His hand dropped to his side and he didn’t respond. Ginny felt the beginning of despair well inside at the futility of wanting that elusive security and love she’d searched for since she was only a child. First, her mother had died, and her father was always absent. Though she had known herself well-loved by Tante Celine and her cousins, it had not been the same thing at all. Not even when she’d left France to join her father in America, had she felt as if she truly belonged. Always an outsider, always feeling as if she had somehow lost something precious. And she had spent far too long in search of it.

The mistakes she’d made, the men in her life—the futile search for acceptance, for unconditional love to fill the void. Now she was a woman grown, with children of her own, and she still felt as if she was that lost, lonely child inside.

Steve put his palm against her cheek, his skin rough and warm as he stroked her face gently.

“Ginny, I wasn’t going to tell you now, but I guess it’s best to get it over with. I’m leaving next week for Mexico.”

“Next week? When were you going to tell me? As you walked out the door? Oh God, Steve, I thought this time it would be different, that—”

“Listen to me, dammit. With Porfirio Díaz fighting for control and Lerdo resisting, Mexico is in danger of another fullblown revolution. You remember the last one. It wasn’t pretty. This time, there’s no leader like Juarez to guide the country in the right direction.”

“Then take me with you.” She leaned into him, intense desperation engulfing her as he began to shake his head with a frown. “If you leave me behind, our lives together will never recover. I just know it. And I could help. I knew Lerdo, and Díaz, too, so it’s not as if I would be a liability. Oh, Steve, don’t leave me behind again!”

After a silence that seemed far too long, he shook his head, a faint smile crooking his mouth. “I suppose if I don’t take you, you’ll just follow me anyway.”

“Yes,” she said, “I will. And I’ll make certain that I’m an inconvenience.”

He laughed and hooked his hand behind her neck to pull her hard against him, his breath wafting across her cheek as he bent to kiss her.

“Little hellcat. You may be of some use to me, after all, though I’m willing to bet Jim Bishop won’t agree.”

“To hell with Jim Bishop,” she said faintly as his mouth brushed across her lips.