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“Good.” He placed a hand on her wrist and squeezed. The hold was weak, but she felt comforted. “I’m going to be okay. No more sad looks. No more apologies. No more guilt. If you feel the need to make a promise, promise you’ll still be my best man when Autumn and I finally do get married.”
She rolled her eyes, pleased to see him smile. “I only agreed to this weekend. You’re asking a lot for me to do this dog and pony show again. I mean, I’ll have to find a new buffer, and I had a hard time finding someone to agree to it this time.”
“I’ve seen how BB looks at you. I don’t think you’ll have any difficulty the next time. You should keep him around. I like him.”
She sighed. “I do too.” Cohen was the only person in her life she would have confided in with something so personal and so new. “What am I even doing? We work together. It’s already complicated and messy, and here I am wanting to dive right in.”
He chuckled and then winced when the effort caused him pain. “You know what Autumn would say to that.” He continued after she shook her head. “Love is complicated and messy by nature. But when you’re willing to go after it despite the mess, it’s worth the effort. Even if it crashes and burns, love is always worth it.”
“Do you believe that?”
“When it comes to Autumn, I do. She’s worth everything.”
Gennessey smirked. “Boy, she has you whipped.”
“I wouldn’t have it any other way. So, you going to go for it with BB?”
“Let me find your shooter first. Then I’ll answer that.”
“Deal,” he said with a nod. “Ask me.”
“Ask you what?”
“I know how this works. You have questions. May as well ask me now while it’s just us.”
She wished she could tell him to rest and not worry about answering her questions, but she needed information. As much as she wanted to play the role of cousin right now, she had to wear her investigator hat instead.
“Why would someone shoot up your wedding?”
“I wish I knew. I can’t think of anything I’ve done to piss someone off enough to come after me like this. And if they wanted to kill me, why not do it last night or at any other point in the last week? Why at the wedding?”
She shrugged. “To send a message? That they can get to you or anyone you care about at any time? Or maybe you weren’t the target.”
“Then who? We invited close family and friends. None of them would be mixed up with something that would get them shot at by a gunman.”
“What about Autumn’s friends? Or her family? How well do you know them?”
He tried to hide his grimace when he shifted his position in the bed. “You tell me. I know you checked her out. I’m guessing that means you checked out her family and friends too.”
She started to deny his assumption, but he knew her too well. “There were no red flags, but I didn’t dig too deep. I have some people looking into it again. They’re even doing deep dives into our family too. We can’t rule out the possibility someone got mixed up in something which put a target on their backs. I don’t think the background checks will give us anything, but we have to be sure.”
“You won’t find anything. You know how squeaky clean our family is. Well, Autumn’s family is shinier than ours. I can’t imagine them doing anything that would make them any enemies.”
Gennessey paused a moment before asking the one question she knew would upset him. “And Autumn? What if she was the target?”
“No way. It’s more likely the gunman was aiming for the minister and hit me instead. What about you? Could you have been the target? Because it makes more sense than thinking the bullet was meant for Autumn.”
She sighed. “We haven’t ruled it out, but I’ve been very careful to keep my personal life separate from work. My job now doesn’t put me in as much danger as my time in the CIA. If I thought there was any kind of threat against me, I would never have come and put you in the line of fire.”
He exhaled. “Yeah. I know. I’m sorry I implied otherwise. I don’t know how you do this every day. Just trying to make sense of this is driving me crazy.”
“Don’t. Focus on getting well. Leave it to me. I’ve had a lot of experience in sorting out puzzles.”
“Right. But you’ll keep me in the loop? I’ll worry otherwise.”
She smiled. “Of course.”
“Be careful, okay? I know we haven’t exactly hung out together like we did growing up, but I don’t think I could handle anything if I didn’t have you around.”
