i 530d83f9160d5231 Read Free

concluding, ‘I guess that means I’m not being invited in for coffee.’
    ‘Astute as wel as sensitive,’ Riona muttered under her breath.
    He caught it and laughed. ‘Wel , never mind, I’l take a raincheck.’
    Then, while Riona was stil working on a reply, he gave a half-salute with his hand and climbed back into the car. She watched as he drove down the track, faster than he should, and found herself almost wishing an accident on him. Not a big accident. Just one where he and his flash car ended up in the ditch.
    It was hardly a nice thing to imagine, but Riona didn’t feel very nice at that moment. Grumpy, indeed! And what about the conclusions he’d leapt to?
    Not only did he have her living with some man, but he’d also decided she was desperate for marriage.
    That his conclusions were ridiculous didn’t matter. It was his sheer presumption that maddened her. She thought of al the clever things she might
    have said and hadn’t, and for a moment hoped they would meet again. Then she shook her head at the possibility. In a couple of days the American would have ‘done’ Invergair and be on his way, further north to Gairloch, or back down south to some posh hotel. No tourist ever stayed long in their area.

    She’d been wrong, of course. Cameron Adams hadn’t just passed through. He had been there a month in al — just long enough to change her life
    forever.
    The next time she’d seen him was that night at the ceilidh in the vil age hal . It was a weekly event in the summer, a mixture of song, dancing and recitation that brought crofters from al over the peninsula of Invergair.
    Riona had to attend the ceilidh because, when her grandfather had fal en il , she’d taken his place playing piano in the band, the other members being two local fishermen on fiddle and accordion. Their repertoire consisted solely of dancing reels, but she’d never been a musical snob. She was needed to play, and play she did.
    She’d just finished a Dashing White Sergeant and had come off stage for a break, when she spotted the American. She could hardly fail to, as he
    bore down on her, al owing no chance of escape.
    ‘I’ve just spent the last half-hour looking for you,’ he said without preamble.
    Riona matched his directness with a flat ‘Real y. Why?’
    He laughed in response. She wondered if he ever took offence—and, if so, how she could possibly give it.
    He went on obliviously, ‘I didn’t notice the piano player. As a rule, they don’t tend to be so beautiful.’
    Riona ignored the compliment, but couldn’t ignore his eyes. They slid from her face to the dress she wore. A simple bodiced dress in white cotton, it left her arms and shoulders bare and kept her cool in the warm, crowded hal . It also hinted at the first swel of her breasts, a fact that she hadn’t real y noticed until the American’s gaze lingered there.
    Riona had always found her figure an embarrassment. She didn’t mind being tal —at five nine, she was tal er than many Highland males. And, in her
    usual clothes of baggy jerseys and jeans, it hardly mattered what her figure was like. She just wished that, when she wore feminine clothes, her curves were less pronounced, less suggestive. It seemed a joke of nature when, in character, she wasn’t the ‘sexy type’ at al .
    She felt only anger as the American’s eyes reflected his thoughts, and she snapped, ‘Perhaps I can have my dress back when you’ve finished.’
    ‘What?’ Distracted from their private fantasy, his eyes travel ed back to her face, and he gave her one of his slow smiles. ‘I guess I was being
    obvious.’
    ‘Painful y,’ she agreed, and tried to walk past him.
    He moved to block her path. ‘So can I buy you a drink?’
    ‘No, thank you,’ she said, politeness forced. ‘I don’t drink.’
    ‘You’re kidding.’ His face expressed genuine surprise. ‘Next to bagpipe playing and caber-tossing, I thought drinking was the national pastime