Chapter 26

I opened my eyes and found myself looking up at Givens. My head was throbbing and it took a minute before I realized I was leaning against him. We were sitting on the ground, in front of the Cayenne, and his arm was wrapped tightly around me. Shoes lay everywhere, like fallen soldiers on a battlefield. Some lost their heels, others were charred beyond recognition. It was horrifying.

He held up a leopard print pony hair platform bootie with a five-inch heel. "You got hit in the head with this. Must be a quality piece of footwear because it knocked you right out."

I took the bootie from his hand and turned it over to discover it was exactly my size. And it was sexy as hell. "You didn't see the other one fly past, did you?"

"We've got another five minutes or so before Nick Mooney and his boys show up," Givens said with a smile. "Think that's enough time to find it?"

"Maybe."

"I'd help but those shoes are evidence and I can't tamper with evidence." His eyes were sparkling in the darkness as he looked at me. "I guess if you're thinkin' about findin' the other half of the pair, you probably don't have a concussion."

"Probably," I agreed.

He let go of me and helped me to my feet. "You did a real good job in there, gettin' Yvette to confess like that. I'm proud of you, Junior Marshal Plum."

I gazed past him to see Yvette and Dewey kneeling on the ground in handcuffs, Tim watching over them. Ellen May was still passed out. I turned back to Givens. "You're the first person who ever told me I did a good job. Everyone else tells me I should quit."

"They're right about quittin' bein' a bounty hunter. You're a marshal, Stephanie." Givens squeezed my shoulder and then spun me to my right, pointing. "That other boot might be right over there. I'm gonna make a call to Tom, see if he found Dena Daley yet. If I'm wrong about that boot...well, hey, like Tim said, I make mistakes every now and again."

Somehow, I doubted it. But if he did, he always ended up saving the day.

Givens was a superhero. It was his job.

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Epilogue 1 (Raylan's Interlude)

It was nearly six in the morning when I let myself into the motel room. Winona rolled over and looked at me as I perched on the edge of the bed to take off my boots, blinking sleepily. She reached over and turned on the lamp.

"Oh my God, Raylan!" Winona sat up and took my face in her hand, staring in horror at the butterfly bandage over my eye. "Does the bad guy look as bad as you do?"

"Bad girl," I corrected her. "And yes, she does. Stephanie broke her nose."

Winona frowned at the mention of Stephanie's name.

"I like her," I said, determined to put an end to the jealousy I caused the other day. "If I had a kid sister, I imagine she'd be a lot like Stephanie."

That got a smile. Even though this was Kentucky, having romantic feelings for your sister was just plain nasty. "Was your bad girl from Harlan?"

"Frankfort, actually. She was usin' people from Harlan and Bennett to run her shoe dealin' operation. It wasn't the big money laundering ring I expected, just some wanna be tryin' to make a name for herself as a player and screwin' up big time," I explained.

Winona gently touched my bandage. "How'd this happen?"

"Not worth going into now." I could have told her about what happened to Helen's house but I was dead tired and now that I had a moment to think about it, I ached all over. "Justice is served. Stephanie got her man and the case of the Red Soled Shoe Murders has been solved."

"Any size sevens happen to follow you home?" Winona asked, with a grin.

I tapped her on the nose with my index finger. "Did you forget what happened the last time evidence followed one of us home?"

She sank back onto the pillow with a sigh. "I guess I'll go barefoot then. Barefoot and pregnant. Great combination, huh?"

"Just barefoot?" I asked, bending over to kiss her. I lifted the sheets and peeked at her. She was pregnant but she wasn't showing yet. Well, her breasts were maybe a little bigger and I sure didn't mind that. Suddenly, I wasn't quite as tired as I thought.

"You smell like smoke," Winona murmured, running her hand through my hair.

I kissed her again. "You know what they say. Where there's smoke-"

She reached down, gripping me through my jeans. "There's firewood?"

"Funny." I stripped in record time, tossing my clothes across the room. "Doesn't seem fair, me all bare-naked and you in my shirt."

"You wanna keep your boots on, Cowboy?" she teased.

"I've got a better idea." I reached under the bed and showed her the sexy black peep toe pumps Stephanie picked from the shoe-valanche at the drying shed. She gave them to me on our drive back, after we left Mooney and his men to count all the shoes. I considered scolding her for screwing with the crime scene but it was only a pair of shoes and it wasn't like they could be traced. "How about you wear these? An' nothin' else?"

"Now you're talkin'."

I lasted a lot longer than five minutes.

Epilogue 2

Givens' Town Car was parked next to the Cayenne and it looked like it just came from the factory. He circled the car and whistled appreciatively before loading the gear from the Cayenne into the back of the Lincoln.

Tim handed me the body receipt for Dewey. "You'll be back to testify at Yvette's trial, right?"

"Absolutely," I told him.

He held out a large package wrapped in Wonder Woman gift wrap. "Got you a little going away present."

Givens came up beside me and raised an eyebrow. "Looks like Tim might have a li'l crush on you, too."

"Hell yeah," Tim said. "Any woman that can survive that many explosions is my kind of girl."

"Speakin' of explosions," Givens told me, "I won Gazarra's pool. He owes me five hundred bucks."

I unwrapped the package. It was a scrapbook, bearing the title, Stephanie Plum Visits Kentucky and We All Survived. The first page was a copy of Dewey Crowe's mug shot, followed by his FTA and a copy of the warrant. There were crime scene photos of the first Cayenne, the Explorer and Givens' aunt's house. I turned the page to see a photo of Givens lying on top of me and me unconscious under him. Givens' face was buried in my neck. One of my legs was hooked around him and my arm was draped across his back. My mouth was hanging open in the photo and if we weren't fully clothed, it looked like we just did the deed.

"I've shot people I liked more for less," Givens told Tim, eyes narrowing.

Tim grinned at him. "So have I."

I flipped the page, hoping there weren't any more nasty surprises. The next photo was Givens kneeling in front of me, adjusting the ankle holster. It looked like he was proposing.

"Keep going," Tim said.

There was a mug shot of Yvette and a crime scene photo of the shoes. Then there was a picture of me, slumped against Givens. His arm was around me and his head was bent towards me, face intimately close to mine.

"My army shrink suggested I take up a hobby like scrapbooking to help readjust to civilian life," Tim told me. "I think I have a real knack for it, don't you?"

Unh! Mental head slap.

I turned to Givens, looking up at him. "Thanks for everything, Givens."

"You sure you don't wanna join me on my road trip to Florida, transportin' Dewey Crowe?" he asked.

"Tempting," I told him. "But my hamster misses me."

"What about Morelli?"

"Maybe."

"He'd better miss you - bad - or you need to dump his ass," Givens said. "I'm gonna call you the second they lift that hirin' freeze. You don't apply, I'm gonna be real disappointed in you."

"I will."

We stared at each other for a moment and then he pulled me to him and hugged me. "I'm gonna miss you, Stephanie Plum."

I heard the click of Tim's cell phone camera behind us.

"You're a dead man, Gutterson," Givens said.

The end.

Preview of Stephanie's next adventure with Raylan.

"Joe Morelli, this is Raylan Givens," I said, wondering just how south things were going to go once I let the boys get a word in edgewise.

Morelli smiled a phony smile, all teeth and no sincerity. "Raylan? Oh, you're Raylan the hamster's daddy."

My father grunted and reached for more mashed potatoes and I saw my mother quietly slip into the kitchen. I had a feeling she was going to the cabinet where she hid her bottle of cooking sherry before she brought out dessert.

Givens returned the smile and turned to me. "You named a hamster for me?"

Uh-oh. "Well..."

"That's really sweet," he drawled and then leaned over to kiss my cheek. The phony smile was fixed in place as he turned back to Morelli and said, "I guess you're the other hamster's daddy. Rex must be your nickname, huh?"

Great. Two cops who knew exactly how to push each other's buttons. I figured I had less than five minutes or one more insult before it came to blows. Of course, once they beat the snot out of each other, they'd have a beer and decide they liked each other more than they liked me and I'd spend tonight watching TV with the hamsters.

The Contest.

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