Highland Sons: The Mackay Saga (11 page)

Scanning the crowd, he found a man staring at them, his expression possessive and dangerous as he glared at Fiona. Cameron shifted and rested his hand on the butt of his pistol. “You know him?”

Her eyes drifted to the hand resting on his gun before following his gaze. “Yes. That’s Seamus. My brother-in-law.”

“He doesn’t look too happy with you.”

“He never is.” She didn’t meet his eyes.

He glanced down at her left hand and found her fingers bare. “So you’re married?”

Her mouth twisted into a grimace, and she was silent for several seconds. “Was. I’ve been widowed three years now.”

“I’m sorry.”

She shrugged, and he thought he heard her mutter, “I’m no’,” under her breath before she said, “‘Twas lovely to meet you, but I’m tired. I should be returning to my room.”

“I’d be happy to walk you.”

She waved away his offer. “No need. I’m perfectly safe.”

Cameron gave a short laugh. “No one’s safe in this town. Allow me to escort you.”

Her inscrutable smile tugged at his heart. “I doubt anyone will trouble me.”

“Why would you say that? A pretty woman like you out alone? It’s nothing short of unseemly.”

“I’m an unseemly girl.”

“That so?”

She lifted a single shoulder in a careworn shrug before she turned away. “I’m a gypsy. A fortune-teller. A witch. I’m told it makes me an unsavory sort.” Rather than the bitterness he expected, her voice held wry humor.

His chest tightened inexplicably. “A witch, huh? Good thing my family has a history with witches,” he said with a laugh. He didn’t believe the family legends, and he might be a miner, but he still had the soul of a Scot, superstitious and poetic. She gave him a quizzical look, and, thinking about the ring she’d surely stolen from him, he sobered. “I think I’d like to walk you home anyway.”

She glanced at the hand he’d extended to her, but didn’t accept it. Her brows drew together in an expression of disbelief or dismay, he couldn’t tell which. “I may put a hex on you.” Her voice was light.

He laughed, and she smiled in response. “I’ll take my chances.”

Her lips still carrying a hint of a smile, she allowed him to place her hand in the crook of his arm. Having her beside him, touching him, felt right, like he belonged here with this woman in this moment. For the first time since leaving Virginia, he was
home
.

Home
, he thought bitterly, as if he had one of those anymore.

The sound of ore processors broke the silence of the night.

She glanced over her shoulder, her eyes wide and anxious. “How do you get used to the noise? Gives me a headache.”

“I don’t know if you do,” he replied. “Been here almost four years and it still bothers me. But I’ll be done with it soon enough.”

“Leaving town, are you?” she asked.

“I hope so. I have an offer to buy my claim, and I’m thinking about taking it. I plan to buy back my farm and start back up in horses.”

“So you’re a farm boy at heart?”

The words,
I’d say a farmer,
spoken in a flat American accent, rang in his ears. “Yeah. Mining doesn’t suit me.” He glanced over at her to gauge her reaction.

Her face remained impassive, unreadable. “It doesn’t?”

“Doesn’t suit anyone,” he said. “Besides, I’ve got family elsewhere. I’d like to be near them again.”

Their eyes met, and something in her face gentled. “You miss them?”

He stared up at the night sky. Back in Ohio, was Duncan looking at these same stars and wishing he were near? “My brother was my best friend once. Then the war came. We argued and he went off to join the army. I left not much later, lied about my age and joined the Union just before my seventeenth birthday. And I’d do it again. But I’ve only seen my brother once in almost nine years. I regret that the most.” He cut himself off, surprised he revealed so much to a woman he suspected had taken his family’s ring, a woman he shouldn’t want. Clearing his throat, he said, “Anyway, we lost the land, lost the horses, and so I came out here for the mining. Hoped to make my fortune. What about you?”

“I’m here with the band. Where they go, I go.”

“It’s that simple?”

“Nothing’s that simple, Mr. Mackay.”

Sadness wreathed her features, and pity tightened his chest. “If you’re unhappy, why don’t you leave?”

“You say it like it’s easy to walk away from the only life you know.” Bitterness laced her words. She stopped in front of a two-story brick building whose French doors stood open and inviting. Music from the parlor drifted out into the street. “Here we are. Thank you for bringing me back.”

“May I see you to your room?”

Fiona scowled, peeked around him and sighed. He glanced over his shoulder, but he saw nothing but a dark street, the night wind picking up dust, and the occasional tumbleweed. She shifted her weight, and anxiety rested in the lines of her shoulders, the tightness of her features.

He took her face in his hands. “What’s wrong? What are you afraid of?”

Her skin was soft, and he caught a whiff of jasmine-scented perfume. The thought of kissing her pretty mouth until she begged for more overwhelmed him, the image of her face, flushed with passion, flashing behind his eyelids.

Her dark eyes met his. “Nothing.”

Liar
, he thought, but rather than voicing it, he stroked her cheeks with his thumbs, reveling in the feel of her soft skin beneath his fingers. Logic vanished, obliterated by an overwhelming desire to kiss her and brand her
his
.

Cameron leaned in and brushed his lips against hers.

He meant it to be a tender kiss inviting nothing more, but he hadn’t counted on her taste being so sweet or so perfect. He hadn’t thought he’d lose himself to the power of it, lose himself in the softness of her lips. With effort, he broke the contact. “Let me see you to your room.”

Her dark eyes flicked from his face to the dark street behind him and back again. “All right.”

He tucked her hand into the crook of his arm and guided her into the hotel. Through the lobby, up the stairs, and down the hall, she remained silent, and all the while, his emotions boiled inside him.

She had the ring. He knew it now. The moment his lips had touched hers, he’d known. He’d spent the last few days searching for Elizabeth and found her in Fiona. The kiss she’d given him that night had been the most powerful thing he’d ever experienced, and he’d been tied up in knots ever since, and not just because of the ring.

Stopping outside a door, she reached into her pocket for a key and said, “This is my room.”

He nodded slowly, his teeth clenched. “Fiona . . .”

“Mr. Mackay.”

“Cameron,” he corrected. Cupping her face in his hands, he brushed his lips against hers. Tentative at first, but then she welcomed him, opening so he could plunder the moist heat of her mouth and taste the sweetness of her tongue. She responded to him heedlessly, recklessly, and he did the same.

A seething cauldron of want bubbled just below the surface of his skin, longing for something not in his possession.

Not the ring.
Her.

A ghraidh.
The words, long ingrained in his memory, flashed inside his head.
After centuries, the rest of the words that had once been engraved on the band of his family’s ring had long been worn away, until only those two remained.

Love.

He didn’t believe in fairytales—the only thing he believed in was himself. But then she stepped closer to him, the soft curves of her body pressing against his chest, and he forgot about the ring. The ring didn’t matter. Only she mattered. Her taste. Her scent. Her kiss.

Fiona.

A ghraidh
.

The stories he’d heard his whole life said that the one who carried the ring would find love, if he believed. Not lust, or a passing fancy, but the kind of love venerated for generations, the kind of love that only existed in song. Deep and strong and eternal.

A few more tastes of her, and he might believe in the family fairytale.

She put her hands against his chest and broke the kiss. “No, Mr. Mackay, I canno’.”

He shook his head to clear it. She was right. They shouldn’t do this. Couldn’t do this. Not until he got the ring back.

Since coming here, he’d wanted only to make enough money to go home and buy some land. He’d lived like a pauper for years, scrimping and saving every last penny until he’d hit a good vein. Now with his goals in reach, all he wanted was this gypsy girl who stole his breath with her kisses as surely as she had stolen his ring from his pocket.

A thief and a liar and, by her own admission, a witch. Yet he still wanted her more than he’d ever wanted a woman in his life.

Maybe more than he’d wanted anything, because the moment her lips touched his, he was tempted to throw it all away and follow her anywhere.

Clenching his jaw, he took a step back. He had goals and a birthright to reclaim. Holding on to that thought, he said, “You’re right, Elizabeth, we can’t.”

Horror flashed in her wide, dark eyes before it was quickly suppressed. “I beg your pardon?”

“I said, you’re right. You have something I want, but you and I . . . we can’t do this.” His voice low and rough, even he recognized the bitterness behind his words.

Her silence, her lack of curiosity about what he wanted, condemned her, and yet guilt churned in his gut at the sadness in her eyes. Turning, she put the key in the lock, twisted the knob, and darted inside her room before he had a chance to say anything else. He heard a soft rustling against the door, and knew she stood just on the other side, her breathing heavy and labored. Like his.

“Fiona,” he said softly. He wasn’t certain if she was listening, but he suspected she was. “I—I’m sorry.”

They were not the words he intended to say, but he meant them.

The only answer he received was silence.

“Tell me my fortune.”

The deep voice, spoken in a slow, southern drawl, poured over her like warm honey. That voice had invaded her dreams and occupied her waking moments until she thought of little else. Everything reminded her of him. The golden glow of dawn would remind her of his bright hair. The scuff of heavy boots against a wood floor would have her thinking of the time they’d danced together, the strength of his arms and the power of his kiss.

She didn’t
want
to think about that.

She closed her eyes for a moment.
Not him,
she silently begged, though her heart longed for the opposite.
Anyone but him.

Yet her prayer went unanswered. Turning, she found Cameron Mackay framed in the fading light of dusk at the entrance to her tent, his ten-gallon hat dangling from his hand. The flap closed behind him, and they were plunged into the semidarkness created by the twilight outside and the pale flickering of candles within. The light played off the planes of his face and cast shadows of his form in the corners, creating ghosts of a man she suspected she’d never fully be rid of, even after she left town.

“I’m sorry,” she said, and the voice she heard sounded breathless and excited. “I’m not telling fortunes at the moment. One of the other readers can tell your fortune for you, if you like.”

The corner of his lips ticked up into a lopsided smile, and Fiona’s heart shuddered. Still holding his hat in his hand, he hooked his thumbs into the waistband of his trousers, somehow managing to emphasize the broad proportions of his chest and his muscular thighs. “I’m told that the fortune-teller you get matters. I’ve waited all day. I’d be happy to wait a few more minutes.”

“I’ll be closing shortly.”

His eyes met hers. “Well then, I’ll be your last customer of the night.” When she was silent for too long, he added softly, “If you refuse me tonight, I’ll come back tomorrow.”

Fiona sucked on the inside of her cheek—she hadn’t missed the veiled threat in his words. He’d simply return the next day, and the day after, until they left. His ring, in her pocket, burned where it touched her, just like his kisses still burned her lips.

He
knew
.

With a sigh, she said, “Very well.” She motioned to the large pillows on the floor next to a wooden table. “Sit.”

The coins on her belt tinkled delicately as she walked past him to take a seat opposite him. He waited for her to sit, and then took his place across from her, looking distinctly uncomfortable among the plush pillows and silken scarves. Intelligence gleamed in his remarkable eyes. This close, even in the fading light, she saw they were hazel, the firelight catching the gold flecks in them.

He was the kind of man who made his own fortune. He didn’t need luck, nor did he need her prognostications to tell him what to do next. Cameron Mackay was a man who already
knew.

He was here because of
her.
Because of what she had.

Taking a breath to calm the heart galloping like wild horses beneath her breast, she spread the cards out in front of him. “We’ll start with a short read.”

The corners of his lips curled into a smile, and a part of her wondered what kind of pain lurked behind it. She immediately abandoned the thought—she shouldn’t want to know. “You will draw three cards. But first, you must ask a question.”

“A question?”

“Yes,” she answered, warming to the reading like she always did when the cards forced her to focus. “Do you want to know about your future wife? What fortunes await you in the mines? Do you want to find out when you’re going to die?” She used the lines she had perfected years ago.

His fingers skimmed the back of her hand, and her body contracted with sudden and painful want. Lord, it had been a long time since she’d had a man. Too long, if the reaction of her body to Cameron’s proximity was any indication. He abruptly withdrew, his features tight, and she wondered if he felt it, too.

“No, nothing like that. There are some things a man isn’t meant to know and shouldn’t want to.”

Placing her hands on the edge of the table in an attempt to create distance between them that did not exist, she said, “You sound like a preacher. You’re in the wrong tent, if that’s the case.”

A laugh rumbled up from the depths of his chest. “I think I’m right where I’m supposed to be.”

Fiona's heart lurched, and they regarded one another for a long time.

“What kind of question?” he asked.

“Why are you here? What do you want to know more about?” she asked. “I need a focus for the cards.”

The expression in his hazel eyes turned serious, all trace of amusement and warmth erased. “I lost something. I want to know how to find it.”

She sucked in a breath, dismay spiraling through her and settling in the pit of her stomach. Placing the cards on the table in front of him, she said, “Very well. Think about your question. Think only about your question. If there is another question in your heart, the cards will reflect that, so make sure you’re asking the right question.”

He leaned forward and chose a card, his fingers lightly brushing against hers. Her skin burned where he touched her, and only through years of practice did she manage to keep her expression serene. “It was a ring.” He leaned in to choose his second card. “A family heirloom. The words
a ghraidh
inscribed on the band.”

Gaelic
.

He nodded.

Startled, she realized she had voiced the thought.

“It means, ‘love.’ The ring’s been passed down from father to son for generations. It’s said that a witch gave it to her husband when he spared her from being burned at the stake. It’s supposed to bring fortune and luck, and love to the one who carries it.” He shrugged.

Fiona’s heart stumbled in her chest. This man was no simple miner, any more than the ring in her pocket was just another heirloom.
Magic
was afoot.

“My brother gave it to me when I came out here. I want it back.”

His dark eyes scanned her face, appraising her every action and reaction, and again Fiona realized what a poor target he had been that night and still was. If she had an ounce of sense, she’d make her excuses and run. She’d give him a short reading and get him out of her tent. She wouldn’t try to sell him additional answers in a palm reading or a pretended contact with his dead ancestors.

After all, she had the only answers he wanted in her pocket.

Her throat suddenly too tight, she cleared it noisily as she gestured to the cards out in front of him. “And the last card?”

His knuckles brushed against the back of her hand as he chose his third card. His gaze flicked up to hers. “It’s the only tie I have to my legacy, to my heritage. I’ve lost everything else.” His eyes bore into hers, and she heard an unspoken question in his voice.

Again, she thought about the ring, branding her skin through the thin fabric of her skirt.

Liar and thief,
it said.

Gypsy witch
, it accused.

Yet she couldn’t part with the ring. Despite the guilt gnawing at her with jagged teeth, the ring’s magic spoke to her. It was hers . . . just as surely as it was his.

What else did she have that belonged to him?

The gilt rings on her fingers glittered in the flickering of candlelight as she touched the cards. “This first card represents your past. The ten of swords. This means your season of unluckiness is behind you. Maybe you had a painful childhood, or suffered great loss. According to this, those dark days are over.”

A stray lock of wavy red hair fell into his eyes as he inclined his head in the barest whisper of a nod, and Fiona fought the sudden and overwhelming impulse to run her hands through his hair and kiss him senseless.

“I hope so,” he said, his voice quiet.

“‘Tis a good card to have in your past.” She tapped the second card with her index finger. “This represents your present.” The air between them was heavy with portent, as if the whole world held its breath over the fate being read in those cards. She felt it as surely as she felt the beating of her own heart. Turning the card over, her breath left her body in a
whoosh
as her lungs seized. “The—the lovers.”

The smile he gave her was both boyish and cautious. “So, my present is a woman?”

Despair rose in her chest like the tide, inevitable and consuming. “At first glance, ‘twould seem so. However,
the Lovers
isn’t about love in the way you might think. ‘Tis about choice.

“You will come across something or someone you have to have from the first moment you lay eyes on it, and you will be forced to make a choice,” she continued, her voice wavering. “You could take this thing you must have, even though you may be led astray. Or, you could turn your back and continue on. Maybe you will make the right choice. Maybe you will wonder forever if you’ve made the wrong one. This card says there will be something you want with everything inside you, even though it might no’ be the best thing for you. And you will be forced to choose between what your heart most desires and the path you have chosen for yourself. Either choice could be right. Or either one could be wrong.”

He tapped his long fingers on her table, and she wondered what it would be like to have him run his hands over her body, his fingers traipsing over her skin.

“Sounds ominous.”

She shrugged. “Sometimes it is. Sometimes it isn’t. Sometimes it means you have found a lover, sometimes it simply means change is coming. ‘Tis neither good nor ill. It just is. The cards aren’t passing judgment on this change.”

He made a noncommittal noise deep in his throat. She reached for the third card and turned it over.

Judgment
.

Her heart sputtered.

He must have read her reaction in her expression, because he said, “It’s all right. I don’t believe in fairytales.”

I do.

She swallowed the words before they escaped her lips. His fingers brushed lightly against hers, the barest of touches, yet it affected her as nothing else ever could. Her mind went blank; her heart stumbled. She took a breath to steady herself.

“This is the
Judgment
card. It’s good in this position. All your doubts will disappear and you will leave something behind. Something important to you—you will make a choice and abandon it. ‘Tis a card about leaving behind a past that hurts and moving on to a bright future, full of good health. An excellent card to have in the future position.”

Her breath came short and fast, the earth shifting beneath her and threatening to send her spinning. The only thing grounding her to the here and now was the presence of his hand upon hers, the heat of his skin radiating all the way down to the core of her soul. Her heart yearned, crying out for the one thing she didn’t deserve.

Him.

He regarded her carefully. “Then what’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” she breathed. She gifted him with the brightest smile she could muster. “This is an excellent reading, with a future full of promise.” That wasn’t the only thing she saw in those cards, yet she couldn’t bring herself to tell him the rest of his fortune.

His was not the only future she saw in those cards.

She sighed heavily, as if she could breathe out her fear and despair in the exhalation of her lungs. She wanted to yank her hand away, but she didn’t. Couldn’t.

His ring burned a hole in her pocket.

His fingers twined with hers, and even though she recognized the foolishness of it, she allowed the casual intimacy between them.

“Are you sure?” he asked as he toyed with her fingers, concern evident in his voice.

She stood up, and her fingers slid from his. “Absolutely. Besides, you don’t believe in fairytales or tarot now, do you?”

The corners of his lips ticked up. “No, I don’t.”

He stood and stepped toward her, the space between them disappearing. “So what do you believe in?”

His eyes darted away, as if he couldn’t bear to look at her, and a twinge of sympathy lodged itself beneath her breast.

“Not much of anything. Seen too much, I suppose.”

She placed her palm against his chest, the beating of his heart strong and steady beneath her fingers. The heart of a Scot. He captured her hand and cradled her palm in his large, callused hands.

“What about love? Do you believe in that?” she asked on little more than a whisper of breath and again the heavens paused as she waited for his answer.

His eyes met hers. “Not really.”

Her chest constricted to the point of pain, and inexplicable tears burned the back of her eyelids. “No’ much of a way to live.” Her voice wavered. She didn’t even have the presence of mind to hide it.

“I suppose not,” he said with a shrug. His mouth tightened and pity fanned out from the corners of his eyes. As their gazes locked and held, the air between them became electric. His arm snaked around her waist and he enveloped her in his embrace. The heat of his hand seeped through the thin fabric of her blouse to her skin, and she melted against him.

For a second, she worried he intended to turn out her pockets as Seamus had. Then he kissed her, and she didn’t care if he did, even if it meant he’d discover what he came for.

He feathered his lips against hers, his kiss gentle and sweet. She opened her mouth to take more of him, and tasted the heady fragrance of mint on his tongue.

His chest was a solid wall of muscle against hers as her body melded into his. He said he didn’t believe in love, and before this moment, neither had she.

The instant his lips touched hers, though, everything changed.

Her heart intermingled with his, becoming something different, something more, and heat spiraled through her and settled in her core. His kiss became more demanding, more possessive, as he pushed his tongue between the seam of her lips to plunder the moist heat of her mouth. She couldn’t resist him, and didn’t want to.

But she had to. She was a gypsy and he . . . he wasn’t. He had a history, and a family to go home to. She had the band and Seamus and little else, except for Cameron’s ring, and even that didn’t belong to her, however much she might want it to. In a matter of days, her band would move on, and he would escape to the bright future that awaited him. A bright future that included prosperity, and family, and a wife. Happiness and love.