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Chapter 22

Jake leaped up from the bed and pushed shut the hallway door, closing the bedroom in darkness, before he crossed to the window. Enough moonlight filtered into the room to outline him and reveal the tension that held him watchful.

"Who—"

Jake slashed a hand through the air, motioning her to silence. Megan waited, every sense attuned to what were clearly headlights near the spot where she had waited in Jake's truck. And with the silence she heard it, the noise of an engine, not the one on the ridge but another one, groaning up a steep hill. But where? The road? Or on the other side of the ridge?

Suddenly Jake sprang into motion, gathering her clothes and thrusting them at her. "Quick," he said. "Get dressed. We have to get out of here."

Megan didn't argue. She put on her clothes while Jake tugged on a shirt, boots, and the holster containing his pistol. Then he slid a window open wide and unlatched the screen. "This way."

On the porch, he had her wait while he entered the dark living room and returned with something in his hands.

"Follow me," he said. "The road may not be safe, but I know a place that is."

He led her around the clearing, staying in shadow, to the workshop. There he retrieved the keys and opened the door for her.

"There's a door here behind the wood storage shelves," he said, leading her across the room to show her. "It leads to an old cellar. If anyone does think to look in here, the cellar is so well hidden no one will find it short of an all-out search. Take this." He thrust something into her hands.

Megan felt the cold metal of a weapon. "Oh, no," she said. "You're not leaving me here alone, Jake Kenyon. You're not going up that hill without me."

"Megan, trust me in this. I have to know who it is. I'll be back, I promise, and then we'll get the hell out of here, safely, if we have to walk out by way of Texas. Got that?"

She reached out and grabbed his arm, pulling him close to her. "And if you get yourself shot up again, I will never forgive you. Got that?"

"Got it," he said, wrapping her in a tight hug. For a moment she stayed there, close against him, feeling the accelerated beating of his heart in cadence with hers. Then he took her mouth in a brief, almost bruising kiss. "Lock yourself in," he said. "I'll be back. That's a promise."

She followed him to the door but she didn't try to stop him. He had to do this; she had to wait. Why she knew it, Megan didn't want to explore. She watched until Jake blended in with the shadows and disappeared, and still she watched.

I remembered that the sky had been cloudless when last I looked outside, to see if the scrabbling noises in the leaves were caused by the raccoon that so often frequents our cabin looking for an easy food supply.

Megan shuddered at the memory of that entry, even though she knew the scrabbling noises outside the workshop now were caused by her imagination.

The engine noises, however, were real. With headlights dark, the shadow of a car moved into the clearing from the road and stopped just beyond the house. Two men, hidden by darkness, stepped from the car and made their way to the house silently. A moment of silence followed, and then, one by one, each light in the house came on. Megan heard the sounds of slamming doors, overturned furniture, shouted curses.

Then she saw the men come from the house, each carrying a gun, and begin a systematic search of the cars, the barn, and the shed, and finally head toward the workshop. Quickly she backed away from the door, ran into the hidden cellar, and threw the bolt she found on the inside of the door.

The room was small, dark, and damp, and Megan didn't want to think about what might live on the floor at the bottom of the steps. Was this how Lydia had felt the night she waited alone in her cabin? Megan's hand, damp and slick, slid on the grip of the gun while she listened to the outside door crash open and the voices and footsteps come into the outside room. One voice had a decided Oklahoma twang, which she recognized: Deputy Mark Henderson. The other had a slight but unmistakable Spanish accent.

Jake was right!

But if Jake was right, there was more going on with Henderson than an unresolved political battle, more involved in his not having come to Jake's rescue months ago than incompetence.

"Don't worry," she heard Henderson say over the roaring of the blood in her temples. "She knows where it is. That's the only reason she could have for coming here. We'll get her. And Kenyon. There's no way in hell he's getting away again."

 

Jake silently worked his way to the top of the ridge. Two men stood outlined against the backdrop of a battered four-wheel drive pickup. He crept closer, keeping to the trees, until he could make out their features.

One was the stranger Sarah had described. The other wore jeans and a shapeless long sweatshirt with the sleeves torn out. Jake recognized him too, from a much more recent contact: Mack, lumberyard employee, Sarah North's job applicant, and what else?

"This is a hell of a place for a tea party," the man called Mack said, leaning back on one foot against the pickup. "Where are we anyway? I thought we were supposed to be damn near in the national forest. Isn't that a house down there?"

"I believe that is Mr. Jake Kenyon's residence," the other man said.

"Kenyon? Hey, he's bad news. We don't need to be anywhere near him."

A soft chuckle echoed through the night, raising the fine hairs on the back of Jake's neck. He'd heard that laugh only once before, in a little town in Central America just before five people died.

"But we do," the stranger said. "And so we wait."

For what? Jake wondered. And then noises of the search at his place were carried up the hill on the night air. Megan. He'd left her there thinking it would be safer. What in the hell did they want?

They wanted Megan. He knew that. That was why he had hidden her. He told you. Megan's assailant had whispered those words to her. And even though Roger hadn't told her, no one involved in this deadly intrigue would believe it. Should he go back down the hill? Was she hidden well enough? Would he do more harm than good if he ran to her side now?

Damn! He was ruined, worthless, if he couldn't figure out how to keep one fragile woman safe in the middle of several thousand acres of trees and rocks and hiding places.

Once again he heard engine noises, and this time he knew where they came from. The truck was coming from his house, in this direction, with its lights on. Their time for stealth had passed.

As the truck pulled into the small clearing, its headlights swept the trees. Jake ducked just before the light cut across where he had been standing. He closed his eyes briefly to accustom them to the darkness and then looked toward the truck. Two men got out. He recognized the deputy, Henderson. He shouldn't be surprised, but he was. He always was when one of the guys who was supposed to be wearing a white hat turned. It was a bit of naivete that had almost gotten him killed on assignment. Damn! It was a bit of naivete that had almost gotten him killed three months ago.

Jake didn't recognize the second man, except by type. He was undoubtedly in charge of this operation. Short black hair, an almost military cut. An almost military posture. He looked as though he would be more at home in pressed khakis than Henderson. Megan's army officer? The suspicion grew when he spoke and Jake heard his accent.

"Gentlemen. I believe we all know each other." He nodded toward Mack. "You have the package."

Mack shook his head. "I left it in place. It's about half a mile from here."

The leader's mouth twisted in a smile. "But you do have a sample so we know our night's work won't be wasted, I trust."

"Sure." Mack reached into his shirt pocket and pulled out a small wrapped package, which he tossed to the leader.

The man opened it, sniffed at its contents, even wet a finger and touched it to the powder and tasted it. He rewrapped it and tossed it to the man who had waited with Mack. "Thorough, very thorough. But then what else would we expect from the DEA. What a shame they're going to lose another agent to this uncivilized back woods. Henderson?"

Jake had watched Mark surreptitiously draw his gun while the package was being examined. Mack had watched too. Now Mack stood with his booted foot still propped on the side of the pickup. Mark stepped forward.

DEA. Damn! The fact that Jake didn't recognize him was no surprise. Once stated, Jake supposed Mack was probably an agent. What did surprise him was that Mack had been in place since before Patrick had made his call.

Mack nodded toward the deputy. "You want to explain what's going on?"

Henderson shook his head. "No. Any explanations would be coming from you, and we're really not interested in anything other than you're not who you say you are. Oh, yeah, and if you really found the missing package."

He glanced at the man who had examined the powder, who shook his head.

"The boss says he doesn't think you did."

"Based on what?" Mack asked softly.

Jake recognized that tactic. Delay. Think of some rational way out. Hope like hell the cavalry will arrive in time. Know that it won't.

Hell, it looked like he was the cavalry.

He didn't need this. He was getting too damned old to be riding to the rescue. What he needed to do was get back to Megan and get her out of here, back to someplace where she really would be safe. But would there ever be any safe place for her so long as any of this scum thought she knew anything?

Damn.

He eased around the clearing until he stood behind the leader. One step, then two, and he had his gun in the man's back.

"Probably either because your stuff's too good or because it's been cut too much. Want to bet it isn't the latter?" he asked companionably.

"Kenyon?" Mark's startled question rent the night just before Mack uncoiled from his seemingly relaxed stance and lunged for him. At the same time the man Jake held captive rolled to one side, and the third man fired off a volley of shots that was echoed by an answering volley from across the clearing.

Jake felt the slug tear into his left side, high. "Oh, hell," he muttered, as the thrust sent him to the ground. He rolled with it and came up with his automatic in his hand and his knee in the back of the man he had dubbed the leader.

"Don't even think about moving," he growled. Two other men lay on the ground. "Mack?" he called out.

"Yeah, here. You okay?"

"What in the hell are you doing here?" Jake asked.

"That's my question, Kenyon," the man said with a shaky laugh.

"Saving your butt."

"Yeah, and winning my thanks. Look out for the weasel over there while I make contact. I'm not sure he's dead. And Henderson got away. How's our man?"

Jake pulled back on the man's collar until he could see his face and his rage-filled eyes. "Mad. Real mad."

Still holding the pistol he had produced without Jake's seeing from where, Mack reached up under the wheel well of the pickup and retrieved what Jake recognized as a signaling device. He pushed a switch and set it on the hood of the truck before walking to the man he'd called a weasel and turning him over. He then walked to Jake, tucking his gun in his belt up under his sweatshirt.

"Damn. He got you again."

Jake felt a laugh building which turned to a cough that left him weak and gasping. "Him?" he asked. "He was along on that last little hayride?"

Mack nodded while stripping the belt from the man Jake still held at gunpoint. "Him, and this creep here, and—on your belly, buddy," he said to the man, pushed him down, and began lashing his wrists together. "And—hell, you're going to find out anyway, Roger Hudson. As best we can figure it, Hudson intercepted the man who shot you, took the delivery away from him, and finished him off. What he did with the goods is anyone's guess, but the big money has been on the hope that he planted it somewhere near here."

Jake felt no surprise at what Mack said, except in the fact that Roger had actually gotten his hands dirty. "And Henderson? Was he involved?"

Mack grunted as he tugged the belt into place and began stripping laces from the man's shoes. "Up to the brim of his four-X white beaver Stetson."

And Henderson had escaped into the woods, suspecting that Megan knew where a fortune in cocaine lay waiting. "Are you about finished with this one?" Jake asked.

"Yeah. You got something better to do?"

Jake nodded and stumbled to his feet. "I've got a lady to see to, back home."

Mack whistled. "The senator's daughter. Shit. I think I got him, but I don't know how bad. Henderson's—"

Jake shifted the gun to his left hand and felt his shoulder. He could still move it, barely, but the blood was beginning to soak his shirt, front, back, and even the sleeve where he held his arm against his body. "Got a handkerchief?" he asked.

Mack yanked the last knot tight on the man on the ground and stood. "Let me see."

Jake shook his head. "There's no time for that. Put some pressure on it, something to slow down the blood. I'll be all right for a few minutes more."

"Damn, you're as hard-headed as everyone told me."

Jake smiled at him. "Just send in the troops when they get here, will you?"

 

Send in the troops, Jake thought, minutes later. Send them in now, because he wasn't sure he was going to make it back. Blood soaked his shirt and he felt his breath wheezing through his lung. He stopped and ripped at his soaked sleeve in a futile effort to tear it loose, to have something to hold in place over the wound, trying for a little more pressure, a little more time.

He heard a rustling in the trees ahead of him and stopped, waiting, listening, wasting time he didn't have.

I'm coming. He sent the message silently to her. Hang on just a little longer. I'll be there. I promise.

It felt very much like a promise he had made sometime in the past, a promise he hadn't been able to keep. As he was afraid he wouldn't be able to keep this one.

 

Megan listened until the footsteps left the workshop. After a minute the stream of light under the door blacked out. She heard two car doors slam and the truck left the clearing and headed, she thought, toward the ridge. She emerged from her hiding place in the cellar into darkness.

Funny that they'd turn out the lights, she thought, until she looked out the open door and saw that the entire clearing lay in darkness.

She stood in the doorway watching the headlights as the truck made its way to the ridge. Stood there even after it stopped. Stood there until the sound of gunshots broke her from her paralysis.

Jake! "Damn it, Jake Kenyon, don't you dare get yourself shot," she murmured as still she stood there.

Stood there like some helpless Victorian maiden waiting for someone to rescue her. Megan felt a shudder run through her. She couldn't go after Jake—she didn't know where he'd gone—but she'd lay odds he was somewhere near the gunfire. She couldn't jeopardize his safety by putting her own at risk. But by God she could do something.

Help. She could summon help. And if Rolley P was involved, she would just bypass him. Would he be listening at the tapped phone? Did she care?

Patrick. She could call Patrick.

And he could call her father. What good did it do to have a powerful father if she couldn't call on him? Surely, with Patrick's voice added to hers, he'd believe her. He had to believe her. For Jake's sake.

She remembered the skirting path Jake had taken in bringing her to the workshop. Clutching the gun, she repeated that path, heart pounding, until once again she stood on the porch. The front door gaped open. Carefully, cautiously, she made her way inside. Just inside the door she paused and gasped. The pleasant, comfortable room had been trashed almost as badly as her bedroom. The furniture lay overturned as though some child, angry with his toys, had tossed the chairs and tables around.

She groped her way through the darkened room to where the telephone should be. She found it, the receiver in once place, the body in another. Both, she noted thankfully, were still connected to each other and to the wall. But there was no dial tone.

And then she heard the sounds from outside: an odd shuffling step on the front porch, a harsh breathing, and finally, Mark Henderson's voice.

"Oh, Megan? Ms. Hudson. I know you're in there. You might as well come out now. It's all over. It's just us, and you have something I want."

Lydia? You might as well tell me. You can't hide in there forever.

"Megan. Kenyon's dead. I saw to that. Now we can either share what Roger left you or I can take it. It's up to you."

Lydia? Oh, Lydia. Open the door, Lydia. You know there's no one to save you now.

Megan bit hard on her fist to keep from crying out. Jake was dead? No. This man lied. He had to be lying.

She crouched behind the overturned sofa as he entered the living room and walked in that strange shuffling gait toward the bedrooms. She knew she had no chance of getting out the front door, but the kitchen was close. Carefully she worked her way toward it and saw that the back door stood open, probably from their earlier search.

She heard a yelp from the back of the house and then a yowl of pain. She cringed as she recognized a kitten's cry but couldn't stop to help it now.

"Damn cat!" Henderson yelled, and the cat cried out again. Sending the kitten a silent apology and a thank-you, Megan darted out the back door.

The woods? she thought. Would she be safe in the woods? No. Jake had told her to wait in the workshop. In the cellar, with the darkness, she would be as safe as anywhere else. And that's where he would look for her. Please, God, he would look for her.

A benevolent cloud covered the moon for the last twenty yards of her dash. She ran into the workshop. Bolt the door? Or leave it open and pray that Henderson remembered that he had left it open and think she couldn't possibly be there?

"Megan? Oh, Megan." She heard his voice from the direction of the stable. Oh, God. Somewhere he had found a flashlight. To hell with subtleties. She bolted the door, or tried to. Something jammed the lock. Almost sobbing, she prowled through the lumber until she found a board that had to be the right length. She shoved it under the knob. Yes! It fit. It would hold, at least for a while.

"Megan, it won't do you any good to hide."

She fought back a whimper and backed toward her hiding place.

Who is he?

Why won't he leave me alone?

I don't know anything!

I don't want to know anything!

No, that was Lydia. Megan knew who was outside. If Jake was right, she knew what he wanted. But she didn't know where it was, any more than Lydia had known. And she knew what he'd do if he found her: she'd be dead. As dead as that young girl at Villa Castellano, not quickly like Helen or Roger.

Jake? Oh, Jake, where are you?

Was he dead? Oh, please, no. Not Jake.

She heard the doorknob rattle, heard what she could only describe as a malignant chuckle. "So that's where you are. Stay cozy. I'll be back."

She stayed frozen in place for seconds she couldn't spare and then shook herself to awareness. She couldn't stay in the cellar; she'd given her hiding place away. The back door. She could go out the back door, around the pile of equipment that Jake was slowly amassing there, and hide in the woods. She'd be safe there. Oh, yes, please—she'd be safe.

The cloud drifted away from the face of the moon just as Megan unlocked the back door. Through the panes of glass she saw the outline of a man approaching, a man bent unnaturally. A man walking with a stumbling, shuffling gait. Her hands fumbled on the lock as she tried to relock it. Not sure that she had, only that she had to get away from the door. Megan backed away and lifted the gun in her hand. There was a shell in the chamber; Jake had seen to that. The safety was off; Megan had taken care of that herself.

It's all over. It's just us, and you have something I want.

Had those innocent people at the clinic just been in the way of something someone like Mark Henderson had wanted? The girl was screaming again. Megan put her hands to her ears, but that would never block out the sound of her screams. Or the shots. Or the noises of destruction and death. Or the screams she herself would be making very shortly, if—

She choked back a cry as she heard the knob being tried.

Not her. By God, no one would make a victim of her! Not like they had Lydia. Not like they had that poor child at the clinic. She might die, but she'd take at least one of them with her.

Kenyon is dead. I saw to that.

"You bastard," she whispered. "How dare you hurt him again?"

She lowered the gun to firing stance as the door opened and the man stumbled through.

What stayed her hand? Later Megan was never sure of anything but the memory of Jake telling her, Lydia killed him. He went home from the explosion, and she shot him as he walked in the door.

She hesitated only a moment, a moment in which she heard Jake's labored voice whisper "Megan?" before he collapsed in the doorway.

Her moan echoed through the room. She lowered the gun, staring at Jake, frozen in place and unable to move toward him.

And another figure filled the doorway.

"Well, well," Mark Henderson said, stepping over Jake and obviously not able to see her clearly in the dark interior of the workshop. She saw him cleanly outlined by the moonlight. She saw the deadly looking gun in his hand, which he pointed at Jake's head. "I believe we have some unfinished business to take care of. Or do you want me to make sure he's not going to inconvenience us again before you and I go for a walk? Yes. I think that's what I'll do."

She heard the words spoken calmly, rationally even, before their meaning penetrated. He was going to kill Jake. Kill him with no more passion than he would swat a fly, just because he was an inconvenience. And he was going to do it right now, unless Megan stopped him.

"You bastard," she said again, raised her gun, and fired.

He stumbled out the door just as Megan heard the whop-whop-whop of a helicopter circling the clearing and saw powerful searchlights sweep over the workshop and house.

Voices in the clearing shouted, and one yelled. "I don't care who he is, kill those damned lights."

The cavalry, as Jake would have called it, had arrived.

Megan ran to Jake's side. She knelt by him helplessly until she saw his labored breathing. Then she lifted his head from the concrete floor and into her lap. He was alive. Thank God, he was alive. He opened his eyes and gave her what he probably intended as a smile but managed to look like a lopsided leer.

She realized that tears were raining down her cheeks, but she didn't care. All she cared about in this world was lying in her arms, near death.

"Don't you dare die on me, Jake Kenyon," she yelled at him over the noises of the men filing into the clearing. "Don't you dare die!"

 

He hurt like hell. His arm and side and back. Even his leg screamed in agony. And now his head. He slitted open one eye, bit back a groan as the dim light in the room proved to be too piercing, and closed it. He was in a hospital. He recognized the tubes and monitors and the stark white sheets.

He recognized the cotton-candy state of his brain as a reaction to the painkillers they had probably given him. Painkillers that right now didn't seem to be doing a whole hell of a lot of good.

And he recognized his headache as a drug hangover, which meant he'd probably been in this bed for a while.

Megan! Was she safe? The last he remembered was her standing in front of him, holding that gun as though she were facing off an invading army. No. The last he remembered was her swearing at him, holding him and crying and saying over and over, "Don't you dare die."

"I won't, babe," he said through parched lips and a dry throat. "I won't."

He felt a soft hand on his and once again slitted open an eye.

She sat in a chair dragged to the side of his bed. Her head lay on her crossed arm on the bed by his thigh; her hand rested on his. Slowly she raised her head, as if from sleep. Her eyes searched his face, and when she saw his opened eye, her face lit in a smile.

"You won't what?" she asked softly.

"I won't die on you. There's no way on earth I'm leaving you now."

"Thank God."

She rose from her chair to lean over him, and he felt the cautious touch of her fingers on his face. "You scared me, Jake," she said, with a funny little catch to her voice. "Damn it, I told you not to get yourself shot up again."

The cotton candy was closing in on him, but not so much yet that he didn't hear the pain in her voice. He turned his hand under hers and did his best to squeeze her fingers. "Never again," he promised.

She hiccupped once. "I'll hold you to that," she said and returned the pressure of his hand. "I love you, Jake Kenyon. I don't care that I've only known you a week. I don't care that we've got all this shared history and unresolved trauma to work through. I don't care that I'm the one who's saying it first. I love you. And I was afraid I'd never have the chance to tell you."

He was going down fast. Damn. Why did the lousy medication have to kick in now? From recent history, he knew he'd be out of it soon and unable to say anything to her for hours. "Love you too," he managed to whisper.

When he floated up to consciousness again, he found Megan asleep in the chair beside his bed. The pain was as bad, the cotton-candy fog worse. Memories of dreams of Megan and Lydia Tanner floated through that fog, dancing just beyond comprehension. But one thing was clear. He had to tell her.

"She didn't kill him."

Megan came awake instantly at his croaked words.

She leaned over him, taking his hand in one of hers, tracing her fingers across his cheek.

"Lydia," he whispered. "She didn't kill Sam."

How did he know? "It's all right," Megan murmured. "Even if she did, she redeemed herself." He felt a shudder run through her. "She saved your life. She kept me from pulling the trigger when you came through the door."

When he awoke again, he was in a different room. Bright light flooded through the windows. Patrick sat sprawled in a chair across from the bed.

"Where's Megan?" His words grated his throat and hung in the stillness of the room.

Patrick pulled himself up out of the chair. "Welcome back to the land of the living, my friend," he said easily, but he didn't answer Jake's question.

Jake looked around at the absence of monitors. He decided to try his voice again. "How long?"

Patrick flashed that maddening grin of his. "Three days. Long enough to miss all the excitement." He chuckled. "You'll be pleased to know that Deacon the Wonder Dog is once again the hero of the day, having been taken out, so to speak, so that the bad guys could get to you and the senator's beautiful daughter."

Jake groaned. "Is she all right?"

Patrick nodded. "Right as rain. Her daddy came running to her rescue in a military chopper just as law enforcement from no fewer than three federal agencies swarmed over your property. That, apparently, was his fact-finding trip. He vindicated her allegations about Villa Castellano after your guys identified the head honcho of this operation as a captain in the army of that misbegotten little country, one who was doing some moonlighting without the knowledge of his government.

"And, of course, with Henderson up to his eyeballs in this mess, she's been vindicated in her charges against Rolley P, which, by the way, she has made."

So her father had come to the rescue. Jake let that thought work its way through him. She'd needed that. Needed Jack McIntyre's support and belief. Needed it enough to go back to Washington with him?

"Where . . . is . . . Megan?" He spaced the words out, but only a deaf person or a very dense one would miss the intensity of his question. Patrick was neither. He immediately dropped all attempt at humor.

"Barbara took her out to the house for a shower and a change of clothes," Patrick told him. "She's been here for three days, Jake; she's dead on her feet."

Jake felt some of he tension drain from him. "She didn't go back with McIntyre?"

"Go back with him?" Patrick repeated incredulously. "My God, Kenyon. This is the first time we've been able to pry her away from you for more than five minutes in the entire three days you've been here. What kind of stupid-assed question is that?"

The pain was every bit as bad as it had been before, but suddenly Jake felt younger, as years and injuries and losses seemed to fade into his past.

I love you, Jake Kenyon. And I was so afraid I'd never have the chance to tell you.

She had said that. It was a memory, not a dream, and not just wishful thinking.

Patrick leaned over the foot of the bed and peered at him. "And what kind of stupid grin is that?"

Jake laughed weakly, then caught his hand to his chest to hold the pain in place. "The kind you'd better get used to seeing, my friend."

The door opened gently, and Jake turned his head on the pillow.

Megan stood there, wearing a softly draped, flattering blue silk dress he had never seen in her closet or his. She'd taken time to have her hair cut and styled, and now it made a feathery frame for her delicate features. And she wore softly applied makeup that gently highlighted her beauty and the new maturity she seemed to have gained. Her whole image was soft. Soft for him because that was what he needed now. But strong, so strong, when that was what they both had needed.

Barbara stood behind her in the doorway, but other than noticing her, Jake had no strength left to do anything but look at Megan. She smiled hesitantly. So did he. And that was apparently all she was waiting for. She crossed to his bed, took one of his hands in hers, and placed her other one gently on his face.

"I love you, Megan McIntyre Hudson," he said.

Vaguely he was aware of Barbara tugging Patrick from the room. Vaguely he was aware of the door closing behind them, leaving him and Megan cocooned in privacy.

"Thank God," she said, and he heard echoes of those words from another time but couldn't remember when.

"How many kids?" he asked.

"What?" She gave a choked little laugh and ran her fingers into his hair.

"My house or yours? What will you do? Will you want to work?"

"Jake? What are you doing?"

He was doing what he thought he'd never do again. "I'm proposing, Megan. But I thought it would be nice if we knew a few things about each other before I actually asked."

"Ask," she said softly. She bent and brushed her lips across his. "As for the rest, we have all the time in the world for that."

 

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