Below, you'll find a short extract from my latest action thriller, Pilgrim's Banner, which chronicles the further exploits of John and Sally Pilgrim, who are now married and living in Southern Arizona, at their shooting school, the SAS  Training Academy.

The figure paused for an instant, and then swung   the shotgun’s barrel towards where she lay behind the bed. Sally fired two fast shots into the intruder’s chest, and then ducked back and rolled across the floor, appearing again from around the end of the bed. He was still on his feet, so she fired two more shots at him, and the man staggered back, and pulled off his mask, revealing the smiling face of her husband, John Pilgrim.

“That was good, really good. I liked the way you warned me before you fired.” He rubbed his chest, where the rubber training bullets had hit him. “Good hits, too.” He put down the shotgun. “I think you won that one.” He looked appreciatively at her naked body as she rose to her feet, and said, “Maybe you’d better put some clothes on, or I might start thinking about something else.”

Sally gave him a sultry look and swayed towards him, exaggerating the swing of her hips, the tip of her tongue running along her upper lip. She put her arms around him and gently nibbled his ear. “What’s the hurry? You know what I’d really like right now, don’t you?” Her blue eyes were twinkling and her heart-shaped face wore an inviting smile.

Pilgrim began to unbuckle his belt. “I’m starting to get the idea.”

She pushed him away. “Well hold that thought right there, cowboy,” she said, smiling. “This girl’s hungry. What she really wants is breakfast.”

“Whatever happened to romance?”

“Food first, romance second. I’m starving. Shooting my guy four times in the chest always gives me an appetite.”

Thirty minutes later, Sally, now wearing jeans and a T-shirt with a winged-dagger logo, with a scroll underneath reading ‘SAS Training Academy’, walked into the kitchen, her ash-blond hair neatly tied in a pony tail.

She was just starting to cook breakfast, when Pilgrim came in holding a fax. “Good news, the Drug Enforcement Agency in Los Angeles wants us to run a training class for their new agents.”

Sally, her head deep in the refrigerator, said; “Sounds great, when do they want us to run it?”

He looked at the fax. “They say they’ll contact us in the next month or so, with a list of suggested dates. They accepted our price,” he added, “so that’ll keep us going for a while.”

He was referring to the shooting school he and Sally owned. They had moved to Arizona from London, where Pilgrim had owned a shop selling military collectibles. His background in the elite British Special Air Service Regiment had given him a wide knowledge of combat techniques, with handguns as well as other types of weapons. This experience was put to good use when they started the school.

The SAS Training Academy had originally been a ranch, located some fifty miles outside Tucson. They had spent three months supervising the building of the ranges and student accommodation, and the school had been a success from the start. Regular training classes were held there, where students were taught real-life defensive shooting techniques, with the emphasis on ‘real-life’.

As Sally turned away from the refrigerator, she felt a gun dig into her back.

“Don’t move, lady, or you’ll get hurt,” a gravelly Cockney voice said.

Reacting instinctively, she twisted away, knocking the gun aside with her free hand, and smacking the three eggs she was holding down on the head of Mickey Boniface, the school’s resident gunsmith. “Scramble those, Mickey,” she said mildly, stepping in close and twisting the gun from his hand. She threw the gun, a plastic replica, on to the table, and laughed as she saw him wiping egg from his eyes.

Sally threw him a cloth. “Here, wipe yourself with this. You’d better clean the floor too, if you want breakfast.” She watched smugly as he cleaned first himself, then the floor. “That’s what I like to see; a man on his knees doing housework.”

Mickey was of medium height, and his sandy hair, shiny now with the remains of the eggs, was standing up in spikes. His cheerful face, with its freckles and snub nose, wore a wide grin. “It was worth a try, Sal,” he said, looking up at her. “John told me he was planning something for you early this morning, so I thought I’d have a go, too.” He wiped his hands across his face. “I tried to catch you by surprise, but you seem pretty sharp today.”

“Too sharp for you, Mickey; you ended up with egg on your face. I suppose you’ll both want the full English breakfast, will you?” They both nodded, eager smiles on their faces. “In that case,” she said, “you can cook it, seeing how I sorted out the pair of you.” She sat down and picked up the newspaper. Pilgrim looked at Mickey, who shrugged resignedly, and they moved across to the stove.

Their ‘English Breakfast’ consisted of fried bread, fried eggs, fried sausages, and fried bacon, topped off with grilled tomatoes and mushrooms. They sat down to eat this healthy meal, and Pilgrim poured coffee for them. Glancing up from the newspaper, Sally saw him gazing at her thoughtfully. “What are you looking at?” she mumbled through a mouthful of  toast.

“I was just thinking that you were right on the ball this morning.” He added; “I was also thinking that I’ve got the best-looking firearms instructor in the world: the one who has the privilege of sharing my bed every night.”

Sally snorted. “Would that be the one who works all day writing newspaper and magazine articles? The one who helps you out on the training classes, spends her evenings going through the accounts and thinking up ideas for our ads in the gun magazines? The one who was supposed to have breakfast cooked for her this morning, because it wasn’t her turn?”

“Sorry, I forgot,” he said, holding up his hands in apology.

“In that case, you can take me out for dinner tonight.”