Epilogue
Three months later
Meg had the table set and was finishing the spaghetti dinner she had cooked as she waited for Dirk and Charlie to get home. Dirk had gone for one of his rare haircuts, had taken Charlie for a trim as well.
The kitchen smelled of simmering ground beef, onions, and tomato sauce. She would slide the garlic bread into the oven as soon as her men got home. Val Brodie—she and Ethan had gotten married last month—had been teaching Meg to cook, and she thought she’d been doing a pretty fair job. Dirk and Charlie seemed to appreciate her efforts, and it wasn’t really as hard as she’d imagined.
Even after opening She, her sportswear boutique—work she was loving—she had time to cook at least three meals a week. It turned out Dirk wasn’t a half-bad cook himself so they traded back and forth as much as they could.
He was just about finished rebuilding his house at the lake. They’d decided to keep it, use it on weekends or just for a getaway spot when their jobs got too hectic.
A lot had happened since the kidnappings. Brandon Elliott had been released from the hospital in El Tepual just a few days after he was admitted. He was somewhere in South America with Morgan Flynn, off on another adventure.
Jonathan was in prison. He’d been charged with bank embezzlement, conspiracy to kidnap, accessory to murder, and half a dozen other crimes. He’d come up with information that had helped the FBI apprehend the two men in the van, then pled guilty to lesser charges. But he’d still be in prison for years.
Gertsman’s criminal empire had crumbled; dozens of his cronies had been jailed in Argentina. Interpol had found plenty of evidence at the compound; Helmut Mueller had done his job. The place really was a fortress. In one of the outbuildings, they’d even found old canisters of deadly sarin nerve gas, originally invented by the Germans.
Meg shivered at the ugly memories of the time she had spent there. If it hadn’t been for Dirk ...
She broke off the thought at the sound of a car driving up in front of the house. Wiping her hands on the apron she wore over her jeans, she started toward the front door.
It swung open before she got there. Dirk ducked his head, Charlie on his shoulders, and walked into the entry.
“Hey, baby, sorry we’re late.”
“That’s okay, but—” At the mischievous grin on his face, unease slid through her. “All right, what have you done?”
Charlie started wiggling. “Dirk sold the Wiper!” he shouted, grinning. “We got us a new car!”
“Oh, no.” Disappointment trickled through her. She tried not to pout. “How could you sell the Viper? I loved that car.”
“I know, baby, but it wasn’t much good for a family.” He set Charlie on his feet, reached out, and grabbed her hand. “Come on. The one I bought is a lot more practical.”
Her lips refused to curve. “My car’s practical enough. I liked the Viper.”
Dirk just laughed and tugged her forward, out the door onto the porch. She gasped at the gorgeous metallic-blue, four-door Porsche parked at the curb.
“Four hundred twenty horses, honey. Zero to sixty in less than six seconds. Tops out at nearly a hundred seventy miles an hour.” He grinned. “Gets good mileage, too.”
Meg started laughing.
“What?”
“I should have known you weren’t ready for a station wagon.”
Dirk grinned. “I got a good price for the Viper and a great deal on the Porsche. It’s last year’s model, but it’s real low mileage.”
Meg turned away from the car and looked up at him. “I love you, Dirk Reynolds.”
“Me, too,” Charlie said.
Dirk lifted the little boy and settled him against his shoulder as if he’d been a father for years. He caught hold of Meg’s hand. “After we got our hair cut, Charlie and I had a talk. He thinks we’ve waited long enough. He wants us to get married.”
Tears burned behind her eyes. Dirk hadn’t brought up the subject since that day in the family room. “That’s what Charlie wants. What do you want, Dirk?”
“I want to marry you more than anything in the world.”
Her eyes welled. The sexiest man on the planet wanted her to marry him. The best man she knew. There was a time happiness had seemed so far out of reach. Meg looked at the two men she loved most in the world.
“I want to marry you, too,” she said.
Dirk and Charlie high-fived each other.