“You forgave Emma. You even forgave Magus. Why not me?” Titus turned partway toward Dorothy. Now the gun pointed at her.
“Because you aren't sorry for what you've done,” Dorothy said, shifting so that Titus had to turn more toward her and away from Remy and Helene.
Remy looked at Helene, nodding for her to slip out one of the long, narrow windows. She nodded, and started edging toward the window.
“And now you're planning to kill the man I love and a dear, dear friend.”
Remy waited until Helene was out of sight, before taking a couple of steps toward Titus. He swung the gun back his way.
“Don't move. I'll shoot.”
“I'll never, ever forgive you, Titus,” Dorothy said, pulling his attention her way again. “If you cared about me at all, you wouldn't even think about doing something like this.”
“Do you think I wanted to? Why did you have to go digging into the past? Why couldn't you leave it alone? Magus is dead. All you did was stir things up! Make me do...things. Awful things.”
He rubbed his face with his free hand, but he was still too alert, too deadly. Remy used the moment to move a few steps closer. He nodded for Dorothy to get into the hall. She shook her head.
“You took my father and my mother from me.”
“She was going to kill herself anyway and he wasn't your father! I am! I'm your father! Me! Emma loved me! She never loved him.”
“But she didn't,” Remy said, deciding it was time to get his attention again. “She wrote you a letter. That's why I came here last night, to give it to you. She wanted you to be free of the past, not bound by it. She wanted the lies to end.”
“No. She's lying. She lied back then and she's lying now. Lying bitch!” He was moving, stepping from one foot to the other, making the gun waver between them, his hands clenching as he cursed her.
Dorothy took a step toward Titus. “Don't you understand, Titus. If you were...are my father, then you took yourself away from me by what you've done? You know me, better than anyone. Do you really think I would condone murder?”
He stared at her, his features twisted, his eyes tortured with doubt and rage.
“You didn't do it for me. You did it for yourself. All of it. If you really believed it was the right thing to do, you wouldn't have hidden it from me.” Dorothy looked at him for one, desperate moment, then she said, “If you care about me at all, Titus, you'll leave now. I can't even bear to look at you.”
For a moment, it seemed like sanity might return, but he shook it away, staring at her as if he couldn't believe what he was hearing. “You forgave Emma and she abandoned you! But you've got nothing for me, your own father?”
Dorothy frowned. “How could you know about that? You weren't there.”
But Remy knew how.
“He had you bugged,” Remy said. “Or Emma. Or both of you. How long were you going to let Dorothy suffer in that monster's hands, Titus? How long were you going to let him torture her, if you believed she was your daughter?”
“I didn't...I wasn't...” But Remy noticed he couldn't look at her. He pointed the gun at Remy. “Shut up! Just shut up! I need to think!”
Tears were streaming down Dorothy's face now. “How could you listen to what he did to me and do nothing?”
Titus took a step toward her. “I didn't want to! But he was right. You needed to learn. You needed to understand that sometimes people have to do things. In case...”
“...I found out? And then you were going to sweep in and rescue me? Accept my gratitude? Be the big hero so I'd like you best again? What kind of monster are you? I thought you were...kind and good and decent.” Dorothy stared at him through her tears. “You bastard! If you really were my father, you'd never have done that to me. You're not my father. I can prove you're not my father. Now get out of my house and out of my life! Get out!”
Remy saw the shift of focus in his eyes. He'd ceased to exist for Titus, but so had Dorothy. He pointed the gun at her heart, as Remy dove at him.
“You're an ungrateful bitch, just like your mother!”
The gun went off as Remy caught him midsection. They both crashed to the ground, rolling back and forth, a tangle of kicking legs and punching fists. He was smaller than Remy, but well trained and desperate. Remy was desperate, too, for them to survive, for a chance to tell Dorothy he loved her.
Titus got his hands around Remy's throat, his thumbs driving for his backbone. Remy tried to pry his hands loose, as stars starting spinning across his view. He dug his thumb into Titus's eye, and heaved his back up, flipping Titus over the top of his head. He rolled over and sprang to his feet, but Titus was already up. They both saw the gun and dived for it at the same time. Remy was a fraction of a second behind. Titus pulled clear, the gun in his hand, but the sound of a siren broke through his rage, turning it to panic.
“How did they know?”
“They brought me here,” Dorothy said. “I opened the gate for them. I was worried when it wouldn't work. It's over. Give me the gun, Titus. At least you can be at peace.”
Remy stepped in front of Dorothy, trying the human shield thing again as he felt an odd rush of cold air brush past him. Titus wasn't looking at them anymore. He was staring at point beyond to their right, his eyes widening in horror.
“I was a better father to her than you were,” he shrieked, then lifted the gun to his head and pulled the trigger.
Remy flinched away from the sight, trying to block it for Dorothy. He grabbed her and pushed them both around the corner into the hall.
“Are you all right?” he asked, clinging to her because he couldn't stop himself. He pushed her back, looking for wounds, feeling down her arms, and then grabbing her close again. He felt her nod. “Look, this isn't the time or the place. But the cops will be here in seconds and I don't know when we'll be alone again, so here it is. I love you. I know it breaks the deal, but I do. With all that's happened, I just thought you ought to know.”
Dorothy lifted her head from his shoulder and looked at him, her eyes wide with wonder, but then she sort of flinched. “There's...stuff...on your face.”
“Damn it, Dorothy—”
She put her hand over his mouth. “I'll just close my eyes.” She did. “I love you, too.”
He bent his head to kiss her, even achieved contact briefly, before the front door burst open.
* * * *
Several hours later, Remy had washed the “stuff” off his face and the cops had been over this new crime scene with the magnifying glass and tweezers. All the evidence was in custody and silence was settling over the house again. They were sitting side by side on the couch in the sitting room that Helene said had been Emma's. Remy had his arm around her and Dorothy was happy to have it there.
“Is that jet of yours anywhere near?” Remy asked.
“Probably. Why?”
“Let's get on it, go to Vegas and get married by Elvis. I've always wanted to get married by Elvis.”
Dorothy stared at him. “Always?”
“Well, at least for the last half an hour.”
She relaxed against him again. “Okay.”
Remy twisted around so he could see her face. “Really?”
“What's the point of having a jet at your beck and call if you can't use it to fly to Vegas and get married by Elvis?”
He chuckled. “True. You do realize he'll be a fake Elvis, don't you?”
Dorothy smiled at him. “Are you sure about that?”
“If you keep looking at me like that, I'm going to have to kiss you again and we have a jet to catch.” He stood up. “Let's do this right.” He grabbed her hands and pulled her up, holding her for a moment before stepping back. So much had been wrong in their lives, he wanted this to be right.
As they passed the room where Titus had killed himself, Dorothy paused by the crime scene tape, still blocking the doorway. “What do you think he saw, just before...”
Remy remembered that cold wind. Had Magus stepped in
to save his daughter? Or had Titus's fevered mind just conjured him up. “I don't know.”
Dorothy lifted her face, as if testing the atmosphere. “I used to feel him near me here, but I don't anymore. Oz is at peace, maybe for the first time. I think my parents are at peace with each other, too.”
“For the first time?” Remy asked, with a half teasing smile.
“Well, maybe the second. We know of at least one other time they got together effectively.” She grinned at him.
Remy grinned back. “I was kind of hoping for some of that effective interaction myself, post Elvis, of course.”
Her grin faded. “I love you, Remy Mistral.”
He touched her cheek, his heart contracting in his chest. “Are you ever going to call me plain Remy?”
She smiled the way she had his first day back in Oz. “I'd like to see how effective you are first.”
[Back to Table of Contents]
* * *
Other Fabulous Books by Pauline Baird Jones
Steamrolled
With all of time at risk, it's a bad time to fall in love...unless it's the only time...
Robert Clementyne is going on a transmogrification machine hunt. He fears finding the machine will be as difficult as pronouncing the name. How can the steam-powered device perform as advertised, and how useful can any information be, coming from a steampunk themed bowling alley/museum?
It's pretty crazy, but he's been there, done that, and thinks he can handle it.
Tangled in Time
Colonel Carey takes a test “flight” through the Garradian time-space portal, but an unexpected impact lands him somewhere and some when. As he attempts to get to Area 51, he crosses paths with Miss Olivia Carstairs, who could be Mary Poppins’ twin sister. Or maybe her cousin. Olivia's got a transmogrification machine powered by steam and a mouth he'd like to kiss like it was his job. Can he convince her to join forces before she shoots him with her derringer?
* * * *
Girl Gone Nova
Doc—Delilah Oliver Clementyne—is on an impossible mission to the Garradian Galaxy. A genius/bad a**, she does the impossible on a regular basis, but this time the impossible might not be possible. Then something truly whacked happens: she falls in love. Wrong time, wrong man, wrong everything. So why does it feel so right?
* * * *
The Key
An Air Force pilot—the best of the best to be assigned to this mission—Sara Donovan isn't afraid to travel far beyond the Milky Way on an assignment that takes her into a galaxy torn apart by a long and bitter warfare between the Dusan and the Gadi. When she accidentally discovers a mysterious, hidden city, it brings her closer to the answers she seeks—about her baffling abilities and her mother's past.
* * * *
Out of Time
What happens when a twenty-first century woman on a mission to change the past meets a thoroughly 1940s man trying to stay alive in the hellish skies over war-torn Europe? Melanie “Mel” Morton is an adventure reporter, who lost her grandfather in World War II. Enter Jack Hamilton, sexy octogenarian, genius/scientist and former WWII bomber pilot. What he tells Mel sends her on her craziest adventure yet—straight into the past to save her grandfather's life—and change Jack's future, if she doesn't accidentally end it. All Mel has to do is outmaneuver the entire German army—and not fall in love with Jack. Unfortunately, eluding the German army is the easy part...
* * * *
Do Wah Diddy Die
Luci Seymour—sexy & free spirited—returns to steamy New Orleans in search of the father she's never met. She finds murder, mayhem, love and adventure when her timing puts her directly in the sights of an elderly hit couple and a con man's last scam.
* * * *
The Spy Who Kissed Me
Isabel “Stan” Stanley's mother has been hoping a man would fall in Stan's lap. But when a handsome spy dives through the sunroof of her car in a hail of bullets, Stan's sure this wasn't what momma had in mind. Bad guys beware. Stan's packing a glue gun and she knows how to use it. Sort of.
* * * *
The Lonesome Lawmen Books:
* * * *
The Last Enemy
Two men need her. One needs her dead. Romance author, Dani Gwynne is plotting her own survival, working against time, terror and her fear of heights. Deputy US Marshal Matt Kirby is the lawman in charge of finding her—and stopping the hit man hunting her. With the clock ticking on a macabre game of hide and seek, Dani must defeat a killer who won't stop until he gets what he wants—or destroys them all trying.
* * * *
Byte Me
Deputy US Marshal, Jake Kirby, is a top tracker who always gets his fugitive. Now he's hot on the trail of a gang of cyber-thieves with an unusual agenda. That trail takes him to Colorado and a bar managed by the sexy, mysterious Phoebe Mentel. Instant attraction complicates this high tech chess game between two people who don't know how to lose and are afraid to love.
* * * *
Missing You
Denver Homicide detective, Luke Kirby is looking for peace and quiet in the mountains above Denver. Instead he finds a beautiful and mysterious woman bringing a storm of trouble for them both. Too bad she can't remember what, why or who.
* * * *
Lonesome Mama
Debra Kirby's boys aren't lonesome lawmen anymore, and now the long time widow finds herself pining for a bit of adventure and romance in her life. When Donovan Kincaid (introduced in Missing You) offers a plane ride to a friend's wedding, neither expects to run into trouble—and the “Lonesome Mama” gets more than she wished for.
* * * *
Non-Fiction:
* * * *
Adapting Your Novel for Film
A nuts and bolts guide to adapting your novel for film.
* * * *
Managing Your Book Writing Business (with Jamie Engle)
No one likes to hear that publishing is a tough business. We didn't when we first poked our heads out of our writing holes and took a look around. We had unrealistic expectations of what it would be liked to break the publishing barrier. Those expectations included being showered with money and adulation. It would have been easy for those expectations to give way to discouragement when we got an unwelcome dose of reality on first contact with real, published authors. The consensus was, you'd better love writing or you'd better run, save yourself. This isn't a business for the faint of heart.
* * * *
Made Up Mayhem
A quick and dirty guide to writing the suspense novel.
[Back to Table of Contents]
* * *
ABOUT AUTHOR PAULINE BAIRD JONES
* * * *
Pauline Baird Jones is the award-winning author of ten novels of science fiction romance, science fiction romance/steampunk, action-adventure, suspense, romantic suspense and comedy-mystery. She's written two non-fiction books, Adapting Your Novel for Film and Made-up Mayhem, and she co-wrote Managing Your Book Writing Business with Jamie Engle. Her seventh novel, Out of Time, an action-adventure romance set in World War II, is an EPPIE 2007 winner. Her eighth novel, The Key won an Independent Book Award Bronze Medal (IPPY) for 2008 and is a 2007 Dream Realm Awards Winner. Girl Gone Nova, her ninth novel, won the EPIC Book Award for 2010, a Single Titles Reviewer's Choice award and is nominated for a Romantic Times Best Books award. She also has short stories in several anthologies. Originally from Wyoming, she and her family moved from New Orleans to Texas before Katrina. You can read more about her and her books at: www.perilouspauline.com
* * *
Visit www.lldreamspell.com for information on additional titles by this and other authors.
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