Wedding Party Collection: Don't Tell The Bride. Kelly Hunter

‘I brought you breakfast. That would be a pro.’

      ‘You also woke me up at five a.m.’

      ‘You’re welcome.’

      He could make her snort. That had to count for something.

      ‘How’s the body this morning?’

      ‘Functional,’ she said around a mouthful of yoghurt. ‘Stop fussing. Boyfriends don’t fuss.’

      ‘Now you’re just making shit up.’

      ‘No, I’m pretty sure it’s true.’

      He shook his head, slid her a sideways glance. ‘Pursuit aside, how are we tracking with regards to our regular relationship? The one that doesn’t have me in knots. We good?’

      ‘Yeah.’ She sounded a little uncertain. ‘We’re good.’

      * * *

      They made it through the morning, mostly because Trig headed back out again to look at carpets, and then it was time to meet Carter, with Lena taking point and Trig bleeding into the bustle at the gate. Another tourist, one of many, and maybe he was meeting someone or perhaps he was just taking a breather before diving into the next shop full of goodies. Either way, nothing untoward here.

      He spotted Carter moments before the older man made him, but they didn’t acknowledge each other. He and Carter had worked together before, albeit briefly, back in the days when Carter had worked for ASIS. Carter would know Trig was running surveillance on the meet. Carter probably had someone else doing the same.

      Carter approached Lena and held out his hands and she took them and smiled as he kissed her on each cheek. Old acquaintances and all for show. Trig ground his teeth and watched some more as Carter and Lena strolled through the gate and into the bazaar, their pace leisurely and their conversation animated.

      Trig made a process out of checking his phone as he waited to see who else might be headed that way before he too took a stroll. It was a busy gate. A lot of people followed Carter and Lena into the bazaar.

      He kept them in sight while he browsed and they browsed and then five minutes later Carter bought Lena a scoop full of candied citrus, presented it to her with a smile, kissed her once again on each cheek and, between one blink and the next, disappeared into the ether.

      Lena didn’t look back at Trig; she knew this game too well for that. She bought three silk scarves and a handful of sugared almonds. She paused outside a shop filled with carpets and the vendor—and probably his brother—instantly tried to woo her in. She offered them almonds, which they refused. They offered her apple tea, and carpet viewing, which she refused. With a great deal of hand waving all round, everyone called it quits and Lena moved on.

      No one but Trig followed her, and no one followed him, but he stayed on her tail just that little bit longer because they didn’t know what Jared was into and because Carter was just that little bit unpredictable when it came to who he was working for at any one time.

      Lena turned down a side lane of the bazaar, and then another. They’d reached a narrow walkway full of fabrics—an explosion of colour pinned to walls and strung across ceilings. Fabric everywhere and a group of youths with fierce eagle eyes coming towards them. They passed Lena, jostled her, and no one reached out to break her fall as she went down hard. She hit her head on the metal foot of a display rack. She didn’t get up.

      By the time Trig reached her, her wallet was gone and so were the youths. A few people yelled out. No one gave chase.

      ‘Lena.’ She looked so very small and crumpled. She wasn’t conscious and he didn’t want to move her. He reached for the pulse point at her wrist. ‘Lena.’

      Other people had crouched down beside them. ‘She’s with you?’ one man asked and Trig nodded. Hands reached out to gently shake her. He didn’t know who they belonged to.

      Don’t,’ he growled and pushed all those other hands away, dog with a bone and he didn’t care who knew it. ‘Don’t touch her.’

      Someone else tried to get the crowd around them to move back a step. Someone passed a cloth through to the man who’d spoken earlier and he handed it to Trig. ‘For her head,’ the man said and used gestures to suggest that Trig wipe her face.

      The cloth was wet and smelled only of water. Trig drew it across Lena’s forehead.

      She didn’t even flinch.

      Trig looked for a bump on Lena’s skull and found it towards the back of her head. Not that big, according to his fingers, but big enough to knock her unconscious nonetheless. ‘Can you call me an ambulance?’ he asked the man.

      ‘Private or public?’

      ‘Private.’

      ‘Take taxi—is faster,’ said a woman, but the man held up his finger and shook his head, and then started arguing with the woman, too fast for Trig to even try to understand. They weren’t a threat. They were trying to help. He thought the man might be the proprietor of the nearby stall.

      Lena stirred and Trig wiped the cloth across her forehead again. Her eyelashes fluttered.

      ‘Lena?’

      But she didn’t come round fully.

      Another person handed him an unopened bottle of water. ‘Thank you,’ he said as the crowd around them grew larger and talk turned to the pickpocket gangs and notifying the police that they were back in the area. Lena opened her eyes again and this time they stayed open while Trig checked her pupils for unevenness and then covered her eyes with his palm.

      ‘Try and keep your eyes open and in a few more seconds I’ll take my hand away,’ he told her quietly, while his heart thundered and his mind flashed back to the ambush in East Timor. Some injuries were messy. This one was not. Didn’t mean the outcome couldn’t be catastrophic. ‘I’m going to check your pupils for responsiveness to light.’

      ‘You’re a doctor?’ asked Trig’s new best friend, the one who’d called for an ambulance.

      ‘Medic.’ He had some combat first-aid training, that was all. ‘Not a doctor.’ Please don’t let her pupils be blown.

      He took his hand away from Lena’s eyes and her pupils responded. Lena looked bewildered. Her eyes searched the crowd and finally came to rest back on him.

      ‘Where am I?’ she asked.

      ‘The Grand Bazaar.’ And when that didn’t seem to ring any bells, ‘Istanbul.’

      ‘Oh.’

      ‘You fell and hit your head. Pickpockets. They got your wallet.’

      ‘Gonna be sick,’ she said and rolled onto her side, but she wasn’t sick, she just closed her eyes and put her cheek to the floor and slipped into a state of not-quite-thereness.

      He tried not to let that worry him as he held the wet flannel to the bump on her head, and damn but it felt bigger.

      She opened her eyes again a few minutes later. ‘Just rest,’ he told her. ‘Don’t need to move you yet. An ambulance is on its way.’

      ‘Here’s hoping I have insurance,’ she murmured, and fixed him with a dazed gaze.

      ‘’Course you do.’

      ‘Next question—’

      He had to lean down to even hear her.

      ‘—Who are you?’

      * * *

      She didn’t like hospitals. She could barely remember her own name, but she knew with utter certainty that she did not like hospitals. And that she’d been in them a lot. Her body confirmed it when they sent her for the MRI and asked her to change into a gown. The scars on her lower belly and high on her leg told of a major collision between her body and...something. Car crash, maybe.

      She couldn’t