One Wild Wedding Night_ Getaway - Leslie Kelly [4]
From the sound of it, loud patrons of the club were heading for the front door. But she couldn’t focus on that. Couldn’t focus on anything except the feel of him. And without saying another word, he pushed through a rear emergency door and carried her out into the cold night.
It was really happening. Bridget was being kidnapped, right out of a public place.
By Dean Willis. The FBI agent she’d spent the past several months loathing.
* * *
Special Agent Dean Willis had been following Bridget Donahue for three days. Long, painful days during which he’d mentally kicked himself a hundred times for ever letting this happen. Any of it.
He regretted getting involved with her. Taking advantage of her. Using her.
Falling for her. Hard.
Oh, she’d never believe it, especially because of the way she’d found out that he was working undercover. She’d known him as nice, solid, boring car salesman Dean Willis, with the ill-fitting suits, the shaggy hair and the crooked glasses.
He’d wanted her to know him like that. To like him, to trust him. And he’d played on that like and trust, needing to know—to be sure—that Bridget had not been involved with her employer’s financial games. Her boss had been cleaning up some filthy money for a couple of local drug-dealing thugs.
Bridget Donahue had been his bookkeeper.
Everyone—including Dean, at first—had assumed she was an accomplice. It was only after he’d met her that he’d begun to suspect everyone was wrong. He’d become determined to prove it, and he had—but only after he’d gotten close to her. Close enough to make her trust him. Close enough to make her care about him.
Close enough to care too much himself.
She had been—still was—the loveliest woman he’d ever met. Sweet and funny. Good-natured and intelligent. Everything he’d always wanted in a woman…but he’d had to use her.
So she had a right to hate him when the truth came out, when she’d walked into the dealership one morning and found him there, with his team, tearing the place apart and taking Honest Marty into custody. She hadn’t wanted to hear a thing he had to say. She’d brushed him off, not sparing him a second thought,
She wouldn’t have trusted him now if he’d come to her to tell her she was in danger.
So he hadn’t come to her. He’d stayed out of sight, certain she hadn’t spotted him. But oh, he’d definitely kept his eyes glued to her. Sometimes walking close enough behind her to breathe in the remnants of her soft, flowery perfume lingering in the air after she’d passed through it. He’d kept his hawkish gaze on her slim, vulnerable back, the long, light brown hair falling in a curtain over her shoulders. He’d caught tantalizing glimpses of her creamy cheek and her full lips when she smiled and heard the echo of her laughter more than once as she’d participated in her cousin’s wedding.
All the while knowing someone wanted to kill her.
“Damn it, put me down,” she snapped.
He complied, lowering her to stand on her own feet, though he kept one arm around her waist to prevent her from making a run for it. With the other, he unlocked the door of his SUV. It was parked out back, behind a Dumpster, near a few cars in private employee spaces. Unimpeded by the crowd probably gathering out front…with easy access to a rear alley. He’d left it here when he’d followed Bridget’s limo earlier this evening, anticipating the possible need for a fast getaway.
“Let me go!”
“Shut up, Bridget, we’re getting out of here. I’ll explain everything later.”
She wriggled and kicked, seeming to suddenly have eight arms and legs, all of which were battering at him, demanding her freedom. “I swear I’ll scream.”
“Nobody’ll hear you over the emergency alarm,” he replied, not a bit fazed by her threat. “Now get in and stay down…This is serious.” He pushed her into the backseat. Knowing he couldn’t trust