The Wedding Party Collection

‘He thought I was hitting on you,’ said Adrian, after another long and loaded silence. ‘It’s not encouraged.’

‘Excuse me?’ said Lena. There were two issues buried in that simple little statement, and while her mind shied away from the implication that Adrian might actually like her enough to hit on her, it had no trouble whatsoever grappling with the second. ‘Jared West, are you scaring away my potential boyfriends? Because if you are...and I find out you are...’ Lena narrowed her gaze. ‘Is this why Ty Chester didn’t ask me to the year eleven dance? Because he was going to—I know he was. And then he didn’t.’

‘Nah, that one was all you,’ said Jared. ‘He probably thought you were going to ask him hang-gliding in return. I hear he’s scared of heights.’

‘And kittens,’ added Adrian. ‘Possibly his own shadow.’

‘Maybe I was after a refreshing change,’ she grumbled. ‘Maybe I wanted to see how the quiet, handsome half lived.’ Facts were facts. Ty Chester was uncommonly handsome. Nor would it have killed her to spend some time with people she hadn’t hero-worshipped since birth.

‘You’d have eaten him alive,’ said Jared.

‘Yes, that was the plan. Jared, I swear, if I ever catch you interfering in my love life I will make your love life a living hell. Yours too,’ she told Adrian for good measure.

‘Mine’s already a living hell,’ murmured Adrian and Jared snorted. More silent communication passed between them, effectively cutting her out of the loop. They did it all the time and mostly it didn’t bother her. Today, it did.

‘Lord, you two, get a room.’

‘Yeah, Trig,’ said Jared, darkly gleeful. ‘Let’s get a room.’

‘If we go surfing this afternoon, I’m going to drown you,’ said Trig, formerly known as Adrian.

Jared flipped him a friendly finger.

‘Is this foreplay?’ asked Lena. ‘Because if it is, can it happen elsewhere? I’m trying to concentrate on my homework here.’ A valid point as far as she was concerned. Unfortunately, it focused Jared’s attention back on her books.

‘Since when do you need help with maths homework?’ he asked.

‘Since it got hard. What kind of idiot question is that?’

‘Seriously? You really can’t do basic trigonometry?’

‘This is why I don’t think I’m fully related to any of them,’ Lena told Adrian. ‘I’m the milkman’s baby.’

‘Yeah, baby, but you’ve got a lot of grit,’ offered Adrian. ‘Who cares if it takes you a fraction longer than the rest of them to figure out a trigonometry proof? You’ll still get there.’

‘Yeah, but not fast enough. And then they’ll disown me. That’s what happens to people who can’t keep up.’

‘Since when have you ever not kept up?’ This from Jared who’d never had to work to keep up with anything. He was always out front; always the leader. And Lena had always worked her butt off to make sure that she wasn’t that far behind.

It was costing her, though. More and more, she could feel the gap between what her siblings could do and what she could do widening. It was the curse of being an ordinary person in an extraordinary family.

‘Would you disown me if I did fall behind?’ she asked.

And shocked Jared speechless.

Adrian was looking at her funny—as if he’d known all along that her insecurities were there but he couldn’t quite figure out why she was voicing them now. Lena didn’t know why she was voicing them now either. It was just a maths question.

‘Never mind,’ she said awkwardly.

‘You won’t fall behind.’ Jared had finally found his voice. ‘I won’t let you.’

He just didn’t get it. ‘But what if that’s where I’m meant to be? Water finding its own level, and all that?’

‘No,’ said Jared grimly. ‘The hell with that. That’s just defeatist.’

‘No one’s leaving anyone behind,’ said Adrian soothingly. ‘No one here’s defeated. Jared’s never going to disown you, Lena. He’s insanely protective of you. Did you not just see him go caveman on my arse for daring to look at you sideways?’

‘Sure I did,’ said Lena. ‘But he’s protecting you, not me.’

‘Maybe I’m protecting you both,’ said Jared. ‘Anyone ever think of that?’

‘Overachiever,’ murmured Lena and Adrian nodded his agreement, and it made Lena laugh and broke the tension and she was all for it staying broken.

‘How about I start this conversation again?’ she offered.

‘Can you do it without the emo infusion?’ asked Jared.

‘You want the bare basics?’ She could do that. She pointed the pen at her chest. ‘Imbecile in need of a little help with her maths homework, before she can go surfing. I’m stuck on question six.’

Which was how Lena scored two maths tutors for the rest of the year and how Adrian Sinclair earned the nickname Trig.

Nothing to do with being trigger happy at all.

Even if he was.

ONE

It wasn’t easy being green. Green being the colour of envy. Envy being the emotion Lena owned when she saw others walking around effortlessly and without pain. She tried to keep her resentments in check, but envy had powerful friends like self-pity and unfocused anger and when they came to play, Lena’s bright-side surrendered with barely a murmur. Being gut shot nineteen months ago had brought out the worst in her rather than the best.

Focus on the positives, the overworked physio had told her briskly at the start of her rehabilitation.

You’re alive.

You can walk.

The physio had tapped the side of Lena’s skull next. You’re really strong. Up here.

Lena had taken that last comment as a compliment. Right up until the physio had started telling her to back off on the exercises and let her body heal. Lena had ignored her, at which point the physio had started comparing Lena to someone’s pet ox.

As in overly stubborn and none too bright.

It didn’t help that the other woman might possibly have been right.

Still, stubbornness had got her to the airport this morning, and through the airport, and if she sank down into the row of seats next to the boarding gate with a muffled curse and a certain amount of relief, so what?

She’d made it.

Another half an hour and she’d be on a plane bound for Istanbul and when she got there she was going to find Jared, her wayward brother, and haul him home in time for Christmas. She could do this. Was doing this.

Didn’t matter that she was doing it one step at a time.

Lena closed her eyes and rubbed at her face, putting the heels of her hands to her eye sockets and rolling them in slow circles, and it was hell on mascara but she didn’t wear any anyway—her lashes were black enough and thick enough to go without. Her hair was thick and black too, and straight these days, on account of a good cut and a run-in with a hair straightener this morning. The wave would come back next time she washed it, but for now she looked reasonably put together. Less like an invalid and more like a woman on a mission.

Someone took a seat beside her and Lena lowered her hands, cracked a glance and groaned at the sight of her nemesis, Adrian Sinclair, glaring back at her.

Trig was big. As in six feet five and perfectly proportioned. He’d grown into his hands. Grown into the coat-hanger shoulders he’d had at sixteen. Good for him.

Lena had stopped growing at a respectable five-eight. Nothing wrong with medium height. Nothing wrong with medium anything.

‘Go away,’ she said by way of greeting.

‘No,’ he said by way of hello. ‘I heard you failed your physical.’

Way to rub it in. ‘I’ll take it again. I’ve put in for special consideration.’

‘You won’t get it.’

‘You’re blocking it?’

‘You overestimate my influence,’ rumbled Trig. ‘Lena—’

‘No,’ she said, cutting him off fast. ‘Whatever you’re going to say about my current state of well-being, don’t. I don’t want to hear it.’

‘I know you don’t, but I am done talking around it.’ Trig’s jaw tightened. He had a nice jaw. Strong. Square. It provided a much-needed counterpoint to his meltingly pretty brown eyes. ‘When are you going to get it through your thick head that you are never going to get your old job back?’

Lena said nothing. Not what she wanted to hear.

‘Doesn’t mean you can’t be equally effective elsewhere,’ continued Trig doggedly.

‘Behind a desk?’

‘Operations control. Halls of power. Could be fun.’

‘If it’s that much fun, why don’t you do it?’

‘What do you think I’ve been doing these past nineteen months? Besides dropping everything on a regular basis to come babysit you? Why do you think I took myself off rotation in the first place?’

Lena had the grace to flush. Like her and Jared, Trig had been part of an elite intelligence reconnaissance team once, and, just like her, Trig had loved his job. The extreme physicality of it. The danger and the excitement. The close calls and the adrenaline. Trig had to be missing all that. ‘Why did you take yourself off rotation? They’d have assigned you to another team. No one asked you to sit at a desk. And I don’t need a babysitter.’

‘Yeah, I wish you’d prove it.’ Trig eased his legs out in front of him and tried to make himself comfortable in the too-small airport seat. Big man, with a body honed for combat. The pretty face and the easy smile...those were just for disarmament purposes.

‘Adrian, what are you doing here?’ Adrian was his real name. Lena only ever used it when talk turned serious. ‘How’d you even know I was here?’

‘Damon called me. He had you flagged the minute you passed through Customs.’

‘Man, I hate that.’ Who’d have a computer hacker for a brother? ‘No respect for privacy whatsoever.’

‘Handy, though. Exactly what is it you plan to do in Istanbul, Lena?’

‘Find Jared.’

‘What makes you think he’s still there?’

‘I don’t. But it’s the only lead we’ve got. Nineteen months and not one word on his whereabouts until now. What if he needs our help?’

‘If he needs our help he’ll ask for it.’

‘What if he can’t? Jared’s in over his head. I can feel it. He wouldn’t go this long without finding a way to contact us. He just wouldn’t.’

‘He would if he thought the risk of blowing his cover was too great.’

‘If it’s that dangerous, maybe he shouldn’t be there at all.’

Trig shrugged. ‘Jared wants answers. He needs answers. Get in his way and he’s not going to be happy.’

‘I won’t get in his way. You give me too little credit.’

‘I have never given you too little credit. That’s not a mistake I’m likely to make. Too much leeway, on the other hand...’

‘Misogynist.’

‘Not even close.’

‘So you don’t plan to sling me over your shoulder and forcibly remove me from the boarding area?’

‘Too showy,’ said Trig, pulling out his mobile phone and tapping the screen. A nerve twisted low in Lena’s belly and she shifted restlessly in her seat and looked away. She’d always had a thing for Trig’s hands. A little part of her had long wondered what they might wring from her if Trig ever put his mind to it.

Not that he ever did.

‘We took a vote; me, Damon and Poppy,’ Trig continued. ‘In the event that I can’t persuade you to stay here and be sensible, I get to go with you and be stupid. Damon’s already got me a ticket. You can thank him later.’

‘Thanking him isn’t exactly what I have in mind.’

‘Damon cares for you, Lena. He already has one sibling missing. He doesn’t want another gone and I don’t want to have to explain to Jared why the hell I let you go looking for him alone. It’ll be bad enough trying to explain why I let you look for him at all.’

‘You approve of what he’s doing,’ she said sourly. ‘You don’t want him safe. You want him to find out who sabotaged the East Timor run.’

‘Damn right I do.’

‘What’d you and Jared do? Toss a coin to see who went and who stayed to look after the invalid?’

‘Didn’t have to. He went. I stayed.’ Trig eyed her flatly and Lena was the first to look away. She hadn’t been the best of company these past nineteen months—too jacked up on painkillers and self-pity to take it easy on anyone. Too focused on getting through the day upright to worry about hurting anyone else’s feelings along the way. Trig deserved better from her. Her family deserved better from her.

‘Sorry,’ she said and got a knee nudge from those long lanky legs in reply. ‘I am sorry.’

‘I know.’

But unless she actually did something about changing her mindset and her ways, sorry was just another empty word.

‘You sitting next to me on this flight?’ she asked.

Trig nodded, his eyes scanning the other passengers.

‘Don’t suppose Damon upgraded us to Business while he was deep in the bowels of the airline’s supposedly secure system?’

‘He did. Said we’d need the leg room. You need to check in with the boarding staff.’

Call it fate, intervention or the joys of having a computer-hacking genius for a brother, but the overhead speaker system chose that moment to request her presence at the boarding desk.

‘You want me to get that?’ Trig asked.

‘No.’ Lena made it to her feet. ‘I can do it.’

It was to Trig’s credit that he merely watched as she walked carefully to the service desk and exchanged her economy ticket for a business class one.

No credit to him at all when he sauntered over, face tight as he wrapped one arm around her waist and another beneath her knees and carried her silently back to her seat.

She wasn’t grateful for his silence or his strength.

She wasn’t.

* * *

They’d travelled together before. Eaten together, slept beside each other on beaches and in ditches. Lena knew Trig’s scent, the long lines of his back and the breadth of his shoulders. Shoulders built to cry on, though she rarely had. Strength enough to carry others, though he’d never had to carry her.

Until she’d been shot.

A part of her hated that she couldn’t match him any more. Couldn’t pit her speed and agility against his brute force and make a proper competition out of it. The rest of her just wanted to curl up against his strength and take shelter from the pain.

The boarding call for their flight came over the speaker system.

‘Lena—’ began Trig, and she knew what he was going to say before he said it. She stopped him because she didn’t want to hear yet another round of how she was too frail for this and how she should leave well enough alone.

‘Don’t tell me to reconsider,’ she said and knew the threadiness of her voice for desperation. ‘Please. I have to find him. I have to see for myself that he’s okay. As soon as I know that, I’ll leave. I promise. But I have to know that he’s okay. I need him to see that I’m okay.’

Trig said nothing, just reached for Lena’s little travel backpack sitting on the seat beside her. Reached for it at the same time she did.

‘I can—’ she began.

‘Lena, if you don’t let me carry your bag, I’m probably going to shoot you myself,’ he said with exaggerated mildness. ‘I want to help. You might even say I need to help...same way you need to see your brother and fix things with him. So let go of the goddamn bag.’

She let go of the bag. Trig didn’t really have a hair trigger. Not all of the time.

‘I don’t think you’d shoot me,’ she murmured finally. ‘Even if you did have your gun. I think you’re all bluff.’

‘Am not.’ Trig fell into step beside her—no small feat for a man whose stride was a good foot longer than hers. ‘I’m ruthless and menacing and perfectly capable of following through on my threats. I wish you’d remember that.’

Maybe if she didn’t know him so well, she’d think him more menacing. Trouble was she knew how gentle those big hands could be when it came to wounded things. Knew that he’d cut his hands off before hurting her.

Enough with the fixation on his hands.

They boarded the plane and found their seats. Trig stowed their bags and watched her settle tentatively into the wide and comfy seat. Ten seconds later he dangled a little pillow in front of her nose. Lena took it and set it at the small of her back.

Better.

‘You got a plan for when we get to Istanbul?’ Trig gave her another pillow and she contemplated swatting him with it, but tucked it down the side of the seat instead. She could always smother him with it later.

‘I have a plan,’ she said. ‘And a meeting with Amos Carter in two days’ time.’

‘Please tell me you’re not basing this entire journey on Carter being able to tell you where Jared is,’ said Trig. ‘Because I’ve already shaken that tree. He thought he saw him in Bodrum but he didn’t get close enough for a positive ID. That was six weeks ago.’

‘I know that. And if Amos has nothing more to add I’m heading for Bodrum to play tourist and see what I can see. My eyes are better than his. I know Jared’s habits. If he’s there I’ll find him. If he’s been there, I’ll find out where he’s gone.’

She eyed Trig speculatively, trying to figure the best way to fit him into her plan. ‘We could pretend to be holidaying together. We could be on our honeymoon. Good cover.’

Trig looked startled. And then he looked wary. ‘Not necessarily. Bodrum’s a tourist mecca. Boats. Parties. Outdoor nightclubs. Vice. We’re probably going to be exploring that vice. I don’t think pretending to be married would help at all.’

‘You’re absolutely right,’ said Lena, perfectly willing to improve on her current plan. ‘I could be your pimp instead. You could be Igor The Masterful. There could be leather involved.’

‘Yeah, let’s not go there either.’

Lena smiled at the flight hostess standing right behind him. To the hostie’s credit she didn’t bat an eyelash at the wayward conversation, just took her tongs and handed Trig a steaming flannel. She handed one to Lena too. Lena thanked her sweetly and shook it out and wiped hands and arms all the way to the elbows.

Trig sat down and draped his over his face.

‘I’m still here,’ said Lena.

‘Don’t remind me.’

‘At least it’s not the belly of a Hercules,’ she said. ‘And your legs actually fit in the space they’ve been given. It’s all win.’

‘I’m over winning.’ She could still make out the words, muffled as they were beneath the face cloth. ‘These days I’m all about risk analysis and minimising collateral damage.’

Well, hell. ‘When did you grow up?’

‘Twenty-second of April, twenty eleven.’

The day she’d been shot.

TWO

Twenty-six hours later Trig collected their bags and herded Lena out of Ataturk airport space and into a rusty, pale blue taxi. No fuss, no big deal made about Lena’s slow and steady walking pace, and she was grateful for that. Grateful too that Trig had chosen to accompany her.

‘Where to?’ asked the driver in perfectly serviceable English as he opened the boot and swung their luggage into it, smoothly cataloguing them as foreigners and English-speaking ones at that. The street kids here could do much the same. Pick a German out of a crowd. An American. The English. Apparently it had something to do with shoes.

‘The Best Southern Presidential Hotel near the Grand Bazaar,’ Lena told the driver. ‘And can you do something else for us? Can you take us past the Blue Mosque on the way there?’

‘Madam, it would be my uttermost pleasure to do that for you,’ announced the beaming driver. ‘This is your first visit to our magnificent city, no? You and your husband must also journey to Topkapi Sarayi and Ayasofya. And the Bazaar of course. My cousin sells silk carpets there. I shall inform him of your imminent arrival and he shall treat you like family. Here.’ The driver turned towards them, waving a small cardboard square. ‘My cousin’s business card. His shop is situated along Sahaflar Caddesi. It is a street of many sharks. Many sharks, but not my cousin. Tell him Yasar Sahin sent you. This is me. I have written it on the card for you already.’

Trig took the card from the driver in silence, probably in the hope that the driver would turn around and drive. Lena grinned. Trig had a weakness for carpets and rugs and wall hangings and tapestries. She had no idea why.

‘You know you want one,’ she murmured.

‘Don’t you dare mention jewellery,’ he murmured back, but Yasar Sahin heard him.

‘Are you looking for gold?’ Another card appeared in the driver’s nimble fingers. ‘Silver? This man is my brother and his jewellery will make your wife weep.’

‘I don’t want her to weep,’ said Trig but he took that card too. He didn’t mention that Lena wasn’t his wife.

‘Are you hungry?’ asked the driver. ‘On this road is my favourite kebab stand. Best in the city.’

‘Another brother?’ asked Lena.

‘Twin,’ said the driver and Lena laughed.

They didn’t get the kebabs, they saw the Blue Mosque at dusk and they arrived at the hotel without mishap.

Trig tipped well because Lena was still smiling. He got Yasar’s personal business card for his trouble. ‘Because I am also a tour guide and fixer,’ said Yasar.

‘Fixer?’

‘Problem solver.’

Of course he was.

The hotel Lena had chosen to stay in was mid-range and well located. She’d told the check-in clerk that Trig was her husband, who’d joined her on the trip unexpectedly, and the clerk had added Trig’s details to the booking without so much as a murmur.

‘You sure about this?’ he murmured as the clerk went to fetch their door cards.

‘Why? You want another room?’

He didn’t know.

‘It’s a twin room. Two beds.’

Still one room though.

And boy were quarters snug.

Trig eyed the short distance between the two beds with misgivings. They’d weathered plenty, he and Lena. Sharing a hotel room was not on the list.

He put her bag on the rack at the end of the bed farthest away from the door. Lena inspected the bathroom and proclaimed it satisfactory, because she’d wanted one with a spa bath and got it. Next thing he knew, the bath taps were on and Lena was rummaging through her belongings for fresh clothes.

‘You want to shower while the bath is running?’ she asked him. ‘Because—fair warning—when I get in the bath I am not going to want to get out.’

‘You’re sore?’

‘I just want to work the kinks out.’

‘Right.’ Trig cleared his throat and opened his bag, staring down at the mess of clothes he hadn’t bothered to fold, and tried not to think about Lena, naked in a bath not ten feet away from him. ‘So...okay, yeah. I can shower now.’ He grabbed at a faded pair of jeans and an equally well-worn T-shirt and then paused. ‘Where do you want to go for dinner?’ This could, conceivably, affect his choice of T-shirt.

‘I’m all in favour of room service, provided the menu looks good. And it’s not because I don’t want to walk anywhere,’ she added defensively. ‘Room service for dinner this evening has always been part of the plan.’

Far be it from him to mess with the plan. He eyeballed the distance between the beds again. ‘Is it just me or is this room kind of small?’

‘Maybe if you’d stop growing...’

‘I have.’ Okay, so he was extra tall and his shoulders were broad. For the most part, he was good with it. ‘You just think I should have stopped sooner.’ He eyed his little double bed with misgivings. ‘That’s not a double bed. It’s a miniature double bed.’

‘Princess.’

‘Are we bickering?’ he asked. ‘Because Poppy tells me she’s heartily sick of our bickering. I thought I might give it up for Lent.’

‘It’s not Lent,’ Lena informed him. ‘Besides, I like bickering with you. Makes me feel all comfortable and peachy-normal.’

Trig snorted. At sixteen, bickering with Lena had been his first line of defence against anyone discovering just how infatuated he was with her. He was still gone on her, no question. But these days the bickering got old fast.

He found his toiletries bag and stalked into the bathroom, only to find that that room was the size of a bath mat and that the spa was filling ever so slowly—a sneaky deterrent to filling it at all. Instead of four walls, the bathroom had two walls, a side door and one of those shuttered, half-walls dividing it from the main room. Trig reached for the shutters.