Disclaimer: The characters here and the world they inhabit are the creation and property of Margaret Mitchell, her heirs, and their assigns.

Note: I have to say I love the reviews, and I absolutely adore how carefully you seem to be reading the story and finding everything, even when I mess up. Rest assured, I'm aware of some crazy plot holes and fudging that I've done and I can only ask that you'll suspend your disbelief for the sake of the story.

I will observe that even after having twins the day before, I don't think it's any hardship for Scarlett to get dressed, walk out into the yard, and stand up for half an hour to get married before going straight back to bed. Scarlett's always had easy births, and having been through several easy births myself, I think they would have had a harder time keeping her in bed for two hours let alone two weeks, which MM seems to think is mandatory.

Scarlett was in the parlor when Rhett and Ewan came in for dinner. She and Aiden were reading a book. He tried to climb up on her lap to get a kiss before going to his father, and she yelled. "Ouch, your knees and elbows are very sharp!" She smiled as she said it and exchanged a loud, smacking kiss before setting the boy on the floor to run to his father.

In exchange, the two older boys ran up to her and left smacking kisses on each of her cheeks. She looked at them and wrinkled her nose. "You boys need to clean up if you expect your dinners."

"Yes, ma'am," they said in unison. Off they went to wash up, jostling each other as they went.

Scarlett laughed merrily and stood up. "How they do remind me of the Tarleton twins sometimes!" she sighed and then sadly added, "I do hope there won't be any more wars. I don't know how Beatrice stood it when she lost all of her boys."

Scarlett looked at her former and current husbands and put her hands on her hips. For one wild moment, Rhett almost thought she would invite them both to kiss her cheeks, but she shook her head at them. "I see you're covered in dust, yourselves. You'd best wash up if you don't want to eat a peck of dirt for dinner."

"Yes, ma'am," said McLure. He walked over and snuck a kiss anyway. Scarlett turned bright pink and watched him walk back toward the door.

Rhett took the opportunity to walk over to Scarlett himself and kiss her hand. "My very dear Mrs McLure," he said, showing his teeth in the grin he knew she found maddening.

"Oh, Rhett," she said, sounding very much like she had on the Hamilton front porch years before. He followed his host to wash up.

Over dinner, Scarlett suggested that Rhett stay at the house with her that afternoon. Ewan knew she was planning this and why, but he was not fond of the idea. With Aiden taking his afternoon nap, the twins with him, and the other ladies taking care of their own domestic chores, that left Kate essentially alone with the man. He took him aside after dinner as the men assembled the tools they would need for the afternoon.

"Kate says she knows you well and you won't harm her, but I don't know you at all," he said.

"I suspect you know more about me than I do of you," answered Rhett.

"That may be true. I've heard that you're a crack shot and you've never lost a duel."

"The fact I'm standing before you is proof of the latter."

"Just to be clear, Butler, you may be a crack shot, but I've been trained to take you down before you draw. Do you understand what I'm saying?"

Rhett smirked. "Perfectly. I assure you that Mrs. McLure will be in safe hands this afternoon."

Ewan nodded. "To tell you the truth, you probably have as much to worry about as she does. She's on the edge of one of her moods."

Rhett found Scarlett in the parlor. "What luck," he said softly, "to find you alone."

"Fiddle dee dee, Rhett, you're hardly going to seduce me to be your mistress when I'm eight months gone with my husband's baby."

He drew back, shocked. "I seem to recall that such topics were not to be discussed in your presence. In any case, I assure you I am more than willing to be at your service."

"If you haven't noticed, Rhett, I'm not a dewy-eyed girl scared of shelling in Atlanta and typhoid at Tara anymore."

"No, you're every inch a woman, and a damned fine one at that, Scarlett—"

"Kate—" she said automatically.

He tilted his head. "Why are you so determined to make me see you as this Kate you've invented?"

"It's who I am now. I still have the narrowest waist in the county… well at least among the mothers, and I still like to dance at parties, plus I like to run my businesses and farm my cotton and haggle with any man who tries to swindle me, but I'm comfortable with who I am. And I love my husband, who's only ever known Kate."

"Do you love your husband who's only ever known Scarlett?"

"I had two husbands who knew and loved me as Scarlett," she answered, "and I remember them fondly. I have no idea what could be said about the third one."

"I thought you were fond of me."

Her eyes flashed and her mouth twisted. "I thought so too, until I realized it was love, and then had it thrown back in my face." That mood McLure mentioned was just below the surface.

"I didn't—"

"Didn't you?" Grabbing her side, she shifted position on the sofa. "Rhett, if what I did to you hurt anywhere near what I felt the morning after we signed the settlement… I know there's no way to apologize or make up for it. I know I couldn't possibly do anything to remove that pain, and I'm sure you feel it yet. I want you to know I'm sorry."

The force of a habit he thought long dead had him reach for his handkerchief, only to see that she already had her own. With a jolt, he realized that maybe she was a different person now.

He remembered she'd had some purpose in spending the afternoon together. "You wanted to see me, madam?"

"I never expected this day to come, or, well, I hoped this day would never come, but for some reason, I've prepared something for you anyway."

"Indeed?" What could she possibly have for him?

"I can't reach… It's the bottom drawer in that chest over there." She pointed to a secretary that took up most of one wall of the room. "If I pull it out, I'll never get back up."

Rhett opened the drawer. "What am I looking for?" He turned around and looked at her.

She gestured with her chin. "It is the drawer. The whole thing."

Rhett looked back around and saw pictures, baby bonnets, and all the sorts of memorabilia that a proud parent keeps of their child. "It's all about the twins?"

"Everything I have about you is in there too, and… and her."

Rhett had dug around a little and saw whom she meant. "Tomorrow is her birthday."

"Ten years," said Scarlett softly. "I thought you and I could have a picnic. There's a place I want to take you."

"Will your husband allow you to go?"

She rolled her eyes in the old way. "Rhett, do be serious. He knows and understands."

"Why did you keep all of these things?" Rhett pulled out a large scrap book and brought it over to sit with Scarlett.

"I have my own copies of all these pictures of the boys, but these are copies for them, and for you if they ever met you. You may have anything out of that drawer you like."

Rhett opened the book at random. There was a picture of the two boys, one on each side of their mother. "You did this for me?"

"For the possibility of you seeing it, I suppose. I thought, just in case you didn't mind the idea of me having your children, you'd want to see these things."

With the realization that she did care for him enough to consider what he might want, a sudden warm affection flooded every nerve of Rhett's body. He turned and brushed a stray tendril of hair from her face. "I don't think I've ever loved you more than I do this minute."

"Rhett—" She made an attempt to slide away but only managed to place her hand on his thigh. She snatched her hand back and turned bright red, trying then to get up. "Oh, I'm sorry, I—"

"Hush… Don't my dear. I won't touch you." He didn't dare. He opened the front of the book and looked at a picture of Scarlett, Ewan, and the twins, taken just a few weeks after they were born. Scarlett looked a bit shocked, as she had after she married Frank, and as she had in her one wedding picture with Charles. Rhett looked at her and realized that she'd only really known him before their wedding out of all her husbands. Perhaps that was why they had the least successful marriage.

"How could you marry a man you'd known less than twenty-four hours?" he asked.

"I just knew it was the right thing to do."

"I understand he was there to help you when the twins were born, but you married so quickly after that."

Scarlett was looking at a framed picture across the room, taken at the same time as the one with the newborn twins. Ewan loved that picture, telling her that her soft smile and the trust she gave him were worth more than hundreds of kisses. She in turn felt that the picture favored Ewan well. He looked proud and optimistic… as though all his life he'd been hoping to come across a needy woman from Georgia and marry her the next day.

Scarlett had been so intent on planning the farm she would build that she had quite forgotten how quickly she would need to plan for the baby. There was no place to house the people who helped her on her property, so they had gone home for the day. Having hated her previous confinements so much, she completely forgot how quickly they came upon her. That left only thirteen-year-old Wade to ride to town to get the doctor, and eight-year-old Ella to keep her company.

Ewan had arrived out of nowhere, as Scarlett was starting to think the baby would be born with no assistance whatsoever. She had no idea how she could be so forward as to ask him to handle her body so intimately, but his hands were clean and he was gentle. When she was in hard labor, she didn't care who was there as long as they would help the process go faster. He said he knew nothing about how human babies were born, but Scarlett didn't know anything the first time she helped a woman through labor, either.

By the time Doctor Zimmer arrived, she was the mother of not one but two newborns, both so much like Rhett that she would have sat down and cried if she hadn't already been in bed. Wade came in after the doctor said he might, white-faced but proud of himself for accomplishing the task she'd given him. He'd also asked Mahala and Herman to come back for the night, and Mahala was making dinner. They could stay in his bedroom; he would make himself something to sleep on in the attic room near Ella.

Wade whispered that he thought the Texas Ranger in the main room might stay overnight, too. His name was Ewan McLure. Scarlett vaguely remembered that. Doctor Zimmer had said something privately to him, but all Wade had heard was that Doctor Zimmer thought Mr. McLure was a godsend.

Mahala fed everyone and helped Scarlett move to a chair so that she could change the sheets on the bed. At length Scarlett was put to bed and given her dinner. The ranger came back into the bedroom, and Scarlett felt herself turning pink.

"Katie darlin', I wanted to ask how you're feeling."

"I'm quite well, thank you. I'm so glad you were here."

"I've been speaking with the doctor, and he told me you're all alone."

"I have Wade and Ella," she said, a little defiant but sad. The more she looked at these babies, the more she missed Rhett.

"Katie," Ewan looked at her and then looked away.

Scarlett felt herself smiling. "Surely you're not shy, after all we've been through together?"

They both laughed at that. One of the babies cried in the crib they were sharing, and Ewan picked him up. "He's a bright lad, isn't he?"

"They're both sweet." Scarlett remembered Rhett saying that very word as he had caressed her middle the last time she saw him. A tear ran down her face. What was he doing that night? What was he thinking? Did he even care what she was doing today?

"Ah, Katie," said Ewan. He sat next to her on the bed. She took the baby and settled him at her breast. Ewan made a show of not looking. He took her free hand in both of his.

"What is it?" she asked, a bit surprised.

"Doctor Zimmer said that you're all alone and that you should have a husband."

"I had a husband, for all the good he did me."

"He gave you these two fine boys, and your other two children seem bright."

Scarlett leaned forward a little to speak conspiratorially. "They each had different fathers. One died as the war started, and the other got mixed up in the Klan."

Ewan almost dropped her hand, but didn't. "You've been widowed twice, and divorced once? Three husbands?"

She looked down at the baby and adjusted him a little. "That's the sum total."

He thought for a minute, nodded his head and started again. "Katie, darlin', Doctor Zimmer thinks you need another husband."

She nodded. "It's not likely. I've have had so many, and there isn't an endless supply."

"Why are you making this so difficult?"

Scarlett suddenly realized what he was about to say. She looked down at the baby. The one with the freckle near his eye was Gerald, and this one didn't have it. She looked at her other hand in Ewan's strong hands, calloused, like Rhett's, but so gentle. She remembered his hands on her legs and blushed, this time with a bit of awareness of him. Like with Charles, she calculated what he would bring to her. He was handsome and capable. She didn't know whether he had any money, but she was financially comfortable. That was the right word for everything, she realized. Once Ewan had entered the house, she'd felt comfortable with him and knew that he would help her.

"I'm sorry, Mr. McLure, please continue."

"Katie, I know we've just met, but I would be happy to be your husband."

"But surely you have a sweetheart? And Wade says you work with the Rangers? I couldn't take you away from that, and I won't leave my new Tara. I feel as though I belong here."

"Darlin', I'll go wherever you want. I haven't had a place that felt like home since my parents and my Marie all died during the war, but I feel like I can be part of something here. Think of us as business associates if you'd rather. I've always wanted to have a small horse ranch. There must be more land available?" She nodded. There was just on the other side of her lane. "Then perhaps I could buy it, and we could build a house for our family, and if anyone comes along we'd rather be with, well neither of us will be worse off, will we?"

"My last husband divorced me. Don't you worry about what I might be capable of?"

"Texas is a place people come to reinvent themselves. The doc says you've impressed the people in town with your farming skills already."

She thought about it all night. He was at least as suitable a husband as either Charlie or Frank, but it meant giving up on the idea of Rhett forever. If he could divorce her, perhaps he could divorce again. Maybe she should respond to one of those letters. No, he wasn't going to divorce his new wife. None of the letters Henry forwarded suggested that could be the case. All she'd gotten from Rhett so far were demands that she give him her address if she ever wanted to sell the house. Very well, let the house stand vacant. Will and Suellen could air it out once or twice a year.

At some point around three in the morning, she was feeding little Jerry, whose wrinkly little face looked like Rhett surely would in twenty years. Rhett would never be gone from her, but this was all she would have. She would say her final goodbye to him and marry the handsome Texan. At four in the morning, while Mahala changed Langston's diaper, she remembered something the doctor had told her. The children would be presumed to be the children of whatever man she was married to when they were born. If Ewan chose to give her and them his name, Rhett couldn't take them from her.

When he'd asked her for her name, she'd given him her full name and he never called her anything but Katie or Kate. She'd always thought of herself as Scarlett up until now, but the transition to Kate suited her fancy. She had a new life here and felt herself changing with it. A new name couldn't hurt.

"But how did you go from a marriage of convenience to being pregnant with your second child? I saw that you have two different bedrooms." Rhett's arm went across the top of the couch, behind her but not touching her.

"That's quite a question."

"Humor me."

When they first married, Ewan slept on the big couch in the main room. It was a large piece of furniture, just about big enough for him. The bed, in truth, would not have been. There was no question of sharing a bed or relations, since Scarlett had just had the twins. He was gone quite a bit in the first few weeks, finishing up his work with the Rangers and putting together the contracts on the land he was buying. For the first two weeks, Mahala in the bed with Scarlett, to help her with the twins, and Herman stayed in Wade's room. They went back to their own home in town when Mahala assessed that Scarlett could handle the nights alone.

When Doctor Zimmer told Kate she was healed from having the twins, she took a deep breath and wore a pretty but not too revealing nightgown and brushed out her hair. Taking a deep breath and wishing for brandy, she stepped out into the main room.

Ewan was reading a book

"Is everything all right?"

"I—" Her hand reached for her throat, sure the lump there must be visible.

"What is it, darlin'?"

She closed her eyes and opened them "Doctor Zimmer said that I'm ready, for…"

"Katie, come sit down, honey."

He put his arm around her and kissed the side of her head. "You're still in love with him."

"I don't think I'll ever not be in love with him."

"Do you think you could ever be in love with me, too?"

She looked at him and really saw how handsome he was. "I don't know. You are so good to me. You've made my life so easy all these weeks."

"Katie, maybe the doctor is right and your body is ready, but I know you still belong to your Rhett in ways I won't try to interfere with."

"But I'm your wife, and it's your right."

"I won't ask it of you when we're like this. It would hurt you when you are still grieving for him, and it would dishonor my Marie to take you as my wife with anything less than love between us."

She nodded her head and stood up to go back to her room, unsure what she was thinking. She'd never had a husband refuse his rights before. Wasn't she pretty enough? Was he regretting the marriage? She paused inside the doorframe and looked out at him.

He looked up and smiled at her. "Good night, darlin'."

"Good—good night."

Scarlett slid the rest of the way through the door and shut it, pressing her body against it.

Kate kept working as she had set out to do. She had no where near as much cotton as she would have liked planted, but she only bought the property in March and had a late start. It was hard to get workers, who were reluctant to take direction from a woman who'd just come to the area.

She simply had to maintain this year's crop while laying out what she thought she could do the following year. At night, she was sleeping when the babies slept and feeding them when they wouldn't sleep. She was exhausted, but at least she wasn't having nightmares.

It was in July, when the babies started sleeping five to six hours through the night, that the first of the nightmares came back. She didn't realize she was crying until she woke up in Ewan's arms.

"You're having a terrible dream. What is it?"

"I've had it since the end of the war. I'm running through the mist and everyone I know is hungry and I know if I can just catch up with what I'm following, we'll all be fine, but I never can."

"I'm here, and I will help you in any way I can." He held her until she fell asleep.

During the days, she discovered that he was quite thoughtful. When he was in the house, he would help her clean up after the meals or look after the babies when she was poring over her record books. He would bring her flowers from the fields or small things like scented soap when he came back from town. When they all went to town for Mass or shopping, he was an attentive husband.

Without much comment being made, he took over with the workers as the harvest started. Kate had found that many workers wouldn't work for a woman, and it irritated her, but the twins were taking up much of her time and the house was nearly done. Ewan respected the plans Kate made, and Kate discovered that she liked the way Ewan got the workers to accomplish them.

She couldn't make head or tail of it. It wasn't the sort of courtship she'd received from Rhett. It was more relaxed, and there seemed to be more genuine affection. "It's almost like you find me attractive," she said at Christmas after the children had gone to bed.

"Katie, darlin', I've fallen completely in love with you."

She realized that over the time they'd been married, she had developed feelings for him, too. She found herself smiling whenever he came into the room, or folding his laundry and thinking about him. She found out which dishes he liked to eat and made sure they had those more often. More than that, she found herself wishing he could stay with her at night after he soothed her from her nightmares, and it wasn't just because he made her feel safe.

This wasn't the high feelings she had for Ashley, which hadn't stood the test of time, nor the panicky, desperate passion she felt for Rhett. She liked it and wanted more of it. "I think I—I think I might, too," she said.

He laughed. "I was hoping you might, or that you were coming around to it. We don't need to rush, darlin'." That night he gave her a soft kiss when he said goodnight.

They didn't rush it, but Ewan kept courting her, gently becoming more and more of her life.

The soft kisses continued, and occasionally a deep kiss. There was always a kiss before bedtime, unless Ewan was away on Ranger business, and the kisses seemed to creep more and more into their mornings, or as they met for dinner or supper as well. Kate found that she touched her lips at odd moments and blushed at the memories. She was more than fond of the man who had come into her life and suddenly made everything fit.

They moved into the house on the same day a forwarded letter from Rhett came, and Kate was once again in a big bedroom with a bed in the size she liked with a proper closet and vanity. The echoes of her cries woke her, and she shivered in her bed until the door opened and he was there.

"Darlin', I'm here," he said.

"Ewan!" she whispered. "He doesn't want me, but he won't leave me alone."

"Aw, honey," he sat on her bed and pulled her into his lap, except that she'd been feeding the babies not long before and never fastened herself back up. His hand slid right under her nightgown and around her bare waist.

Arousal was mutual and instant. Kate was wide awake, now, and taking his face into her hands she kissed him, moving her tongue into his mouth to stifle any attempt he might make at apology. She didn't want him to be sorry, she wanted him to touch her. She wanted to feel this fine man within her arms and pull him closer.

"Don't stop," she begged.

"Darlin'… I want you, but I love you. We don't have to."

She blinked and came to full consciousness. "Ewan McLure, don't you dare stop." Her hands slid down to his chest. "I want this."

He put his arms around her and kissed her, then, deep friendly kisses that promised an adventure. "I love you, my Katie."

"I love you, too," she said.

He found the hem of her nightgown and tugged it up over her head. They had to stop kissing long enough to get it over her head, and while they were apart, he got rid of his pajamas.

"Katie?"

"Yes, Ewan, yes please."

Blushing at the memories, Scarlett couldn't bring herself to tell Rhett the full story, but he gathered much from watching her eyes as she described how Ewan had gently brought her ever closer to himself. He understood that the other man had used patience and kindness to do what Rhett would have given anything to have done. Rhett had used the patience, but he'd used mockery and sarcasm due to his own fears.

That night, when Ewan walked Scarlett to her bedroom, she pulled him through the door with her. "Is this for me or him?" he asked.

"Does it matter?" she asked coquettishly.

"I think it matters to you," he answered. "You know I never wanted you when you felt divided between us."

She thought for a minute. "This is for me. I need you, and the more I talk to him, the more I want you here."

"He's every bit as handsome as you've said."

She shook her head. "He's lost something of what he was, but it doesn't matter, it's still him, and he's still thrilling to be around. He propositions me with every third breath, and something in me responds to it, but I can't believe in it anymore."

She stepped close to Ewan and buried her face in his chest. He smelled of horses and sunshine and new life. "The last time I saw him, he spent hours showing me he loved me and saying that I was his love. Then he left and filed for divorce on his way to the train station." She looked up, her cheek resting on the placket of his shirt. "I can't trust him, and I can't really be in love with him like that."

Ewan moved his hands to her face and kissed her then.

A/N: Again, I fudged the dates a bit. I think from what we see in the book, Bonnie was probably born well before April of 1870, but it's the way it works, here. There might have been some date fudging by MM, too, since they announced their engagement after the November of 1868 election was tallied, but it seems like Bonnie must have been at least four, almost five when she died and yet it also seems pretty clear that the story ends in 1873.

And here we are with yet another Country song. "Ocean Front Property" is easily the sweetest romantic country song I've ever heard, written by Hank Cochran, Royce Porter, and Dean Dillon, and sung by George Strait.

Thank you, kind readers and reviewers, especially Another Guest, Romabeachgirl1981, WhitmanFrostFiend, Conlyn70, LE06301226, Guest 1 & 2 & 3 & 4, TheFauxGinge, gabyhyatt, gumper, COCO B, kanga85, Truckee Gal, samandfreddie, breakfastattiffanygs, Asline Nicole, gogomohamad229, Jguest, and Aunt Pitty.