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cosy, but it was not for him...not yet. This mating, nesting instinct that seemed to have affected so many members of his generation of Crighton males was not one he shared. Not that he was against commitment or marriage per se...he wasn't; he just didn't want it for himself—not now—not ever!
    He valued and needed his freedom far too much.
    'Do YOU THINK he'll like it?' David asked his wife as they stood arm in arm studying the just finished small suite of rooms they had had converted from a loft over what had once been stables but which were now a garage.
    'He'll love it,' Honor assured him with a smile, her breath racing in her lungs as he turned to kiss her.
    'You two!' the elder of her daughters from her first marriage had complained the last time she had visited them. 'I've never known a couple so besotted with one another.'
    'Mmm—are you besotted with me?' David had asked her whimsically after Abigail had gone back to London.
    'Certainly not,' Honor had denied sternly, her voice softening as she added, 'Only just totally crazily head over heels in love with you—that's all!'
    'I wonder when he's going to arrive?'
    They had been married a few short weeks ago and had known one another less than a year but Honor had never for one moment doubted that she was doing the right thing. She knew the story of David's past with its shadows and secrets, its shame, and she knew too of his glorious resurrection, his rebirth from the shell of his own past. Now she was looking forward to welcoming into their home the man who had played such a large part in that rebirth—Father Ignatius—the Irish priest turned missionary who was presently in Ireland on a visit. David and Honor were pleased that they had managed to persuade him to leave Jamaica and make his home permanently with them.
    'He's due to fly to Manchester from Dublin tomorrow,' David said with concern. 'I wanted to meet him off the plane but he wouldn't let me. He said there were things he had to do.'
    'Yes, I know,' Honor agreed patiently as though she hadn't heard all of this a dozen or more times already.
    'And then he said that he wanted to make his own way here and not have me drive over to Dublin to collect him.'
    Honor smiled soothingly again.
    'I just hope he's going to be happy here with us.'
    'He will be,' Honor told him positively, adding softly as she leaned close to him, 'It's you he's coming here for, David...you he wants to be with....'
    Honor had met the priest briefly when she and David had married in Jamaica and she had discovered that he was everything David had told her he was and more. They shared an understanding, a belief in the dignity of nature and a respect for the world.
    A rueful smile lit David's eyes and he laughed. 'All right, so I'm fussing,' he agreed.
    There were still days when he had to pinch himself to make sure that he was really awake and not merely dreaming. It humbled him unbearably to reflect on how lucky he was—and how undeserving. He had said as much to Jon, but his brother had shaken his head in denial of his claim.
    David had been given so many precious gifts in this fifth decade of his life. His friendship with the priest.
    The love he shared with Honor, his acceptance back into the hearts and lives of his family. David's eyes became slightly shadowed because, of course, there was one member of his family who had not accepted him back, Olivia, his daughter. She had every reason not to do so. David understood that. He had not been a good father to her and she had been forced at a very young age to take charge not just of her own life but those of her younger brother and their mother as well.
    When you allied to that his own father's dismissive attitude towards her whilst Jon's son Max was praised, it was no wonder that she should feel so hostile towards the father who had failed to take her part.
    But the pain he felt at their continued estrangement was not just for himself, it was for her as well. He was a different