Page 181 of Bodyguard By Night

“Sorry.”

“You’ve been awesome.”

“Special circumstances.”

She laughed. “So, I shouldn’t expect you to hold my purse while I shop?”

“Only if I get that kind of dressing room action each time.”

“Depends. Not sure everyone is as cool as Em is about an interlude.”

“Is that what you call it?” I twisted my neck and she met me in a quick kiss. “Pretty sure I rocked your world.”

“Your groan proved I did the same, pal.” She dug her fingers in my side, then she was gone.

My phone rang and I dragged it back out of my pocket. I picked up when I saw Beckett’s name. He was even less of a phone guy than I was. “Hey.”

“Hey. I corralled the troops. They aren’t sure what’s going on. How much do you want me to tell them?”

“Tell them it’s important so everyone shows up.”

“Got it. How’s the shopping twins looking timewise?”

“Finishing up.”

“Real talk?”

I laughed. He knew his cousins well. “We’ll be at the lodge in an hour.”

“Didn’t take you for an optimistic sort.”

“Just tell them to be ready.”

“Will do.”

I went into the flower shop to make sure I wasn’t lying. Unfortunately, I was.

Ninety minutes later, we rolled up to the lodge. Beckett was waiting by the doors, his arms crossed as I herded the women inside.

“Shut up.”

Beckett just roared with a rare belly laugh as he followed us in.

The low hum of voices told me where to go. Thankfully, Laverne had put everyone in one of the conference rooms. I didn’t want to taint the Gala room with all of this if I could help it.

Rachel was being a rock as it was.

Clay was waiting with the rest of the family when we walked in. Rach rushed over to him and slipped her arm around his back. He looked down at her with a frown.

I felt like I was staring down the troops.

Laverne and her sister Sarah were sitting at the table with Fred and Christopher behind their wives. The Manning boys were leaning against the wall with their arms crossed. Beckett was slightly more at ease since he had some knowledge of what was going on.

Chaos and Rachel’s parents weren’t coming in until the day before the rehearsal dinner which I was glad about. I didn’t really want to meet Chaos’s parents for the first time by telling them she’d been attacked yesterday.

I reached beside me and found Chaos’s hand.

The murmurs started right away at that. I cleared my throat. “Thanks for coming in to talk with us. We wanted to speak to all of you at once, so we only had to do it one time.”

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