Yes, she thought.

'Miss you? Why, have you been somewhere?' she said out loud, striving for nonchalance.

It was to no avail, Rhett's widening smile making it clear he wasn't fooled. She wasn't surprised. After all, it was Rhett who'd first taught her how to disguise happiness under a veil of sarcasm.

'Indeed, I have, my pet,' he answered lightly, before turning serious, 'and I must beg your forgiveness for staying away longer than intended.'

'Did you? I hadn't noticed.'

Clutching a hand to his chest, Rhett adopted a faux look of hurt, 'You mean to say you weren't anxiously counting down the days until I returned? How your indifference pains me, Scarlett! And to think of how I rushed to your side!'

'You can't have rushed that fast or else you'd have been here two days ago!' Scarlett cried, before realising her mistake.

'Ah, so you were counting!' Rhett exclaimed, his all-too knowing smirk making Scarlett yearn to push him down the porch steps.

'Oh, hush up, you conceited thing! It's not like I've been waiting at the window for you these last six months…'

'And two days,' Rhett cut in, a chuckle reverberating deep in his throat as he watched Scarlett's eyes flash.

Determined not to fall foul of his teasing, Scarlett huffed out a grudging laugh and asked in a disinterested manner, 'What kept you?'

'It's a long and epic tale, my pet, involving drink and despair, love and fear, courage and cowardice…'

'You mean you lost your nerve,' Scarlett interrupted knowingly, 'got hopelessly drunk while wondering whether you should come back, and then sobered up enough to realise I was worth the risk.'

Rhett's eyebrows shot up and he scratched at the stubble on his chin. A sheepish grin stole across his face, 'Well, it was crudely told, but that's about the gist of the story, yes.'

Scarlett wasn't sure whether to kiss him for coming back or kill him for making her wait. She settled for a little of both, scowling fiercely at him while she declared, 'I'm glad you made the right decision in the end.'

'As am I,' Rhett replied, his eyes darkening as he reached out to draw her to him. 'Even if you did assault me upon arrival.'

'You deserved it for being late,' Scarlett murmured, feeling herself breathe easier with every step that she took towards him.

'Undoubtedly,' he whispered, cupping her head tenderly in his palms as he leant down to kiss her.

No sooner had their lips brushed than Scarlett heard the unmistakable sound of footsteps upon the wooden slats of the hallway. Not wanting her time with Rhett to be cut short, Scarlett thoughts turned to flight. Grabbing Rhett's hand from her cheek, she dragged him along the porch until they rounded the corner of the house. Pushing him up against the wall, she peered cautiously round the corner.

'There's no one there,' she whispered.

'Good,' Rhett said, flipping them round so that it was Scarlett who stood with her back against the wall. Rhett braced his hands on the bricks either side of her body, locking her firmly in place.

'Permit me to make sure.'

Rhett proceeded to make a big performance of peering round the corner, moving with such exaggerated caution that Scarlett almost laughed aloud and gave away their location.

'Miss Scarlett! You get on back in the house and finish up your breakfast. You need your strength after being up half the night!'

Scarlett's heart dropped. If anyone else had come looking for her, she could have put them off, but Mammy was too stubborn to be deterred. She'd pursue Scarlett round Tara for the rest of the day if she had to.

Ignoring Rhett's chuckle, Scarlett stopped him from stepping forward to greet Mammy.

'Are you ashamed to be seen with me, my pet?' he asked, his tone only semi-playful.

'Of course not,' she whispered, 'but if Mammy sees you, she won't let us have two minutes alone together all day.'

Mollified, Rhett grumbled, 'You know, I haven't eaten a bite since yesterday evening. If you don't want the rest of your breakfast, perhaps you could go in and fetch it for me.'

'You'll have to wait until lunch,' Scarlett stated, having little sympathy for his predicament. 'If you were that concerned about eating, you should have ridden here faster!'

'You're a hard woman, Mrs. Butler,' he sighed, his eyes appraising her even as his words chastised.

The use of her marital name made Scarlett melt into his chest like warm butter into toast. Rhett's smile turned predatory, his hands stroking down her sides as he drew her closer.

Scarlett considered protesting. They were standing outside in broad daylight and anyone could walk past. Rhett raised a sardonic eyebrow in question, all but daring her to pull away. She couldn't, not when her traitorous body was rubbing up against his like a cat in heat.

Grinning at her compliance, Rhett moved in, his face dominating her vision and blotting out everything else. She shivered as his lips teased hers, the light touch making her skin tickle and her insides ache. Part of her couldn't believe that this was truly happening. After six long months of worrying and waiting, could her life really right itself in a few minutes? The thought was swept from her mind when Rhett's tongue dragged across her lower lip in a silent demand for entrance. She granted it, crushing her body against his and moaning freely into the kiss.

'Miss Scarlett!'

Scarlett moaned for another, less pleasant reason when Mammy's footsteps drew near.

'Miss Scarlett!' she yelled, her voice loud enough to disturb all of Clayton county.

Detangling herself from Rhett's arms, Scarlett pulled him away from the house towards the safety of the stables. Her small feet scurried under large skirts as she rushed to get inside before Mammy could round the corner and spot them.

Stepping through the door, Scarlett became aware of the agitated whinny of her stallion. While the other horses stood serene and untroubled in their stalls, Trix was stalking round his enclosure, kicking at the wooden door and frothing at the mouth. The sight reminded Scarlett uncannily of the scenes she was wont to make when caught in the midst of a temper tantrum.

Scarlett puzzled over what could have gotten him so riled up, before a movement in the stall directly across from Trix's caught her eye. The normally empty space was taken up by a big, black beast of an animal. It stood with its gleaming onyx head protruding over its stable door and out into the walkway, openly taunting Trix with its presence.

'You rode here?' Scarlett asked.

Rhett laughed. 'How did you know it was mine?'

Resisting the urge to snort, Scarlett replied dryly, 'Only you could own an animal that arrogant.'

'Arrogant? Don't you listen to her, Ruby.'

'Ruby? She's a mare?'

'That she is,' Rhett said proudly, strolling up to his horse and tickling her chin. 'The finest mare in all of the South!'

'No wonder she's so highly-strung, if that's what you've been telling her! Look how she's wound up poor Trix,' Scarlett protested, stroking her horse's thick mane soothingly.

'Perhaps your horse shouldn't take offence so easily.'

'And perhaps yours shouldn't be so provocative!'

'Now that you mention it, she is a beauty, isn't she?' Rhett grinned. 'Pretty and proud; it's no wonder I was smitten.'

Scarlett blushed at the implication, eyeing the horse in a new light.

'Yes, well, she could still stand to learn some manners.'

'Perhaps,' Rhett mused, stalking towards her, as confident and inescapable as a highwayman, 'but I've always preferred those with a little bite. Haven't I, Scarlett?'

'You're still a cad, I see!' she cried, her thoughts flashing back to their last night together.

'And aren't you glad for it!' Rhett taunted rakishly, pulling her against him.

Never one to back down from a challenge, Scarlett cupped the nape of his neck in her palm and reached up on her tiptoes to fuse their mouths together. Scarlett surrendered herself to the kiss. Her hands roamed Rhett's body, relearning its lines. She cupped his shoulders, glad to find they had filled out in the time they'd been apart. His muscles, shrunken after years of drink and destructive decline, were firm and strong beneath her fingers. And his hair, which had hung limp and thin the last time she'd seen him, was thick and shining once more. Scarlett ran her hands through it, gripping it tightly and using it to steer their kiss into deeper waters.

Lord, if his kisses weren't sweeter than molasses and more potent than brandy. How she'd dreamed of them these long, bittersweet months. To have him here with her, to feel his body against her own and know that she loved him with all her heart - it was happiness of a richer vein than she'd ever known before.

Unaware of the flurry of emotions that gripped her - or perhaps caught up in a storm of his own - Rhett walked her backwards until she hit the door of Trix's stall. Pressing her bodily into the wood, he bent down and slipped his hands beneath her billowing skirts. Her skin shivered as Rhett dragged his fingers up the back of her legs, stopping when he reached her thighs.

'Wrap them round my waist,' he urged, bracing her against the stall door as he lifted her off her feet.

A pang of desire shot through Scarlett then, so powerful it stole her breath and weakened her legs. Clutching at him helplessly, she marvelled at the warm, liquid sensation in her belly and the pressing ache between her thighs. What was this sweeping madness taking hold of her? And why, oh why, had she let so much of her youth drift past without feeling it?

Refusing to let regret curtail her enjoyment, Scarlett wrapped her hands around Rhett's neck and leapt into his open arms, laughing as she went.

Trix, unhappy about having his space invaded so rudely, chose that moment to kick out. The door slammed into Scarlett's back, sending her and Rhett stumbling into the middle of the stables.

'Possessive creature, isn't he?' Rhett grumbled, rubbing the shin Scarlett had managed to kick as she flailed.

'You can't blame him for wanting to protect my reputation from skunks, Rhett,' Scarlett said breathlessly, common sense returning now he was no longer touching her. 'Come on, we can't stay in here. Any minute now, Mammy will be sending out a search party for me.'

'Where do you propose we go? I presume you're still not ready to show our faces up at the house?'

'Not just yet,' Scarlett admitted. 'I want you to myself for a little longer.'

Rhett's eyes widened at her confession, before he composed himself enough to say, 'I'm not averse to that plan, by any means, Scarlett. But where should we head?'

Trying to think of a place they could hide, Scarlett's eyes landed on Trix.

'How about I take you on a tour round Tara, Rhett? You didn't come all this way to spend your time in a smelly old stable. We'll have to be quick, mind you. Will says there's a storm coming in later.'

'I'm not opposed to stopping here,' he said, smiling playfully. 'I've found this stable exceedingly pleasant thus far.'

His eyes darkening, he moved to take her in his arms.

'God's nightgown, Rhett!' she cried irritably, jerking out of his grasp. 'We can't spend the whole day kissing!'

'I thought you liked my kisses?'

'I do!' she declared, too caught up to be embarrassed by her candour. 'But there are things we should speak about first. We haven't seen each other in six months. The last time we did, you were set on divorcing me!'

'Forgive me, my dear,' Rhett replied solemnly. 'I assumed you had already deduced that I no longer wish to be granted one.'

'I had. I mean, I was fairly certain, but I can never be certain where you're concerned.'

'Well, now you know, so if that's all...'

'No, that's not all!' she cried, batting him away. 'Lord, you are impossible!'

'And you, my pet, are devilishly irresistible when you're wound up,' he said, his eyes flicking between her and Trix as a grin broke out across his swarthy face.

Following his gaze, Scarlett could have killed him when she realized he was taunting her just like his goddamn horse had teased hers. She was right, he was impossible! He was no better than a little boy who pulled at a sleeping dog's tail, preferring it to bark and growl than ignore him.

Yet for all his love of games, Scarlett knew she was the only one he wanted to play them with. The only person alive who had ever managed to hold his attention long enough for him to shed his world-weary ambivalence and fall in love.

Deciding to forgo murdering him just this once, Scarlett turned away to pick up Trix's saddle.

'Come on,' she coaxed, 'we'll go for a ride round Tara and I can show you all the ways it's superior to Charleston.'

'That shouldn't take long,' Rhett joked, saddling up his mare.

'That shows how little you know! We'll probably have to come back again tomorrow, as it'll be dark long before we're finished.'

As she led Trix out of his stall, Scarlett realised there was a snag in her plan.

'Will.'

'Excuse me?'

'It's nothing,' she said airily, turning back to secure Trix's bridle.

'In my humble experience, you saying another man's name while we're together is never nothing.'

Scarlett swatted Rhett's shoulder. 'It's not like that! Will is Suellen's husband.'

'If that was supposed to reassure me, my pet, then it could hardly have been less successful. You've always did have a penchant for your sister's paramours, or perhaps you've forgotten a certain elderly, bewhiskered gentleman named Frank.'

'Of course I haven't,' Scarlett snapped, guilt crawling up her spine at the mention of her second husband. 'But a beau is a very different thing to a husband, and Frank never did work up the courage to ask for Suellen's hand. No, I was only thinking that Will wanted to go round Tara today and sure everything up before the storm hits.'

'And you don't want him to discover you have a guest, is that it?' Rhett asked, his voice having lost its edge.

'Exactly, only...'

'Only?'

'You're not a guest.'

'Am I not?' he asked, drawing closer.

Scarlett shook her head. 'No... at least, I hope not.'

Rhett rewarded her honesty with the softest, most genuine smile she'd seen him sport. Scarlett smiled back. They stood there, grinning at each other like a pair of lovestruck fools, until their horses grew restless and whinnied their impatience.

'I think that's our signal to get going,' Rhett laughed. 'If Tara is out of bounds, where else can we head?'

'There are a dozen different bridal paths we could ride, but we'd still have to go straight past the front of the house to reach them. Mammy's probably planted herself on the porch, ready to grab us.'

'Then we'll just have to be quick, won't we?' Rhett challenged.

'Alright,' she agreed, climbing up onto Trix, 'but you should know it's you who'll get an earful if she catches us.'

Rhett laughed as he swung himself lithely onto his mare's broad back. 'Hardly, my dear. Once she sees that you're out riding in your day dress, she'll be too incensed to spare me a second glance!'

Scarlett groaned as she recognized the truth of his words, but it was too late to back down now. She would just have to endure the headache Mammy's lecture would give her. It would be worth it to introduce Rhett to the country lanes of her childhood.

Clicking her tongue and nudging Trix's sides with her feet, Scarlett encouraged her horse to start walking.

'I'm not going to slow down until I've cleared the last tree at the bottom of the drive, Rhett. Do you think you'll be able to keep up?'

Chuckling, he replied archly, 'I think I'll just about manage it, my pet.'

'We'll see,' Scarlett taunted, bending low over Trix's back as she urged the stallion into a canter.

As Scarlett emerged out of the gloom of the stables and into the fine spring morning, Rhett at her side and beloved red earth beneath her feet, she felt a mad urge to whoop and holler like the county boys who'd lit up her youth. She felt invincible, and wondered if this day was the one she'd been waiting for all her life: the day when she finally managed to catch up with tomorrow.