"Ouch!" I shrieked, grabbing my left big toe. I was wearing sandals, which is not the best choice of footwear for kicking someone in the chin.
"Blair!" The house was suddenly full of cops, pouring in from every opening. Uniformed cops, plainclothes cops-and Wyatt. He was the one who had literally burst through the French doors when he thought she was about to shoot me, and he scooped me up off the floor, holding me so tight to his chest I could barely breathe. "Are you all right? Did she hit you? I don't see any blood-"
"I'm fine," I managed to say. "Except you're squeezing me to death." The iron band of his arms loosened just a bit, and I added, "I hurt my toe."
He drew back and stared at me, as if he couldn't believe I was all in one piece and had come out of this without even a scratch. After the example of this past week, he must have been expecting me to be bleeding from a dozen bullet wounds.
"A hurt toe?" he said. "Good God. This calls for a cookie."
See? I told you he was a fast learner.
Epilogue
You know who got shot? Jason. Can you think of anyone more deserving? Debra's wild shot creased his head, since the rifle barrel had been flying upward when she pulled the trigger, and he'd hit the floor as if he'd been poleaxed. Everyone says that, but I don't really know what a poleax is. If I had to guess, I'd say it's something to do with cutting timber, but if that was the Final Jeopardy! answer, I wouldn't bet all of my money on that question.
She didn't kill him, but he was bleeding like a stuck pig, because heads do that when something tears up the scalp. Both of them started blabbering away, sort of blaming each other but at the same time trying to take the blame on themselves, and none of it made any sense, so I explained everything to MacInnes and Forester, and Wyatt, and even Chief Gray, who for some reason had come along. I think almost the entire police department was there. The SWAT team was, in their cool black fatigues, and when the medics came, my pal Keisha was one of them. We greeted each other like long-lost girlfriends.
Getting things sorted out took a while, so I went into the kitchen and put on a pot of coffee for everyone. I hobbled a little bit because my toe hurt, but I didn't think it was broken.
About six o'clock, Wyatt took me home.
"Do me a favor," he said during the drive. "For the rest of our lives together, don't put me through another week that's anything like this past one, okay?"
"None of this was my fault," I said indignantly. "And I'm the one who's had the worst of it, you know. I've been shot and bruised and battered, and if you hadn't kept my mind off how much I hurt, I probably would have cried a lot."
He reached over and caught my hand, held it tight. "God, I love you. The guys are going to be talking about that karate kick you gave her for the rest of their lives. Even the SWAT guys were impressed, and they try to be real hard-asses. Where did you take lessons?"
"I provide all sorts of lessons at Great Bods," I said demurely. What, you thought I was going to tell him I sort of automatically did a backflip and didn't intend to do what I did? Not in this lifetime.
This proves beyond a doubt, however, that you never know when you'll need to do a backflip.
We called all the family and told them the crisis was over, which involved lots of explaining, but Wyatt and I didn't want any company. My latest close shave had been a hair too close, because there's something more immediate about a rifle in your face than a car accident, even though the accident had been horrific enough and that was what I dreamed about. I didn't dream about the rifle at all, maybe because Jason was the one who got shot, so that made it a good outcome, right? But we spent that evening cuddling and kissing and making plans for the future, sort of giddy with relief. Plans weren't all we made, of course. I'm talking about Wyatt, the horniest guy in the county. If he was happy, he wanted sex. If he was mad, he wanted sex. He celebrated everything with sex.
I foresaw a very happy and contented life with him.
The next day he took me car shopping. His sister, Lisa, delivered his Chevy Avalanche to him, thanked him for the loan of it, and asked me a million questions. Thank goodness I liked her immediately, but she was a lot like his mother, so there was no reason why I wouldn't have. I also liked his truck, and that's what we drove to the Mercedes dealership.
Of course I wanted another Mercedes. You don't think I'd let Jason and his nitwit wife stop me from buying my favorite car, do you? Picture me in a black convertible. Black is a statement of power, remember. The insurance company hadn't come through with the check yet and since it was Sunday, my bank wasn't open, but the salesman promised to hold my car until Monday evening. I was a happy camper when we arrived at Mom and Dad's house.
Dad answered the door, and held his finger up to his lips. "Shhh," he cautioned. "We've had another computer disaster and Tina has gone quiet."
"Uh-oh," I said, pulling Wyatt inside. "What happened?"
"She finally got her computer straightened out, she thinks, and this morning her monitor went blank. I just got back from the computer store with a new monitor, and she's in her office hooking it up."
Jenni came into the family room, and gave me a big hug. "I can't believe that stupid Jason," she said.
"I can. When you came by Mom's office, could you hear anything?"
"Not a word," Jenni said, looking worried. When Mom's mad, she mutters to herself. When she's beyond mad, she gets very, very quiet.
We heard Mom coming down the hall, and we all sat silently as she marched past without saying a word, or even glancing in our direction. She was carrying a large roll of plastic, which she took out into the garage. She came back in empty-handed, and again marched past us without saying anything.