Joan saw Mike running, but unlike everyone who was sane, he was running toward the man with the gun.

He ran toward the edge of the stage, and when he got there he jumped and dovea"kind of like Superman taking to the skies. Only Mike didn't go up, he went across and down.

The gunman turned and saw him and swung his gun around to fire.

Another shot rang out just as Mike hit him.

And Joan knew. If Mike Muldoon died here today, he'd die a hero.

And her life would never again be as bright, as sunny, as funny and wonderful as it had been these past few days.

If he lived, she was going to do it. She was going to marry the man. Life was too short to fool around. And if he died, she was going to rip the heart out of the b.a.s.t.a.r.d who killed him with her bare hands.

Muldoon connected hard with the last terrorist.

"Duke!" Sam ordered, and the sniper got ready in case the unthinkable happened and Muldoon got taken out before taking out the shooter.

s.h.i.t, there was blood on Mike's uniform, garishly red against the bright white.

But the kid was still kicking.

He had the shooter in a body lock and twisted hard. Sam could almost hear the crack from all the way up here.

"Shooter three down," Muldoon said, as he scrambled to claim the man's gun.

Chapter 27.

"Man down," Tom Paoletti said over the radio, and it wasn't until Muldoon stood up and saw the blood that he realized the man his CO was talking about was him. "Lopez, get your a.s.s down here."

The b.a.s.t.a.r.d had shot him in the arm.

But that was the least of his worries.

"I'm okay," he said, looking around for Joan. The entire side of the dais where she'd been standing was empty. There was no one there at all. "It's just a scratch."

All of the SEALs in the helos were coming down the ropesa"which was quite a show from this perspectivea"and they quickly secured the area.

As the Seahawks moved off, Muldoon could hear more ambulances approaching, people crying, the continuous chatter from the radio over his headset, and some kind of electronic ringinga"

His cell phone.

He dug it out of his pocket and flipped it open.

"Joan?"

"Michael, are you all right? I saw you jump on that man with the gun anda""

"I'm fine," he said. s.h.i.t, she'd seen that. She probably watched him break the b.a.s.t.a.r.d's neck, too. Way to convince the woman to marry him. "Are you okay? When I saw you over by the Presidenta"

"I'm fine."

"Really? You're not wounded at all? Not even a little?"

"Oh, G.o.d," she said, smart enough to figure out that his concern came from his telling her that he was fine, when in fact he wasn't. "He shot you, didn't he? How bad is it?"

"It's just a scratch."

"What is it with stupida.s.s macho he-men?" she ranted. "Gramps got shot in the leg, and he says he's fine, it's just a scratch. Let me give you a tip, okay, tough guy? When a bullet hits youa"even if it just grazes youa"it is not a scratch''

"Where are you?" Muldoon asked. He saw Tom's uncle with his arms around Meg Nilsson, helping shield her baby's eyes from the sight of the dead terrorists, who still lay where they'd fallen.

He caught sight of Kelly, too, hard at work over in a makeshift triage area that Lopez was helping her set up.

Tom Paoletti saw Kelly as well, and Muldoon could see some of the tension in the man's shoulders ease as he headed toward her.

There were far fewer casualties than Muldoon would have thought after hearing that first rip of machine-gun fire. Most of the wounded were able to walk.

"We're under the stage," Joan told him. "Gramma and I got everyone down here while you were doing your superhero imitation. Gramps isn't the only one wounded. There are two other men with scratches''

"Do you need help, coming out?" he asked. He saw John Nilsson catch up with Meg, and with a nod from Tom Paoletti, Nils quickly led his wife and baby out of the area.

As Muldoon watched, Tom gave his elderly uncle a quick hug.

"No, we can do it," Joan said. "Gramps insists he can walk. I just wanted to make sure it was safe before we came out. Really, I wanted to make sure you were safe. That was, um, pretty G.o.dd.a.m.n scary, Mike. And you do this for a living, huh?"

"It's not usually like this," he told her. "This was what we call a goatf.u.c.k, if you'll excuse the expression. However, it could have been a lot worse. You can thank Commander Paoletti for the fact that the casualty count is so low. Two men with machine guns, a third with a handgun. It's a miracle we're not bringing in body bags by the dozens."

"G.o.d," she said. "What a thought."

He could see her now, leading a ramshackle band of VIPs and dignitaries out from behind the dais.

She faltered only slightly when she saw the blood on his jacket, hanging up her phone and pocketing ita"as if she didn't trust herself to speak to him right at that moment. But by the time she reached him, she'd managed to smile.

"I think you need to go where we're going," she said. Her eyes were suspiciously bright. "To the hospital. I think your scratch needs st.i.tches, babe."

He reached for her. "Joana""

"Don't," she said, stepping away from him. "I'm just managing to keep it together."

"Sorry," he said. "I forgot we were still in hide-our- relationship mode." -.

"Whoa," she said. "Wait. We are?"

"Aren't we?" Muldoon asked.

"It's going to be kind of hard to have a wedding without telling anyone," she said. "I mean what kind of invitations would we send? I guess it could be like a surprise party in reverse."

Muldoon's chest felt tight and his throat filled, but instead of jumping or dancing or crying from happiness, he merely nodded, using one finger to push the hair back from her face. "I don't think you're allowed to say something like that to me without, you know, kissing me afterward."

"If I kiss you, I'm going to start to cry." She started anyway, her face scrunching up as if she were a little kid. "Who would shoot into a crowd like that? Who would do such a terrible thing?"

He pulled her into his arms and held her close, wishing he had answers for her. "I don't know," he said. "I don't get it, either. It's okay to cry, though, Joan. It is."

"Can we please just go and get you to the hospital? Because I'm so tired and I need you to get checked by a doctor, and I have to make sure Gramps is all right, and then, G.o.d, I really, really want to go home."

"Home?" he asked. "You mean to the hotel?"

"I don't care," Joan said. "The hotel will do. As long as I can have a bed to sleep in, and you. That's all I need to be home."

Muldoon kissed her.

As far as he was concerned, he didn't even need the bed.

Mary Lou made it past the guards by showing her ID and proving mat she was, indeed, the wife of one of the SEALs in Team Sixteen. She'd had to run back to her car to get her purse, but once she got it, they let her in.

She could see where there was some kind of medical area set up to help the wounded, and she ran toward it as the first of the ambulances was pulling away.

There were seven bodies on the pavementa"oh, G.o.d!a" already neatly in a row, covered with tarps. They were being guarded by a stern-faced sailor, so she made a wide berth around them.

Please G.o.d, please G.o.d, please G.o.d, let her be wrong!

Kelly Ashton was there, her hands in surgical gloves and blood smeared down the front of her shirt.

"Kelly!"

"Sam's okay," Kelly told her as she took off her gloves and put on another pair. "All the guys are all right. Mike Muldoon needs a few st.i.tches, but other than that..."

"Is the President ... ?" She couldn't say it. If he was dead, she was an accomplice to a Presidential a.s.sa.s.sination. Even though it wasn't really her fault, she would be blamed. They were always looking for someone to blame when Presidents died.

"He's safe," Kelly said.

Mary Lou followed her over to a man who was holding his arm.

"I fell off the stands," he told Kelly. "I think it's broken."

"I think you're right," she said. "Sorry you had to wait so long."

"Hey, I'm not bleeding," he said. "I didn't mind the wait. How'd they get the guns in?"

"Your guess is as good as mine," Kelly said. "Although I'm sure there'll be an in-depth investigation. They'll figure it out and you can be darn sure it won't happen ever again."

Mary Lou had to sit down. An in-depth investigation...

"It looks to me like you've got a clean break," Kelly told the man. "Although you'll need X rays, of course. Is there a particular hospital you'd prefer to go to?"

He shook his head. "I'm from out of town."

Kelly showed him where to go to get a ride to the nearest medical facility. And once again the gloves came off with a snap. She noticed Mary Lou sitting there.

"Mary Lou, is there something else I can help you with?"

"Ihbraham Rahman," Mary Lou said, and Kelly sighed.

"Yeah, that's right, you knew him, too."

Knew. Past tense. Oh, G.o.d.

"He's hurt pretty badly," Kelly said. "I don't know if he's going to make it."

Mary Lou looked up at her. "He's still alive?"

"He was as of fifteen minutes ago. But he's got a serious head injury, and ... these things can be tricky. I have to be honest, it doesn't look good."

"Is he ... Was he involved?" Mary Lou couldn't help it. She started to cry. Kellya"a doctora"thought that Ihbraham was going to die. But, Lord, maybe that was a good thing. If Ihbraham was a terrorist, he deserved to die. If he was a terrorist, then everything he'd said to her, everything he'd done, was a lie. She hoped that he died. She prayed that he died. And that way no one would ever know that he'd smuggled the weapons onto the base with her help. Her unwitting helpa" but no one would believe that.

"I don't know. The men with the guns were apparently all of Arabic descent," Kelly told her. "Does that automatically mean that Ihbraham was involved? / don't think so. I knew him pretty well, and I just don't believe ... But everything happened so fasta"no one who I've talked to really saw anything. I was near one of the gunmen myself, and I have to be honesta"when I heard the shots, I didn't know who was shooting, I didn't know where it was coming from. All I know for sure is that after the shooting stopped, Ihbraham was one of the people on the ground, seriously injured. As of right now they've found only three weapons, so it doesn't look like he was armed. If you want my opinion, most of the people who were injured to that degree were the people who actually tried to disarm the three gunmen."

Mary Lou went even more numb. His brothers. He must have been trying to stop his three brothers. Maybe he wasn't a terrorist.

But what did it matter? He was going to die.

She stood up. She had to get out of here. She had to get Haley, to breathe in her sweet scent, to remind herself why it was important that she stay sober on a day when there were so many reasons to drown her pain in a drink.

Bob Schwegel, Insurance Scoundrel, had tried to steal her virtue and the money in her bank accounts.

Ihbraham had tried to steal her heart and soul.

The irony was that when she'd first met him, there'd been nothing for him to take. He'd nurtured her, grown hera"like one of his flowers. He'd made her fall in love with him.

Now here she sat, even emptier than when she'd started.

"I'm sorry," she told Kelly. "I have to..."

Mary Lou ran for the gate, ran back to the restaurant. It took all of four seconds to give Aaron her resignation.

She went home before picking up Haley and quickly packed as much as she could fit into the set of matching luggage Sam had bought her from Sears on Mother's Day.

Gee, maybe his buying that for her had been a hint.

She loaded the car, packed a bag of food and snacks, wrote Sam a quick note.

Twenty minutes later, she and Haley were on the highway, heading east.