Jacey's head swam, her body ached. Her kiss was meant to drive him wild.

He sought closer contact and revealed his arousal, caressing the sides of her breasts, nearing the place she ached.

Her soul rejoiced; her body wept for more.

"Papa? Myjacey?" Bridget's voice penetrated the sensual fog, and they jumped apart so fast, Jacey hit her head on the window.

"Cricket," Gabriel said, clearing his throat.

"How do you feel, sweetheart?" Jacey asked.

"I'm thirsty. Hungry too."

"I've heard this song before," Gabe said.

Jacey put Bridget's slippers on her. "Her stomach is empty. Perhaps a piece of toast to nibble on?"

"As long as I get more of what I was nibbling on."

Fourteen.

Jacey brought Bridget down for toast, but she fell asleep, half a slice in her hand.

Gabriel rose to take his daughter from her arms, his proximity sending skittering spirals of need to every nerve in her body. "Stay," he said.

Jacey wrapped her arms around herself, chilled, bereft, glad Bridget had woken when she did. This was too fast, and between them: questions, lies, doubt, uncertainty, pain hers, his.

"We need to talk," Gabriel said from the bottom of the stairs, hands buried in his dressing gown pockets. He never looked so much like that fallen angel, but now she wished he'd spread his wings and take her in.

"What should we talk about?" she asked.

"Everything."

Ah. There it was. "You're right." She placed a chunk of cheese and a knife beside the bread on the table and put on a pot of tea. "Where do you want to begin?"

He cut off a chunk of cheese and broke it in half.

She accepted the half he held out to her. As she took it, she knew, wherever life took her, she'd never be more "home" or more complete than at this moment, with him. "Your choice."

"Why is Nick back from America at the same time you've come home?"

"Coincidence?"

"I won't have him under my roof again." Gabe stood. "I'm sorry. That wasn't necessary, but you broke me, Jace."

She watched him climb the stairs, tired and beaten.

Aye, she broke him. She knew it when she did. Otherwise, she would have snuffed the dignity and self-respect he craved, before he got it.

Besides, after losing him, then losing her daughter damn it, she'd been broken, too. In her room, the connecting door might have been painted with the word "temptation".

Telling him the truth played on her mind, but why? To prove herself a liar? So he'd confess and lose his flock's respect?

If he believed her, he'd know he was the only man she loved, but nothing mattered now, except Bridget.

Jacey placed her hand against the connecting door. He'd paced for some time, but all seemed quiet now. She turned the knob.

A lamp beside his bed bathed the room in a soft glow. Gabriel sat up, naked to his waist, baring a solid wall of flesh and muscle. Aye, she'd once run her fingers through the mat of dark silk, but she hadn't seen it.

He looked so anguished, Jacey turned to go.

"Jace." A plea she couldn't deny. Then she was in his arms, in his bed, and he was ravishing her mouth.

Her clothes fell away under his seeking hands.

Not yet, her rational mind warned, not with things unsaid. But her body carried a demand of its own, and Jacey couldn't speak or think; she could only feel.

The hair on his chest abraded and caressed, as did his day's growth of beard against her face and breasts, inciting new heat to build on the rest. He kissed and suckled, ravenous, greedy and ready, fulfilling four years of lonely dreams.

Fifteen.

He knew his strength lay in denying passion, but Jacey filled his senses, her taste, her scent, her feel. She arched against him, whispered his name. Hearing it on her lips made him hard. Jacey, softer than silk, warmer than sunshine, his other half.

He cupped her bottom, and gazed into passion-bright eyes. She was his, only his ... and Nicholas Daventry's.

Like a winter flood, the thought washed over him. He groaned and fell against his pillows.

Jacey whimpered, bereft, and he pulled her tight against him, to console them both. If he didn't get hold of himself, he'd weep with her.

"Passion," he said, voice rusty, "almost killed me the last time, Jace." He held her away from him, to see her face and for needed distance. "After you left once I wanted to live again I learned to control it."

"No, Gabe. Not that."

"When I thought the babe was mine hell, getting you and a child was like a reward. Who cared if I lost my living, I would have you. But when you said it wasn't mine ..." He cleared his throat. "Learning to control my passion was difficult. Until today, I thought I succeeded. I hate its wild unpredictability. Yet when you're around, my passion has power. You have power."

"Gabriel, you act as if it was all your fault. There were two of us in Lockhart Keep. I experienced a love bright and beautiful, as might have happened tonight."

He laughed, bitterly. "You might not frighten easily, Jace, but it frightened your sister."

"Clara?"

"I frightened her so much, she wept on our wedding night."

"Clara was afraid of everything."

"Don't talk ill of the dead. She loved you. When she was sick, she-"

Jacey stilled. "Clara did what?"

"She said she'd never forgive me if I didn't fetch you after she was gone."

"But you didn't."

"One year. I had three months to go. I was counting days, but I didn't know if I would." He stroked her cheek. He'd never felt like this about Clara. "We'll never know. You came to me."

"I came for Bridget, to take her away and raise her myself."

He sat up, his back straight, hair in disarray. "I wouldn't let you."

"You're her stepfather, Gabriel, no relation at all."

He rounded on her. "I swear, Jace, if I were her real father, I'd disappear with her so you'd never find her."

Jace tugged the sheet around her unable to hide her panic. "You're a good and decent man, Gabriel. You'll do what's best for her, as will I. We simply have to figure out which of us is best."

"She's mine. I know what's best for her," he shouted.

"You don't. She plays you like one of Suttie's puppets, like I used to do, which makes you sick with worry. She couldn't control losing her mother, so she tries to ... buttonhole you. Losing her mother must have given her the sense she couldn't keep anyone where she wanted them. When I was a child, I counted on two people. One of them was you at my heels, or wherever I wanted you.

"Bridget is holding you by an invisible tether call it love pulling you this way and that. Just watch her. You can practically see her consider in which direction she'll tug. You've had her two years, but you haven't figured her out yet."

"Don't pretend to know my daughter." Gabriel donned his dressing gown, tying it with a vicious yank.

He looked at her and his ire vanished on the instant. "Jace, I cannot stay angry with you in my bed, a sheet between my mouth and your body, your hair a veil I want wrapped around me."

Sixteen.

Jacey responded physically to his words. Aware of her power, she raised her hands above her head to stretch like a cat. "I like your passion." She didn't want him to deny passion.

He waivered in his resolve. "My passion becomes wild, almost savage, but only with you."

"You said you were passionate with Clara." Not for the first time, jealousy of her sister beat in her breast.

Gabriel went to gaze out on the night. "I wanted with Clara what I'd had with you. It was impossible; she wasn't you. It never happened again."

Jacey sat straighter. "So you'll never be with a woman, again, never share your body?" With me, she wanted to add.

She held the sheet around her and went to the connecting door.

"Jace, who else did you count on as a child, besides me?"

She looked straight at him. "Nick," she said pointedly. "To get me out of trouble." But Gabriel didn't get it.

She'd destroyed their love. In her own bed, she wept. Telling him Nick got her out of trouble was as close as she dared get to telling Gabe the truth.

Her decision to lie about her child's father hardened him, not his passion, and she felt powerless against fixing it. She saved him when he didn't want saving. If he knew, she felt he would never forgive her. The rift between them couldn't be repaired.

An hour before Sunday service, Jacey took Bridget to visit her baby's grave. "Baby Girl Lockhart,'' the stone said, the date of birth and death the same. They left bouquets of heather and thistle.

Bridget traced the chiselled numbers with her fingers. "I know these numbers. Mama wrote them in her special book."

She hugged Bridget and swallowed. "It was nice of your Mama to record it. My Mama didn't."

In the front pew, Mac leaned towards her. "Pray hard, young lady," she whispered. "I found your missing slipper."

Jacey frowned. "So?"

"Found it changing his bed." She pointed to Gabriel at the pulpit.

His sermon, eloquent and magnetic, like him, bore a lesson. He even looked devilishly handsome in a cassock.

She loved him as much as ever, adored him, wanted a future with him, please God. She'd confess, if only he'd forgive On the kirk steps, Prout pushed Olivia at him. "I told Livvy I'd pay for the new kirk as soon as the vicarage is cleaned out so Liv can decorate. After all, everything's set, except for the ring on her finger."

Jacey gasped and Mac hurried Bridget away.

"Given the company you keep," Prout warned, "donations may dry up."

Gabe frowned. "My Lady, may I remind you that charity is a virtue."

Prout gave her a highbrow snub. "I don't know why you persist in keeping such company, when you insisted, for decency's sake, that she leave in the first place."

Jace walked "Jacey, Jace," Gabriel called, right behind her.

She ran from her port in a storm, because he her sent her away.

The gypsy wagon sat near the stables, horses hitched, Suttie beside them. "Suttie, please take me away."

"Ah, Jace." Suttie lifted her chin. "If you went, what would we tell the wee one with her nose pressed to the window?"

Gabriel grasped her shoulders. "Jace, look at me."