Jamie broke the hold and whirled to face his dumbfounded brother, breathing so hard that he couldn’t speak.

Reeve was a bit winded himself. “All that anger inside you—good God—you’ve got your dander up because you needed me—and I wasn’t there!”

Never, never could Jamie have acknowledged the moisture in his eyes, though it burned like hell and made it next to impossible to see for a moment. “Needed you?” he rasped. “I screamed your name in me sleep, big brother!”

Now Reeve’s voice was quiet and gentle. Hoarse. “Jamie, I looked for you for twenty years—here, and in New Zealand—”

Reeve had said all this before, but not until now had Jamie really heard what his brother was telling him. He had to have time, to think, to pull himself back together.

He turned and walked away and Reeve made no effort to stop him.

Jamie had stood for some time alone in a copse of gum trees, trying to come to terms with all the things he was feeling, when he heard light footsteps approaching. Hoping for Bliss, he was disappointed to see Peony.

“Go and talk to Bliss,” his friend pleaded softly. “She’s in pieces, Jamie. I don’t need to tell you how impetuous she is—God only knows what she might do.”

Jamie felt as though he’d taken his own blade through his middle, and his eyes got damp again, so he looked away. “Run away to America, probably,” he said hoarsely.

Peony stood close to him, laying one light, gentle hand on his arm. “Could you live with that?”

He shook his head, keeping his eyes averted.

His friend let her head rest against the rounding of his shoulder. “I thought not. That leaves you with only one choice. You know that, don’t you?”

“Aye,” Jamie managed to answer. “I know.”

Peony stood on tiptoe to kiss his cheek. “I’m going back to Auckland, Jamie,” she announced quietly. “I’ve got a shipping agency to run.”

“But Increase—”

She silenced him by laying her fingers to his lips. “Increase is here in Australia, and I’ll be in New Zealand. Just look after your wife, Jamie—the only way that old viper could bring you to your knees would be through Bliss, and he knows that.”

Jamie nodded. He never forgot, waking or sleeping, that Bliss was in the worst kind of danger. “It’s not far from ’ere,” he said in a haunted voice, “that place of ’is—”

“Don’t torture yourself, Jamie,” Peony interrupted. “That time is over.”

He shook his head. “No. It won’t be over, for me or for Bliss, until Increase Pipher is dead.”

Peony closed her emerald eyes for a moment, and when she opened them again, they were glistening with tears. “Be very careful, Jamie. You’re still regarded as a criminal here in Australia, while Increase is a rich planter. If you search him out and kill him, chances are you’ll hang for it.”

There had been times in Jamie’s life when he’d expected to hang, when he’d have welcomed it, but things were different now. Life, once so cheap to him, had become precious because of Bliss. “I’ll be careful.”