Page 16 of Sweet Little Spies

Charlotte Taggart came in from the bridal suite where itlooked like she’d taken the guests in the back half of the balcony to hide. Shewas in a designer gown but had her favorite accessory. A pistol. “We clear?”

Her husband nodded. “Yeah, but now we have to deal with thefallout. Carys, sweetheart, I’m so sorry…”

She held up a hand. “The wedding’s off. We need to check oneveryone, and then you need to figure out what’s going on. I understand. Allthat matters is everyone is safe. Does anyone need medical treatment?”

She was surreally calm as she pulled the veil off her head.

“I think we moved them all out in time, sweetie,” her dadsaid. “I need to let your mom know you’re okay.”

“I’ll come with you. I want to check on everyone,” shereplied, cool as ice.

“Hey, we need to check on you first.” Tris moved intoCarys’s space. She was in shock, and she needed to know she was safe now. Evenwhile the helicopter burned a hundred yards away. “Come on, baby.”

A crack sounded through the air, and his head snapped backbefore he felt the actual pain. She’d slapped him. Not in a girlie way, in abitch-goddess, feel-my-power way.

“How dare you,” Carys said. “You were hiding? You werespying on us?”

“I was watching over you.” He looked to Aidan, who was palebut calm as well. “Aidan, I was just…”

His best friend shook his head. “We have to check on theothers. We can talk later. I’m sure you have a debrief to attend.”

“Hey, Car, I take back what I said about the dress.” Kalastrode up as though the wedding was still happening and nothing had gone wrong.The bridesmaids dress she wore now boasted a long slit up the side. “Once Iripped it a little, it was totally easy to move in. Did you see the way thatfucker went down?”

“What I saw—and anyone who was looking—was you aren’twearing underwear.” Cooper pointed a finger Kala’s way. “What the hell?”

“Hello, panty lines,” Kala replied.

They started to argue about whether going commando during animpromptu firefight was a good choice, but Tristan couldn’t take his eyes offCarys.

Who turned and walked away, letting Aidan lead her down thestairs.

“Well, this is a hell of a thing,” Aunt Charlotte said asanother boom shook the air around them.

Tristan stood with his dads and watched the loves of hislife walk away.

* * * *

Carys took a long drag off the martini Tasha had put in herhand. Her cousin had switched out the champagne for vodka after the horrors ofthe afternoon. According to Aunt Charlotte, vodka solved most problems. She waspretty sure they wouldn’t solve hers, but she would take the detachment itmight bring.

She was still in shock. An hour later and she was stilltrying to process what had happened.

“That’s the last of the guests with kids.” Kenzie and Kalawere in the bridal suite as well. Her cousins had told her they wouldn’t leavefor anything.

Of course they might be playing bodyguard. They keptwatching the door and tensed whenever it opened.

“I had to talk Kyle out of staying.” Her mother had a grimlook on her face. “He wanted to help with the cleanup, but he doesn’t haveclearance anymore.”

Yes, she was left with the Agency crew. The wedding she’dplanned for years had basically been firebombed, and the only good news of theday was no one was seriously injured. She had no idea what she would say to hercoworkers at the hospital when she eventually returned to work.Uh, didn’tactually get married because someone tried to kill us all, and then we had todeal with a helicopter exploding, and oh, my ex showed up to save the day and Iwas fairly certain he’d been okay with dying.

So why did she feel oddly relieved?

Shock. Yep, it was still shock. She wasn’t secretly okaywith the fact that she hadn’t said I do. Her heart hadn’t thudded in her chestwhen she’d realized Tristan was here. Nope. Anger was all she’d felt. The slapacross his gorgeous face had been about anger. It hadn’t because she couldn’tfigure out another way to touch him.

Because she couldn’t let him hug her, couldn’t allow him tokiss her.

Even though her first impulse had been to throw herself intohis arms.

No one was injured. No one had died. Well, the dudes in thehelicopter had absolutely died, but they had been far past her medical skillsthe minute Tristan had blown them out of the sky.

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