Page 17 of Knocked Up in Alaska

In an outcome he found both interesting and unsettling, he made it to his hilltop without incident. Where were the girls? Bellying down, pushing his goggles to the top of his head, he scanned the low ground from his vantage point but didn’t spot them. They had to be on the move. A bunker-and-wait strategy wouldn’t work in this scenario. Team XY would capture the flag while the ladies sat in hidey-holes, hoping the guys walked into firing range.

Something below caught his eye. The orange barrel of a Splatmaster coming through a shield of shrubbery. Yeah, the thing was a definite disadvantage. Points to the ladies for winning the weapon choice coin toss and using it well. And hello, he wasn’t the only one to see it. A lone figure in a long, dark coat closed in. He hunkered down, lined up his shot, and prepared to fire.

The figure shrugged off the coat. It pooled around black combat boots to a soundtrack of marker fire, revealing Bridget, armed and dangerous in a minuscule black spandex ensemble from the Lara Croft collection of assault gear. She did it all kinds of justice, which she damn well knew, but the entirely predictable moment he took to appreciate the view left her enough time to take out his teammate. Archer emerged from the bushes, goggles up, hands up, and a well-placed pattern of blue paint splatters decorating the front of his gray T-shirt. “Somebody want to stop drooling at my fiancée, get in this war, and take a fucking shot?” he called.

Shit. That somebody would be him.

Before he could line it up, orange bloomed across the center of her back, neon bright against her small black top.

“Hit!” she called and did a slow-mo fall forward into Archer. Her fiancé caught her, dipped her dramatically in a one-armed hold, and planted a kiss on her lips. When he lifted his head, she called in the direction of the shooter who had taken her down. “Nice shot, loser.”

“Loser?” Trace laughed from somewhere beyond the cover of a carved wood statue of a wild salmon, while Archer levered Bridget upright. “You call that a strategy?” He stepped into the clear about twenty yards from them and gestured to her getup with the nuzzle of his Splatmaster. “Come on, Bridge, that shit might work on Archer, and even Ford—’cause God knows that guy is hard up—”

Ford exhaled slowly and let off one shot.

“Ow! Motherfucker!” Orange paint exploded across the seat of Trace’s tac pants seconds before he twisted at the waist and glared up the hill.

“Nice shot,” a voice whispered from somewhere behind him, nearly giving him a coronary. He turned to see Wing and Mad Army crawl through the brush to take positions on either side of him.

“Oops.” Ford called out. “Friendly fire. My bad. Guess my aim would be better if I wasn’t so hard up.”

Bridget pulled her goggles off and tipped her head to the side. “And now we know where your third man is.”

“So what?” Trace flung his arm in the direction of the hilltop. “Who do you have left capable of making that kind of shot?”

“You shouldn’t worry too much about that shot,” Bridget replied. “Your worries are much closer to home.”

Almost simultaneously with a string of gun retorts, a line of blue spattered across Trace’s shoulder.

“Dammit. Hit.” Trace dropped his gun.

The oversize salmon shielded the shooter from Ford’s view. Who the hell had picked the sculpture garden for this bloodbath?

Mad’s hand landed on Ford’s shoulder. “It’s down to you, man,” he said. “Just so we’re clear, I don’t know how to do shit with yarn, and I don’t want to know. If we lose, I will murder you in your sleep with a knitting needle.” The hand squeezed his shoulder, then retreated. “No pressure.”

None whatsoever. Ford kept his eyes trained to the field, waiting for one or both of the remaining members of Team XX to make a move. In the middle of the clearing, a trio of totem poles stood like large, ornate cacti growing from a bed of river rock. The coveted flag flickered in the light breeze at the base of the tall pole in the center. As soon as Izzy or Lilah entered the clearing, he could pick them off.

“There! Three o’clock.” Mad popped up like a prairie dog and pointed as Izzy leaped out from behind the fish sculpture and hauled ass toward the flag. “Holy…hot damn,” he added. “They’re not playing fair.”

Holy hot damn, indeed. Izzy wore camo shorts. Really tiny camo shorts and a snug black halter top that tied behind her neck and barely kept the essentials contained. Her long, dark hair was drawn up high and twisted into a thick, fancy braid that swayed and bounced with every step. A whole bunch of parts swayed and bounced as she ran, and he found it sort of hard to concentrate on a shot without getting distracted by all the sway and bounce.

“Dude, there’s Lilah!” This time Wing pointed down and south of the clearing. “On your nine.”

Ford swung his sight there and saw Lilah jogging toward the flag, too, her long legs tan and bare in cutoffs, hair streaming behind her, gilded in the sunlight, her all-grown-up curves contoured to perfection in an olive-green tank top. She must have circled along the tree line so she and Izzy could approach the target from opposite directions, thus splitting his attention and increasing the odds that one of them would make it.

“Okay, sniper, you’re up. Pick them off.”

With a silent apology to Izzy, he aimed low, timed the shot, and pulled the trigger. Orange paint splashed over the toe of her white running shoe. She slowed, drew to a stop. “Am I hit?”

“Let’s find out,” Trace approached his wife and started patting her down in places nowhere close to her shoe. Ford rolled his eyes.

“In the foot, while running? Hell of a shot,” Wing said with requisite awe. “One more, just like that. Hurry. She’s closing fast.”

Yeah, sadly, that was not going to happen. He lined up a shot but waited, simply watched her run.

“Hurry, Ford,” Mad prompted.

“It’s no good,” he said. “Too much wind.”

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