“And you don’t think I’ve felt the same way about you?”

She gave him a big smile, reached up her hand and cupped his cheek. “I think we’re both doing exactly what we were meant to do. I plan for Sean to see us both well into old age. Get over it, Dillon. It’s time to move on.”

He kissed her, pulled her hard against him again. Sean burped. “But—”

“I know, there’s always a but. Let’s just work through this one day at a time, all right? You know as well as I do that the time to make a life-altering decision isn’t right after a huge scare.”

Slowly, he nodded.

“We’ve worked through everything else that’s come along and hit us in the chops. This is different because it’s the first time our jobs have come close to Sean, the first time our little tiger here could have been hurt because of what we do. It will be tough, but we’ll do the right thing. Don’t worry, we’ll sort it all out.”

“Sherlock?”

She lightly bit his neck in answer.

“You want to spend some quality time with me?”

She was laughing as she licked where she’d bitten. “Can I strip you naked and kiss you all over?”

He swallowed hard, and nodded, looking at her smiling mouth. Sean burped again.

SUNDAY AFTERNOON
THE KETTERING HOME
COLFAX, VIRGINIA

Katie didn’t hurt if she stayed still, and that was a very nice thing. On the other hand, she wasn’t stupid enough to laugh or make any sudden movements. She was seated in Miles’s big comfortable leather chair, wearing sweats with a nice loose fleece top that hid the bandages under the sweats, her feet up on a big ottoman, her legs covered with a ratty afghan Miles’s mother had knitted many years before. She was wearing a pair of thick socks, no shoes.

Cracker had taken Sam and Keely to a children’s movie matinee so they wouldn’t see or hear the cops. Both of them had seemed fine, thank God, neither suspecting that she had something other than the flu. She was thankfully spared enthusiastic hugs that would surely have brought a moan out of her. She smiled over Sherlock and Savich, who’d arrived a few minutes earlier.

Miles brought in coffee and tea, and a plate of scones he’d picked up at Nathan’s Bakery just down on Cartwright Avenue.

Detective Benjamin Raven said the moment he sat down on the comfortable sofa in the living room, ignoring both scones and coffee, “I am royally pissed, Mrs. Kettering. That was a really stupid thing to do.”

To his surprise, she nodded. “I would agree with you, Detective, if I’d been wearing your cop’s shoes and not the victim’s.”

It was Sunday, his buddies were waiting for him down at the sports bar with peanuts, beer, and the Redskins game. Then Mr. Kettering had called. He’d been nursing his snit for a good half hour now and he wasn’t about to let go without cutting loose on the woman who’d ruined his day. “You’re a cop, Sheriff, yet you pulled this stunt. You’ve come pretty close to obstructing justice.”

“An interesting point, Detective,” Miles said, his voice mild, really quite reasonable now that he’d gotten over his own snit. He turned slightly in his chair and winked at Katie before he turned back. “I think it was pretty dumb, too, but we’ve already discussed why she did it. Can we move on to something helpful?”

Detective Raven shouted at all of them indiscriminately, “Are all you people nuts? Your macho sheriff here could have bloody bled to death!”

“I really prefer macha, Detective Raven.”

“Don’t you try to jolly me out of this, Sheriff!”

Miles said, “If she’d been shot bad, she would have yelled. She’s not stupid.” He paused a moment. “You would have yelled, wouldn’t you have, Katie?”

“Oh yes. I’ve always believed you’ve got to live to fight another day.” She stared at Miles, then gave him such a brilliant smile he blinked.

“Enough already,” Detective Raven said at last. He snagged a scone off the plate, poured himself a cup of coffee, and said, “If you guys are through praising this crazy woman, why doesn’t somebody tell me who you think fired at you.”

Katie said, “I made a phone call back home to Jessborough just before you got here, Detective. Miles told you yesterday about all the hoopla we went through there. I asked about the congregation, about what was going on with them. Nothing, evidently. Interesting fact though. The place has been a disaster area what with all the storms, but once it started drying out, crews went out to the ruins of the McCamy house to start cleaning everything up and dig out the bodies. It’s still really slow going. There’s no word yet.”