"Gold!"
Rex smiled ruefully. "Pierre really did leave a 'treasure,' Gene. No Confederate bills. Gold. Could I have your flashlight for a minute, Mark?"
"Take this, Rex," Mark said. "I've got to take my prisoner on in. I'll need you all in the morning. Mr. Brandy-wine, now, you take care."
"Thank you, Mr. Eliot," Gene said. Rex and Alexi echoed his words, waving until he was gone.
Rex led the way, and they followed him to the ballroom. The bricks around the lower mantel under the portraits had been pulled out. An ancient, rusting trunk lay amid the rubble on the floor.
"It's your trunk," Rex told Gene.
Gene stepped forward, lowered himself to his knees and flipped the lid on the old trunk. Bars and bars of gold sparkled before them in the glare of the flashlight.
"I'll be darned," Gene said, flashing his head. "All these years..."
"He meant it to go to his heirs," Rex murmured. "You're his grandson, Gene."
Gene smiled at Rex a little wearily. "Poor man. He worried so much, and his wife and his children were a lot stronger than he gave them credit for." He flashed a quick smile at Alexi. "A lot stronger, girl."
Rex slipped his arms around her waist and pulled her back against him. "Very strong," he said softly. "What are you going to do with it all?" he asked Gene.
Gene scratched his head for a minute. "A museum. Yes, I think a museum. We'll put Eugenia's diary in it, and the clothes from up in the attic--Pierre's old sword and the like. He'd approve, don't you think?"
"That I do, sir. That I do," Rex agreed.
"Well, well," Gene murmured. "It's a bit too much excitement for me for one night. Pierre's treasure almost cost me something he would have prized far, far more." He touched Alexi's cheek. "I think I'll go on up to bed here. Do you mind, dear?"
"Gene! It's your house."
"Yes. But of course you'll have a chaperone now." He cleared his throat. "Rex Morrow--just what are your intentions regarding my great-granddaughter?"
Rex laughed. "The very best, sir."
"Well?"
"I intend to marry her. As soon as possible."
"He's only after your land!" Alexi warned Gene.
"Does she ever shut up?" Rex asked Gene.
Gene smiled wickedly. "Sure she does, boy. You've got the knack, I'm quite sure."
"Do I?" Rex said, smiling down at Alexi.
"Do you?" She slipped her arms around his neck, standing on tiptoe. He kissed her. He meant just to brush her lips, but there was just something about her....
The kiss went long and deep, very long and deep, until Gene cleared his throat. Rex broke from her. His eyes were glittering ebony as he challenged her, his voice gruff with tenderness, "Will you, Alexi? Will you marry me?"
She smiled. Rex knew that treasure had never lain in gold, nor in silver--nor in any other such tangible thing. Treasure was something that any man could find on earth, if he could trust in himself enough to reach for it.
"Yes, Rex. Yes!" Alexi told him.
He stared into her eyes, dazzled. "I love you, sweetheart."
"Well, then, if it's all settled, go ahead and kiss her again," Gene said. "But excuse me. I'm an old man."
"An old fox!" Rex whispered.
"I heard that!" Gene said.
Alexi and Rex laughed and waved good-night. They heard a door close above them.
"Well, my love?" Rex whispered.
"You heard him," Alexi murmured. "Go ahead. Kiss me again. Hmm...Morrow...Alexi Morrow."
"I'll come with you to New York."
"No, we'll live here."
"But you don't have to give up your career--"
"I really don't care."
"You don't have to give it up!"
"Don't tell me what to do!"
"I'm not! I'm trying--" He broke off suddenly, staring up at the picture of Pierre. He shook his head. "Maybe there is only one way to do it."
"To do what--" Alexi began.
She never finished. He had decided to kiss her again.
Epilogue
June 2, Two Years Later Fernandina Beach, Florida
"Here he is, Alexi. Down on the beach."
Alexi stared out through the long trail of pines to the beach, where Gene's call directed her. She rose, a smile curving her lips, her heart, as always, taking flight.
Rex was alighting from one of their new acquisitions, a silver raft. The waves of the beach pounded against his bare, muscled calves as he splashed through the water. From a distance, he was beautiful and perfect.
"Rex!"
Upon the porch of the old house, Alexi called his name. He couldn't hear her, of course. He was too far away. She was certain, though, that his eyes had met her own, and that the love they shared between them sang and soared likewise in his soul.
He had seen her. He waved. He started to run. To run down the sand path carpeted in pine and shadowed by those same branches. Sun and shadow, shadow and sun; she could see his face clearly no longer.
"Gene? Take the baby for a minute?"
"With the greatest pleasure."
Carefully--he was a very old man--Gene slipped his hands beneath the squirming body of his very first great-great-grandson. Alexi smiled at him briefly, then leaped down the steps, waving to Rex.
"I'll take him inside!" Gene called to Alexi. "It's getting a little bit hot out here. And don't you two worry--I can rock the boy to sleep just as well as the next person."
Alexi turned in time to give Gene an appreciative thumbs-up sign. Then she started to run, running to meet her husband, running to meet her man.
Run...run, run, run. Sunlight continued to glitter through the trees, golden as it fell upon her love. She felt the padding of her feet against the carpet of sand and pine, and the great rush of her breath. Closer. Closer. She could see the love he bore her, the need to touch.
Her breath, ragged, in and out, in and out. Down that long, long trail of sand and pine.
"Rex!"
"Alexi!"
Laughing, she flew the last few steps; those steps that brought her into his arms. He lifted her high; he swirled her beneath the sun. He stared into her eyes, his smile soft as he cherished her and the life they had created between them.
"The baby?"
"He's with Gene."
"They're okay?"
"They're perfect."
Rex smiled and laced his fingers through his wife's. They started to walk toward the beach again. At the shore, where the warm, gentle water just rushed over their bare feet, Rex slipped his arms around Alexi's waist. Time had been good to them; life had been good to them. For one, John Vinto had lived. Rex had been worried when Alexi had insisted on visiting him in the hospital, but in the end he had been glad. John had wanted to see her just to apologize; he had thought there might be some way to hang on to his marriage. He'd met a new girl, but somehow he'd needed Alexi's forgiveness before he could start out in a new life. Alexi had promised her forgiveness with all her heart--if he would promise to get some counseling. It hadn't been easy for Rex, standing there. Vinto was a handsome man, beach tan and white blond, successful-- and earnest. But trust had been the ingredient he needed to instill in his heart, and when he had seen Alexi's eyes fall on him again, he had known that she loved him. She didn't need to make any comparisons between men--she loved Rex, and that was that. He had sworn to himself in a silent vow that he would give her that same unqualified love all his life.
Gene had used the gold to open a small Confederate museum. It gave him a new passion in life--the hunt for artifacts. Alexi and Rex had grown fascinated with the search themselves, and the three of them frequently traveled throughout the States to various shows to see what else they could acquire.
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.