After Flicka’s wedding Mass, Rae held the back of the pew in front of her and stared at the cave of white columns. The domed nave soared as high as heaven. The priests’ chanting, much reviled in Rae’s childhood church as superstition and witchcraft, filled the air as much as the incense perfumed it. “It was beautiful, Wulf. It really was. I couldn’t believe they sang Matthew Six.”
“You mean The Lord’s Prayer?” Wulf stretched, lifting his arms and lengthening every joint.
On the other side of Wulf, Ms. Keller smiled at Rae and walked out the other end of the pew. The older gentleman who had served their dinner at Wulf’s house walked in front of her.
“It was so beautiful. It was more like theater or art.”
“I’ve always liked the Mass. Catholicism has its charms.”
“Yeah?”
“The Lutheran churches in Germany are more conservative than in the States. The service is more similar to the Catholic Mass. My mother used to stand between Constantin and me to help us understand and find our places in the hymnals, and to make sure we behaved. I can almost feel my mother holding my hand sometimes. Can you imagine having two four-year-old boys at the same time?”
His nostalgic smile broke Rae’s heart. “She was beautiful, too. Your sister, I mean. Her smile was beautiful.”
“She looked happy.” His smile softened, turning sadder.
“You aren’t sorry that she married him?”
“Certainly not. That spoiled child and the rat bastard deserve each other.”
Rae said, “Sometimes men are sorry when their younger sisters or daughters move on,” because she was a psychology major and couldn’t help herself.
Wulf looked over at her, making eye contact with those dark blue eyes of his, and he smiled a slow, self-mocking smile. “A little, but it means both she and I can both ‘move on’ to the next phase of our lives.”
Rae couldn’t look away, and neither did Wulf, for a long moment in the church that seemed to turn to clouds around them.
He couldn’t kiss her of course. Not in a church. Not with all his family and friends watching. Everyone would get the wrong idea.
She would get the wrong idea.
Wulf turned and offered her his arm. “Dieter will meet us in the back. We have a few hours before the reception.”
Oh, he meant that he could move on to the next phase of his life, without her.
Of course he did.
Hoping that he meant anything else was unrealistic. Living in the moment didn’t mean engaging in fantasies.
A spark of anger flared, that he would toy with her like that.
She had one day left with him. She didn’t want to spend that day angry.
She banked that spark of anger for later. The grieving process generally went through denial, then anger, then bargaining, then depression, then acceptance. She would need stuff like this for the anger part of it, so she saved it up. Yeah, this would piss her off later.
She was pretty deep in the denial part just then.
It was good to know these things about oneself, psychologically healthy. She dove into the big pit of denial and felt obliviousness close over her head.
Rae tucked her hand under Wulf’s strong arm and smiled up at him as if this bright, sunny morning would never end. They walked out of the pew.
Dieter appeared over to the side of the church, near a dark alcove, and beckoned to them.
They followed him through the rear hallways of the church, picking up security men as they walked the corridors until a crowd of black suits surrounded them. If Rae hadn’t recognized all Wulf’s security guys, she might have been intimidated.
Behind them, another crowd of black suits bustled around Flicka and Pierre.
When they hit the back doors of the basilica, the security men broke their tight formation and fanned out, pushing back the crowd while Wulf, Rae, Flicka, and Pierre strode with just a few security staff to the waiting black SUVs.
The noontime sun blazed overhead and washed their shadows down to black puddles at their feet.
The royals were all looking to the cars while Hans and Friedhelm beside Rae scanned the crowd.
At the SUVs, the doors were opened for Rae and Wulf. Flicka and Pierre were a step behind them and veered off for the other SUV. Rae reached back for Wulf’s hand, just because they were practically in the cars and no one would see.
She glanced back at the alabaster basilica shining in the Parisian sunlight.
Behind Wulf, past his dark blue eyes and the black shoulder of his morning coat, silver sparkled in the crowd.
Sparks spat.
Rae grabbed Wulf’s hand and threw herself backward, yanking him to the ground.
Confusion clouded his blue eyes as she felt herself falling, but the bang echoed off the marble and cement around them.
Wulf wrapped his arms and legs around Rae as they fell, shielding her.
Men scuffled beyond what Rae could see, people screamed, and another sharp blast from the gun pounded her ears.
Wulf’s legs clamped around her. His arms closed around her head.
Black suits landed on top of them both, and the air was gone.
Rae gasped to breathe.
More screams, and a Bluetooth lying on the ground beside Rae’s head squawked, “Gun! Gun!”
Scrambling rattled above her, and they were both encased in a thick shell of black suits.
Wulf huffed beside her head.
Hearing him breathe quenched some of the panic. If he was breathing, he wasn’t dead.
The gun cracked one more time, and Wulf’s whole body flinched and tightened around her.
Rae gasped again, trying to breathe.
There was no air.
Drowning.
Suffocating.
Dying.
She needed air.
No more gunshots tore through the air.
The Bluetooth beside her squalled, “Frei!”
Hands grabbed Wulf’s shoulders and pulled him off Rae.
She still couldn’t breathe. Her lungs fought for air.
Wulf fell to his knees beside her. “Rae! Are you all right? Rae!”
Her lungs strained against her sides and broke free.
Rae gasped great gulps of air, trying to get enough.
His hands stroked her torso, and Rae touched his chest, reassuring herself that no crimson blood stained his clothes.
She leaned on the side of the SUV for support while she breathed.
The razor-sharp metal edges of a bullet hole sliced her finger.
He said, “You’re all right? When they landed on me, I couldn’t hold myself off you. Are you all right? Were you crushed? Is there pain?”
“Fine,” she gasped. “I’m fine. Wind knocked out of me. Fine.” Wulf examined her arms, grabbed her shoulders, and twisted her, checking her for, she assumed, bloody gaping wounds. His hand stroked her stomach. “Wulf, I’m fine. You can stop.”
The wind brought the sulfuric smell of gunpowder to them, stinging Rae’s nose. Gunpowder smelled the same all over the world.
A shrill blast of a woman’s scream shattered the air around them.
Wulf turned. “Flicka.”
He shoved Rae down to the ground with one hand, pointed to her while staring at Hans, and sprinted to the other SUV. Four of his guys ran with him.
Hans tackled her, even though Rae was already sitting on the ground. She yelled, “Get off me! She’s hurt!”
Hans tried to keep her from jumping up, but Rae pulled his hair to drag him off, got her feet under her, and ran.
Hans pounded right behind her.
Near the other car, Wulf slid to the ground beside his sister. A blob of scarlet blood stained her white dress down the left side. Two of Wulf’s security staff tugged at her arms, trying to get her up and to the cars. Another black suit stood above her, pointing his pistol at anyone who moved on the perimeter.
Wulf shouted, “Flicka!”
“I’m not hurt! Dieter!” Flicka cried and pointed.
On the grass beside her, Dieter lay on his side, clutching his upper arm.
Rae ran to Dieter.
A few yards away, a pile of burly men sprang apart, hauled Pierre Grimaldi to his feet, and hustled him toward a limo.
Pierre turned and reached through their broad backs, shouting, “Flicka! No! Retourne!”
As Rae ran toward them, Flicka told Wulf, “I’m fine. He got Dieter!”
Rae dove to the ground beside Dieter. Blood spilled between his fingers where his hand clamped his arm and soaked his black suit coat, darkening it. He said something harsh in German.
Rae grabbed Dieter’s arm and pressed her hand on the hot wound, which ran across the side of his arm, back to his triceps.
Wulf yanked off his coat and vest and said something to Flicka just as the first fweeping police car skidded in front of the limos.
Flicka tore at the slip inside her dress, ripping off a long white bandage and throwing it to Rae.
Rae caught the white streamer out of the air, wadded it up, and crammed it against the wound, pressing, trying to stop the bleeding.
Wulf twisted his vest into a long strip, looped it around Dieter’s arm and the wad of ivory silk, and twisted the cloth, making a compression bandage.
Flicka ripped another swatch of cloth off and tossed it to Rae.
Rae dabbed the blood around the bandage, which was already turning scarlet from the inside like veins on a chrysanthemum.
Rae crooned to Dieter, “It’s okay. It’ll be okay.”
Dieter cussed like a Swiss sailor.
An ambulance wailed and stopped beside the SUVs.
Rae looked up. A wall of black suits surrounded them, facing out. Handguns pointed outward in all directions like a firearm phalanx.
Beyond the security guys’ legs over by the basilica, a man lay on the ground, held down by more men in black suits. The gunman strained against the security guys. One of the suits punched him in the ribs.
Wheels and running feet came toward them. The security guys around Rae parted to let the stretcher through.
The orderlies lifted Dieter onto the stretcher and wheeled him away. If his cursing was any indication, he was going to be fine. Pissed off as all hell, but fine.
The other security men lifted Rae and Flicka to their feet. Wulf hopped up.
Hans said, “Wulfram. Now. We should leave now.”
Wulf grabbed Rae’s arm and pushed Flicka toward a group of his men. They all trotted back to the SUVs. Flicka got into the SUV behind them.
In the back seat, Wulf wiped off the blood smeared on Rae’s hands with his suit coat. “Are you all right?”
“Yeah. I’m fine.”
“I couldn’t hold myself off you. My knee slipped when my staff piled on.” His hand stroked her side and rested on her hip. “Are you sure you weren’t crushed?”
“It just knocked the wind out of me. I’m fine, now.”
He wrapped his arms around her. “My security did their jobs, you see? No one was killed. They took him down. We’re safe, ja?”
“Yeah,” she said. “It’s not that big a deal.”
He reared back and stared at her. His blue eyes held mortification and then, oddly, hope. “It’s not?”
“Wulf, honeybunch, I grew up in the shadow of The Border.” She was shaking a little, so she went full-blown, gun-totin’ Western stereotype to compensate. “Back home, illegal drugs and trafficked people ran across our ranch all day, all night. Snipers sat on the ridge lines and shot you if you took out a cell phone because they assumed you had seen the drug mules and were calling La Migra. My brothers and I used to find dead drops of drug bales, and if the drug lords had known that we knew where their stashes were, an elimination team would have broken into our house and killed my whole family in our sleep. This ain’t nothin’.”
He dragged her back into his arms. “So this didn’t frighten you off.”
“In Pirtleville, one amateur with a gun who barely managed to crease one person in a crowd wouldn’t even be enough to gossip about after church. That crackpot couldn’t hit the broad side of a barn, from the inside, with the doors closed.”
Her heart trembled, but not too much.
Wulf’s great inhale and sigh could have been an aborted sob or the last gasp of panic leaving him.