My daughter is getting married.
Nico Antonov was no more ready for this day than he’d been three months ago when Cat had first informed him she was engaged. He was probably never going to be ready. Maybe it was because he’d been a widower for so long, or maybe it was because he’d missed out on so much of her childhood. Whatever the reason, he was nowhere near ready to walk her down the aisle.
As he pulled his Chevy Colorado into the B&B parking lot, he glanced at the digital clock on his dashboard. His mouth went dry at the discovery that the wedding ceremony would begin in less than an hour. He flicked his gaze around the parking lot and was alarmed to find no spots left. The number of vehicles crammed into the lot was downright staggering. A few of the trucks had their tires hiked up on the curb, carving out parking spots in places that weren’t meant to be parked on.
You’ve got to be kidding me!
This was cattle country, for crying out loud, not the Maldives where he’d recently relocated from. Until this very moment, he hadn’t even realized the town had this large of a population.
Which in no way excused the fact that he was running later than he should’ve to his own daughter’s wedding. Or the way he’d been dragging his heels all morning.
I’m just not ready for this.
Because of the other vehicles circling like hawks, it took him a couple of minutes to maneuver his way back out of the parking lot — a couple of minutes that felt like eons. If he didn’t make it inside the building soon, he wouldn’t have time to put on his tie and cuff links before he walked Cat down the aisle.
His cell phone vibrated in the back pocket of his tuxedo trousers, interrupting the fatherly lather he was working himself into. Though he never texted and drove, he leaned forward a little to dig out his phone. Fortunately, the cars and trucks in front of him weren’t moving fast enough to risk a collision.
He hit the speakerphone button without looking at the caller ID, keeping his gaze plastered on the vehicle in front of him. “Hello?”
“Over here, Nico.” Becky Alford’s soft voice jangled through the thin grip he still had on his cool. “Eyes right. I’m waving at you from the only parking spot close enough to get you inside before the wedding starts.”
“Becky?” His fingers tightened crushingly around the phone as he jammed on his brakes to scan the crowded sidewalk to his right. “What are you doing in town?” She’d been gone for months on some hush-hush assignment for K&G Security. It had been so long since the last time he’d heard from her that he’d just assumed she wasn’t going to make it to the wedding.
Yet there she was, waving both slender arms at him like an airport runway attendant. “What kind of question is that?” she spluttered, lowering her arms. “My best friend is getting married!”
Yeah, he was aware of that, but he’d been under the impression that the line of work Becky was in trumped everything else. Looked like he was wrong. He was glad he was wrong.
“Nice dress.” The sight of her in an autumn gold gown that swept the ground made his heart swell. If anything, she’d gotten more beautiful during the time they’d been apart. Though he couldn’t see her eyes from here, the fabric was only a shade or two lighter than the color of her eyes. He was sure of it.
The line of vehicles in front of him started moving again at long last. He released the brake and rolled forward.
Becky gave a squeal of alarm in his ear. “Quit looking at me! You almost hit the truck in front of you.”
It wasn’t true, though he could understand why it might look that way to her. The train of vehicles was inching along at a snail’s pace.
Instead of defending himself, he changed the subject. “How’d you know what I was driving?” He’d only purchased the reef blue truck a few weeks ago, long after she’d left town.
She gave a breathy sigh in his ear, a sound he would revel in for the rest of the day. The rest of the night, too. “We’ve always been honest with each other, so I’m going to tell you the truth. It’s in your file.”
He grunted in understanding. So much for hoping you’ve been asking around about me. “Why am I not surprised? The folks at K&G Security have always been a tight group.” The same group he’d finally swallowed his pride and hired yesterday to provide a security detail for him… among other reasons. Whoever was being assigned to serve as his bodyguard would start work this morning. They hadn’t given him an exact time. Not that it mattered. Most of Cat and Burke’s guests worked in either law enforcement or private security, so he would be safe for the duration of the wedding ceremony.
“We’re not that tight!” Becky shooed away a car that attempted to claim the spot she was bodily holding for him. “The stuff in your file, along with what’s in every other client’s file, is shared on a need-to-know basis. No exceptions. That’s how we roll.”
He scowled in puzzlement. Yet they still briefed you about me. Why?
And then he knew. The one and only Becky Alford, security expert extraordinaire, was being assigned as his personal bodyguard.
He had to cough to clear the cobwebs of astonishment from his throat. “No way!” There was zero chance that a guy with his dismal track record could be so fortunate.
She made a sound of disgust as she continued shooing away cars and trucks as he inched ever closer to the parking spot she was holding for him. “If you think for one second I didn’t throw my hand in the air the second I found out you finally admitted you need help, Mr. Suffer in Silence…”
He was so happy to see her again that it was easy to ignore her sarcasm. “How’d you find out about my security detail, Miss Need-To-Know?” He knew for a fact that it wasn’t standard procedure for any security company to pull someone off a covert assignment out-of-state like the one she’d been working on. Maybe Becky was just messing with him. Or maybe he was still in bed dreaming.
She burst into laughter, nixing that possibility. Nobody else in the world had a laugh like hers — one that stirred him in ways he was helpless to explain, one that never failed to make him feel more alive. Becky didn’t laugh often, either, so it was a rare treat to hear her do so.
“Seriously, Nico?” Her waving became more frenzied as he finally reached the spot where she was standing. “I’ll give you one guess.” She moved to the far end of the parking spot to help guide him in.
“Cat.”
“Of course.” The warmth in her voice washed over him like molasses spilling over a stack of pancakes hot off the stove.
He stopped talking and spent every ounce of his concentration on maneuvering his truck into the narrow spot. There were no lines painted on the pavement on this side of the B&B. It was overflow parking that was rarely used since it was further away from the front entrance.
He braked and turned off the motor, both eager and apprehensive at the thought of coming face-to-face with Becky again. After three months of being apart, he’d finally beaten down the ache in his chest over the many mixed signals and missed chances between them, all of which might be nothing more than wishful thinking on his part.
Whatever the case, the ache was starting up again. He wasn’t disappointed. Being secretly in love with Becky was the one brand of pain he welcomed.
Though he wasn’t carrying more than an extra pound or two on his forty-five-year-old frame, it was a tight squeeze hopping down from the running board he’d paid extra to jack a few inches off the ground. Windy northern Texas was crammed with tumbleweeds that he preferred to drive over instead of around.
Before slamming the door shut, he leaned inside the cab to retrieve his tie and the ring-sized box that contained his cufflinks. Then he pivoted and nearly collided with Becky, who’d shimmied her willowy frame between his truck and the next vehicle during the time he had his back to her.
“Don’t move.” She sounded breathless as she took another step closer.
“Can’t.” He raised his eyebrows at her while drinking in her glowing gaze and the faint flush spreading across her cheeks. “You’ve got me cornered.”
“Cat’s orders,” she supplied, reaching for him.
For one dizzy moment, he thought she was going to hug him. He wished for it with all of his might, but all she did was gently tug the tie from his grasp. “Your daughter was right. You’re a wreck.”
Story of my life.
“Nice to see you again, too.” He curled his upper lip at her, pretending to be irritated by her words as she raised herself on the balls of her feet to push his collar up. He felt every brush of her fingers all the way to his soul as she slid the gold tie around his neck.
“Aw, did you miss me?” Despite her light tone, there was nothing lighthearted about the agonized look she gave his bruised left eye.
More than you’ll ever know, beautiful. “My tie matches your dress.” Pointing out that fascinating fact felt like a safer topic. Granted, gold was the primary wedding color Cat had chosen for her and Burke, but still.
“Fancy that.” Becky’s voice was dry as she expertly looped the silk tie into place and cinched it more snugly around his neck. “Is that too tight?”
“It’s perfect.” His voice came out gruffer than he intended. You’re perfect. “Tell Cat I said thanks for sending you to my rescue.”
“You can tell her yourself before you walk her down the aisle.” Becky reached for the box he was clutching in his other hand. He relinquished it and watched her flip open the lid to draw out the gold cufflinks.
He swallowed a groan as she reached for his left wrist. “I’m not ready for this, Becky.”
She cast another worried glance at his black eye. “You will be when I’m finished with you. Promise.”
He wasn’t sure what she meant by that, but it sounded good to him. Just being in her presence again was making him feel better about a lot of things — more confident in the odds he would survive the string of assaults from the criminals trying to chase him away from his ranch. More confident he’d finally get some answers to the biggest, most burning questions about his family and past.
“The brim of my Stetson will only hide so much,” he warned.
She looked as if she was enjoying a private joke. “I’ve spent years in covert operations. I’m the queen of disguise, Nico.”
“I’m not,” he retorted as he pulled the sleeves of his beige tuxedo jacket back over the cuffs of his dress shirt. “I’m a what-you-see-is-what-you-get kind of guy.”
“Liar.” Becky rolled her eyes as she reached into the beaded handbag looped over her shoulder and removed a makeup kit. “You’ve been harder to get to know than any person I’ve ever met.”
“How can you say that?” Because of his relationship to the Belmont family, every mistake he’d ever made was plastered across social media for the entire world to read. Some of the news articles were accompanied by photographs, depicting every rehab facility he’d ever darkened the doors of while battling alcoholism. “My life is an open book, darling.” The moment the endearment slipped out, he rubbed a hand over the lower half of his face, wishing he could scrub the word from the air between them.
She blinked in surprise, but she let his verbal flub slide.
His shoulders relaxed as he watched her squirt a bead of liquid foundation onto the tip of one finger. It looked roughly the same color as his tanned features.
“Take off your hat,” she instructed.
“Yes, ma’am.” He removed his Stetson and bent his knees a little to make it easier for her to reach him. The movement brought them eye level, allowing him to better drink in her loveliness.
And her concern about his injuries.
And the faint sprinkling of freckles across her nose.
And the tiny lines at the edges of her eyes that bespoke of the many things she’d suffered over the years.
He knew more about her than she realized, since he’d read her file, too — back when she’d been working undercover as Cat’s personal assistant. Cat’s Uncle Ansel had been exhaustively thorough in Becky’s background check. For this reason, Nico knew the things that Becky had left off her resume — how she’d been raised in foster care and how she’d subsequently endured a rocky marriage. He also knew about her string of miscarriages…and that her ex-husband had eventually perished in a highway collision while driving intoxicated.
She was no stranger to suffering. It was something they had in common. It might be the only thing they had in common.
“Close your eyes,” she whispered.
He closed his eyes and took a measured breath to mask his pounding heart as her fingers gently brushed the swollen skin beneath his left eye. “I’m not hard to get to know.” He wasn’t sure why her claim stung so much. “Anything you want to know about me you can find online.” He was unable to keep the bitterness out of his voice. He had too many regrets to count about his past.
“Not true. I have no idea what you’re thinking right now.”
The tenderness of her touch was almost his undoing. He hadn’t dated much since his wife had died in childbirth, and he’d stopped dating altogether when he’d met Becky three years earlier.
What he was thinking right now was that he wasn’t sure how he was going to survive having her, of all people, serve as his bodyguard. There wasn’t a single thought in his mind about her that would stand the test of professionalism. Being with her like this made him want to start dating again. It made him ache for things he’d long since given up hoping for. It made him dream about stuff he had no right to dream about. Things he didn’t deserve.
Becky’s gentle touch was replaced by a soft-bristled brush. Nico could smell the foundation powder she applied over the foundation cream.
“There.” He sensed more than heard her take a step back. “You can open your eyes now.”
He complied and found himself staring into the compact mirror she was holding up for him.
“Good as new.”
Close enough, at any rate. He reached out to lower the compact mirror with one finger. “What I’m thinking is that you’re amazing.” She’d covered the bruising around his eye enough that it wouldn’t likely show in the wedding photos. “Thank you for dusting me off and polishing me up for the wedding.”
“You’re welcome.” Something flickered between them. Something he felt deeply.
He gave her a crooked grin as he straightened. “Add it to my tab.”
“I can’t. Sorry.” Her voice was teasing as she tucked away her makeup kit. “I’m not officially on duty until after the wedding.”
“You did all of this for me as a friend, eh?” He couldn’t have been more pleased by her words as he clapped his hat back on.
“Absolutely!” She beckoned for him to follow her away from the snug space between the vehicles. As they strolled together toward the big red barn that had been converted into a B&B, she wrapped her hands around his arm. “I love Cat like the daughter I never had, and you’re her father. You’ve always been more than a client, and you always will be.”
He glanced down at her, wanting more than anything to palm her face and lift her mouth to his; but the side door to the B&B flew open. One of his future son-in-law’s brothers all but yanked him and Becky inside the building. They found themselves standing beside a granite bar weighed down with succulent refreshments that would undoubtedly be served at the coming reception.
“There you are. Right this way.” Nico was pretty sure the man maneuvering them around was Burke’s oldest brother, Jackson, but there was no time to ask before he ushered them into Cat’s presence.
Then Nico forgot everything else. The sight of his daughter took his breath away. She was stunning — from her long gown of flowy white chiffon to the love glowing in her eyes.
“Wow!” He held his arms out to her.
She stepped into them, tipping her face up to his. There was something about the mist forming in her eyes that made him think of the other young woman he’d spent years calling his daughter.
Nadia. Though unspeakable treachery had forced the two women to swap places for most of their lives, part of Nico would always think of Nadia as his daughter. Part of him would always hope that, by some miracle, she’d survived the horrors she’d gotten herself tangled up with. He would never stop praying that she’d also managed to get that second heart transplant she’d needed so badly.
After Cat’s wedding, he was going to spill the truth to Becky about his biggest reason for hiring her — to find out what had happened to his niece.
Cat blinked back tears as she studied his expression. “I wish she were here.”
Nico didn’t have to ask his daughter who she was talking about. She and Nadia had been raised like sisters. It was only natural that Cat would be drowning in nostalgia on a day like today.
“So do I, sweetheart.” He leaned in to kiss her cheek reassuringly. Whatever answers Becky uncovered in the coming days would be as much for Cat as they were for him. Though Cat was trying her hardest to be at peace with everything leading up to the disappearance of her cousin, she’d never gotten the closure that she needed. None of them had.
Burke’s brother pulled the door to the next room open, and he breezed through it with Becky on his arm. Nico could see more bridesmaids and groomsmen lined up on the other side. One couple at a time, they sashayed up the aisle toward the front of the room, to the mellow, lilting music of a string quartet.
All too soon, the music transitioned to the opening notes of the Bridal March.
It was time. No words were necessary as Nico settled Cat’s hand on his arm and led her into the main event center. Most of the time, it served as a steak restaurant, but the space was easily and often transformed into events like this — more often than ever now that Cat was serving as their resident wedding planner.
She’d designed and coordinated nearly two dozen weddings over the past year, and now it was finally her turn to be a bride. The occupants of the jam-packed room stood, beaming and thrilled to be a part of such a joyous occasion for her and one of their favorite hometown boys, Burke Yates.
The cowboy-turned-private-investigator becoming Nico’s son-in-law was a good man, who treated Cat the way Nico wanted his daughter treated. He was confident she would be adored and cherished until the end of her days.
As Nico reached the front of the room to transfer Cat’s hand to Burke’s arm, his gaze sought out Becky again. A tremulous smile was making her lips wobble. Emotions swam in her gaze, more emotions than usual — emotions that reached out and touched him and became part of the moment he was sharing with his daughter.
They were in this together. No matter how messy and imperfect the next few hours, days, and weeks were going to feel, there was no other place he’d rather be.
