Edward stopped when he got up close to Sutton. “You bailed me out. You were the one, weren’t you.”

“Lane called, and I can’t say no to your brother. He also told me about everything, including Miss Aurora’s passing, and what you did for her. I mean, it’s pretty amazing what you were willing to go through for your family—”

“I’m so in love with you,” he said in a guttural voice. “Sutton, I love you so goddamn much.”

As she blinked quick, like that was the last thing she had expected him to say, but exactly what she had dreamed of, he limped forward a little more and put his scrawny arms around her.

“I can’t pretend anymore,” he said into her hair. “I don’t want to. There are a million reasons for you to just get in your car and leave me right now, and never, ever look back. There are so many better places for you to be and people for you to be with . . . but I’m selfish. And I’m tired. And to hell with my pride. I love you, and if you’ll have me, I’m yours—and if you don’t want me—”

Sutton eased back. “Shut up, Baldwine, and kiss me.”

Edward took her perfect face in his hands and tilted his head to one side. Pressing his mouth to hers, he kissed her for so long and so deeply that he started to feel the burn of suffocation in his lungs. He didn’t care, though. He had waited for a lifetime to admit what he had felt all along, so something as irrelevant as oxygen just wasn’t on his radar.

The relief was enormous. And so was the warmth that bloomed between them.

After a long, long time, he separated their mouths. “Dinner?”

“Yes, at my place in town.”

“Privacy?”

“We’re going to need it.”

As his body hardened for her even more, he smiled. “I like the way you think.” But then he frowned. “There’s just one thing.”

“What is that?”

“That sweatshirt has got to go.” He shook his head and motioned to the logo. “I mean, I can’t look at that. It’s making me sick.”

“Well, guess what?”

“What?”

She leaned into him. “I’m not wearing anything under it. So yeah, there’s that happening right now.”

As Edward groaned, she batted him on the butt. “Get in my car, Baldwine. And brace yourself. I’m going through any red light we come up to.”

He limped around and opened his door. “Just an FYI, as someone who’s recently gotten out of jail, I can tell you the sleeping arrange ments and the food are not what a woman of your stature is used to. So you may want to abide the traffic laws.”

They got in together and she looked across the seat. “Excellent point.”

Getting serious, he brought the back of her hand to his lips and kissed it. “Thank you.”

“For bailing you out? You know, I’m not sure you’re aware of this, but it’s something that’s on my bucket list. So we can check that right off.”

“No, for waiting for me.”

Sutton grew grave, as well. “I was trying not to.”

“Do I need to put a hit out on our governor? ’Cuz I will. I’m kind of the jealous sort.”

“Dagney is a very nice man. But he always knew where my heart was—and so did I.”

Edward smiled. “Good, that means I can be civil to him the next time I see him. As opposed to kicking him in the nuts.”

Her eyes searched his face. “I’ve always been yours, Edward. That’s just the way it’s been.”

As he stared at her, he thought about all the things he’d been through. And all the years ahead of him in a body that wasn’t ever going to work quite right. Then he imagined waking up to her every morning.

“I am the luckiest man, I know,” he whispered.

After all, money could come and go, as could health and wellness, and destiny was a fickle master, for sure.

But to be loved by the one you loved?

It was the optimism in the midst of crisis; it was the food when you were starving; it was the air when you could not breathe, and the light that led you from the darkness.

All that mattered was in his woman’s eyes, and broken though he might have been by any objective measure, Sutton Smythe made him whole.

THIRTY-SEVEN

Three days later, Gin picked Amelia up at the airport. And come to think of it, it was the first time she had ever retrieved anyone from there, having always allowed the chauffeurs to do the deed—plus, she wasn’t at all familiar with the commercial arrivals area, having previously done the private jet routine. She followed the signs, though, and kept the Phantom at a slow speed, falling in with the other people providing rides.

Amelia was not at the curb on the first pass, so Gin went around the loop again, and as she did, she thought about the last couple of days. Richard Pford had kept his promise and signed the annulment papers that Samuel T. had drawn up, and the man had let her keep the ring, thank God.

Wouldn’t that have been a cause for awkward conversation if he hadn’t.

And Samuel T. had agreed to see Amelia immediately, assuming that was what their daughter wanted.

Gin checked the clock on the dash. Three in the afternoon. Samuel T. had said he’d be at his farm by now, having just returned from a trip somewhere out of town. He hadn’t volunteered where he had been and Gin hadn’t asked—but she had a feeling he had been with a woman: She had called him before the weekend and left a message when he hadn’t picked up. It had taken him two days to call her back.

When they had finally spoken, it had seemed a little bizarre that neither of them had talked about what had happened in the marsh with Richard Pford; specifically how, if Samuel T. hadn’t shown up right when he had . . . things would have ended very differently.

Still, he had been perfectly pleasant to her, almost professionally so—and she had endeavored to assume the same affect.

As Gin came through the terminal’s cover again, Amelia stepped to the curb and waved, although the girl didn’t smile.

Actually, Amelia didn’t smile very much, did she. And that was something to mourn—something to own as yet another problem Gin was responsible for creating.

There were so many of them.

Over the past couple of nights, when Gin hadn’t been sleeping, she had gone through her failures as a mother, one by one. Literally every single missed opportunity had been reviewed, and there had been a breathtaking number of them: Instances when she had chosen to go out and party when Amelia had been sick, or had homework, or been home alone. Missed plays and performances. Times when Amelia had needed advice, guidance, a smile or a hug, and Gin had either not been around or been completely disengaged.

And the longer Gin ruminated on the memories, the more she recognized that these were regrets she was going to carry with her for the rest of her life.

And in that way, she supposed, she was going to be a little like Edward: Forever changed, although her scars were self-created and she carried them on the inside.

Coming to a stop, she put the Phantom in park and started to get out.

“I got it,” Amelia called over the din of other cars and people. “Just pop the trunk.”

“I think it’s on the handle in the back?”

“Oh, right.”

Gin got out anyway and helped Amelia muscle her two rolling suitcases into the boot. Then they got in and Gin eased them away from the curb and over the first of three speed bumps.

“So how was your flight?” Gin asked as she looked around to make sure she could merge back onto the loop.

“Good.” Amelia took out her phone and started texting. “I’m glad finals are over with. And I shipped the rest of my stuff home. What happened to your head? Why is it bandaged?”

“It’s nothing.” Gin cleared her throat. “Listen . . . could you put that down for a sec?”

Amelia lowered the iPhone and glanced over. “What’s up? And I already know about Uncle Edward. Is it true he’s out of jail? I mean, and Miss Aurora, are you kidding me? It’s like something out of CSI.”

“Actually, this concerns something else. But you and I will talk about all that. There’s been a lot going on.”