The ability to focus since Harry's statement that he had a one way ticket, had completely deserted Ruth, and the thought that further revelations might be disclosed during lunch had seen her telling Rose that she needed some fresh air and that they'd be there in a moment. Despite the biting wind that had necessitated them clinging to each other to get there, she'd dragged Harry up onto the 'The High Point' and to the bench that faced the sea. She needed answers to her as yet unasked questions and she needed them now. Rose had thought that it sounded like a proposal and had told her so, Ruth wasn't so sure. Besides, the last time he'd asked her she'd said no and Harry wasn't known for his courage or persistence when it came to matters of the heart.

'I can't deal with this now,' as a reply, sounded more like her than Harry and her heart froze, until he went on to explain that in order to move forward, he needed to tell her about what had happened to him in the US and that he'd rather that they were sitting in front of her fire, or better still in bed. 'What I can tell you is that it changed everything, particularly my perspective on what's important,' he told her. 'I meant what I said Ruth, I love you and unless you've changed your mind, I'm not going back.'

This time it wasn't Rose that he was telling it was her, as with the most open and adoring look on his face that she had ever seen, he held her gaze. She knew that if she said anything that the tears would come and that was the last thing that he needed to see, so she just nodded.

'Why here?' he asked her, indicating the bench and the view. It was a question to which she knew he knew the answer and was trying to draw her into the same mind set as he found himself. She so wanted to give him something to hang onto until they went home.

'Because every time I've sat here, you've been sitting beside me,' she told him, with a look that said you know what I mean.

In the silence that followed he leant slowly forward and drew her towards him, his eyes never leaving hers, as in the distance the sound of the waves pounding against the shoreline matched their breathing. This time there was nobody to see them when he kissed her, making a wry comment about the number of layers of clothes that she was wearing, something that he would never have dared do in the past, even though he'd always thought it. Strangely it was the turning point and both of them knew it. No more secrets, no more games, this was real and this was now and they had into infinity to find a way to make it work.

'Lunch,' he said, kissing her on the tip of her nose when they reluctantly pulled apart.

'So,' asked a busy Rose, as Michael joined her in the kitchen waiting for Ruth and Harry to arrive.

'Absolutely besotted,' didn't go unheard by either Ruth or Rory, who having heard his parents return, had raced down from his bedroom and barrelled into the couple in question.

Miss. Barnes was his favourite teacher, she was nice to him even when he was naughty. He already knew that his parents had invited her to spend Christmas with them, but he had no idea who the man was that was smiling at her and helping her out of her coat. What he did know and he'd been practising all morning, was that he had a very special job to do at the end of the party and that he had to keep it a secret.

'Rubbish,' said Rose, when Ruth said that now there were two of them that they couldn't possibly come for Christmas, as she watched Harry tucking in to the first proper meal that he'd eaten since he'd been out with Catherine.

'Rubbish,' repeated the irrepressible Rory, as his sister and his elder brother just nodded.

How could you tell a five year old not to talk with his mouth full when you were trying not to laugh was the general census of opinion and prevented any further argument and a 'thank you we'd love to come,' from Harry.

'I'm enjoying myself, stop worrying,' Harry told her, carrying two more plates of sandwiches as they passed like ships in the night between the two tables of chattering children who were tucking into the mountain of food. In the run up to what he'd described to an equally besotted Ruth as the teddy bears picnic, he'd endured party games the like of which he'd not seen since Catherine had been small. He'd ended up being covered in jelly, at a time when he and Jane had just about been talking and he'd moved into the spare bedroom after she'd called him a selfish bastard because he'd complained. Now though, he'd been encouraged and eventually joined in with the singing of Jingle Bell Rock as they'd played pass the parcel and had helped as they'd handed out the presents. Nobody had questioned who he was, it felt as though it had been accepted amongst the parents that he was with Ruth. He was out of the limelight and he was enjoying it.

'Children,' said Michael, clapping his hands to bring order to the chaos, which was Rory's signal that his moment had arrived.

In a darkened church and in an environment where she'd been in her comfort zone, Ruth had just about coped with the attention. In the brightly lit village hall that was filled with twenty plus children and their parents, where the vicar was singing her praises and reminding everyone about the previous evening and that its success had been entirely down to her, she felt differently despite the fact that Harry was standing next to her. She knew that her face was beginning to flush and that her hands had started to shake, made worse because Harry had put his hand on her back and his fingers were drawing circles between her shoulders.

Encouraged by his father Rory walked towards her, carrying some flowers and a huge card that the children had signed. It was going so well until he was within a few steps of reaching her, when it became apparent that his composure was deserting him and that he was in danger of dropping them. As everyone else held their breath willing him to get there Harry stepped forward. It was a reflex action completely out of character given the circumstances, as he realised only too late that in his effort to help Rory, his face was within inches of Ruth and it looked as though he was going to kiss her. As he cleared his throat and looked at her with eyes that said anything but sorry, Rory held out his gift.

'Busted.' Harry whispered.

'What's busted?' asked a small voice.

It felt like an age before the hall was tidy and they were able to say their goodbyes. They still hadn't been to the shop and they needed to stock up until they found time to go into Stornoway.

'See you at eleven,' Harry's incarnation repeated after his mother, as Harry looked down at the small boy, who having been rescued. had abandoned Ruth and stuck to him like glue. They'd been discussing Christmas morning and the fact they were invited for pre - lunch drinks.

Harry's appreciation as to what it felt like to be part of a small community was increased by the welcome that they received, as he pushed the now loaded trolley around the shop. Unlike London where you were fortunate to know your neighbour, he was greeted as though he'd lived there all his life.

'Do you realise that in all the years that we've known each other, this is the first time that we haven't had to think about the consequences of our actions,' Harry told her, as she opened the door of the Range Rover and Christopher's father helped him load their shopping, which included some food left over from the party sufficient for a cosy supper round the fire.

Home after what had been a long day, they made the unspoken decision to delay what for Harry would be painful to recall and for Ruth heart breaking to hear. Undressed and wearing what they would eventually sleep in, with their food in front of them, Harry opened a bottle of wine and poured two glasses.

'Tell me Harry,' she eventually pressed him, worried that he'd changed his mind and had shut down. Burying his pain through so many years of loss had been his default setting, but if they were going to make their relationship work then it had change.

It wasn't a particularly long story because there were weeks during the last few months that he simply couldn't remember. But as she relived it with him, she thanked God that she'd been spared from knowing at the time, as with her hands firmly clasped in his, he told her what had happened.

'The first couple of weeks when they used me as a punch bag were the easiest,' he told her, 'because I'd resigned myself to the fact that I was going to die.'

She waited without question until he spoke again.

'Then came the relentless questions followed by days of solitude when I truly believed that I was going out of my mind. I used to talk to you, can you believe that?' came as a question that she couldn't answer for fear of crying, after which he told her about the final two weeks when he been starved and deprived of water or sanitation which was when Callum and Bob had arrived. He remembered nothing about the flight home or how many days he had lain in his bed with nothing but nightmares, missing her with a pain so unbearable that he'd wished that they'd killed him.

Finally, by which time Ruth was crying and Harry was searching for his handkerchief, he told her about Towers and Bob's involvement. How the team had worked behind Erin's back and that they'd all contributed to finding her. How Catherine had refused to let him give up and last but not least, because it was Christmas Eve when there was every chance that they'd be interrupted by Santa, that they ought to get an early night.

Ruth stopped crying, she refrained from asking how many times if ever he'd used that line, she didn't care. The smile that had returned to his face was worth a million cheesy lines. In the semi darkness of the room, on what they both hoped would be the eve of many more Christmases together, she leaned in and kissed him. It was Harry's undoing and the reason that they never made it to the bedroom. Ruth in any state of dress did things to his body, it always had, but there was something about Ruth in her jim jams that he found totally intoxicating. As she continued to kiss him with her now naked breasts pressed hard against his chest, he knew where this was heading. An equally aroused Ruth had seemingly lost all her inhibitions, when having been told to forget about his damaged ribs, she'd developed an appetite for almost all of him.

It was the ultimate in poetic justice, that on an evening when their voyage of discovery was set to eclipse the last time that they'd made love by a country mile, that the man who had orchestrated Ruth being there, was lying in the self-same cell where Harry had been but with absolutely no hope of being rescued. As a pulsating Harry sank deep into a now pleading Ruth for the second time, Dolby was crying for his mother.

Completely sated they eventually abandoned the sofa and dragged themselves up the stairs to bed and this time when Catherine rang to wish them a Happy Christmas, they were asleep. Jim jams abandoned they were wrapped together as a perfect Christmas present to each other, sleeping a dreamless sleep.

Breakfast in bed with a man whose eyes matched the honey that Ruth was spreading on her toast who was telling her that it was the best seduction that he'd ever experienced and would she like to do it again, could have seen them skipping Christmas lunch in exchange for a day in bed, instead of which Harry answered Ruth's yet to be asked question by insisting that they showered together.

'What's it to be Ruth,' he kidded her, when despite herself she hesitated, 'either you come in or I come out, but either way I've got no clothes on.'

Not surprisingly they were slightly late arriving at the vicarage where Christmas was already in full swing. They'd had a brief discussion with Michael and Rose with the mutual agreement that there'd be no presents, but when they'd done their shopping the previous evening they'd seen a sledge. Ruth had remembered that Rose had told her that theirs had been broken and that once Christmas was over when Michael wouldn't be so busy, that they intended looking for a new one. It was in the boot of Harry's car.

'Have you given any more thought to what I said?' Rose slipped into the conversation as she and Ruth loaded the dishwasher after Harry and Michael had been dispatched to the lounge with the children, who having finished their lunch were impatient to return to the new toys that littered the floor. She hadn't of course, she'd been rather pre occupied since Harry had arrived and she suspected that Rose knew that. Harry apologising for yawning, mid - way through what was in all honesty the best and only proper Christmas Lunch that either of them had eaten in years, had made it rather obvious.

'You're, so lucky,' was followed by a statement that caused Ruth to pause and think, as Rose told her that it was blindingly obvious that Harry adored her and that if she felt the same about him, to make the most of it. 'Time changes relationships especially when kids come along. I still love Michael just as much as I did when I met him,' she told her, 'but those early days when everything is new and has an excitement about it are special and will never be eclipsed, so enjoy it.'

Had she not been standing in Rose's kitchen and a million miles from London, she'd have considered the real possibility that the house had been bugged and that Rose had witnessed her seducing Harry in what he'd described as the best ever. As it was, it must have been blindingly obvious that they'd spent the last twelve hours at it like rabbits as Ros had once hinted, when she'd walked into Harry's office and found them sitting rather too close together on his sofa with Harry's hand on her knee, and she'd been stupid enough to jump to her feet and race for the door.

This was different and Ruth wasn't naiive enough to believe that there was anything other than a genuine concern for her that had made Rose say what she had. Although she had no doubts that her future lay with Harry, the where that would be was a huge question that they needed to discuss, so she stuck to her guns and repeated her promise that she'd make her decision after New Year.

'No rush,' said Rose with a smile, putting on the kettle.

Ruth had never been further than the kitchen in the vicarage, so when she opened the door for Rose who was carrying the tray of coffees and cold drinks for the children, she didn't know what to expect. The lounge loomed large screaming of a family Christmas, with a large tree in one corner, a fireplace bedecked with decorations and cards, presents everywhere and a wood burning stove burning brightly.

Ruth saw none of this as her eyes wide with surprise fixed on Harry who was performing a masterclass as a perfect father.

Michael was asleep in his chair, but Harry divested of his shoes and with his shirt sleeves rolled up, was was sitting on the floor with Robert who was working his way through an instruction booklet. In front of them sat the twins, surrounded by piles of building blocks piecing together what looked like the runway of an airport.

Harry's concentration was only broken when he looked up and winked at her, patting the floor beside him suggesting that he could do with some help if she fancied it, a statement that was loaded with so much more than an invitation to join him with the children. Ruth could almost hear Rose saying, I told you so.

'Come on you two, time to go to bed,' Rose told the protesting twins, as Harry and Ruth thanked them for a wonderful day with the promise that they'd see them soon.

'We'll give you a call about New Year's Eve,' Michael called after their disappearing backs. 'We have plans.'