Swept Aside
Page 24
Lou couldn’t believe it. “You shot me,” he mumbled.
“No. I killed you,” she said, and didn’t even flinch when he toppled forward, dead before he hit the floor.
Nick grunted, then leaned against the counter, holding his injured arm against his body.
Amalie tilted the rifle barrel toward the floor, then looked across Drake’s body to Nick.
“Are you all right?”
“No, but I will be,” he said. “You saved my life.”
“I owed you…remember?”
Nick grinned, then winced. “So now we’re even?”
“We’re even,” she said, eyeing the furniture lying about in pieces. Better it than Nick.
Then all of a sudden they heard footsteps coming up on the porch.
“Just like in the movies,” she said, as she stepped over Lou to unlock the door.
“What’s like in the movies?” Nick muttered.
“The law always arrives after the shooting is over.”
He grinned, then winced. He would have liked to be sitting down, but all the chairs were in pieces, so he slid to the floor instead, too light-headed to focus on the agents who came racing into the house.
Amalie handed them her rifle.
“Nick needs an ambulance, and Drake needs a hearse.”
Nick felt Amalie’s hands on his face, and then pressure on his shoulder. She was staunching the flow of blood as he finally passed out.
Epilogue
The fireplace was ablaze.
Stockings were hanging from the mantel.
Garlands of greenery had been wound about the staircase and over doorways, and draped from chandeliers. Mistletoe hung over every doorway, tempting all who passed beneath to steal a kiss.
The house was alive with people and noise, and all manner of food and drink had been placed on every sideboard and table that would hold them.
Every member of Nick’s family, from the youngest to the oldest—who happened to be his father’s ninety-two-year-old aunt—had come to Louisiana for the Christmas holidays.
For the first time in almost a century, every bedroom in the house was in use, along with some cots beside the adults’ beds for their respective children.
Amalie was carrying a tray of homemade pralines and hot mulled cider into the living room when she paused in the doorway, watching the tall, dark-haired man who was standing beside the fireplace, retelling the story of how she’d saved his life for what seemed like the hundredth time.
“I kid you not,” Nick said. “Cool as a cucumber, she stepped over his body and let in the agents as if it was an everyday occurrence.”
A murmur ran through the crowd, coupled with comments ranging from “What a gal” to “Are you man enough to handle a woman like that?”
Then Nick looked up and saw her and the tray she was carrying, and bolted through the crowd as if the room was suddenly empty.
“Honey! You shouldn’t be carrying that heavy stuff in your condition.” He took the tray out of her hands, then kissed her gently before setting it down on the only bare spot left in the room, which happened to be on the coffee table near the fire.
Amalie stood for a moment, thinking that she would never get tired of watching the way he moved, then followed him into the room.
Someone got up to make room for her in an over-stuffed chair. As the mother of the latest impending Aroyo heir, she was definitely being pampered, but it was the fact that she’d saved Nick’s life that had ensured her a permanent place of honor within the family.
“What gave you the courage to shoot?” someone asked.
Amalie leaned back in the chair, gazing around at all the faces of people who had yet to become familiar, then looked beyond them to the house itself.
“It wasn’t the first time this old house had seen a woman fight to the death for a loved one,” she said. “I’m the last of the Popes, but this is still the Vatican, and we don’t allow justice to be swept aside.”
“Have you picked out a name for the baby?” Nick’s mother asked.
But this time Nick spoke before Amalie could answer.
“Yeah. We’re naming him Jonathan Pope, and that was my call, not hers.”
Nick sat down on the arm of her chair, then laid his hand on the top of her head, loving the silky feel of her curls against the palm of his hand.
“Jonathan Pope Aroyo. That has a nice ring to it,” his brother said.
“No. Jonathan Nicholas Pope. There are plenty of Aroyos, and he’ll always be my son. But Amalie more than earned the right to keep her family name alive when she saved my life. I consider it an honor to do my part to preserve the name. And a whole lot of fun to boot.”
Amalie blushed.
The crowd roared with laughter.
She sat back in her chair, marveling at the family she’d inherited, and wondering how their lives would unwind in the coming years.
The secret room had been investigated and documented, and the names written on the walls were being researched. But it no longer mattered to Amalie if her theory was ever proved or not. She knew what she believed, and she was proud of the stance her family had once taken.
Then someone called out Nick’s name, urging him to retell—one more time—the story of how his little wife had taken down the man who’d nearly killed him.
And so he did, relating her exploits until they were more amazing with each telling, making the story of Amalie Pope larger than life.
And for many Christmases after and through the ensuing years, the story was told and told again of a girl named Amalie, who was the last of the Popes, and how she refused to die, and how the name was reborn.
ISBN: 978-1-4268-6400-1
SWEPT ASIDE
Copyright © 2010 by Sharon Sala.
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