,” he pointed out. “No heat.”

“So what is it?” Logan asked as he coughed and his eyes streamed tears. This wasn’t the kind of man who cried. He hadn’t even cried as a kid—not even when their dad died. He had stayed strong for all of them.

“Tear gas,” Cooper said. His eyes stung but stayed dry. He was used to this stuff—to chemical attacks used to flush soldiers out into an ambush. He peered outside and ordered his family, “Get back in here. The shooter could be out there.”

But right now gunfire was the least of his concerns. He glanced down at his bride lying in his arms. She hadn’t just passed out from fear. She was too still for that—too lifeless. “She’s not breathing!” he realized, his heart slamming into his ribs.

“The gas must have aggravated her asthma,” her sister said.

And he remembered the attacks she’d had in their youth, like at the site of the bonfire when she’d struggled for breath. “Get her inhaler!”

“She always has one in her purse,” Rochelle replied. Finally showing some concern for her sister, she ran toward the bride’s dressing room. But she returned moments later clutching Tanya’s open bag. “It’s not here.”

Someone had set off the smoke bomb and stolen Tanya’s inhaler. This person knew her well—too well. He put aside his suspicions for the moment to focus on his bride, though. He dropped to knees in the vestibule and began CPR. Pressing his lips to hers, he tried breathing for her—tried to give her his breath to bring her back.

“I’m calling 911,” Logan said as he pulled his cell phone from his pocket.

But Cooper knew it would be too late. By the time the ambulance arrived, Tanya would have been deprived of oxygen for too long.

“Unless someone took it, too, I have something,” his mother murmured. She pushed past her eldest son and hurried back into the church, disappearing down the stairwell to the basement banquet area, kitchen and offices.

“I hear sirens,” Nikki said. “Someone must have reported the smoke.”

Rochelle began to cry. “She’s not breathing. She’s not breathing...”

Footsteps pounded on the steps as his mother ran back up the stairs. “I have her extra inhaler,” she said. “When we were planning the wedding, I made sure she brought a spare in case she forgot to bring hers on her wedding day.”

Cooper grabbed it from her and pressed it to Tanya’s open lips. She wouldn’t be able to breathe it in—would it get through her compromised airway? Would it reduce the swelling?

He pushed it down so that it produced a puff of medicine. But most of it escaped her open mouth. He did it again. But there was no response. Her eyelids didn’t so much as flicker, and she didn’t breathe.

Had he already lost his wife?

* * *

E
VERYTHING
WAS
DARK
,
as if Tanya had dropped into a black hole. But then awareness crept in—first with sound. She could hear the beeping and buzzing of machines. The squeak of wheels on linoleum. And voices...

“She should have not been exposed to that gas,” a man said, his tone chastising, “You’re lucky her inhaler worked.”

“I wasn’t sure that it would. She was already unconscious.” This voice she recognized as her husband’s. But was Cooper actually her husband? She dimly remembered the minister pronouncing them man and wife. Then Cooper had swept her up in his arms.

Or had that all just been part of her fantasy?

Was any of it real?

“And she’s still unconscious,” Cooper continued.

“But she’s breathing.”

“Was the inhaler enough?” Cooper asked, his voice gruff with obvious concern. “Is she going to be all right?”

If not for the beeps and buzzes, Tanya would have thought she’d slipped into unconsciousness again. Because the man paused that long before replying, “We’ll know when she awakens...”

“When?”
Cooper asked hopefully. “Or
if...?
”

She was already awake. Her eyes were just too heavy to open, and her throat too dry and achy to speak. She struggled to move her fingers, but she was so weak, her muscles so leaden and appendages so heavy.

“I’m sorry,” the man said. “I don’t know...”

Since she hadn’t recognized his voice, she’d just assumed he was a doctor. But maybe not...or he would realize that she was going to be fine.

She had to be fine.

A big hand closed over the fingers she struggled to move. And as he had in the church, he squeezed as if prodding her again. “Come on, Tanya, wake up...”

She tried again to raise her lids, but they were so heavy. The effort exhausted her, but she gained a small space, enough that some light filtered between her lashes. She was fighting back the blackness.

But she wasn’t fighting alone. Cooper held tightly to her hand as if pulling her back to him. “Come on, you’re too tough to let this damn coward beat you...”

She had to be strong—not just for herself but for Stephen. She couldn’t take a ransom call if she wasn’t conscious. Then Cooper marrying her would have been for naught. She had to assure him that wasn’t the case, so she concentrated on her fingers and managed to move them within his tight grasp.

He gasped. “Tanya? Can you hear me?”

She bent her fingers again, wriggling them. Then she managed, finally, to open her eyes.

“You’re awake!”

She nodded weakly. And then, after licking her dry and cracked lips, she tried to speak. “Is—is...”

“Don’t hurt your throat,” he advised. “Just rest.”

She shook her head now, which caused a wave of dizziness that threatened a return of unconsciousness. “Is everyone...okay?”

If his mother’s Little White Wedding Chapel had been destroyed, she would never forgive herself. “Did the fire...”

“There was no fire,” he said.

“But the smoke...” She coughed, just remembering it, as her airway and lungs ached.

“It wasn’t a fire,” he assured her with another squeeze of her fingers. “Someone opened a tear-gas canister in the church.”

She coughed again. “Was anyone else...”

He shook his head. “No one else was hurt. Only you...”

“My asthma...” It didn’t often flare up. But when it did... Remembering his conversation with the man who must have been the doctor, she asked, “You found my inhaler in my purse?”

“There wasn’t one in your purse, but Mom had gotten a spare from you earlier.”

She’d seen the inhaler and the EpiPen for her peanut allergy when she’d taken her makeup bag out of her purse. “But it was there earlier...”

“Not when you needed it.”

Someone hadn’t opened the tear-gas canister just to stop the wedding. He or she had been trying to kill her. Her eyes stung and not from that smoke. She blinked hard, but the moisture leaked out.

The thin mattress depressed as Cooper joined her on the bed. Sitting down beside her, he pulled her into his arms, lifting her away from the pillows and the bed. “It’s okay. You’re safe now.”

“You found out who’s been doing this?”

He uttered a heavy sigh. “No, but we will. We’ll find out.”

She shivered as cool air blew in the back of her gown. And she touched the rough cotton. “Your mom’s dress—is it okay?”

If they’d cut her out of it—if they’d destroyed it, it would have been as big a tragedy as the church burning down.

“It’s fine,” he assured her. “You need to stop worrying about everything and get some rest.”

“I need to get out of here.” She was definitely in a hospital, and not just in a curtained-off area of the emergency room. She had been admitted.

“You’re too weak,” he said.

“You said I was tough,” she reminded him.

“You are—it’s a miracle you survived at all. You weren’t breathing for so long.” He shuddered now. “For too long...”

She managed to lift her hand to her head, which still felt too light—too hazy—as if she were still trying to see through the veil. She was tired. Weak...

Tears burned again, but she managed to blink them back this time. She had to be strong...enough to leave. “But if they call...”

“Logan has your phone,” Cooper said. “He’ll take the call.”

“They might hang up...if they don’t hear me...” And then what would happen to Stephen? He had already been hurt—that blood had to have been his. There’d been no one else in the groom’s dressing room. “I need my...”

“Real groom,” Cooper finished for her.

Incorrectly. She just needed her phone. And Cooper. But he was pulling back and standing up.

“We’ll find him,” he assured her. “We’re all working on finding him.”

Just then a knocking sounded and the door creaked open. “Is she awake? Is she all right?” a woman asked, her voice soft with concern.

“Yes,” Tanya answered Cooper’s sister. She was touched by the younger woman’s concern but also disappointed that her own sister hadn’t come to check on her. How had their relationship fallen apart so badly? “I’m fine.”

Nikki’s brown eyes, so like her mother’s, warmed with affection and relief. “I’m so glad. You gave us quite the scare—some of us more than others, though.” She glanced at her brother, as if checking to see if he’d recovered from that scare.

But Tanya doubted he had been very shaken. After surviving a war zone and returning home, the man had been shot at—twice—and hadn’t lost his composure or his temper. He was unflappable.

“Is your mother okay?” Tanya asked.

“Worried about you,” Nikki said. “But she’s fine. Mom’s the toughest woman I know.”

Tanya suspected her daughter was tougher than she knew. “Your mom isn’t the only one.”

“She’s not,” Nikki agreed. “You’re pretty tough, yourself. None of us thought you were going to make it.”

If that was the truth, where was Rochelle? Didn’t she care about her older sister at all? Tanya sighed, too, and shook off the self-pity. A relationship took two people to make it work. Maybe she had never tried hard enough with Rochelle. She’d been so busy with work and with trying not to think about Cooper. With trying not to worry about Cooper being deployed. With trying not to miss Cooper...

“She has no clue how close she came to not making it,” Cooper said. “Even now she’s more worried about Mom and Stephen and everyone else than she is herself. She needs to get some rest.”

“She needs you to stop talking about her like she’s not here,” Tanya said, annoyed that he thought her so weak and more annoyed that she was so weak right now. At least physically...

Nikki laughed. “I forgot how long you two have been friends.”

So had Tanya. But in her mind, they had never been just friends, even though she’d agreed with Cooper that that was all they’d been.

“You both act like an old married couple already,” Nikki continued, “and it’s only been a few hours since the wedding from hell—” She squeaked, as if wishing back her words, and her eyes widened in shock. “I’m sorry—”

Tanya had spent too much time around the Paynes not to know that this was how they dealt with every situation—with humor. And she was touched that she’d been included in that teasing.

“No, it definitely was the wedding from hell,” Tanya agreed. The smoke had made her think she was in hell. Even now her throat still burned—her lungs still ached.

“I—I shouldn’t have called it that,” Nikki said, clearly embarrassed. “Mom would kill me.”

At least Nikki would know who was trying. Tanya had no idea who wanted her dead. But she had to ask, “Have you found out anything about what happened at the church?”

Nikki opened her mouth, but Cooper shook his head. “You nearly died at the church,” he said. “You need to rest if you’re going to fully recover.”

Tanya shook her head in denial. But her vision blurred with black spots as oblivion threatened to claim her again. She wouldn’t admit it, but he was right. Exhaustion was overwhelming her, making her lids so heavy that she couldn’t keep her eyes open any longer. Maybe if she closed them for just a moment...

His deep voice dropping to a whisper, Cooper said, “Let’s let her sleep.” The door creaked open as he ushered his sister into the hall.

Was that why he wanted to leave—so she could rest? Or because he didn’t want her to hear whatever he was about to discuss with his sister? She tried to swing her legs over the bed, tried to sit up, but her legs were too heavy to move. And she couldn’t lift her head from the pillow, let alone her torso, from the bed. The effort exhausted her completely so that she settled more heavily against the pillows. And sleep claimed her.

She had no idea how long she’d been out before the door creaked open again. It couldn’t have been that long, though, because she was still exhausted.