Bailing Out

I watched the car drive away and, turning, I saw Samantha waving farewell to it from one of the windows. Returning to my beer, I carefully drained it and thought about what he'd said.

He was right about many things - but he was very wrong if he thought she'd suffered enough.

The only fortuitous thing about Joe's death had been the fact that Samantha had made the decision to talk to me -- rather than me making use of a prepared excuse to prevent her getting on the plane for the jump. I'd known full well that Joe and Donald would come and borrow our chutes -- they had a reputation for saving money that way rather than paying to hire them -- and I wasn't the least bit particular about which of them took Sammy's.

I also knew that Donald and Malcolm weren't faring too well nowadays. Once we'd sold the business to the Japanese company, the new regime hadn't appealed to them -- or to several others. They'd been identified as troublemakers and, regardless of fairly long service, been ushered out the door with very little ceremony.

Me... dangerous? I'm just an accountant, aren't I?

Samantha and I had used some of the money to buy the villa we now lived in, and there was more than enough left for us to live in reasonable style and comfort off the interest alone. Old habits die hard, though, so I still worked from home looking after the financial affairs of some of our wealthy neighbours.

As I got to my feet, Sammy appeared at the door and hurried towards me. She still looked slim enough to make it hard to notice that she was carrying our third child.

"Mark's gone?" she asked.

"Yes... back to dear old England," I grinned.

"Ugh... he's welcome to it," she said with a mock shudder, and then, "Anyway... the kids are having an afternoon nap and I wondered... errm...."

I raised my eyebrows and waited until, after a moment, she burst out giggling and said:

"It's no use trying to make me ask... you rotten pig! I'm going for a lie down for an hour or so."

Then she reached up, gave me a very sensual kiss on the lips, and started walking back to the door with a swing of her lovely hips that was better than injecting Viagra into a vein! By the time I went inside and closed the door behind me, I'd already forgotten about Mark Haley -- and everything else that was history.