No Risk Refused

None of the stones were loose.

That couldn’t be. Lowering herself to her stomach, Adair squinted at the stones as she ran her hands along them again. There wasn’t even a crack she could get a finger into.

Had the lightning shifted things?

The sound of Alba’s bell had her scrambling to her feet. Once the dog reached the arch, she wandered around to the side and started pawing at some stones. Adair spotted her aunt as she stepped out of the gardens.

“Find any damage?” Vi called.

“Seems pretty solid.” Adair brushed her hands off on her slacks. And she was going to put that box and the fantasies it contained out of her mind. Why on earth was she obsessing about Cam Sutherland all of a sudden? Avoidance had worked so far, and there wasn’t any reason to think that it wouldn’t continue to work.

Unless you don’t want it to.…

Pushing the thought firmly away, Adair stepped out of the stone arch. “I have an idea about how to avoid the runaway bride disaster.”

Vi smiled at her. “I’m all ears.”

“You distract Bunny tomorrow and give me some time alone with Rexie. Maybe she’ll tell me what’s bothering her. I’d like to know what really happened with her first husband that’s making her so nervous about taking a second chance.”

Vi smiled. “I can handle Bunny. She’s very interested in getting the recipe for the scones I served with her herb tea.”

“You never give that recipe out.”

“I won’t this time either, but I have several older versions of it that I can bear to part with.”

Alba’s bell jingled again, and she suddenly appeared around the side of the arch with something in her mouth. The dog dropped what looked like a leather pouch on the ground at their feet.

She and Vi dropped to their knees together. Then Adair picked up the pouch. It was folded like an envelope with another pouch inside of it and another pouch in side of that. “Chinese boxes,” Adair murmured.

But when she opened the last one, all she could do was stare. Inside lay a sapphire earring set in gold. The gem was the size of her thumbnail and it dangled from a link of gold chain.

Vi caught her breath. “Oh, my.”

Oh, my, indeed. Adair recognized it right away. Eleanor Campbell MacPherson was wearing it in the portrait that hung in the main parlor. And Mary Stuart might very well have worn it on the day she was crowned.

But Eleanor’s dowry had been missing for years. The theory was that one of the Anguses had sold it long ago.

With the earring still lying in the palm of her hand, she stood and walked around to the side of the stone arch where Alba had been digging. Sure enough, there was a pile of stones that looked as if they’d shaken loose during the storm.

“Who on earth put this here and why?” Adair breathed.

Alba began to bark. When Adair glanced at her, she saw that the dog wasn’t looking at the loose stones but at the wooded hill that sloped sharply upward beyond the stone arch. Alba continued to bark as she raced to the hedge that separated the gardens from the trees. Adair ran her gaze up the hill, trying to see what was upsetting the dog, but she saw nothing.

“There’s something up there she doesn’t like,” Vi said as she moved past Adair to take the dog’s collar and pat her head.

Even as the dog quieted, Adair scanned the hill again and still saw nothing.

“We’d better get that earring inside and then we’ll have to call your father and let him know,” Vi said.

Adair stared down at the earring and as she did, it seemed to glow. She could have sworn that she felt a warmth in her hands. After all these years, a part of Eleanor’s dowry had shown up. Why now, she couldn’t help but wonder. And why had it been hidden away in the stone arch?

3

Received a call from Mom and A.D. Need our help. Conference call with all three of us at five-thirty?

CAM SUTHERLAND READ the short text from his brother Reid twice. Some things never changed. In spite of the fact that he and his brothers were triplets, there’d always been a pecking order. From the time they were little, if his mom needed something she’d always called on Reid, the oldest. Even now, she used him as her main contact person, and it was his job to relay the information and/or request.

Because his younger brother Duncan had always been studious and a bit shy, he’d always seemed to receive extra attention, too. Not that his mom had a lot to spread around. Her work teaching and her research had always absorbed her. “Absentminded professor” might have been a term coined to describe her. But after their father had been sent to prison, Beth Sutherland’s academic success and her publications had been key to keeping custody of her sons. So from the age of ten, they’d all pitched in.

And they’d fallen into roles. Reid had become the leader and organizer, Duncan had offered ideas and analysis, and it had usually fallen on Cam to carry out the missions. Not that he’d complained. He’d always preferred action over giving advice or orders.

His mother didn’t turn to them very often anymore, but he had no doubt that he would probably get the assignment. His older brother’s new duties in the Secret Service serving on the Vice President’s security detail were keeping Reid very busy, and the last time he’d talked to Duncan, who worked as a profiler in the Behavioral Sciences division of the FBI, he’d been consulting on a case in Montana.

Then with a frown Cam read the text again. His mom and A. D. MacPherson were in Scotland, and if they’d taken the time to call, his best guess was that something was going on at the castle. From what he’d last heard, Viola MacPherson lived alone there now. The image of a tiny, energetic woman popped into his mind. He hadn’t forgotten her scones or her brownies. Except for Christmas and birthday cards, he hadn’t seen Aunt Vi or visited the castle since his mother had married the successful landscape painter seven years ago. That had been his senior year in college and he’d joined the CIA right away. For five years he’d worked a variety of covert operations overseas. He’d enjoyed the travel and the challenge of the assignments, but when an opportunity had presented itself to transfer to the Domestic Operations section in D.C., he’d been ready for a change. He still worked in the field but his assignments tended to be of shorter duration, and as a side benefit he got to work for an old and dear friend.

The last he’d heard, the MacPherson sisters had been as busy as he, his brothers and their parents, and were pursuing career goals. Not that he knew what they were doing exactly. He’d avoided thinking about them for years.

Especially Adair.

He strode to the window of his office, but it wasn’t the scenery that he saw. It was Adair MacPherson’s face. The image of her standing beneath that stone arch during his mother’s wedding to A. D. MacPherson had been popping into his mind lately. It had been a late-fall wedding. He and his brothers had been tied up in classes so they’d booked flights that arrived on the morning of the ceremony and left that evening.

The picture he’d carried in his mind before that had been of a little girl with red curls and freckles, a face that had frowned easily when he’d teased her, and a temper that he’d enjoyed igniting. Calling her “Princess” usually succeeded in eliciting both responses. But she had a smile that he’d wanted to trigger almost as much as the frown.

What he’d enjoyed most about her during those long summer afternoons when they’d played together was the fact that she was willing to try anything. Eager, in fact. She’d been fun—for a girl.

But what he’d felt at his mother’s wedding had been something else. And that was the image that still lingered in his mind. Her red-gold curls were tied back with a green ribbon. He’d wanted to run his hands through those curls. At nine, her body had been sturdy and athletic. At twenty, it had been slim as a wand, and he’d wanted to explore every single inch of it. Desire was far too tame a word for what he’d felt. But it was her eyes that had nearly finished him off that day. He had no clear idea of how long he had looked into them. But he’d never forget the color—a pale and misty green that he could have sworn he was drowning in.

Cam drew in a deep breath and let it out. He’d wanted her that day in a way he’d never wanted anyone or anything before. In a way he’d never wanted anyone since. And he’d been rash enough to ask her to dance. If she’d agreed, if he’d held her in his arms, he still wasn’t sure what would have happened. Perhaps she’d had some idea of the possible consequences because she’d turned him down flat.

He wasn’t sure why she was popping into his mind more frequently lately. Perhaps because he was back in the States. Perhaps because she’d never really left his mind. Perhaps because it was only possible to avoid something for so long and then…

“Got a minute, Sutherland?”