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“We’re just in time,” Tyler said, as he carried her across the dewy grass and onto the patio. “It’s almost sunrise.”
“As if that means a thing to me,” Caitlin said. It was getting more and more difficult to sound angry. How could a woman sound angry, when her heart was racing with the wonder of knowing that all her dreams were coming true?
In the distance, the first hesitant blush of the morning sun was coloring the hills.
Tyler lowered her slowly to her feet. “I love you, Cait.” He clasped her face in his hands and looked deep into her eyes. “And I need to hear you tell me that you love me, too.”
“You’re an impossible man, Tyler Kincaid. An absolutely impossible—”
“It’s one of my finest qualities,” he said humbly.
Caitlin laughed and, as she did, joyful tears rose in her eyes and glittered on her lashes.
“Oh, Tyler,” she whispered. She lay her hands on his chest, rose on her toes and kissed his mouth. “I do love you. I adore you, and I always will.”
His arms closed tightly around her. She was soft and warm and she smelled of flowers and sunshine, which was impossible considering that the sun was just beginning its climb into the sky, but Tyler had given up trying to understand anything beyond the fact that he loved Caitlin McCord more than any man had ever loved any woman, and that he would love her until they were both as old and crotchety as Jonas.
The thought made him chuckle.
“What?” Caitlin said, and leaned back in his arms.
“I was just thinking what a long and happy future we have stretching ahead of us, McCord.”
“There you go, Kincaid. You’re always so darned sure of yourself…” She caught her breath as he began undoing the tiny buttons down the front of her nightgown. “Whatever are you doing?”
“I’m making love with the woman I’m going to marry.”
Caitlin smiled. “What an excellent idea,” she whispered, and reached for his belt.
And, as the sun painted the Texas hills with flame, Tyler and Caitlin joined together in a love they knew would last forever.
EPILOGUE
SLADE BARON looked into the mirror in his old bedroom, tugged at the uneven ends of his formal bow tie and sighed as it came undone.
“It’s a female conspiracy,” he said, “that’s what it is. Why in heck do women like to see men all gussied up in these monkey suits?”
Lara, his wife, smiled at his reflection.
“It’s either because we know it drives you crazy or because we go weak in the knees at the sight of you looking so handsome,” she said sweetly. “Turn around, and let me fix that for you.”
Slade did as she’d asked. “Now, sugar, you know I look handsome no matter what I’m wearin’,” he said, and grinned.
“Maybe,” Lara said, trying her best not to smile, which wasn’t easy, considering that her husband was gathering her close in his arms. “Slade Baron, I’m never going to get that tie fixed if you do that.”
“Do what?” Slade asked innocently, and kissed her.
Lara sighed and lay her head against his shoulder. “I love you,” she said softly.
“And a darned good thing you do,” Slade said gruffly. He pressed a kiss into her hair. “I just hope Tyler and Caitlin can be half as happy as we are, sugar.”
“Only half?” Lara asked, leaning back in his arms and smiling up at him.
“The way I figure it, nobody in the world could be this happy,” Slade said, and drew his wife toward him for another kiss.
“Mommy? Daddy?”
Slade and Lara turned around. Their son, just awakened from his nap, stood clutching the bars of his Portacrib. Lara gave her husband a quick kiss, then went to scoop Michael into her arms.
“Hello, precious.” She looked at Slade and smiled. “He’s getting too big for that crib.”
Slade held out his arms and took his son from her. “I know.” He smoothed the child’s dark curls and smiled back at his wife. “I do hate to see that crib put away, though.”
Lara colored prettily. “Well, it won’t be put away for long,” she said, and lay a hand lightly over her flat belly.
Slade’s gray eyes darkened. “Lara? Sugar, do you mean it?”
“Yes,” she said softly, the love shining in her eyes. “I saw the doctor yesterday.”
Slade’s throat constricted. He wanted to tell his wife what she meant to him, that she had changed his life forever, but he couldn’t speak. Instead he held out his arm and she went into his embrace, and he thought, as he held his son and his wife close to his heart, that he was the luckiest Baron who’d ever been born.
* * *
Travis came into his old bedroom quietly, shut the door and stood looking down at the big old armchair near the window. His wife, his beautiful wife, sat in it with their daughter in her arms. Alexandra had been nursing Amy. Now, the both of them had drifted off to sleep.
Travis’s heart swelled with love. He was still trying to figure out what he’d done to deserve such happiness. All he knew for certain was that he was the luckiest Baron who’d ever been born.
Alexandra sighed and opened her eyes. She saw Travis and her face lit with joy.
“There you are,” she said softly. “I missed you.”
He smiled and knelt down beside his wife and child. “I was out on the deck,” he said, and took Alex’s hand, “talkin’ with Tyler.”
Alex grinned. “Telling him all about the horrors of married life, were you?”
“Yeah,” Travis said, and grinned back at her, “somethin’ like that.” His grin faded. “I can’t stop thinkin’ about how he grew up. The bad times he had, because of what the old man did.”
Alex lifted her husband’s hand to her mouth and kissed it. “It was a terrible thing, I know. Jonas, believing his first wife had taken a lover…”
“Jonas,” Travis said tightly, “is Jonas. He’s a stubborn old coot and he’ll never change.”
“Hush.” Alex leaned forward and kissed her husband’s mouth. “Tyler’s forgiven him, darling. You have to, too.”
“I know. It’s just…I look at our baby and I wonder how anybody, even Jonas, could have abandoned a child.”
“He made a terrible mistake, Travis. And he’s doing his best to make up for it.”
“Yeah.” Travis smiled. “Anyway, Tyler and Catie found each other. That never would’ve happened, if Tyler hadn’t come searchin’ for the truth.” He leaned forward, kissed his daughter’s forehead, then kissed his wife’s mouth. “I know the two of them can never be as happy as we are, darlin’. Nobody could be. But if they’re half as much in love as you and me…”
“Half as much will be more than most people ever know,” Alex whispered, and leaned forward again, for her husband’s kiss.
* * *
Gage sat on the edge of the bed in his old bedroom and watched his beautiful wife and his precious daughter gaze solemnly into the mirror.
“You see?” Natalie said. “Jenny looks beautiful.”
Jenny nodded and tucked her thumb into her mouth.
“And it would be sooo nice if Jenny could keep looking beautiful until after Aunt Catie and Uncle Tyler are married.”
Jenny nodded again.
“You think she’s got it?” Natalie said, looking at her husband in the mirror.
“Absolutely,” Gage said, and tried not to laugh. If there was one thing he knew about his baby, it was that she couldn’t keep clean, not even for a minute. She was the champion toddler of them all, he thought proudly, and every inch of her was a tomboy.
“I think so, too,” Natalie said, and set her daughter gently on the floor. She looked back into the mirror. “How do I look?”
“Gorgeous,” Gage said. He rose from the bed and went toward her. “In fact,” he whispered, and pressed a kiss to her bare shoulder, “maybe we ought to pass on the wedding and just stay up here and make out.”
Natalie laughed, turned in her husband’s arms
and linked her hands behind his neck. “I’ll tell you what, Mr. Baron. You behave yourself this afternoon and I’ll ask Carmen if she’ll watch Jenny tonight.” She gave him the sort of look that turned his knees to rubber. “And then you can drive us up to Superstition Butte and we’ll, uh, we’ll look at the stars.”
“You got a deal, babe.” Gage’s smile faded as he looked down into his wife’s face. “Ah, Nat,” he said softly, “I’m the luckiest Baron who ever lived.”
“And I’m the luckiest woman,” Natalie said, and lifted her mouth for his kiss.
Gage pressed his cheek to her hair. “Tyler and Caitlin really love each other.”
“Mmm. I know. Isn’t it wonderful to see?”
“If they can only love each other half as much as we do, babe, they’ll be happy for the rest of their lives.”
“For the rest of their lives,” Natalie said dreamily, and then she groaned. “Oh, Jenny…”
“What?” Gage said, and looked around.
Their little girl had found Natalie’s lipstick. She was sitting in the middle of the carpet, happily dabbing blobs of red all over her pretty pink dress.
Natalie and Gage looked at her, then at each other, and they laughed.
“You’re going to be the hit of the party,” Gage said, as he scooped up his daughter. He put his other arm around his wife, and wondered, not for the first time, what he’d ever done to deserve such happiness.
