EPILOGUE

Saturday, June 5, 1999

"Why are you so sure that it will work this time?" Tom felt strange asking the question. Cassy was usually the one who entertained doubts, not himself. But this was another example of just how much their relationship had changed. He was accepting doubts and Cassy was turning the determination she had for everything else in her life towards their relationship. The realization made him smile even before he heard her answer.

"I'm a mature woman in my thirties who is about to have a child, not a twenty-something child who is enamored of her devastatingly handsome partner. A partner, I might add, who attracts every woman within a hundred yard radius wherever he goes." Cassy settled herself more securely in his embrace. The pair were sitting on their new couch, some blood stains had required the old one's replacement. Cassy hadn't been too upset by that fact. In return, she had agreed to give up her living room furniture when they moved into the new place they were going to buy together. For now, though, their couch would reside at Tom's place.

"Devastatingly handsome? Hundred yard radius? All right, where is my Cassy and what did you do to her?" Tom looked down at her in surprise.

"Don't let it go to your head, you're going to have a daughter to worry about soon enough," Cassy sighed and closed her eyes, a satisfied grin on her face.

"Why are you so sure now?" Tom asked curiously as he stroked his hand along Cassy's stomach and hips.

"Because I'm laying in your arms after all of these years and all the things we've been through. All of the things I've done to you." Cassy's eyes opened, a far away look on her face.

"I love you," Tom said huskily, his lips pressing against her hair.

Cassy's eyes closed again and a sweet smile graced her face.

"I need to go get something," Tom began to extricate himself from his position behind her on the sofa.

"Now?" Cassy yawned. She had been about to doze off and she missed the comfort of his warm body.

"It'll just take a few minutes." Tom hopped off the couch as soon as she sat up. He rushed into his bedroom and returned, as promised, a minute later and knelt down in front of her. Cassy bit her lip and smiled.

"Cassandra St. John Ryan, will you marry me, again?"

The waning light of the sunset lit up tears in Cassy's blue eyes making them sparkle even more than the diamond he held out in front of her.

"Yes." Cassy laughed as Tom slid the ring onto the third finger of her left hand.

"Don't worry if there's a bit of sand in the setting, we can get it cleaned out," Tom said as he clasped her hand in his.

"Sand?" Cassy looked at the ring. "You found it? When?"

"After you left I spent all night on the beach along with some other guys from the Department. I was going to give it to you and ask you to come back, but you asked for the divorce and I...got pissed off," Tom admitted.

"But you kept it," Cassy observed, touched beyond belief.

"I always hoped Cassandra Lynn. I always hoped. You once said that hope sprung eternal for me, you were right." Tom stroked her cheek with his thumb.

"I have something to show you too." Cassy slid her hand into the handbag at the side of the couch. She pulled out a jewelers box and placed it in his hand.

Tom looked at her curiously before using both hands to open the box. He gasped as the light flashed over the two rings that were nestled in velvet.

"Never let it be said I don't have hope, Thomas Patrick Ryan," she whispered.

"I thought you sold these." Tom looked up at her. "I mean I knew you had mine, but I, I never let myself think about it."

"How did you know?" Cassy was bewildered.

"Surely you didn't think the nurses didn't find the ring when they changed the sheets," Tom teased her, referring to when she had slid the ring underh is pillow when he was in the hospital after being shot. "I was really touched Cass. I should have asked you then why..."

"Shhh." She put her finger over his lips. "We both should have done a lot of things. I don't want to dwell on the past anymore."

"You're sounding so optimistic," Tom teased. "You don't think it will be bad luck to use the same rings?"

"We're here now aren't we?"

Tom closed the box and slid it onto the coffee table.

"So when are you going to make an honest woman of me?" she asked.

"Wedding or eloping?" he asked.

"How about a wedding in Boston?" she suggested.

"Really? My mom would be in heaven!" Tom was surprised.

"Even with me as a daughter-in-law again?" she wondered.

"Cassy, she's been praying for this for years!" Tom assured her. "Bet she can pull it all together soon."

"It had better be soon or else you're going to have a cow for a bride." Cassy placed her hands over her still flat stomach.

"We'll just stick brown spots on the dress and no one will notice," Tom teased.

"That's not funny!" Cassy insisted.

"Oh, I think it is," Tom smiled sweetly before leaning in for a long kiss.

"No nookie before the wedding," Cassy said just a sweetly, if not a bit breathlessly, when he was done.

"Then it had better be soon. We'd better elope! How long can we, um, safely do that?" Tom asked.

"Oh yeah, forget that rule. New rule, do it as much as we can before we can't!" Cassy threw her arms around his neck. "That and dancing!"

"Oh no, I don't have anymore coats for Morton," Tom groaned.

"I'll be your teacher this time," Cassy promised.

"Oh, in that case." Tom waggled his eyebrows and lifted her in his arms. He quickly headed for the bedroom.

End of Story