Strangers In Paradise

They'd had a wonderful wedding. A big, wonderful wedding in the Brandy wine house, with Alexi's folks and his folks and cousins and aunts and uncles--and Mark Eliot and the carpenters and Joe's boy and anyone else in the world they could think of to invite. Rex had insisted on Alexi tying up some loose ends with her Helen of Troy work, and then Alexi had insisted on staying home for a while. She had a new line of work in mind. That new line of work--Jarod Eugene Morrow--was just five weeks old, and the center of their existence.

"What are you thinking?" Alexi murmured to him.

He squeezed her more tightly. "That it's been so very good here. That I love you so much. That we're so very lucky. Pierre Brandywine picked a beautiful place. I wonder if he can see that--even though he lost his own life and his own dreams--his family is still here. Jarod is his great-greatgreat-grandson.''

"Great, great, great, great--but who's counting," Alexi murmured. "I'm sure Pierre knows," she added softly.

"Yes, I like to think so."

"Yes," Alexi whispered. She smoothed her fingers gently over his hands. "It's been good."

He nuzzled his chin against her cheek. “What were you thinking?"

"Hmmmm...well, I was thinking that Gene really is so very good with the baby."

"Yes?"

"He took him inside, you know."

"Yes?"

"It's just like we're alone in our very own Eden again."

"Yes?"

She hesitated, a charming, slightly crooked smile curving into her features in such a way that he instantly felt the heat aroused tensely in his body. His pulse skipped a beat and then thundered, and he inhaled deeply. "Yes, Alexi?"

"Want to go skinny-dipping?"

"Yes!" He twisted her around and kissed her lips and smiled down into the beauty of her eyes. "I was hoping that you might ask."

Alexi laughed as he fumbled eagerly with the zipper of her halter dress. "This is skinny-dipping. We both disrobe by mutual consent."

"I'll dip you and you can dip me," Rex retorted. The dress came over her head and landed in the sand. A moment later they were both down to their birthday suits and racing out to the water.

Rex caught Alexi beneath the benign warmth of a radiant sun. Their smiles recalled the first time--and reminded them that there would always be forever.

His arms swept around her. "I love you, Alexi."

"And I love you," she returned. Heat and salt and sea and the endless breeze swirled around them as they kissed, becoming one.

The pines dipped and rustled.

Back at the house, Gene stood beneath the beautiful old paintings of his grandparents and frowned curiously.

He wasn't superstitious, and he sure as hell didn't believe in haunted houses. He could remember Eugenia as clear as day, even though she had been dead for years and years and years.

No, he was too old for ghost stories. But holding Jarod Eugene Morrow beneath the portraits, he could have almost sworn that a little twist of a smile came to Pierre's lips.

"More than a century later, Pierre. And the boy here-- he'll grow up right here, Pierre. More than we might have dreamed, huh? More than we might have dreamed."

Gene winked at the picture.

And he was almost sure that the damned thing winked back.