Kissingate, Scotland, 1846

One

Jacey Lockhart, hidden in the midnight shadows, fixed her hungry gaze on Gabriel Macgregor, the most formidable of the ghosts she had come home to face.

Gabriel the guarded – named for the bright angel, when he should have been named for the dark – lowered his head to avoid an old oak barn beam, the hint of a smile in his eyes … until he saw her.

The knave stepped back, stretched to his full towering height, and squared his shoulders to a stunning span – Lucifer, face carved in unforgiving angles.

Despite her resolve, Jacey wanted to catch the next train back to Essex, though she couldn’t seem to move.

Here stood the father of her child, and firm between them, the lie she told denying it. In one stroke, she’d saved and destroyed him.

A horse shuffled in its stall, freeing hay musk into the air, breaking the silence, hazing the past, and allowing her to breathe.

As forbidding as her nemesis appeared in lantern light, dressed entirely in black, the tiny white lamb tucked into his frockcoat humanized him, the contrast bringing his cleric’s collar into conspicuous relief. A rogue’s heart, a vicar’s trappings, and no one seemed to know, save her.

His face, lined and bronzed by age and parish responsibility, gave him a mature, patrician air. His hair, a tumble of sooty waves, thick and lush, showed grey at the temples. No ghost, but the bane of her existence in the flesh, more vitally masculine than ever.

He’d always been proud, even when they were children – he, a poor vicar’s son, she, the heir to a fortune. But she’d reversed their roles. Now, a disinherited outcast, she stood, once again, before the boy who adored her, then hated her, with all his heart. “Gabriel,” she said, wishing her voice didn’t tremble and her body didn’t remember.

Two

Gabriel wondered if the sum and substance of all his dreams, good and bad, could hear his stone cold heart knocking against his ribs. “Jace,” he said, his rasp awkward.

He cleared his throat, but Suttie stepped up and kissed him on the cheek. Suttie, the ageless puppeteer whose gypsy wagon they’d once chased giggling down the High Street. “Welcome, both of you,” Gabe said, his voice working, again, hope suddenly alive.

Suttie beamed. “I see you found the surprise I brought.”

Found her? He thought. He couldn’t take his eyes off her.

“Aye, Gabriel, I’ve come home. I’ll stay in Suttie’s wagon.”

Gabe’s chest ached for hiding his joy. “You’ll both stay at Kirk Cottage. No argument, now.”

Suttie beamed; Jacey looked terrified.

“Please, Lady Lockhart?” Gabe begged in the way Jace once commanded, for a piece of butterscotch pie, but the words evoked her fall from grace. “I apologise,” he said. “That was thoughtless.”

“Aye, it was.” Jace turned to Suttie. “Can I stay in your gypsy wagon? I’ll take the morning train back. I shouldn’t have come.”

Gabriel gave the lamb to Suttie, placed his hand against Jacey’s back to propel her towards the vicarage, her body heat curling like a spiral around his icy heart.

Inside, she stepped from his touch. “I won’t stay. I cannot.”

If she left again, she’d never come back. The thought of losing her forever cut deep. Gabe turned to build up the fire in the hearth to chase away the damp, warm the lamb, and gather his wits.

Jacey, here, in his house, where he pictured her nearly every day.

His Jacey. As beautiful as ever. More.

No, not his. Never again. That was past.

He was a vicar now, in control, unemotional, his passion a vice overcome. Long-buried. Dead. He turned to his guests. “Mackenzie’s asleep, so I’ll ready your rooms.”

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:

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.

Seven

Gabriel didn’t sleep at all. He paced, brooded, and lusted for the woman on the other side of the connecting door.

“You’re up early,” Mackenzie said entering the kitchen, her grizzled hair at odd angles, as always of a morning. “Couldn’t sleep?”

Gabriel shook his head, neither denying or confirming her supposition. The old meddler could interpret his response however she chose.

“Difficult sermon to write?”

God, he hated Mackenzie’s prying. “I was up half the night delivering twin lambs to Lady Hamilton.”

“That ewe’s too old.”

“Tell her that.” Gabriel felt a smile forming, until he recalled the reason he’d paced. “Oh, and we have company, if you must know.”

“Well, ’course, I must, so I can make more boxty and scotch eggs. Drop scones too, I’d warrant. How many and who?”

“Suttie Scotney and Jacey Lockhart.”

The cast iron griddle hit the floor with a clatter. Mackenzie covered her cheeks, emotions marching across her features – fear, acceptance, then, oddly, relief. “’Bout time you two—”

Gabriel smacked the table with a hand. “No, by God!”

He startled the old bird into a screech.

“Mackenzie, forgive me.” He took her arm, led her to a chair, and fetched a cup of water.

Her Scot scowl grew fierce. “Good thing Bridget’s not up, or it’d take a month for her to look at you, again, after that outburst.”

Why it mattered so much, Gabriel didn’t know, but for the life of him, he’d get through to that wee bundle of bones with big eyes. “You’re right.”

“I’m always right,” Mackenzie said, climbing the back stairs.

Gabriel sat at the table and scrubbed his face with his palms, the lamb butting his thigh. He leaned down to scratch its head, starved, like a beggar, for a hint of Jace’s voice.

Jacey, getting dressed. Jace, in the hall in her night clothes, smoothing the hair from his brow. Jace with ruffles on her robe, pretty, like the first time he saw her in the Lockhart pew, in his father’s Kirk. A three-year-old with dark ringlets, like Bridget looked today. The family resemblance was uncanny. Although, praise be, his wee one didn’t resemble her aunt in temperament.

Back then, Jacey liked to work the vicar’s scruffy son the way Suttie worked her puppets. But Gabriel adored Jace and followed her everywhere. He would have kissed the hem of her gown, surprised she never commanded it. Lord, she’d been a tyrant.

Then everything changed. He went to seminary. Rare visits home, he saw the changes in her. A woman grown, her raven hair formed a striking contrast to alabaster skin kissed by roses. Gull-winged brows hovered over bright emerald eyes and high, perfect cheekbones. Jace’s smile could make poets weep.

Short conversations revealed the woman who replaced the brat to be beautiful inside and out. The day he came home, a scruff no more, he’d found her at their favourite haunt.

Perfection in a siren’s body, lush, ripe, Jacey’s smile illuminated her features, her arms opened to embrace him. And he was lost.

Drugged by her welcome, the opium of her skin, its taste and texture, he kissed her with a frightening passion.

Dark. Untamed. Forbidden.

The birds chattered, the heavens blessed them with sun, and in the ruins of Lockhart Keep, he gave his body, heart and soul, to the girl he’d loved his whole life.

Before three months passed, his love hardened his heart and sliced into his soul. His body wasn’t so good, either, for some time after, as he hadn’t cared to look after it.

Now she was back, tying him in knots, though she hadn’t been back a day. Only one other person annoyed him as much – Nick Daventry, the father of her child.

Five years, and Gabe still wanted to beat Nick senseless.

“No more passion,” he growled. It ruled him once and damned near finished him. He wouldn’t let it rule him again.

Jacey would have to go.

Eight

Jacey opened her bedroom door, and her dear old nanny enveloped her in strong, welcoming arms.

“Mackenzie, he called you,” Jacey said. “But I should have known. You, keeping house for the parson? You must want to beat his broody self ten times a day.”

Nanny Mac chuckled and wiped her eyes. “Your mother sent me to your sister and I stayed to help with the bairn. Two years later, we came home, and Clara married himself. I promised on her deathbed, I’d stay and care for Bridget.”

“How is Bridget, Mac? Will it be all right, do you think, to tell her who I am?”

Mac reared back, eyes wide.

“Too soon to mention I’m her mother’s sister? I’ll say I’m a friend, then.”

Mac captured her hands. “Tell Bridget you’re her aunt. Don’t know what I was thinking. She needs you. Me, I play Granny, but Cricket doesn’t know how to climb trees or run between raindrops. Those are your specialties.”

Jacey grinned. “Gabriel won’t like—”

“Himself likes nothing these days. But if anybody can snap him out of his sulks, it’s you, if only to try his patience.” Mac grinned. “Come sit with me while I make breakfast.”

After a terse good-morning, Gabriel said nothing more.

Jace liked catching up with Mac, who raised her and her sister, though she hesitated to mention Clara around Gabriel. Less than two years married to Clara, and he’s a widower. He must have loved her terribly, if his mood was any indication. Last night, she’d probably reminded him of Clara, and that’s why he’d been so tender.

They made eye contact at the sound of small feet on the kitchen stairs. Jacey’s heart nearly stopped at first sight of her niece.

Suttie dropped her fork.

The poppet on the stairs, watching her step, missed their surprise. Bridget’s thick, black wavy hair paled her skin to milk. Not beautiful but striking, though she needed colour in her cheeks, bows in her hair. Sunshine. Laughter.

She needed her aunt. They needed each other.

Eyes glistening, Mac grasped Bridget’s shoulders from behind and walked her over. “Look lovey, here is my Jacey, your mama’s sister come to stay.” Mac nodded above the child’s head, as if to say she’d made the connection; no wonder her tears.

When Bridget looked up and their eyes met for the first time, Jacey’s heart clenched, her soul mourned, and memory stirred. Shaken, but trying not to show it, she cupped Bridget’s chin. She looked like Clara, Jace supposed, though darker than both her parents, more like their father, actually, hers and Clara’s.

Bridget assessed her. “You look sad like me.”

Gabriel caught the teapot he’d nearly upended. “Good morning Cricket.” The soft smile he gave his step-daughter made him look younger.

Bridget turned her face into Mac’s apron.

Gabriel’s smile faded. Jacey reached out to him, but he turned a hostile look her way. He did not want to be consoled … by her.

Bridget tugged on her sleeve, reclaiming her attention.

“What is it, sweetheart?” Jacey asked.

“Your dress is old.”

Despite her embarrassment, Jacey felt a rush of love so intense and unexpected, she ached. “I know.”

Bridget stepped closer. She liked Myjacey. She talked soft and smelled of the flowers that grew in the water meadow, like Mama used to. Bridget liked that scent better than the petals in Mama’s trunk, locked in the fusty old attic. They made her sad, and cross.

She leaned against Myjacey’s soft body and shut her eyes to inhale the scent that almost made it seem as if …

“Mama,” Bridget said.

Mac released a strangled sob, Gabriel paled, and pinpricks attacked Jacey’s limbs.

Suttie brought the child over to kiss her head and raise her teacup. “To expected, and unexpected, ghosts.”

Jacey took Bridget on her lap, and the child settled against her.

Jacey finger combed the hair from her appraising eyes, stifling a rush of emotion. “Are you hungry, sweetie?”

“Cricket,” Bridget corrected.

“Cricket, then. What would you like for breakfast?”

“Boxty, please, with butter and sugar.”

“Mmm. Your Mama and I used to …” Jacey hesitated, but Gabriel, Mac, and Bridget, waited. “We liked boxty best with strawberry jam.”

Cricket looked towards Mac.

Hands on her hips, Mac harumphed. “I suppose you’ll be wanting strawberry jam, now?”

Bridget nodded, eyes wide. “Aye, please.”

To Jacey’s pleasure, Bridget refused to leave her lap to eat, so Jace pulled the plate over, despite Gabriel’s disapproval. She’d ached to hold a child since hers passed, and she wouldn’t relinquish her niece for anyone.

Ignoring Gabriel’s steely regard, Jacey kissed the top of her wee dark head.

Lack of appetite had naught to do with Bridget’s size, and the wee thing had perfected the art of ignoring her stepfather. She reminded Jacey of herself as a girl, trying to work Gabriel like Suttie did her puppets. Did Gabriel realize Bridget manipulated him?

“I take it you like boxty with jam?” Jacey asked.

The lamb butted Bridget’s leg, and she slid to the floor to pet the lamb. Ah, that’s what she’d wanted to hear, Bridget’s laugh.

Gabriel shot to his feet, and everyone looked up. He placed a kiss on his daughter’s head. “Have a nice day, Cricket. Jace, walk me outside, will you?”

Jacey stood though Bridget caught her hand. “I’ll be right back.”

Gabriel’s disapproval, more than anything, disturbed Jacey, as she walked him through the house and out the door. “Gabriel, I assure you, I did nothing. We just met.”

“I’m aware of that,” he said. “I saw your face.”

“And I saw yours.”

Gabriel shrugged. “She’s fragile, our Bridget. I think, Jace, that she needs you.” He took a deep, shuddering breath. “I don’t know your plans, but—” He cleared his throat. “I’d appreciate it if you stayed for a while. Bridget’s better already and, frankly, I’d do anything, anything, to see her happy again.”

“Even keep me around?” She turned towards the house.

He caught her arm. “I wanted to be the one to breathe life back into her, damn it.”

Nine

Gabe’s words haunted Jacey as she took Bridget upstairs to look through Clara’s things.

“I don’t like the attic.” Bridget pulled Jacey up short. “It smells fusty.”

Jacey got her moving again. “You mean musty?”

“That too.” Bridget sat in the middle of the stairs. “My legs hurt.”

Jacey tugged her up. “You make me think of two wee girls I once knew, me and your mother.”

“Did you whine, too?”

“Only when we didn’t want to do something we didn’t like.”

“I don’t like the attic. I don’t want to go there.”

Jacey grinned. “I figured that out.”

Bridget gave a long-suffering sigh. “Why do we gotta go there?”

“Why do we have to go there?”

“That’s what I want to know!”

“To sort through your mother’s things.” You need to ken that she and I are two different people.

“I have her special book.” Bridget pulled Jacey in the opposite direction. “C’mon, it’s in my room. You can have it.”

“Not so fast, my wee beguiler. Attic now. I’ll read your mama’s book to you later. How’s that?”

“It’s not that kind of book.” Bridget dragged her feet, catching the toes of her shoes on every step to slow them down.

Jacey bit her lip. She hadn’t had such fun in years. “Your papa and I used to play here when we were young.”

“I never saw my Papa. What did he look like?”

Jacey stopped. “I mean, your stepfather. What do you call him?”

Bridget shrugged. “Nothing.”

No wonder the letter. Bridget barely talked to him.

The attic, a jaunty jumble of junk spoke of secrets and bygone days. Jacey stood Bridget on an old trunk at a round window. “See those turrets. That’s Lockhart Towers, where your mama and I grew up. Oh, and there’s your stepfather’s carriage rattling down Parson’s Hill.” Jace turned to Bridget. “Why don’t you call him Papa-Gabe. He wouldn’t mind. He loves you, you know.”

“I know.” Bridget undid several of Jacey’s buttons. “He calls me Cricket.”

“That’s how you know he loves you?”

Bridget nodded and touched Jacey’s hair.

“Not by his hugs and kisses or the way he keeps your blankets tucked to your chin at night?”

Bridget finger-combed Jacey’s hair, until her bun came out and hair fell over half her face. Bridget’s eyes twinkled with mischief.

Jace caught her breath at the child’s beauty. She hugged her, kissed her cheeks, lifted and twirled her. “I love you, I love you, I love you!” Jacey shouted.

Bridget sobbed, her arms around Jace’s neck, her face pressed there.

Jace sat them on the trunk and sang:

Bridget sat back and watched, transfixed. “Mama used to sing.”

Jace guessed singing fixed everything, because Bridget scrambled off her lap and over to a trunk in a sunbeam, its dust motes like dancing fairies. “Do you want to see how tiny I was?” Bridget asked.

The first item, a soft, yellow bonnet, made Jace catch her breath.

She’d made a yellow embroidered nightgown and bonnet for her baby, which her mother buried the babe in. Jace knelt beside Bridget.

“I used to be this small!” Bridget tried it on, but it sat like a cone, and the ribbons didn’t meet beneath her chin. She tossed it in Jacey’s lap. “Wait till you see my favourite dress. It has pink roses and—”

Jacey crushed the bonnet made of the same yellow fabric. She remembered her mother saying she split the bolt and sent half to Clara in Wales. Clara was expecting Bridget at the time, a baby for her married daughter to show off. Not one to hide, like her unmarried daughter’s.

“What’s this, lovey, making a mess for me, are you?” Mac bustled in and repacked the baby clothes. “I thought you were looking for Clara’s trunk,” she said with a piercing look.

Mac carried the small trunk downstairs, claiming something without definition that Jacey wanted without reason.

Ten

Disappointed for no reason, Bridget’s bonnet fell off her lap. Half expecting Nanny to grab it, Jace slipped it in her pocket.

Bridget stared into Clara’s open trunk as if it held a nest of vipers. Jacey pulled her close and kissed her head. “Show me your favourite of Mama’s dresses.”

Bridget shook her head, swallowed and sniffed.

“Oh, Cricket, don’t cry.”

“What’s this?” came a familiar voice. “Is somebody crying?” A puppet peeked around the doorjamb.

Bridget gasped and approached it, stopping a distance away. “I’m not crying. The smell inside my Mama’s trunk itches my nose and makes my eyes … wet.” She wiped her face with her sleeve. “What’s your name?”

“I’m Harry the Handsome Hedgehog but I’m lonely. Can we talk?”

Bridget nodded, and Jace wondered if Suttie saw around corners.

“What’s your name?” Hedgehog asked.

“Bridget. My papa, but not; he calls me Cricket.”

“You have a papa, but not?”

Bridget nodded again. “Papa Gabe.”

Jacey worried about Gabriel’s reaction to the name.

“Oh, that papa. Well, Cricket, I think something’s bothering you. Maybe I can help.”

Bridget sighed, raised her arms and dropped them in defeat. “I want to keep Myjacey and I’m afraid my Papa Gabe won’t let me,” she said in a rush.

“And who is Myjacey? A kitten, a puppy?”

Bridget took Jacey’s hand and dragged her before Hedgehog. “She’s my mama’s sister and I want her to stay. Can you talk to my … to Papa Gabe for me?”

“Myjacey’s your aunt, then?”

Bridget looked up at her. “Are you?”

Jace tweaked Bridget’s nose and nodded. The lump in her throat made it impossible to speak.

“She is my aunt!” Which clearly pleased her.

Hedgehog bowed gallantly. “Hello Aunt Jacey.”

“Nooo, it’s Myjacey. Nanny Mac said so.”

“Ach, sorry. Well, do you smell that?” Hedgehog’s nose crinkled with a sniff. “I think luncheon is ready. Tattie drootle and tipsy custard, I’d say. Cricket, tell Papa Gabe how you feel about Myjacey. He cares very much about you, and Myjacey, and he wouldn’t want either of you to worry. All right?”

Bridget sighed. “All right.” She stepped into Jacey’s arms after Hedgehog left. “Do we havta go through Mama’s trunk?”

“No. Do you want to give me a tour of Kirk Farm after lunch?”

An hour later, hand in hand, Bridget explained every outbuilding from buttery to bower, dovecote to stable, as if Jace had never seen it before. When they passed her favourite climbing tree, she helped Bridget perch in the lowest, widest fork of its branches beside her. With a storybook tucked in her pocket, Jace opened to Snow White.

“I might have known,” Gabriel said a short while later, hands on hips. “Tree climbing, first day.”

Jacey gave one of his arms a playful shove with her foot. “Climb up,” Jace said. “It’s cosy.”

Bridget scrambled into her lap, which clouded his expression, but the tempest cleared when Bridget said, “Shh,” with a finger across her lips. “Pay ’tention.”

He tapped Bridget’s nose. “Quiet as a Kirk mouse.”

He kept his promise, except for the “speaking” glances directed her way, while she became alive to details: her rasping voice and dry lips, the trembling hand she hid in the folds of Bridget’s dress, her death-grip on the book, Gabe’s thigh pressed to hers, him stroking the hair on the sleepy head against her breast.

Jace read slow, so the fairytale wouldn’t end.

Eleven

That night, after she gave Bridget a bath, Jace took her down to say goodnight.

Gabriel raised a brow. “Bridget, you look lovely. Jace, you look like you lost a fight with a flapping duck.”

Bridget cocked her head.

Had she never heard him say anything playful?

The task of putting her down for the night was Gabriel’s. But after Bridget took his hand, she grabbed Jacey’s and tugged her along.

A child between her and Gabriel, as should have been, but Nick offered to be her scapegoat, so she said he was the father. Gabe didn’t lose his family parish. Her mother didn’t get to throw him out, since the Lockharts owned the parish living.

In Bridget’s room, Gabe shed his jacket and threw it over a chair. Bridget knelt on her bed to unbutton his waistcoat, undo his cuffs and roll his sleeves to his elbows.

He winked over Bridget’s head, lurching Jace’s heart. “Cricket likes buttons,” he said.

Like a child, nose to the window, Jace gazed on a family scene she aspired to join.

Bridget freed Gabe’s cleric’s collar and tucked it into his breast pocket.

“Now, Myjacey.” Bridget motioned her forward.

Jace got the bow at her bodice and her top three dress buttons undone, then she got a hug. Jacey masked her emotions and laid her cheek on Bridget’s curls. “Thank you for a splendid day, sweetheart.”

“I love you,” Bridget whispered.

Gabriel went pale as chalk for the second time that day.

“I love you too, Cricket,” Jace whispered, sad for him, elated for herself.

“Mama said you loved me,” Bridget added, surprising them both.

Gabriel and Bridget knelt by her bed to say her prayers, but when Bridget started, Gabriel touched her arm, took Jacey’s hand and pulled her down beside them. “Now you may begin, Cricket.”

“Bless Mama and Papa in heaven,” she said. “And make Papa Gabe let Myjacey stay. Amen.”

After offering Gabe her rosebud lips, Bridget settled on her side. Gabriel tucked her blankets to her chin and kissed her brow. Jacey watched, until Bridget opened one eye. “Myjacey, you’re s’posed to kiss me goodnight.”

Jacey bent to her ear. “I didn’t know I was allowed. See you for boxty and jam in the morning. Happy dreams.”

A hand at her elbow, Gabriel guided her from the room.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered the minute Bridget’s door shut.

“What for?”

“Gabriel Macgregor, I know you better than you know yourself. You’d give your right arm to have her say she loves you, but I walk in and she says it to me.”

Silent, he walked her to her bedroom door. “I fell in love with her, Jace, the first time Clara put her in my arms. You should have seen her. A wee tiny thing, even at two, with a thick crown of raven curls. She used to love it when I played with her, Clara egging us on. I’d pretend I was tired, but Bridget would laugh and beg for more.”

“You’re describing a different child.”

“I know. Clara died and Bridget stopped laughing. Stopped looking at me. True, she said she loves you, but in the attic, she called me Papa Gabe, Suttie said, and frankly that’s the best I’ve had from her in months.” He ran a hand through his hair. “I think she blames me for her mother’s death.”

“Oh Gabriel, no.” Jacey had never wanted to comfort him more, the urge so strong, and dangerous she stepped back. “She’s confused. She’ll be happy again soon.”

“If you stay, maybe. One day with you and she’s more herself.” He turned away, ran a hand through his his hair, and turned back, as if he didn’t know where to put himself. “It’s good to discuss her with you.” He sighed. “I’m thanking you; this has been a good day for me, too.”

“Gabriel Macgregor, this is the most you’ve ever said to me.”

He looked sheepish. “Wait till you hear one of my sermons. Stay, Jace. For as long as you want.”

“There’ll be talk.”

“To the devil with talk.”

“It’ll begin sooner than we think. Nick Daventry is home from America.”

Twelve

Nick Daventry. Even the cadence of the name dogged Gabriel. If he lived to be a hundred, he’d never forget Jacey’s words to him on the day he’d gone to confess his paternity to her mother.

“It’s not yours, Gabriel,” Jacey said, waylaying him in the parlour. “Nick Daventry is my baby’s father.”

In that first horrific moment, her words might have been an axe blade in his back. From that day to this, Gabe wanted Nicholas “bloody” Daventry to go straight to hell.

Now he was back. He should have stayed in America, but as Jace’s distant cousin, he’d come home to inherit Lockhart Keep, after the death of his brother, who inherited in Jacey’s place, because her mother had disowned her.

He’d always suspected the woman would have ruined him, if Jace’s babe had been his. Give him sheep for company; they were easier than his flock to deal with. He would be happy with a parish, any parish, or simply a farm, and Bridget and Jacey.

To hell with everyone else. Well, Mackenzie. He guessed he’d take her, too, the nosy old thing.

When he got home that afternoon, the best parlour looked like a family of squirrels had danced the highland fling. In the doorway, he stepped on something hard, the arm of an ugly French figurine that belonged to his grandmother.

Mackenzie, sweeping up its remains by the hearth, didn’t notice him. Neither did anyone else.

Gabriel relaxed at the sight of Jacey’s head tucked beneath the camel-back settee, her gown, one of Clara’s, had crinolines that bobbed in the air, affording him a lovely view of her sweet backside.

Never before had lust, tenderness, and the urge to chuckle overcome him at one and the same time.

“Can you see it?” Jacey called.

“I can, almost, but it’s wiggling a lot,” Cricket said, from behind that piece of furniture.

“You have it, then?”

“Ouch. Not anymore.”

“Where did it go?”

“Up. Inside.”

Jacey’s petticoats quivered, from shock or laughter, he didn’t know. Before they finished their flutter, Jace backed out and sat on her knees, hands on hips. “Bridget Macgregor, are you saying your kitten disappeared into the sofa stuffing!”

What kitten?

Cricket came tottering into sight on high heels thrice her size, trailing a god-awful green dress and red boa, wearing a straw hat his mother once favoured. From its brim, dangled a clump of berries, and a moulting bluebird.

Gabriel cleared his throat.

Bridget and Jacey looked up, both with stunned surprise. Mackenzie grumbled louder, so Gabe confiscated her broom. “See to dinner,” he said. “We’ll clean up in here.”

Gabriel turned back to the two people he loved most in the world. One would rather step around him as look at him. The other was bound to break him for good one of these days, especially if she discovered his lingering love. Still, there was no changing destiny.

He sat and crooked a finger to bring his comically adorable wee one over to him. And Cricket must actually have looked at him long enough to catch his summons, because she obeyed.

“Lovely dress,” he said.

Her doe eyes came alive. “It’s Mama’s. Myjacey made it smell like the water meadow again.” Bridget shoved her arm under his nose, so he sniffed it, nodded, and kissed her elbow. “Did you say, ‘Myjacey?’” He looked at her and felt a rush of love he so strong, he had to clear his throat. “Haven’t you noticed, Cricket, that everybody else calls her Jacey?”

Bridget nodded. “Mama called her that, but Nanny Mac called her Myjacey the day we met, and I like it ever so much better.”

Jacey sent him a plea with her look, and a similar rush of love for her engulfed him. For a bold minute, he let it show, but Jace sat, as if enticed by it but ruling it a danger.

He knew exactly how she felt.

“Can I call you Myjacey?” Bridget asked, standing before Jace, undoing a bodice button or three, shyly waiting for her aunt’s answer.

“Of course you can, sweetheart.” Jace smiled at his daughter’s plea, her cheeks like the rosebuds marching across the bit of chemise Cricket revealed. “Myjacey can be your special name for me, like Cricket is your papa’s pet name for you.”

Bridget gave him a nod, as if to say, “I told you”, the way Jacey the brat had tended to do. Had Bridget learned it? Or was prideful stubbornness a Lockhart trait?

“Tell me about the kitten,” Gabe said, to distract himself from Jace’s open dress.

“Suttie gave it to me.” Bridget sighed. “But it dist-appeared.”

“No, it didn’t,” he said, not quite pleased to report. Gabe joined Jace on the settee and pointed to the padded back where the outline of two wee paws pushed on the fabric from inside.

“Oh, my, God,” Jacey said. “We have to take the sofa apart.”

Gabe sighed. “I knew you’d say that.” He removed his jacket, waistcoat and collar, and rolled up his sleeves. Then he sat on the floor with his girls.

Two hours later, the sofa back flipped over the front, Bridget cuddled a wee white, blue-eyed kitten, trying to catch either bobbling hat berries or a bald bird.

Jacey massaged his back, because after sitting so long like a pretzel he couldn’t straighten. “You’re getting old,” she said, working his spine.

He liked her hands so much, he wondered how to get a back kink tomorrow. “If I’m old, you’re old.”

“You’ll always be older than me by three years.”

Mackenzie stopped in the doorway and gasped. “You were going to clean up. It’s thrice as messy.”

“Er, have I come at a bad time?”

“Nick!” Jacey shot to her feet.

Gabe saw her skirt was stained with Eccles cake, her bodice splattered with jam, and he stopped her to re-button her dress.

Jace raised a brow. He’d known for hours that Bridget didn’t button her up. “Your back got better fast.” She turned to Nick. “I’m sorry I’m a mess.”

Daventry smiled. “You never looked more beautiful.”

Gabe placed a posessive hand on Jacey’s shoulder.

“Is dinner still at eight?” Daventry asked.

“Oh, Lord,” Jacey said. “I forgot I invited you.”

Thirteen

Bridget’s first dress-up tea party monologue made dinner less awkward.

“Bridget, you’re eating too fast,” Jacey said.

“I’m hungry. Lydia said our pig should not be Lady Cowper. We should call our cow that. Do you think so, Papa … Gabe?”

Jacey caught his pleasure at being directly addressed. “I think our pig is happy with her name. Though we could call them the Ladies Cowper and Pigger.”

Cricket’s eyes widened and Jace decided he and Bridget needed to play more.

“How can you be hungry,” Mac asked. “After all those tea party sweets?”

Bridget dropped her fork.

“Bath time, lovey,” Mac said. “Then bed. Wee lady’s had a long day.”

Gabe followed them up, and Jacey took Nick into the secondbest parlour.

“Bridget’s sick,” Gabriel said from the doorway, a minute later, his look thunderous. “She’s crying for you.”

Jacey looked from one to the other, shrugged and left the room.

“I’ll show you out,” Gabriel said to Nick as she took the back stairs.

He caught up with her at the top.

“What did you do, shove him out the door?”

“I said goodbye.”

Bridget raised her arms. “Myjacey, my tummy hurts.”

“We’ve got her Nanny,” Jacey said. “Go to bed.”

“If this was a parlour needed cleaning,” Nanny grumbled, “I wouldn’t, but I expect you two can manage this one.”

Bridget wasn’t well enough to undo his buttons. Bad sign.

Gabe caught her watching him undo his cuffs. He quirked a brow, but she didn’t turn away. He settled in the way she liked him best, collar in his pocket, sleeves rolled up.

Something about him, dressed, or undressed, in that “at home” way, made Jacey want to curl up in his arms before a fire and comb her fingers through the hair at his nape.

“Myjacey!” Bridget placed her hands on either side of Jacey’s face.

“I’m sorry, sweet, what is it?”

Bridget was sick.

Jacey gave her a bath and Gabriel changed her bed.

Jacey stroked Bridget’s fevered brow. “She’s sound asleep. Go to bed. I’ll stay with her.”

Gabriel shook his head. “I’ll wash and change, and when I get back, you change. We’re, neither of us, sweet and fresh right now.” He nodded. “Go on.”

After washing, Jacey left her hair loose down her back.

This time, she tied the ribbons beneath her breasts on the buttercup silk robe a bit tighter, and pinched her cheeks, before she left her room.

When she returned, approval leapt in Gabe’s eyes as he went out to change.

Jacey checked Bridget’s brow, pulled up her covers and opened the window.

She wondered where to go from here when Gabe came back in. He wore a black brocade dressing gown, and if she thought he looked good in shirtsleeves …

He gathered her in his arms and came for her mouth with the same greedy hunger he’d shown the day he came home from the seminary.

Jacey embraced the perfection of his kiss. His big hands explored, as if he didn’t have enough time to learn her, again.

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.”

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.

When she dared kiss that tip, he woke with a surge and a groan, and she was on her back, him deep inside her.

He brought her higher in three deep strokes than he had all night.

So blessedly good, his weight atop her. She’d take him any way she could, but this glorious, ordained way, this was perfect.

They climbed and soared, then like water cascading down a mountain – pure, bubbling, wild and free – they floated as one, peaceful, at rest.

After a time, he reversed their positions and settled her atop him in lazy contentment.

“Gabriel, we’re at peace now, right? We’ve formed a truce?”

“As your mattress, I say, aye, peace.”

“Was her service beautiful?”

“What service, pet?”

“My baby’s funeral. Did you make it wonderful? Tell me.”

“Ach, Jace, your Mother wanted no service. The babe was stillborn.”

“No, I heard her cry. Mama said she didn’t, but I remember.”

“She had no service, sweet.” Gabe wiped her cheeks with the corner of a blanket. “We’ll ask the gravedigger, and if there was nothing graveside, I’ll do a service.”

“Who’d come?”

“You, me, Bridget, Mackenzie … and Nick.”

“You’d do that for me? With Nick?”

He settled her head on his chest. “Aye, love, I’d do anything for you. Even give you to Nick, though I’d rather keep you for myself.”

Twenty

He’d always wanted her. Now he wanted everything. And for the first time, he admitted it, and she fell asleep.

She stirred in his arms, snuggled her face deeper into his neck, moved and moaned. Parts of her must be tender. He’d kiss her better.

First he’d settle the matter of their marriage, then perhaps he’d let her out of bed.

He guessed he had no choice. She should be dressed if anyone spotted the wagon.

Jacey shifted and rubbed her nose back and forth, hard, against the hair on his chest.

He chuckled. “Itchy nose means you’re coming into money.”

She smiled lazily and stretched in that rod-hardening feline way, her limbs sliding sinuously along his own. “Don’t need money. I have you.”

“Not yet, but you will.”

She regarded him soberly. “I will what?”

“Have me.”

“In the biblical sense?”

“Well, aye. You’ll have me that way, often.”

Jace took her luscious bottom lip between her teeth, making him want to bite it, but her silence made him nervous. “You ken that after last night, we must marry.”

“Must we?” She rose quickly, placing his favourite parts in perilous danger. “We’ll speak no more about it.”

Distracted by her pert breasts and fine bottom, he let the subject drop, for now. She rummaged and blushed, until a nearly see-through shirt covered her to her thighs.

He raised his knee to hide his reaction, or she’d find something else to wear. She was acting that contrary.

“Jace, listen. Bridget needs a mother, and if you marry me, you can save me from a mother-in-law who carries a pitchfork.”

That brought thunderclouds to her brow.

“I know,” he said, looking for food, “I might lose my Kirk over this, but—” He caught her ludicrous expression. “What?” he asked.

She pointed to his raging manhood with annoyed amazement.

“Sorry. I forgot.”

“You can forget something that big? It’s in your way for pity’s sake.”

“I’m hungry.”

“For food, even?”

“That too, aye.” He looked into a tin. “Sodabread.” He bit into it and offered her the tin. “Needs jam.”

Jacey took a jar off the floor. “I saw it rolling around before, before …”

Gabriel raised a brow. “Before we hit the tree? Stripped? Laid hands on each other? Burned each other alive?”

She about strangled him, her cheeks strawberry-bright. “Before any of it, blast you. Will you put on some clothes?”

“They’re wet.”

“Suttie must have something you can wear.” Jace rummaged. “Here put this on.” She handed him another old shirt.

It didn’t meet in the front to button or cover … anything.

He chuckled at the sight, her: half dressed, half appalled.

“At least it keeps my back warm. Come closer and warm my … front.”

That set her spine. “I will not marry you, Gabriel Macgregor. Not to save you from the Prouts. Damn you for suggesting it.”

He hung her clothes over the branch, to hide his disappointment.

“Hello the wagon? Anybody inside?”

“Hello,” Jacey shouted. “The door’s jammed. Can you get us out?” Her voice wobbled, as if she might cry as she stepped into her wet crinolines.

Twenty-one

More than a day after they left, they returned to Kirk Cottage.

From the hall, they saw Bridget, on her stomach, on the settee, chin in hands, speaking to Hedgehog, peeking over the arm of the settee.

Hedgehog stroked her hair. “Tell me what you remember about your mother.”

“She used to sing, but not as often as Myjacey. Once, Papa looked sad, and Mama said she knew he missed Myjacey when she sang.”

“Hedgehog, this makes me sad to remember.”

“You’ll feel better, if you tell me what’s bothering you.”

Bridget sighed. “Mama said she wouldn’t rest in heaven if Papa didn’t go get Myjacey. He held her and said he was sorry. He and Mama cried. Me too.” Bridget swallowed. “They didn’t know I saw.”

She wiped her eyes. “I know Papa likes me, but I wish he liked Mama enough to keep her and not send her to heaven.”

Jacey took Gabriel’s arm, in support and comfort, and it was a measure of his shock that he let her.

“Yesterday Papa took Myjacey, and they didn’t come home, and I’m afraid he sent her to heaven.”

“Your Mama was very sick,” Hedgehog said.

“God would have let Papa keep Mama, if he asked. Mama said God listens to Papa, ’cause he talks Sundays and everybody hardly falls asleep. Why didn’t Papa like Mama enough to keep her?”

“Cricket, Mama stopped hurting when God took her home.”

“After Mama went away for hours, Papa said God took her to heaven. Now Myjacey’s been gone that long, and I’m afraid she’s with God. If she is, I’ll never forgive Papa, Hedgehog!”

“Cricket,” Jacey said.

Bridget launched herself into Jacey’s arms.

Gabriel looked rooted in horror, because in his daughter’s eyes, he’d failed at the single most important task of his life. He’d failed to rescue her mother from the clutches of death.

“You’re wrong, sweetheart,” Jacey said. “Papa prayed hard to keep her. Your Mama wrote and told me so.”

Like Gabriel, Bridget looked at her. “She did?”

Jacey nodded. “That’s why Papa cried holding Mama, because he knew God said no, and your mama was going to heaven. That’s why he was sorry.”

“Did you, Papa, pray hard to keep Mama?” Bridget asked.

“So hard,” Gabriel said, hugging Bridget.

A few hours after the reunion, and after she and Gabe had bathed and eaten, they all met the gravedigger at her daughter’s grave. “Angus,” Jacey said. “When you buried my baby, were graveside prayers said over her wee casket?”

“I din bury no baby, m’Lady. I put the stone here, like your Ma said, which she paid me not to say.” He shrugged. “I don’t s’pose it matters now she’s dead.”

Jacey covered her mouth with a hand. Mac wept into her apron. Bridget traced the numbers on the gravestone.

“Dig her up,” Jace said, and Mac wailed. “Don’t, thank you, Angus.” She turned towards the house. “Bridget, get your Mama’s book. Mac, I’ll have that trunk of baby clothes, please.”

Mac shook her head.

“Mackenzie,” Gabriel said.

Clara’s bible noted Baby Lockhart’s date of birth and death. A week later, Bridget Lockhart Spencer’s birth was recorded.

Jace stared until the words blurred. She opened the trunk. “This is probably a waste of time. When I heard there was no funeral, I thought …”

She found the yellow embroidered sacque to match the bonnet and held it up, her heart racing. “Clara in Scotland, me here, and we make the same gown?” She trembled with hope as she snipped the stitches at the back hem.

When she opened it, she sobbed.

“Jace, you’re upsetting Bridget. Mackenzie,” Gabriel added. “Take Bridget to the kitchen.”

Twenty-two

Gabe carried Jace to the settee. She laughed while she cried.

“Are we going a wee bit daft, love?”

“Gabriel, my baby didn’t die. Mother lied. She sent her to Clara. Probably to legitimize her.”

“You don’t mean … Bridget is yours?”

“Dearest, you may never forgive me, but she’s more than my daughter—”

Gabe groaned. “Right; she’s Nick’s.”

“Remember how I counted on Nick to get me out of trouble. Think about it.”

“I don’t understand.”

Jace kissed him with all her love, and though he was confused, he put love into his kiss.

“Gabriel,” Jace said, “Bridget is more than my daughter, she’s our daughter.” She showed him the sacque. “I embroidered ‘Baby Macgregor’ inside. I wanted the truth somewhere.”

He stroked the embroidery: “I fathered your child? Not Nick?”

“My mother couldn’t make his life hell in America, so I waited for him to leave, then I named him, with his permission.”

“Jace. That about killed me. If I wasn’t so happy, I’d …”

“I didn’t want you defrocked. You’d just taken holy orders. Your father’s parish was yours, you had your family name to mend. How could I destroy your dreams?”

“I wanted our babe,” he said. “And you, you were more my dream than anything. Didn’t you know?”

The resultant kiss lasted longer, meant more, because they’d added honesty and forgiveness. “I love you Gabriel.”

“I love you, Jace, and our daughter. Bridget is ours. Jace, you bore my child and the stigma of sin to protect me.” He cupped her face. “Marry me, please. I’ll try to be worthy.”

Jace kissed his palm. “With our passion; we’ll have six more.”

“At least,” he said, hearing a whispered “shush”. “Hear that, Mackenzie?” he called. “You’ll have a job here forever.”

“We hear,” Bridget said, throwing open the door and climbing into their laps. “Nanny Mac says you’re my real Mama and Papa. She brought me to my first mama to keep me till ‘you two came to your senses’.”

“Did she now?” Gabe eyed Mackenzie.

“I have to go tell Suttie and Hedgehog,” Bridget said.

“Suttie’s gone,” Mac said, “though I didn’t hear the wagon. She left a note: ‘My work is done. Fairy kisses and long happy lives. Suttie.’”

“We’ll do just fine right here, won’t we, darling? You’re right about Papa. Lots of growl but no bite.”