Morgan woke early, his need for her so enormous-his need, not his-well yes, his boner, too. But he wanted a spiritual, emotional, and all-encompassing relationship with Destiny. He wanted her beside him whether paddling a kayak, planting crazy-named asters, painting a door, or facing his parents.

He might be joking with himself, especially about his parents, but the whole loving Destiny thing scared the breath out of him, punched him in the solar plexus, and nearly brought him to his knees, because logic didn't enter into it. For a man like him, mistakes made more logical sense than an emotion as elusive and life-altering as love. He got up quietly, grabbed his sweats, and took the kayak out to think.

He would not run from love, but he did need to figure it out. He didn't fear it so much as he didn't understand it.

Maybe he was as mad as his mother thought. Maybe, maybe not.

Unsure how long he'd been on the water, he looked up at the sky and thought that dawn might not make as sunny a debut this morning as it had yesterday.

Eventually, dark clouds scuttled overhead, as if a storm might be brewing. Made him think of spending a rainy day in bed making lo-yes, making love with Destiny.

He heard the fog bell calling to him, and a great abiding forever love for the woman who sounded it welled up in him. Joyfulness infused him. He turned the kayak toward home-his home, if Destiny was there-surprised he'd come so far. Facing shore, the wind whipped at his jacket, and sea spray lashed like ice picks at his face and hands.

As if Destiny sensed his trouble, the Fresnel light went on, like a candle in the window leading him back to her. She must have awakened alone and gone looking for him. He waved, assuming she'd brought the binoculars up there. "I'm coming," he shouted, grinning like a fool.

As if she could hear him.

Destiny, his beacon, sending rays of faith, hope, and love in dark and stormy seas. Maybe he'd fallen in love with the lighthouse because it was known for granting safe harbor to lost travelers, which he'd surely been when he first went there. Lighthouses directed lost travelers like him safely to shore, toward their destinies. His Destiny.

He loved her, and he couldn't wait to get back to tell her. When he'd come out here earlier, he hadn't been running from love but from need. It was scary to need another person as much as you needed your next breath. It implied a need for unlimited faith and trust. You had to believe your love would be there for you always.

Would she?

A sudden gust whipped the wind around him, making the water choppy and difficult to navigate. The kayak rolled, taking him by surprise. One minute above water; the next minute below. Morgan rolled himself and the kayak upright.

Thunder and lightning joined nature's frenzy.

His heart nearly pounded from his chest. The muscles in his arms clenched as he tried to paddle against the storm-tossed sea. He looked toward the lighthouse.

Knowing Destiny waited there gave him strength.

He rolled again, kayak side up, and got a premonition, a vision in slow motion. "No!" he shouted.

Chapter Forty-three.

MORGAN rolled and resurfaced, again, pulling air into his lungs.

He'd lost his bearings, couldn't see the lighthouse anymore, but when he spotted it, he watched an instant replay of his vision in quick, terrorizing action.

Before his eyes, a lightning ball raced toward the lighthouse, hit the tower, and brick by slow brick, it collapsed. "Destiny!" he screamed, his mournful wail lost in the frenzied wind.

Had she stayed in the tower? Gone back down? Was she hurt? Safe?

The lens must have broken to form huge, heavy slivers of slicing glass. Oh God, let her be safe. He called her name as he fought the waves battering the kayak. It flipped him again, and this time he freed himself from its grip.

He floated to the surface too slowly because the tossing water fought to keep him down, his lungs about to burst. The minute he surfaced, he sucked in air, cleared his mind, and began to swim against the tide, in a lightning storm, by damn.

He looked in every direction, but he'd lost the shore.

Lost.

Hopeless. Exhausted. Frozen. It would be so easy to give up. Praying didn't even seem worth the trouble, except that Destiny needed him. He'd save her, but he needed to rest first, to gather his strength.

Morgan closed his eyes for a minute, just a minute, but water closing over his head woke him.

"Morgan," Meggie said. "Follow me."

"Meggie! I can see you. Your beautiful face. Finally, I can see you. Can you hear me? We're beneath the water, but I can hear you."

"We never needed sound to talk, did we?"

Morgan gave in to his fear. "Does seeing you mean that I'm dead, too? Did I drown?" He looked for Destiny, afraid she'd died in the collapsing tower, but he saw only water all around him. "Is Destiny okay? Did she make it?"

"I love you, Morgan," Meggie said. "I stayed because I knew that someone else you loved would be trapped in a tower, and I couldn't let you blame yourself this time. You couldn't have saved me. It was my time. I always knew I wasn't meant to grow up. But you're different."

"What about Destiny? I can't live without her."

"Destiny is buried alive, but Buffy is with her, so she has a chance, a small chance."

Denial. Loss. Rage. Sanity. "I'll do anything, Meggie."

"Can you believe in me enough to follow me?" his sister asked.

"I've always believed in you. I just got lost in the dark for a while, until Destiny led me to the light." And the thought of saving her gave him the physical strength to go on, while Meggie gave him the emotional strength. "Lead the way, Megs."

"Follow me."

Morgan no longer felt the cold as he swam after his twin-yes, Meggie did, indeed, walk on water, like Jake said.

Hours later, or so it seemed, when Morgan reached the island, he could barely stand, but he didn't have a choice. With bricks and a giant, battered Fresnel lens blocking the kitchen door out back, Morgan staggered to the front door. "I can't let Destiny die like you did, Meggie. If she's-if she-"

"Destiny," he shouted when he got inside. He stopped to call her from the bottom of the stairs.

"You're wasting time, Morgan," Meggie said. "She's in the tower."

Adrenaline surged through him as he stood in the keeper's room and tore bricks away from the tower entrance, Meggie encouraging him. He could see his dead sister, miracle of miracles. Now he wanted another miracle. He looked beyond the lighthouse ceiling and angry storm clouds. Please, don't let there be a life limit on miracles or forgiveness.

He resumed calling Destiny's name.

For every brick he removed, twenty fell. He couldn't move them fast enough, and for a minute, he wanted his world to end. Without Destiny, his life meant nothing. "No! I will not let the tower have her!"

"Morgan," Meggie said. "You're the logical twin. Think."

He took a minute to catch his breath, and he tried to calm enough to think logically. "The lighthouse keeper," he said. "Horace? Meggie, where's Horace?"

"Here he is," Meggie said, holding a uniformed man's hand.

"Thank you for taking care of my sister," Morgan said, shocked to see that the old lighthouse keeper was so young. "Destiny told me about a maze in the basement. Can you lead me through it?"

Horace nodded. "No one better. Follow me."

They crawled beneath the planking that led from the marsh to the porch to find a stone arch that seemed just above the ground beneath the plank, but it covered a set of stairs leading down to a door deep in the earth. "No wonder I never knew it was here. It looked like part of the foundation."

It wasn't so much a maze in a basement as it was a kind of landfill of pilings holding up the lighthouse. Horace, with Meggie behind him, led Morgan through the underground horror house, but the maze led to a dead end, or as good as.

"The hidden door is a trapdoor in the ceiling?" Morgan remembered and confirmed. He pushed against the metal square but to no avail. "It won't budge. It's covered with bricks. How can I get it open?"

"Pull on it," Horace said.

"What?"

"Don't push. Pull."

Morgan wedged his bloody fingers beneath an edge of the trapdoor and hung from it until he fell to the floor as it opened, bricks pouring down on him.

He crawled away as he got pummeled. Eventually, it stopped raining bricks, and Morgan climbed the brick mountain to wedge himself into the opening, shoving bricks aside, and slip through the trapdoor to come up in a corner of the ruined tower.

He faced Meggie and Horace, and shouted in surprise, as if he'd seen a ghost, well, two. "Hades. That's some trick. I just left you behind me, and now you're in front of me."

Meggie giggled, a sound he'd cherish forever, but right now, he needed to find Destiny. "Destiny? Darling, are you here?"

A good section of the circular stairway stood intact, though it was broken with great gaps in places and strewn with bricks. Not as many as in the entryway, which made sense, since the tower was hollow.

Samantha and Caramello came slinking through the trapdoor behind him, yowling and yapping. He bent down, and they jumped into his arms. "We gotta find her, guys. You gotta help me find her."

"Destiny?" he called again. "Destiny, where are you?"

No sound alleviated his anguish.

Chapter Forty-four.

DESTINY drifted on the soft, feathery wings of a dream cloud.

Morgan walked toward her, almost as excited to see her as she was to see him. No hidden emotions for either of them. They were both putting their love, hopes, and dreams out there and lapping them up. Devouring each other with their gazes is what they were doing.

He spoke her name, but it came to her through a tunnel.

She opened her eyes and realized that the feathery wings of the cloud belonged to Buffy, Meggie's angel. Had she died in the tower then? Ooh, she'd died like Meggie. How weird.

Her heart raced. No, she didn't want to die. She wanted more time with Morgan.

She wanted a lifetime with him.

Fine place to realize she'd fallen head over heels in love. Not that they could ever be together, not forever, not in her wildest imaginings-not with him making peace with his faith and her being a witch-even if she could get out of here, but oh Goddess, did she love him.

She was so sorry his tower lay in ruins like in her painting. Sorry her vision had been correct.

Morgan? Her heart sped, her hands began to sweat. She remembered now that he'd been on the water in a thunder and lightning storm.

"Morgan?" she called, but she had no voice. She had to save him with the best means at her disposal: "God of fire

No death bell.

Save the man

That I desire.

"My heart he holds,

For me, he's right.

Though worlds apart,