him that photo, Dane had had an almost eerie connection to her.
Despite what she’d said, he didn’t think she was nervous about singing. Her voice was too clear, too strong—and so compelling that all the guests were riveted, staring up at her in awe. Dane couldn’t take his gaze from her.
And maybe that was why he saw the fear he’d heard when she’d screamed in the nursery. Was it just post-traumatic stress disorder like her brother thought? But that bruise wasn’t PTSD. Something had happened. She’d been hurt again.
Recently.
Heat rushed through him, his temper heating his blood and his skin. He wanted to hurt whoever had hurt her. First he had to find out who that was. Somebody slid into the church pew next to him and bumped his shoulder. Mentally cursing himself for not being aware of the person approaching, he reached for his weapon.
“Hey,” Lars whispered. “You don’t need that.”
He wasn’t so sure. Who the hell had Emilia seen outside the nursery window?
His friend emitted a soft gasp. “I forgot how she sings...”
“...like an angel,” Dane murmured.
Lars glanced at him, his pale blue eyes narrowed.
A bead of sweat trickled down Dane’s back, beneath his tuxedo jacket. The monkey suit was why he was so damn hot—because it wasn’t like he was scared of his best friend. After nearly losing her once, Lars was bound to protect Emilia using whatever means necessary. Even murder...
Dane wouldn’t hurt her. He wanted to make sure she didn’t get hurt. Again.
Dane asked, “What happened to her shoulder?”
His brow furrowing, Lars glanced at him again then back at Emilia, who effortlessly held the last note of the song. Had her brother not noticed the bruise? But then, in a whisper, Lars replied, “She hit it on the doorjamb when Blue’s crying woke her up.”
That explained it, if Emilia had told her brother the truth. The tension clutching Dane’s guts didn’t ease at all. He suspected Emilia had left something out. Or maybe he was just thinking of all the abused women who claimed walking into doors had caused their bruises.
He needed to find out what was really going on with Emilia. Thinking of that—of sticking close enough to learn the truth and protect her—Dane’s tension increased. This might prove the most dangerous mission he’d ever had.
* * *
Nikki Payne had spent most of her adult life dodging bouquets. This time, while the bride prepared to throw her flowers, Nikki was not hiding in the bathroom. She was out on the dance floor with the other single women. And as the brightly colored bundle of tiger lilies and calla lilies catapulted through the air, Nikki didn’t duck behind any of those shrieking women. Nor did she keep her hands linked behind her back as she had every other time she’d been forced onto the dance floor.
Nobody had coerced her to join the others. Even as the maid of honor, she wouldn’t have had to participate in this tradition. But she wanted to catch these flowers. So she lifted her hands in the air and actually elbowed aside some of those screaming single women to snag this bouquet from the air. Holding the flowers aloft, she let out a squeal of her own—of victory.
The bride, Nikki’s mother, had tossed the bouquet over her shoulder. Now Penny turned fully around, and when she saw who’d caught her flowers, her eyes—the same brown as Nikki’s—widened in shock. She wasn’t the only one staring mutely at Nikki. Her brothers and sisters-in-law all gaped, their eyes and mouths wide.
Only Lars didn’t look shocked. He appeared delighted, his sexy lips curving into a grin while his pale blue eyes sparkled. She loved him—so much. More than she’d thought it possible to love anyone.
She’d fallen for him when he’d been at his worst, desperate and guilt-ridden over the disappearance of his sister. He’d blamed himself for not protecting her even though he’d been deployed in a war zone at the time Emilia had gone missing. His sense of responsibility and honor had impressed her so much that Nikki had been unable to resist him.
And she couldn’t resist him now as he dropped to one knee in the middle of the dance floor in front of her. Before he even opened his mouth, Nikki threw her arms around his neck. On his knees he was nearly her height.
“Yes!” she said. “Yes!”
“I don’t believe it,” a deep voice, belonging to one of her brothers no doubt, murmured. “I thought she’d be running the other way from that bouquet.”
“And she’s so impatient to say yes, she didn’t even wait for him to propose,” another brother chimed in.
Heat rushed to her face and she pulled back. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have presumed—”
Lars pressed his fingers over her lips. “It’s not like I’m down here looking for a missing contact,” he assured her. “I’m on my knees because I thought you were going to make me beg you to marry me.”
“And you were prepared to beg?” she asked in amazement. As well as having an overblown sense of responsibility and honor, he also had a lot of pride. Sometimes too much. But it was just another thing she loved about him.
He nodded. “I would do whatever it takes to convince you to be my wife, Nikki. I want to spend the rest of my life making you happy.”
“You already make me happy,” she assured him.
He tensed for a moment. Maybe he’d forgotten that she’d already said yes and thought she was going back to her earlier anti-marriage stance. She hadn’t ever really been anti-marriage, though. She had been anti–getting hurt.
But just as she loved Lars, she trusted him more than she’d ever thought it possible for her to trust anyone. He wasn’t going to hurt her.
“So you don’t have to do anything to convince me to marry you. I’m ready,” she said. And that was something she’d thought she would never say. She was ready to get married. Ready to be a bride and, more important, a wife.
His pale eyes glittered as if with a sheen of tears. She blinked furiously as tears of her own stung her eyes and tickled her nose. She would not cry, not in front of her brothers. Later, when she laid her head on Lars’s mammoth chest, she would soak his skin with her happy tears. But she was too proud to give in to them now...until Lars popped open the velvet case and revealed the most beautiful ring she had ever seen. Stacy Kozminski-Payne must have made it. Logan’s wife was so damn talented. As Nikki stared at the square diamond and twisted gold band on which it was mounted, a tear spilled over and trailed down her cheek—until Lars brushed it away.
“Oh, sweetheart,” he said, his voice gruff with emotion. “I don’t want to make you cry.”
“Happy tears,” she assured him. She suspected that was all she would cry once he became her husband.
“Good,” he murmured. “Then I’m already doing my job.”
“I’m not so sure about that,” her brother Cooper, who was also their boss, called out. But he was over being mad at Lars for breaking the bro rule of not going after another friend’s sister. She hoped.
Penny tapped her youngest son’s shoulder and shushed him. “Don’t interrupt.”
“They interrupted your wedding,” Cooper pointed out.
“Lars got my permission,” Penny haughtily informed him.
In the past, Nikki would have been annoyed over the chauvinistic tradition of asking the parents for permission before asking the woman. But she understood that wasn’t what Lars had done. He’d been asking permission to propose at Penny’s wedding.
Of course, her mother hadn’t hesitated to say yes and share her special day and spotlight with them. She had always been too selfless. But Nikki didn’t mind being selfish