GROOM UNDER FIRE by LISA CHILDS Page A

who’d wanted that kiss—that kiss that never happened...
    “Mom gave me all kinds of orders based on wedding superstitions,” Logan said, “that the bride and groom need to spend the night before the wedding apart or they’ll have bad luck.”
    Tanya laughed now and then flinched at the brittle sound of her own laughter. She probably was on the verge of hysteria brought on by the events of this horrible, horrible day, and by exhaustion. “Bad luck? Mrs. Payne is worried we’ll have bad luck?” Another hysterical laugh slipped out. “Like we haven’t already? My groom has been...abducted! I’ve nearly been run down and I’ve been shot at,” she reminded them as if the shattered glass and the holes in her ceiling weren’t reminder enough. “What else could go wrong?”
    Logan pointed out the obvious. “You or Cooper could get killed.”
    Her stalker obviously wanted to stop her wedding. So Tanya had no doubt that there would be more attempts on her life and—if the stalker had figured out that Cooper was her new groom—on his, too, before the night was over.
    She suspected the night would seem endless, unless it ended—forever.
    * * *
    “ Y OU WERE NOT supposed to come here,” Parker protested as Cooper unlocked the door and stepped inside the condo unit. “This is not the safe house.”
    Cooper flipped on a switch before stepping inside. “I don’t need a safe house.”
    “Those shots could have been meant for you,” Parker pointed out.
    He shook his head. “After the car tried running over Tanya? No, the shots were meant for her.” Had they been fired high just to scare her? Or had they actually been meant to kill her? His guts clenched with dread and fear. “Are you sure she’s safe with Logan?”
    Parker laughed. “Have you been gone so long that you’ve forgotten who Logan is? Logan Payne always keeps his word. If he promised he would keep her safe, he will keep her safe. It’s you I’m worried about...”
    “Me?” Cooper asked, confused by his brother’s concern. “I told you the shots weren’t meant for me.”
    “If someone’s figured out you’re standing in for the groom, they could have been. Look what happened to Stephen.”
    “We don’t know what happened to Stephen,” Cooper reminded him. “That’s why we’re here.” At Stephen’s condo.
    “I’ve already been here,” Parker said.
    The unit was in a high-security high-rise complex. The condo’s living room was enormous and its kitchen gourmet with dark cabinets, granite countertops and industrial appliances. Even if she didn’t inherit her grandfather’s money, Stephen could offer Tanya a much better life than Cooper could. If he could be found...
    “But when you were here, you were looking for Stephen.”
    “And anything that might lead us to him,” Parker added. “We didn’t find anything.”
    Cooper picked up a laptop from the coffee table. “Did you look at this?”
    Parker shook his head. “It’s password protected.” He took the computer. “Nikki might be able to crack it, though. But what’s she going to find? His kidnapper wouldn’t send an email to Stephen. He’d send it to Tanya.”
    “We don’t know that this is a kidnapping.” He was beginning to think it less likely with every minute that passed without a ransom call being made.
    “We don’t know what the hell this is...”
    And looking around Stephen’s place didn’t reveal any more clues. There was no blood here. No signs of a scuffle at all.
    There was a suitcase open on Stephen’s bed. But he hadn’t packed it as Tanya had hers—for their honeymoon. Had he changed his mind? Had he gotten cold feet?
    There were no pictures of his fiancée in Stephen’s bedroom. The only photo of her anywhere was in the second bedroom that he must have used as an office. It wasn’t even the engagement photo of the two of them. It was a photo of the three of them—Stephen, Tanya and him—at their high school graduation, clad in their