No Risk Refused

When Adair realized that her eyes had shifted to the box, she focused on her list again and wrote at the top: (1) Check in with the florist. (2) Call Rexie.

Tonight maybe. She’d sleep better if she knew that the young bride-to-be’s nerves had definitely settled.

(3) Call first husband Dr. Barry Carlson.

Adair dropped her pen and stared at what she’d written. Call Barry Carlson? Why was she even thinking of doing that? Hadn’t she decided Rexie’s first marriage wasn’t any of her business? Then she thought of her conversation with Rexie that morning and the look in the young woman’s eyes when she’d said, “He refused to talk to me.” Hurt that Rexie hadn’t recovered from yet.

Dammit. She fisted her hands on her desk. It wouldn’t hurt to look up the phone number. Rexie had mentioned that Barry’s parents had horses. Lifting her notebook computer out of the top drawer, she booted it up and searched for the Carlson Horse Ranch in Montana. A few clicks got her to the web page.

And there he was—Dr. Barry Carlson. To her surprise, he looked vaguely familiar. She thought of those moments where she’d been sitting in front of the arch, using her visualization technique to picture Rexie kissing Lawrence Banes. But the man her imagination had summoned up had looked a lot more like Barry than Banes.

No, that couldn’t be. She’d never met Barry Carlson. Her mind was just playing tricks on her. When she caught herself jotting down the phone number of the horse farm, she dropped the pencil and stared at her hands. They were playing tricks on her, too.

And it was all because she was trying so hard not to think of that box and Cam Sutherland. So much for avoidance.

Thoroughly annoyed, she pulled it toward her. Cam had been right about the lock not providing a challenge. Over the years the flimsy thing had rusted enough that she was able to pull it away with one jerk.

Taking a deep breath, she opened the lid. And there they were—the three compartments with folded sheets of different-colored paper in each one. It had been Nell’s idea that they use different-colored paper for privacy. She’d chosen yellow. That night she’d written on a legal pad and the sheets lay there right on the top of her section.

Unable to resist, she took her fantasy out and shoved aside her day planner and To Do list. Then she unfolded the pages and spread them over the surface of her desk. There was always the chance that she’d find her adolescent fantasy amusing or even laughable. Perhaps just reading it would put it in perspective and she could get her focus back.

But her lips didn’t so much as curve as she read the words she’d written so long ago. She barely recognized her own handwriting. She’d written at such a rate of speed, wanting to keep up with the images that had flooded her mind. They were as compelling now as they’d been seven years ago. And they were even more erotic.

Being swept away by a stranger had been a fantasy of women for years. And she’d learned in a female studies class she’d taken freshman year that the fantasy was grounded in what had been the reality of many women’s lives for thousands of years.

But the fact that it had been her fantasy that long-ago night—the fact that it was that particular fantasy that had gripped her imagination and flowed out of her pen had shocked her then.

It shocked her right now.

The pages she’d written that night were all about being transported by a man and by the danger of the adventure. As she skimmed the words, she could see that she’d incorporated elements of Romancing the Stone and Indiana Jones, and even the first Jason Bourne movie.

The most exciting thing she could think of that night was being swept up in a life-threatening adventure with a man. The sex had to be hotter when it was layered with fear and the adrenaline of the chase. It had always seemed to be that way in the movies.

And it wasn’t just the lure of danger and excitement that had captured her imagination, it had been the man she’d imagined doing everything with her.

Cam Sutherland.

He was the man she’d imagined lying beneath. He was the man who’d kissed her, touched her and thrust into her.

And now that she wasn’t operating on imagination, now that she’d had a taste of reality and experienced the promise of what might lie beyond the kisses they’d exchanged…

Her blood heated, raced, and something deep inside of her tightened.

She pressed a hand against her heart to keep it from pounding right out of her chest. How could she possibly reconcile her response to him with the woman she was and had always told herself she wanted to be?

Women who ran off with sexy strangers, chased bad guys in cars, dodged bullets and plunged into mountain streams were…just…not her.

She was organized, goal oriented. She made lists and liked to follow them. She made five-year plans for heaven’s sake. So what if her first one had crashed and burned? That only meant she had to concentrate fully on the next one. There was zero room in her life for unplanned and unwanted adventures. Lightning strikes and missing jewels were not on her agenda. And neither was hot-as-you-can-imagine sex with Cam Sutherland.

And if all that were true, why was she losing her mind every time he touched her?

She dropped her head in her hands. Before she did something really stupid, she had to think about this. She had to get some kind of a handle on it and come up with a plan.

Gathering the papers on the desk, she put them back into her compartment and closed the lid. She had to think this through, and her favorite thinking place had always been at Tinker’s Falls. After replacing the lock, she tucked the box into her bottom drawer. Then she hurried out through the French doors and headed into the woods.

* * *

CAM SLIPPED TO the side of the French doors just as he saw Adair start toward them. When he’d arrived on the terrace she’d had her head dropped in her hands. The posture was so unlike her that he’d stopped short to study her. Once again her vulnerability tugged at him. Had her meeting not gone well? He’d glanced around the room, then arrowed back to the flimsily locked metal box. Was that what was upsetting her?

For a moment all he’d wanted was to go to her, to draw her to her feet and just hold her. But before he could give in to the impulse she lifted her head and gathered up the papers on her desk, put them back in the box and tucked everything away in a drawer.

When she had risen from the desk he’d stepped to the side of the open doors, and now he watched her cross the terrace and head to the path that led to the woods. The energy in her movement, the intent way she’d left the office, reminded him more of the Adair he thought he knew than the woman he’d glimpsed with her head in her hands.

He waited only until she disappeared before he stepped into her office. The space was roomy and might have once served as a second parlor. There were bookcases flanking a stone fireplace, double doors on another wall that opened into the entrance foyer, and to the left, French doors that led into the main parlor.

He had a theory now about why Vi and Alba were having their sleep disturbed and Adair wasn’t, and it also might explain why neither of the women had noticed anything missing from the castle. Vi’s room was situated over the castle’s library, a two-floored room that hadn’t been used in years. It still housed a dust-covered but extensive collection, some of it dating back to Angus One. According to Vi, the last person who’d used it for any length of time was his mother. That room was where she’d spent most of that summer when he and his brothers were ten.

If the castle did have an intruder and he or she had confined themselves to the library, that might explain why Adair’s sleep had never been disturbed. But that theory opened up a lot of questions. Such as, why would someone want secret access to the library? Why not do what his mother had done and simply ask permission?

Or maybe he was totally off the track. But he’d wanted to talk to Adair about it. More, he’d wanted simply to see her. For a moment he found himself torn. There was a part of him that wanted to follow her and another part that was curious about the contents of the mysterious box.

And he might not get another opportunity like this one. Glancing over his shoulder, he checked to make sure that she was out of sight. Then he crossed to her desk. It was typical Adair, with its day planner and To Do list. He skimmed the first two items, then studied the third. Call first husband—Dr. Barry Carlson.

So she really was torn about the wedding. Perhaps her gut instinct was giving her a message similar to Daryl’s. Something wasn’t right about Lawrence Banes.

He opened the bottom drawer and lifted out the box. She hadn’t bothered to latch the tiny lock, so he removed it and opened the lid.

It was divided into three compartments. One was stuffed with folded pieces of colored paper: the one on the left with yellow, the center one with blue and the final one with pink. Organized. He recalled what Vi had said about the three girls writing down their hopes, their goals and their dreams on colored papers and burying them in the stones.

That scenario didn’t fully explain the acuteness of Adair’s embarrassment. Cam removed the folded colored papers on the top of each section and spread them out on the desk. The date in the top right-hand corner told him that each had been written on the night that his mother had married A. D. MacPherson seven years ago. Each was a different length, each was in a different handwriting, but they had one thing in common. The title at the beginning of each one read: “My Fling With My Fantasy Man.”