The lamb bleated. "She's hungry," Jace said.

"I planned to make a bottle." He felt big, clumsy beside Jace and remembered a time it didn't matter.

"Did her mother die?" she asked.

Gabriel took the lamb like a shield. "She's a twin and a runt." He stroked its neck and the mite closed its eyes in ecstasy.

Jacey watched transfixed, yearning in her emerald eyes. Seeing it, he might once have lowered her to the grass and- The fire snapped. They stepped back, released by the sound.

"I'll fix a bottle-"

"I'll get you a bot-"

They spoke together, stopped together.

Gabe set the lamb on its wobbly legs and fetched the supplies Jace would need to feed it then he headed out to get their bags, Suttie beside him.

Three.

Jacey watched him go and released her breath, a victim of the soul-deep longing that led to her downfall. Five years and she hadn't come to terms with it. Getting herself with child, without a husband, she'd disgraced her mother, a true Lady of the Manor.

After her babe's birth and death, she got a job at Briarhaven School, Essex, England, where she lived, taught needlework, and hid from the past.

Surprisingly, she came back to life, found her self-respect, and with the help of Suttie's letters, knew that before she could have a future, she must face her past.

Yesterday, Suttie had come for her. She'd set boldly forth to face the world she left behind, and ended trembling in a vicarage kitchen.

To calm herself, she warmed a pan of milk and rinsed a lambing bottle. She couldn't leave; she'd come for Gabriel's step-daughter, her motherless niece, who slept upstairs, the child she planned to take and raise. Only Gabriel stood between her and success.

Some things never changed.

Jacey sat by the hearth, coaxing the lamb into her lap by making use of its grip on the nipple.

First, she'd have to face a condemning village, Gabriel among them, a flock who considered him a saint and her a sinner. But he was human. Flawed. Jacey knew better than anyone.

Oddly enough, she'd forgiven him, but not herself.

Four.

In the kitchen after bringing Suttie and her bags upstairs, Gabe stopped at the sight of Jace, while his old enemy, lust, returned for just looking at her.

He backed away and sat at the round old table, with its scarred slab top and legs big as tree trunks, not sure what to do with his hands.

"Where's Suttie?" Jace asked, her voice a wobbling croak.

"Fell asleep while I showed her the room. I threw a blanket over her. Is she getting old, our Suttie?"

"She certainly doesn't look it. More stubborn than anything, I think. We shouldn't have arrived so late, but Suttie insisted on driving through. I'm glad we didn't wake you."

Gabriel quit the table and dropped down beside Jace to stroke the drowsing lamb's lanolin-soft wool. Instantly, he saw his mistake. Too close, he thought. Oh, God, Jacey.

The mite roused at his attention and suckled as if it hadn't eaten in a week, until it pulled on air-bubbles, and Jace tried to wrest the empty bottle from its grip. When Jace won, his hand slipped and grazed her breast.

He froze at the contact, their gazes locked, a primitive energy rising hot and thick between them an intangible yet undeniable force, savage in its intensity.

Jace bit her lip, drew blood. Did her body betray her as much as his? Gabriel lost his breath to lust, molten and heavy. He'd controlled passion for years, with his wife's staunch approval after their sorry wedding night. But a minute in Jace's company, and passion, like Lazarus, rose from the dead.

Trapped. By weakness. His strength lay in denying passion a hard-won lesson. But around Jacey, desire overcame determination, and strength became a wisp of smoke where once burned a zealot's fire.

Jacey. Jace. Home. His Jace.

No, and again, no.

She'd made him call her Lady Lockhart when he wanted to call her Jace, like the rest of her friends did, except for the day he came home a new-minted vicar, when he finally called her his.

Once again, he felt like that runny-nosed boy with torn clothes and dirty nails. Why, when his clothes were new, his home comfortable and clean, elegant even? Why, when Jace's grey dress, mended and pressed to a pauper's shine, must once have been blue?

Trapped. By passion. By Jacey. Gabriel wanted to swear, to rage, to pull her into his arms and kiss her until she gave passion back, as Jacey surely could. If only he wasn't the only man who'd experienced her passion.

Gabriel crossed the kitchen to get as far from captivation as possible. He couldn't be near without taking her in his arms, any more than he could bear the reminder of her betrayal, and his foolishness.

"I'm looking forward to time with my niece," she said, her rush of words pulling him from pain but shivering him to his bones. He gazed at her, looking for no greater significance than her words betrayed. "You mean, my daughter," he said, foolishly desperate to stake his claim.

Jacey rose with the lamb in her arms. "Step-daughter," she corrected. "I hope she remembers her real father."

He'd face any and all demons, real or imagined, for Bridget. "Her father died before her birth. Her mother and I married before she turned two. I'm the only father she knows."

"I'm her aunt, kin by blood."

"Blood, as we know, does not always tell."

Jace stepped back under the weight of his verbal blow.

His barb, born of self-preservation, hurt him as much as it did her.

Ashamed of his callous words, he claimed the lamb, but couldn't calm. He wanted to take Jace into his arms, soothe her, and he wished to the devil he didn't bloody well care how Jacey Lockhart felt. "I'll show you to your room."

Preoccupied by his demons, Gabriel took the stairs first, realized he should have let a lady precede him, though this lady had been disowned, her title stripped, if only in word, by her own mother.

Then, again as she had often reminded him neither was he a gentleman.

He stopped to let her pass.

Five.

Jacey leaned against the bedroom door. "No more tears," she whispered. "Look forward not back."

She squared her shoulders and saw a familiar silver dresser set, her sister Clara's hair things. Jacey covered her heart. Gabriel had given her his dead wife's room.

Jace traced the engraved initials on the hairbrush twice before she sought with her gaze the connecting door to Gabriel's bedroom.

Hope flared, but she squashed it. His choice of room meant nothing. This had been her sister's bedroom, after all.

Gabriel had been unbending and unforgiving, proof he didn't want her here. He acted the way he did the day she convinced him that her child ... the day she lost him forever.

"Forever," she repeated, for her own sake. He'd also been Gabriel, more devilishly handsome than any man of the cloth any man had a right to be. He could never be hers, because to save him, she'd destroyed him.

Tired of regrets, Jacey sat on the edge of the old four-poster, stroked the faded coverlet on which Gabriel's mother had stitched primroses, when she was seven and wished the woman was her mother, too.

Only society could claim her own mother. For hugs, Jacey came to Kirk Cottage, more a home than Lockhart Keep, the ancient stone fortress on the hill. Gabriel had been the boy she made bow and scrape for fun. Back then, he did anything she asked.

Jacey wasn't sure when her disdain for the scabby-kneed peasant turned to something more. She remembered that after he'd come home a new-minted parson, life was bliss. Then it was hell.

She rose and worked her shoulders before putting on her nightdress. She'd aged, too, she saw in the mirror, but she'd not yet reached Gabriel's advanced age of thirty.

Life goes on, she thought. It can be good, or not, depending on what we make it. Tomorrow she'd meet her niece, and eventually she'd give the child a happy life, for Clara's sake.

Jacey took the note Suttie sent her from her bag, and read it, again: Suttie, I need your help. My step-daughter is sullen and sad. Since her mother died, she rarely speaks, never laughs. A man like me, alone with a daughter to raise; it's killing me not knowing what to do for her. You made me smile when I was young and sad. You always knew how. Come with your puppets? A motherless four-year-old who never laughs; how can you resist? Come soon, my friend. Your Faithful Servant, Gabriel Macgregor.

He wanted Suttie but hadn't expected his past to come with her.

Jacey didn't want Bridget sad and unhappy. When she read the letter, she knew she had to come, lay old ghosts to rest, and get on with raising Bridget for Clara.

Behind the humble village cleric hid a stubborn, hard-headed and arrogant man, who would, in fact, be shocked to his black stockings to hear it. She imagined he could be difficult for a wee girl to live with.

In the note, Jace saw his plea, not only for the child, but the writer. He didn't know he'd asked for help, but Suttie did, and so did she.

Six.

Thinking she should look in on Bridget, she threw on her old wrap, still tying it when she hit the hall, and headed towards the spare room, but stopped. Another door stood ajar, wide enough for her to see Gabriel bent over a wee figure settling her in for sleep. Jacey's heart cried out to see and meet her niece, but she'd wait for the child's sake.

Gabriel tucked Bridget in, whispered a word, kissed her wee head. When he straightened, Jacey read concern in an expression as clear and open as it had once been for her.

He saw her and tried to mask his emotions but failed. Rounding the bed, he came out into the hall, while Jacey stood rooted, knees weak. She had never been more aware of Gabriel as a man of the cloth as when his pastoral attire revealed so much of the flesh and blood man beneath.

He had discarded his black frockcoat, unbuttoned his waistcoat, the top buttons of his shirt, and tucked his snow-white cleric's collar into his pocket. His shirtsleeves, rolled to his elbows, left his muscular forearms bare. God strengthen her weak knees.

Bridget's door shut with a soft click, snapping her gaze to Gabriel.

Stepping before her, he raised a finger to trace a path down her cheek, his look penetrating. "Tear trails," he whispered, brows furrowed with regret. Jings, she should have wiped her face.

Isolation enveloped her, as if they were alone in the universe. She yearned to sleek her hands along his forearms the hair soft as silk, her fingertips seemed to remember.

Gabriel grasped her lapels, stroked them up and down, while prickling waves of awareness reached the furthest depths of her being. Despite an inner caution, she allowed herself, for the first time since her return, to devour the flesh and blood vicar with her gaze.

His hair feathered away from his face, except for a curl on his brow. She swept the undisciplined strand aside.

His eyes closed, in ecstasy or pain, and she whisked her hand back, but he caught and placed it against his tripping heart.

His dark brows and deep-set eyes formed a perpetual scowl, a sternness denied by his heartbeat, though he didn't smile.

The rare times he did, the sun grew bright in the sky.

He kept her hand and moved close, his warmth and scent, tobacco and cloves, raised her to a place where memories lived, gold and good, and she welcomed him with all her heart.

"Jace," he breathed, his lips a whisper away.

She squeaked and found herself watching from the entry to her room.

He stood alone in the centre of the hall, wounded.

Jacey shut her door, having taken a painful step in exorcising her demons. So why did she feel like weeping?

Afraid she loved him still, that her body would react, even if her mind knew the danger, she should leave, but she and Bridget should get to know each other in a familiar setting.

No, she'd be strong where Gabriel was concerned. Soon enough, he'd remember he despised her and why. Better it should happen when she expected it.

She almost wished he expected the blow she'd deal him. But he'd said Bridget was unhappy in his letter. Who wouldn't be with a broody stepfather?

The child would be better off with an aunt who embraced joy. Oh, Gabe cared about her. It'd be easier to take Bridget, if he didn't. He begged help for his child and she came to claim that child.

There'd be no running. For Bridget, she'd have to stay, and if her instincts proved right, she'd go to the magistrate and claim her niece.

Regret and conviction battled in her mind until dawn.