For Readers | Short Stories

 


I've published a number of short stories, in print and online publications.

As I mentioned, I have a short attention span. Writing short stories offers me a nice sense of achievement when I get to that final scene.

Heartless Second Sunday in May The Final Contract

Heartless - This is first short story I sold. It appeared in the November 3, 1998 issue of Women's World.

“My dear Emma. I’m so happy to have you restored to the family after all these years.”

“I’m Emily, Ma’am.” Nancy Cutter corrected for the tenth time.

It was working like a charm. Or, because of a charm, anyway. Nancy smiled as she fiddled with the bent silver charm on her bracelet. Shaped like half of a broken heart, in Nancy’s eyes, the charm was the key to a fortune. “Aunt” Mary’s fortune, to be exact.

She still couldn’t believe how she’d stumbled onto this scam. She’d caught a bus out Indianapolis in a hurry to avoid the cops, and had been reduced to reading a newspaper to pass the time.

Not even a real paper. Just a weekly rag from a little place called Jefferson, Indiana. Nancy had curled her lip at the reports of small town doings: church suppers, school plays, even town meetings. But one article caught her decidedly criminal imagination.

The story was a real tearjerker. Mary Williams, pushing seventy, still hoped to find her brother’s child. The article explained how, after the girl’s parents died in a car accident, wealthy Mary had taken in little Emma. But the family of the girl’s mother had other ideas, and stole the four-year-old away. Thirty-five years later, Mary still hadn’t found Emma. But she remained certain she’d recognize her as a woman. After all, not every child had flaming red hair and green eyes,

It could only be fate, Nancy decided. Why else would she have been cursed with such memorable features as green eyes and bright red hair? How many times had she had to cut short a con game because she been so easily fingered by her victims? And Nancy was just the right age – 39. Well, so she’d been 39 for a few years, but only a few.

A few phone calls to old friends in low places, and Nancy had identification in the name of Emily Brown. A clever choice, she thought. Close enough to “Emma” to give pause, but not blatant. And “Brown” was nice and nondescript – just what fleeing child stealers would choose. The little touches were what made a con work.

Nancy had laid her plans carefully. She found a cheap motel in a nearby town whose library had old issues of Jefferson’s Town Crier. Quite a bit had been printed about the outstanding town citizen and her tragic loss. For years after the kidnapping, the Town Crier had printed some tidbit every week. Nancy read avidly, her lips moving silently as she worked at the library table. Finally, she found the information that would set the crowning touch on the whole scam.

Even before the kidnapping, Mary and her family had been fodder for the local news. The untimely death of Emma’s parents had been splashed all over the paper. One heart-wringing report told of how Mary had given Emma a silver charm bracelet. On the bracelet was a single charm – one half of a broken heart.

“Just like my dear mother gave me when I was a little girl.” The article quoted Mary’s sickly-sweet words. “My mother kept the other half, telling me that we would always be connected.” The story had ended with Mary saying, “Now Emma will always have that connection, too.” The picture accompanying the maudlin story had a close up of the silver charm – showing the left half of the broken heart on the bracelet that encircled Mary’s arm.

Nancy had fairly flown out of the library. She’d found the same sort of friendship charm in the first jewelry store she tried. Tossing aside the left half, she “antiqued” the right side by dipping it in egg. She even bent it a bit for extra realism. She added a few extra charms, first some that would appeal to a girl, and then a few showing more mature taste. The little touches, she thought.

Then she had taken the final steps of her plan. Using the last of her ill-gotten gains from the Indianapolis scam, she checked into Jefferson’s only hotel. Oh, she’d been so clever. No walking up to Mary Williams and shouting “Aunt Mary.” Oh, no. She was subtle. She ate every meal at the drug store, chatting up the locals.

“Oh, I’m looking for my roots,” she said. Her grand parents had died recently, she told anyone who would listen, and she’d found some old letters and papers that mentioned this town. Did any of the old-timers remember any Browns who left thirty or so years ago? Of course, no one remembered any Browns, but nearly everyone remembered a little redheaded, green-eyed girl.

From there, it had all been down hill. Soon Mary came to see her at the hotel, but Nancy played it cool.

“Oh, no.” she said. “I can’t be your niece. Gramps and Nana told me that both my parents were only children.” Another shrewd extra – one newspaper article had mentioned Emma’s names for her grandparents.

Nancy had pretended a nervous habit of playing with her charm bracelet. Twisting the chain around her wrist brought it to the old woman’s attention. Mary admired all the charms, but asked only about the heart.

Gotcha, Nancy thought gleefully.

“Oh, I’ve had it since I was a little girl. I’m not sure where I got it.” She put a wistful look on her face. “There was a little bracelet, too, but I broke it when I was nine. Nana gave me another for my tenth birthday.”

Mary beamed at her, and showed her the half of a heart on her own bracelet. Nancy felt smug, even as she pointed out the match with feigned amazement. When Mary repeated the story of the heart charm she’d given Emma, Nancy displayed reluctant belief that she was indeed the long lost niece.

“I really am Emma. How could Gramps and Nana have lied to me?” she wailed.

But then she heard the older women’s suddenly cold words.

“Pity your heart is the wrong half. It should be the left.” Mary nodded grimly. “That was your only mistake”

Nancy was startled into blurting “What do you mean – you have the left – just like in the picture?” She caught her tongue between her teeth, but it was too late. The old woman knew.

So did the police officer who suddenly stepped into the room.

Nancy got up in defeat, but she had to ask, “Why did you give the kid a half that didn’t go with yours? Didn’t you want to give her the connection your mother gave you?”

“I did give that to her.” Mary closed her eyes with remembered pain. “I wanted Emma to understand that love doesn’t end with death. So the right half of Emma’s charm was buried with her mother. Just like my mother was laid to rest with the match to mine.”

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Second Sunday in May - (Appears in Love Triumphs)

Joanie had only the vaguest impression of the events of the previous days.

The long cross-country trip to Jack’s Boston home, the arrangements to be made, the crowd of strangers bringing sympathy and casseroles, the funerals, the meeting with the lawyer. And now she was alone. Alone in a strange house that was now her home.

No, not alone. The children were there. Three children. Her children, now, courtesy of the drunk driver who had had killed Jack and his wife, Michele.

Twin nieces, Penny and Patsy. Solemn-eyed, straight-haired, freckled duplicates, at four old enough to understand their parents weren’t coming back. One nephew, Tucker. A blond cherub who had just learned to walk, and found few things in the world more interesting than his own thumb.

So here she was, the aunt who had never even babysat, now the only family her brother’s children had left in the world.

Except for Max, of course.

Michele’s brother had obviously been shocked to discover that the children had been left to her guardianship. She hadn’t given him the satisfaction of knowing she’d been shocked, too. Joanie winced as she recalled the scene that had taken place only the day before at the lawyer’s office.

The big leather chair enveloped her as she felt her jaw drop lower and lower as the attorney’s dry words slowly revealed a fate not of her doing. She was now the children’s guardian. She had control of a sizable amount of money to rear them. She - who had never even signed a lease because the thought of staying a year in one place was too confining – now owned a large house in a respectable middle-class suburb. A suburb!

“Are you seriously asking me to believe that my sister entrusted her children to that wild gypsy?” Max spoke quietly, yet somehow his words echoed around the room. “She doesn’t stay in one place for more than six months at a time.”

Had she stayed anywhere even that long? No, she hadn’t. Not since she first struck out on her own, heading for Paris with her paints and rolled up canvas in a backpack.

“Well, say something!” Max’s fury had turned on her. “Why did they do this? Have you even met those kids before now?”

“Once. I met the twins once.” She had no answer to his first question. Why did Jack and Michele do this? She turned her attention to the attorney. “Was it Jack’s idea?”

The attorney flushed slightly. “I assure you, both Mr. and Mrs. Elliot were quite emphatic in their choice of guardian.” He cleared his throat. “Frankly, Mr. Widner, they both thought you were too concerned with your business pursuits to take on the responsibility of parenthood.”

Max’s color rose alarmingly. “I would have made the time for Michele’s kids.” He bit the words out forcefully, enunciating them one by one, before turning away from them to face the window.

Through the grief-stricken haze that clouded her own senses, Joanie realized that Max was not so much upset that she had been chosen, as hurt that he had not.

How ironic.

Because she was wondering what she had ever done to Jack to make her brother want to disrupt her life this way.

She thought with longing of her small studio in Venice, California. Of the ease with which she had always picked up and moved on for all of her adult life. Of her paintings of oceans, mountains, and deserts, of factories and of farmland.

Her paintings were known for their freshness – the novel insight that only a stranger sees.

What would she paint if there were no new vistas? How would she find inspiration if she had to see the same thing day after day for the next seventeen years until these kids were grown?

How could Jack do this to her? Joanie looked at Max out of the corner of her eye. What was wrong with him? Tall, lean, tanned. He looked respectable in his well-cut business suit. Successful in his highly polished shoes and his fashionably longish brown hair. Secure in his place in the world.

He’s attractive. She’d thought so at her brother’s wedding, and six years later, he was even more so.

Sure, a businessman can be boring, maybe, but wasn’t that a good trait in a potential guardian? He looked like the sort of guy anyone would want to raise their children. Why hadn’t Jack and Michele chosen Max?

The little she knew about her sister-in-law’s twin had not been negative, really. To hear them tell it, he just wasn’t much fun. Michele had laughed once that Max had been born forty years old. Was that such a bad thing in a parent?

Would it be better to have one who had never grown up? Isn’t that what Jack had always said about his kid sister. Oh sure, he said it with his indulgent laugh and hugs, but he meant it.

So Michele and Jack had had to choose between two extremes, and had taken the lesser evil? Feeling secure, as everyone does, that such plans would never have to be realized?

For a long moment, Joanie allowed herself the fantasy of telling Max he was welcome to the responsibility of a ready-made family, thanks very much.

But she remembered her childhood. Jack always shielding her from unpleasant realities. Jack defending his nonconformist sister from the tyrannies of the clone-like high school cliques. On report card days, Jack standing between their stern father and the free-spirited Joanie, saying “You wait, you wait, Dad. Someday she’ll come into her own.”

And never once had Jack asked for anything in return. Until now.

Today was the day for paybacks. She couldn’t let Jack down.

So Joanie stood, leaned over the lawyer’s desk, and signed her commitment to her brother’s faith in her. She felt Max’s furious gaze burning into her the whole time, but she left without a word to him.

That was yesterday.

Today she was trying to dress three kids who could teach eels to be slippery. Keeping one eye on Tucker, toddling about in a diaper that was ominously loose around his waist, she tried to persuade Penny into some clothes.

“I can’t wear the blue top, Aunt Joanie. Penny tore her blue top.” Patsy squirmed free of the arms attempting to pull a shirt over her head and rolled her eyes in apparent disgust at the fashion ignorance of aunts. Penny silently frowned in sympathy.

“Do the two of you always have to dress alike?”

“’Course we do. We’re twins.” They spoke in unison.

“Well, how ‘bout today we try something dif-,“ Joanie broke off as she realized that these kids were going to be doing a lot of things differently from now on. Maybe dressing differently didn’t have to be so high on the list of priorities. Sighing, she simply asked, “What shirts do you want to wear today?”

As one, four shoulders lifted. Two pairs of hands were raised palm up. Four eyes gazed at her somberly.

“Let’s start with Tucker,” Joanie muttered. “He doesn’t have to match, does he?”

Two small smiles appeared briefly, before two heads shook an answer. Tucker sucked his thumb.

Two hours later, the three kids were finally dressed, and one of them rediapered. Twice. The juice Tucker liked so much was definitely short term rental property.

“We’re hungry!” Penny and Patsy spoke together. Patsy added, “Tucker is hungry, too.”

Joanie glanced at the clock. “10:00! I guess I’d better get breakfast going.” She lifted Tucker up and led the girls into the kitchen. The mess still left from dinner the night before caused a wince. She’d been too exhausted to clean up.

“Uh, how’s cereal sound?” She set the small boy down and looked into the cupboards uncertainly. There were lots of casseroles in the freezer, but otherwise there didn’t seem to be much food in the kitchen. She made a mental note to go to the grocery store.

“Cakes!” Tucker yelped and teetered toward his high chair. “Cakes.” He grabbed one of the legs and tried to pull his chair to the table.

She kept nosing through the cabinets. “Aha! Cornflakes!” She pulled the box out triumphantly and shook it.

“No! Cakes!” Tucker gave up his effort to bring his chair to the table and sat heavily on his bottom. Jutting out his lower lip ominously, he glared briefly at his aunt before shouting again. “Cakes.”

Who would have thought such a little child could have such powerful lungs? “Sorry, kid. I may be new to this parenting stuff, but I am not giving you cake for breakfast.” She bent and held the box out for the boy to see. “See the pretty tiger. He wants you to eat the cereal. Yummy.”

He slapped a hand at the box, knocking it from her hand. Flakes cascaded to the shiny tile floor.

‘Tucker!”

Tiny heels drummed on the floor. “Cakes. Want cakes.” His face was turning a bright red, making him look like a tomato with a blond wig.

“But –“

“He wants pancakes. Mom always makes us pancakes when we want them.” Patsy sniffed audibly before whispering, “Made us pancakes, I mean.” Penny put a small arm around her sister’s shoulder, and contributed a whimper.

A keening wail sounded from below as Tucker lifted his heels too high and fell back, hitting his head on the floor. Penny and Patsy crowded toward their brother, and noisily contributed their own cries.

“What the hell is going on here!” Max’s deep voice echoed off the kitchen appliances.

Joanie spun around at the sudden shout, slipping in the spilled cereal. She plopped awkwardly to the floor, ending up next to the children. So startled were they by this turn of events, they quieted mid-shriek. Like her, they turned to stare at their uncle.

“Cakes?” whined Tucker.

Looking up at him from her undignified position, she thought Max seemed even taller than usual. Even more capable. And much, much angrier.

“Look at this place. It’s a mess. What have you been doing!” Yep, he was definitely angrier than ever.

She struggled to stand up, but her foot slid through the crushed corn flakes. Max shook his head with exasperation. But apparently his fury didn’t make him forget his manners entirely, because he held out a hand to help her up.

Once she was safely on her feet again, however, courtesy was forgotten.

“Sheesh, Joanie, do you have any clue how to take care of these kids.” He waved a hand around the kitchen. “It looks like a bomb went off in here. You are really making a hash of this, just as I expected.”

Taking a deep breath, she counted to ten. Looking at the mess and rubbing the sore spot on her tail bone, she kept going up to twenty. The nerve of this guy!

Finally, when she felt she had her own temper under tight control, she answered, “I am taking care of these children. It is my first day, though, you know. Unless you have some constructive advice, I suggest you keep your opinions to yourself.”

There. That sounded pretty good. Calm, cool, and collected. Not at all like Mr. I-Can-Do-Anything-Better-Than-You.

“Oh, I have constructive advice, all right. How about you go back to your artist colony and let me raise my sister’s kids properly? How’s that for constructive advice?”

“Sorry, but your sister obviously didn’t think you were good enough to raise my brother’s kids!” It was a low blow, she knew, but she was darned if she’d let him come in here and tell her what to do.

He sucked in air, and for a split second she actually thought he might strike her, before she dismissed the thought as absurd. Still, he stared at her, his fists clenched, for a long moment, while she boldly held her ground and his gaze. Finally a lengthy breath escaped his lips, and he turned away.

Trying again for a calm voice, she continued, “I am as puzzled as you that Michele and Jack gave me this responsibility, but I won’t let them down.”

He turned and looked her full in the face. She shivered at the calculating expression in his eyes.

“I’ll give you six months. A year at the outside.” He nodded as though to himself. “And then you’ll be gone.”

Her eyes narrowed. “I am not going to leave, Max .”

“We’ll see. Meanwhile, I’ll keep things from falling apart.” He looked around the room. Rubbing his hands together. “Well, allrighty then. I guess we ought to get this place cleaned up and these little guys fed. Girls, do you know where the broom is kept?”

Penny scooted to a closet, her sister close behind. Seething, Joanie wanted to interfere with his interference, but the truth was, she could use a little organization. From what she could see, Max was definitely organized.

So maybe the best thing would be to ignore his needling, and take his help, however ungraciously offered. At least he was pretty to look at.

Smiling grimly to herself, she squared her shoulders. “Fine. I’ll get breakfast started.”

A small hand grabbed her knee, at the same time tugging Max’s slacks. “Cakes?”

The hope in the little boy’s voice drew reluctant laughs from his aunt and uncle. Max leaned down and swept the tyke into his arms. Shooting a look at Joanie over the tousled head, he challenged, “Do you know how to make pancakes?”

Her head shook, but her chin lifted. “No. But I’ll learn.”

True to her word, the art of pancake making was but the first of many tasks Max watched Joanie master in the coming months.

Still, he was unconvinced. Running a household of four might not be something learned overnight, but he was sure a more stable person, like himself, for example, wouldn’t have so many disasters. And his sister wouldn’t have had any problem at all.

Like the time he came by just as Tucker was running out the front door naked. Or when all three of the kids got the chicken pox – and she did, too! . He and Michele had had the sense to get chicken pox when they were kids.

He’d thought that would be the last straw – surely she’d head for the hills then. But no. She laughed at all their spots. She even painted a picture of them all in their polka dots.

That it was a terrific portrait, full of life, just made it worse.

The kids ate macaroni and cheese and hot dogs. Even worse than the easy fix stuff, she had them eating Thai noodles or tortilla rollups, or other new fangled stuff. . When his sister was alive, the menu always included roast beef or chicken. Stuff good for kids.

He supposed he should just be glad the laundry got washed and floors got scrubbed, but he looked forward to the day her wanderlust lust would call the interloper away.

He just hoped it would be before his lust carried him away.

At first he ignored the attraction he’d felt for her. Pretended it didn’t exist. She was undisciplined, irresponsible, unreliable. Everything he disliked. Just because this wild thing was packaged in the most fantastic body he’d ever seen was no reason he should think about asking her out or anything.

Who cared if he loved the way sunlight hit her hair, turning it from mere brown to a riot of red, gold, and chestnut? Beautiful brunettes were a dime a dozen, and besides, he was sure he preferred blondes.

As for those eyes, so dark they held the mysteries of night, well, that was just stupid. They were brown. Ordinary brown. And the very fact that she was able to make plain old brown eyes seem so exotic, well, that just proved it. She just wasn’t suitable.

Not suitable to be guardian of his sister’s children. Not suitable for his interest.

Or so he told himself. And counted the days until she moved on.

But the months passed. He dropped in with increasing frequency to see how the kids were doing, and he discovered that his body had very different ideas of what was suitable. The brief surprise visits, originally intended just to catch the gypsy in some scrape, turned into planned events. Family outings.

“His sister’s children” became Penny, Patsy, and Tucker. Not just little kids, but individuals. Small certainly, but already developing distinct personalities, tastes, and opinions. He liked them for their own sakes now.

But he knew, in the farthest reaches of his mind, that he came to see her every bit as much as he came to spend time with the kids.

They had their regularly scheduled Wednesday nights at the pizza place. And when the little ones were tucked in, he savored the hour spent talking with her in front of the fire.

Saturday afternoons at the park yielded a few moments on a bench, watching how high the twins could swing, and how wide Joanie could smile.

And she did smile. At him.

But he knew she’d be gone. It was just a matter of time before she decided that Boston didn’t offer the right “vista” as she called it. No new scenes to paint.

In fact, she’d already altered the topic of her paintings. More and more, it was children who appeared. Sometimes happy, sometimes sad, but always she captured the innocence of childhood.

Personally, he thought these paintings were even better than her other work. But he doubted she’d agree.

He said nothing. He pretended he felt nothing.

Every Sunday, with Tucker in the nursery, and the twins in Sunday School, Max found himself sharing a pew with Joanie. And then they all went to brunch. Max told himself that he was merely making sure Tucker, Patsy and Penny has as normal a home life as possible.

And so it was, on the second Sunday in May, some nine months after the tragedy, he sat near her for the service. Today was a family service, with the children present. Tucker rested on her knee. Patsy sat between them, while Penny leaned against his other side.

“Motherhood is truly a blessed state.” The young minister beamed at his congregation. “That is why we celebrate this day in honor of mothers everywhere.”

Max sat up straight. Mother’s Day? He’d forgotten it was Mother’s Day.

This could be a dreadful reminder to the children of Michele’s death. Of Jack’s death.

He glanced at the children. The girls were sitting politely, listening to Reverend Miller. Tucker was paying attention to the toy car in his hand. No fallout yet. He chanced a look at Joanie, to find her staring back at him, worry writ clearly in her eyes as well.

Damn. They should have skipped church this week.

The sermon continued. The many roles a mother undertakes were recounted. The sacrifices she makes listed. The service she performs honored. At the conclusion of the service, the children of the congregation were invited to come forward to obtain flowers to present to their mothers.

“Oh, no.” He muttered the words. Here it comes, now the kids would realize they didn’t have a mother anymore. He saw Joanie tighten her hold on Tucker’s waist, hugging him closer, and he draped his own arms around the twins’ shoulders.

But, in unison as ever, the twins stood. “C’mon, Tucker. Let’s get the flowers.” Tucker slid down from Joanie’s lap and took his sisters’ hands. They joined the parade of children in the aisles.

“It’s okay. Healthy.” Fluttering her hands before herself, she added, “We’ll take them to the cemetery. A nice ritual. It’s okay.”

Nodding, he swallowed hard. “Yeah . Yeah. Good idea.” A knot formed in his throat as he watched the trio. Joanie fumbled her purse, and glancing her way, he watched her remove a tissue and wipe at her tears. He reached for her hand and squeezed.

The warmth he felt at her touch no longer surprised him. But this time, he acknowledged it, accepted it. He felt her return the pressure of his grasp, and for the first time, he allowed himself to wonder what she felt for him.

Three small bodies crowded back into the pew right then. Max started to announce the plan to take the flowers to their parent’s graves, but he stopped.

Three small hands, two delicate and one chubby, were holding out bright yellow mums to Joanie.

“Happy Mother’s Day.” The twins’ duet was quickly repeated, with enthusiasm if not clarity, by Tucker.

He heard her gasp. Or maybe he heard his own sharp intake of breath. With shock, he realized that he wasn’t the only one who had fallen in love with her. The only one who valued her. The only one who needed her. He was just the only one who couldn’t admit it.

Until now.

Joanie felt the tears starting in her eyes again at the sight of the three flowers, one stem broken from the tight grasp of Tucker’s fist, held out so generously before her. Taking the mums, she pulled the children into her arms, amazed anew at how she could fit all three into her hug. Swiftly administering kisses, she struggled to find another tissue in her bag.

A handkerchief was pressed into her hand.

Max! She stared guiltily at the purse in her lap. If he misunderstood, if he thought his sister was forgotten, he’d be so hurt. So angry.

She didn’t want to lose him! The fierce thought startled her, but she knew it was true. He had become a part of her life. She would make him understand that ability of children to hold onto the security offered them, even in the face of loss.

She’d make him understand how important he was. To the children. To her.

With trepidation, she lifted her eyes to meet Max’s, but instead of the glare she expected, she found a warm gaze caressing her.

“I don’t have any flowers for you, ” he said simply.

Her head shook and she started to speak, but with a gentle touch of his fingers, he stilled her lips.

His fingers glided to her cheek to wipe a stray tear. Holding her gaze, he leaned forward and gently kissed her. She breathed in his spicy scent, and knew he understood.

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The Final Contract (Appears in Love Mystifies)

Serena watched as her target opened the driver’s door to his classic T-Bird. He slid behind the wheel with his usual leonine grace. After the barest adjustment of his rear view mirror, he peeled the car away from the curb and entered traffic. She silently counted to four, then followed in her own BMW.

Amazing, the way the man managed to do everything so wells. He wove through the traffic easily, with never a sudden brake nor quick acceleration, but his driving ability was the least of it. His walk, his voice, his charm, the game of pick-up basketball he started with some down and out teenagers. And the meal he had purchased each of them afterwards.

It was a shame he had to die.

She never been so tempted to fail before But business was business. After all, she had a reputation to protect. Besides, this job would be her last. One last job, and the Company would let her walk away. No strings, no trip back to prison to serve out a sentence for a crime they’d framed her for in the first place. She’d finally have her freedom.

But still, if ever a man deserved to live just for what he was, for the sheer pleasure he gave a woman who simply watched him, Malcolm MacDougal was the man.

Of course, if the merry chase on which he’d led her so far indicated anything, it was that this contract was not going to be easy to fill. MacDougal – Mac, as she’d begun to call him in her head – had yet to give her a single opening. When he wasn’t whizzing around in that cool car of his, he was in very public places, surrounded by crowds. Even if she were willing to risk witnesses, she’d not take the chance of harming someone else. The business was dirty enough without bringing others into it.

And trying for him at home was out of the question, too. The security staff at his apartment building could teach a few things to the folks at Fort Knox. In fact, when the job was over, she just might look into moving there. Just in case the Company changed its mind.

Her musing on the future came to a sudden halt as she realized her prey had suddenly sped up to make an intersection just before the amber light switched to red. But the drivers in the two cars she’d kept between them clearly didn’t have the same sense of urgency he did. She was stuck craning her neck to see his car continue down the street.

His taillights flashed against the growing dusk as he braked for a turn. Into the park? This might be her chance! Her fingers drummed impatiently against the steering wheel as she waited for the light to change. One hand reached into her purse for her Ruger.

The cold steel touch felt like the icy fingers that closed around her heart all too often these days. The Company would surely see that this had to be her last job. She was letting herself get sentimental. Or was she getting soft?

It was that touch of sadness she saw reflected in his eyes that made her regret his contract. The brief glimpses she had into a soul that seemed as tormented as her own.

But he undoubtedly deserved to die. The company could only be bothered by the highest level of targets. Whatever Mac seemed, he had to be a major scumbag. Probably the leader of major drug cartel or something.

Anyway, he was just another target. Nothing to her. Just her final contract.

Malcolm slowed just enough so the woman on his tail would see him make the turn into the park. The time had come to confront his shadow – and, he hoped, finish up with the Company once and for all. Just this one last contract, and he could walk away, they’d said.

Yeah, and he had some beachfront property in Kansas to offer anyone who believed that line.

He parked near the lake, in a spot he knew well. A flick of his fingers against the latch opened his brief case. The cardboard silhouette figure he’d stuffed inside began to unfold. He propped it against the driver’s window, and then slipped out the passenger door, and around into the thick stand of trees. A quick glance satisfied him that the cardboard figure was convincing. From behind the cover of a tree, he kept his eyes on the road.

When her car became visible, he saw it slow almost imperceptibly, then continue past the trees in which he had hidden. He knew she’d park a half mile or so down, and then make her way back on foot. He turned his attention to the woods behind him.

He didn’t have long to wait. She was definitely careful, but the sturdy boots she wore weren’t meant for stealthy walking through dry autumn leaves.

As he expected, the woman stopped only a few feet from his hiding place, at exactly the spot he would have chosen in her position. He’d been right. This one was good, better than all the rest. She just might be his ticket out of this hell.

She used both hands to raise the gun, its silencer giving it an eerily elongated look in shadows of the trees. The gun lowered once, but suddenly she raised it, took careful aim, and fired at the silhouette. The sharp crack as the car window gave way offered testimony of the accuracy of her aim. Her gun lowered to her side, and she turned. Tears ran down her cheeks, and a jagged sob escaped her lips.

He had not expected the remorse. It only strengthened his own resolve.

He knew the moment she saw him – saw the .45 he aimed directly between her brows. In that moment, emotion flashed across her face. Relief? Joy?

With his left hand, he first gently wiped the tears from her face, and then took her Ruger and threw it a few yards away. With his right hand, he kept his own weapon steady. “They told you this would be your last job, right?”

Her eyes widened, and then narrowed as understanding of the Company’s betrayal hit. Her chin jutted up, and her breath quickened, but she showed no fear. “I guess they weren’t lying.”

He smiled. Defiant humor? She was definitely the one. “They were lying, but we can make their promises come true. Together.” He took a risk and lowered the gun. “Truce?”

She stared back at him for a moment, and nodded. “Truce.”

After only a second’s hesitation, he holstered his gun. “Okay, here’s the plan.”

Four days later, Serena lounged lazily on the hotel bed. Flicking through the channels, she stopped at a news report.

“ . . . the drivers of the two cars continued to exchange gun fire for more than a mile.” Jerky video taken from a traffic helicopter showed her BMW chasing Mac’s T-Bird. A lengthy stand of trees hid the cars from view for nearly a minute, and then they reappeared. “as you can see, both vehicles crashed through the barrier blocking a bridge under repair and plunged into the water.” The camera zoomed in on the half-submerged cars, the water rushing around them. “Authorities do not believe either driver survived. Divers continue to seek for the bodies, but experts say the current probably sent them downriver, and very possibly, right on out into the gulf. They hold out little hope of finding them.”

The television view switched back to the genial anchors in the studio. The woman smiled broadly and spoke to her colleague. “Bob, they recovered several weapons from the vehicles. The police speculate that the parties involved here were either rival drug dealers, or perhaps gang members.”

Serena switched the television off and gave the first carefree laugh she could remember in years.

“I must say, you are taking your demise very well.” Mac handed her a flute of champagne before settling next to her. His hand traveled along her thigh, leaving trails of tingly warmth.

Just amazing how the man did everything so well. She snuggled closer to the man who’d proven all she had imagined and more. “At least we went out with a bang.”

“More like a splash! Too bad about the cars, though.” He grinned back at her and waggled his eyebrows. The haunted look was still in his eyes, but much fainter.

She understood. She’d never be completely free from what the company had forced her to become, but she moved farther from it with every minute of freedom. She laced her fingers in his. Holding his gaze, she leaned close for a kiss. “Who cares about stupid cars?”

His head shook. “Not me.” He gave her a gentle kiss in return.

Peace settled within her. Together, they would make the journey back to the light.

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