Free Whiskey Tribute: A Trident Security Series Novella - Book 5.5 by Samantha A. Cole

stepped forward and gave Curt
a hello kiss on the cheek. Glancing around, he greeted everyone else who had
come—Devon and his wife, Kristen, whose baby bump had started to show. Boomer
and his girlfriend, Kat. Brody was solo this time. Ian and Devon’s cousin Mitch
was there, along with Charlotte Roth, a.k.a. Mistress China from the BDSM club
the cousins owned. While not involved in the security business, the two were
attending the wedding as well, and Curt had invited them to the party with
everyone else.
    Marco was the last one Curt spotted and he had his arm around
his woman, Harper. Yeah, that had been a shock. The day after they’d had that
conversation back in January when Marco had repeated his old mantra about never
having a wife and kids, the guy’s life had flipped upside down. He’d found out
he was the father of Harper’s little girl, who had been born at the end of last
summer. Because of some whack job’s interference, Marco hadn’t known about his
daughter, and Harper had been led to believe he wanted nothing to do with
either of them. Curt was glad to see everything had worked out between them
because he couldn’t remember ever seeing Polo so happy. From what Curt had been
told last night, little Mara was home being babysat by Harper’s mother and Jenn
Mullins, who was also dog sitting Parker and Shelby’s dog, Spanky. The
twenty-year-old had a big exam coming up during the week in one of her classes
at University of Tampa, and she wouldn’t have been able to enter the casinos
anyway, so she’d opted to stay home.
    After the men greeted the children, who were in awe of being
surrounded by U.S. Navy SEALS, they unloaded all the gear and carried it to the
backyard. The women had zeroed in on Dana since this was the first time they were
meeting her in person. Curt hadn’t realized how close they’d all gotten to her
via Facebook. Bringing them to where picnic tables had been set up just off the
back porch, she introduced them to several of her friends who’d come to help
with the party.
    As Curt grabbed one of the last duffel bags, another SUV
pulled in. This one had a light bar on the roof and ‘Caution—Police K9’ on the
rear windows. Both front doors opened and Phil Olsen hopped out of the
passenger seat. The driver was the Sheriff Department’s K9 handler, Sean
Kilduff, who had volunteered to bring his dog, Kilo, and give the kids a show
of what his partner could do. Phil would be donning the protective attack suit
for the demonstration.
    Once everything was set up, Ian handed out Team Four T-shirts
and baseball caps to all the kids, including little Amanda and her friend
Nellie. The birthday boy, Connor, was grinning ear-to-ear as he put them on. Then
the men took some of the grease paint they’d brought, and smeared it on the
youngsters’ faces, with their parents’ permission of course. Might as well go
all out and make the kids feel like they were really on a secret mission.
    Brody was off to the side helping Boomer get into his high-tech
gear to be the bad guy. The jumpsuit and ski mask he was putting on would
register any hits from the laser guns. Each weapon showed up in a different
color, so they could tell who hit where. Back at the Trident compound, they had
a hollowed out building with movable interior walls to change the setup. The walls,
ceiling, and floors were coated with special black paint which would show the
heat from the laser shots for about fifteen minutes until fading away. It was
all really cool, and Curt loved joining the team for some training runs every
now and then.
    Grabbing Amanda, and then Nellie, under the arms, he hoisted
them up on the bed of Eric’s pickup truck, which they’d used to bring all the
bales of hay into the backyard. “All right, gang! Listen up!” He made sure he
had all the kids’ attention. There were eleven in total—the two girls, Ryan,
Taylor, Justin, Connor, and the five other boys. Curt pointed at Ian dressed in
his black