should have refused this assignment. But how?
He’d loved Shawna too much to risk her getting hurt—even because of him. So he couldn’t let anyone else hurt her either. What if the bomb had been meant for her? What if the person tried again and killed Shawna or her child?
He couldn’t risk it—just like his grandfather. The cagey old bastard had known. Xavier Bentler stepped out of the pew behind the little girl and started down the aisle with the child and her mother. Shawna was his nurse; she was supposed to be taking care of him. But it appeared to be the other way around, at least at the moment.
They continued down the aisle toward the pew in the back that Cole and his friends had slipped into when they’d arrived a few minutes late. Shawna was looking down, one arm wrapped around that urn while her other arm was stretched out, her fingers linked with her daughter’s small ones. He didn’t expect her to notice him.
But just as she neared the pew, she glanced up and even through her dark glasses, their eyes met and held. She paused for a moment—until the little girl tugged her forward and Cole’s grandfather put his hand on her back. Over her head, Xavier met Cole’s gaze and nodded. Then he guided Shawna out of the church to the long black car waiting at the bottom of the church steps.
They had already inspected that vehicle, making certain no explosive devices had been planted on it. But still Dane slipped out of the other side of the pew and down the stairs to join the driver in the front seat. Astin, the chauffeur, had worked for Grandfather for years. He could handle the driving, but he didn’t have the gun Dane carried.
Cole hoped Dane didn’t have to use it, not with the child in the car. At least the trip would be a short, and hopefully uneventful, one.
Even before the minister announced that Xavier Bentler had invited everyone back to his home for a memorial luncheon, Cole knew that was where he would be heading next. Home. Not that the monstrous mansion had ever really felt like home.
Cole glanced at his friends. Manny wouldn’t be surprised; he knew more than the others did about Cole’s life. But now everyone would know exactly how damn rich he was—so rich it was embarrassing. That was one of the reasons why he hated talking about himself or the past. But that wasn’t the only reason. It hurt too damn much when he thought of it because he always thought of her.
He was home.
And Cole Bentler looked even more handsome than he did every time she’d thought of him over the past six years. His hair was dark gold and his eyes such a deep blue. He seemed taller than she remembered him and much more muscular, but then some of her memories were of the boy Cole had been, not of the man he had become.
Just as she’d been warned, he had changed after joining the Marines. Not after boot camp. After boot camp, he’d come home and proposed to her. It was after all the missions, after leaving for months on end, that he had returned tense and distant and different.
It was easier to remember the sweet, sensitive boy with whom she’d fallen in love than the cold, unemotional man who’d broken her heart.
What in the world was he doing here? As Shawna settled into the back seat of the limousine and Xavier Bentler sat across from her, head down as if unwilling to meet her gaze, she knew. “You told him?”
That was where Xavier had gone. Some time yesterday, he had slipped away for several long hours. She hadn’t been too concerned at the time. She’d figured he’d sneaked away to play a round of golf and smoke the cigars she’d banned from the house. She should have known Cole’s grandfather had been up to something; he usually was.
And as usual he was completely unabashed at getting caught. He nodded.
But she was still surprised that Cole had showed up. Even after he’d heard about her husband’s funeral, she doubted he’d have any compulsion to attend it.
“I hired him to be your bodyguard,” he added.
And she gasped.
So did Maisy. “Why does Mommy need a bodyguard?” Then her blue eyes widened in realization and fear. “So nobody kills you like they killed...” Her voice cracked with sobs.
Shawna slid across the seat and wrapped her free arm around the child’s thin shoulders. Her heart broke every time she heard her daughter cry and saw her fear. Shawna had done her best to try to shield the five-year-old from all the news broadcasts. But even if Maisy hadn’t heard it from the media, she would have known about the car bomb. The explosion had woken her up.
Fighting to keep her voice calm and steady, she told Xavier, “I don’t need a bodyguard.” She glared at him, hoping he would take the hint.
“Yes, you do!” But it was Maisy who argued with her. “You need to make sure nobody tries to kill you, too!”
Shawna’s heart broke again at the terror in the child’s voice. She pulled her daughter closer and held her trembling body. “You don’t have to worry about that,” she assured her. “Nothing’s going to happen to me.”
Maisy’s head bobbed up and down in a quick nod. “I know,” she agreed. She fluttered her long black lashes and stared up at her with those deep blue eyes of hers and added, “Because Grampa X hired you a bodyguard.”
But the man he’d hired to protect her was the one who’d already hurt her more than anyone else ever had. Who would protect her from him?
Especially if he ever learned the truth...
How could he protect someone when he couldn’t be in the same room with her? That wasn’t completely Cole’s fault, though. Shawna had yet to remain in any one area. Maybe it was just that she was moving from guest to guest, speaking softly with everyone as she accepted their condolences and expressed her own to them.
Or maybe, as he strongly suspected, she was trying to avoid him—because every time he entered a room, she left it.
And there were a lot of rooms in his grandfather’s house, so many that Cole had been able to do his best to avoid his family. They were all here, all still living in the French provincial mansion. Even his mother lived here with his stepfather. And of course his two uncles and their assorted offspring would never venture out on their own.
But he had had no idea how entwined their lives were with Shawna’s yet. He had broken up with her nearly six years ago, yet she seemed more a part of his family than he had ever been.
Of course that had been different when his father was alive. Then Cole had felt as if he’d belonged—at least with his father. Coleman Bentler Sr. had not lived here. Nor had he worked for Xavier, like his older brothers did. He’d made his own money and his own way in the world.
But when Dad had died...
To Cole, he had bequeathed all of his money and his family’s resentment. Cole could understand why his mother would have been angry. Tiffani and his father had never been happily married. In fact, she’d admitted to purposely getting pregnant to trap him into marriage. In the end, Coleman had gotten his revenge when he’d cut her out of his will along with a lot of other relatives who for some reason thought they were entitled to inherit.
No, these people who glared at Cole with such hatred and anger were not his family.
His unit was his true family. He’d been a fool to worry about what they’d think of his wealth. When they’d seen the house, not one of them had made a comment or even blinked in surprise. Money didn’t matter to this family of his. Manny, Cooper, Lars and Dane were like his brothers. The rest of the unit, the ones who were still enlisted, they were his extended family—the ones he didn’t get to see all that often but who were forever in his heart and thoughts.
Shawna had been forever in his heart and thoughts. He’d loved her so much that he had never wanted