This is the fourth part (of five) of the first story in my WHIRLWIND series. The WHIRLWIND series are unrelated stories (6 so far) with a common theme; each one is based on a short, slightly unusual courtship, with a primary female character who believes that she cannot find love for some reason — and a primary male character determined to prove her wrong.
I visited Ireland once, for 13 marvelous days, and was enchanted by the lilting Irish speech. I have attempted to reproduce that in the dialogue of the Irish characters. WORD’s Spelling and Grammar Checker hated it. I hope the reader doesn’t find it too tedious. If so, please note that in the comments and I will use less of it in the remainder of the story. So far there haven’t been too many complaints.
In previous writings, I don’t think I handled ‘flashbacks’ well, so I wrote this one which has a number of flashbacks as its core. Be warned. There is also no sex.
I can tolerate few ‘Reality’ Shows. The AMAZING RACE is a notable exception. There are a dozen different spinoffs of the AMAZING RACE, each featuring contestants from a different country (i.e., Fantastic Race Canada, Fantastic Race Australia, etc., though the original AMAZING RACE is out of America with American citizens as contestants). This story hypothesizes the FANTASTIC RACE with international teams and slightly different rules.
FINISH LINE Part 4
Major Characters:
Lead Singers of the Celtic/Irish singing group ‘The Madri-Gals’:
Ariana Collins
Marie Kavanaugh
Linnae Jameson
Lavender Renaud
Cassie O’Hara
President and Web Administrator of the Ariana Collins Fan Forum:
Nathan Moore
The Teams for FANTASTIC RACE
(1) German national soccer champion and her husband
(2) Canadian hockey player and his wife
(3) French singer and her son
(4) Japanese pop star and her sister
(5) Captain of New Zealand rugby team and a young man (fan)
(6) American basketball star and young man (fan w/ Down’s Syndrome)
(7) Gold medal Chinese gymnast and her brother
(8) Italian Gran Prix driver and his mistress
(9) Russian ballerina and her daughter
(10) American rock star and young man (fan)
(11) Ariana (Irish) and Nathan (American)
Nathan and Ariana are continuing their string of first place finishes, and the end of the race is looming — But remember, the question is not whether they will win or not, but whether they will admit their love for each other and give it a chance — and will it survive the revelations to come:
CHAPTER 14 [Twelfth (& FINAL) Leg (Austria to Azores to Alexandria, Virginia] — Three teams remaining.
After getting in to the airport, they had solved a puzzle within a puzzle, having to solve a math problem using the names of all of the different types of currencies from all of the countries they had visited. Then had come The four challenges had been a rushing blur where all three teams were practically neck and neck, their differences measured in seconds. Then the final dash to the finish line.
They had been hurtling down the road, a hundred yards behind Garret and Jeremy, but unable to gain because they were boxed in by traffic. The south entrance of Manor Hill Park should be but a few miles ahead of them, and then whatever dash to the checkpoint. She pounded the wheel. “We’re trapped by this traffic!”
“Then we earned $275,000 for AIDS research and came in second doing our best.”
Flicking a quick glare at him in the back seat, she said, “Ya know ya ur infuriating when you are so calm.” She shifted her glare to the driver to her right, who glared back and then ignored her, shifting not an inch forward or back. Gritting her teeth, and conscious of the videographer in the back seat, she said, “Ya know, ya are the onla one to ne’er complain about me drivin. Everyone else tells me I am a mad woman behind the wheel.”
Studying the map intently, Nathan answered, “I have a couple of decades of cautious ‘parent driving’ habit. You are – a more aggressive – driver than I am, and we are in a race, so you should drive. Conceding that, it would be churlish of me to complain. Besides, we are a team, aren’t we?”
She glanced in the mirror. “Aye, we are a team, no matter what.”
“So, wherever we go, we go together; the checkpoint, the hospital, the morgue.” He looked up and smiled at her shocked expression in the mirror. “Wherever. Besides, if God wants us to win, we will.”
Her retort had been cut off by the woman in front of them suddenly realizing she needed to be in the right lane, with her right turn looming unexpectedly ahead. The woman to Ariana;s right leaned on her horn as the car slid in front of her with inches to spare, being halfway into the lane before the turn signal had come on. And a half lane was all Ariana needed. The videographer yelped as Ariana tried to ram the accelerator through the floor and used every inch of space to pass.
“The park is ahead on the left,” Nathan’s voice stated, calmly.
“And the scoundrels kin no turn left through the traffic,” she crowed, gaining ground by the heartbeat on the familiar car stopped ahead, with its turn signal flashing and the irate driver making obscene gestures out the window at the heedless oncoming vehicles. As they neared the car and a left turn lane appeared, Ariana peered ahead and saw a gap in the oncoming traffic – but was it big enough for TWO cars?
The gap flew by Garrett, and his car peeled rubber to pull left and dive into the park entranceway. Ariana followed, earning a blaring protest of car horns though there had been at least ten feet to spare in the 45 mile per hour on-rush. Streaking up the winding drive to the parking lot, they arrowed across the lot aiming for the parking spaces closest to the beckoning entrance.
They skidded to stop one space over from Garrett and Jeremy’s car, thumping the curb soundly, and threw their doors open and hurled themselves out. With Nathan in the lead by a couple of strides, and trailing the other team by barely 10 feet, they dashed through the ornate, wrought iron archway of the park entrance. Just inside was a broad. deep set of stairs descending 8 feet to a wide grassy landing with long, shallow, sweeping ramps leading off to both sides and walled by a rainbow blaze of flower beds, and coming sweeping back in a long curve to end back in front of the landing, about 8 feet below the landing. Between the landing and the broad lawn below was a 2 foot high railing on the stone wall which was the lip, about 2 feet of space, and then an eight foot high thorn hedge.
Ariana looked around as she plunged down the steps after Nathan. Garret and Jeremy were hurtling down the first leg of the ramp on the left. Nathan ran straight to the railing, and leapt over, coming down behind the hedge. He turned and held his arms out and up.
Two weeks of answering ‘yes’ to the question, “Do you trust me?” took over, and, without a thought, without a word, Ariana leapt the railing in a move of such grace the Madri-Gals choreographer would have burst her vocal cords in a scream of joy. Nathan caught her, set her on the ground, and said, “Go under me, and then run, straight ahead, as fast as you can go.” With that he turned and thrust his entire body between two thorn bushes with a strangled gasp, and heaved the bushes apart by spreading his arms and legs, opening up a hole.