Chapter Fourteen

At the finish line — they were nearly 10 yards in front of the second-place finishers in a 100 yard race — Brad gave Dace’s shoulders a squeeze and kissed her lightly on the lips. Even that brief — almost instantaneous — contact was enough for Dacey to feel her knees turn to water. She hugged him back, but to keep from falling more than anything else.

Their final event — or so they thought — was tennis. This played very differently from the earlier competitions. The format was eight teams playing a single set with tie-breakers if necessary. Although Dacey had not played much tennis, she had played a lot of racquet ball at her health club, and easily adjusted to the full swing of tennis rather than the more wristy game of racquet ball.

Again, their teamwork worked for them as they quickly polished off their first two opponents and moved into the finals. It turned out that she was devastating at the net, with cat-quick reflexes and an amazing judgment of ball trajectories. Several times