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  He looked away. “I guess I’ve lived too much of my life alone.” He smiled at that. “Alone in a family of nine kids. I don’t know how I managed it, but I did.”

  He looked back at her. “You were right when you said that I’ve always done what I wanted. My family never tried to stop me from doing anything I wanted. I don’t guess I did learn the meaning of compromise.”

  She went to him and put her hand on his chest. “What happened on the way to Desperate?”

  “I realized that for once in my life I might not get what I wanted. Toby says that I’ve been spoiled, that Montgomery money has always been able to buy anything and I wouldn’t know how to cope without that money. I thought he had no idea what he was talking about. Money doesn’t help you when you’re being shot at by a bunch of Indians.”

  He looked down at her and caressed her cheek. “When I left you, I thought you were just having a tantrum. That seemed reasonable to think, considering that you’re a woman and an opera singer. I thought I’d go get Yovington and then take you back to Warbrooke and everything would be just as I planned it to be.”

  He paused and took a breath. “It was Jamie who made me realize that what I wanted might not be.”

  “What did he do?”

  “He said that he was going to miss your singing. Then Toby said that he was going to miss the caterwaulin’ too. I laughed at them, said that they’d be able to hear you all they wanted when we got home.” ’Ring paused. “Jamie said, ‘Not this time, brother. This time you lost.’ Until that moment I don’t guess I’d thought that anything you’d said to me was anything more than a little-girl fit.”

  He took her hands in his and he held them so tightly that he hurt, but she didn’t protest. “I didn’t sleep that night. I just lay awake, thinking about life without you. I couldn’t imagine it. I tried to tell myself that if you wouldn’t come to live with me that that was your loss and that I’d find another woman, but it wasn’t any use. It took me years to find you, and I’m not going to let you go.”

  He started to draw her into his arms, but she stepped out of his reach. “Tell me everything. What did you do about Yovington?”

  He smiled at her and ran his hand through his hair. “I don’t think my family will ever let me hear the last of this, but I did what you said.”

  “What I said?”

  “I turned Yovington over to the army. Jamie and Toby and I lit out for Fort Breck, told Colonel Harrison everything, and he took soldiers after Yovington. I insisted that my name be kept out of it and that the colonel take all the credit, so maybe ol’ Harrison will get a medal or something.”

  “And forgive you for making his life miserable?”

  “I hope so. I have another year to go before I get out of the army.”

  “And then what?” she asked.

  He took his time before answering, and Maddie sensed that what he was about to say was difficult for him. “I thought about what you said about being in a cage, and I tried to understand what you were saying. My talent seems to be in running a business the size of Warbrooke Shipping, but what if my father were some rich man who had to do nothing for his money and, to indulge me, he bought a business for me to run? I’d never know if I was any good or not.” He smiled. “It’s a great feeling to successfully negotiate a deal, to know that because of your brains and planning that you’ve won. I guess it must be like that when you sing for people who have come of their own free will to hear you, not because they owe your husband’s company a favor.”

  He took a deep breath, and when he spoke, she knew that he meant what he said. “I cannot ask you to give that up. I will go wherever you go. I will follow you around the world as long as you can sing,” he said softly.

  She looked at him for a while before she spoke. “And what will you do while I’m singing? Manage the props?”

  “Maybe I can look into Warbrooke Shipping interests in other parts of the world. You ever sing in Hong Kong?”

  Maddie was afraid to move. This was what she had wanted. He did love her. Her. Not a woman he’d created in his mind, but her, Maddie. And he also loved LaReina, a woman who had something to do in her life besides be there for her husband whenever he needed her. He loved what she was and who she was and he was willing to give as well as take.

  She gave him a smile, trying to hold back her tears of happiness. “You know, I was thinking. Maybe I could sing around the world in the winter and I could spend the summers in Maine with you, and sing in that theater you plan to build for me.”

  He stood there with his arms at his sides, not touching her.

  “That is, if you think that could work. Could you leave your business for half the year?”

  ’Ring put his hand to his jaw and flexed it. “I can still feel where Jamie told me that my brothers were quite capable of running Warbrooke Shipping without me.”

  “I’m willing to try it if you are,” she said.

  It was a full minute before ’Ring spoke, then he grabbed her and whirled her around and around. “It’ll work. I’ll make it work.” He kissed her then, long and lingeringly.

  “ ’Ring, let’s stay here and—”

  “No,” he said firmly. “I want to meet your father and the others and I want us to get married right away and I want to start handling your finances.”

  “My finances? What makes you think you can handle my money? You don’t have enough of your own to manage?”

  “No wife of mine is going to be cheated, and I plan to see that—”

  “For your information, I asked my mother about the money, and she’s had John Fairlie send her four accounts a year about how much I earn and she’s invested it in things.”

  “Invested it in ‘things,’ huh? I’m glad to hear that someone in your family has some sense when it comes to money. I’d hate our children to grow up unable to run Warbrooke Shipping.”

  “Our children are going to be singers, or maybe artists, and you are not going to run their lives like you try to run mine. And furthermore—”

  She stopped because he was kissing her, and she forgot whatever else she was going to say.