Maddie took a deep breath in and then another.  She realized that the odd, shaking sensation she felt was the rumble of the trains as they traveled in and out of the station.  Gingerly, she moved her arms and her legs, trying to feel for pain or bleeding.  Other than a few bumps and bruises, however, she felt that she was all right.

Relief coursed through her for a brief moment until she realized that Matthew was strangely quiet next to her.  Startled and suddenly terrified, Maddie blinked her eyes open and groped with a slender hand for her husband’s.

Matthew closed his fingers around hers tightly in warning.  The silence that had enveloped the station in a brief, shocked moment abruptly dissipated.  Shouts, clamors and screams peppered the air around them.

“Was ist los?!”

“Qu’est-ce qui passe?!”

“What’s happening?!”

The frenzied exclamations in various languages somehow comforted Maddie.  They were no longer alone in a sea of people. 

“Darling,” her husband’s voice was urgent and agitated next to her ear.  “Are you all right?  You weren’t shot?”

Maddie squeezed his hand.  “I’m all right.  I’m okay.”  The sound of his voice made her shoulders sag in relief.  She stiffened, however, when she felt a hand on her back.

“Madame Wheeler?” an anxious voice asked.  “Are you all right?” 

“I…” her voice trailed off as she groaned and pushed herself up to a seated position.  Her hazel eyes widened as she looked at the spreading stain of blood staining her husband’s suit.  “Matthew!”

Her husband struggled to sit up, helped by a surprising source.  The diminutive Isaac Maas offered support to Matthew as he sat upright with a grunt of pain.

“Mr. Maas!  Why…what…” Maddie sputtered, looking at him in surprise.

He gave her a concerned look.  “Are you hurt?” he asked again.

She shook her head.  “Just bumps and bruises.”  Maddie reached for her husband, swallowing hard and trying to push aside the nauseated dizziness that threatened to overtake her.  “Matthew!  They shot you!”

Matthew gave her a wry look.  “Yes, so it appears that they did.”  He winced as he shifted his shoulders and ran a finger through the ragged tear on his suit.  “Damn.  I liked this suit.”

“Forget the suit!” Maddie said impatiently, her concern for her husband momentarily overpowering the intense urge she had to faint.  “What about the arm underneath the suit?”

“I think a bullet just grazed me,” he said, turning his arm to better see it.  “Hurts like the devil, though.”

Maddie was about to take a closer look at her husband’s wound when she noticed a plethora of officers surrounding the area.  The languages went by too quickly for her brain to comprehend all that was being said.  But she did notice, with great satisfaction, that both Monsieur Fine and Monsieur Reynoud were being led away in handcuffs.

With some relief, she turned back to her husband and reluctantly tugged aside the torn pieces of fabric in order to look at his arm more closely.  “You’ll need stitches,” she said, swallowing hard to try to stem her welling nausea as she looked at the blood coagulating around the cut.

In response to that, Matthew pulled away his arm away from her with an irritated huff.

“Matthew,” she began, her voice shaky, but determined.

Her husband instead turned to Mr. Maas, who had motioned a nearby medic over to them.  “We thought you’d been injured in an attack.  How did you happen to be here?”

Mr. Maas smiled, then, his lined face lighting up.  “Ah, yes, that.” 

The medic joined them, kneeling down to attend to Matthew’s wound as Mr. Maas continued speaking.  “As I mentioned, after I was robbed, I went to the police.  But I was one in a long line of many others who had found little help from the local police.”

“I can see why,” Maddie said, her lips tightening.

“Yes, indeed.”  Mr. Maas nodded solemnly.  “It became apparent to us that someone involved in the investigation was not, shall we say, honest.”  He glanced at the medic, who was speaking in rapid Flemish, gesturing at Matthew, before turning to Maddie and translating.  “The medic indicates that your husband will need care at the hospital to close his wound.”

“I warned you, Matthew,” she told her husband, who had a deepening scowl on his face.

“I’m not going anywhere until I hear what Mr. Maas has to say,” Matthew insisted.

Mr. Maas hesitated and then spoke quickly and quietly to the medic.  Then, he continued with his story.  “There isn’t much to tell.  One of the jewelers who had been robbed contacted someone at Interpol and expressed our concerns.  They have been investigating Monsieur Reynoud and learned of his meeting here today with you and Monsieur Fine and were already in place when you arrived.  A story was spread that I’d been attacked and was in the hospital because of the attack.  Several of the other cheated jewelers were in place, waiting to help identify the man who had stolen from us.”  He gave the two of them a stern look.  “Imagine our surprise and dismay when I saw him meeting with you!”

“We thought we were helping,” Maddie said softly.  “We thought we could bring out the criminal who had stolen from you and have him arrested by Monsieur Reynoud.”

“It turns out it would have been better for us to have listened to our gut feelings,” Matthew said in self-disgust.  “Both of us have had grave misgivings about being here today.”

“Well, I am certainly glad that neither of you was badly hurt,” Mr. Maas declared.  “That indeed would have been much more tragic than any of us losing our money.”

“Will the police be able to return the money that those scoundrels stole from you?” Maddie asked.

Mr. Maas shrugged.  “Perhaps.  I think, though, that it is most important that they are no longer able to deceive or hurt anyone else, n’est-ce pas?”  He patted Maddie’s arm and gave both of them a warm look.  “Thank you for wanting to help an old man like me.”

“We were glad to do it,” Maddie replied.

“And we still expect to see that hand-made piece of jewelry,” Matthew said sternly.  His twinkling emerald eyes belied the seriousness of his tone, however.

“Bien sûr!  You will receive it!”  He smiled.  “It truly will be a lovely piece, I believe.” 

The medic again gestured toward Matthew, an impatient scowl on his face. 

“And now I think you need to go with this young gentleman,” Mr. Maas said. 

Matthew looked ready to protest, but Maddie overruled him.  “To the hospital with you, Matthew Wheeler.  No ifs, ands or buts.”  She, along with the medic, helped Matthew to his feet.  Before they left, she turned to Mr. Maas with a grateful smile.  “Thank you—for everything.”

“Likewise to you, Madame.”  He returned her smile and then walked back over toward a waiting police officer.

As the medic steered them toward the exit and his awaiting ambulance, another policeman dogged their heels, calling out in hesitant English.  “Madame, please.”

“We are staying at the Antwerp Hilton.  Matthew and Madeleine Wheeler,” Maddie said crisply.  “We will answer your questions after my husband returns from the hospital.”

The police officer hesitated and then nodded, letting them go.

“So firm, so dictatorial,” Matthew murmured under his breath to Maddie.  “I think I’m a little turned on by that.”

Maddie’s eyes widened, and she laughed.  “Matthew!”

He shrugged and then winced at the movement.  “Hold that thought.  We can discuss it in more detail later.”

“Later” seemed to be the operative word in Matthew’s sentence.  The rest of the day seemed to go by in a long, swirling blur.  First, there were stitches in the local hospital, followed by lengthy questioning from the Interpol agents in a private room at the hotel.  Afterward, they dealt with frantic telephone calls from their children, and only then, finally, did they close the door of their hotel suite and relax with room service.

Maddie leaned against the headboard of the bed with a weighty sigh.  “I’m exhausted.”

“You’re exhausted?” Matthew exclaimed as he gingerly leaned back next to her, favoring his bandaged arm.  “I got shot and had stitches, along with everything else that happened today.”

“My poor darling,” she murmured, brushing a lock of copper hair off his forehead.  “I was so terrified for you.”

“And I you,” he replied gruffly.

For several minutes, they drank each other in, reassuring themselves of the other’s solid, blessed alive-ness.    Finally, Maddie looked up at him with a rueful smile.  “I don’t think I’m going to ever say another word to those girls about detectiving ever again.”

Matthew responded with a loud snort.  “Speak for yourself.  After all that we’ve been through today, I’m going to put Honey under lock and key and recommend to Peter Belden that he do the same with Trixie.”

Maddie sat up a little, a smile hovering on her lips.  “But really, Matthew, wasn’t it just a little bit exciting?  Just a little bit?”  At his immediate skeptical lift of his eyebrows, she gestured with a slim hand.  “Before the shooting, of course.  All the adrenaline—where your skills have to be fine tuned to what you’re doing—where you walk almost on a knife’s point?”

“I get plenty of excitement in my board meetings,” Matthew retorted.  “And besides, Maddie, there is always the gunfire and the horror of what might be one day.”  He shook his head.  “I don’t want to live through the thoughts I had this afternoon—that you might be lying dead next to me—ever again.”

Maddie’s hazel eyes softened as she gazed at him, and then she shrugged and snuggled up next to him.  “So…you don’t want to take that agent from Interpol up on his offer, then?”

“What offer?” he demanded, pulling away from her to look directly into her eyes.

“Oh—”  She waved her hand airily.  “Just the one about helping them out again sometime.”

“Maddie!”

Maddie’s lips curved up into a smile as she caressed his freckled face.  “Let’s talk about it later, darling.”  She gave him a slow, lingering kiss.  “I’d rather pick up that thread of conversation you were talking about earlier.”  She hesitated, glancing at his arm.  “Unless you’re hurting too much…”  The breath whooshed out of her as he pulled her more closely into his arms.

“Don’t think this conversation is finished, Madeleine Wheeler,” he chided her. 

“Oh, I don’t,” she said with a slowly dawning grin. “We’ll get back to that one later.”

“Kiss me,” he commanded. 

“Anything you wish,” she replied as she leaned down to kiss him.

“God, if only that were true,” he muttered just before his lips were claimed by hers.

Several days later…

Maddie leaned back in the plush upholstered chair with great satisfaction.  The piece they’d purchased from Isaac Maas had netted their charity over a million dollars.  The intricate design and the beautiful cut of the jewels inside it had captured the attention of two men in particular and had initiated a bidding war.  The battle had finally culminated in a victory for the wealthy businessman from New York.

Her husband sat down next to her and offered her the receipt for the jewelry with a smile.  She shook her head at him and spoke in a low voice so as not to interrupt the next auction for a Picasso painting.  “Matthew, you shouldn’t have.”

“I thought it was an appropriate souvenir for our recent escapade,” he murmured as he stretched an arm around the back of her chair.  “Not to mention the worthy cause I just supported.”

Maddie smiled at him and leaned over to kiss him on the cheek.  “You know I loved that necklace, darling.  Thank you.”

“Anything else you want?” he asked, raising an eyebrow.  “I would like to check out the horses they have for auction a little later.  Regan’s been after me to check out a couple of the Arabians.”

Maddie shook her head.  “I think this piece is more than enough.”

“Well, I’m ready to go if you are,” he said quietly.

A round of applause signaled the end of the auction for the Picasso, and Maddie nodded at her husband.  The two of them rose to leave, exiting their seats to move into the aisle before heading toward the back of the auction hall.

A slender man in black straightened from his casual lean against the back wall and walked up to them.  “Mr. and Mrs. Wheeler?” he asked in a soft voice.

“Yes?

The man pulled a badge from inside his coat and handed it to them.  “I’m John Singer, and I work for Interpol.”  He motioned for them to begin walking.  They did, their departure ignored as the auctioneer began to call the next item.

“What’s this all about?” Matthew demanded as they entered the lobby of the auction hall.

“Your assistance to our agency was greatly appreciated by our agents over there.”  The agent hesitated for a moment before continuing, “We were wondering…”  He broke off and said, “There’s a little restaurant nearby that specializes in the seafood of the area.  Would you be interested in lunch?”

Matthew’s eyebrows came together, and he was just about to speak when Maddie put her hand on her husband’s arm.  Her hazel eyes took on a gleam of interest, and she said, “We would.”

The agent smiled a little and then said, “I’ll go get us a cab.”

As he headed toward the exit, Matthew whirled on his wife.  “Interpol?  Maddie?”

Maddie gave him a smile.  “Tell me you’re not curious, and we’ll turn him down and go back to our hotel.”

Matthew stared at her for a moment before he let out a long breath of air.  “Am I going to have to lock you in your room too?” he grumbled.

Maddie laughed a tinkling, happy laugh.  “Perhaps, darling.  Just perhaps.”