“I’m coming back to you, sweetheart.”

All Juliet could do was choke out a sob. She handed her phone to Katherine.

Even when she’d seen his name on the screen of her phone, she hadn’t actually believed it was him until she heard his voice. Now she was practically faint with relief.

She could read the same relief in Katherine’s eyes as she took the phone.

“Chance, baby.” His mother had watery eyes as she listened to him on the other end.

Juliet sank onto the sofa as Katherine talked to her son.

“Yes, we’re fine.” She paused to listen to him, then chuckled. “Jacob? Jacob is…well let’s just say his isn’t a happy camper. Your girl is no one to screw around with.”

Juliet’s eyes fell on the man who was bound and gagged on the sofa. He had a completely defeated look on his face.

* * *

Both of them were looking out the front window of Jacob’s house. As soon as Chance’s pickup truck parked on the street in front, Juliet ran to the front door.

She ran across the lawn through the pouring rain as he exited and rounded the front of the truck. Chance saw her and opened his arms wide to accept her as she flew into them. She wrapped her arms and legs around him tighter than a vice grip, as though making sure he was really there.

The pouring rain drenched them as they kissed each other. It was long and fierce and intense, both of them releasing all the stress and pent up anxiety of the last 48 hours.

Her hair was a mess. What little make up she’d worn was a mess. Her clothes were a mess. She was a mess.

She didn’t care.

Chance was back. He’d come back.

A million questions ran through her head and she shut them down.

Chance was back.

He carried her up to the house and into the front entryway, holding on tightly the whole way. He was the one to finally pull away, looking over her face as though also wondering if she was indeed there.

She laughed at look on his face, knowing she was mirroring it.

“Everything copacetic?”

“Everything is copacetic, Jule,” he responded, then he gave her a sober look. “I’ve got three million dollars to my name and I’m a bona fide killer. If you still want to stick around with me, I’ll tell you all about it.”

“Absolutely,” was all she said.

* * *

Chance was looking down at Jacob with murder in his eyes. Jacob just stared up at him warily, his mouth still stuffed with the tie Juliet had procured earlier.

Finally, he huffed out a laugh and looked at Juliet. “So you did this?”

“I wasn’t thinking,” she said, shrugging.

“I knew I picked a winner when I picked you,” he said with a grin.

She ticked her head to the side. “I thought it was a random act of nature.”

He laughed.

“Oh for heaven’s sake,” Katherine finally said. “You two, go. You let me handle this one,” she said, nodding down to Jacob.

Katherine had already gotten in her round of hugs and kisses, grateful to have her son back safe and sound.

Chance and Juliet just looked at each other with a smile, needing no further encouragement.

* * *

They were back at the Hotel ZaZa. This time Chance had had no qualms about splurging. After all, he had it on good faith that any debt he owed was now conveniently erased.

Juliet was lying against his side, both of them completely naked under the covers. This round of love-making had been more fervent and passionate than any time before.

“So it’s all copacetic?” Juliet asked again.

“What did the past half hour tell you?”

Juliet laughed, before letting it fade away in the face of all that had happened that day. “I just want to be sure that all the bases are covered.”

“All the bases are covered,” Chance assured her.

She pulled her head up and frowned at him. “This is serious, Chance. You could go to jail or worse, what if—?”

He brought one hand over to caress her cheek, silencing her. “I was careful, Juliet. How could I not be with the world’s most analytical mind guiding me? I wiped every thing I touched. I dumped the bags off in my truck before making my way back to the bar. I even gave the bartender another fifty for good measure so he’ll remember me.”

Though she was loathe to bring it up, she had to address the most important part. “And the banker or checker or whatever you call him?”

“Somewhere at the bottom of the bayou,” he said, his voice more somber now. “They’ll find him eventually. Until then, everyone will assume he ran off with the money.”

That had been a fortuitous, if sobering turn of events. Even Chance hadn’t expected to kill anyone himself, though he’d been prepared for the possibility. Juliet had all but told him as much, based on every scenario in her head. No way would the man have walked away from that much money after the only other two parties had killed one another. In the best case scenario, Chance would have simply used his gun to intimidate the man and get at least the money he had borrowed back. Juliet was the one who predicted him having a gun, which was the main reason Chance had been packing in the first place.

Juliet brought her head back down to his firm chest, squeezing him tight. “This is crazy, Chance. What have we done?”

“Hey,” he said nudging her head with his shoulder.

She brought her head up to face him again.

“We saved our lives and got rid of some bad men. If they hadn’t brought their guns into that game, fully intent on killing me, neither one of them would be dead right now.”

Everything he said was true. If he’d actually played the way they intended him to play, he’d be dead. That alone made any regret she had about the whole sordid business disappear. They should have never involved Juliet Dumas…not when her man’s life was at stake.

She looked at him, wondering what her life would be like without him in it. The picture was colorless and mundane. Chance was the exact opposite of that.

Right here, right now, she knew: This was the man she was destined to end up with.

“I know,” he said, looking down at her thoughtfully.

“I didn’t even say anything,” she protested.

“You don’t have to sweetheart,” he said, pushing away a strand of hair that had turned into a frizzy mess in the rain. He liked her this way, all pretense of propriety out the window, and her careless side coming out to play. “What did I tell you about being able to read people?”

Juliet stared at him thoughtfully for exactly one second.

“What am I telling you?” she asked, honestly curious.

“The same thing my own mind is telling me. I love you.”

Juliet gave him the smile she knew he liked as she rested her chin on his chest. “So where do we go from here?”

“How’s about we just wander and see where the rest of our lives take us?”

She laughed at the reference from their first—or first and one-quarter—date, which seemed like a million years ago.

“Absolutely.”