Pappy’s head was reeling. “They wanted you done away with because you love to get married and go on honeymoons? I don’t know what to say other than I’m glad I bowed out. I think I hear your ride,” he said inanely as he tried to cope with what the senator had just divulged. He’d been just feet away from Sam and hadn’t even known it. If Sam was at the restaurant, that had to mean she was one of Malcom’s eleven brides. It all made sense now. She was the one who tracked down the senator. Probably when she was in New York at the cybercafe. And he’d missed it all. He hadn’t lied to his father when he said he’d lost his edge. Years ago he would have been on it all like white on rice. Kayla, Olivia, and Zoe, all part of the eleven. He must have been blind not to have figured it all out.

The woman he loved had been married to the guy he was now aiding and abetting. He felt sick at the realization.

The steady twump, twump of the helicopter’s rotor blades were getting louder and louder as the two men walked out the door to cross the compound to the helipad.

Pappy couldn’t help himself when he shouted to be heard over the incoming helicopter, “Are you going to…you know…keep getting married?”

The senator threw back his head and laughed. “Absolutely!” His hand shot out. Pappy grasped it as he shook his head from side to side in disbelief.

Pappy, his hair blowing in the downdraft, stood rooted to the ground. The senator leaned out and shouted something to him that he couldn’t hear. It sounded to Pappy like he was saying, “She…loves…you.” He waved.

All the way back to his house he kept shaking his head, then he laughed and laughed till he started to choke.

When Pappy had his wits about him, he started to wonder what he was going to do with the rest of his life. Maybe he should take a page out of the senator’s book. He started to laugh again.

Three days passed before Sam opened her front door to greet the gaggle of jabbering women who wanted only to kiss and hug her and to shake her hand.

The Rainford “wives,” all ten of them, and the one who got away, had come to say good-bye.

Even though it was only nine-thirty in the morning, the women wanted to make a wine toast. Sam dutifully uncorked several bottles and poured generously. They clinked their glasses, downed the liquid, then looked at one another, their eyes sparkling with happiness.