“Not so fast,”
came a steely voice from the side of the house.
Yvonne swung around, just as Dylan saw Bethany round the corner. He didn’t stop to think. He lunged. Through the haze he heard a female scream, but couldn’t discern its owner. He landed hard against Yvonne’s back, sending them crashing to the ground. As they fell, he reached desperately for the gun, but the impact sent it clattering across the wood planks of the porch.
Bethany picked it up, held it firm. “Not another move.”
Dylan straddled Yvonne, pulling her hands behind her back and manacling them with one of his. “Now who’s laughing?”
he growled with deliberate precision.
She struggled beneath him, twisting back to look at him. “W-what?”
Fury pounded through him. His body still felt woozy and leaden, but he was a strong man. “It takes more than a few damn pills to incapacitate me, Y-Yvonne.”
He saw the instant awareness hit. “You tricked me!”
He glanced at Bethany, standing strong in the morning sun, the gun in her hands. Zorro rubbed against her legs. “Call the police.”
“I already have. Zito should be here any minute.”
“You weren’t supposed to come back,”
Yvonne said in a broken voice. “You were supposed to run like a scared little rabbit!”
Bethany stepped closer. “How did you know about be
fore?”
she asked. “How did you know about the night on the mountain?”
Yvonne glared at her. “Your life is hardly a secret.”
Dylan looked at Bethany. “What about the night on the mountain?”
Bethany lifted a hand to her face, easing the hair back to reveal a nasty bruise at her temple. A bruise that had been hidden from him that morning. “Yvonne thought she could play God. Yvonne thought if she could make history repeat itself, have you taken to the police station and force my car off the road, then I’d walk away from you, just like I did before.
”
Moisture glinted in her eyes. “And it almost worked. But she didn’t count on the fact that I’m not a coward anymore.”
She looked down at Yvonne. “I came back because I love him,”
she said. “And when I saw your car in the driveway, I recognized the license tag from last night
…
the car that stopped abruptly and forced me off the road.”
Dylan saw black. If he hadn’t already been straddling Yvonne…
“You had an accident?”
“Yvonne played the wrong card,”
Bethany said, her eyes meeting his. “Are you okay?”
He looked at her standing there, determination in her eyes, strength in her stance. She’d come back. For some incredible reason, she’d come back, after he’d walked away. And she’d said she loved him.
The need to destroy the distance between them and crush her in his arms drove deep, but he wasn’t letting Yvonne move until Zito arrived. “I’m fine.”
A smile curved Bethany’s lips. “You’re also one hell of an actor.”
He laughed. “You have no idea,”
he growled. “No idea.” But he intended to clue her in as soon as they were alone. He, purveyor of truth and prosecutor of pretenses, had been acting for nine long years, pretending he didn’t love her with every corner of his heart and his soul. But now he knew the truth.
Soon, she would, too.
“You were wrong in the car,”
she said, and her voice was strong. “That’s why I came back. I don’t want a world of white.”
She hesitated, smiled. “I’m still not too fond of the mud, but the color …
I
want the color, Dylan, the red, the blue, the green, and everything in between. I want
you.”
Beneath him, Yvonne started to sob.
“I never meant to hurt you,” he told Bethany.
“You didn’t. I did that all by myself.” She looked so beautiful standing in the soft light of early morning. Emotion swirled in those slumberous blue eyes, an emotion so pure and real it would have sent Dylan to his knees, if he hadn’t already been there.
“I love you,” she said, and slayed him with a smile. “I love you with every corner of my heart. That’s why I came back. No way am I going to let you write the end.”
“I don’t want to write the end,” he told her. “I’m much more fond of beginnings.”
Her eyes sparkled. “Then tell me how it starts.”
That was easy. At the time, there’d been no way to know what chain of events lay in store, but he’d been no more capable of turning his back on her than he was of living without a heart. The need to feel her in his arms, to show her just how much he loved her practically overwhelmed him, but for now, he settled with the power of memory and the promise of what lay ahead.
“It began one dark snowy night,”
he told her. “With a kiss in the dark.”
Epilogue
A
n urgent cry intruded upon the silence of the night. He awoke abruptly, heart hammering, adrenaline surging. Disoriented, he sat upright and blinked against the grainy dryness of his eyes, brought the fireplace into focus. The cabin was dark, shadows blurring detail. Nothing moved save for the frenzy of snowflakes outside the window.
A dream, he realized. A memory from that night nearly a year ago, when innocent intentions had combusted into heat, launching him and Bethany on a life-altering journey. The memories were stronger here in the cabin, shimmering from every direction like dewy wildflowers kissed by the sun.
So much had happened since that snowy night, Lance’s death and the subsequent investigation, the ultimate discovery of Yvonne Kelly’s twisted life. She’d been in love with Lance, desperate to keep him. So desperate, she’d been blackmailing the D.A. to force him to step down, clearing the path for Lance’s ascension. So desperate she’d tried to blackmail Lance himself about his diabolical scheme at the fertility clinic.
So desperate, passion had turned to murder.
In some ways, Bethany had been right. Passion could be dangerous. Passion could lead people to act in ways they’d never consider when not under the influence. But passion wasn’t the culprit, just the impetus. In the right hands, with the right people, passion was a gift, a celebration.
He and Bethany had been celebrating for ten months, looked forward to celebrating for a lifetime.
Yvonne was locked away now, where she could never touch them again. And Janine had recovered fully from the attack Yvonne had paid for, hoping to rattle Bethany’s faith in Dylan. After Kent English had stepped down, Janine had been the natural replacement. She was remorseful over her role in Yvonne’s scheme, realizing she’d let the fact Dylan had turned down her romantic overtures shadow her professional judgment.
And then there was Bethany. She—
He heard it then, another cry, this one louder than before. And he realized it was no dream. He was off the sofa and running barefoot down the darkened hall, toward the closed door at the end. They’d only meant to stay a few days, but a particularly exuberant snowstorm had necessitated other plans.
For a moment he was catapulted back in time, to the night he’d reached the door at a dead run, thrown his body against the wood. But he didn’t need to do that tonight. He needed only to put his hand to the knob, and turn.
The sight greeting him almost sent him to his knees.
Moonlight teased in through the windows, casting his girls in a heart-stopping play of shadow and light. They sat in the rocking chair he himself had made, seemingly oblivious to his presence.
“There, there,”
Bethany cooed. She had her leopard print nightgown open, allowing Ella to suckle hungrily. “You’ve no need to cry, sweet girl. Mommy’s here now.”
“So’s Daddy,” he said from the doorway.
Bethany looked up and smiled. “Dylan. We didn’t mean to wake you.”
Dylan was across the room in a heartbeat, kneeling beside them. “Waking to the two of you is better than dreaming.”
“Really?”
she asked, quirking a brow. “Better than dreaming? I can think of a few dreams you’ve awoken from that certainly seemed
…
better.”
He caught her meaning, knew the dreams to which she referred, the erotic images that he’d groggily rolled over and played out in real life. “Well, maybe not
all
dreams.”
“That’s what I thought,”
Bethany said. A knowing light sparked in her slumberous blue eyes, the only trait mother shared with the daughter. It still blew Dylan away how a baby girl dressed in pink could look so much like a grown man.
He felt his throat thicken, realized he was about to make a damn fool of himself. “I’d offer to help,”
he said lamely.
Bethany laughed. “Oh, there’s plenty you can do to help me,”
she promised. “Starting just as soon as I get Miss Priss here satisfied.”
“She is her father’s little girl,”
Dylan pointed out, grinning. “She might not be satisfied that easily.”
Bethany’s smile widened. “I might have learned a trick or two.”
He heard the promise, felt his body tighten. Nine years before tragedy had driven them apart, but the love had survived. Strengthened even. Now that they’d found their way back together, Dylan knew deep in his heart that nothing would ever drive them apart again. There would be no endings, only a lifetime of beginnings, hope and promise, love.
Passion.
Leaning forward, he put a hand to his daughter’s cheek, a kiss to his wife’s. “I can hardly wait.”
* * * * *