She focused on his cassock and wondered what he wore beneath it.

His sigh, heavy with regret, made her look up. "I wanted you gone, Jace, because of ignorant, callous fools who judge. You lost your child; you didn't need to be flogged with words."

"You wanted me gone, Gabriel Macgregor," she snapped. "Because you didn't want anyone to know your truth."

Suttie blew them each a kiss. "Take the wagon."

Jace heard the lock click open.

Seventeen.

Panic and Passion seemed to meld inside Gabriel, as if he were fighting for his life. "Jace, please," he begged. "There's too much between us to be torn apart by spiteful words."

"Your spiteful words, evidently."

She fought him, so he swept her up, set her in Suttie's wagon, and locked the door. Ignoring her threat of castration, he climbed on the box and flicked the reins.

The window behind him opened before they cleared the drive. "You'll go to hell for this, vicar."

"Without ballocks, I take it." He laughed, and passed the kirk, and inside, he saw Jace at the side window waving at the slack-jawed Prouts.

Gabe urged the horses faster while the clouds spilled over.

The rain sliding down his neck made him reconsider. Turn back? Keep going? In other words: "Give up and die?" or "Fight for his life?"

He'd never got Jace out of his blood. She lived in every drop that pumped his heart. Forget the past, he needed her as much as his next breath. He loved her more than life, God help him.

Jacey failed to break the lock. Rain poured from troughs not buckets. The idiot must be soaked.

For the second time, she threw open the window behind him. "Blast it, Gabriel, stop and get out of the rain."

He didn't turn his head, but ... "How can you laugh? So help me, when I get my hands on you, I'm going to beat you."

"I'll hold you to that."

She shut the window as hard as she dared.

Who knew Gabe was so impulsive he'd steal a sinner before his flock?

Jace stopped. Gabriel Macgregor had never been impulsive in his life, except the day he came home from the seminary.

She curled up in Suttie's bed.

Their favourite haunt, hers and Gabriel's, had been the ruins of Lockhart Keep, where their daughter was conceived.

After her mother sent her away, she dreamed he'd come for her, sweep her off her feet and take her home. Could this be the day?

When pigs flew above the rainclouds.

Gabe should have known she'd give him up before she caused him to give up his dream to repair his father's failures and breathe new life into his home and parish.

Look at him, posture rigid, no hat or coat, defying the elements to get his way. Stubborn. Dear. Travelling a road as turbulent and deep as the man mocking it.

"Gabriel," she called, and he looked back, surprised, to see her.

"Self-punishment won't help. Take me home."

The horses faltered on the flooded road, and when Jacey thought he had them under control, lightning struck nearby.

They bolted, tearing the reins from Gabe's hands as they raced towards the trees.

Gabriel fought to keep his seat and shouted for her to get back.

She did, and watched him climb over the seat and through the window. He'd barely cleared the window when Jace saw the horses choose opposite sides of an ancient oak.

The wagon hit, a limb pushing through the window, shattering glass, splintering wood.

Gabriel swore and landed on top of her.

Books flew from a railed shelf, hitting him, head and shoulders.

The wagon teetered once, twice, three shuddering times, then it settled, with a huge creaking groan, nearly upright, impaled by a tree.

Eighteen.

Gabe's heart and breathing slowed, and though freezing wet, he appreciated his mattress, and enjoyed it for one delectable beat before raising his aching head and staring into her wide, emerald eyes.

Shafts of white-hot current shot between them, as if each were the opposite poles of the same lightening bolt.

She must feel his physical reaction, and given her lowered lids, she answered its call. "You're ... wet," she said, licking rain from her lips.

"As are you." The timbre of his voice surprised him. Afraid to crush her, Gabriel rolled to her side, his erection prodding her thigh as he kissed the rain from her lips.

A salty kiss. Tears, not rain.

He sat up. "Are you hurt?" He ran his hands over her, feeling for breaks.

Jacey shot to her feet with no escape. The entire wagon would fit in the vicarage entry, but it was homey, warm and dry, unlike them, except where the impaling branch dripped rain.

She stood as far from him as she could.

Only one thing to do. He peeled away his cold, soaking vestments.

"What are you doing? You're a vicar for God's sake."

"But a man for my own sake, the way you first knew me."

"A boy. I knew you as a boy first."

"An urchin, you mean. I despised that boy."

"Because he wasn't perfect, but humanity is allowed."

"Right." He unbuttoned his shirt.

She backed into the branch and it sprinkled them with rain. "Look what you've brought us to," she snapped. "You can't make me believe you cast me out other than to save your sorry self from being exposed as having been ... ensnared ... in my wanton web. You-"

"Jace, you're babbling."

"I wanted you gone for your own good! Prout would have had you stoned in all but fact if you stayed."

"Don't be disrespectful of your mother-in-law." Jace lit a candle against the drear.

"There'll be a frost fair in hell before I marry the harpy's whelp." Gabriel discarded his wet shirt. "We both know I'm as human, and a damned sight more imperfect than you. Nobody's humanity calls to mine more than yours, Jacey Lockhart, soon to be Macgregor, after this day's work."

"Nothing happened to-"

"That won't matter." He unbuttoned his trousers.

She found no place to run, so he advanced, giving her less. "If we removed your crinolines, we'd have more room."

She thought about that, exhilarated as Gabriel knelt and lifted the hem of her gown. He undid the tapes at her waist, his arms warm and soaking through at her belly. Her crinoline fell over his head.

Jacey pulled it up, allowing him to continue, her face warm.

He looked at her, eyes dancing, hair askew, and her heart fluttered while her underskirts fell, forming smaller and smaller circles.

Gabriel stroked the front of her cotton drawers, rushing warmth to her core, rested his cheek there before he turned, opened his mouth against her, and whispered her name like a prayer.

She gasped, combed her hands through his hair, and held him there.

He slid his cool hands along the backs of her thighs, up beneath her drawers, to cup her bare bottom, then he splayed them to stroke and tease where she ached for him.

Jacey released a shuddering sigh, and Gabriel stood and opened his mouth over hers. Ravenous, he swallowed her sighs, and became as much a part of her as the night she conceived their child.

He lightly stroked her as he undid the buttons at her bodice, freed her arms from her sleeves, and she had no strength to resist.

"That's my sweet Jace," he whispered as he slid her dress down, palms skimming skin, until he cleared her hips and that garment joined the rest.

He took her hand and she stepped over her clothes, to face her lover. Her camisole came up and over her head.

In corset, chemisette and stockings, Jacey wished they were silk and lace, not serviceable cotton, yet Gabriel regarded her with hunger.

She'd dreamed of this for years, because she loved this dignified, handsome, stubborn, broody man more than her life.

She wouldn't change this time together, despite the inevitable pain.

Nineteen.

Gabriel unlaced her corset and slipped his hands inside from the back to cup her breasts.

Jacey leaned against him as he rubbed her nipples, whispered his adoration, his breath and lips warm along her neck and shoulders.

Potent points of pleasure coursed through her. Her happiness soared, her womanhood flowered.

Gabe did away with the corset, and lifted a breast to suckle through her chemisette while he reacquainted himself with the heat of her beneath her drawers. Then, they, too, were gone, and Jacey stood naked before the man she loved.

She disposed of his trousers in a thrumming beat and found a new item of male attire. Underbreeches. She circled him, to get a good look.

Sliding her hand across the front, loving her ability to make his eager member pulsate, she found a slit in the garment, enough to accommodate her hand.

He gasped when she found him, rigid and thick, then she did away with the underbreeches and cupped his ballocks while she worked him.

She made him groan, and beg, and buck, and plead for her to stop, but more, and hurry and, "Wait!"

He set her on the bed and ravaged her mouth. Hard to her soft, cool to her hot, he dipped where she curved, arched where she plunged, fitting deliciously and perfectly well.

"Gabriel. You feel so good, this is good; it's right and-"

"Just kisses," he said. "Kisses and touches enough for pleasure. Nothing that causes babies."

"You're mistaken if you think only dark passion causes babies."

"Shut up, Jace, and kiss me."

Just touching brought wild pleasure when touching just so, in just the right places, and with the right person and rhythm. Tongues touching, dancing, mating. Hands, legs, mouths every where.

She learned a new form of pleasure without mating. Yet something seemed missing, something sad and poignant, disappointing, like sliding down a snow-slick hill, not quite fast enough. Despite that, pleasure grew, burst and set them free.

Like two spoons in the wee bed, they slept, until Jace woke and examined his man parts in the soft light of dawn, along and around, up and down, rolling her finger around his moist tip.