"Wait," I choked out. "I have to tell you something."

Gage stopped. "Yes?"

"Churchill told me about the Medina deal. It was my fault—I'm the one who tipped Hardy off about it. I had no idea that he would...I'm sorry." My voice broke. "I'm so sorry."

Gage reached me in two strides. "It's all right. No. damn it. don't start crying."

"I would never do anything to hurt you—"

"I know you wouldn't. Hush. Hush." He hauled me close, wiping at my tears with his fingers.

"I was so stupid. I didn't realize—why didn't you say anything to me about it?"

"I didn't want you to worry. I knew it wasn't your fault. I should have made certain you understood it was confidential."

I was stunned by his belief in me. "How could you be so sure I didn't do it on purpose?"

He cradled my face in his hands and smiled into my streaming eyes. "Because I know you. Liberty Jones. Don't cry, sweetheart, you're killing me."

"I'll make it up to you, I swear—"

"Shut up," Gage said tenderly, and kissed me with a blistering heat that made my knees buckle. I wrapped my arms around his neck, forgetting the reason for tears, forgetting everything but him. He kissed me over and over, deeper, until we both staggered in the aisle, and he was forced to brace a hand on one of the seats to keep us from falling over. And the plane wasn't even moving. His breath rushed fast and hot against my cheek as he drew back enough to whisper, "What about the other guy?"

My eyes half closed as I felt the heel of his hand brush the side of my breast. "He's the past," I managed to say. "You're the future."

"Damn right I am." Another deeply uncivilized kiss, full of fire and tenderness, promising more than I could begin to take in. All I could think was that a lifetime with this man wouldn't be nearly enough. He pulled away with an unsteady laugh and said, "There's no getting away from me now, Liberty. This is it."

/ know, I would have said, but before I could answer he was kissing me again, and he

didn't stop for quite a while.

"I love you." I don't remember who said it first, only that we both ended up saying it quite a lot during the seven-hour-and-twenty-five-minute flight across the Atlantic. And it turned out Gage had some interesting ideas about how to pass the time at fifty thousand feet.

Let's just say flying is a lot more tolerable when you've got distractions.

EPILOGUE

I'm not sure if the ranch is an engagement present or an early wedding present. All I know is that today, Valentine's Day, Gage has given me a huge ring of keys tied with a red bow. He says we'll need a getaway place when the city feels too crowded, and Carrington will need a place to ride. It takes a few minutes of explaining on his part before I understand it's an outright gift.

I'm now the owner of a five-thousand-acre ranch.

The place, once known for its prime cutting horses, is about forty-five minutes away from Houston. Now reduced to a fraction of its former size, the ranch is small by Texas standards—a ranchette, Jack calls it mockingly, until a glance from Gage causes him to cringe in pretend-fear.

"You don't even have a ranch," Carrington accuses Jack cheerfully, scampering to the doorway before adding, "which makes you a dude."

"Who you callin' a dude?" Jack asks with feigned outrage, and chases after her. while her screams of delight echo through the hallways.

On the weekend we pack overnight bags and go to see the place, which Gage has renamed Rancho Armadillo. "You shouldn't have done this," I tell him for the dozenth time as he drives us north of Houston. "You've given me enough already."

Keeping his gaze on the road, Gage brings our entwined fingers to his lips and kisses my knuckles. "Why does it always make you so damn uncomfortable when I give you something?"

I realize there is an art to accepting gifts gracefully, and so far I haven't acquired it. "I'm not used to getting presents," I admit. "Especially when it's not a holiday or a birthday and there's no reason for them. And even before this.. .this—"

"Ranch."

"Yes, even before that, you'd already done more for me than I could ever repay—"

"Darlin'." His tone is patient, but at the same time I hear the uncompromising edge in it. "You're going to have to work on erasing that invisible balance sheet you carry around in your head. Relax. Let me have the pleasure of giving you something without having to talk it half to death afterward." He glances over his shoulder to make sure Carrington has her headphones on. "Next time I give you a present, all you need to do is say a simple 'thank you/ and have sex with me. That's all the repayment I need."

I bite back a smile. "Okay."

We drive through a pair of massive rock pillars supporting a twenty-foot iron arch and continue along a paved road that I come to realize is our driveway. We pass winter-wheat fields dappled with the wing-shadows of geese overhead. Dense growths of mesquite, cedar, and prickly pear crouch in the distance.

The drive leads to a big old rock-and-wood Victorian shaded by oak and pecan trees. My dumbfounded gaze takes in a stone barn...a paddock...an empty chicken yard, all of it surrounded by a fieldstone fence. The house is big and sturdy and charming. I know without being told that children have been born here and couples have married here, and families have argued and loved and laughed beneath the gabled roof. It's a place to feel safe in. A home.