Miles felt ready to explode. His heart was pounding, his guts were in a knot. “Minna, please tell me exactly why Katie is driving to Colfax. Spell it out for me.”
“She was coming to marry you, of course. She told me if you agreed, she’d call me and we’d work things out from this end.”
“You’re not joking? She’s really coming to marry me? She and Keely just hopped in her truck and off they went?”
“That’s it, Miles. She’s been stomping around here, driving everyone nuts, she’s growled at all her deputies, snapped at Mayor Tommy because he wanted every gory detail about everything, three times. What with all the rain and all the problems that’s brought, it hasn’t helped. She even snapped Linnie’s head off, blew a fit at Keely for her less-than-subtle hints, cried at her and Keely’s misery, and then she gave it up. Oh goodness, look at you, Miles. I love to see a man who’s trying to think.”
Miles stood there with his mouth open, just shaking his head. She’d been acting just like he had, which had to mean that she was miserable without him, without Sam.
“Katie’s a buccaneer,” Sam shouted. “Just like Papa!” Sam whooped, grabbed his father’s hand, and started dancing around.
“Why don’t I get her an eye patch for her wedding present?” Minna said. “You flew your plane, Miles?”
He nodded, blinking, still getting his wits back together.
“Then I guess you’d best be on your way back home. You don’t want her to get there before you do, do you? And be careful, the weather’s terrible.”
He thought of Cracker and hoped to God she’d let Katie and Keely in the house if Katie beat him back to Colfax.
“We’re married,” Sam said with a great deal of satisfaction to the group gathered with coffee, champagne, and Cracker’s special triple chocolate cake in the living room.
Savich leaned over and ruffled Sam’s hair. He said, “Yep, it’s all official now, Sam.”
Sherlock, holding a sleeping Sean in her arms, nodded. “You and Keely are brother and sister.”
“Cool,” said Keely, and punched Sam in the arm.
“Well, you can see where my kid stands on this,” Miles said as he handed a slice of cake to Cracker, who was still looking a bit shell-shocked.
Sam leaned over and patted her hand. “It’s okay, Aunt Cracker, Katie’s really nice and she can shoot people dead if they bother you.”
Cracker swallowed the bite the wrong way and began coughing. Sam was slapping her on the back, she was tearing up, and Keely handed her a glass of champagne.
“Just what I needed,” Cracker gasped and downed the champagne.
“Oh dear,” Katie said. “Would you believe, Cracker, that I’m actually known more for keeping our teenagers on the straight and narrow? No kid under eighteen smokes in my town when I’m around.”
Cracker took another bite of cake and said, as she closed her eyes in bliss, “That’s not gory enough, Katie. Sounds like Sam thinks you’re the Terminator.”
But Sam and Keely weren’t listening to the adults. They were whispering to each other in the corner of the living room, every once in a while sneaking looks at their parents.
Savich stood, picked up his boy and gently laid him over his shoulder. “It’s nearly ten o’clock. We accomplished the impossible-got you guys licensed and married, all in one day.”
“Thanks to the no-waiting laws in old Virginia,” Miles said. “Lucky the circuit court clerk is real good friends with one of the judge’s wives.” Miles grinned from ear to ear. “One-stop shopping.”
“Married,” Katie said, and her eyes crossed. “I’ve known Miles for a week, and I’m married.”
Sam evidently heard that clearly. He and Keely both hooted with laughter.
“Not only can she kill bad guys dead, she can even cross her eyes, Sam,” Sherlock said. “What more could a guy ask for?”
“Oh yes, Mama,” Keely said and crossed her own eyes. “I can do that, too, Aunt Sherlock.”
Katie said to Sam, “Are you still going to be happy about this when you do something bratty and I have to nail your hide to the floor? I’m tough, remember, Sam.”
Keely laughed. “I told him that if he acted stupid, you would put him up in a tree, like a cat.”
“Hmm,” Miles said. “Sam’s pretty good with climbing trees, Keely, maybe I should give Katie some pointers.”
“I’m never bad,” Sam said. He smiled beatifically and sat back in his chair, crossing his arms over his chest.
On that cue, Sherlock and Savich took their leave, Sean giving little snorting snores as his father carried him out.
It was nearly midnight before the kids were in bed, Keely in a lovely bedroom of pale rose and cream connected to Sam’s room through a bathroom. Keely just couldn’t get over that. Katie heard her tell Sam not to step a single foot into her side of the bathroom or she’d bust him. It didn’t matter that her side had the toilet. Sam made sure to stick his toe over to her side before he went to bed.
Cracker had a suite in the large former attic with its curious sloping corners and polished wooden floors. As Katie brushed her teeth, she hoped that Cracker would soon get over the intense suspicion Katie had felt coming off her in waves when she’d opened the door to Katie’s knock. “You’re here for what?” she’d said when she’d answered the door.
“Keely and I are here to see Miles. I’m Katie Benedict. Sheriff Katie Benedict.” She’d stuck out her hand and had it hesitantly shaken, then dropped.
“You’re the one who saved Sam? Oh dear, Miles isn’t here. He said something weird about being a buccaneer, gave me a big hug, told me to wish him luck, and off he went with Sam, I don’t know where. I guess you must come in.” And she’d stepped back and been perfectly pleasant until Keely said, “Mama’s here to marry Miles so Sam can be my brother and Miles can be my papa.”
The woman looked like she’d been slapped in the face. Speaking through a rictus of a smile, she said, “Little girls say the cutest things, don’t they?”
It seemed an eternity ago, yet it had only been the previous evening. Katie brushed out her hair. She started to braid it, then dropped her hands back to her sides. This was her wedding night. How very peculiar that was. Miles was right about the one-stop shopping. They’d plunked down thirty dollars and were in business. During the brief ceremony Sam stood straight and important beside his father, Keely beside her, and everyone else just a couple of steps back. It was a pity that her mother had been fogged in, no flights out at all for the entire day. Minna promised to come in the next couple of weeks. She wanted to give them some time to themselves.
Conrad Evans, Miles’s right hand at the plant, had looked as shell-shocked as Cracker. He’d been quite nice, no choice, really. The man looked like a linebacker for the Titans, and had hair as red as Sherlock’s.
Katie looked down at the plain gold band. Married. She was married again. She’d killed two kidnappers, an idiot former postal employee had burned her house down, and here she was, in Virginia, married. For the second time. She felt very strange, as if her life had taken a one-eighty, which indeed it had.
Her name was now Katie Benedict Kettering. It was weird.
When she came back to the big bedroom after tucking Keely in yet again for the night, making certain the bathroom door was open on both sides, she faced Miles across the length of his bedroom. It was a big airy room with large windows, antique furniture, and a bed the size of the Queen Mary. Katie crossed her arms over her chest, her position defensive, her fight-flight response in high gear.
She couldn’t imagine taking off her clothes in front of this man who was nearly a stranger, and also her husband. She already had in a way, not really thinking about it.
“How tall are you?” she asked.