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.
Chapter Three
Tanya’s heart stung with rejection. She hadn’t had to hear his words to know that Cooper had no intention of becoming her husband—for any reason. When his mother had suggested it, he had looked more horrified than he had when he’d seen the blood in the groom’s quarters.
But she could hear his words now. He didn’t know that, though. His family had gone into the bride’s room for a private discussion. Tanya hadn’t intended to invade their privacy, but she’d left her purse in that room along with her dress. And she really wanted to leave.
She couldn’t stay here any longer—not with that crime scene tape draped across the entrance to the groom’s quarters. Not with Stephen’s blood on her hands...
And not with Cooper’s words ringing in her ears.
“There is no way in hell that I am marrying Tanya Chesterfield!”
“Cooper!” his mother admonished him as if he were a little boy who’d cussed in church.
“Mom!” he retorted. “You’ve been pushing me to attend this wedding since you first talked to Tanya about planning it—either as a guest or the best man. You are not pushing me to the altar as her groom.”
She could have opened the door; it was the bride’s room, after all. But she was no longer going to be a bride. Her groom was missing and the only other man she would want to take his place had flat-out refused. Not that she really wanted Cooper as her groom or anything else...
She turned away from the door. Instead of revealing that she’d been eavesdropping, she would leave her purse and just walk home. Her apartment was on the third floor of a home in the same area of town as Mrs. Payne’s Little White Wedding Chapel, so it wasn’t far. And her landlord on the ground floor had a spare key to her place.
But as soon as she stepped outside the heavy oak doors, the night air chilled her blood and she shivered. Stephen was out here somewhere. With whoever had hurt him.
Why hurt Stephen? Why not just hurt her as the threats she’d been receiving for the past ten years had promised?
As she descended the steep stairs to the sidewalk, she shivered again and wished she would have agreed to ride along with Nikki and Rochelle. But she hadn’t wanted to be in the same room—let alone the same car—with her sister. Since Rochelle was six years younger than she was, they had never been particularly close, but they had gotten along well enough. Until Tanya had become officially engaged...
She should have asked someone else to be her maid of honor. But she’d thought that maybe including Rochelle would bring her around, would bring them closer.
Instead, they were more at odds than they had ever been. At least the cold air felt good on Tanya’s still-stinging cheek. She lifted her face to the breeze and let it caress her skin. Maybe walking home wouldn’t be so bad after all.
It was dark. But streetlamps, the ones not covered with overhanging branches, illuminated the sidewalk. Despite the light, she tripped over a crack and remembered the velvet runner. Stephen had been dragged down the aisle so that he couldn’t become her groom.
Cooper Payne would have to be dragged down the aisle in order to become her groom. It wasn’t going to happen. She was going to lose her inheritance, but far worse, she was going to lose her friend.
A car drove slowly past her, its windows tinted so she couldn’t see inside it. Whoever the driver was, he or she was traveling well below the speed limit—nearly at the speed with which Tanya was walking. She shivered again—this time with a sense of foreboding instead of from the cold.
And she remembered those threats—all those promises that she would lose her life before she would ever inherit her money. Had Stephen’s disappearance just been a diversion, a way to distract her from protecting herself?
Not only had she left her keys in her purse, but she’d left her cell phone, rape whistle, inhaler, EpiPen and pepper spray, too.
* * *
“COME ON,” COOPER urged his brother. “Tell her it’s a crazy idea.”
But Logan didn’t even glance at their mother. He just continued to stare at him, as if considering.
“It’s crazy,” Coop insisted.
His mother glared at him. “I thought the Marines would teach you some respect.”
“I didn’t call you crazy,” he pointed out. “Just your idea...” It was ridiculous. Tanya had obviously thought it so ridiculous that she hadn’t said a thing, as if she’d gone back into shock. So they’d just left her sitting there in the church—alone—as Stephen had been in that now-blood-spattered room. A frisson of unease trickled down his spine