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  She’d had fourteen years of love with her son and if, God forbid, she had lost him tonight—she still would have had those fourteen years. And she wouldn’t have missed them for anything in the world. If she’d never had Eric, she wouldn’t have known the mind numbing fear she’d survived tonight—but she would have missed the love, too. Safety wasn’t nearly a good enough tradeoff for the kind of loneliness required to protect your heart.

  Loving was a risk, true. But it was the only risk worth taking.

  “Donna,” he urged quietly, “say something.”

  She smiled. “What about the whole Danger Man thing? Traveling the world? Racing?”

  He shook his head and grinned at her. “From now on, when I travel the world, I want my wife and family with me. As for the Danger Man thing…honey, I’ll get all the adrenaline rush I need just living with you.”

  Her heartbeat jumped and her smile widened. “What about your shop? Your life down in Long Beach?”

  “All arranged,” he said, just a little smugly. “I’m moving the business up here. Took care of the final details today.”

  Her eyebrows lifted. “Sure of yourself, weren’t you?”

  “Nope,” he said softly, “just hopeful.”

  “I’m feeling pretty hopeful, too.” She looked down at their joined hands, then back up into his warm, dark eyes. “I do love you, Jake. So much.”

  “Is that a yes?”

  “Oh, it’s a yes,” she said, standing up and drawing him up with her. “Yes, I’ll marry you. And have children with you. And love you for the rest of my life.”

  His arms closed around her, holding her as if she were the most precious thing in the world. And when he finally pulled back far enough that he could look down into her eyes, he said, “I love you, Donna Barrett, and I swear, we’re going to have a hell of a good life together.”

  Then he kissed her, to start their future off right.

  Epilogue

  The last whisper of summer was in the air. A blue sky, crowded with lush, white clouds hovered above and the sun shone down on the tiny cemetery, laying golden streaks across weathered tombstones.

  Sam, Cooper and Jake Lonergan stood over a grave, staring at a pale green, granite marker, each of them silently reading the words carved deeply into the stone.

  Mac Lonergan

  Gone too soon

  Pain came, sharp—then slipped slowly away again.

  “Can’t believe it took us this long to come here,” Jake said, shooting a glance at each of his cousins.

  Cooper raked one hand through his wind-tossed hair and kept his gaze fixed on the grave in front of him. “Maybe we all needed to be together before we could face him.”

  Sam reached down and brushed away a fallen leaf from the top of Mac’s stone, his fingers lingering a while on the sun-warmed granite. “I don’t think it matters to Mac how many years it took to bring us here,” he said quietly as he straightened up. “What matters is that we’re here now.”

  “Together.” Jake nodded, briefly lifting his gaze from his cousin’s grave to the wide sky overhead. After a long moment of silence, he looked again at his cousins and smiled. “Sam’s right. Mac would only care that we finally showed up. Finally came to see him. To say goodbye. And,” he said firmly, “to promise we’ll never stay away so long again.”

  As a cool wind blew up, the three cousins stood in a half circle around the grave where their past lay beneath a soft blanket of green grass. And in the silence, they each, in their own way, at last let Mac go.

  ISBN: 978-1-4268-6806-1

  SATISFYING LONERGAN’S HONOR

  Copyright © 2006 by Maureen Child

  All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the written permission of the editorial office, Silhouette Books, 233 Broadway, New York, NY 10279 U.S.A.

  All characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all incidents are pure invention.

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