And then laughed.

“What?” she asked.

“The boat’s name.” He pointed to the lettering on the stern. “Unbelievable.”

Aurora, was spelled out in gold lettering.

Yup, somehow, even when she wasn’t around, his momma was protecting him, saving him, supporting him.

“That is eerie,” Lizzie said as she hit the gas and they slapped their way back to the shore.

Every time Lane blinked, he saw the abyss below the bridge, relived that moment when he went into a free fall. It was strange to realize that even though he was heading for solid ground with the woman he loved, he felt as though he was back in that no-man’s land, all security gone, nothing but careless air between him and a hard, hard impact that he was fairly sure was going to kill him.

Focusing on Lizzie, he measured the strong lines of her face and her sharp eyes, the way her blond hair wisped on the breeze, the fact that she didn’t care that he’d gotten her wet when they’d hugged.

“I love you,” he said.

“What?”

He just shook his head and smiled to himself. His momma’s name on that stern … his woman behind this wheel …

“Did you steal this boat?” he said more loudly.

“Yes,” she hollered back. “I didn’t care what it took. I was coming to get you.”

As they pulled up to a dock, she maneuvered the boat like a boss, driving the outboard by pushing its handle in the opposite direction from where she wanted the bow to go, then reversing things with such skill that in spite of the current, the metal teacup just kissed the pylons.

Lane anchored the bow with a line, Lizzie took the stern, and then he held his palm out to her to help her onto the dock. She didn’t come to him right away. Instead, she shoved her hand into her loose jacket. Taking out something, she tucked it into the gas cap.

As she jumped onto the dock by herself, he said, “What was that?”

“A five-dollar bill. I used some of their gas.”

For a moment, Lane simply stood before her, even though he was cold to the bone, and they were trespassers, and he’d just taken a swim in the Ohio.

Oh, and then there were the cops pulling up in front of them.

And that little free fall, am-I-going-to-die thing.

Reaching out, he cupped her beautiful face in the illumination from the headlights. Lizzie was everything his family was not. On so many levels.

It was one of the many reasons he loved her. And it was strange, but he felt an urgency to make things permanent between them.

“What?” she whispered.

He started to sink down on one knee. “Lizzie—”

“Oh, God, are you passing out?” She dragged him back to his feet and rubbed his arms. “You’re passing out! Come on, let’s get you to an ambulance—”

“Put your hands where we can see them,” came the demand. “Now!”

Lane looked into all those lights and cursed. There were times and places to ask your woman to marry you. In the crosshairs of the Charlemont Metro Police, soaked with dirty water, and two minutes after a death spiral into the Ohio?

Not. It.

“Hey,” one of the cops said. “I know who that is. That’s Lane Bradford—”

“Shut up,” somebody hissed.

“They did this article on him—”

“Hicks, shut it.”

As Hicks went quiet, Lane lifted both arms and stared into the brilliant illumination. He could see nothing of what was ahead. Kind of apt, really.

“Can they arrest me for taking that boat?” Lizzie whispered as she put her palms up.

“I’ll take care of it,” Lane said quietly. “Don’t worry.”

Shit.

FOUR

Easterly, the Bradford Family Estate

“I hate you!”

As the youngest of the Bradford family’s three living Virginia Elizabeths lunged for a lamp, Gin Baldwine, soon-to-be Pford, did not make it. Probably for the best. The thing was made out of an Imari vase she had always been rather fond of and the silk shade was handmade with her initials embroidered in real gold thread.

It would have been a pity to destroy such beauty—and God knew there would be nothing but shards and shreds left after she was done throwing it.

What stopped her was her fiancé’s hand grabbing at her hair, catching hold, and whiplashing her right off her stilettoes. After a brief moment of weightlessness, which was kind of fun, there was a smack down that stung her shoulder blades, clapped her teeth together and reminded her that the coccyx was in fact a very unnecessary body part.

The resulting pain down there also took her back to her father spanking her as a child with one of his alligator skin belts.

Of course, she had resolutely refused to learn anything from those slap-happy sessions or alter her behavior in any way. Just to prove he didn’t run her life.

And yes, things had worked out so damned well since then.

Richard Pford’s thin, angular face came over the top of her head. “Hate me all you like, but you will not disrespect me like this again. Are we clear.”

He was still pulling on her hair, forcing her neck and spine to counter his strength or risk her being decapitated.

“What I do or do not do”—she grunted—“will not change anyone’s opinion of you. Nothing ever has.”

As she glared at him, she also smiled. Behind those rat eyes of his, right now, he had gone on a little trip down memory lane, his low self-esteem running through the script of insults that had been ladled out at him while they had been classmates at Charlemont Country Day. Gin had been among the name-callers, very much a mean girl who had run in a pack. Richard, on the other hand, had been a scrawny, pimply kid with a grating sense of entitlement and a voice like Donald Duck. Not even his family’s extraordinary wealth had saved him socially—or gotten him laid.

And indeed, nineties slang had yielded such stellar nomenclature, hadn’t it: loser, scrub, tool, dork, fucker.

Richard shook himself back into focus. “I expect my wife to be waiting at home for me when I have a business engagement she is not welcome at.” He yanked on her hair. “I do not expect her to be on a jet to Chicago—”

“You’re living in my home—”

Richard snapped his hold on her again, like he was schooling a dog with a choke chain. “Especially when I told her she was not permitted to use any of my planes.”