Working Stiff(119)
And maybe Ana was actually a lady mercenary. You never knew.
Casimir spoke Dutch to his sister on the phone, so Rox couldn’t even properly eavesdrop. He kept glancing at her though, and she was pretty sure that she heard her own name a few times. The Dutch language sounded kind of like German but with more who’s and hee-oo’s in it.
She definitely heard Ana squeal at least once.
He tapped the screen to hang up the call. “All right, we’ll have security forces arriving tomorrow afternoon. We’re to stay put and away from the windows.”
“Is your sister in the army or something?”
“No. Well, technically I suppose she is, but nevertheless, she is sending people to retrieve us. They will evacuate us to Amsterdam tomorrow. Do you have your passport with you?”
“Yeah, in my purse.” She and Casimir had flown to meet clients overseas with an hour’s notice more than once.
“Good.”
“What about the cats?” she asked, stroking Pirate’s scarred head.
“I’ll ask my housekeepers to take care of them. They’re very dependable. We should be gone for about a week. By the time we get back, we will have submitted the charges and evidence to the ethics committee, so all this will have blown over. It will be too late to stop the charges, so surely whoever hired the sniper won’t pursue us after that.”
“Are you sure?” she asked.
“Either way, we will have a significant security presence when we come back. No one will be able to touch us.”
“So men with guns will protect us from the other men with guns?”
“They can be surprisingly effective.” He paused and took both her hands in his. “I’ve done this all wrong.”
“I told you that the sniper wasn’t your fault. How could a sniper be anyone’s fault?” she asked him.
“Not that.” He slid off the couch and stood on one knee before her, still holding both her hands in his. Behind him, outside the French doors, the ocean frothed gray. “I’ve done this all wrong. Let me do it right. Roxanne Dolly Neil—”
Good Lord, he had remembered her middle name from that time they had gotten so drunk in Québec that she had admitted it to him.
“I have dreamed of this moment. I have loved you for years, and I finally have a chance to hold you, to show you how I feel, and I want to marry you.”
He had carried her to her hotel room that night, and she thought that she had dreamed that he had kissed her on the forehead before he had gone through the adjoining door to his own room, but now she suspected that she hadn’t been dreaming.
“Lieveke, will you do me the honor and privilege and become my wife, my princess, and I will love you and stay with you all the days of our lives?”
Rox drew in a breath to say yes. Her body was still trembling from him taking her against the wall. Her hands were shaking in his.
Everything that he said calmed her fears and let her heart beat again.
Movement.
She looked over his shoulder at the French doors and the ocean outside.
Outside the windows, something flashed in the sunlight.
Past the glass of the windows, something dropped like a bird crash-landing on the deck.
She pointed over his shoulder. “Casimir, what’s—”
He twisted to look back where she was pointing and saw the little bundle lying on the deck.
He leapt across the couch at her.
She gasped, “What—”
His shoulders shoved her chest, flattening her on the couch. His arms closed around her head, and he crouched over her.
Fire blasted through the doors and into the room.
CHOICE
Scalding pain rushed over Casimir’s back.
The fire flash was gone in an instant, but smoke was already rising in the house, and it stung his nose.
Screams burst all around him, driving into his ears. Shrieks blasted through the air as the fire alarm raged.
“Run.” He pulled Rox to her feet. “Run!”
She stumbled, stunned by the blast. One of her shoes was gone, but she was moving toward the door to the garage.
Water showered down on him as the sprinklers sprayed, but the fire on the wall grew, crawling across the ceiling.
Casimir took a step. Something was under his foot. When he looked down, matted fur lay beside his shoe.
He grabbed the cat—Speedbump from the look of his sorry gray fur—and slung him over one arm. The cat struggled weakly but didn’t claw. Another step, and he found Midnight, the black cat, crouching behind the arm of the couch, pressing his face against the upholstery and trying to hide from the blaring alarm and shooting water. He grabbed Midnight by the scruff of his neck and tucked him next to Speedbump in his arm.
“Go!” he roared at Rox. “Run! Get the garage door open.”