illa woke the next morning cuddled in Diaz’s arms, her head on his shoulder, the warmth of his body a source of comfort in the cold, gray December morning. Rain was pouring down, much heavier than the day before. As usual, he woke almost simultaneously, either too attuned to her to sleep after she was awake, or too inherently cautious to leave himself so vulnerable. Knowing him as she did, she assumed it was the latter.

She sat up and stretched, easing muscles that were stiff from lying in the same position too long. Still lying beside her, he reached up and rubbed one hand over her bare back. Her hair hung in her eyes and she pushed it back, aware of what a mess it must be, since it had still been wet when they’d tumbled back into bed last night. His bed this time, not hers. Though she doubted there would be any his and hers after last night, just theirs. The prospect made her uneasy, knowing that while one essential question had been answered last night, a multitude remained undecided.

“I’ll turn on the heat,” he said. She sat with her arms propped on her drawn-up knees and looked out the window, while he got up and left the bedroom. The house next door was empty, as was the one on the other side. In fact, theirs was the only inhabited house in this entire stretch of rental property. It made her feel as alone as if they were the only people on the planet, though she knew the locals were still here. A few times when she’d been walking on the beach, she’d passed one or two people who were also out getting their exercise, but for the most part she’d had the beach to herself. The windswept desolation had appealed to her aching heart, and in a way the pouring rain did now, too. Her mood was somber; had she made a colossal mistake last night? And even if she had, was there any going back?

Diaz returned with her robe and slippers, then left to put on the coffee. He wasn’t very talkative in the morning—or any other time—and that suited her. She crawled out of bed and hurriedly pulled the robe around her, then dashed to the bathroom.

The bathroom had its own radiant heater, and he’d also turned that one on. Because the bathroom was so much smaller, it heated more rapidly, and it was already almost comfortable. Milla stared at her reflection in the mirror and made a face; her hair was definitely a mess. For the first time in a long while, though, her eyes weren’t dull with misery. They weren’t exactly sparkling, but there was life in them.

She turned on the shower and let the water heat, then got in and briskly washed her hair. The hot water felt good on her sore muscles, reminding her how demanding Diaz had been during the night. He’d been a patient lover but, after the first time, not a gentle one. He’d been hungry in a way he hadn’t been even the first time they’d made love, in a way that wasn’t completely physical. She tried to analyze the difference, but it eluded her, and she wondered if it wasn’t because Diaz himself was so elusive and remote. What was startling was that he’d been neither the night before.

As she was drying off, she automatically touched her hip to make certain her birth control patch was there, and froze. Her fingers found only smooth skin. Horrified, she stared at herself in the mirror as she realized that not only was the patch not there, it hadn’t been there for quite some time. For about three weeks, in fact.

She’d had a period. She remembered that, vaguely, because Diaz had gone out to buy tampons for her. Normally she wore the patches for three weeks, putting on a new one every week, then went without for one week, and that was when she’d have her period. That meant she had either removed the patch or it had fallen off after having been on for way longer than it was meant to be; it would have lost its effectiveness after a week anyway and she’d have had a period then. She had absolutely no memory of dealing with the patch, and putting on a new one hadn’t crossed her mind.

None of which would have mattered, if it hadn’t been for last night.

Realistically she knew her chance of getting pregnant was very small; her body wouldn’t return to normal for a couple of months after going off the patches. But accidents happened, and women got pregnant all the time when it wasn’t supposed to be likely.

Troubled, she dried her hair and actually took some pains styling it before the smell of coffee lured her out. She went to the bedroom and dressed in the warmest clothes she had, sweatpants and a flannel shirt, and frowned as she realized for the first time that she hadn’t brought them with her. Diaz must have gotten them. She hadn’t paid much attention to his comings and goings—or anything else—over the past few weeks. She just hoped that inattention didn’t come back to haunt her.

He was cooking breakfast when she left the bedroom. She poured herself a cup of coffee and said, “I’m not wearing a birth control patch.”

He turned the bacon with a fork. “I know.”

Of all the things he could have said, that flabbergasted her the most. She gaped at him. “Why didn’t you say anything?”

“I figured you knew.”

“No, I hadn’t realized.” She sipped her coffee. “This could be a problem.”

“Not for me, it isn’t.”

For a moment the callousness of the remark made her mute with surprise; then the truth struck her: the idea of her getting pregnant didn’t upset him at all.

She didn’t want to go there.

“It’s probably all right,” she said. “It takes a while for the system to get back to normal.”

“When will you know?”

She groaned and rubbed her face. “I don’t know exactly. Do you remember when I had my period?”

“It started two days after we got here.”

She should have put on a new patch before going to see David, she realized, but she’d totally forgotten about it. Mentally she worked out the timing; if she was going to ovulate this month—which she hoped she wouldn’t—the time for it, midcycle, would be right about... now. Perhaps. She’d worn the patches for so long that she had no idea of the exact timing of her natural cycle now. But she wasn’t going to take any additional chances; if—when—they had sex again, they’d have to take precautions.

“I’ll get some condoms,” he said as he broke eggs into a mixing bowl, added a little milk, then stirred the mixture with a fork. He was either reading her mind or had been following the same path of logic.

He finished cooking breakfast with the same competency he did everything, and as she tucked into the scrambled eggs, bacon, and toast, she realized she had done absolutely nothing while they’d been here, other than bathe and feed herself. Diaz had done everything else, from the shopping to the cleaning. Uneasily she shied from examining his motives, because she was just now becoming capable of dealing with herself again, on a very limited basis. She wasn’t ready to start thinking about what he wanted.

She helped him clean up afterward, though, and other than a faintly surprised look he showed no reaction. Right after breakfast he showered and left on his condom-hunting expedition; he wasn’t likely to leave something that important to the last minute.

After he left, she wandered around straightening the house, rearranging the decorative pillows on the living room furniture so they were color-coordinated, making his bed, stripping hers and putting the sheets in the wash, since she doubted she’d be sleeping there again. She didn’t know how she felt about that, if she was worried or relieved. Just yesterday she had thought she’d never forgive him for what he’d done, that the breach between them was total and final. Then with one blow he’d smashed down the wall dividing them and she was right back where she’d been: flat on her back beneath him.

Last night, she hadn’t wanted to be anywhere else.

At last, with nothing else to do in the house, she made some fresh coffee and got a blanket from the closet, then carried that and a cup of coffee out onto the screened front porch. She wrapped herself in the blanket and sat down on the wicker love seat, pulling up her feet for warmth. The darkly overcast sky, the gray and turbulent Atlantic, and the cold gray rain all blended together, robbing the day of both sunlight and color. She wrapped her hands around the warm coffee cup and inhaled the fragrant steam, staring into the curtain of rain as she tried to bring order to the multitude of thoughts swirling around her brain.

Today, for the first time, she realized how much the sharp edge of agony had dulled in the last few days. She could function, she could think of other things, she could carry on a conversation. She could smile. The hurt would never go away, but it had become manageable, and would become more so in the weeks, years ahead.

She wondered what she would have done if Diaz hadn’t been there. Even though she had cursed his existence, she’d been totally dependent on him. Mostly he’d left her alone, staying in the background and going hours without even speaking to her, while taking care of the basics of life. At first he had followed her during her walks, but lately he hadn’t even done that. He had, uncomplainingly and silently, done everything he could to help her through this.

He loved her.

The realization was almost blinding, and she bowed her head to rest her forehead against her updrawn knees. How on earth was she supposed to reconcile what he’d done concerning Justin with the care he’d given her these past few weeks?

She heard the sound of a motor; then it stopped and was followed by the slam of a door. He was back. She listened to the sound of his progress as he opened the back door and came inside, but then she lost track of his movements because his walk was so damned catlike and she couldn’t hear a sound.

The door to the front porch opened and he stepped outside, his sharp gaze sweeping over her in a lightning assessment, as if checking that she was all right. He put his hands in his pockets and moved to lean against the frame of the screen door, his profile somber as he stared out at the gray ocean.

“I’m sorry,” he said in a low voice.

The words lay there between them. He wasn’t apologizing for last night—she couldn’t imagine that—but for Justin. She doubted he’d ever apologized to anyone before in his life, but there was a simple grace to the offering that told her it was sincere.

“I know you meant to protect him,” she said, and wondered why she was making his argument for him.

“I didn’t know what you planned to do. It never occurred to me.”

“You could have asked.”

Except he wasn’t a man who easily trusted, who opened himself up and let people get close to him. How could he have predicted how she would react? His own mother had virtually abandoned him, dragging him back into her life whenever it was convenient to her. What he knew of mothers came from his own experience, and though intellectually he knew, had seen, that most mothers truly loved their children, he’d had no personal connection with that kind of love.

Until she’d handed those legal papers over to the Winborns, she hadn’t been certain herself that she could actually go through with it, and her soul had wept. If she hadn’t been certain, how could she expect him to have intuitively known that she would never harm Justin in any way?

But she was still unable to let it go. She said, “One night while we were in bed you could have asked me. ‘Milla, what will you do if you find Justin? How can you take him away from the only family he’s ever known?’ Then you’d have known what I felt, what I’d already realized.”

He glanced at her over his shoulder. “It never occurred to me,” he repeated. “I—when you turned over those papers, I felt like I’d been shot. I wanted to get down on my knees and kiss your feet, but I figured you’d probably kick me.”

“No ‘probably’ to it. I would have.”

He nodded and turned back to once more watch the ocean. “I didn’t love you.” His tone was low and almost absent, as if he were musing over the words. “Or I don’t think I did. Not at first. But when you kicked me out, I felt”—he paused, and frowned as he considered his own feelings—“cut in half.”

“I know,” she said, remembering her own sense of loss.

“Looking back, I know when it happened. When I tilted over.” He rocked his hand, demonstrating the slight degree between loving and not loving. “In Idaho. I dragged you out of the river and you rolled over on your back and started laughing. Right then.”

And he’d done something about it right then, too. Until then the attraction had been building between them—she’d been half-crazy with wanting him—but neither of them had acted on it. Until that moment, with the sun beating down on them and the relief of being alive sweeping through them, when he’d looked at her and said—

She chuckled. “Some declaration of love that was. Offering your left nut.”

“That wasn’t a declaration of love; that was a declaration of intent. This is a declaration of love.” He had his head tilted in that quizzical way she loved, and for a man who found communication difficult, he wasn’t doing badly at all.

Silence fell between them as they both digested what had been said. She felt him waiting to hear her say that she forgave him, that she loved him, too, but though she was certain of the one she didn’t know if she’d ever be able to do the other. The hurt and anger were still there, but no longer on boil. The most she’d be able to do, she thought, was put it behind her and say, okay, we go on from this point. If one wanted to argue the quality of forgiveness, perhaps that was forgiveness, just the willingness to go on. But this was Diaz, not your average blue-collar Joe, or even your white-collar Joe. With Diaz, where did they go on to?

She couldn’t see a future with him, but neither could she see one without him.

“You might as well say it,” he murmured, still looking out at the ocean. He hadn’t looked at her once since telling her he loved her. “I know you do.”

“Love you? Yes.” She sighed and sipped her coffee. It had gone cold and she grimaced, setting the cup aside. “I do love you.”

“Enough to marry me and have my kids?”

Her breath left her and she felt herself tilt sideways before she caught her balance. “What?” she asked, her voice reedy with shock.

“Marriage. Will you marry me?”

“How could that possibly work out between us?”

“I love you. You love me. It’s a natural progression.”

She raked her hand through her hair, more upset than she’d thought possible at a marriage proposal from him. It was unexpected, and tantalizingly sweet, but the enormity of the problems facing them if they got married was almost too much to comprehend. And part of her was terrified. He’d mentioned not just marriage, but children, too. How could she?

“Getting married wouldn’t be smart,” she said.

He turned and watched her with those dark, grave eyes, studying her, waiting for her to continue.

“Between us, we have enough emotional baggage to fill an airliner. I probably need to be in therapy.” She gave a cracked laugh. “And you’re an assassin. What kind of job security is that? I don’t even know what I want to do, if I should keep on with Finders or go into teaching the way I’d always planned. Part of me wants to quit, but how can I? I’m good at what I do. I’m just so tired and—”

“Afraid,” he said.

“Of the future? You bet.”

“No. You’re afraid to be happy.”

She stared at him, frozen by the accuracy with which he’d seen behind the smoke screen of solid reasoning.

“Have you really convinced yourself that you don’t deserve anything because you let Justin be taken from you?” he asked, relentlessly pinning her down. “You think you can’t have a husband, another baby, because—what?—you were a bad mother and didn’t hold on to him tight enough?”

Her throat worked as she tried to swallow. She felt as if her lungs had seized, her heart stopped. No one had ever said it was her fault; she’d fought for her baby, had fought nearly to the death. Only a knife in her back had stopped her. And yet, for over ten years, she’d struggled with the bone-deep knowledge that she’d failed to protect her child. “I... I shouldn’t have had him at the market,” she said, her voice stifled. “He was just six weeks old. He was too young—”

“You couldn’t have left him by himself. What else were you going to do?”

Her lips trembled. God, how that question had gone around and around in her mind! What else could she have done? There had to be something else, something she hadn’t thought of, hadn’t seen, because she’d let those men take Justin from her.

“Haven’t you bought enough redemption for yourself, with all the other lost kids you’ve found? What will it take for you to forgive yourself?”

Her baby home, safe and sound, and that was never going to be.

Diaz left his post by the door and squatted down in front of her, folding her hands in his. A cold, wet wind tangled her hair, lifted the curls. “Is that why you gave him up? To make yourself pay?”

“No. I gave him up because it was the right thing to do.” She saw him shiver, and realized he’d been outside all this time without even a jacket. Impulsively she opened up the blanket and invited him inside its warmth. He was fast to accept, but when they settled back down, she was somehow sprawled half across his lap, with the blanket tucked over and around them and her head resting in the hollow of his shoulder. Their combined body heat quickly chased away the chill.

“It’s okay to live,” he said softly, stroking her face, tracing the lines of it with one finger. “It’s okay to be happy again.”

Just the idea made her feel as if she were balancing on the edge of a cliff, with a stiff wind trying to push her over. “It’s too soon.”

Even admitting that she might one day allow herself to be happy, to get on with life, was like lifting one foot and letting it dangle over the cliff.

“It’s been ten years. You’ve found your son, and you’ve done what was right by him. How is it ‘too soon’?”

“It just is.” Once again, she sought refuge in logic. “By being happy, you mean getting married to you.”

“I can make you happy.”

And she could make him happy, she thought, feeling dizzy at the prospect. He was a complicated, difficult man; if she turned him down, given his solitary nature, he would in all likelihood never marry. She was his one shot at a family, at a halfway normal life.

As if any life with James Diaz could ever be normal.

“How can we get married? What do we know about each other? I don’t even know how old you are.”

“Thirty-three.”

She paused, taken aback and immediately sidetracked from the other salient points she’d been about to make. He seemed older, even though there was no gray in his hair and his face was unlined. “That’s my age. When’s your birthday?”

“August seventh.”

“Oh, my God, I’m older than you! My birthday is April twenty-seventh.”

She was so dismayed that the corners of his mouth kicked up. “I’ve always wanted to sleep with an older woman.”

She thumped him on the chest, which earned her a kiss that was deeper than she’d expected, and longer. When he released her she buried her cold nose against his throat, inhaling the warm scent of him. She wanted to say yes. She loved him, more than she’d thought she would ever love a man again. As difficult as he was, in so many ways they perfectly complemented each other. With her he talked, he joked, he even laughed. Something about her opened him up; something about him pulled her away from the rigid path she’d set for herself.

But she was right about the problems they’d face, and she knew it. Getting married would only compound those problems. “What would you do for a job? If we got married, you couldn’t keep chasing all over Mexico looking for the bad guys, maybe getting killed—” She stopped, because she couldn’t continue with that thread.

“I don’t know what else I could do, but I’ll find something.”

There weren’t many job openings for retired bounty hunters/assassins. She couldn’t see him in any kind of office setting, or doing anything that required him to work with the public. Just what kind of job could he do?

She was thinking about the future, she realized. Things were moving too fast, and she still didn’t have her feet under her, emotionally speaking. “I can’t say yes,” she said. “Not yet. There are too many problems we have to work through.”

He kissed her again, closing his eyes as he hugged her to him. “I’m not going anywhere. I’ll ask again next year,” he said, standing up with her in his arms and maneuvering to open the door.

Ten minutes later, as he moved between her opened legs and settled into place, she realized that this was December. Next year was in three weeks.