"Whoops!" Franco stifled a giggle and swept down to snatch Lorraine. "We're out of here. Sorry to intrude. It was nice to meet you, Emma. See you, Thomas."

After Franco rounded the corner, they stood together in silence for a few moments. Then Emma dared look up at Thomas. His head was cocked to one side, his smile was soft, his expression sheepish.

"So?"

Emma swallowed. "So what?" She was relieved that her voice still worked.

"Intimate gathering or beer brawl?"

"Whaa-?"

"Really. What do you think about my question? Are you pissed off, ecstatic, what?"

"I'm… I'm dumbfounded."

"Yeah." He chuckled. "Me, too."

Thomas bent down, scooped up Hairy and turned him around to face home. He found Emma's hand and they began to head back.

"I know that wasn't the most romantic proposal in the history of the world, but I've been feeling kind of spontaneous lately." He looked at her sideways and wagged his semicolon. "It's been kind of a mind-blowing day, hasn't it?"

"You could say that."

"It's something to think about, anyway. You. Me. Leelee. Assorted domesticated animals. It sounds right."

"Leelee?" At that, Emma stopped in her tracks. "What are you saying, Thomas?"

He raised his eyes up to the sky and shrugged, and Emma stared at his big silhouette in the twilight. When he lowered his gaze, she was jolted by the stark tenderness in his expression.

"I'm a man who can't have kids. She's a kid who needs a man to be her dad. I happen to love her mother more than I ever thought I could love anyone. She happens to love my fruity dog. I'd say it's damn near perfect."

Emma looked around for a place to collapse-she needed to sit before she fell. She staggered over to the marble front steps of someone's tidy red-brick townhouse and tumbled down. Thomas landed right next to her.

"I know this is a lot, baby. You can ask Pam or Rollo or my rugby teammates or the people on the task force-I'm not usually like this. I guess I'm just… just afraid that-"

Emma threw her arms around his neck and hugged him as tight as she could. When his big hands spread over her back, she felt the peace slide over her. It was like she'd reached a quiet understanding with the universe, as if Mother Nature herself had just put a big check mark on her clipboard and given Emma a wink.

She started to laugh. "Okay," she whispered in his ear.

His body relaxed against hers. "Damn, that's great."

"But let's go slow." She looked up into his face. "Let's give Leelee a little more time before we tell her. Let's give ourselves a little more time."

He nodded, the dimples deep and sweet beside his smile. "Anything, Emma." He gave her a gentle little kiss and held her face in his hands. "Anything for you."

His car burned.

The 1978 Black Pearl Datsun 280 Z with a V-8 engine, five-speed overdrive, and the below-standard exhaust system-his heart's delight, the one love that never let him down-was going up in flames in the parking lot of the King of Hearts Motor Court.

Aaron watched helplessly as the new paint job peeled away from the steel frame like skin from bone. Black smoke stung his eyes and tasted sour in his throat. The yellow and red flames licked up from under the hood like ugly laughter.

He heard the wail of the fire engines and realized the ugly laughter was coming from him.

Well, why not laugh? Because at this moment, he could honestly say that his life was officially, one hundred percent fucked. There was nothing left of what he had only a year ago. Literally-poof! It had all gone up in smoke.

The funniest part was that his first instinct was to go to Emma, sweet, forgiving Emma, the glue that had kept him from splitting in two, the epicenter of everything that was decent in his life. A year ago, she would have taken him in her arms, held him to her breast, stroked his head. She would've found a way to make him laugh about this. She would have kissed away his pain.

The sirens shrieked inside his head.

Okay, fine. Two years ago, maybe. This time last year, Emma was handing him divorce papers.

But it was all real once, wasn't it? He'd had that woman by his side every day and in his bed every night. He'd had her love. He wasn't making that up, was he?

What the hell had he done?

As he watched the firefighters hook up a limp yellow hose to the hydrant, Aaron saw his mistake with more clarity than ever.

He'd let his compulsion get bigger than his love. He'd taken her for granted. He'd never really admitted how much he loved her. Then he'd let her go.

He'd ruined his marriage. He'd ruined his life. The hose swelled and burst and he watched two firefighters wrestle to control the violent blast that soaked the Z. In a matter of moments, the car had been reduced to a charcoal briquette, oozing with fire retardant foam and hissing with water.

Aaron closed his door and retreated into the gloom, pausing when he saw his reflection in the rusty mirror.

Too bad the Z hadn't had enough gas in the tank to blow sky high. Too bad he hadn't been blown up with it.

He didn't even recognize the man he saw in the mirror. That man had no center. No heart. No Emma.

That man had who knew how many more days to live? And nothing left to lose.

Chapter 18 Love Hangover

The first splashes of crimson and gold dotted the tree line between farm fields, and the sky was a sharp, cool blue. Emma tilted her face and breathed deep, feeling the sun on her skin and the pleasant rock of her hips in the saddle.

The rush she got from loving Thomas hadn't dissipated in the last few weeks, but it had mellowed, found its own rich and pleasurable rhythm. And lately her happiness seemed to be a physical entity in itself, something that sat deep inside her, weighted and sure, at the core of everything she did. And she could feel it growing every day.

She looked over at her riding companion, and chuckled to herself. Thomas seemed more relaxed on Bud today, less like a man with an iron rod up his spine. And Bud seemed resigned to carrying Thomas, no longer gazing at her with that pitiful, put-upon expression. It did her heart good to see the two of them getting along.

"It's gorgeous out here," Thomas said, the way he always did when she took him riding.

"I'm glad you think so."

He turned to her. "You're gorgeous out here."

"I'm glad you think so."

"Let's get naked."

Emma laughed. The man needed a prong collar. Admittedly, not having to worry about pregnancy or disease sure allowed for things to be spontaneous. And she'd lost track of how often and in how many places they'd been spontaneous.

Not that she was complaining.

"Do you think that thirty years from now you'll still try to seduce me with that particularly charming phrase?"

"If you still want to be seduced."

"I will if you're up for it."

He shot her a smile framed in dimples. "If there's Viagra now, baby, just think what will be around when I'm an old man. They'll have to tape it down when they lower me in the ground."

"You scare me."

Thomas roared with laughter, and she could still hear him snickering as he followed her down the narrow path to the creek. Once they dismounted and flipped the horses' reins over tree limbs, Thomas immediately pressed up against her back and enfolded her in his arms.

"There's a word for your medical condition, Thomas." She snuggled back against him. "It's called priapism, and I hear it's horribly painful."

He kissed the side of her neck. "I'm in pain all right."

His fingers were unbuttoning her denim jacket, brushing over her breasts beneath the T-shirt, fluttering down to the snap of her jeans.