Kathleen Creighton - Kincaid’s Dangerous Game

Then…the first of the brides’ attendants started down the aisle. So beautiful, Sam thought, and felt a fluttering in her chest as she watched the little girl float toward her, carrying her basket of roses and wearing a simple ankle-length white dress. Hannah Grace waved shyly at her mom and dad, who smiled and waved back from their seats in the front row across from Sam and Cory.

Then it was Alex’s turn, and she was grinning at the bunch from Penny Tours as if to say, Hey, look at me, I’m wearing a dress! Then Tierney, radiantly, gloriously pregnant, with eyes only for Wade, already teary-eyed from what Sam guessed must be an overwhelming banquet of emotions.

The music paused…a hush fell over the assembly, and over the gardens beyond. Then there was a collective sigh of breath as Brooke and Billie came from opposite sides of the garden to meet at the back of the aisle. They looked at each other, and Brooke lifted a hand to brush something from her twin sister’s cheek. Then they both laughed, and turned…and waited.

Cory squeezed Sam’s hand as he rose from his seat and went to meet them. He kissed each of his sisters on the cheek, then each one took an elbow, and they started up the aisle together.

Oh, Lord, that’s done it, Sam thought. She clapped a hand over her mouth, but tears were already welling up and spilling over, and she didn’t have a tissue, of course, to save her life. She watched through a blur as Cory handed over the brides to their respective grooms, then came back to take his seat. He handed her a handkerchief as he settled into the chair beside her, waited for her to mop her cheeks and blow her nose, then reached over and took her hand.

“Thanks,” she whispered soggily. She leaned her head on his shoulder. “Oh, Pearse, look at them up there. All of them together…did you ever imagine anything like this?”

Cory’s laugh sounded wistful. “To tell you the truth,” he whispered back, “I always imagined them the way I saw them last. You know-little. Just babies.”

Sam drew a long breath, gathering courage. “Well, darlin’, it sure does look like there’s about to be a baby boom in your family. You don’t look out, your family’s apt to be as big as mine.”

Her husband laughed without sound. “I don’t think there’s much danger of that-the Starrs have a pretty good headstart.”

Another breath she didn’t really need. “And…they’re about to get bigger, too. By at least one.”

He threw her an interested smile, eyebrows raised. “Really? Who’s pregnant this time?”

“Oh, for Lord’s sake, Pearse!” She glared at him in exasperation. And watched his face go blank, then pale with shock.

“Samantha?”

“Yes?”

“Sam-when did you? When were you…? And you’re telling me this now? ”

“It seemed like a good time.”

“Does this mean-are you quitting the CIA? Are you going to quit flying? What-”

“Well, now, we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it,” she said serenely.

“Sam, when-”

She squeezed his arm and nodded toward the gazebo. “Hush up, Pearse. It’s beginning.”

has roots deep in the California soil but has relocated to South Carolina. As a child, she enjoyed listening to old timers’ tales, and her fascination with the past only deepened as she grew older. Today, she says she is interested in everything-art, music, gardening, zoology, anthropology and history, but people are at the top of her list. She also has a lifelong passion for writing, and now combines her two loves in romance novels.