Page 38 of George’s Big Day

“Oh yes,” Kage told him. “So much so that George has a tracker on her.”

All eyes on me. “I have to. Hannah Kage is danger girl.”

“You’re sure you’re not overdoing this a bit?”

It was good to hear Kage laugh.

Fifteen minutes later, I knocked on Kurt’s door, and Thomasin opened it a bit, enough for me to catch a sliver of the ivory silk dress she was wearing and a small portion of her face.

“I wanted to let Kurt know that we’re waiting for marshals to show up and take some men into custody, but that the wedding will proceed close to the time we were supposed to start.”

“Everyone will be drunk and full of charcuterie by the time this thing gets going,” she assured me.

I tipped my head back and forth. “That seems highly probable.”

Huff of breath. “Why are there marshals en route?”

“There were some people here we didn’t anticipate, but I don’t want you to think that your family was ever in⁠—”

“I know you would never allow my family to be placed in danger, George. Even if you weren’t aware of a problem, once you found out about it, you would keep us safe.”

She had such faith in me. Not that it was entirely undeserved. There was last Christmas to consider, after all.

“I would, and I will. Always.”

“Why were these people at the B and B?”

“They were looking for Mr. Cerreto.”

Apparently, she’d been around me enough already that she could now take that answer in stride. No gasp, no immediate volley of questions, instead solely concern. “But Mr. Cerreto is lovely, and so is his husband. Will he be safe once the marshals remove the threat? Will more people arrive?”

“Yes, to the first question, no to the second.” Lee Tae San was on his way to put the fear of God into the cartel. He would convey that there would be swift and deadly consequences if there were any other attempts on Dante Cerreto’s life. And for his part, Dante would not be back. Lee would promise that as well.

“That’s good,” she said, eyeing me.

“Is there any way I could talk to Kurt?”

“Mmmm, I don’t think so.”

“And why is that?”

“Because he’s a bit upset at the moment,” she informed me, opening the door wide. “He went for a walk, which I encouraged. He needed to clear his head.”

“But it’s a really short delay, and then⁠—”

“That’s not it,” she soothed me. “He got a call from your friend…Ethan—Evan? Edward? Efrem?—no, that’s Mr. Hawthorne’s husband—but it’s an E name for sure, and he said he would be here, after all, but wouldn’t make the wedding, just the reception. Apparently his plane was scheduled to land at the same time the wedding started.”

“It’s Errol. But why did he call Kurt and not me?”

“Because Kurt’s number was on the invitations for the RSVP. In case you were deployed.”

Right. “But why would talking to him upset Kurt?”

“All I know is that your friend was relating an incident that occurred on your last deployment, which, I inferred, was a bit dicey.”

No. He wouldn’t. He couldn’t possibly be that much of an idiot.

My friend, Sergeant Errol Wagner, could not have been so stupid as to tell the man I loved, and was about to marry, that on my last outing, when I was working with the FBI HRT team, they had left me bleeding out in a building in Mosul.