Secret Weapon Spouse - By B. J. Daniels Page 0,21

a security guard would have more sense than to silhouette himself in a doorway. And the security guard would have said something by now.

Whoever this man was, she could hear him breathing hard. He was either scared or winded. Or both. He was swinging the gun back and forth in a short arc, his hands shaking, indicating he had little experience with a firearm. But even an inexperienced gunman could kill her at this close range.

It was a chance she wasn’t willing to take.

She didn’t dare move. Nor take a breath. She knew she didn’t have time to draw her gun from her bag before he would hear the sound and fire. Her only hope was to draw his attention to another part of the room.

She inched her hand free under the bed, remembering the clothing that had been tossed across the end of it. She was betting on what she would find and was rewarded when her fingers closed around a high-heeled shoe, just as she’d suspected.

Moving in slow motion, she drew it from under the bed, careful not to make a sound. She couldn’t hold her breath much longer. With luck, he wouldn’t see her movements—just hear the shoe drop.

She had to be ready. Once she threw the shoe she would have to move quickly.

She needed to breathe, to move from her awkward position on the floor. She counted to three and launched the high heel through the open bathroom doorway.

The gunman swung in that direction and fired off two quick shots, the sound of breaking glass raining down on the tile floor. The huge mirror over the sink had shattered, making more noise than the shots especially since the gun he carried seemed to have a silencer on it.

Under the cover of the racket, Samantha scrambled up, staying in a low crouch and swung her gun toward the door.

She’d been trained to kill when necessary. Not that she’d ever had to kill anyone. She didn’t want tonight to be the first. Especially if the man with the gun was Caroline Graham’s fiancé.

But the doorway was empty.

She blinked. He couldn’t have had time to come into the room. He must have stepped to a side of the door. That meant he was waiting for her to make her next move.

Listening, she waited, afraid he had somehow slipped into the room. That he might even be hiding in the closet. Or on the other side of the bed.

Then she heard the rattle of plastic.

He was making a run for it!

She rushed to the doorway, dodged to one side, and took a quick look around the edge of the doorjamb in case it was a trick.

She heard the thunder of footfalls and took off after him. As she pushed through the plastic and turned the corner toward the door, something solid struck her in the face just below her left eye and dropped her to her knees.

She blinked back stars and blackness as she grabbed the wall to keep from passing out. She could hear the sound of heavy footfalls, the sound of him retreating down the stairs, getting away.

She tried to get to her feet, but the blackness closed in and she had to sit down in the Sheetrock dust and lean her head back against the wall.

It wasn’t until she turned on her penlight that she saw what he’d thrown at her. A foot-long piece of two-by-four lumber.

No chance of any prints on the board. She waited until the dizziness and darkness stopped, then she returned to the bedroom to retrieve her shoulder bag.

VICTOR CONSTANTINE felt a hundred times better. The antacids had done their job. He’d opened the car window while waiting down the street from Weddings Your Way and the refried beans smell was almost gone.

But that wasn’t why he felt so good.

He’d had a hunch that the wedding planner would return to her office. And she had.

He’d been taken off guard when she’d switched cars the first time. But now she returned, with the top down on the sleek black sports car convertible, her hat gone and her hair blowing in the wind. He wondered where she’d been and what she’d been up to.

He’d waited, figuring she would switch cars again. And she had, driving a white sedan—just as he’d been told she drove.

Following her at a safe distance now, he couldn’t help but wonder why he’d been hired to follow her and the man he knew only as Alex, although he’d found out that