Lucia wondered if she could ever set foot on the stone floors or view the looming crucifix without the image of Camille’s dead body appearing before her.

Afterward, they had been allowed to have an hour of private prayer and meditation before tackling their daily tasks.

The mood in the convent was somber, everyone caught in her own private thoughts.

Lucia hurried down the stairs, her shoes clicking upon the polished steps, her fingers trailing on the rail. She knew it was time to leave. Camille’s death had started a chain of events that would be the ultimate ruin of St. Marguerite’s, and she wondered if that was the killer’s purpose. Was Camille’s murder a public statement or a personal vendetta? She thought of sweet, troubled Camille. They had shared so much here at the convent, from having lived in the same small area of New Orleans as children to having dated brothers . . . which brought her thoughts to Cruz.

Dear Father, she never wanted to see him again.

Talking to his older brother, the detective, was bad enough, but seeing the strong family resemblance made her want to run as fast as she could from the parish. Cruz Montoya was the one person who knew her secrets, the one man who had touched her soul, the one male who had nearly killed her. Her heart fluttered a bit in her chest. Was it fear . . . or something erotic? Sometimes, when she remembered back, when she thought of Cruz and what he’d done to her, she was turned inside out, the sensual images in her memory dangerously wicked. In her mind’s eye, she saw coppery skin stretched over taut flesh, dark hair thick over a muscular chest and washboard abdomen. Her blood heated when she remembered the way his jeans sat so low on his hips, how the faded denim was tight across his firm, smooth buttocks.

“Stop it!” she muttered to herself. Her scandalous thoughts were well beyond sinful. She was married to the church now, married to Christ, and she could think of no mortal man sexually. Especially not Cruz Montoya, who had so easily broken her heart. And that brother of his, the detective who resembled Cruz . . . Seeing him had started a domino effect of pictures in her mind, memories she should have buried long ago.

“Give me strength,” she whispered even as she remembered Cruz’s irreverent smile, the glint of the devil in his dark eyes. Her blood surged, and she silently damned herself again. “No more!”

“Your sister was pregnant?” Montoya stared at Valerie Renard as she dropped the bombshell in the living room of her small cottage.

The quaint building that looked to be a former carriage house was connected to the bed-and-breakfast by a narrow causeway, allowing Valerie Renard some privacy away from guests.