Page 84 of Devil in the Details

“Possibly,” Ty allowed. “That’s not my area of concern. We only wanted to make sure the demons’ plan failed and that the entire episode could be written off as a series of unfortunate events.”

Put together, they probably would have seemed downright crazy to anyone paying attention. But Caleb knew all too well that regular people didn’t like to allow even the slightest notion that something supernatural might have gone down in their immediate vicinity, so he guessed no one was going to ask too many questions or examine this afternoon’s events too closely.

But it seemed Delia had a few questions of her own.

“And who is ‘we,’ exactly?” she inquired. “Are you part of some angelic A-Team or something?”

Ty actually smiled. “Nothing that showy. We go where we’re needed, that’s all. But if you want to assign us a label, I suppose you could call us the Guardians.”

Guardian angels. Very funny.

Delia didn’t smile, though. No, she looked thoughtful, absorbing what Ty had just told her.

“I suppose that makes sense,” she said. “And thank you for intervening today. I don’t know what would have happened if you hadn’t been there.”

Caleb wanted to protest that he’d been the one doing most of the heavy lifting. However, since he’d been absorbed in holding his own at the poker table, he hadn’t been able to protect Delia from Aaron Sanchez. It rankled a little that Ty had been the one to come to her rescue, although he understood that the most important thing was her safety, not who had been the person to run interference with the possessed man.

The doorbell rang then, and she startled a little.

“Pizza,” she said briefly, and got up from the sofa.

“I’ll leave you to your meal,” Ty said as she headed toward the door. “I just wanted to let you know that Aegis is no more, and the local authorities don’t suspect any kind of foul play.”

“You don’t want to stay for pizza?” Caleb asked, more out of courtesy than because he really wanted Ty Carter hanging around.

“Thank you, but no. I have other matters to attend to.”

And then he disappeared just as Delia opened the front door.

If nothing else, angels seemed to have pretty good timing.

It seemed she’d heard enough of the exchange that she didn’t ask where Ty had gone. Instead, she set the oversized pizza box down on the coffee table, which wouldn’t suffer any damage from the hot cardboard because the tabletop was glass.

Sounding deliberately cheerful, she said, “Well, I don’t know about you, but I’m starving.”

“Me too,” Caleb responded. “But I wouldn’t mind having some of that chianti I’ve got in the wine rack to drink with this pizza.”

She surveyed him for a moment, expression openly skeptical. “Are you sure that’s such a good idea?”

“I’ll be fine,” he assured her. “That water I just drank perked me right up.”

“Like a wilting flower,” she said, and he laughed.

“Sure.”

“Then I’ll go get it.”

Because she’d been to the house multiple times, she knew where he stored the corkscrew. After pausing to grab the bottle of chianti in question, she returned to the living room, then went back for a couple of glasses.

Somewhat clumsily, she opened the bottle and poured a measure of chianti into each glass.

“Want to toast to anything?” she asked as Caleb lifted his.

He didn’t even have to stop and think about it.

“To beating the bad guys.”

They clinked glasses and took a sip.

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