She pulled the keys to the Camaro from her purse as she walked across the employee parking lot.  When she got to her 1969 Camaro Z-28, a car she’d been driving since she got her driver’s license in high school, she slipped the key into the lock, opened the door and fired up the small-block 302 under the hood. 

Amy pulled around to the gate to pull out of the parking area and onto Industrial Parkway.  As she looked over to her dad’s office, she saw that his car was gone.  She expected that her father-in-law’s car was gone from his office around the corner, but she couldn’t see to be sure.  No matter, she thought to herself, I’ll be at the Dixons in a few minutes and they probably won’t have started.

She didn’t see the brown Dodge Diplomat that slipped in behind her when she turned onto Mercury Blvd.  It stayed a couple of cars behind her until the took the clover-leaf ramp to LaSalle Ave.  She loved running that ramp, and since there were no cars in front of her, she downshifted to second, punched the gas-pedal and pushed the RPMs up.  The racing-inspired engine loved the attention, and as she turned in for the ramp, she could feel the rear tires closing on the edge of traction.  She held the throttle steady, pulling away from the cars behind her. 

As she got to the top of the ramp onto LaSalle, the cars behind had dropped back another hundred yards.  She shifted to third and punched the throttle again.  After the momentary pause in acceleration, the car leapt forward again, almost touching a hundred miles per hour before shifting to fourth.  When she hit one-twenty-five, she lifted off the gas and the car rapidly bled off its speed. 

Amy didn’t see the brown Dodge trying to get around the cars she’d left in her wake on LaSalle as she turned onto Settler’s Landing Road.  The Dodge didn’t make the light, though, so they lost touch with her when she turned onto Armistead. 

A couple of minutes later, Amy pulled up outside the carriage house at Ed and Sharon Dixon’s house… her husband’s parents.  As she expected, both of her parent’s cars were there, as well as Jonathan’s Porsche and his sister’s giant four-wheel-drive catering van. 

Jack Dixon stepped through the back door to greet his wife, a Margarita in hand for her.  “Hey Babe.  Donna have to kick you out?” he said, laughing.

“No,” she said defensively, then after a moment admitted, “Ok, if you must know, yes.”

Jack laughed and leaned over to kiss his wife as he handed her the drink.  When she saw the mirth in his eyes, she laughed, too. 

“I love you, Jonathan Dixon,” she said to him as she looked him in the eyes. 

“I love you, too, Amy Dixon.”

Amy set her drink on the table, wrapped her arms around her husband’s shoulders and gave him the kiss she thought he deserved. 

“I like it,” Jack said with a grin as Amy finally pulled away.  “We need to revisit that later… but dinner is about ready.  And I have an announcement.”

“What is it?” she asked, excitedly.

“You’ll know in a few minutes,” he replied with a smug smile.  Jack turned on his heel and stepped back through the door, holding it for his wife. 

A few minutes later everyone was gathered around the table for their weekly ritual, Taco Tuesday.  Nicole had been cooking tacos for her family since high school, almost every Tuesday.  Over the last few months, as things had gotten busier, it had become a ritual to drop everything so that they could hang out. 

“No date tonight, Honey?” Sharon asked her daughter, Nicole.

“No, Mom,” she replied with the beginnings of exasperation.  Any time she didn’t have a date, she was asked about it by her mother. 

“Hey, Nicci,” her father started, “have you kept in touch with Rolf at all?  I kind of miss him.  He was a pretty good guy.”

“No,” she replied, a touch sad at the thought of Rolf, “he just kind of dropped off the planet a while back.  He wrote back a couple of times, but I haven’t heard anything from him in a couple of years.”

The conversation lightened up a little after that.  Amy was working on a couple of new titles for the video game company.  They expected to have several ready for the show in October.  Then, all eyes turned to Jonathan “Jack” Dixon to hear his announcement.

“I have been asked to go to Arizona next month to shoot a human-interest piece on illegal border crossers.  I’ve been assigned a writer, and we’re going to spend a week near Tucson working on a piece for a couple of big-name magazines.”

“That is awesome,” Amy said as she turned to give her husband a kiss of congratulations.  Everyone at the table nodded their approval. 

“Excellent work, Jack,” Bill Prince, Jack’s father-in-law said, from across the table.  “Seeing your past work, I know that you will kill it and it will lead to even more great things.”

There was a round of conversation around the table about Tucson and what he might find there.  Everyone was terribly excited for his opportunity. 

“There is one thing, Jack,” Ed Dixon said as the conversation started to die down, “you need to be careful.  I was talking to Gunny this afternoon, and his KnR business is skyrocketing.”

“KnR?” Chrissy asked.

“Sorry, kidnap and ransom,” Bill replied to his wife.  “It isn’t just the border either, but there is a lot of activity in those areas.  Unsavory characters will kidnap someone, especially an American they think might have family with money, and ransom them back.”

“Exactly.  Gunny mentioned that they have had an uptick in work related to that threat, even here in the US.  As a result, they have been doing more training on hostage rescue.  They have all but dropped their government work to concentrate on KnR, hostage rescue and general security,” Ed said.

“Wow, Dad, I had no idea,” Jack replied, “but I’ll do everything I can to stay safe.  The magazine suggested hiring a local guide.  They have some feelers out for suitable prospects.”

As dinner wound down, Jack and Amy headed home.  Jack in his 944 and Amy in her Camaro.  Fifteen minutes later, Jack was punching the security code into the home alarm as Amy retrieved her purse from her car before heading up the stairs into the beach house from the drive-under garage. 

***

At the end of the street, the brown Dodge sat in the dark.  The two men in the front seat making a note of the other car that pulled in… her husband… and the time.  They had been shadowing her for a couple of days to see when she was most vulnerable. 

“She’s easily a million-dollar payday, John.  You saw her in-law’s house, and her parent’s house.  She runs a very successful company, and both her dad and her husband’s dad run big operations, too.  We might even be able to cash out higher than that.”

“Seems all well and good, Meeks, but something doesn’t feel right.” 

John couldn’t find anything on Ed Dixon’s or Bill Prince’s backgrounds.  That bothered him.  And even in just a couple of days watching her, they had noticed a few of her friends that looked “military” as John liked to say.  Meeks always countered that with as many military installations as there were around this area, almost everyone looked “military.” 

“I’m just sayin’ that I think we are missing something.  We need to be patient.  Like that brown-haired lady she had lunch with yesterday.  She screamed FBI or somethin’ to me.  It was like she saw everything and everyone around them the whole time.  And we don’t know nuthin’ about her family, aside from they got some money.”

“John, you are such a wuss.” Meeks said as he shook his head.  “We’ll watch her for a while longer, but I think she’ll be an easy mark.”

“It’s now or never,” Gunny said into his radio, prompting both pairs of men to begin their trek forward.  If they could run, even with the weapons and gear, it would only take them about seventy-five seconds to cover the ground, but they couldn’t just stand up and sprint.  They needed some stealth if they hoped to get to the house without being noticed.  Instead of heading straight in, they spent as much time as they could keeping a screen in front of them. 

Four and a half minutes later Gunny was at the back door, Gino at the front.  “Ding, dong, Avon calling… Bitches,” Gino said into his radio as the charges went off removing the door from the frame and flinging it inward.  At exactly the same time, the rear door did the same thing. 

The guards downstairs were both stunned by the explosions.  The one in the kitchen, at the back of the house, was knocked unconscious as a large chunk of the door slammed into his head.  The guard in the living room stood up, but before he could pull out his gun, he saw the masked man that was first through the door had a rifle trained on his chest. 

Upstairs, Thompson Walters leapt from his bed and made straight for the room in which the girl was being held.  He unlocked the door and rushed over to where she had been sleeping on the floor.  It was obvious that he wasn’t going to be able to make a break for it.  Whoever had come through the door downstairs wasn’t going to let him run away, he thought, unless he had leverage.  His intent was to use the girl as a shield to get out of the house. 

Downstairs, both guards were secured with zip ties.  Gino wasn’t gentle at all with the man he’d taken.  He’d barely been able to breathe as Gino knelt with one knee almost on the back of his neck.  As Bobby cleared the rest of the downstairs area, Gunny called in Duke for their evac. 

“The girl must be upstairs, and there will be at least one more with her,” Bobby said as he took the lead on the stairs. 

“I’ve got two heat signatures to the left at the top of the stairs.  It looks like they are huddled together,” Ronny said into his radio before he headed up the stairs, bringing up the rear. 

“Roger that, Three,” Bobby replied.  At the top of the stairs he turned left.  Gino, right behind him, swept right just to make sure.  None of them expected it, but if they had the technology to mask heat signatures, the kidnappers might also. 

As Bobby approached the end of the hall, the last door was wide open and even before he got there, he could see the kidnapper holding the teenage girl in front of him as a human shield holding his revolver to her head.

“Stop, or I’ll shoot her,” he yelled, frantically looking from man to man. 

Both rescue team members could see the girl was obviously scared out of her mind.  She sobbed loudly and screamed through her gag as her kidnapper manhandled her to keep the gun at her temple.  They could see the tears streaming down her cheeks and soaking into her gag.  It broke Bobby’s heart that she was going through this, and he could feel his anger welling up inside.

He stepped into the room with his M16A2 trained on the forehead of the man holding the gun.  Hitting him in the head would not be a problem, but if the kidnapper had a nervous twitch, the gun could go off and the girl could die.  That was not an acceptable outcome.  “What’s your name?” Bobby asked.

“Put down your gun,” he yelled back.

“No,” Bobby replied flatly, “what’s your name?”

“Put down your gun, or I’ll kill her,” the man yelled again.

“And then what?  If you shoot her, you don’t have a shield anymore.  So, shooting her would be the worst thing to happen to you in your miserable life.”

“I mean it, man, I’ll kill her,” he repeated. 

The girl was almost in hysterics.  She’d been kidnapped two days before in Chicago.  Her father was a prominent politician, and wealthy.  They’d called and demanded a five-hundred-thousand-dollar ransom.  Gunny’s team had been called in after the ransom demand.  When the kidnappers called again to tell them where to drop the money, which was supposed to happen later on that day, they had traced the call back to this farmhouse, a hundred and fifty miles from Chicago. 

“Tasha,” Bobby said calmly, “he’s not going to hurt you.  We are here to take you home.  If he hurts you, he knows that he doesn’t have any leverage left.  Do you hear me?”

The girl nodded weakly, still sobbing. 

“Here’s the deal,” Bobby said calmly, “we already have your guys downstairs.  We know who they are, and they are going to prison.  You aren’t leaving this room a free man.  I don’t give a crap about your threats.  But before you do anything, think about this.  We are NOT the cops. 

“If you hurt that girl, I will put a bullet in your head.  After that, I’ll figure out who you are and who you held dear.  I will take out revenge on them.  Mother, sister, daughter, girlfriend… whatever.  THEY will suffer for your poor decisions.  And I will tell them exactly why, too.  They will know all about you.”

Ronny had moved back down the stairs and gotten the name of the kidnapper from the man that was still conscious downstairs.  He radioed it to Bobby. 

“Do you understand me, Thompson Walters?” Bobby finally asked.  

Hearing the intruder use his name shook his confidence to the core.  In the movies, the good guys always laid down their guns.  He thought that was some sort of unwritten rule.  He would be able to push the girl outside and get in a car and get away.  But these guys weren’t playing by the rules. 

“I want an exit,” Thompson Walters said to the man standing in front of him. 

“You drop the gun and let go of the girl, and you might be able to get out of here alive before the cops arrive.  Until you do that, you don’t have an exit unless you’re dead.”

Outside he could hear the helicopter setting down in the back yard, between the house and the barn. 

“What’s that?” the kidnapper yelled.

“That’s my ride.  Your time is about up,” Bobby replied.  Gino slipped from his spot just outside the door in the hallway into the room behind Bobby and moved off to his left, his rifle also raised and pointed at Walters. 

Walters looked around.  His decision was whether he would set the gun down or just shoot the girl, knowing he would die a moment later. 

“On second thought, I might not shoot to kill.  I might maim you.  If you pull the trigger, your gun hand will get a bullet before the echo dies.  After that, I will subdue you, roughly.  In the end, when the ambulance picks you up, you will have suffered multiple wounds and by the time you go to prison you will be a eunuch.  You are going to be a VERY popular man in prison, Thompson.  And I might still visit your family, just to let them know what kind of man you are,” Bobby said with a grin. 

Thompson Walters moved the gun away from the girl’s head.  As soon as he did, Gino Bell moved in and removed the gun from his hand, dropped him to the floor and zip tied his hands behind his back.  He pulled the zip ties as tight as he could and drew blood from both wrists of the kidnapper. 

Bobby rushed over to Tasha and removed her gag.  “You’re ok, Tasha.  We’re here to take you home.”  Then he cut off the bindings on her wrists.  As soon as she was free, she wrapped her arms around the man in front of her and started crying into his shoulder. 

Bobby scooped her up and started carrying her from the room, down the stairs, through the back door and outside to the waiting chopper.  Gunny and Gino did a final sweep to make sure they hadn’t left anything, while Ronny started checking the girl over for hidden injuries.  They knew that the police would be there any minute, and they didn’t want to be there when they arrived.  That would require too many explanations, and stealth was required for their continued success.

Gino jumped into the front and Gunny hopped into the back and slid the door closed. 

“Take it up, Five,” Gunny said into his radio. 

***

The helicopter set down on top of a high-rise in downtown Chicago.  Franklin Johnson walked over as the side door slid open.  His sixteen-year-old daughter, Tasha, jumped from the helicopter and ran to her father.  When she leapt into his arms, both were in tears.  His little girl was all he had left after her mother had passed away a few years before from cancer. 

Without a word, the chopper took off again and headed to a private airfield just south of Gary, Indiana.  They dropped off the helicopter and boarded their plane to head back to Virginia. 

“Bobby, you are a stone-cold badass,” Gino said as they settled into their seats.  “Man, you scared me, and I know you’re a big teddy-bear.”

“You were in his head, no doubt,” Gunny confirmed.  “He didn’t know how to react because you changed every rule he thought he had to go by.  Good work, my friend.”

“Thanks, guys,” he responded. 

“That bit about his Momma and his sister, dayum,” Ronny exclaimed, “if I didn’t know better, I’da thought you meant it.”

“I guess I missed the fun part.  I mean, I heard it on the radio, but the front row seats were likely better,” Duke chimed in, “but what I heard was epic.  You think they got away?”

“Nah,” Gunny said, “I think the police were only a couple of minutes out.  They’ll get a tip that the guys were involved in that kidnapping and the girl will be able to identify them.  Her father already knows to try to tamp down any conversation about us… and she wouldn’t be able to identify us, anyway.”

They continued to talk and laugh about the successful rescue until the plane set down at Patrick Henry Airport in Newport News, Virginia.  Then the group disembarked, packed their gear back into their various vehicles and headed home.  The after-action report would be tomorrow morning at 0900.

Next up will be some parts from the third book in the Dixon-Prince series, You Don’t Know Jack. In this book, Jack runs into an issue, and it drags the team in as well. Later in the book, Amy and Nicole have their own problem to solve.

It is set a few years later, and Jack has become a successful photographer, while Amy is rocking things as President of a video gaming company. Nicole has launched all out in to the world of catering.

There are lots of stories between the Broken Path and You Don’t Know Jack, and some of those are chronicled in Who, What, When, Why? I have previously published a couple of those here, as well, and i’ll link those below, too.

Planning Vengeance excerpts:

• Planning Vengeance excerpt 1
• Planning Vengeance excerpt 2
• Planning Vengeance excerpt 3
• Planning Vengeance excerpt 4
• Planning Vengeance excerpt 5
• Planning Vengeance excerpt 6
• Planning Vengeance excerpt 7
• Planning Vengeance excerpt 8
• Planning Vengeance excerpt 9

Links to stories in Who, What, Why, When?

• The Proposal 1
• The Proposal 2
• The Proposal 3
• The Proposal 4
• The Proposal 5
• The Hacker 1
• The Hacker 2
• The Hacker 3
• The Hacker 4
• The Hacker 5
• The Hacker 6
• The Hacker 7
• The Hacker 8

I’d love to hear what you think about them!

He was excited for so many reasons… he actually had a car.  And it was one of the coolest cars ever made… a Ford factory-built, limited-edition almost racecar.  And while he had been a “car guy” as long as he could remember, he really hadn’t worked on any cars much.  He’d helped his dad change oil or rotate tires, and even looked on and passed wrenches as his dad swapped an alternator on his old Toyota, but that was as far as it had gone.  But now he was going to have the opportunity to wrench on the coolest car he could imagine owning. 

He hadn’t said anything about the car to any of his friends.  He wanted it to be a surprise.  Amy was on-board and so they had fun sharing their secret. 

As Jack ate breakfast, he looked back on his week.  It was a week he never could have imagined a year ago… or even three months ago.  Here he was dating the girl he had admired from afar for almost seven years.  He’d thought their friendship was lost years ago, but she’d held the same feelings for him.  Just six days ago, he’d flown back to Virginia from a dream trip to Michigan with his family and his girlfriend’s family.  All of them got along amazingly well, especially his mom and Chrissy.  And it wasn’t just that they had flown, but it was a private jet.  They had taken a limo out to Patrick Henry Airport and back, too. 

And then school… he had two classes with Amy, just before and after lunch.  They had the same lunch period, too, so they got to spend the whole middle of the day together.  He had been able to swap lockers with Bobby and so his was right across from Amy’s… they stood back to back at the lockers.  And he and Amy being together made a pretty big splash, too. 

Aside from the obvious, he was seeing a huge change in Amy. Before, she said hi to people in the hallways, but that was about it. No guy would think to talk to her beyond that, but even girls didn’t talk to her much.  For the guys, they were probably afraid of Paul’s wrath, but even girls seemed reserved around her.  Now, she was a center of attention.  And while Jack wasn’t thrilled that guys… including lots of guys way more popular than he ever wanted to be… were always talking to her in the hall, he saw that she had built a lot of confidence.  Even in the few days of school, he saw that she stood straighter when she walked, and held her head up.  Maybe, he thought, it was that confidence that also drew in girls… aside from the girls that already knew her well… to talk with her. 

He loved the ‘new and improved’ Amy even more.  He had already known what a warm and caring person she could be.  He’d seen that in fourth grade.  It just took getting her out of the shadow of Paul that allowed her to blossom. 

Jack had to fight down the anger he had toward Paul.  He felt the bullying, overbearingness and constant tearing down of Amy’s self-esteem and confidence had hurt her for too long.  As he thought of the years she had been in his orbit, it made him want to beat the snot out of that goon.  But then his father’s words came back to him… that wouldn’t make you any better than him. 

Happy thoughts brought him out of it… and The Bugs Bunny/Roadrunner Show.  It was coming on, so he could escape for a little while.  Maybe he would allow himself to dream of dropping an ACME anvil on Paul.  That gave him a smile… 

At nine the phone rang.  Jack sprung from the couch to grab the phone before the second ring… just a little too slow, but he answered, out of breath, “Hello?”

“Hey, Jonathan, I thought you would be here by now…” Amy said softly into the phone.  “Are you just waking up?”

“No, I got up a little before seven.  I was just relaxing, enjoying a little breakfast and watching Bugs Bunny.  I didn’t think your parents would appreciate me coming over that early.  Are you just getting up?”

“Silly Boy… no.  I just got home.  I ran an errand with my dad and then we went to Waffle House for breakfast.”

“What kind of errand?  Anything good?”

“Just a boring old errand.  I had to drop off a car at someone’s house for him.”

“Cool, what were you driving?  Was it fun?”

“I drove the blue Mustang.  I guess it was fun.  It’s kind of persnickety, though.  The clutch on the 911 is pretty easy.  The Camaro isn’t nearly as easy, but I’ve gotten used to it.  The Mustang was really tough, though.  You have to ‘feed it more revs’ my dad said, before you let off the clutch.  I got the hang of it but didn’t like stoplights.”

“What are you doing now?” Jack asked.

“Just waiting for my boyfriend to show up so I can help him work on his car.  I found some old clothes I could get grubby in.  Then I plan on taking him out to dinner… if he wants to…”

“Oh… He’d be an idiot if he didn’t want YOU to take him out to dinner,“ Jack laughed. 

Amy giggled a little.  “The keys are up on top of the visor on the passenger side.  See you soon.  Kisses.”  With that, she hung up. 

Jack sat there for a moment, perplexed… Keys on top of the visor? 

He ran out of the front door in his pajamas and bare feet.  Sitting backed into the driveway was the Acapulco Blue 1969 Ford Mustang Boss 302.  Filled with excitement of the anticipation of driving it, as well as a touch of nervousness over the thought of damaging it, Jack raced back in the house. 

Fifteen minutes later, hair still wet from the shower, Jack was dressed and out the door, leaving a note for his parents on the kitchen counter… as if they could possibly doubt where he was.  He hopped in the car and fired it up.  As the 302 breathed its staccato rhythm, Jack wondered exactly how he’d managed to miss that sound when the car backed into the driveway.  As soon as he released the parking brake, the car started to roll down the slight incline of their driveway.  But even with the hill helping him to get rolling, he managed to stall the Mustang as he let out the clutch turning onto the street.

“That was embarrassing…” he said out loud to no one in particular.  “Take two.”

He fired the Mustang back up.  He gave a little more gas and very gingerly eased off the clutch.  And stalled it again. 

“Take three.  Third time’s the charm.”

This time he leaned into a bit more and ended up leaving parallel streaks of rubber for about forty feet up the road. 

“Not the smoothest… and if my parents weren’t up before, they are now,” he said to no one in particular… again.  “I’m going to have to work on that,” a grin spreading across his face.

He was thinking that he was quite glad he hadn’t taken Mr. Prince up on his offer to drive the Mustang to school.  It would have been mortifying to have had these results in front of his girlfriend’s dad. 

Jack was able to get a better handle on the car after driving it a little.  He stalled it once more and did one nice little burnout in downtown Phoebus, but not quite as long as the one he managed in front of his house. 

As he pulled up in front of Amy’s, he saw the garage open and Mr. Prince walking toward the door, wiping his hands with a red shop towel.  Jack rolled to a stop behind one of the closed bays and hopped out of the car. 

“I love hearing that car coming down the road.  It has a nice burble,” his girlfriend’s father mused.  “So… did you stall, or did you do a burnout?” he asked. 

“Both, Sir,” Jack responded.  “Sorry.  It took me a minute to get the hang of the clutch.  And that 302 is a little rev happy.”

Bill laughed.  “When I bought the car, I must have laid fifty feet of rubber in front of the guy’s house on the test drive.  Stalled it twice at traffic lights, too.  That thing is a beast, but it does not like low RPMs.  So, no worries.” 

Amy stepped out of the garage and gave Jack a quick hug and a peck on the cheek. 

“My little girl, on the other hand,” Bill continued, “she gets in it and drives it like it was built for her.  No stalls, no burnouts, no lugging the engine.  And then she tells me that she couldn’t get the hang of it.”  He shook his head.  “Sounds like she got the hang of it faster than either of us.  What do you think, Jack?”

“It’s the beauty that soothes the savage beast, Sir,” was his reply. 

“Good answer, my boy… good answer.” 

Amy beamed at him as he stepped into the garage to see his car. 

“Why don’t you roll that Shelby out onto the driveway to give it a good bath.  I’m anxious to see how good the paint is, and it’ll need a long wash, inside and out, and a good waxing.  Maybe you can get that done before your dad gets here with the parts to get started with the fun stuff.”

Amy and Jack rolled the car out and spent the next three hours cleaning every nook and cranny, inside and out.  Even the underside and engine bay had their turns.  When they were done, they did a quick cleaning of the exterior again.  Bill then brought over a buffer and started showing Jack how to buff the paint.  He taped the edges so that Jack wouldn’t burn through the paint in those areas and supervised while Jack worked the car over for another hour.  Amy spent that time deep cleaning the interior. 

Ed had shown up and unloaded a van full of parts.  Boxes big and small were stacked in the garage bay where the Mustang had been.  Then he left to take the van back to work and get his car.  He pulled into the driveway again just as Jack finished hand waxing the car. 

Jack walked over to his father and turned back to look at the Shelby.  It gleamed.

“Jack, that looks amazing,” Bill said as he approached the two Dixon men.  “I never dreamed it would look that good from just a buff and wax.  The exterior looks as good as new… maybe better.”  He turned to Jack, “Excellent work, young man.”

“Oh my gosh, it’s beautiful,” Amy gushed as she squeezed Jack.  “I can’t wait to see it done.” 

“Mr. Prince, do you need us to help you with the truck?” Jack asked.

“Not yet, Jack.  I have plans for it, but after seeing that Shelby of yours, I’m more excited to see it finished.  For now, I think I’d rather help you.  We can team up on the truck later.”

After a quick lunch, Jack went into the garage to see what parts they had.  His father had a packing list and they checked off everything.  Bill directed Amy and Jack on where to place everything, and they cleared out the spot for the Mustang to roll back into the garage.  Before long, Bill produced a clipboard with a checklist on it several pages long. 

“This is something I swiped from the guy that did a couple of my restorations.  It is a checklist of every system in the car.  We can go through it and see exactly what needs to be done.  Then we can look at the inventory of what parts and pieces we have and see if there is anything left to pick up or order,” Bill instructed. 

Working as a team, they took the next two hours going through the exhaustive checklist.  Amy sat on a stool at one of the toolboxes and read each item on the list.  As she got more comfortable with the names of everything, she started looking through the inventory of parts on hand while waiting for answers on the systems the guys were checking.  By the time they had finished checking the car, she had already figured out what was on hand to work with.  She had a pretty good idea of what they still lacked, and it wasn’t much. 

Bill pulled out another checklist from the big Snap-On roller cabinet at the back of the shop.  This one he clipped on another board and hung it from a magnet on the lift by the car. 

“This checklist goes through the order I like to work on things on the car.  A couple of these can be done parallel, but it gives us a good structure to go through the car in an organized fashion instead of all willy-nilly,” he said. 

First on the list was the fuel system.  Big Bob, the previous owner, had noted that the gas had been in the tank since the 1960s.  That had to go.  They also had to check the tank for rust and scale.  It was one of the big pieces that they didn’t have on hand if it needed to be replaced.  While Jack and Ed took on the task of removing the gas tank, Bill drained the oil from the engine, transmission and rear axle.  He also drained the cooling system.  He planned on replacing the fluids, running the car a little bit and replacing them again.  There didn’t appear to be any leaks, so there was a chance the seals were still good.  Having the car on a lift made the work go by pretty fast.  The toughest part was dealing with the gas tank.  It was almost full and was as much as Jack, Ed and Bill could handle, even with a jack supporting it.  But they got it to the ground, shook it up to suspend whatever dirt they could shake free, and drained it into one of the barrels Bill had in the garage for fluids. 

Opening the gas tank up, Bill was surprised to see that it was in pretty good shape.  There was some varnish from evaporated gasoline, but it was otherwise clean and rust-free in there.  The outside of the fuel tank, like much of the rest of the underside of the car, was also rust-free.  Apparently Big Bob had sprayed a little clean oil on the bottom side of the car every so often to keep it from rusting.  It had done its job quite well.

In no time, Jack had muscled the tank back into position and started replacing fuel lines and filters.  As he did that, Ed and Bill checked, then lubed all the tie rod ends, ball joints and other wear items under the car.  Finally, the transmission and rear axle were refilled, the engine oil drain plug was replaced, the cooling system was buttoned up, and the car was lowered to the ground. 

Amy filled the radiator with coolant while Jack pulled the carburetor off the engine.  Bill gave Jack a crash course in carb rebuilding while Ed replaced the valve cover gaskets.  Then Amy tackled filling the engine with oil and Ed dumped a few gallons of gas into the tank.  In no time at all, the carb was back on the engine, looking brand new, between the freshly cleaned aluminum valve covers.  Ed dropped the new battery into the battery box in the trunk. 

It was almost dinner time and it was the moment Jack had been waiting for.  He slid behind the wheel and turned the key.  The starter whirled to life.  Bill dribbled a little gas into the top of the carb, and the engine barked.  A flame shot out of each exhaust pipe, which exited under the side of the car just in front of the rear wheels.  Then it died. 

“Again,” Bill called from under the hood.  “And I probably don’t have to tell you to stay clear of the exhaust,” he added with a smile. 

Amy stood next to her boyfriend, while Bill dribbled a little more gas into the carb.  Ed stood at the front of the car, eying the fire extinguisher on the toolbox nearby. 

Jack turned the key and the car barked once more.  Bill dripped a little more gas in and the car barely avoided stalling.  Then it sat, roughly idling.  Bill grabbed his long flathead screwdriver from his back pocket and started fiddling with adjustments on the carb.  The idle smoothed out.

“Give it some revs,” he shouted over the noise of the engine. 

Jack bumped the gas pedal a couple of times.  The engine barked in response.  It was marvelous.  And loud… really loud.  The factory “glasspack” mufflers didn’t do a lot to quiet the din from the 289 ‘Hi-Po’ engine.  And Jack just sat there with a grin.  Amy kissed him on the cheek and gave him a thumbs up.

Bill told him to cut it off, and Jack turned the key back, killing the engine and returning the garage to silence, leaving everyone’s ears ringing a bit. 

In the excitement and the noise while the car had been running, nobody noticed the black BMW 2002tii slowly roll by the house, Paul glaring in the direction of the open garage door.  He seethed inwardly.  He smiled and made nice at school, but what he really wanted to do was smack down both Jack and Amy.  Wrecking them hadn’t worked… but the police hadn’t shown up, either. 

He was smart enough to realize that he might not be able to take either of them in a fair fight… much less both of them together.  So, he needed a plan to make sure it wouldn’t be a fair fight.  But for now, he had other lessons to teach.

***

As much as Amy had loved going to Darryl’s 1895, she was in the mood for something different.  She picked Jack up after giving him a chance to clean up.  They’d spent the day working on the car, and now it was time for her to deliver on her promise.  They went to Capri Pizza over in Willow Oaks.  It wasn’t fancy, but it was good food and they would probably see friends there. 

It was prime teenager time for the Italian restaurant.  They had a pile of kids from Kecoughtan High School on one side of the room, and a slightly smaller bunch from Phoebus High School on the other side.  And while the schools were rivals, there was a fair amount of social mingling.  Some of the kids had gone to Jones Junior High, which fed both schools.  Others had grown up skating at Plaza Roller Rink or Roll-a-way Rink and were friends from that. 

As Amy and Jack slid into their booth, Cy showed up with Tracy Tapper.  Amy saw them and invited them to join.  Jack quickly got up and moved to Amy’s side of the table so that Cy and Tracy could sit down. 

“Are you guys dating now?” Jack asked, as he got elbowed under the table by Amy.  Tracy kind of laughed.  “Normally I would say that Cy had been bugging me and I agreed to go out once if he would stop asking after that…”  She smiled and looked over at Cy.  “But that was actually before you guys met me at Darryl’s.  We’ve been seeing each other since Valentine’s Day.” 

“Wow.  Good for you,” Amy said. 

Tracy slid a little more toward Cy in the booth and he stretched his arm around her.  Amy smiled at them, happy for their happiness. 

They all enjoyed a nice Italian feast, Amy and Jack splitting a giant Calzone, while Cy and Tracy shared a pizza.  The four made small talk for a little bit before Tracy asked, “Whatever happened to that jerk, Paul?”

“Long story.  We thought he was letting it go… we had a couple of peaceful days at school.  Then he chased us in a car.  But we haven’t actually talked to him since July,” Amy replied. 

“Yeah… when Amy knocked him out,” Jack added.

Tracy’s eyes went wide.  “Oh my God, really?  You kicked his ass?”

“Actually, I kicked his head,” Amy eyes dropped… with a little smile.  “Jack had softened him up for me though.  He’d dropped him on his butt already a few minutes earlier.”

“We called a truce and he had honored it, until the car chase” Jack added, leaving any mention of the gun out of it.

***

The black BMW rolled slowly through the Willow Oaks Shopping Center parking lot.  It pulled into a spot a couple of rows behind the Fathom Green 1969 Camaro Z28. 

***

After dinner and a little more conversation, the couples went their separate ways.  Oddly, Tracy was picking up the tab for her and Cy’s meal, while Amy was treating Jack.  The girls got a good laugh out of that as they all headed out into the parking lot to get in their respective cars. 

Amy held the keys to the Camaro as he walked her to the driver’s door.  Always the gentleman, as he opened her door, she slipped him the keys and deftly scrambled over the console and shifter into the opposite bucket seat.  Jack stood there in amazement that she could not only slip from one side of the car to the other but do it while making it look so effortless. 

Not one to argue… at least with her… Jack dropped behind the wheel and keyed the Chevy 302 to life.  It didn’t have the roar of his Shelby, and not even the staccato of the Boss Mustang, but it had a very satisfying burble coming from the dual exhaust. 

“Walk on the beach, my love?” Jack said… not really intending to drop the L-word.

“Absolutely,” she responded, suppressing a giant grin.  Him using that word hadn’t snuck past her unnoticed. 

As they made their way to Buckroe Beach to take a moonlight stroll, neither noticed the black BMW skulking along behind them.  Paul hadn’t forgotten that he wanted revenge, he just knew he needed to be careful of when he took it.  He had no desire to be caught… and it was something he thought about.  But it wasn’t enough of a deterrent to stop him completely from seeking his revenge.  He was still enjoying the lessons he had taught that stripper and her friend.  These two weren’t going to get the same treatment, but he was still looking forward to it. 

***

As Amy and Jack walked on the beach, she turned to him and said, “Do you remember on the day that we confronted Paul… I was telling you how I felt?”

“Yeah, I guess,” Jack replied with a gentle smile.  “You told me that you liked me and one of the things was that I made you feel like a princess.”

Amy smiled.  “That is probably about what I said… but what I meant was that you made me feel like a valuable person.  I know I shouldn’t have felt the way I did before, but I didn’t feel like I had value.”  She reached her arms up around his neck and Jack wrapped his arms around her lower back.  “But when I was talking to you, I stopped short.”

“I remember… something about what your mom said.  You said you’d tell me later.  You can tell me anything.  I’ve fallen in love with you, Amy.  I knew I liked you.  I knew that in fourth grade.  I’ve known that every time I saw you in the hall at school.  But I didn’t know you would make me feel the way you make me feel.”

“I love you, too, Jonathan.  I always hoped I would have the chance to know you like this… and to love you.  Thank you for giving it to me.”

“So, Amy, what did your mom say?”

Amy smiled.  She kissed him gently on the lips.  Then she laid her head on his chest, looking up at him.  “She told me that night… that very first night when you asked me out…  She told me that after she talked to you, she knew that you were the kind of boy I should marry.  I don’t know what life holds for us, but I know that I want us to spend it together.”

***

In the parking lot, Paul sat in his darkened car.  He was holding a rifle scope in his hand.  From his vantage point, all he could see above the seawall was Jack’s head.  If he thought he could make the shot, he would get the rifle from the trunk and take it.  But he knew better.  He’d been practicing, but he wouldn’t be able to make a head shot at this distance, especially not without even a warm-up shot, or some way to tell how close the shot was and how to adjust. 

***

A block away sat another car.  In the driver’s seat sat a young woman named Melody Jenkins.  She was holding binoculars and watching the driver of the BMW.  She knew his name was Paul and he was her mark.  She had been following him for a couple of days.  She was pretty sure he’d not spotted her.  But she took her training seriously and knew more about him than anyone else.  She had taken one of her shifts off and had a teammate cover for her.  That had given her the chance to gather some other intel. 

She knew this was a training exercise, but she was beginning to think it was something more.  First thing in the morning, Sunday or not, she needed to have a conversation with Mr. Dixon. 

It wasn’t signed and there were no other markings on the paper.  He was pretty sure that Ed Dixon was the source.  The part that troubled him was that after the last couple of fish runs, there were things in the warehouse that he didn’t want prying eyes to see.  And he was positive that the envelope had to be inserted under his door from inside the warehouse.  So, either Ed, or one of his people, had been in the warehouse or one of Sean’s people was on the take.  He trusted his sons, but he didn’t trust any of the rest of his guys.  They had never crossed him, but he wasn’t one to trust much of anyone.  He knew he needed to investigate and find out how the mysterious note had found his office.  It had bugged him for a whole day now.

Since Sean tended to be an early riser, he had gotten to the office just before five in the morning.  Patrick had been repairing a net until after midnight.  That meant that whoever visited them had done so in that time frame.  He would have to check with security to see if anyone else was around overnight. 

***

When he came home from school that afternoon, Paul slipped a gun from his brother’s room and went out to his car.  Seeing Amy and Jack together, laughing and having fun was too much for him.  Their lesson time had come.  He had thought of a plan that would punish them appropriately and shouldn’t be traceable back to him.  Now he just needed to see if luck was on his side. 

Paul hopped into his little black BMW 2002tii and went in search of his prey.  And he felt every bit the hunter.  He was going to hunt them down, stalk them and then spring a trap.  If it worked out the way he planned, their parents might have suspicions, but they wouldn’t be able to prove Paul was even there, much less involved.  The gun was an accessory to get them to make the fatal mistake. 

***

Amy had picked Jack up in the Z-28 before school.  They talked during lunch about walking on the beach at Grandview after school.  It was quiet and secluded, and they just wanted to spend a little time relaxing.  Jack had often enjoyed walking out to the point at the end of the beach and watching the fighters take off from Langley Air Force Base up the river, dreaming that maybe one day he’d be flying fighters from there.    

As school ended, Amy and Jack walked out to the parking lot and hopped into her car.  They drove down Pembroke and turned on Old Buckroe Rd, making their way over to Beach Rd and down to Grandview Beach, near the end of the road.  They planned to spend about an hour on the beach before heading back to reality. 

***

Paul searched for the Camaro after he left his house.  He hit up a few regular spots, thinking he could find them… but they weren’t in any of the regular places.  As a last-ditch effort, he decided to try Grandview Beach.  It was popular with a lot of teenagers because it was remote.  They could go party, drink and carry on without much interference.  It didn’t seem like their style, unless Amy had decided to start putting out, Paul laughed, but it was worth a shot. 

Then, as he passed by, he saw the Camaro pulling out of State Park Drive near the end of Beach Rd.  They HAD been out on Grandview. 

He did a quick U-turn and got behind them.  Before the first bridge, he crossed the double yellow line and pulled up next to the driver’s side of the Camaro.  Amy was driving… this was even better than he planned. 

He flashed the gun, hoping to get her to panic and run off the road.  But instead of hitting the gas, she slammed on the brakes.  Paul quickly shot in front of them as the Camaro slowed suddenly. 

“Did you see that, he has a gun,” Amy exclaimed to Jack as she slammed on the brakes.

She downshifted and booted the gas pedal to the floor.  The 302 under the hood was one of the smaller V-8s in Chevy’s lineup, but it was an engine built for speed.  And the Z-28 launched forward while the engine screamed.  She shot past Paul, who was still reacting to Amy hitting the brakes. 

The car got light going over the second little bridge, as the road turned slightly in the middle of the hump, but Amy counter-steered just a little, instinctively, and kept it under control. 

“Take a left on Hall Rd.  Paul might not even know it’s there.  We might lose him,” Jack said quickly.

Amy pushed hard on the brakes again, barely making the hard left on the narrow road as the tires gently squealed, on the edge of their ability to maintain traction.

Hall Rd was an old country road that ran between Beach Rd and Silver Isles Blvd.  There were a few ruins of old houses on it, but now it was dilapidated hardly ever used. 

Amy was flying along in second gear when she saw the little BMW behind her.  She leveraged her power advantage and quickly went up to third gear, pushing the car over eighty on the narrow road.  The curves were blind and strewn with cracks, potholes and gravel, but she pressed on.  The whole road was barely a mile and a half long, but she reached Silver Isles in under a minute. 

The Camaro drifted out onto Silver Isles, which was a wide, tree-lined boulevard.  As the tires grabbed traction, they rocketed away toward Old Buckroe Rd.  The BMW 2002tii was no longer visible in the rearview mirror.

***

Paul didn’t know how she managed, but she had slipped away from him.  After the first third of Hall Rd, he’d had to back off the throttle or risk slamming into one of the trees that lined the twisty road.  That had been his plan for the Camaro… that it would slam into a tree or flip into the marsh… not the plan for him to have an accident. 

Apparently, Amy was a better driver than he had expected.  He’d really expected his plan to work.  Flash a gun, whoever was driving would panic, they’d wreck into a tree, killing them both, and he’d drive away smiling. 

Now he had something new to worry about… the police coming to visit him looking for a gun. 

Paul drove quickly back to the house.  Nobody was home, so he carefully wiped down the gun to make sure he didn’t leave any fingerprints on it and put it back in his brother’s room.  He went back to school and hit the weight room.  There hadn’t been anyone there right after school, and there wasn’t anyone there now.  He just needed to hang out and lift until someone came in.  Worst case would be the janitor closing it up around six, but usually one of the Assistant Principals came in to work out Monday, Wednesday and Friday around five.  He would just tell him he’d been there since after school. 

***

Amy and Jack drove straight to Jack’s Dad’s office.  They needed to let their fathers know about Paul’s new tactic, and Ed’s office was a little closer. 

“What’s up Sport?  And good to see you, Amy,” Ed said as they walked into his office.

“It’s Paul, Dad.  He just threatened Amy and me with a gun.”

“We were over by Grandview and he pulled up next to me a showed a gun.  I was able to lose him, but we thought you and my dad needed to know.”

“I appreciate that.  I’ll give Bill a call in a second.  Did he point it at you, or anything like that?”

“No, Sir,” Jack replied.

“Do you think he meant to shoot you, or was he trying to scare you?”

“I think his goal was to scare us into wrecking, Mr. Dixon,” Amy stated.

“I think you might be right, Amy.  If he was going to shoot, I think he would have taken the shot.  But I don’t want to take any chances.  Let me call your dad.”

Ed called Bill and put him on speaker with the kids.  They talked about what happened and whether they thought it was likely to happen again.  After a few minutes of conversation, Ed decided to follow Amy and Jack back to her house, and then he would drive Jack home. 

Both fathers knew they needed to tighten up the surveillance of Paul Murphy.  He had stepped his threat level up a couple of notches by adding a weapon to the mix… even if his goal had been intimidation instead of direct action.

“Who am I talking to?”

“Ed Dixon.  We need to talk about Paul.”

“You a cop or somethin’?  Should I be callin’ my lawyer?”

“Definitely not a cop, Sean.  And I don’t think you want your lawyer to hear anything I have to say.  You probably don’t want me shouting it from here, either.  So… can I come aboard?”

“Suit yourself, Ed Dixon.”

Ed walked the short gangplank onto the trawler, then went forward toward the pilothouse and Sean, waiting just outside it.  As he approached, he put his hand out to shake.  Sean looked down at the outstretched hand and turned away to walk into the pilothouse and have a seat.  Ed followed.

“So, Ed, what’s on yer mind?” 

“Your son Paul is harassing my son and his girlfriend.  Maybe you remember her, Amy Prince.  I think it would be in your best interest to help us put an end to that. In fact, he’s spent the last couple of days following them around.  And of course, you are familiar with him getting locked up for trespassing at the Prince’s house before your last run.”

“What makes you think that I can do anything about it, Ed?” Sean said with a sarcastic tone.  “The boy is big enough to make his own decisions.  And from what I hear, that Amy girl was carryin’ on behind his back with your boy.  Seems to me like there might be a little lesson owed.  Maybe if they weren’t actin’ the fool, they wouldn’t have a problem now.” 

The conversation wasn’t going the way Ed wanted. 

“Sean, I’m going to level with you.  I’m going to make it in YOUR best interest to put your son on another track.  The very last thing that you want is increased attention on you or your business.  And if Paul doesn’t alter his course, you ARE going to find yourself under a microscope. 

“Now my son and his girlfriend have no idea that I’m here to talk to you.  In fact, they are going to talk to Paul to see if he will lay off.  But, I’m here to tell you that right now you don’t want to make me an enemy.  And you don’t want your son to do that either.  So… what do you say?  Can we reach an accord here?”

“That sounds awful threatnin’, Ed.  And I’m not one to knuckle under to threats.”

Sean got up from his chair, and continued, “So, what’s to stop me from beating the hell outta you where you stand?  Or hell, maybe even draggin’ your body down to the hold and tossin’ you over on the next run in a couple of days?”

“There are a couple of things, Sean.  First, if you swing on me, you might be in the hospital for that next run.  Second, if you grab your binoculars and take a look over to the top of that warehouse across the way, you’ll see a light glint.  That would be a friend of mine.  And he CAN hit you, through the glass, from there.  If you don’t believe me, step out of the pilothouse and wave.  He’ll wave back.  As far as whether he can hit you from there or not… trust me.  I watched him make tougher shots in Vietnam.  Regularly. 

“I know that some of the people you work for are pretty tough.  Let’s just say that they don’t want me as an enemy, either.  And if I bring heat, the people you’ve been working for will turn on you in a heartbeat.  The next step is up to you.  We can have an agreement, shake hands like men, and both walk away… or we can get in a piss-match. 

“What do you want to do?”

Sean glared over at Ed for a few moments.  He was not liking this one bit.  He wondered exactly what information this guy had and what resources he could bear.  He was really struggling internally.  He wanted to take a swing at him… he wasn’t too worried about the sniper, even if he could make the shot… what really worried him was if this guy really knew what he was up to with his boat.

“Seems I don’t have much choice, Ed.  I guess we’ll hafta be friendly about it.”  Sean reached out his hand and shook Ed’s. 

“I look forward to not having to have another conversation like this again,” Ed said with a smile. 

“Me, too,” Sean replied flatly.

Ed turned and walked out of the pilothouse and off the boat.  As he walked up the quay, he put his cuff near his mouth and asked the person at the other end of the radio, “You hear all that?  Seems like he’d rather play nice.” 

As Ed rounded the corner of a warehouse, and out of sight of the F/V Murphy’s Law, Gunny crawled backwards off the roof of the warehouse he had been perched on.  His M40A1 with its 10x Unertl scope was supposed to be accurate to 800 meters, but he’d made successful shots at 1000 meters and more.  He bundled the rifle back into the hard case he kept it in and hopped into the back of the van Ed was driving as he came around the corner to pick him up. 

“I don’t know if you scared him or pissed him off, Ed.  Do you think he’s going to play nice?” Gunny asked.

“My gut tells me he’ll play nice with us, but he’s the wild card type.  I hate dealing with that type in the field.  I’m pretty sure he is motivated by greed and self-preservation, but the issue is that desire for revenge might overcome common sense.”

The two men rode in silence back to Ed’s office, aside from some small talk. 

“Ed, you know that if you need anything you can give me a call.”

“Absolutely, Gunny.  I’m not too proud to call in the Marines.”

Gunny laughed and climbed into his truck and headed home.  He and Ed had a worked together a number of times and he knew that Ed always protected his team.  If there was going to be any blowback, Gunny had no doubt that his name wouldn’t get dragged into it.  However, even if it did, he really liked Jack and would do whatever it took to make sure the young man was safe. 

***

Amy was driving Jack around in her father’s black Porsche 928.  It had an automatic transmission, and since she had just gotten her license the day before, she didn’t think she was ready to handle the stick-shift in the 911.  Jack was keeping an eye out behind them.  He didn’t know if he would catch Paul following, but figured it was worth a shot.  They were heading down to Buckroe Beach.  Paul liked to hang out there when he didn’t have anything else to do, so they thought they might catch him there. 

But before they could make it to the beach, Jack caught a glimpse of the black BMW 2002tii.  He had to admit that it was a nice car, but he wondered why someone like Paul would choose that as his car.  It didn’t fit his personality at all.  Jack figured Paul for more of a pickup truck guy or an old muscle car or something… not a 4-cylinder German sports coupe. 

“We’ve got company,” Jack told Amy.

“Saw that, did you?” Amy replied with a little laugh.  “I picked him up back by Darling Stadium… Darling.”

“Why didn’t you say anything?”

“I was wondering when you’d see him,” she said with a smile. 

She might be better at this ‘spy stuff’ than me, he thought to himself. 

A couple of minutes later they pulled into one of the parking fields across from the beach.  Parking was a couple of bucks, and Jack handed Amy some money to pay for Paul’s BMW.  She told the attendant to let their “friend” in when he pulled up.  The two of them thought that would be pretty humorous. 

They made their way across the lot to the empty part furthest from the beach and the amusement park.  There they got out and leaned against the back of the car to watch Paul follow.  There was no hiding if he planned on being within a hundred yards of them.  Instead of trying to play cool and duck into another parking space, after he’d clearly been spotted, he drove right up to them. 

“You got a lot of nerve showing your face, Dixon,” he said to Jack.  Then her looked at Amy, “Get in the car and we can go.  Then I won’t have to pound ‘Jonathan’ into the ground.”

“I’m pretty sure the young lady doesn’t want to go with you, Paul,” Jack said as he looked over to Amy.

“I’m pretty sure she doesn’t want to see you ground into the gravel in this parking lot… ‘Jonathan,” he said with a sneer. 

Amy chimed in, hoping to diffuse the situation, “We actually came here looking for you.  We wanted to talk to you about this business of you following us around.  We know that you followed us to Busch Gardens, and we know that you followed us to dinner… and then over to the beach after dinner.  This needs to stop.  Don’t be so immature.  Let it go.”

“Who do you think you are talking to, Amy Prince?  You are MINE.  I don’t know how long you were cheating on me with him, but I never gave you permission to leave.”

“Pretty bogus, Paul.  Amy isn’t a golden retriever.  You don’t own her, and she doesn’t need your ‘permission’ to do anything.  We came here to resolve this civilly.  If you aren’t capable of that, then you are dismissed.”

Amy smiled to Jack.  Paul, however, was about to lose it.  He started flexing his hands, balling them up into fists, opening and closing them repeatedly.  Amy was preparing to step in front of Jack.  She was ready to put her black belt to use if Paul made a move.  She had never had a boy stand up for her the way her Jonathan had… over and over.  And she was willing to stand up for him as well.

“You don’t dismiss me, Pipsqueak.  I’ll leave when I’m damn good and ready.  In the meantime, I might just have to kick your ass.  I’ve been wanting to do that since fourth grade.”

As Paul finished his sentence, Jack stepped around Amy and punched him in the stomach… hard.  Paul reflexively doubled over with pain.  Before he knew it, he felt Jack’s strike the side of his head.  Everything went black. 

He regained consciousness a few moments later, laying in the parking lot behind Amy’s Dad’s black Porsche 928.  Amy and Jack were standing above him, looking down.  He started struggling to get up, the fight not yet out of him. 

“Paul, you have a couple of choices… you can get up and walk away or you can end up on the ground again.  I have no huge desire to drop you like a sack of potatoes again, but I will.  By the way, I’ve wanted to hit you like that since fourth grade, too.  So, what’s it gonna be?  Do you like having your ass kicked or do you want to call a truce and leave us alone?”

“I can make you both disappear.  The cops and your families won’t even find a piece of you when I’m done.  You don’t want me as an enemy.”

“We seem to be past that point, Paul.  But there is something YOU need to know.  We are willing to live and let live, but that requires you doing the same.”

“You just got lucky you little asshole.”

“If you want to square off, Paul, we can do that.  The result will be the same.  I might let you dance around a little longer, but in the end, you will be on your butt in the parking lot.  I mean, unless you think you are going to wear out my fists with your face,” Jack said with a sarcastic smirk. 

Paul dropped down in a fighter pose.  Jack just looked at him, no longer leaning against the car, walking around to Paul’s left instead.  Paul stayed in his boxing stance but kept turning to face Jack. 

“Go ahead, Jack, take your best shot.”

“No, Paul.  If you think you can take me, feel free… but I won’t be the one to swing first this time.  I’ll swing last instead.”

Paul took a wild roundhouse swing at Jack’s head, which he easily ducked. 

“Those don’t work, Paul.  You need to be a little more controlled.  I saw that one coming for so long I was wondering if it was growing cobwebs.”

Paul took another swing… this time from his left aiming for a body blow.  Jack deflected it with a downward rotation of his right arm.  With his left hand he smacked Paul on top of the head.  At this point he was just playing with him. 

“Are you sure you want to do this, Paul?  You can slink back into your car and drive away.”

Amy chimed in, “Paul… don’t be stupid.  It isn’t worth it.  There are a bunch of girls that would date you… I’m just not one of them… not ever again.”

Paul thought he might take a different tack.  Amy was behind him and he whirled to take a shot at her.  He barely registered the movement as the palm of her hand struck him in the nose.  Before he came to grips with the pain from that… and there was a lot of pain from that… her foot connected with the side of his head.  For the second time that afternoon, Paul was unconscious, laying in the parking lot. 

When he woke up this time, Amy was holding Jack back.  “Get up, Paul.  I’m ready to fully kick your butt, now.  Trying to hit a girl is low, even for you.”

“That was a cheap shot,” he said to Jack, “hitting me when I wasn’t looking.”

“You shouldn’t try to hit a girl, Paul…  It wasn’t Jack that hit you, it was me.”

“Sure,” he replied, laughing her off. 

“If you are ready to walk away, Paul, I’ll keep Jack from kicking your butt again.  But you should probably get in your car now.”

Paul picked himself up and walked around to the other side of his car… by the driver’s door, “You won’t know when, and you won’t know where, but this isn’t over until I decide it’s over.  I’m not going to stand for this disrespect from the likes of you two.  First you cheat on me and now disrespect me this way?  I thought you were better than that, Amy.”

“I never cheated on you, Paul.  You dumped me two months ago and wouldn’t talk to me.  You showed up at my party… uninvited, I might add… and even then, wouldn’t talk to me.  You need to get out of fantasyland and accept reality.  I don’t belong to you.  I am not with you and I’m not coming back to you.  Nothing you think or do is going to change that.  Deal with it.”

As she ended her statement, she turned to Jack and said she was ready to go.  They climbed into the 928 and drove out of the parking lot.  It was lunch time and neither of them could think of anything more fun than to go to Smitty’s and get a couple of burgers and then hang out for a little while at Gosnold Hope Park, nearby. 

As they pulled into the park, they went to one of the pavilions.  Since it was a weekday, nobody had booked them for family reunions or anything.  They parked and took their food to one of the covered tables. 

“Sorry it isn’t Darryl’s, Amy.  Hopefully you’ll still enjoy the company.”

“Jonathan, as long as we are together, it can’t get better.  I love the company,” she said with a smile.  “So, what do you think is going to happen with Paul?”

“I don’t know.  I’m not going to lie… I enjoyed knocking him on his can this morning, but at the same time, I really hope he can let it go and move on.”

“I totally understand both of those thoughts.  I don’t know if he can let it go, though.  That isn’t the way he is wired.  When he doesn’t get what he wants, or can’t do what he sets out to do, he tends to dig in and fight.  I’ve seen it with him playing football and with baseball.  And as good as it felt to knock him down a peg an hour ago, reflecting on it, I don’t know if it was the best thing for me to do.”

“You had to.  He was getting ready to hit you and I wasn’t going to be able to reach him in time,” Jack replied. 

“Speaking of that, you goof.  You kind of sprung that on me,” Amy said with a grin, punching him in the shoulder. 

“Yeah… I told you my dad made me take Kung Fu when I was a kid.  I liked it and kept going.  I’ve been doing it since I was like eight.  I guess I did ok with it.  I’ve sparred, but I’ve never actually used it on someone.”

“I hadn’t either.  I didn’t even spar that much… But why didn’t you tell me?  I was ready to defend you when he made a move.”

“Thanks for reminding me.  I noticed you stepping up to defend me.  I really appreciate you being willing to do that, and I hope you never have to again.  But it makes me feel a little better that you can do it if you need to.  You’re kind of impressive.”

Jack smiled at Amy.  He was impressed with her.  She was courageous and strong.  She didn’t back down in a fight to protect those she cared for and he knew she really was the person he had always dreamed she was. 

As Amy smiled back, she had similar thoughts.  Her Jonathan, and she definitely thought of him as hers, was so much more than she originally thought.  Her mind flashed back to hearing him recite the Boy Scout Law.  She hadn’t thought about it at the time, but he seemed to embody those principles.  Things like that hadn’t been as important to her before, but now she didn’t know if she could ever have a relationship with someone that didn’t have all those traits.  It had been less than three weeks since he had asked her on their first date, but in that time, he had shown her so much… not only of himself, but also of her. 

“Jonathan, there is something I need to tell you, and I don’t want to chicken out… so let me finish before you say anything, ok?”

“Sure,” Jack said, curious where this was going.

Amy wiped a tear from her cheek as she turned to straddle the bench on which they were sitting next to each other.  She wanted to face him while she said this and look into his eyes.  She had never been more nervous in her life. 

“Jonathan Lee Dixon,” she said, smiling through tears that were building up in her eyes, “I have never felt this way about anyone before.  It isn’t just the way you treat me, which is wonderful, but the way you make me feel about myself.  Paul was tearing me down, even back in fourth or fifth grade.  He made me feel worthless, like nobody could ever care for the real me.  I was to the point where I believed him.  But from the moment you asked me out, you made me feel like a princess.  Your princess.  And every moment we’ve been together since.  And while it isn’t the most important thing, my parents seem to really like you.  I couldn’t even imagine my dad treating ANY boy the way he has treated you.  He’s pretty smart about people, and he trusted you from the start.  My mom, too.  She might even be better at reading people, and the night you asked me out, she told me…”  Amy abruptly stopped, with her chin down a little, but looking up into Jack’s eyes, the tears rolling down her cheeks.

Jack reached out and stroked her hair and the side of her face.  His hand went under her chin and he tilted her face up to meet his.  They had kissed a few times, but he could feel the difference this time.  She was pouring herself into this kiss, and he could feel her emotion.  And she could feel it coming back from him. 

As they pulled apart, when she looked back into his eyes, she could see the tears welling up in him, too. 

“Can I talk now,” he asked, with a smile.

“Yes.”

“Amy Christina Prince, you ARE my princess.  The first time you walked into Mrs. Garrison’s class I knew I had a crush on you.  But you should have known that.  Ever since then, I have held that crush.  But I barely knew anything about you.  I could see that you were sweet and kind to people.  I knew that you had a big heart.  But these last couple of weeks you have shown me that you were so much more than a beautiful girl with a gentle heart.  I could have fallen in love with you just from what I knew before.  Now, having seen your courage and your loyalty, I couldn’t imagine ever knowing someone like you.  My dad always told me something, and I never understood what he was talking about… until just the last few days.  He always said that while he loved my mom, what was even more important was that he respected her.  He respected everything about her… who she was and what she stood for… how she treated people and how hard she would push herself to help others.  You’ve made me understand it.  I have quickly grown to respect you for who you are, what you stand for, how you treat people and how big your heart is to help people.”

She dived at him so fast he could barely react.  Her arms were around his neck and he was on his back on the narrow bench.  She was on top of him and smothering him with kisses and hugging him fiercely.  She wasn’t ready to say it, but she could see herself married to Jonathan.  She had never even thought to practice writing her “married name” with any other boy.  But now she couldn’t get that idea out of her head. 

Amy Dixon.  Amy C Dixon.  Amy Christine Dixon.  She smiled at the thought. 

What she wasn’t ready to tell Jonathan, though, was what her mom had said to her the night he asked her out.  As the two sat and talked after her party, her mom looked at her, amidst the laughing and light-hearted talk, and asked her what she thought of Jonathan.  Amy replied that he seemed sweet, and that she had kind of liked him for a long time.  Her mother looked at her, with a serious look that she seldom saw from her mother, and told her that from what she saw, he was the kind of boy she could marry… 

As she thought about it again, she couldn’t help but smile at her Jonathan. 

“What?” he asked.

“Nothing… well, something… something pretty important, actually… but today isn’t the day I’m going to tell you.”  She kissed him tenderly on the lips, and before he knew it, she was up and telling him that they should go back to her house and go swimming.