her body around, clasping the weapon in her hand. She kicked off the bottom and charged for the top.
She heard splashing behind her as she ran along the shallow end of the pool. She knew Anne was closing in on her, reaching for her. If she could just get the advantage of dry ground. Caroline climbed up the stairs, slipping on the slick stones and then turned around and fired the gun once into the air.
The crack and the jolt of the weapon’s impact sent her sprawling backward and she fell butt-first on the edge of the pool. Quickly she spotted Anne still waist-deep in water and aimed at her.
“You think you have what it takes to shoot me?” Anne taunted.
Caroline continued to point the gun, but she could feel her hands shaking. “I don’t want to kill you, Anne. Just give up.”
“Give up? I don’t think you’ve been listening very well. I. Don’t. Give. Up.” Anne had made her way to the stairs and was emerging out of the water like Poseidon. “You’re going to have to shoot me to stop me. All you have to do is pull the trigger.”
“What’s the matter?” Anne sneered. “You can’t do it, can you? Coward.”
Caroline could see the woman was getting ready to jump when a light burst into the room, blinding them both for a second.
“Maybe she won’t shoot you, but I will.” Nora stood at the edge of the pool with a gun aimed directly at Anne. Blood dripped down her face and Caroline feared she would topple over at any second, but her gun hand didn’t shake.
Caroline dropped her head in relief, then heard the pounding of feet as Mark and Dominic rushed into the pool room. Dominic was bearing down on her and she felt like a football as she was scooped up into his arms.
“Ughh!” Anne shouted, slapping her hands on the water with fury. “No, no, no, no! This isn’t how it’s supposed to be. I don’t lose. I don’t ever lose!”
“This time you do,” Caroline said, her arms wrapped around Dominic’s neck. “Take me away from her. I don’t want to look at her face.”
Moments later, uniformed officers swarmed the pool room. One kept his gun on the woman, while two entered the water. As they forcibly dragged her out, she kicked, screamed, and splashed the whole way.
Nora lowered her weapon and holstered it. She walked over to where Mark stood with his hands on his hips and a grim expression on his face. He reached out and swiped a stream of blood off her cheek.
“What the hell happened to you?”
“She snuck up on me. She must have been inside the house when we got here. One second I’m watching TV, the next I wake up sprawled out on the floor.”
“Come here.” He reached out and pulled her close, gently feeling her head for the lump she knew he would easily find.
“Ouch!” she hissed.
“We’ve got to have you checked out.”
In a sudden motion, he bent and lifted her into his arms. She was about to do the proud thing and tell him she could manage on her own, but bereft of all energy, she let herself be carried through the house and outside to the ambulance that had been called to the scene.
The truth was, it felt kind of nice.
He sat her on the back of the ambulance and waved over the EMTs.
“When you get out of the hospital, we’re going to work on your surveillance skills. They suck. An elephant could sneak up on you.”
“Screw you, Hernandez,” she muttered weakly.
“Screw me? Eventually, shortcake,” Mark replied smoothly. “Eventually.”
Epilogue
“Dearly beloved. We are gathered here today to join this man and this woman in holy matrimony. To create, before God and guests, a family.”
Mark glanced down at Nora’s butt and smiled. “Psst. Glad you didn’t get stuck with the bow.”
“Shhh,” she said. “I’m trying to pay attention. That’s my brother up there.”
“This is the boring the part,” he told her. “It doesn’t get good until the end.”
This time she jabbed him in the ribs to shut him up. As her official date for this shindig, he supposed he had to take it.
“Do you, Caroline, take this man to be your lawfully wedded husband?”
“I do.”
“Ah, gee,” Mark whispered. “She’s crying.”
“Of course she’s crying. She loves him,” Nora hiccupped into a tissue.
“And do you, Dominic, take this woman to be your lawfully wedded wife?”
“I do.”
“If he cries I’m outta here.”
“If you don’t shut up, you’ve got about a zero chance of getting hot wedding sex tonight.” Nora gave him a final glare.
Mark took the threat seriously and quickly shut up. Although he didn’t see what the big deal was. It wasn’t as if these two hadn’t been married before.
He got the gist of the event. Caroline loved Dominic. Dominic loved Caroline. And if that bump in the front of Caroline’s wedding dress was any indication, it’s not as if they had waited for wedding number two to get busy.
But wedding sex was wedding sex, and no man put that at risk. Add to that that this was going to be their first time and they were going to blow the doors and windows off the hotel room. Yep, no reason to rock that boat.
So he listened as the minister said the final words talking about what God had joined that no man could put asunder and so forth and so on. It was definitely a nice thing. Marriage. And in thirty or forty years, he definitely might give it a try.
Nora sniffed again and again, wiping her nose with the tissue. His eyes were drawn to the faint red mark that he remembered noticing the first time they met and he suddenly realized that he was looking at an old nose piercing. Huh.
Instantly his mind flashed to what else might have been pierced. Or more importantly, what still might be. Shortcake was always going to be a surprise.
Thirty or forty years? Maybe ten or twenty.
STEPHANIE DOYLE
a dedicated romance reader, began writing her own romantic stories, some funny, some adventurous, but all delivering the quintessential happy ending, at age fifteen. At eighteen she submitted her first story to Harlequin Books and by twenty-six she was published. Now in her thirties, she struggles between the demands of her “day” job, her writing and trying to find a little romance of her own. She lives in South Jersey with her two cats, Alexandria Hamilton and Theodora Roosevelt. She wants to get a dog, but the cats have outvoted her.
