Laurey's breath caught. He couldn't know, he couldn't possibly. Could he?
"I realized, when I didn't have the work to hide behind anymore, that that was just what I'd been doing. You were right, Laurey. I passed dedication a long way back. My work had become an obsession. Maybe the motivation was different, maybe even worthwhile, like you said, but … the result was the same as if it weren't. I shut out everything and everyone, and I told myself I preferred it that way. That if I didn't care, I could never hurt again like I did that night. The night my sister died."
"Oh, Gage," Laurey murmured, not knowing what else to say.
"But one night I finally realized you'd been right. Debby never would have wanted this, not for her sake. She wasn't like that. She would have hated … what I'd become. So I … finally got some help. One of the department shrinks. I've been going … for the past month, trying to work some things out. He finally made me see that my way hurt just as much in the end. And had none of the benefits."
He took a deep shuddering breath, and Laurey could only guess at the pain coming face-to-face with all this had cost him.
"All the people who tried to get in, people who wanted to help, good people … Kit, Ryan, Cruz … even the chief. But I wouldn't let them. I didn't want anybody to get close, because when they left, or … died, it would hurt too much. And I shut you out most of all, because I knew when you left, it would … kill me."
"Gage," she began, but he held up a hand to stop her.
"Please. Let me just … get this out. I've spent a lot of days trying to figure out what I could possibly say to make you understand, to make you forgive me for being the … cold bastard I was to you."
She made a tiny sound of protest; she'd always known he wasn't intentionally the way he was, that it had been self-protection. But he shook his head.
"No. I had no right to treat you that way when all you'd ever done was give to me."
"And scream at you like a shrew," she reminded him.
A ghost of a smile flitted across his lips. "After that, I mean." But he seemed to take courage in her small joke and went on. "I finally realized there was only one thing to say that matters. I don't expect you to accept it, or even believe it, but I have to tell you. I love you, Laurey."
Her eyes widened, and she nearly gasped aloud. She'd never expected to hear it, let alone so unadorned and forthright.
"I could tell you about all the confusion I went through, explain why it took me so long to realize it, but I doubt it would make any difference. I know that … whatever you may have felt for me I probably … killed that day at my house. I understand that."
"You've … come to understand a lot in a month."
"And I haven't liked much of it," he said quietly. "I've wasted a lot of years. I've hurt a lot of people along the way, people who didn't just leave but were shoved away. I have so much to regret … but there's nothing I'll mourn deeper or longer than losing you."
Laurey stared at him, saw the stark, unvarnished truth of his words—and the emotions behind them—in his eyes. He'd come such a long way; this was not the man who had stood amid the wreckage of his home and told her coldly that caring was a fool's game.
"Just…" His voice cracked, and he tried again. "I don't know if it will make it better or worse, but just tell me… You did care … didn't you?"
All the emotion she'd tried so hard to crush in the past month bubbled up inside her. "No," she whispered.
Gage paled. "Then I guess I was wrong. About that, too, along with—"
"No, I didn't just 'care,' Gage. The word is 'love.'"
"Oh, God." A visible shudder rippled through him. He lowered his eyes again. "Did I, Laurey? Did I kill it that day?"
"You … hurt me," she said, unwilling to give him a direct answer. "A great deal."
"I know I did. I've thought about that more than anything. And I thought of a dozen ways to try to persuade you to give me another chance. I wouldn't buy any of them, if I was in your place. But when it came down to it … there's really only one. One thing to prove to you I mean what I said, and that … things would be different."
She saw him draw a deep breath. Then he let it out. He swallowed. His lips tightened. And Laurey was holding her own breath, wondering what on earth could be so very hard to say. Instinctively she got up, walked to the sofa and sat down beside him. And then he told her.
"I quit."
She gasped. "What?"
"I quit," he repeated.
"You're not serious!"
"I handed in my resignation the day before I left."
She stared at him, utterly stunned. He might as well have said he'd cut off an arm or a leg.
"Funny," he said, as if speaking of nothing more important than the weather they'd been talking of before, "nobody seemed surprised. Not happy, but not surprised. De los Reyes even seemed to have expected it."
"Gage, why?"
"I told you. It's the only way you could be sure."
"But you love your work. You live for it."
"I lived for it and nothing else for far too long."
"But to quit," she said, still stunned.
"I have to," he said. "It's like an addiction, Laurey. If I do it at all, I can only do it one way, the way I've always done it. The all-consuming, destructive way I've always done it. There's no middle ground for me. If I don't stop … eventually it will destroy me. One way or another. I won't lie. It hurt so much to quit … but it would kill me to stay."
It was so close to what she'd just thought that she nearly shivered herself. "I … you're not doing this … for me, are you? I don't want that, Gage. I could never live with the thought that you'd given up what you love, because you thought I—"
"No." He cut her off gently. "Not just for you, although that's a big part of it." And then he looked at her, directly, unwaveringly, and she did shiver at the power of what she saw in those vivid green eyes. "It's a simple choice, Laurey. As a cop, I can only be … who I was. I don't know any other way to do the job. And it was eating me alive. I'm quitting, even if you … throw me out that door. But it was you who gave me the strength to see, to look at myself and see what I'd turned into."
He reached out then, touching her for the first time, his palm gently cupping her cheek, his thumb tracing her lips. She heard his breath catch, and the tiny sound made a quiver begin somewhere deep inside her.
"You gave me a taste of what my life could be," he whispered. "And I want more than a taste. I love you. I need you. I want you with me for however long we both have. I'd prefer to be married, but I'll take what I can get. And next to that, nothing else matters much."
The last of her hesitation vanished, seared to ash by the fire of his touch and the growing heat in his eyes. "You … hurt me that day, but … no matter how hard I tried to hate you again, I couldn't. I was hurting for you too much. I've thought of little else since I left. I love you, Gage."
He closed his eyes for a moment, and Laurey knew she had never seen so much welcome relief before. "Thank God," he murmured. His tone was so thankful, she decided to give him the rest.
"In fact, I've loved you since I first saw you all those years ago."
His eyes opened. "I know."
She blinked. Arrogance? From Gage Butler? It didn't fit. "You knew?"
"Not then, I didn't. I thought it was just … a crush or something. But I finally figured that out along with everything else. I realized you're not the kind to hold a simple grudge that long, so I knew there had to be a reason you were so furious with me after all that time. That was the only thing that made sense."
"It was a crush. The biggest one I've ever had, before or since. I thought you were the most wonderful, beautiful, sexiest man who ever lived."
She had the extreme pleasure of seeing him blush. "Jeez, Laurey—"
"Of course, that was then, and this is now," she said.
His mouth twisted. "So now you know better, huh?"
She nodded. "I don't think that an
ymore." At his expression, she smiled softly. "I know it."
As his color deepened, Laurey leaned forward and kissed him. A warm, welcoming kiss that held all the promises for the future she could put into it.
Much later, in her curved brass bed, as he stroked her hair and she reveled in the feel of being sprawled atop him, and in the knowledge that adrenaline and near-death escapes were not what had made their passion so powerful, he asked if she would mind having the wedding in California.
"Trinity West sort of has it down to a science, after Quisto and Ryan and Cruz," he said. "And I think they'd … like to all be there. They're still my friends, and always will be."
"I'd like that. I feel like they've become my friends, too."
"They feel the same way," he assured her. He lifted his head then, giving her a quizzical look. "I'm curious, though. What did the chief say to you that day? When he called you back after he decided to go public?"
She smiled. "Only three words. That could have been taken any number of ways. I get the impression a lot of what he says is like that. But they were three very true words."
"They … were? What were they?"
She reached up and cupped his face in her hands. "He said, 'He's worth it.'"
Gage looked stunned, but the flush that rose to his face told her that he was pleased, as well. She pulled him down to her, kissed him, and sighed happily when he snuggled against her shoulder.
"I put the house up for sale," he said after a moment. Laurey went still. "It was time. Just like it was time to … get rid of that damned jacket."
"I'm glad," she whispered.
"I'll probably always wish I could have saved her," he said. "But I'm not going to … torment myself over it anymore."
She let out a small sigh of relief; he truly had rid himself of the guilt.
It was a moment before he said, sounding only half joking, "Are you sure you want to marry an unemployed ex-cop?"
"I want to marry you," she answered positively. "The rest is incidental."
"I'll do something," he assured her. "I'm just not sure what yet."
"I know. You're not the type to just sit around."
"I don't know," he mused in mock consideration. "The idea of being a kept man has a certain appeal."
"Okay," she said simply.
He laughed then, and at the joy in the sound, a note she'd never heard from him before, Laurey gave heartfelt thanks. Still laughing, he rolled her beneath him and rained kisses down on her any place he could reach.
"Merry Christmas," she said. "And thank you for the best present I've ever gotten."
"Thank you for my life," Gage said, so solemnly it brought tears to her eyes.
When he made love to her that time, something deep and profound happened between them and afterward they lay quietly for a long time, in silent acknowledgment.
It was Gage who at last broke the spell.
"Do you suppose we could get Sam into a dress long enough to be a flower girl?"
He'd told her about the little girl and what she'd done to foster the breakthrough that had finally reached him. "Sam can be a flower girl in whatever she darn well pleases," Laurey said fervently.
Gage smiled, a soft, loving smile that went beautifully with the joyful laugh she'd heard for the first time tonight. "Do you think someday we could … work on one of our own?"
Laurey's heart leapt at this proof of how far he'd come; she knew Gage realized more than most how much caring it took to raise a child. She knew better than anyone that he would never, ever shortchange a child. And above all, she knew just what it meant for him to offer up that most powerful of levers to the world, how much sheer courage it had taken.
"I would love that as much as I love you," she whispered. He hugged her, tightly. "Maybe we should … practice some more first, though," she said, nuzzling his ear.
"The perfect child takes a lot of practice," he agreed willingly.
That Christmas morning both Laurey and Gage agreed that the best presents were those you couldn't wrap. Then they held each other tightly, savoring the knowledge that together they had found gifts that would last a lifetime.
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GAGE BUTLER'S RECKONING Page 24