Spy Games (Tarnished Heroes #1)(69)

“See? She’s just fine. Had us all worried. Here, let me take your coats.” Julie reached for Sarah.

The blood. No.

“Actually, um, I need to change.” Sarah backed up, hands pressed to her stomach.

Three pairs of eyes grew large.

“I’ll be back in a minute,” she said in a rush. “Our stuff’s out in the carriage house.”

“I’ll go with you,” Matt said. He hadn’t once looked directly at Rand.

“Uh, okay.”

Sarah strode across the living room, out to the sunroom and through the patio doors, her brother right behind her. She could feel him fuming.

Any minute now he was going to explode. Because she’d disappeared? Because of Rand? She couldn’t put her finger on what would have him more upset.

They crossed to the rental house and she let them in. Matt still didn’t utter a single word.

She turned to face him, not prepared for this one bit. “I’m, uh, going to change now.”

He nodded.

Well, that was informative.

She ducked into the bedroom and closed the door. Matt’s footsteps started up, his steel-toed boots clunking against the kitchen tile as he paced. She’d wanted Rand to see Matt, to realize the accident hadn’t stolen his life just put him on a different path. But not like this. Not now.

Sarah stripped out of the jacket and stared at herself in the mirror.

Her face was pale, bits of her hair were pulled out of the ponytail, there was conspicuous amounts of blood on her shirt and jeans.

It all needed to go.

First, she stashed her gun in the top drawer of her nightstand. There was no way to explain to her brother why she was carrying a firearm. She didn’t even want to go there.

She stripped down to her underwear and pulled out more of the clothing Rand had bought for her. More jeans and dark-colored tops.

At least they were predictable, unlike the dress. It was almost comical how flustered he’d been when he’d seen the back. God, if her brother saw her in that dress, with Rand…

Could she just crawl out the window and leave this whole mess behind her?

They were supposed to be leaving, getting to safety, and now what? It’s not like we can tell Rand and Emily to pack off and, by the way, make it easy for your protective detail to follow you.

Matt tapped on the bedroom door.

“Not dressed.” Sarah yanked on the new shirt, pulling at the tags.

“Where have you been, Sarah?” Matt’s voice was twisted, anguished.

She closed her eyes. How did she answer that? The truth wasn’t an option. Matt would see through her lies.

“I missed my flight,” she said. It was a truth at least.

“Why didn’t you call us?”

She stepped into the jeans, rolling that question around in her head. Sticking as close to the truth as she could would be best. There wasn’t time to coordinate a cover story with Rand. They hadn’t planned for this.

“Mom and Dad were worried sick,” he said.

The knife of guilt twisted a little deeper. “I’m sorry, things were just crazy.” She fastened her jeans, turned this way and that looking for any tags she might have missed.

“Sarah, what happened?”

The door creaked open the tiniest bit.

“Come in.” She sighed.

This was going to happen. Matt was her older, very protective brother. He regularly found issue with her job, career choices, and everything else. He had plenty of ammunition since what’d happened to Emily when they’d been stationed in Thailand.

He pushed the door open. The anger was gone, but the lines were still there.

While she’d been worried about national security and spy shit, her family had been left to wonder if she was alive, hurt, or worse.

God, she was a terrible sister, daughter, friend.

She circled the bed and wrapped her arms around her brother’s waist, squeezing him tight. “I’m sorry, things just got mixed up during my layover in Seoul. I’ve never had problems like that traveling. And then, I don’t know, I guess because I left the airport and came back without a flight to get on, they…got weird.”

“Was that where Rand was?”

Shit. She shouldn’t have said that.

“You ran into him somewhere.” Matt leaned back. “Julie said you were here with your boyfriend.”

Sarah opened her mouth, but no sound came out. She’d given Julie the simplest answer possible, and that was the worst option when it came to her family.

“How long have you two been talking? Seeing each other?” Matt tried to hide the hurt behind a stony face, but Emily and the kids had softened him.

“It’s…complicated.” Technically speaking, they’d been communicating for months. Seeing each other? Days.

“Complicated?” Matt dragged his hand over his face and turned, putting his back to her.

“I’m sorry. I just…I didn’t know how to tell you. Everything’s happened so fast. It’s unexpected.”

“So you are together?” Matt pivoted, glancing over his shoulder at her.

“Kind of. I don’t really know what we are.” She crossed her arms over her chest. Her heart ached, all the uncertainty clouding her judgment. What should she do? What were they? She didn’t have answers for the next hour, much less her feelings.