Free Charmed and Dangerous by Lori Wilde

you’re looking for?”
    “A secluded place to stash the car. Satisfied?”
    “See? How hard was that.”
    “Woman, you try a man’s patience,” he growled under his breath and ran his fingers through his hair, as agitated as an air traffic controller on the heaviest travel day of the year.
    She realized then that he saw her as nothing more than an annoyance he’d been forced to tolerate. She felt at once snubbed and defiant.
    Who cares what he thinks about you? The only thing that matters is finding Cassie and bringing her home in one piece.
    David switched off the headlights and edged down a narrow dirt lane leading to a public beach not far from Philpot’s house. He pulled the car off the road and cut the engine.
    “Stay put,” he said, and got out of the car.
    “No way. I’m coming with you.”
    She popped from the passenger seat and found herself ankle deep in fine white sand. It sucked at her high-heeled sandals, dragging her down with each step. The damned shoes were ridiculously useless. How did Cassie walk in the things?
    “Why am I not the least bit surprised,” he muttered.
    Maddie slipped off the shoes, looped the straps over her fingers and hurried after him. They trudged through the sand, headed toward Philpot’s mansion. Music filtered through the air. She identified it as some schmaltzy tune by The Carpenters frequently played at weddings.
    “Not much of a party song,” she commented.
    But David wasn’t paying any attention to her. He was like a bloodhound tracking a raccoon. His eyes were narrowed, his posture tense, his attention focused on Philpot’s place. They couldn’t see much of that section of the beach from where they walked, cloaked as it was by the coconut grove.
    But as they crept nearer, Maddie spotted a makeshift altar set up on the beach, along with dozens of folding chairs and flaming tiki torches.
    “I think it’s a wedding,” Maddie whispered.
    “We’re in luck,” David said. “They’ll be so busy with the wedding, no one will notice us. Now if fate is really smiling, Peyton Shriver will be among the guests.”
    “And Cassie,” Maddie supplied, anxious for this single-minded FBI agent not to forget her sister.
    “Get down,” David said roughly and dropped to a crouch. He tugged on the hem of her skirt.
    The brush of his knuckles against her thigh was slight, but it was enough contact to send her pulse staggering against her throat. Deliberately struggling to ignore the sizzle of awareness he’d generated, she squatted beside him in the sand.
    “Now what?” she asked.
    Through the trunks of the trees they could see a robed minister standing at the altar and two other guys, presumably the groom and the best man, positioned in front of him, but from this distance, Maddie couldn’t make out their features.
    “We go closer.”
    “Through the coconut grove?” Anxiously, she glanced up at the trees with their thick, heavy fruit looming above them in the deepening twilight.
    “Sure, why not.” David moved forward.
    “Wait, wait.” She grabbed on to his belt loop.
    “What is it?” He turned and glared at her.
    “Are you always this testy?”
    “Only when being pestered by some pesky female. What is it?” he repeated.
    “I read a guidebook about Grand Cayman on the flight over.”
    “And . . . ?”
    “The article warned to watch out for falling coconuts.”
    “For crying out loud. What are the odds of getting beaned by a coconut in the next five minutes?”
    “Good enough that they bothered to mention it in a guidebook.”
    “Well, I guarantee you’ll get beaned if you keep visualizing it. Fret about something enough and it’ll eventually happen.”
    “See there, you prove my point. That’s a perfectly good reason to keep out.”
    “It’s a perfectly good reason not to visualize falling coconuts.”
    “I can’t help but visualize them.” She worried her necklace with her fingers.
    “Fine, stay here if you want.” David dived into the