Harlequin Intrigue June 2014 - Bundle 2 of 2: Traceless\Groom Under Fire\The Defender by HelenKay Dimon

Author:HelenKay Dimon
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-4603-3650-2
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2014-10-15T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eleven

Did her laughter have an edge of hysteria to it? Had his admission struck her too hard?

Cooper studied her face for signs of distress. But he saw only the beauty of her flushed skin and sparkling green eyes. She had always distracted him. Maybe he wouldn’t have had so much trouble in school if she hadn’t been in so many of his classes.

“You don’t believe Stephen could do this.” Did she love him that much that she couldn’t see him for the man he must have become?

“I would sooner believe you were trying to kill me.”

He sucked in a breath, as stung as if she’d physically slapped him. “You could actually believe that I would try to kill you?”

“You’ve been gone a long time,” she reminded him. “I don’t know you anymore. I know Stephen. We’ve stayed friends all these years.”

“Obviously you’ve been more than friends,” Cooper said, trying to keep any bitterness from slipping into his voice. He had chosen to leave; what they’d done in his absence was none of his business. And it wouldn’t have been even if he’d stayed.

But now Tanya was his wife. So she was his business.

Tanya’s face flushed an even brighter shade of red. But all she said was, “Stephen has always been there for me.”

“Until the wedding.”

“That wasn’t his fault.”

“I’m not so sure about that,” Cooper said.

Her brow furrowed with confusion. “How can you think that? You saw the blood. The signs of a struggle.”

“If there was really a struggle, why didn’t you or Mom hear it?”

She jumped up from the couch as if unable to sit still for his accusations. While she paced the small space in the living room of the suite, she kept her distance from the window. She obviously didn’t feel safe.

And she wouldn’t until they’d caught whoever was trying to kill her. But in order to do that they had to consider all the viable suspects.

“Your mom was in the basement,” she reminded him, “talking to the minister. And I was in the bride’s dressing room, way on the other side of the church. Someone must have hit him in the head while he was distracted and knocked him out in the groom’s dressing room. That’s why we didn’t hear anything.”

“We don’t even know yet if the blood that was found is his,” Cooper reminded her. DNA results didn’t come back as quickly as they did on television shows.

“Now you’re saying he hurt someone else?”

If Cooper was right, Stephen had hurt her—physically—a few times. And now emotionally...

“It might be his blood,” Cooper amended. “But he could have drawn some earlier and sprayed it around the room.”

She shuddered at the gruesome idea. “Why would he do that?”

“So you would think he was dead or hurt...” And then she wouldn’t marry, forfeiting her inheritance to her sister.

Obviously still in denial, she shook her head. “He wouldn’t do that. It wouldn’t even occur to Stephen to do something like that.”

“He might not have been acting alone,” Cooper pointed out.

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