When she came back home, she saw that he had beaten her there. His business pack was sitting on the floor next to the sofa in the living room and his suitcase in their bedroom still waiting to be unpacked. She had finished her work and a couple of meetings early and then had done a little shopping with Chris who had needed some new maternity clothes so they had headed off to a boutique. Chris had been adamant that she hadn't wanted anything cutesy, because she had to be taken seriously in the business world.

So the two of them had wandered around to check out the maternity styles and found some that actually looked quite stylish, and downplayed pregnancy without making it look like the woman had something to hide. When Chris went to try them on, C.J. had continued looking at the different clothing, imagining what it would like if she ever had to buy it.

No wait; it wouldn't be a matter of if, but of when because she knew she wanted to have a family of her own someday along with the man she had chosen in Matt. Not that it would be anytime soon, she thought because they were still trying to build their life together amid all the craziness of their careers and the unpredictability of the court case.

And they still had to work on finding more time to spend together.

After Chris had purchased a couple respectable outfits, they had headed on to their respective homes and C.J. had hoped that he would have made it there before she did.

She found him in the back yard, sitting on the patio with some papers splashed on the table in front of where he sat. He appeared so busy that he didn't even hear her approach him.

"Hi there…"

He looked up and blinked his eyes and then a slow smile appeared on his face.

"Well hello yourself," he said, "Did you just get here?"

She nodded.

"What about you…how was your flight?"

He stretched.

"Smooth flying…dropped off Zeke in Miami before coming here…"

He stood up then and quickly enough, wrapped her up in his arms, holding her close while he kissed her…one of his favorite activities in the whole wide world. When they broke for air finally, she stroked his face, her favorite one on earth and looked at him intently.

"I've missed you so much Houston…"

He stroked her hair off of her face.

"I'm back and it's going to be for a while."

The smile that lit up her face made it all worthwhile and then before she could say anything, he swooped her off her feet and into his arms and she wrapped her arms around his neck before they headed into their favorite room in their entire house.

They held each other close as they made love. They had shed their clothing quickly enough and then kissed and stroked each other until they made it to their bed. As he rocked against her, she sighed thinking that the journey she took to get to the point where she could be this close to the man she loved had been definitely worth it. He kissed her softly as the sun gently set outside the window causing the room to dim and shadows to dance on the walls.

Not that they paid any attention, so wrapped up they were in each other. Often this was how it went when one of them returned from a business trip. Dinner was often moved further down the list of things to do during their reunion, tonight it would be pizza and wine. But first things first and that was celebrating their time together, after being apart.

Afterward, they lay together tangled up in their bed sheets, their bodies returning back to earth. She lay with her head on his bare chest, listening to his heartbeat gradually slow as his hands wrapped around her.

"Missed you…"

She smiled, stroking his shoulder.

"I can tell. So you really are planning on sticking around this time?"

He sighed, the traveling nature of his work not being his favorite part. Not that he didn't love the work that he did, but now that the two of them lived together, he found himself spending a lot of his away time thinking about the day he'd head back. The days and nights they spent together away from their respective careers were golden including the weekends spent renovating the ranch house. Soon enough, hopefully by Christmas they'd move out of Houston and get settled on their new spread. It seemed a natural enough progression because he had found the woman he wanted to be with for the rest of his life. They had been taking this newer relationship of theirs slowly and working their way through what both of them had faced the past several years. But during quieter times like now, they just enjoyed each other.

"Yeah, for the rest of the month at least, although Stefan Kostas is dropping in the U.S. to conduct business and Dan and I are scheduled to meet with him next week."

"Is he going to buy your system?"

Matt sighed.

"He hasn't said yet but it looks promising," he said, "He'd be a major account for the firm."

"What was he like…I mean I've read so much about him?"

Matt thought about it because despite their meetings and run ins with each other, he still didn't feel as if he really knew the businessman.

"He's intelligent, a well-respected CEO of a major company but he seems to be a very private man."

"He's got a family doesn't he?"

"Yeah…wife and kids that weren't at the estate," Matt said, "but then he's got properties all over the world."

C.J. snuggled closer to him.

"Seems intriguing but with the type of business he runs, it'd seem like he'd need a sophisticated security detail."

Matt knew few industries were more secretive and more cutthroat than pharmaceuticals. Espionage was a cornerstone of most of them and he had no doubt that Stefan knew that score yet…something else about the man had struck him.

"Yes he definitely would…but I don't know, there's more to the guy than what's on the surface…someone like that could have a whole other life that lay beneath that."

C.J. raised her head to look at him, her dark hanging loosely.

"That could describe most people Houston,"

"True but someone with all that money, they could pull it off much more easily, to have some other life to slip into when their public one became too complicated."

Matt knew he had done that himself more than once including several years ago when faced with his broken engagement with Elizabeth, his life had spiraled to the point where he had just taken off one night, walking away from his life with no forwarding address. He had wandered around the world, from one country to the next with few people he meant knowing his real identity, even as the tabloids ran headlines speculating on his vanishing act.

But sojourns like that, hadn't come without costs. Within days of his own departure, C.J. had been abducted in the parking lot of their office building in L.A. and forced into a nightmare that still hung over them even now. Not to the same degree but Matt knew that until those left who were responsible faced their crimes in court it wouldn't be over. In the meantime, the two of them kept living their lives.

For C.J. it had been different because for months, she had been forced to shed her own identity and adopt another one, even a different name. The day that she had been able to begin to reclaim her life back had been among the most precious, every day a gift since.

Because it could all so easily be taken away, she knew.

"Houston…"

He squeezed her closer to him and she smiled in his embrace.

"What…"

"I'm so glad you're home."

They sat in the living room eating delivery pizza, Texas barbecue style of course and drinking some wine he had picked up in Europe. Dressed only in their robes and with the room dimly lit…Matt thought the way the light reflected off of her hair to be most beautiful but it was the spirit inside the woman in front of him that had blossomed since they had returned to Houston together. He knew it hadn't been an easy road for her and she still struggled sometimes especially with dealing with the delays and setbacks of the upcoming federal trial where she would serve as one of its primary witnesses. She's been a lawyer since Harvard but her experience in court had been mainly with questioning witnesses, not sitting in the box herself.

She had testified at several grand jury proceedings but that had been different because the defense attorneys hadn't been privy to the confidential hearings let alone been able to cross-examine the prosecution witnesses.

In a trial itself, everything would change and he knew that she had been working with the attorneys assigned to the task preparing for the day that would surely come when she would testify in public. It had been grueling enough for her to narrate in front of the grand jury what had happened to her at the hands of one of the most notorious human traffickers, but a trial…would be one of the greatest challenges she had ever faced.

At least among those that she hadn't had to survive and call that victory enough.

She didn't talk to him very much about the upcoming trial because when she left the federal building, she just wanted to keep as much of that chapter of her life locked up behind its walls. He had to testify as well but in a much more limited role. Still for both of them since the course of the judicial proceedings had taken several unpredictable turns, it became difficult to plan their life around its eventuality.

And it made it hard for C.J. to plan for their future because whenever he nudged the talk in that direction, she closed herself off to it, not so much abruptly as changing the subject to something else. He never pushed her when she did that, not wanting to back her into any corner. But he wanted her to know that they had a future together so he showed her in other ways while he patiently waited.

She looked over at him suddenly as if she knew what he'd been thinking.

"Houston…I have a meeting tomorrow with the prosecutors…Hopefully that means that they'll start the trial before the end of the year."

Matt knew that she didn't really harbor much of that because it had been postponed so many times already.

She sighed, looking at her hands and he knew at the silvery scars that would always intertwine around her fingers.

"What are the chances that it won't be delayed?"

She looked up at him and he read the answer in her eyes.

"I know it's been dragging out Houston and I'm so sorry about that…"

His face softened.

"You have nothing to be sorry about…I just want you to have your day when you can tell the world your story."

He knew that she badly wanted that even though it had been a journey steeped in fear and pain that had etched so deeply inside of her, deeper than the shards of glass had done to her hands when she had escaped from her prison.

"If Scott would have just taken that deal…"

Matt sighed, remembering well how that had gone, the back and forth between his former college friend and the prosecutors. He had cut a deal to turn states evidence for the government's protection but in the past year, he had hired some famous attorney and now all deals were off. That meant that he had returned into the pool of defendants set to be tried on conspiracy and trafficking charges which had stalled the proceedings for six months already.

A part of Matt wished he could have killed Scott when he had the chance.

"Houston, it's going to work out, it has to…these men can't avoid the consequences forever."

Matt thought that in a fair and just world that they would have been in prison by now and back in the Wild West that his ancestors had lived in while settling in Texas the men would have been hung from the scaffolds after their trials.

But in reality, so much could still happen to delay the process, more motions could be filed to stall the process as long as possible. More money could be thrown around by these defendants who still were flush despite their revenue sources being frozen by several governments. Despite the attempts of over a hundred agencies worldwide, the trafficking of slaves through underground networks around the globe still continued unabated.

Andre's death and the collapse of his inner circle had shaken up human trafficking for a while but it had rebounded and then there was that other complication…the fact that one major player had slipped into the shadows before he could be captured by the dragnet.

The Jaguar hadn't been seen or heard from since the raids at Andre's compound on Sapphire Island but that didn't mean he wasn't still out there. After all this time and indepth investigations, no one seemed to be able to give the man a name or an identity. Few even knew what he looked like, not that it mattered much because in the modern age, a person's physical appearance could be so easily altered. Done as easily as changing their identity…

"It's already been too long."

She took a deep breath.

"I know but I can't stop living Houston…and despite it all, this has been the happiest time of my life…and getting together with you, that's the best."

He smiled, because the feeling about that development had definitely been mutual. Their life might be a difficult struggle at times to find their way through it but he'd never trade it in for anything else. He just loved her too damn much.

"You are done eating?"

She looked at his expression and nodded. He moved closer to her after scooting their plates and glasses out of the way.

"Come here…"

She moved over to him and he wrapped his arms around her and their lips found each other easily enough.

And in a few seconds, they forgot everything around them but each other.