n id="u61921c0d-ea36-5075-85ae-30cc3bd40996">
Since whoever had entered was quiet, it couldn’t be her sister and nieces. It had to be her dad.
“So what do you think?” Megan asked as she focused on the mirror again. The lace distorted her vision, so she nearly saw it: the beauty of being a bride.
But then a shadow stepped behind her. It was tall and dark in a black tuxedo. The mirror showed only his long legs and his chest until he stepped closer yet. Then she saw his head—the short golden hair, the bright green eyes, the dark stubble on his jaw …
Just how badly had the veil distorted her vision? Who was she mistaking for a dead man?
Her hands trembling, she fumbled with her veil—pulling it back so she could focus on the apparition. She whirled around to face him.
It couldn’t be …
Gage was dead. He’d been dead for months. But that hadn’t stopped her from seeing him everywhere, every time she’d closed her eyes and tried to sleep.
But she shouldn’t be seeing him here—not on her wedding day to another man.
“No …” she murmured. Her knees trembled and weakened, threatening to fold beneath her. “No …”
***
Be sure to check out the previous books in the exciting Bachelor Bodyguards series.
Beauty and the Bodyguard
Lisa Childs
Ever since LISA CHILDS read her first romance novel (a Mills & Boon story, of course) at age eleven, all she wanted was to be a romance writer. With over forty novels published with Mills & Boon, Lisa is living her dream. She is an award-winning, bestselling romance author. Lisa loves to hear from readers, who can contact her on Facebook, through her website, www.lisachilds.com, or her snail-mail address, PO Box 139, Marne, MI 49435, USA.
For Kimberly Duffy—with great appreciation for all your years of friendship. Without your support and your wonderful sense of humor, I don’t know how I would have survived all the ups and downs in my career and in my life. Thank you!
Contents
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
How the hell had he survived? It wasn’t possible. It just wasn’t possible...
But the proof was in the photo. Sure, he looked different. Then again, who wouldn’t, after what he’d been through? He’d been tortured to death. At least Derek had thought he’d killed the man...
Cockroaches were like that, though; they could survive the most extreme extermination attempts. The only thing they couldn’t survive was getting crushed.
The picture crumpled in a big fist. He better be enjoying his last moments of life—because he wasn’t going to stay alive. And this time when he died, he would damn well stay dead.
Derek Nielsen hurled the wadded-up photo against the bars of his cell. An alarm rang out. He hadn’t set it off—directly. But indirectly he had. The alarm was sounding because of him, according to his carefully orchestrated plan.
This was it—his escape.
With a buzz and a clank, the cell door slid open. He slipped through it like other prisoners stepped through theirs. They were confused, though, standing in the hall outside their cells. Derek hurried past them. He knew where he needed to be: the laundry room. He had only minutes to get to the vent leading out from one of the commercial dryers. After his efforts, it was big enough now for him to crawl through and escape.
Derek would be out soon to the vehicle that waited outside for him. The one that would slip through the gates and bring him to freedom.
Derek wouldn’t be returning to prison, although he fully intended to commit another crime. He was going to kill the man responsible for sending him to jail.
Gage Huxton had survived six months in hell for this? Since becoming a bodyguard on his return from Afghanistan, his assignments had been a mixed bag. His first job with the Payne Protection Agency had been to protect an elderly lady with Alzheimer’s, who had only been in danger from her disease and not her imagined threats.
But then he had also been assigned to follow the man who was now his brother-in-law. That job had nearly gotten Gage killed. But he had survived being shot at and nearly run down.
He wasn’t sure he would survive this: wedding duty. He slid a finger between the bow tie and his skin, trying to loosen the stranglehold it had on him. An image flashed through his mind, of a noose tightening around his neck, squeezing off his oxygen until oblivion claimed him. But, unfortunately, oblivion had never lasted. He grimaced as he remembered other horrors.
“Are you okay?” a soft voice asked him.
He blinked away those horrific images and focused on Penny