and down in a quick nod.
Her brown eyes warm with affection and concern, she stared up at him. “You look very handsome in the tuxedo.”
He probably should have shaved the scruff from his jaw so he’d fit in more with the wedding guests when they arrived. But he hadn’t had the time or the inclination. “I must be crazy,” he said.
“Why’s that?” she asked, and now there was a twinkle of amusement in her eyes.
“To let you talk me into playing a bouncer for your wedding business.” Penny was his boss’s mother, so he probably hadn’t had much choice. But it hadn’t been any easier for him to tell her no than it probably would have been for her son.
She reached up, and he reacted as he did whenever someone moved to touch him. He flinched. Sympathy dimmed the usual brightness of her smile. “Gage...”
Instead of pulling back as so many other people did, she gently laid her palm against his cheek. “I’m sorry,” she murmured.
He shook his head and dislodged her hand. “I don’t want pity,” he said. “I just want to do my job.”
“That’s not what—”
He forced a smile. “It’s okay.” Nobody had known how to react to him since he’d been back. So maybe it was good that not many people knew he’d survived.
“Where do you need me?” he asked. “Do I need to make sure the bride and groom’s mothers don’t get into a catfight?”
Penny’s smile dimmed more, and she replied, “The bride’s mother passed away years ago.”
“That’s too bad.” He didn’t see his mother often since she and his dad had moved to Alaska, but he could call her anytime. He rarely called, though; he didn’t want to worry her. “So no catfights between the mothers. What about the bridesmaids?”
Penny’s lips curved into a bigger smile. “Why do you sound almost hopeful?”
He chuckled. “Just looking for the upside in this assignment.”
“Cake,” she told him, and she patted his cheek again as if he was a little boy she was promising a treat if he behaved. Her kids were grown now, but she had raised three boys and a tomboy pretty much on her own. So she knew how to handle kids.
He wasn’t a kid, though. He hadn’t been one for a long time—not since he’d joined the Marines at eighteen a decade ago. Then there had been that stint with the FBI. But he didn’t like to think about those days, because then he inevitably thought about her.
The hell he’d endured the past six months was nothing compared to what she had put him through. No. He would rather think about the horrors of his six months in captivity than about Megan Lynch.
He exhaled a ragged breath and shook off all the memories. He had to leave the past in the past—all of it, but most of all Megan.
“So,” he said as he focused again on the present. “You want me to guard the cake?”
Dessert was probably all anyone considered him capable of protecting yet. Why else had he been assigned wedding chapel duty?
Penny shook her head. “Of course not. You have the most important job here.”
He narrowed his eyes and studied her, wondering if she was patronizing him. “And what’s that?”
“Guarding the bride, of course.”
“Guarding her?” He couldn’t imagine what danger she might be in, but then he had no idea who she was. “Or do you mean making sure she doesn’t run?”
He wouldn’t blame her if she did. He would never risk his heart on love again. But then he no longer had a heart to lose. Megan had destroyed it.
Penny sighed. “I almost wish she would...”
“The groom’s a tool?”
She shook her head. “He seems nice.”
So maybe the bride was a bridezilla. “Why does she need protecting?”
“Her father is a very important man,” Penny said, and as she said it, her face flushed.
“Who’s her father?” he asked. And more importantly, why had the fifty-something-year-old widow reacted with a blush at the very thought of him?
“He’s a man who’s made some enemies over the course of his career.”
Gage should have picked up one of the programs from the basket outside the chapel. He’d passed it on his way downstairs to Penny’s office. Then he would know the names of everyone in the wedding party. But he’d wanted to get his assignment before any of the guests arrived.
Now he had it: bridal protection.
“So he thinks some of these adversaries might go after his daughter during her wedding?” The guy had made some seriously ruthless enemies if that was the case.
Penny nodded. “He’s the kind of man who wouldn’t care what someone did to him.” Her face flushed a deeper shade of red.
Who was this guy to her? Apparently, someone she knew well. How well? Just how closely did Penny work with widowed fathers of the brides?
She continued, “But if someone hurt his daughter...”
Gage understood. His best friend, Nicholas Rus, had thought that someone was going after Gage’s sister for vengeance against him—because Nick loved Annalise and she had always loved him. But that hadn’t been about revenge, at least not against Nick or Annalise.
“If this guy has so many enemies,” Gage said, “why am I the only one from the Payne Protection Agency here?” Especially when he knew his boss didn’t trust that he was at a hundred percent yet. But Logan Payne wasn’t the only one who thought that; Gage didn’t entirely trust himself.
He was getting better, but it was still a struggle to sleep, to suppress the flashbacks, to forget the pain...
Penny tilted her head and stared up at him. “You’re the bodyguard the bride needs.”
Gage’s stomach lurched as realization suddenly dawned on him. And even without reading the program, he knew who the bride was. Penny had given him enough clues. He should have figured it out earlier. Hell, he should have figured it out when Penny asked him to help out at the chapel. He’d known she was planning a wedding for someone he’d known. Or at least, he’d thought he’d known her.
He guessed the wedding wasn’t all Penny Payne had been planning. Nick had warned him that she was a meddler. Her kids might not mind that she meddled in their lives, but he damn well minded.
He shook his head. “No...”
“Gage,” she beseeched him.
But he just shook his head again, refusing the assignment. He didn’t care if Mrs. Payne went to his boss and got him fired. He couldn’t protect this bride—not when he was the one against whom she most needed protecting.
* * *
“He’s gone,” Penny said.
Woodrow Lynch released a ragged breath and closed her office door behind him. “That’s probably for the best.”
“How can you say that?” Penny asked, her usually soft voice sharp with indignation. “She’s miserable.”
“She’s miserable because of him.” Anger coursed through him as he thought of the pain Gage Huxton had put his daughter through. Some of it had been inadvertent, like getting captured.
But the rest...
Quitting the Bureau.
Reenlisting.
Those had been Gage’s choices.
“Yes.” Penny stalked around her desk