Chapter 7 – Epilogue

Like much of the rest of the nation, I followed the collapse of the Delaware-based research and development firm known as the Centre on TV from the comfort of my living room – and it played for weeks over the national news like a sordid fantasy soap opera. Once the truth behind the imposing façade of the Tower began to unravel and expose the manipulations, the outright bribery and corruption of elected officials and law enforcement, the scandal began to spread. Mayors, police chiefs, governors and senators began to quake in their boots – and more than one military official in high positions took quick and quiet early retirements in order to try to forestall the inevitable. As time passed, even officials of foreign governments began to feel the pinch of their ties to the former corporation.

In the midst of it all stood the key players at the Centre itself, one by one being dragged away in handcuffs for an alarming assortment of charges that ranged from outright murder to kidnap, extortion, assault and racketeering, as well as many other lesser charges. One executive had even been charged as a serial killer – with several of the more recent victims of his crimes buried on Centre property. Every day brought the names of more Centre employees arrested for their parts in the criminal activities of the corporation – and every day I watched the news for fear of hearing the one name I never wanted to hear connected to the obscenity: the name of the man whom I'd once believed a monster.

But Sydney's name never came up – nor did that of any of the other Centre insiders who had slowly coalesced around Jarod in the last five years to help bring the place to its knees. I didn't ask questions of any of my sons – and Emily, the one who had been most responsible for leaking information to the media through her contacts at the Philadelphia newspaper, had few of the answers anyway. I decided to be simply grateful. My weakness for Belgian psychiatrists was my secret anyway – one that I was fairly sure wouldn't be much appreciated by my children.

The day the Centre's stocks were pulled from trading and the corporation filed for Chapter 13 bankruptcy protection, Jarod, Ethan and JD all came to Kentucky to celebrate with me. We fought over the copies of the New York Times and the Boston Herald that detailed the failure of reorganization attempts and the inevitable seizure of Centre assets by an African financial consortium which held most of the Centre IOUs. The day William Raines was convicted of all of the charges against him and sentenced to life in prison without parole, my family was all around me at the ranch – Emily, her husband and infant daughter, Jarod, JD, and Ethan with his newest girlfriend from Dover – and we all had champagne. It had been a long hard road to freedom for us.

In the last six months previous to this, I had missed my youngest son's capable way of dealing with employees and clients of Charleston Stables, where some of the finest thoroughbred racehorses in Kentucky were raised and up and coming jockeys and dressage riders trained – I tended to be all business, with no time for flexibility or excuses. JD, over the years since we'd come to this life and discovered that Jarod had indeed placed us so far below the Centre's radar as to be virtually immune, had blossomed into an affable, easy-going young man with a ready laugh and a real talent for practical jokes. He brought in the new clients, saw to the scheduling of lessons, and kept the place profitable while I was more than contented keeping an eagle eye on the books, poring over breeding records or out exercising my latest favorite mount. But the lure of being a part of the solution to our family's on-going problem with the Centre had been too great for JD to ignore – and I had spent the last six months alone at the ranch amid a cloud of strangers, acquaintances, students and employees. My celebrations as the Centre retreated from our lives were as much about getting my youngest son back home with me as about freedom from having to live life looking over my shoulder.

But then it was done – the biggest collapses had happened – and my family again scattered as the courts continued to churn out conviction after conviction. Emily and her family headed back to Philadelphia, where her work on breaking the Centre story had won her a brand new editor's post to match husband Phil's new full professorship at the university. Jarod and Ethan, oddly enough, both decided to head back to college to get genuine degrees upon which to base honest careers – Ethan to MIT to train as a structural engineer while Jarod challenged the course work and began work on both his master's thesis and doctorate so he could apply for a research physicist's position for NASA eventually. Last but not least, however, JD was back home in Kentucky and gladly took back his position as manager of Charleston Stables – perfectly happy to put the intellectual stress of his Pretender years and the strain of being part of the "Final Solution" for the Centre behind him. And for the first time in over five years, I began to consider the possibility of taking a vacation.

But then it was April and foaling season – and we had some really good possibilities among our crop of foals this year. So I decided to wait through the spring, keeping tabs on the progress and overseeing the rating of our latest crop of yearlings and watching the new arrivals blossom. I loved working with the horses – they were as intelligent as children and easily as capable of being either as tractable or mischievous or mean-spirited as any human, only without language skills. One had to learn to read body language – a skill that could fail and do injury. My errors were few, but they tended to be large ones. A fall not long after JD was back in charge of the place shattered my shoulder and put my left arm in a cast for weeks – and my vacation was postponed indefinitely while I healed.

Still, I wasn't unhappy. For over five years now, I'd been Margaret Charleston, owner and general manager of Charleston Stables – and the credentials I had in that name had served me in good stead. I had the kind of background that few would question – and as a result, I was able to take a bit of a place in the small community outside which Jarod located my supposedly generations-old family enterprise. I did my civic duty on a very limited, non-photogenic scale, and I had my gentlemen callers – real Southern gentlemen who had begun cautiously inviting me to the occasional community barbeques and symphony concerts in Louisville in the last year or so. I accepted the invitations without offering out too much hope for any relationship going much further than that. I let it be understood that I was uninterested in anything more than friendship – I was a widow, after all.

I was a widow – and my family accepted that I was still grieving for Dan – but deep inside, I wasn't dead at all. It wasn't that I wasn't interested in men – it was that the man I had been holding out five years for was too far away and too dangerous to contact except for very briefly and only through email. I also knew that I had an entire family's distrust to overcome before I dared be open about my feelings about this particular man – much less anybody else less well known. Five years was a long time to wait – and then, as the time seemed to continue to spin on by after the Centre was out of the picture, I began to wonder if Jarod's insistence that Sydney never made a promise he didn't keep was quite as solid a fact as he thought. Of course, that he'd taught Jarod that promises were never to be broken – and that Jarod had taken that lesson very much to heart – didn't bother me at all. I only very privately mourned for what I had once hoped to gain and now despaired of ever seeing. It was five months now – and not a single word. The cell phone number was no good anymore, and the emails were bouncing.

"Penny for your thoughts?" JD asked as he came out onto the patio of our ranch house with a tall glass of iced tea for each of us. It was late summer now – the days had been hot and sticky, and ideal iced tea weather. I could see the dust trails in the air to the east which meant that Cal and Rusty, our two stable hands, had probably driven off for home in the late afternoon down the long, graveled drive to the rural lane that ran straight as an arrow north to town.

"Hmmm?" I looked up into his face – so like his older brother's except for the carefully trimmed goatee and sun-weathered face – and then accepted the drink. "What was that?"

"You're miles away, Mom," he pointed out, sitting down in a chaise lounge next to me. "You have been for weeks."

"I'm sorry," I said and sipped at my tea. I would have to watch it – JD, of them all, was the most sensitive to my moods. "Thanks for the tea."

"Uh-uhn…" He shook his head at me. "You're not getting away with that this time."

"Away with what?" I asked him with an innocent look – or what I hoped was an innocent look.

"You're stewing about something, and have for the past few weeks now," he told me with a tone of certainty. "What?"

"Nothing, honey," I assured him. "My shoulder's aching – that's all." That wasn't entirely a lie – my shoulder had remained painful even after the cast had come off. There were times I could hardly move the arm now.

"Mom, this is me – remember?" JD leaned toward me. "Through thick and thin, remember? You can tell me anything…"

"I'm fine!"

"Physically, maybe – except for that achy shoulder," he reminded me pointedly. "C'mon. Something's bothering you – and it's rather obvious that it's more than just your shoulder."

I gave in to a small extent. I'd never been able to hide my feelings from this extraordinary young man ever since I'd joined my destiny to his. Despite everything, our personalities and mood swings were just too similar. Even Jarod and I weren't this close – and Ethan was far too much like his mother for us to be more than just friends. JD had become the son I'd actually had a hand in raising – even though I'd only had a chance at the years of his early twenties to make him my own. "Nothing that either of us can do anything about, honey," I allowed finally. "Just wishing…"

"Something about the Centre?" he asked with amazing accuracy.

I nodded and sipped at my tea again. "In a manner of speaking."

"And you're still not going to tell me." He wasn't happy about it. We had so few secrets between us.

I shook my head. "No, sweetheart, I'm not. Not this time."

"Miz Charleston?"

I looked over at the patio door in surprise. Evidently Cal hadn't left for the day yet after all. "Yes?"

"There's a gentleman here to see you, ma'am."

JD and I exchanged raised eyebrows. "Are one of your gentleman callers expected to take you out tonight?" JD asked me with a sly smile on his face. I do believe that boy enjoyed attempting to play matchmaker. He was always encouraging me to take time for myself lately – to enjoy the company of either the banker from Louisville or the fellow horse breeder from just south of Nashville who had become semi-regular callers of late. I bore his tinkering in my life with a healthy dash of humor.

"Not that I know of," I said, rising and putting my iced tea down on the low table between the chaise lounges. "You go on, Cal – I'll take care of this."

"Yes, ma'am." The sturdy stable hand gave me a quick nod and turned to head back into the house – no doubt heading for the lockers we maintained for the help to keep their belongings in while at work here.

"You want me to help?" JD asked with raised eyebrows. He knew all too well that I enjoyed my chance to wind down in the evening without outside interference. He might tease me about things, but he could just as quickly turn very defensive of my privacy.

"Nah," I waved him to settle back down. "I probably won't be long. It's probably someone who doesn't realize that SOME of us aren't waited on hand and foot and try to keep to a schedule."

I followed in Cal's footsteps into the house – only I kept going straight, heading for the foyer in which most of the visitors here were asked to wait for assistance. I noted as I passed through the kitchen that the timer on my oven – in which I had a pan full of chicken roasting and making the house smell delightfully like a home – was nearly spent. I'd need to tend to my supper soon. Hopefully I could deal with this man and then be able to take my time with the vegetables and gravy…

I knew who my visitor was the moment I looked around the corner into the living room – where so many of the strangers here wandered as they waited – and saw longish silver hair. "My God!" I exclaimed as I hesitated, stunned – and Sydney turned around with that huge, wide, warming smile of his. "You came!"

He stepped toward me – a limping step aided with the use of a silver-tipped cane. "You told me you were holding me to my promise," he reminded me in his smooth and accented baritone that I hadn't heard for over five years as he reached out for me. "And as I never make promises I don't intend to keep, I had to come – especially when I spoke to Jarod and found out that you were not otherwise involved with anyone else seriously. That was, of course, the most important consideration…"

I chuckled even as I stepped into his embrace with a sigh of relief and relaxed against him as his arms closed around me. "How did you manage to weasel that out of Jarod?" I asked, my face pressed against his upper chest.

Sydney chuckled too. "Oh, I have my ways – always have. Jarod was never able to keep many secrets from me for long."

"Jarod knows you're here?" I turned my head to look up at him.

He was shaking his head. "Not really. I called him to let him know I was back from Albany – and then the conversation somehow managed to shift in your direction. As an interested party, I had inquired after you and then simply kept the discussion alive until I had all the information I required." He released me and set me back from him a bit. "You look well – Jarod said that this life of yours agreed with you."

"Good honest work always did," I smiled at him – and then glanced at his cane. "What happened there? Are YOU all right?"

He shrugged his very cosmopolitan shrug. "Oh. That. This…" He lifted the cane dramatically. "…comes courtesy of a patch of ice on the sidewalk outside my front door this past winter. I was rushing to catch a ride and didn't watch where I was going carefully enough. I was laid up long enough that I finally bit the bullet and retired."

"Really!" The idea that he'd been nowhere near the Centre when it ended up on the news every night was amazing. "How long ago was this?"

"I fell in January, and retired in early March – I was long gone from the Centre before everything fell apart in April."

"I'm glad you had retired by then," I was serious now. "I used to listen to the news reports and pray I didn't hear your name as someone who'd been arrested."

"Peg," he said my name gently and reached out to cup my face. "Even if I'd still been working, the official consequences of my sins would have fallen victim to the statute of limitations a long time ago – at least, as far as the law of the land was concerned. The search for Jarod never really violated any laws – except maybe breaking and entering, for which no charges were filed. I was in never in any danger of arrest."

I gazed into his eyes. "Where have you been?" I asked softly. "The Centre started falling apart in April – you retired a month before that. And you hadn't answered my emails…"

"I only had email at work, remember," he told me very gently, his thumb tracing the line of my jaw. "Besides, like I said, I was off my feet until well into May getting my knee and hip to let me get around again – and then I spent some time in Albany lately."

Now I remembered. "With Nicholas?"

He nodded, a soft smile on his face. "At least we're not estranged anymore. He may not call me "Dad," but we're friends at last. And getting in touch with you was much of the reason I contacted Jarod when I came back. I knew roughly where you were – but wasn't sure I could find you when the time came, OR whether you would welcome the visit."

"I was afraid you'd forgotten." It was the truth, and it was whispered because it had hurt so to even consider.

"You always did have too little faith in yourself," he replied very softly, that thumb moving very slowly, very carefully. "There are some things a man will never forget – that kind of promise being one of them."

I could feel the draw of those hypnotic eyes – eyes in which I could clearly see the same loneliness, the same need for human contact and affection, as I'd seen before, combined with a simmering want that was positively magnetic. I was about to step closer to him again – to claim that which I'd been waiting five years for – when…

"Mom?"

Sydney didn't so much jerk back as let his hand drop away from me as I turned to face my son. "JD. I didn't hear you come in." I glanced at Sydney and saw his eyes studying my youngest boy's face intently. "Sydney, this is my son JD. JD, this is…"

"I remember you." JD's voice held a note of surprise and, oddly, gratitude. "You took over from Mr. Raines – right before Jarod managed to get me out of the Centre."

"It's good to see you again – JD, is it?" Sydney stated with a growing smile. "It has been a long time."

I could see that JD was taking in the fact that I was standing quite close to our guest, and that neither Sydney nor I was willing to back away from the other. "I didn't know that you two knew each other."

"Your mother was my guest several years ago – just before Jarod established her in this identity to keep her hidden from the Centre," Sydney explained patiently. "I promised her back then that when the Centre was no longer an issue, I'd come to see her again, to see how she was doing." I blinked. He was telling JD nothing more or less than the truth – and making it a whole lot less threatening in the process.

"OK…" I could see that it would take JD a while to digest that mote of information that I'd evidently neglected to tell him all this time – and no doubt, I'd be getting grilled about it later on. JD turned his attention to me now. "I just wanted to tell you that I got a call from Nathan, wanting to know if I wanted to go with him and Sue and Julie to the premier in Louisville after all. You don't mind if I duck out on you tonight and take the van?"

"Not at all." I was elated, as a matter of fact. I would be able to have Sydney all to myself – for dinner and whatever might come afterwards. "Are you all going to stay at Sue's grandparents' house tonight then, or drive back?" Sue, the fiancée of JD's best friend Nathan, had grandparents that lived in Louisville and offered to house groups of friends who came into the city for social or entertainment purposes with their granddaughter. JD had spent several nights with his friends there – and I always considered the outing as good for him. Not to mention that I knew Julie Cavandish was sweet on him, and I thoroughly approved of her – especially when evenings like this ended up with at least a token chaperone…

"Sue was talking about staying over the night." JD flashed me a smile. "Thanks, Mom." He put out a hand. "It's good to see you again, Sydney. Will you be staying in the area long?"

"He'll be staying here," I spoke up quickly and then shrugged at Sydney's raised eyebrows at my impertinence. "We have plenty of room here – it's ridiculous that you should have to rent a room."

Once more JD's eyes went back and forth between me and the former Centre shrink, eventually landing on mine with a touch of mischief in their depths. "Well, you two behave while I'm away – and I'll see you tomorrow morning sometime." He bent forward and deposited a kiss on my cheek. "Good to see you looking less glum now, should I wonder why?" he whispered conspiratorially at me.

"Shush!" I hissed at him and swatted at his shoulder playfully, blushing a bit. "Have fun, honey."

"Don't forget you have dinner in the oven," he reminded me with a smirk on his lips that looked altogether too much like his older brother's, "it would be a shame to burn it." And then he scooted away from me heading up the stairs before I could swat at him again.

I glanced over at Sydney, only to find him watching where JD had gone with a shaking head and a chuckle. "What?"

"Amazing," he breathed and then turned to me. "He is so much like Jarod was at that age – and yet, he is his own person. You've done well by him in a very short time and should be verrrry proud of yourself. I remember a closed, emotionally disconnected and abused young man. And now – he can laugh and joke and tease very confidently. The change in him is remarkable."

"I used every last piece of advice you gave me in your emails," I confessed. "And helping him helped me. But you knew it would."

"I had my suspicions and hopes."

I looked about. "Do you have luggage? I can show you to the guest room before I have to take care of finishing up my supper – before it burns, like JD said…"

Sydney gazed evenly at me, his eyes once more beginning to smolder. "Are you sure that doing so will neither put you out or compromise your reputation?"

"My reputation?" Where had THAT come from?

He nodded. "Indeed. Jarod went to great lengths to tell me about how there were at least a couple of well-connected and responsible gentlemen who have been calling on you lately."

"Sydney?"

He smiled at me. "Yes?"

"Will you please go get your suitcase?"

oOoOo

"If I eat another bite, I'm going to explode," Sydney sighed contentedly, pushing his dessert plate back. "I remember your making that chicken dish while you stayed with me – I froze the leftovers and enjoyed that meal about three more times before it was all gone."

I smiled contentedly. I'd been cooking for an appreciative son – but I'd forgotten how Sydney and I had enjoyed the friendly competition in the kitchen all those years ago. "I'm glad you enjoyed it." I rose and began gathering up the dishes. "This shouldn't take long…"

"Let me help you." He rose as well and had the platter of remaining chicken and the potatoes in hand before I could complain that guests don't do dishes. I led the way back into the kitchen and indicated where I wanted him to put the stuff and began rinsing the plates to go into the dishwasher.

I knew he'd brought the rest of it in, because I was soon packing away vegetables and gravy as well. But then, as I was finishing up dumping the rest of my buttered peas into a plastic bag, I felt something tug on my hair – and then it was loose.

"This is longer than it was before," Sydney was shaking the braiding from my hair and spreading it across my shoulders. "It should always be loose – you look so pretty with it about your face…" I could feel him running his fingers through it.

"I braid it – or put it up – to keep it from snarling when I'm riding or working outside," I told him, almost purring with the feel of his hands on me. I quickly stowed the bag of peas in the fridge – hating to move away from him at all – and set the controls on the dishwasher to take over the rest of that task as well. Then, finally, I turned to him. "There. All done."

He put out a hand to me. "We have a discussion to finish as promised, if memory serves," he said in a warm tone that set my nerves tingling.

"I know," I said, stepping forward and putting my hand in his. Yes, it was time. "Come with me."

I led him through the house and out the front door onto the wide verandah. On the west side was an old fashioned wooden porch swing – one that Jarod and JD kept carefully maintained because of my preference on warm summer evenings to sit there and watch the sun go down. I led Sydney there and sat down to hold the seat steady while he settled himself in next to me and put his cane on the floor near his feet.

"This is nice," he commented, putting an arm along the back of the swing – and I settled against him and smiled as that arm found a home on my shoulder.

"It's my favorite seat in the whole place," I replied, leaning my head into his chest comfortably and genuinely enjoying the sensation of my heart beginning to speed up when his arm tightened just that much more around me.

His legs were longer than mine, and they started the swing moving back and forth very gently. "When Jarod told me about your gentlemen callers, I began to wonder whether or not we'd ever be able to sit like this." His voice lowered. "I have to admit, I was a bit jealous that others had been able to enjoy your company while I was forced to keep my distance."

"They had my company – and nothing more," I reassured him in a soft voice. "I never let them think there would be anything more either."

He fell into a thoughtful silence – and I was reminded how even silences had been filled with potential for this man. I didn't mind it a bit – I was happier now than I'd been in a very long time, and very content to be sitting on a front porch swing with him holding me gently to him. If I could have dreamed this moment, it couldn't have been more perfect. All the doubt and despair I'd been feeling earlier in the day, when I was worried that he'd forgotten his promise to me, was gone.

"Penny for your thoughts," I nudged him gently when the silence continued longer than I expected.

"I've been sitting here, thinking about all the times I dreamed about holding you this way," he replied, dropping his nose into my hair, "and realizing that the reality is by far preferable. Even when I was in Albany last month, I found myself daydreaming about this day and you." That was quite an admission – I knew that he'd often wondered in his early emails to me if there were any residual feelings between himself and Nicholas' mother.

"At least I don't have to feel jealous about that, then," I wrapped my right hand across him and held him back.

"Nope," he kissed my forehead. "If there ever had been anything there, it was long gone. I lost my heart to you five years ago – and there was no going back. If the trip did anything, it only brought that point home very clearly."

"Good." I was even more content – and more than a little touched with his subtle declaration.

"I'm an old man, Peg," he continued after another lengthy silence. "My joints are stiff and don't want to move, I can't walk well…"

"I'm not exactly young myself, Sydney," I reminded him. "I have a shoulder that is barely healed and an arm that sometimes doesn't want to work…"

"Am I hurting you?" He immediately loosened his hold on me.

"Am I squirming to get away?" I retorted and pressed in closer. "I think it feels better being held against you, if you want to know the truth."

"I didn't know you'd been injured," he chided.

"Your nemesis was a patch of ice in January, mine was a skittish three-year-old named Bounder in April." I felt his arm close around me again. "Besides, age is a relative concept. They say you're only as old as you feel."

Sydney's chest told me he was chuckling silently. "Age might play a fairly important part if we decide to pick up where we left off that night and move forward," he finally laughed at me. "Age and arthritis tend to play hell on the stamina."

I smiled against him and felt my heart give a heavy thump that spoke of how much I had wanted this day to come – as well as the subtle hint at where our day was going to end. "I think we can let that part take care of itself when the time comes, don't you?" I chuckled back at him. I could be subtle too – when I put my mind to it.

"Fair enough." His hand on my shoulder began to move, rubbing down my arm and across my shoulder blade. "It's enough for me to know that we both have a clear idea where we're headed – and that it seems we're still both headed in the same direction." He grew silent for a moment. "No more walking away," he said, more to himself than to me, with quiet vehemence.

I turned my head so that I could look up at him, and I saw him looking down at me with a look of intense longing. "I'm here," I told him softly. "I'm not going anywhere." I pulled my hand from his waist and reached up to cup his face. "I've been waiting for you. No more walking away for you either, Sydney – not this time."

"I love you, Peg," he groaned and suddenly bent to press his lips to mine and take away my ability for rational thought. Everything I had felt on the day I'd left him behind in Blue Cove came flooding back – and I poured five years of longing into my embrace as the kiss instantly deepened. His hands, suddenly, were in my hair, on my face, at my neck – everywhere caressing, stroking. Mine caught at his shoulders and tangled in the soft curls at the nape of his neck – curls that I'd always wanted to toy with.

I couldn't get close enough to him – and he evidently felt the lack as well. His hand swept behind my knees and pulled me up into his lap so that he could hold me tighter to him. I had forgotten just how wonderful it could be to be loved and caressed and kissed in this way – and I arched my neck as his lips traced a fiery trail over my jaw and down onto my throat.

In the end, we abandoned the porch swing long before the sun was completely down.

oOoOo

I stirred awake to find myself still with my head on Sydney's shoulder, still wrapped in his arms. I really didn't want to awaken, in case everything that had gone into putting me in this situation was nothing but an incredibly detailed and glorious dream and I'd find myself clutching my pillows yet again. But then I shifted against him slightly and felt the glorious slip of skin against skin, and finally let myself believe that my dream was no dream.

"Good morning," his voice rumbled at me sleepily.

I rolled myself up onto my good shoulder and opened my eyes to find the early morning light pouring in my bedroom window – and then closed them again as I bent down to kiss him. "Good morning," I slurred and settled back against the shoulder that had been my pillow. "What time is it?"

He grunted softly, and then I could feel him rolling and stretching a little – reaching for the clock on the nightstand, no doubt. "Seven-thirty," was the eventually response, followed by his arms settling back around me again.

Reluctantly I groaned and began to move. "I gotta get up…" I began – only to be held quite securely in place. "Sydney…"

"Not yet," he purred at me, and I relented. I honestly didn't want to move. "I'm enjoying the moment," he told me after a gentle kiss. "We waited long enough for this, you know..."

"JD will be home soon, though," I told him warningly, "and my stable hands will be at the back door at eight o'clock sharp…"

"That's a whole half an hour from now," he pointed out, tightening his hold on me. "Settle down. Besides, we have a discussion that needs to take place."

I wrapped my arm around his middle and turned to kiss the lightly-furred chest beneath my head as I snuggled closer. "I thought we finished that discussion more than adequately last night – twice, in fact!" I commented in a thoroughly satisfied tone. My body was still singing to me in a delightfully used manner as to how completely we'd finished that discussion. Sydney had been a very thorough, gentle and attentive lover – having more than enough stamina for the evening, despite his musings about age and arthritis to the contrary. He'd made me feel as seductive and attractive as I might ever have been when I was younger. I could only hope that I'd been able to please him even half as much as he had me.

"Very true, and that's one particular discussion I can promise you we'll be having a good many times in the future," he chuckled and kissed my forehead, and then grew serious. "But no, there's another topic that needs our attention now, Peg. We need to decide where we go from here."

That took much of the incentive to leave the bed away almost immediately. I tightened my hold on his waist. "All I know is that I don't want to lose you – not now," I whispered almost frantically. "I couldn't bear it! Don't let this be just a passing…"

"Oh, Peg!" he replied and with a finger beneath my chin lifted my head so that he could give me a full and passionate kiss. "Didn't you hear me? That part of it isn't in question at all, trust me," he reassured me when we parted again – and I relaxed against him again contentedly. "You know as well as I do that neither of us would have waited five years just to have a one-night stand and then say goodbye. Last night, as good as it was, was only the beginning. No, the real question now is do I move in with you here or do you move in with me in Delaware, or do we just get together regularly – you coming to my place and my coming to yours to cohabit for a few days or a week at a time – or what?"

"And how do we tell the others," I finished for him. "I'm afraid not all of them will be pleased with this – I don't think Jarod especially will understand my finding happiness with anybody but Dan."

"Your children – and the few people on my end who are dear to me – are going to be important parts of how we manage this relationship, that's for certain," he nodded against his pillow.

"We have a relationship now?" I teased him gently.

"We could have a marriage, if that's what you wanted," he told me and then gazed at me evenly as I rolled myself up on my good shoulder again to look at him in surprise. "But that still leaves us with the question of "my place or yours", doesn't it?"

"Marriage?" I breathed at him. "You're serious?"

He reached up and tucked a long tendril of grey-red hair behind my ear. "Quite serious," he replied, no hint of jest at all in either his tone or his eyes. "I refuse to wait five years or even five days to be with you again – which pretty much does in the part-time cohabit option. I'm also not entirely certain that you would do well or even want to leave things undeclared between us. We have your children and my… people… to consider – they all probably would disapprove of us more if we merely stayed occasional lovers than if we made this a more formal, a more permanent, arrangement." His lips twitched in the beginnings of that smirk that I suspected Jarod had inherited from him. "And then there's your reputation in the community to consider…"

"My rep… Sydney!" My mouth was agape. Where WAS he getting this stuff??

"As you can see, I prefer the marriage route myself," he continued, his eyes twinkling, "if for no other reason than it tells your other fine southern gentlemen callers definitely to hitch up their wagons and take a hike." I could only stare at him. "Well – so – what do you say?"

"Is that a proposal?" I finally managed.

"I can't get down on one knee anymore, Peg – it hurts too damned much – but yes, this is a proposal. Will you marry me and let me make an honest woman of you?" The twinkle died in his eyes, replaced by a haunting look of hope and uncertainty that I almost ached to soothe.

"I love you," I whispered as I first stretched up for a soft kiss and then settled back down on his shoulder with a happy sigh. "And yes, I'll marry you – as if you were ever in any doubt of my answer after last night."

Now it was his turn to rise up over me, dumping me into my pillow in the process. "Do you know that's the first time you've said that to me?"

I reached up to him. "I promise you that it won't be the last time," is all I was able to say before he was kissing me again.

"I'm going to hold you to that," Sydney told me between kisses, "and to your promise to marry me."

All I could think of was our exchange five years ago – and how suitable his response had been at the time. "You are, are you?" I managed and then giggled just before he kissed me again in a way that, if we weren't careful, would mean that we'd be way more than a half hour getting out of this bed after all.

When he finally released me, I began to move again. "And now I really do have to get going," I told him ruefully, pushing back the blankets and sheets and slipping out of his embrace. "I promise you we'll talk through the "my place or yours" part of this discussion – and how to tell the others – after breakfast and after I've set up the day's schedule for the help."

He watched me walk to my closet without a stitch of clothing on and retrieve a robe and pair of slippers with a simmering gaze that had my nerves tingling again. "Have I told you lately how damned attractive you are?" he rumbled and then threw back the covers and went in search of his trousers and boxers so that he could at least go back to the guest room and dig through his suitcase for clean clothes without worrying about flashing someone.

"No," I answered him with a saucy smile that was born of the elation of knowing that my days of being alone were over, "but we could probably fit that in with the "your place or mine" discussion after breakfast, if you want."

oOoOo

I never regretted the decisions we made that day – nor the effort that it took to convince the rest of those dearest to us to accept what we'd known and lived with for so long. In the end, everyone we loved most came around, even Jarod; although with him, the road to acceptance was longer, rougher and filled with more potholes than with any of the others. Eventually, however, he was able to make peace with the notion that somehow, without his knowledge or permission, his mother had fallen in love with the man who had been his surrogate father at the Centre, and vice versa. He who had struggled so hard to reunite his family had to accept that the boundaries and definition of family needed to be flexible enough to withstand change.

And what changes there were. There was an unexpected factor to consider when Sydney decided to leave Delaware behind and join me in Kentucky – a man by the name of Angelo. Autistic, sensitive Angelo had dropped into Sydney's care abruptly when the Centre doors had closed forever – and would need supervision and care for the rest of his life as the result of the abuse visited on him during his decades as a Centre victim. I was worried that we wouldn't be able to handle him until JD caught his first glimpse of the strange little man climbing from Sydney's car. From that moment on, JD and Angelo were inseparable – and JD spared no time teaching Angelo the workings of the ranch and how to handle horses. Angelo, with his many unusual talents, could easily become one of the best horse handlers I'd ever seen – and his autistic tendencies faded slowly until they were more like eccentric quirks easily tolerated.

Then there was Miss Parker – the daughter of my old friend whose voice had scared me half to death once upon a time. Sydney had played the role of surrogate father to her almost as long as he'd played it for Jarod, and he'd been there to support her as all the other important players in her life abandoned her or were taken from her one by one. She who had a façade that was tough as nails and capable of reducing a man to jello with just a look was herself nearly reduced to tears by the thought that, in moving away, Sydney was at long last abandoning her too. I think that surprised Sydney almost more than it did me – and I know that the process of reassuring her brought the two of them closer than ever before.

But by the time the leaves had fallen and snow was threatening in the sky, we were almost settled into our new life. Winter had come early to New England, where Sydney and I were in the process of packing his belongings for shipping to Kentucky. JD and Angelo were handling things at the ranch, leaving Sydney and me to travel that one last time to Blue Cove.

The living room of his beautiful Washington Street home was half packed away now – most of the books carefully stored in boxes for their trip to the new library at Charleston Stables that Jarod and Ethan had built for me in what had been my own huge living room. The furniture would be the last to go – that which would be shipped would be picked up with the boxes of books in the afternoon by the movers, and the rest of it was being taken by a used furniture dealer in Dover to be sold on commission.

It was evening, and I'd had built a fire in that magnificent fireplace to ward away the chill that wanted to fill the house from outside. Finished and satisfied with my efforts, I curled up on the end of that comfortable leather couch and considered the many changes in my life since the last time I'd sat there like that. I had been alone – where now I had a loving and attentive husband. I had been wracked with panic attacks and fears of the unknown – where now I was content and assured in my life. I had been a fugitive from life itself – where now I was a celebrant.

"Penny for your thoughts," Sydney purred at me, his hands full of two steaming mugs in which I could smell some of his hot buttered rum.

Oh, just thinking," I replied, taking the one mug from him and sipping at it carefully. "Remembering."

He limped around the end of the couch and sat down, laying both his cane and his mug on the coffee table in front of him so he could seat himself comfortably and then taking up the mug again. "That was a hard day for you," he remembered too. "I really wondered for a while that you might have finally broken – you had me verrrry worried."

I shifted along the length of the couch until I could curl my legs beneath me and snuggle up to him. I sighed contentedly as his one arm wrapped around my shoulders and held me close, and I sipped at the rum again. "I don't even like to think about that day anymore," I told him quietly.

As was often his habit at times like these, and as had happened quite often since we'd returned to Delaware, Sydney fell silent – and I could tell that he was thinking. But, as usual, I wasn't uncomfortable with his silences at all. I leaned into him and smiled as his hand began to rub my shoulder – which had been aching badly most of the day from the cold – and occasionally tangling a finger or two in my hair and playing with it. I could tell he was thinking about that night so long ago, when I'd come looking for him and he'd been obligated by his professional ethics to turn away from something we'd both wanted and needed desperately.

"You know," he said finally, after taking another sip of his rum and then setting his mug on the table in front of us so he could wrap me with both of his arms, "when you came to me, shaking and upset that day, I had no idea that I'd turned such a major corner in my life just by letting you into the car." His arms around me tightened. "But you changed everything for me that next night. From then on, every time I started to think about how alone I was – I would think of you, sitting here on my couch, virtually begging me to make love to you to prove to you that you were still attractive – that Dan was wrong. And every time, I would be amazed that you had come to me – ME…"

His fingertip touched his chest over his heart. "You became my amulet after that night – one I wore in here…" He fell silent again for a brief moment with a shake of the head. "I didn't deserve you – and yet you just… became a part of me that night. Whenever I wondered if I could ever be treated like a whole person again, despite everything I'd done over the years, I could think of you sitting there wanting me and know that somewhere inside, I was still human – that someone could still want me around."

"Sydney…" His musings had touched me deeply. I'd known what he'd meant to me for those five, long years; but to hear it from his perspective…

"And now, here we are."

I leaned forward and put my mug on the table next to his and then settled back against him within the circle of his arm. "Yes – here we are." I reached up and cupped his cheek with a hand warm from the mug to get him to look down at me. "Six years later, we're sitting on the same couch, in front of a nice warm fire – and we're together at last." I let my hand fall to wrap around his neck and snuggled in close again. "Sometimes happy endings DO come for people like us. Not often, but sometimes…"

His lips pressed against my forehead during another of his long moments of thoughtful silence. "Back in the days when I was first working with Jarod," he began again, "I decided that there had to be a safe-word instituted – something that Jarod could say that would tell me that he'd reached his limits. It was important to me not to take a small child past his limits – so I chose the word "refuge". When he was scared, or needed to back away from what he was doing for whatever reason, he could say "refuge" and I'd know to stop."

"You are MY refuge, Sydney," I told him softly. "You were that night six years ago, and you have been my refuge every night since then – whether you were with me or not. The day I came to you was the day I stopped running." I pressed against him. "I love you."

A gentle finger lifted my face to him. "I love you," he whispered to me and then bent to kiss me the way he might have six years ago – the way he would from now on.

And never again would I have to wonder what it would be like to be with him, to be loved by him, on this couch on a cold, winter's night in Blue Cove. I'd found my refuge – and I promised myself that I'd never leave it again. It was a promise I intended to keep.