"What were you doing while all this was going on?" Gideon asked. "Were you fond of Marlbrent while you were growing up?"

She shook her head. "He could be very charming, but he didn't waste it on me. I was away at school during their short marriage, and only saw them on those few holidays during that brief time." Her face softened. "But I was wild with joy when Dane was born. I'd always been a lonely child and I thought at last I'd have someone of my own to love. Of course, it didn't work out that way." Her face clouded. "No, I don't think my stepfather knew I existed as a human being." She paused. "Until he decided he could make use of me."

Gideon reached down and took her hand, holding it without speaking.

"I was seventeen and attending a convent school in Switzerland. I was very naive, incredibly so." She laughed mirthlessly. "You can't imagine how stupid I was. My stepfather appeared at the convent one day and whisked me away on a holiday to Italy. I was thrilled and happy and-I told you how charming he could be. I thought he actually liked me. I told myself that it was only children he had no use for, and now that I was almost grown up, he wanted to be my friend. He introduced me to Antonio del Montaldo in Florence, and Antonio traveled with us while we toured northern Italy. Antonio was handsome, charming, and a prince, and my stepfather heartily approved of him." She laughed again. "How could I resist? It was a damn fairy tale. We were married in Rome two weeks after my stepfather had taken me away from the convent. He even took his yacht out of dry dock and treated the newlyweds to a honeymoon trip to the Caribbean. " Her lips curved in an ironic smile. "Just the three of us. I didn't think it unusual. I was floating-no, drowning-in charm. They were both being so wonderfully kind and affectionate and I gobbled it up like a hungry orphan. Antonio wasn't exactly passionate, but since I'd never had a lover, I didn't realize… I was living in a dream world." She closed her eyes. "Until that night we docked at Mariba. I woke up and Antonio wasn't in the cabin. I got out of bed and went looking for him," She stopped and was silent a moment. "I found him. He was in my stepfather's bed. My stepfather was making love to him." She could feel Gideon's hand tighten on her own, but she didn't open her eyes. "I was stunned and almost hysterical. I can remember screaming at them, and the two of them looking at me as if I were a mosquito that had caused them a minor annoyance. " She ran her tongue over her lips to moisten them. "Then my stepfather sat up in bed and began to speak to me. His voice was very cold and reasonable. He was in love with Antonio, and in his position any rumor of homosexuality was out of the question. It would have seriously compromised his social and business status in London. There had already been a few suspicions voiced regarding his lack of female companionship since the divorce from my mother. The sensible thing to do was to bring Antonio into the family." Her lips curled bitterly. "That's the very word he used. Sensible. Our marriage tie would throw a cloak of respectability on his association with Antonio. Now all I had to do was to be a good little girl and keep my mouth shut while they used me." Her eyes opened to reveal eyes glittering with remembered pain. "I think that's what threw me into a tail- spin. Neither one of them had ever cared about me. They were only using me. I guess I went a little crazy. I ran out of the cabin, and down the gangplank. I didn't know where I was running, or-"

"You were running to me." Gideon's voice was velvet with tenderness. "It was the time for us to come together."

She met his eyes. "I believe that now, but that night I was confused and upset. I had suffered a shock that had shaken me to the foundations and sent me in a daze wandering through Mariba. I don't even know how I got into that bar where you found me. Oh, I was brimful of a convent idea of sin. I'd taken a marriage vow and, even if I'd been duped, I couldn't reconcile myself to the idea of breaking that vow." She shook her head in wonder as she looked back on that bewildered child. "Perhaps my stepfather even relied on that convent training. It wouldn't surprise me."

"You shouldn't have left me. We could have worked everything out if we'd been together."

"He would have destroyed you," she said simply. "I didn't dare even mention you. I told you, what he couldn't control, he destroyed. He was a very powerful man and you were just getting started. That night I lay awake and tried to think of a way out, but I knew there was only one solution. I had to let them use me, until I could gather the strength to break free." She determinedly blinked back the tears. "That first year was bad. I wanted to run back to you a hundred times a day."

"But you didn't."

"No, I started to close you out instead." She lifted his palm and cradled it against her cheek. "Remember when I told you that everything I love becomes an obsession with me? When I came to you, I was starved for affection and you gave me everything I'd ever dreamed about. I had been alone and suddenly you held out the promise that I'd never be alone again. I loved you so much it nearly killed me. The only way I could survive was to shut you out entirely. If I couldn't have all of you, I didn't want memories. I painted the mental picture I wanted to see and put you in the past where you couldn't hurt me."

"You managed very well." Gideon's voice held a thread of pain.

She shook her head. "I thought I had, but it all fell apart when I saw you. Though I still had a king-size hang-up from repressing what I felt for you all those years. I think that was why I had trouble making a commitment." Her lips lovingly brushed his palm. "I finished my education and then made a deal with my stepfather. I would stay married to Antonio on two conditions-that I didn't have to live with them and that he would give me custody of Dane."

"He went along with it?"

"He loved Antonio. I think perhaps Antonio was the only person he ever really did love." Her lips curled. "And Dane was no personal loss to him. He'd been shipped away to schools since he was practically an infant. My stepfather probably thought I'd come crawling back to him when I found myself facing the world without a dime in my pocket."

"But you didn't go back to him?"

"No, but you were right, I gave up a few things. My work… and you." She kissed his palm again. "But you wouldn't stay in the nice little slot in my past where I had put you. You're a very obstinate man, Gideon Brandt, and I'll thank God for it every day for the rest of my life." She raised her eyes and finished gravely. "I love you and you'd better get accustomed to the idea that I'll never give up this particular obsession until the day I die."

"I can hardly wait." The long crescent lines in his cheeks deepened as he smiled down at her. "I've never been anyone's obsession before. I expect to enjoy the hell out of it." His smile faded. "I wish you'd let me stay. I don't want you to have to face that bastard alone."

She shook her head. "I can't say I'm looking forward to it, but I have to do it on my own. He dominated my life for a long time and, even when I got away from him, he still loomed larger than life. Don't you see, I ran away from him. I've been avoiding him for nine years, because I was afraid to face him again." Her expression was desperately in earnest as she tried to make him understand. "I thought I had beaten him when I took Dane and left him, but you can't really claim victory until you come to terms with what you fear. I have to prove he's not important to me anymore. It's the only way I'm ever going to be able to shoot this bushwhacker out of the saddle." She drew a deep breath. "Do you understand?"

He became very still. "Yes, I understand," he said slowly. "And I think you may be right." His gaze lifted from her face to the thatched cottage down the beach. "Is that your bushwhacker coming toward us?"

She followed his gaze and went tense. She hurriedly rose to her feet and nervously brushed the sand from her skirt. Edwin Marlbrent was still far down the beach, but she could feel the familiar fear and tension gripping her.

Gideon stood up and his hand clasped her shoulder in encouragement. "Good shooting, partner." He started down the beach toward the cottage. "I'll see you later."

She scarcely heard him. Her attention was focused on her stepfather coming toward her. In his late fifties, he was an attractive and imposing man. His dark hair was slightly flecked with gray and his tall, heavily muscular body was clad with faultless elegance in an expensive dark business suit. He was frowning as his highly glossed shoes sank into the sand with every step. He had always abhorred the fact that the natural elements of nature were beyond his control and generally avoided exposing himself to the minor defeat they represented.

Serena automatically ran her hand through her rumpled hair to tidy it. She tried desperately to relax, but the habit of years was strong, and she felt as if she were encased in an iron straitjacket.

Gideon had come abreast of Marlbrent and he stopped, his head tilted to the side as he leisurely studied the older man. Marlbrent stopped, too, his frown deepening in puzzlement.

Gideon's lean, whipcord body was dressed, as usual, in jeans and boots. The sleeves of his forest green shirt were rolled to the elbow revealing his tanned forearms, and his sunstreaked hair was ruffled by the breeze. In his elegantly sophisticated apparel and with his imposing, heavily built physique, Marlbrent should have made Gideon seem to dwindle in comparison. Yet this wasn't the case. Gideon's strength dominated the scene with absolutely no effort on his part.