AN: I know I said in the briefly-posted input chapter that I wasn't planning to cover the chapter with Donna's wedding in it because the honeymoon talk is recapped in the "Priority of Life" episode that will be coming up next in this story, but I decided that doing it anyway would let me explore more team dynamics and more JAM. So you get a bonus chapter. Hope it came out alright. Will love to hear what you think.
"Okay, it's end of shift. Good job everyone. We kept the peace, now it's time to head home."
"Greg..."
"Right, Ed. Team, our beloved TL will not be with us tomorrow, as he's been called to a higher duty."
"Baby duty?" teased Spike.
"Father of the bride, actually," Ed retorted.
"Right. Donna's getting married tomorrow, isn't she?" asked Jules.
"Yep, and I'm giving the bride away."
"So, since Ed will be otherwise occupied-being in two places at once not falling within his skill set, the baton will be passed to the exemplary Constable Sam Braddock to carry the torch as Team Leader for the day. I assume that's okay with you, Sam?" Greg extended the offer in a teasing tone of voice.
"I'd say yes without hesitation, Boss," Sam began, "but the way all that syrup got spread on top of the invitation makes me wonder if I'd be better off saying 'no'. Raises the question of what you've got planned for us tomorrow."
Everyone grinned, even Greg and Ed.
"Just a patrol day unless the city's less-than-desirable elements have other ideas."
That night, long after Jules had succumbed to post-sex sleep, Sam lay awake in the bed. Ever since the blow-up between him and Ed during the hot call that had morphed from a hostage rescue in a bank to the infiltration of an illegal casino, he'd noticed Ed making more of an effort to listen to input when Sam offered it, or to explain a bit of why suggestions weren't followed, on top of actually stepping back several times and letting Sam function as Team Leader while himself shifting down into a subordinate tactical role. Even though there was that saying "thinking you're ready for something really only proves that you really aren't" Sam didn't believe it applied here. After so many years in the military and then SRU, he believed that his evaluation of his abilities was fair and objective. But his opinion wasn't the only one around or the most important one where this decision was concerned. Any opportunities that he had to demonstrate his skills for the people who mattered were welcomed, and he was glad that tomorrow would give him another chance.
Sam's relationship with Donna had always carried a thread of tension in it. He'd been just as bothered as Jules was when Donna had been selected as her replacement-both because Jules' injuries had been bad enough to require an extended recovery period, and because it meant she was no longer the only woman in SRU. Sam had been thrilled that Donna had taken the open spot on Team Three when Jules had been ready to return to duty and he had warmed up to Donna more when he didn't see her as professional competition for the woman he loved. Still, enough distance had remained between him and Donna that it had been a bit of a surprise when he'd learned that she was engaged to be married, as she'd seemed wed to the job. Being a cop made family life a challenge, as the Boss and Ed both knew full well; Wordy had seemed to be the exception when it came to a completely happy marriage.
"What would it be like if-?" Sam shut down that thought before it could fully form. If he couldn't even be open to people other than the Boss and Natalie about his relationship with Jules, then he had no business whatsoever even fantasizing about taking that step into marriage; not now, and not for who-knew how business, and yet he couldn't entirely prevent it. It was one reason why he wanted to prove that he was ready to take on the TL role on a permanent basis. He and Jules wouldn't have to hide anymore and he could empty that specially designated bank account...
"Team One, hot call," Winnie addressed them over the comm channel. "We have 911 reports of a gunshot at 2815 Kensington."
"Copy that, Winnie," Sam took the lead in responding. "Any information on a victim or subject?"
"Sorry, no. Caller's a stay-at-home mom who's hiding inside. Heard a gunshot at the house across the street right after a car pulled into the driveway. Didn't see anyone and doesn't want to go look."
"Have 911 tell the caller to stay inside where it's safe. Okay, Team, here's the plan. Spike and Raf, you'll be with me and we'll approach from the west. Boss, Jules, you stay in the vehicle and out of sight. Subject may still be in the vicinity and we need the option of fast pursuit on wheels if necessary."
"Copy that, Sam."
Within a few minutes, the acting Team Leader had confirmed the death of the woman inside the car, cleared the house and sent Spike and Raf to survey the neighborhood. Jules used 911 chatter to vector Raf in to intercept the subject spotted running from the area.
"Subject down," Raf reported. "Hit by a car on Davenport."
Sam thought that Raf's voice sounded odd. He was still very much the team's rookie and had never taken a lethal shot. Of course, Raf hadn't shot this subject and wasn't responsible for the man running into the path of the car, either, but he was sure to blame himself anyway. Seeing someone die wasn't easy for any of them, regardless of the circumstances.
"Raf? Are you okay?" Sam asked.
"Yeah. I-I'll-"
"Winnie, dispatch a uni to Raf's location to take charge of the subject's body. Raf, head back here when you can, okay?"
"Okay, Sam."
Raf returned to the original crime scene with the dead suspect's wallet, which he handed to Inspector Stainton. Mere moments later, Jules interrupted Greg Parker's conversation with the Inspector.
"Boss!"
"Yeah?"
"Just got off the phone with Ed. He's at a shots-fired call."
"He's at Donna's wedding," Parker protested.
"That's where the shots were fired," she replied.
The city park location of Donna's wedding was a scene of chaos, with stunned guests milling around, overturned chairs, and a bloodstained stage. The minister helpfully pointed out the direction in which the gunman-and Ed-had run.
"Okay. Raf, you take east; I'll take west," Sam gave the order and put action to words. A minute or so later, Greg's side of a phone conversation-clearly with Ed-was heard over the radio.
"Sam, Ed says to head through the park to the Marina. Find Dock 4."
"Copy that." Sam poured on speed. Given that Ed had been attending a wedding and not going to work, he wasn't armed. And even if Ed was confident about taking on a revolver-wielding gunman while unarmed, Sam had no intention of letting his Team Leader hang out to dry. He caught sight of Ed running down the dock in pursuit of the subject at remarkable speed given his suit and dress shoes. Sam veered onto the parallel Dock 3 and raced down to the end, then across the perpendicular dock that connected Docks 3 and 4, arriving just after the subject got tackled by Ed.
"They never count the shots," noted Ed, as Sam tossed the gun away from the subject's reach.
As they walked back to the wedding location, the pair discussed how Ed had known what was going on and Ed teased Sam about watching the History Channel to learn things.
"You should look into that," he tapped Sam's chest.
"Planning on it. Just waiting till I'm 70, sir."
Ed chuckled at the retort.
Greg looked up when they approached him. "So, your guy talking?"
Sam fielded the answer. "No, but he's got a record. B&E and assault. Liam Garvis."
"Garvis?" Greg looked at his notes. "That call we had earlier…that kid's name was Garvis, too. Could be related."
Sam had to agree. Two hot calls in one day, both with a subject named Garvis—it couldn't be a coincidence.
"Who was the vic in that shooting?" Ed asked.
"We don't know yet," Greg told him.
Sam pulled his phone out of his vest pocket. "I'll find out. Maybe there's a connection to Donna's friend."
"I don't know anything about any of this," Hank told Jules.
She looked at him in sympathy. "You aren't supposed to."
"This must seem pretty normal to you, right? Because of what you do? What Donna does?"
Jules shook her head. "Normal? No. No, this is never normal. It's just…it's the job."
After Hank left in the ambulance with his friend Pete and Donna went with Ed, Jules surveyed the scene. Normal? No, days like this weren't normal. The best man at a cop's wedding generally didn't get shot as soon as the 'I do's' were spoken. Part of her wondered if this was a life that Hank was really prepared to live on the fringes of. Could a mild-mannered IT guy really understand the life of a hard-driving cop like Donna, much less support her the way she'd need him to in order to be able to do her job? In a burst of enlightenment, Jules suddenly wondered if that was why none of the guys she'd dated before Sam had ever lasted more than a few dates. On paper they'd all been good guys, the kind any woman would want, but… She'd never been able to tell any of them more than surface details about her work. Either they'd been the "woman shouldn't do that" type or they'd gone queasy or shivery at the idea of guns, bombs, violence and the like. So they'd never lasted, because they could never understand what she did and why she had to do it. But Sam had. Sam did. Sam understood her in a way that none of them ever had. He knew the weight of taking a Scorpio shot and ending a subject's life, the pain of giving everything attempting to connect with the subject only to lose them, and the joy of making a difference and keeping innocent people safe. Sam understood it all and her, where her past civilian boyfriends hadn't. Only Steve had come close—a paramedic's job seeing the worst side of life much like cops did. But even he hadn't truly gotten it—and they'd both almost paid the price for it inside that café.
Jules was pulled from her thoughts back to the hot call when Raf ID'd one of the wedding fight distracters as being the brother of the day's two other identified subjects and relayed that the trio had ties to a notorious crime group: the Logan Family. The attack on Donna's wedding made sense—she'd been one of the cops involved in an undercover operation that had taken the family's head down and sent him to prison. And when Sam reported that the dead woman from the first hot call was the estranged wife of a cop—another cop from that undercover task force—it was clear to all of them that somehow the names of the cops involved in the Logan case had become known and someone was seeking revenge.
Greg Parker slapped his leg. "Okay Team. There are four other undercover cops from that operation that we need to track down, locate and then get to safety. Winnie, we need addresses for Greg Duceppe, Phil Laputo, Jerry Whittier, and William Kedrick."
In short order, two of the four were under police protection.
"We're still looking for Whittier," Sam reported.
"Neighbor says he plays racquetball every week. Same time, same place," Spike added.
"Jules, you close to there?" Greg asked after Spike had provided the address.
"I'm on my way."
"Sam, Spike, back her up, okay?"
"Jerry Whittier?" Jules approached a middle-aged man walking with a woman across the open top level of the sports club's parking garage. With an affirmative answer, she began to explain the threat against him. But it was cut short when gunfire echoed the air and bullets began to impact the vehicles near them.
"Gun it! Let's go!" Sam ordered from the passenger seat of the SUV he and Spike were in. Instantly Spike pressed his foot down on the accelerator and flipped on the lights and sirens.
"Sam?" Jules called out over the radio link.
"Jules, we're two blocks away!"
It took every ounce of willpower that Sam possessed not to react to the sounds of gunfire and shattering glass that registered loud and clear over the team's comm channel. Jules was right there, in the target zone, surely putting herself between the gunman and the innocent couple he was trying to shoot. Even though part of him wanted to send the tactical plan to hell and use his own body to shield Jules, Sam stayed in formation and kept ascending in the stairwell that she'd directed them to, with Spike backing him up.
"Sam?"
"We're seconds away, Jules!" His voice was imbued with confidence that she could hold out until they arrived. Sam emerged into the sunlight and saw the subject mere feet away, gun lifting and pointing toward Jules' head-her head that was looking the other way. Sam certainly didn't and wouldn't feel any guilt over the lethal shot that took down the subject would had fired on Jules and the retired cop and his wife-not that he would say that to SIU, of course. 'Subject was an active shooter firing on two civilians and an officer. He was preparing to fire at Constable Callaghan and any action other than that of lethal force would have resulted in her death. The subject was a clear and present threat to innocent lives, and lethal action is authorized under those circumstances, even without a direct Scorpio command.' would be how he'd phrase it.
"Who's the subject officer?" An approaching SIU officer asked. Sam raised one hand in acknowledgment.
When he got to Sam's side, the officer inquired, "Is the call completed now?"
Sam stated, "No. We still have at least one subject at large."
"Understood. I'll take your hand piece and direct you to come to SIU headquarters after this call is completed for our interview."
"Copy that."
The team, plus Donna, gathered to discuss their next move. Greg shared that the man wearing a cop's ring who he and Raf had seen leaving the Logan's Bar when they'd gone to talk to the now-widow of the crime family boss had just been identified as a man with ties to the Family: Peter Greene.
"No! Bill isn't involved in his," Donna stubbornly defended her former partner even when faced with photos of Greene outside Bill's apartment building.
"You know, the gunman got the jump on me because he went after Carol," Jules reflected. "We thought he was after Whittier, but he was actually after Whittier's wife."
Ed picked up the thought. "The first shooting today, the victim was a cop's wife."
"They weren't ever trying to get to cops," Sam put it all together.
"No. They're after the wives—and your husband," Jules looked over at Donna as she spoke. Instantly, the other woman had her phone to her ear. She reported that Hank had just left the hospital with a plainclothes cop—just as Ed got a call from the unis he'd seen outside Bill's building reporting that the man was nowhere to be found.
"No one helped him," Donna said over the radio as they raced across the city following the GPS signal from Hank's phone. "Even me. The day of his hearing, I was supposed to be there. I was planning to be there, but I was with SRU by then, we had a hot call…I wasn't there."
"Hank!" Donna screamed her new husband's name as she raced across the warehouse to where he lay on the ground, three bullet wounds in his back blossoming red over his white dress shirt. Ed stopped beside them, as the rest of the team ran through the building in pursuit of Kedrick.
"Drop your weapon! Drop it!" Sam shouted when Kedrick was cornered in the bowels of the building.
Greg had barely started negotiating when Donna appeared and strode through the ring of Team One officers to stand in front of Bill Kedrick. She didn't even seem to hear Ed tell her she was in the line of fire.
"What did you do?" she snarled at her ex-partner, drawing her weapon and leveling it at the man.
"Where were you, Don? Where were you?" Kedrick's voice was both agonized and accusatory.
An increasingly bitter exchange took place, with Bill blaming her for abandoning him, while Donna accused him of pushing her away and then shooting her husband in the back.
"I did it to save you!" Bill tried to excuse his action. "They would have killed you if I didn't. Ida Logan ordered it." Then he collapsed to the ground.
But when the team started to take him into custody, Donna pointed her gun at the ceiling and fired a single shot.
"Donna, you're a police officer!" Ed reminded her.
"I don't care what I am," she retorted. Everyone on the team held their breaths, hoping that Ed could talk Donna down before she shot Kedrick—or before they had to shoot her. Protocol was clear; by rights they should be aiming at Donna already, with Kedrick on the ground and now unarmed and Donna's fired round making her an active shooter. But they all held off on that, hoping and praying that they wouldn't have to shoot a colleague.
"You shoot him, you lose everything," warned Ed.
"You know the life I wanted—and he took it away!"
But after Greg told Donna that Hank was asking for her, she let Ed take her gun and ran to her husband unhindered by the team. Once they were alone, they exchanged collective glances.
"Did that just happen?" Jules asked.
"Yeah." Greg pulled off his cap and rubbed his face and head.
"What's going to happen? What Donna almost did..." Spike trailed off.
"Shouldn't define her career regardless of whether or not it is the last thing she does in SRU," insisted Ed.
"Eddie?"
"It can wait, Boss. But Donna did say this morning that she was planning to retire after the honeymoon."
"Team, let's focus on what we still need to do. Based on Kedrick's statement, we have two subjects to locate and detain. Let's get moving," Greg got the team refocused and moving.
"How's Hank doing?" Greg asked when Ed walked up to where Team One had gathered outside the Logan's' bar after watching uniformed officers escort Ida Logan and Peter Greene out of the building in handcuffs.
"He's gonna pull through."
"Good," Greg nodded in relief. The mere thought that Donna-a friend and former teammate-could have been widowed on her wedding day was a thought almost too terrible to even consider.
"So much for the honeymoon," observed Jules.
"You really think she'll leave Team Three?" Sam asked. His tone suggested he wasn't sure it would happen, even if Donna had by Ed's account sounded sure about it that morning. But if she did retire...it was hard for Sam to quash the selfish desire that Donna would follow through on her plan. If she left SRU, and the TL for Team Three bumped up to Sergeant, as was often the case, then...
"We'll see how she feels after four weeks of doing nothing all day," Greg replied noncommittally. He knew what had to be behind Sam's question, and wasn't sure which outcome would end up being best for everyone and for SRU.
"I mean, she can't give up that easy," Ed noted.
"No," Greg's answer now was as neutral as his last one. No, it wouldn't be easy for someone who'd served as long as Donna had to leave the life-they'd seen that with Danny Rangford and too many others-but almost seeing her new husband die, almost shooting the former partner who'd shot Hank, thinking about what she might want for her future...maybe leaving would be worth it for Donna Sabine Gerald, regardless of how hard it might be.
He, Ed, and Spike began walking away, to verify that the scene was secure before handing it over to the regular cops. Sam and Jules headed for their SUV parked across the street.
"Hypothetically, you like the idea of a honeymoon?" Jules asked as they walked toward their SRU SUV.
"Hypothetically, I love it," Sam replied.
"Please tell me it isn't daiquiris on a beach!" begged his secret girlfriend.
Sam grinned wickedly. "Extreme hiking, remote trails, no bathrooms."
Jules looked over at him in approval. She's never been the beachy-type, and it was nice to hear that Sam wasn't, either. Then again, after all those years over in the desert while he'd been in the military, it would be understandable why Sam might have an aversion to sand if he could help it.
"Sweet," she dragged out the word. "Sign me up."
"What, you mean with you?" Sam gave her a look of mock surprise. After glancing around to check that they were out of sight of their teammates, Jules launched her fist in a lightning move that connected with Sam's arm in a solid punch.
In the SUV, Sam pulled out his cell phone and called the number on the card given to him after the shooting by the SIU officer assigned to the incident.
"This is Sam Braddock, SRU Team One. Letting you know that the hot call has ended and I'm available for debrief at any time."
"When can you arrive?"
A quick tapping on the vehicle's GPS unit had the answer.
"I'll be waiting for you when you get here."
"Jules, can you drop me off at SIU?"
With her nod, Sam addressed his next comment to Greg. "Boss, going to SIU now. I'll be back to HQ as soon as I can."
"Copy that, Sam. Did you call the lawyer?"
"Next step."
"Good. We'll wait on you to debrief, so don't worry if SIU takes a while."
"Any problems with SIU?" Greg asked as Sam walked into the briefing room barely an hour later.
"No. In and out. Obviously justified use of force." Sam sat down in his usual seat at the table, opened the water bottle waiting there for him and took a drink before starting in on the accompanying snack.
The team's debrief went smoothly at the beginning. Ed shared what had happened before and during the wedding shooting, and the team provided more details about the shooting of the cop's wife. Things got a little more heated as the debrief shifted to the topic of Bill Kedrick and Donna.
"Do you think they crossed the line? Donna and Kedrick?" Raf asked.
"Do you?" Sam asked.
"I don't know," the rookie admitted. "I never did any undercover work during my time in the regular police force, before I got into SRU, so I don't know what that's like.
"None of us have," Jules told him. "But we all know the deal. A good UC will play a role all day, every day. Donna said this op lasted for a year. Ed, you said Donna told you that she and Kedrick were close—that it was just the two of them. Isolated from everyone else…
"Maybe it crossed over from pretend into reality?" suggested Greg.
"Maybe. It might be a reason why Kedrick went over the edge after the task force ended. If he felt more for Donna than she did for him...if it had become real for him but was just part of the story for her..."
Ed spoke slowly and deliberately. "She said he fell apart afterward. That everyone else moved on but Kedrick didn't."
"Going back to 'real life' as a regular cop probably would have been hard enough for Kedrick to adjust to, after the constant pressure and adrenaline rush of being undercover," Sam mused. "If he thought that he'd be making a real go of things with Donna, and then she let him know that wasn't happening...yeah, I could see him snapping."
"Have you seen that before?" Spike inquired.
He nodded. "Yeah, unfortunately. A few guys who got home after a long deployment only to have their wives serve them with divorce papers the second they got in the front door, or who walked into their houses to find no one there at all... It's hard enough for guys to come home and leave the war overseas-too many bring PTSD, nightmares and physical wounds back with them. That's bad enough. But when they've been clinging to the thoughts of home, spouses and kids...all of it as the reasons for why they wore the uniform and made the sacrifices...and then to lose what they'd been fighting for. Yeah. Too many snap. Eat their guns or do something insane to provoke suicide-by-cop. That or drugs and alcohol, addictions to painkillers..."
"You aren't like them, Sam. You didn't take that path," Jules assured him, leaning forward in her seat on the other side of the table to make her point.
"Only because I had the team. Because you all had my back. If it hadn't been for that...the guilt of killing Matt probably would have sent me over the edge sooner or later." The admission is sobering, but one that Jules-and the rest of Team One-had honestly known for years. It was part of why they'd unpacked Sam's bag when he'd almost quit SRU after losing Darren Kovacs at the Godwin Coliseum. They'd known or sensed that Sam was on the knife's edge and that they were the only ones who could keep him from falling off. So they'd taken everything out of the duffel bag that Sam had just packed and put it all back neatly into his locker while he'd been in the shower. When Sam had seen it, seen them...staying had been easier than packing up for a second time.
Knowing that they were beating a dead horse on this point of discussion, Greg moved things along. It became a fast volley exchange of thoughts.
"What do you think will happen to Kedrick?" asked Spike.
"A woman is dead, two men got shot, and other civilians and cops nearly got shot...that requires some kind of punishment," said Ed.
"I can't argue with that," admitted Jules. "I want to feel sorry for Kedrick, but at the same time, I don't. He had the choice to try and get help, to reach out, when he started having trouble returning to regular life. But he chose to push everyone away who would have tried to help him and seek comfort in the bottle and with strangers instead."
"But he was probably the macho type, Jules. I know them-hell, I am one," Sam shot back. "We don't like to admit weakness or ask for help. He probably couldn't do that, either-especially not to the people he'd led on that op. And especially not to Donna, if he was in love with her but she wasn't in love with him in return."
"But he didn't mean for his old team to be targeted."
"Law of Unintended Consequences, Jules. Doesn't really matter what he meant to have happen, it's what did happen that counts. Okay, I can buy it that Kedrick didn't have a clue that the guy he was spilling his guts to in that bar worked for the crime family the task force had taken down. But he'd been in undercover work for years. That's not really much different from having military security clearances like I still do. If you're entrusted with secrets, then you keep them. You don't let disappointment-personal or professional or whatever-lead you into breaking the faith that your superiors and your unit or team mates have placed in you. Those guys on the task force had the right to expect that Kedrick would keep their names secret. Joe Comax had the right to believe that his wife-estranged or not-wouldn't be targeted and killed just because someone wanted to send a message. Pete didn't deserve to be shot just because he agreed to be best man at Hank's wedding. Hank didn't deserve to be shot three times in the back just because he fell in love with Donna."
"Those are all good points, Sam," the team's sergeant spoke and the tenor of the room shifted downward. "Bill Kedrick made mistakes and he will be held accountable. Perhaps some of what he went through will be considered as mitigating circumstances, and perhaps none of it will. We don't make the laws and we don't adjudicate them—we just enforce them."
In more than one mind: Greg's, Ed's, and Spike's-to say nothing of both Sam's and Jules'-the differences between today and the day when Jules had been shot by Petar Tomasic had been striking. Today it had been Donna finding her new husband shot by her old partner; back then it had been Sam actually watching his secret girlfriend be shot by a subject sniper. Sam had done his job-shielding Jules, letting her be treated, taking a Scorpio shot not out of revenge for Jules but to save Ed's life, then going with SIU per protocol, and only after all duties were attended to had he gone to the hospital to be with Jules. Donna had chased after Kedrick blindly, pulled her gun on him, and threatened to shoot him like he'd done to Hank. No one would try to claim that the differences were due to Sam caring less for Jules than Donna did for Hank, or that Donna being a woman made her more emotional than Sam. All of them, except for Raf, had seen Sam's tears in the hospital room as he'd held Jules' hand and stroked her face and hair. Now, they each had the thought of wondering "what if" where the former couple was concerned-all but Greg, of course.
"Any plans for the weekend?" Spike asked the team at large as they headed for the locker rooms once the folder was closed on the day's debrief.
"Solo camping trip," Sam replied. "Survival skills are getting a bit rusty."
"Just hanging out with the family," smiled Ed. "Sophie's been hinting about a honey-do list."
"Jules?"
"Home renovation projects. My door will be locked and my phone turned off. Just sayin'."
"Jam session with my bandmates-been too long since we've done that," Raf offered before Spike could ask him again directly.
"Boss?" When Greg just smiled, everyone stopped and looked at him, waiting.
Greg smiled broadly. "Dean's coming up for a visit. So I'll be doing whatever he wants to do."
"Sounds great," Ed clapped him on the shoulder. "Hey, if he wants to hang out with Clark for a bit, reconnect and whatever, just let me know, okay?"
"Sure, buddy. Thanks. I'll mention that to Dean."
During their drive to the remote location he'd chosen for their weekend camping trip, Sam and Jules talked about what they'd both been thinking of ever since their last shift had ended.
"Do you blame Donna for threatening to shoot Kedrick?"
Sam considered Jules' question. "I don't blame her for wanting to-hell, I'd want to do the same thing in her position. But wanting to is one thing. Pulling her gun, firing at the ceiling...that's definitely on the line, Jules."
She sighed. "I know. I'd want to do it, too. But I think-I really really hope-that I'd be able to keep to the promises I've made to you and to the Boss and not lash out, no matter how much I'd want to."
"Copy that," Sam reached out his free hand and wrapped it around hers, squeezing gently. "Priority of Life."
"You know, we could have done this in my backyard," Jules teased, as she leaned against the Jeep's bumper and watched Sam start to set up the tent.
"No, we couldn't," he denied.
"My yard is plenty big enough for a tent."
"But not big enough to keep the neighbors from hearing us," his retort shuts down her teasing. She knows it's true. Neither one of them is known for being too quiet, and the smouldering look in his eyes promised Jules that she would be screaming a lot-and loudly-this weekend. "Well, I won't be the only one," she silently vowed.
After setting up the tent, he cleared ground-cover down to bare dirt and set up a ring of stones around their firepit. Jules spread their sleeping bags in a double layer inside the tent, shook out the light blankets, and fluffed up the small pillows they'd brought. Before she knew what was happening, she found herself flat on her stomach on the bedding, a solid weight anchoring her down. Her legs were pinned so that she couldn't even try to hook one around Sam's leg to throw him off her body. But really, she didn't even want to try.
"Gonna make me scream?" she teased in a throaty purr.
In response, Sam bucked his hips against her backside, his hard and thick length amply proclaiming his intent to do precisely that.
"Yeah, I am. You're gonna scare all the wildlife away."
"Back atcha, soldier," Jules had only enough freedom of movement to writhe under Sam, but that was more than effective enough for her purposes.
"So you're going to play it this way, my sexy sniper chick?"
"You got a problem with that?"
"Hell, no!" Sam lifted his body upward, allowing Jules to flip herself over onto her back then dropped back down. The full-body grinding contact had two pairs of eyes rolling from the sheer pleasure at being so close to each other, with no chance that anyone they knew could possibly catch them. By the time they both fell into sated sleep, all vows of vocalization and wildlife terrorism had been fulfilled multiple times. And in the privacy of their dreams, each dreamed of a day...a day in an unknown future...when this might be a real honeymoon for them.