Sheridan didn't want any more games, any more gentle gliding around thesubject. She wanted to scream at the top of her lungs that she loved him--hadloved him from the first. But she could take no more rejection. No more hurt.He had to say it first.

He had to heal her heart.

"Ye cannot demand answers of me that ye barricade yerself from, lettin' noone in--allowin' no one to know ye."

Slowly, he withdrew his hands and sank them in his pockets. "You don't knowwhat you're talking about."

Sheridan scoffed. "How convenient that excuse is." She wheeled away fromhim and led Eclipse to his stall.

She hadn't heard Nicholas move, but when she turned, he stood directlybehind her.

"My mother hated me."

My mother hated me. Each word exposed him, laid him bare, prickingSheridan's heart. He stood before her not as a life-hardened man shielded byan invisible wall, but as a young boy, pained and bewildered.

Sheridan could no longer resist the urge to touch him. She brushed asidethe lock of tangled ebony hair falling across his brow and cupped his cheek.

"Who could hate ye?" she whispered.

He took hold of her wrist but didn't move her away. Instead he closed hiseyes and leaned into her hand. "For too many years I waited for the day whenmy mother would lay a tender hand on my face or tousle my hair or simply tellme she cared. She never did." His eyes opened, his gaze a forest-green well ofanguish, showing her his true depths, revealing the feelings he kept socarefully contained.

"I told myself I'd never let anyone hurt me like that again, to ache for asmile or a kind word or some form of acknowledgement. And I swore no womanwould destroy me like my mother destroyed my father. He gave everything to awoman who never possessed the capacity to care about anyone but herself."

Sheridan believed she was finally starting to understand what causedNicholas to distance himself, to be emotionally aloof. She had known he wascomplex. She had never known how much.

"So now ye don't want to care about anyone?"

He shook his head. "It's not that."

Sheridan thought about the emotional scar left by his mother's cold andcallous behavior and how it might have affected him. The answer seemed clear."Ye don't trust women, do ye?"

Nicholas shifted uneasily, averting his gaze to Narcissus. "Some, perhaps."

He shrugged. "It's not important."

" Tis important to me."

He closed himself off to her then, shutting down as he always did when thehurt skimmed too near the surface. "I have to put Narcissus back in hisstall."

Sheridan faltered, knowing she had gleaned more insight in the past fewminutes than she had since meeting Nicholas. She should let it rest. But shecouldn't.

"What did ye mean by 'some' women?"

Nicholas wouldn't look at her. He took the halter off Narcissus, checkedthe hay and water, and turned to leave the stall.

Sheridan blocked his path. She knew he could bowl her over like a reed ofgrass, yet she held firm.

He sighed heavily. "Let it go, Danny. You don't want to hear the truth."

She sidestepped as he tried to move around her. "Don't ye tell me what I door don't want to hear. Tis a grown woman I am, with a mind of me own."

"You're too damned stubborn is what you are. You need to learn when to leta matter drop."

"And what ye need is a solid kick in the backside!"

A hint of a smile tugged at his lips. "And I imagine you are the one whowill administer said kick?"

"Aye, if I must."

He folded his arms across his chest. "I believe you very well might do it."

Sheridan matched him, folding her arms across her chest. "Just try me andye'll find out."

He studied her for a long moment, the look in his eyes warming her from hertoes up. Before she could savor the feeling, his gaze hooded and he movedaround her. "It's almost dawn. Why don't you get some sleep?"

He walked away, dismissing her, shutting her out again. The anger she'dheld at bay flooded her veins, a culmination of pain, frustration and love.

"For once, stand and fight! Ye can't be a coward all yer life!" As soon asthe words left her mouth, Sheridan regretted them.

Nicholas stopped abruptly. Seconds that seemed like hours ticked pastbefore he pivoted on his heel, facing her across the distance like two duelersat dawn.

His gaze narrowed, his jaw clenching. Sheridan cringed, sensing anexplosion, perhaps wanting one. But it was his softly spoken words that alwayspierced her heart the most.

"I'm sorry I don't fit your image of what a man should be."

"I didn't mean--"

A glance cut her off. "I guess there are things that can't be changed abouteither of us."

"Then we should learn to accept the things we can't change." Slowly,Sheridan moved toward him.

"Perhaps we're too different."

"Perhaps we're not different at all." She came to a stop in front of him.Hands shaking with a fine tremor, she reached for the top button of his shirt.He took hold of her wrists. "What are you doing?"

"Let me love you. Let me heal yer pain."

Those few words shattered Nicholas. No woman had ever offered such a thingor cared about the wounds he carried deep inside. Sheridan's submission movedhim in ways he couldn't define, bringing a bright ray of sunshine to a placelong since devoid of light.

Nicholas knew Jessica would never have done all this for him. She wouldn't have dirtied her hands for his horses. Until Sheridan careened into his life like a whirlwind, Nicholas hadn't realized how it could be between a man and a woman.

Now he saw with stunning clarity that although Jessica would have been awife and a mother, she wouldn't have been either in the true sense of theword. Not like Sheridan.

Tea parties and fripperies would come before him, and he imagined theywould take precedence over any children he and Jessica might have had.

How had he been so blind not to see the truth? Not to recognize that whatJessica lacked was heart and soul? Passion.

He had told Jules once he preferred a staid wife and a life devoid ofsurprises. He'd been a fool.

"Nicholas ..." Sheridan sweetly beseeched, rising on tiptoe, the press ofher lips bringing a searing rush of heat to his groin. He ached to make thiswoman his, only his. Now and forever.

She moved her hips against his arousal and he groaned, nearly comingundone. The uninterrupted hours in her presence, smelling her, watching her,wanting her had been a slow burning fire. Their argument had further ignitedthe flame. Now only urgent desire remained.

He snaked his arm around her back, locking them close together, his mouthslanting over hers, his body quickening, her soft moans driving him to thebrink.

He told himself to take it slow, not be a rutting animal. But he had tohave her. Here. Now.

He grasped her wrist and hastened toward a small room in the back of thestable where the tack was kept along with a cot for the stable boy. Nicholasthanked God he didn't have a stable boy at that moment. Jeremiah slept in thelower part of the house with the rest of the servants. He had Sheridan tohimself.

As soon as he was through the door, he hauled Sheridan hard against hischest, cupping her buttocks and lifting her feet from the floor.Instinctively, she wrapped her legs around his waist. He rocked her againsthis arousal while his tongue dueled with hers.

His breath rasped through his lungs as he tore his mouth from hers. "Undoyour blouse."

Her chest rose and fell enticingly, making him impatient. He very nearlygrabbed the material with his teeth and yanked.

At last, her breasts lay bare before him, the rosy-tipped nipples stiff andthrusting upward, begging for his touch.

Like a man denied sustenance, he took the tight peak between his lips,drawing it in time and again as the friction built between their bodies.

Finally, he could take no more. He walked them toward the cot but stopped,spotting a saddle draped across a low rack. He knew what he wanted to do.

Sheridan gasped as he turned her around, jerked up her skirt and her thinlawn chemise, pressing her forward, over the saddle, exposing her legs andbuttocks.

Nicholas ran his hand over one smooth globe. Perfection. He skimmed hisfingers down her outer thigh, enjoying the supple, firm flesh.

"Spread your legs for me, love," he murmured, his voice a husky rumble.

Sheridan shivered in anticipation as she did what Nicholas bid. She neededhim inside her, bringing them together in the one way that was always right,where no harsh words or angry regret existed. The one pure bond between them.

Sheridan whimpered as his finger slid between her moist, swollen folds andfound the pearl of her womanhood, stroking her.

"So wet. You're ready for me."

Her head dropped forward, her hair wrapping her in a cocoon of darkness,the world swept away.

Nicholas's finger slid inside her. His groan mingled with hers. The buttonson his riding breeches popped open one by one, the small noise inflaming her,setting her blood to racing.

Pleasure arced through her, her stomach tightening, the fever his fingerscreated climbing higher and higher until pressure escalated inside her. Wordstumbled from her mouth, incoherent and passion-induced, as a shattering climaxripped through her. Sweet fire coursed through her in mind-numbing waves.

"Good sweet God," Nicholas rasped. "I have to have you." His warm, largehands gripped her waist as his manhood surged into her, his heavy, throbbing shaft filling her, his groin pressing hard against her bottom. He plunged intoher again and slowly withdrew, but not all the way, teasing her, making herwant to scream for surcease.

He must have sensed the desperation in her because he drove into her hard,his tempo increasing until he rode her fast and fierce, pumping away.

Sheridan arched her hips upward, pulling him further inside, his scorchingheat sluicing through her, the ecstasy cresting again until he plunged intoher one last time, his muscles going rigid with his release, mingling with hersoul-shattering climax.

With care, he adjusted her skirts and turned her to face him. Gently, hebrushed her hair to the side and bent forward to press the sweetest of kissesto her lips. Sheridan's knees felt weak, and the strength-draining expense ofher release made her body languid--but oh, how she wanted him again and again,to put aside their differences, the strain.

"You look tired," he murmured. "Why don't you lie down on the cot for a fewminutes?"

The idea sounded delicious. Her pregnancy had sapped some of her usualhearty strength. "Only if ye'll lie with me."

His boyish smile made her insides quiver. "I thought you'd never ask."

He led her toward the cot and laid down, his back pressed against the wall.He patted the spot next to him.

A poignant rush of emotions washed over Sheridan, the memory of the firsttime she'd lain with this man, the spell his fingers had woven over her, thepure magic of his touch, entwining their bodies as surely as their souls.

Sheridan lay down, her back pressed snugly to Nicholas's chest, one thoughtfilling her head as her eyes slowly drifted shut.

Her baby. His baby. He had to know.

"Wake up, Danny," a soft, deep voice murmured, a hand lightly shaking hershoulder.

Sheridan swatted the hand away, not wanting her beautiful dream to beinterrupted.

She lay naked on a huge four-poster bed. Sheer panels of white envelopedher. A white satin coverlet caressed her heated skin. The panels separated atthe end of the bed and there stood a bronzed god. Muscles chiseled his leantorso and bulged in his huge arms. Her gaze drifted down to the long silkylength of him, telling her what he'd come for.

Sheridan writhed on the coverlet as he knelt between her thighs, hishandsome face coming closer, his big body encompassing her.

Nicholas, she breathed.

He opened his mouth to speak, to utter something that reflected the emotionin his eyes, but his image slowly began to fade. Sheridan reached for him, buther fingers groped the air. He was gone.

No!

"Wake up, Danny," the voice came again, this time more insistent. "Weoverslept. People will be looking for us."

Finally, the words registered in her brain. She lay in the cot in thestables, where anyone could have seen them together.

Sheridan sat bolt upright and collided with Nicholas's solid frame. "Och,I'm sorry."

He smiled that tender smile. "I'm not." Then he kissed her, softly,reverently, and all too quickly. "Come on, let's go." He stood up and held outhis hand for her.

Sheridan smiled in return, but the smile slipped from her face as thenausea boiled up inside her. Oh, how could she have forgotten the sickness sheexperienced every morning, the weak limbs and dizzy head?

Please God, she begged, not now! I know I should have told Nicholas aboutour baby, but I don't want him finding out like this!

"Danny?" She could hear the concern in Nicholas's voice, penetrating thefog enshrouding her brain. She shot from the bed, praying she could make it to the house even as she knew she wouldn't.

As soon as she stood upright, her head began to swim and the world faded toblack.

Sheridan awoke to strong arms cradling her, her cheek pressed against thesoft cotton of Nicholas's shirt, a hint of his musky cologne tickling hernostrils.

"Are you all right?"

She glanced up to find troubled green eyes intent on her face. "Fine," shemurmured.

"God, you had me worried."