And the children were running and screaming now, as they heard the gunfire, and as teachers tried to usher them back into the school.
But Becky was still reaching into her pocket quickly, as if she was reaching for that remote control.
And when she pulled it out, Charles’s heart sank. But it dropped from her hand.
He stopped running again, and aimed again, and fired just as she picked it up. But he hit her dead center this time. Right through the head.
She stopped all movement, and fell backwards, away from the remote control.
By the time Charles handed the rifle back to Mick, and he and Mick ran all the way to the school and up to Becky’s body, it was done. She was dead.
Charles bent over from physical exertion, and emotional exhaustion.
Mick grabbed the remote control that was just outside of her grasp. And looked at his big brother. “Oh, yeah,” he said. “You’re the boss.”
Charles would have shouted from the rooftops that Mick the Tick actually gave him the family crown. But he couldn’t even acknowledge it. He couldn’t speak at all. This was a call far too close to home, even for his hot blood.
EPILOGUE
The sun fell lightly over the sandy white beach in Majorca, and Charles and Jenay reclined at the water’s edge. It was their first vacation in a long time, and they were on a private island, all to themselves, in the middle of the Mediterranean. It was midnight, the stars were shining bright, and life was magnificent.
“Can we stay here forever, Charlie?” Jenay asked.
“Only if we never want to see our children again. Because this place will never be the same if we bring our brood up in here.” He looked at her with a smile. “What’s your choice? This beautiful serenity forever, or Donald and Ashley and Robert and Tony and--”
Jenay laughed. “It’s not even tempting. Nope. I’ll take the children. Hands down. Warts and all.”
Charles squeezed her hand. “So will I,” he said.
“It’s a wonderful place to get away, and I hope we can come back often. But I’ll take Jericho over this any day of the week.”
“Brent would love to hear Makayla say those words.”
“She will in time,” Jenay said. “I couldn’t say them early in our marriage either. Especially the way those Jericho townspeople treated me.”
“But now they treat you better than they treat me,” Charles said with a smile. “You’re one of them now. I’m still the bastard.”
Jenay laughed. “And you love it, too. You love getting under their skins. You wouldn’t have it any other way.”
“Damn right,” Charles said and leaned his head further back. Life could not be better than it was right then.
Until he felt a drop on his forehead. And then another. And looked up.
“Oh, no,” Jenay said, feeling the drops too. “They said it could be beautiful in the Mediterranean, and then a rainstorm.”
They began getting their supplies, and rising to their feet. Jenay grabbed her big straw hat, and put it on, and her big straw bag, and stuffed her glasses and her books and her cup in, and then took Charles hand as they ran through the sand, toward their private villa, to beat the rain.
But the rains came and they came hard. Charles saw Jenay plodding through with her army of supplies and went to her, grabbed her off her feet, and carried her, across his arms, as he ran.
Jenay laughed. “Put me down,” she said as the rain drenched them both.
“I can carry you. I got you!”
“You better not drop me, boy!” Jenay warned. “I mean it, Charles!”
“Have I ever dropped you before?” he said as he plodded through the thick sand.
“You’ve never carried me across a beach in a monsoon before.”
“It’s not a monsoon,” Charles said, although it felt as if he was running in quicksand.
Jenay looked up. “It’s coming down harder,” she said, “and our villa seems like a hundred miles away!”
Charles was breathing heavily now. “You got to lose some weight, Jenay,” he said with a grin.
“No you didn’t!” Jenay said, grinning too.
“You’re killing me here! What do you have in those thighs, woman? Two little people?”
“Wait until I get you in that villa. I am going to kick your ass, Charles Sinatra! I’m going to kick you right where it hurts the most and hurt you up so bad that they’re going to start calling you Little Daddy Sinatra!”
When she said those words, Charles laughed so hard that he lost his footing, and the little energy he had left, and dropped her in the sand. He fell on top of her.
At first, he just knew she was going to be angry with him. She did exactly what she told him not to do. But as they lay there, in all of that late-night rain, with the beauty of the stars and the water surrounding them, she couldn’t get angry if she wanted to.
She placed her hand on the side of his face. His hair was so wet it was slicked down, and his eyes were as green as an emerald stone.
“I never dreamed a girl like me could ever see a place like Spain,” she said. “When we met, I was ready to accept a job in Albuquerque, New Mexico, working at a Motel 6 or someplace like that. I don’t even remember the name. And I thought that was the big time.”
Charles smiled. The lines of age on the side of his eyes showed brightly through the moonlight.
“But you made my dreams come true,” she continued. “And so much more. Thank you, Charlie.”
He smiled and looked into her beautiful face. In her big hat, and with her beautiful dark skin, she looked like the human embodiment of love to him. He placed his hands on both sides of her narrow face. “My dreams did come true, too, Jenay,” he said, “the moment I met you. And you forgot part of that story. You forgot that I was willing to go to New Mexico myself, to have you.”
Jenay smiled. “Now we’re lying here in the rain, like two fools.”
“Two fools in love,” Charles said, as his lips began to move down to her lips. “That’s the difference.”
And when he kissed her, and pressed his fully aroused penis against her wet sundress, they knew they were about to take foolish love to an entirely different level.
They got naked on that beach that night, in that magnificent rainstorm, and made long, passionate, foolish love.
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Big Daddy Sinatra: Charles In Charge (Big Daddy Sinatra Series Book 6) Page 17
