done by Christmas, but we can have Easter there. How’s that?”
“Yes…Easter. That’s something to look forward to, and I can start on the decor. But the first thing on my agenda is buying a car. It’s time to turn in the rental.”
“Then there’s your purpose. As soon as you pick out the model you want, I’ll take you to Savannah to pick it up,” he said. Then he looked thoughtful for a moment. “I didn’t know love felt like this. I have assumed a lot between us, and it occurred to me this morning that I haven’t officially said the words.”
“What words?” Cathy asked.
He pulled over onto the side of the road and then took her by the hands.
“Mary Cathleen Terry, I cannot imagine the rest of my life without you in it. Will you marry me?”
Cathy grinned, and then threw her arms around his neck and kissed him soundly on the lips.
“I’m taking that as a yes,” Duke said.
“Yes, that is a yes,” Cathy said. “In the romance books, doesn’t the heroine always marry the man who saves her from the bad guys?”
“I don’t know about that. All I know is you are what was missing in my life.” Then he groaned. “Crap. I never do anything in the proper order. I love you like crazy, and a ring will be forthcoming.”
Cathy cupped the side of his cheek.“There is no order to love. Only a chaos of emotions and the feeling that you will die without each other.”
“Then I’m there,” he said, and this time their kiss was longer and sweeter before he finally got back onto the road and took her home.
* * *
There was an accumulation of newspapers on Cathy’s front porch, including the one with the story about her interview. She sat down and read it after Duke left, and then cried from relief and a release of the fear that had sent her running in the first place.
This was happening. This really was happening. She had her life back, and without the worry of ever being bothered by Blaine Wagner again.
* * *
Blaine was still reeling from the throes of his own revelation. Then seeing the ad that Gage Brewer had taken out in the Las Vegas papers admitting his unintentional part in frightening Blaine Wagner’s ex-wife, and the public acknowledgment that he was no longer associated in any way with Blaine Wagner and his enterprises, added to Blaine’s humiliation.
The ultimatum from the Chairman had been scary as hell, and now it felt like all eyes were on him in negative judgment wherever he went. He was getting a dose of what he’d done to his ex-wife, and it didn’t feel good.
It occurred to him as he was contemplating his demise that there wasn’t another Wagner in the wings. He was the last of the line. He’d refused Cathy’s desire for children, and now it dawned on him what that meant.
He’d already booked a flight to Rome and, at the invitation of a college friend, was going to spend a month with him and his family in their villa. Italy was as good a place as any to look for a new wife—one who was ready to give him babies.
His father used to tell him all the time to “straighten up and fly right.” He’d thought that was just an old-fogey saying from his dad’s childhood, but now it was making all kinds of sense. The threat of becoming coyote food and ant bait in the Mojave Desert had a way of doing that.
But Wagner wasn’t the only one in Vegas who was feeling the guilt. When Pamela St. James first read the story, then saw the video, she was horrified. She kept thinking back to that phone call she’d made to her friends the day she’d seen Cathy in Savannah. Not only had she given away where Cathy was hiding, but Pamela and her friends had made fun of her. If Cathy had been murdered, Pamela would have shared in the guilt of making it happen.
She hadn’t been to church in years, but on the day Gage Brewer’s public apology showed up in the local papers, she took herself down to the Catholic church where she’d been married and asked to confess her sins. It didn’t change what she’d done, but in her mind, at least God wouldn’t be mad at her anymore.
To celebrate the cleansing of her soul, she went shopping and slid right back into the shallow existence of her life.
* *