She shook her head. “She killed him, Shane.”

“I know.”

“She’s going to get away with it.”

“No.”

“How are you going to stop her?”

He turned to look at her, his eyes flat, and she remembered what he did for a living.

“You can’t kill her,” Agnes said. “No.”

Agnes nodded, relieved. “Then what?”

He turned back to the road. “Something will come up.”

“Just like that.”

“She’ll make it happen.”

“Why?”

“Her type always does.” He went still, the way Rhett went still when he heard something she couldn’t hear, the way Rhett was going still now, and Agnes listened, but there wasn’t anything.

She sighed. “Okay, listen, what I was trying to tell you is, as much as I have enjoyed getting naked with you, I really need something permanent and solid in my life. And no offense and please don’t kill me for saying this, but somebody who shoots people for a living probably isn’t going to blink about cheating on his girlfriend. I’d rather be alone than lied to again.” That sounded pathetic, so she shut up, but it was true.

“Agnes, I eliminate only the targets I’m assigned,” Shane said.

“Yes, but compared to that, cheating doesn’t seem that bad, right? I mean, you shoot somebody in the morning, a little nookie on the side must seem like jaywalking. I need to be with somebody who understands that love is serious business, that I am serious business, someone who will stay forever, someone who won’t betray me and then come around with a ‘Hey, I’m sorry, I won’t do it again’ the next day and think that makes everything just dandy. I’ve got a hole in my heart here. I’m not taking any more chances.”

His eyes were still on the road, and she stumbled on, trying to make him understand.

“Look, I just cannot afford that kind of pain again, okay? I can’t do it. I have to find some good, kind, boring guy who would rather slit his throat than hurt me because I can’t take another shot to the heart. It’ll kill me and I’m not kidding. I can’t do it again. I have to choose really carefully this time. And a hitman, well, that kind of doubles my chances for the shot-to-the-heart thing.”

Something rumbled down the road, and Rhett barked as Agnes turned to look. A big-ass truck came into view carrying what looked like a big-ass tank except there was no turret on top, just a scissors-shaped thing, all of it painted army green.

Agnes looked at Shane, not concerned, because he was there, but definitely puzzled. “Are we being invaded?”

“No,” Shane said. “You’re being invaded. Later. By me.” He stood up as the truck stopped and then backed up in line with the ruined bridge.

“What is that?” Agnes said, postponing for the moment her exasperation because he wasn’t listening to her.

“It’s an AVLB,” Shane said, as the tank rumbled off the flatbed it had been on.

“Of course it is.”

“An armored vehicle launched bridge. The army uses them to put in bridges during an attack. Watch and learn.”

“A bridge?” Agnes lost her breath. “That’s a bridge? Why is the army giving you a bridge?”

“The army isn’t giving it to me. It’s more of a loaner. To get us through the wedding. Then we’ll work on something more permanent.”

Us. We. “We will?” Agnes said faintly.

The tank moved up to the edge of the cut, making more racket than Cerise and Hot Pink multiplied by twelve. Black smoke puffed out into the darkening evening sky as Rhett howled and the flamingos honked, and Agnes cringed at the way the tracks tore up the gravel roadway but it wasn’t the time to point that out. She was getting a bridge. She squinted, trying to understand how she was getting a bridge as the folded-over sections on top of the tank body slowly began to extend upward into the air.

Carpenter and Lisa Livia came out onto the porch.

“I was going to complain about the noise,” Lisa Livia said, still looking fragile but much better than she had before, “but now I’m just impressed. Leave it to the army to mechanize an erection.”

“Laugh now, funny girl,” Shane said. “That’s gonna be a bridge in about a minute.”

“And that bridge can hold over sixty tons,” Carpenter said.

“So it’s a strong erection,” Lisa Livia said, looking at Carpenter.

“Oh, yes,” Carpenter said, standing more erect himself.

“Do you mind?” Agnes said, watching the miracle of her bridge literally unfold. “I’m having a moment here.”

The road sections reached their apex and began to go down, the hydraulic arm in the center scissoring them apart. Within a couple of minutes, the near end touched down and the far end was in place; then the tank driver disconnected the bridge from the body of the tank and drove back onto the transporter, and the transporter drove off into the gathering darkness.

Rhett settled down, secure in the knowledge that he’d driven off the invaders.

“Wow,” Agnes said, looking at her bridge.

“Was it good for you?” Lisa Livia said. “It was good for me.”

“That bridge was built for tanks,” Shane told Agnes proudly. “It’ll take your wedding traffic and then some. It’s even better than what you had.”

“Thank you,” Agnes said to him, trying not to sound hero-worship-y.

“But it’s temporary,” Lisa Livia said, warning in her voice. “It’s a bridge,” Agnes said. “It’s right here. And it’s even better than what I had.”

“Good point,” Lisa Livia said, leaning on Carpenter a little. Carpenter put his arm around her.

“And I’m thinking the price is right,” Agnes said, and sipped her coffee as Shane settled his arm around her.

“And my mother is going to have a stroke,” Lisa Livia said.

“It’s a beautiful bridge,” Agnes said, and tried to forget all the hell swirling around her and the need to be practical and not get hurt.

She could be smart tomorrow. Tonight she had a bridge and she was holding on to him.


Three hours later, Agnes heard laughter from Lisa Livia’s room next door, rolled over, put her chin on Shane’s chest, and said, “It really is a beautiful bridge.”

“Uh-huh,” he said, in postcoital stupor.

“It’s nice about Lisa Livia and Carpenter, too. I mean, it’s a little bit Bobbsey Twins-you and me, her and Carpenter-but then neither one of you is sticking around after the wedding anyway, so it’s not as tidy as it seems, right?”

“Mmmhm.”

“I mean, basically, Lisa Livia and I are just extended one-night stands, it’s not like we’re anything special. I’ve known that from the beginning, that’s why I kept making those pathetic attempts to end this before you ended it and left me. Which I’m giving up, by the way. You got me a bridge, you got me. My God.”

Shane lifted his head, waking up more, and frowned at her. “What?”

Agnes gave up. “Thank you for my bridge.”

“Yeah. Before that.”

She sighed. “Nothing.”

Shane put his hand on the back of her head, pulled her to him, and kissed her, fighting his way to full consciousness, “You’re welcome. Can we talk about whatever that was in the morning?”

“No,” Agnes said. “Forget it, it was dumb. Four Wheels didn’t send those guys to kill me, did he?”

“No,” Shane said, letting his head fall back on the pillow.

Agnes moved back to her own pillow. “Then it’s Brenda.”

Shane yawned. “Or somebody else who thinks you’re sitting on five million and killing you is the way to get it, but since everybody knows we opened the shelter and there was no five mil, yeah, I think it’s Brenda.”

“I’m going to sink her yacht.”

“She can probably swim.”

“I don’t care. She’s gone crazy. It was selfish and horrible to try to swindle me out of the house, but what she did today to Four Wheels, that was just insane. So I believe she’s trying to have me killed. And I’m glad you’re here to stop her. And I’m going to sink her yacht.”

“You’re not a one-night stand.”

Agnes caught her breath. “Just ignore that I said that.”

“I don’t know what you are, but you are not a one-night stand.”

His voice was so insistent that she went still, as if everything would go wrong if she moved.

“I don’t know what the hell’s going on,” Shane said, sounding tired. “Four days ago, I knew exactly who I was and what I was doing. Tonight, all I know is that I want you.”

“You’ve got me.” The words were out without her thinking, and she wouldn’t have taken them back if she could.

“Not just tonight.”

“I know,” Agnes said. “You’ve got me. I know you’re going to leave. Just come back when you can. Make Two Rivers home base. Don’t get killed. Come back to me.” She heard the need in her voice and felt ashamed for a minute. “If you can’t, just say so, don’t lie about it, but-”

“I wouldn’t lie,” he said.

“Of course you would,” Agnes said, annoyed. “You work for the government. You’d have to lie. Just tell me you can’t tell me or something. Don’t lie

He rolled over on his side and slid his arm around her waist, and the weight of him there felt good, secure, pulling her in. “Agnes, I don’t know who lied to you in the past-”

“Taylor, my two fiancés before Taylor-”

“-but it wasn’t me.”

“-and my father,” Agnes finished.

“Your father,” Shane said. “That one’s new. Tell me you didn’t hit him with a frying pan.”

“I was ten,” Agnes said. “He told me he and my mom were going to work for the Peace Corps for a couple of weeks, and then he dropped me off at boarding school.”

“The Peace Corps for a couple of weeks?”

“I was ten,” Agnes said. “He was my dad. I believed him. Sue me.”