Page 109 of Blow Me Down
“Amy, my love, feel your face.”
“Oh, Corbin,” I said sadly, rushing to his side. “My poor darling. This is some sort of dementia or fever or maybe it’s shock from the bullet—”
“Amy,” he said again, taking my hand to kiss my knuckles. “Feel your face.
Right here.”
He pressed my fingertips to my temples. Rather than encountering the side of my head, my fingers touched a long, hard, thin piece of plastic that led to my ear.
“The glasses,” I whispered, dropping my sword to use both hands on either side of my head. I felt along my face, tracing the outline of the virtual reality glasses.
“I can feel the glasses.”
“Aye. That’s how I know Paul’s character is dead. His control on the game has been lifted.”
“We can leave?” I asked, a feeling of joy welling up inside me. “The button right here, on the corner—all I have to do is press that?”
“That’s all you have to do to exit the game,” he said, smiling at me. “Go ahead, love. I know how badly you want to leave.”
Tears blurred my vision as my fingers found the button on the rim of the glasses, but something stopped me from pressing it.
Corbin stood in front of me, love shining in his eyes, bloody, black with soot, sweaty and dirty and covered in grime.
I’ve never seen any man so handsome. “You’re leaving too, right?”
“No,” he said, nodding his head toward the town. The fire had reached the outskirts of it, and I knew without a doubt that we would not be able to save it.
“There’s still Holder and the townspeople to see to. I’ll help with them, first, then leave the game and shut down the server so Paul can’t do anything until I can run some diagnostics and figure out what he’s programmed into it.”
I looked from him to the bound bodies of the pirates who lay trussed up before us on the deck. I wanted out of there, but it didn’t seem right to leave Corbin with everything.
“Sweetheart, go ahead and leave.” Corbin pulled me into a gentle embrace, his eyes as bright as mercury in the lantern light. His thumb brushed over my lower lip. “You know I’ll find you as soon as I get things taken care of here. I’m not about to let you go now.”
“Good, because if you did, I’d just have to hunt you down and challenge you to another duel,” I answered, brushing my lips against his. “I love you, Corbin.”
“Sweet words from such a bloodthirsty—and bloody— pirate,” he answered, giving me a proper kiss. “But ones I’ll hold you to. Go along, now. I’ll be with you as soon as I can.”
I smiled. “Oh, what’s another half hour or so? Let’s go find Holder and my people. We have an island to restore, and a new governor’s mansion to build.
And I’m not about to let just anyone do that! A captain has to have some standards, you know.”
He swatted me on my behind as I sashayed past him, but I smiled, happy, relieved, and so madly in love, I couldn’t possibly imagine how anything could ruin my happiness.
Sometimes I show a distinct lack of foresight.
Chapter 27
I don’t think much of our profession, but, contrastedwith respectability, it is comparatively honest.
—Ibid, Act I
“Are you ready?” Corbin asked two days later.
I looked around at the people of the town as they bustled around with the full extent of Corbin’s crew and the men from Bart’s that we’d rounded up and put to work. Hammers pounded, saws bit into wood, and voices murmured a happy chorus as the rebuilding of the town was well under way.
“I guess. Although now that it’s come down to it, I feel almost sad about leaving.”
He grinned at me. “And here I thought you’d be so sick of the world that you’d never want to step virtual foot in it again.”
