Three long, lonely years.

Three years without freedom.

Three years without the woman he loved.

Three years of hell.

And now they were over.

Scott Mitchell turned and took one last look at the bleak gray walls of the high-security prison where he'd spent the past three years of his life.

Where he'd reached such depths of despair that he'd seriously considered suicide. Where he'd spent agonizing hours reliving the tragic accident that had taken the lives of two innocent people.

Where he'd lain awake night after night yearning for the tender touch and sheltering arms of the woman he loved…tormented by the knowledge that she never wanted to see him again.

Where he'd finally found something to cling to in a long-neglected interest in horticulture, a hobby that became a passion and offered a temporary escape from the drab walls to a world of color and beauty and new life.

Where he'd acknowledged his mistakes and straightened out his priorities.

And most important, where he'd slowly, one tentative step at a time, rebuilt his faith and reconnected with his God.

Scott drew a deep, cleansing breath as he stared at the hellish place that, ironically enough, had put him back on the road to heaven. But it had been a harsh, brutal journey. The abrupt transition from power lunches to prisoner, from a world where individual rights reigned supreme to a world where no rights existed had been harrowing. He'd been stripped of his dignity, reduced to a number, looked upon with contempt. He'd lost everything he ever cared about—and that didn't mean the designer suits or sports cars or country-club membership he'd once valued so highly. No, the loss was much more basic than that—the people