Highland Sons: The Mackay Saga (12 page)

That future could never include her.

Fiona stepped out of his embrace. “Mr. Mackay.” She couldn’t find the words to voice her protest. She shouldn’t do this, but she didn’t possess the strength to turn him away. Not when she finally found something she wanted more than she had ever wanted anything else in her life, even though everything she’d seen in those cards didn’t—and couldn’t—include a girl like her.

“Cameron,” he whispered. Warm breath tickled her cheek as he kissed the tip of her nose. “Care to take a walk with me?”

The danger of her present situation crashed into her, and she retreated from him, trying to create space between them. His nearness made it hard for her to think clearly. She wanted this, this man and this moment, but she shouldn’t. Seamus was outside somewhere, and the last thing she needed was for him to catch her with another man—Cameron especially.

Fiona couldn’t afford the price she’d have to pay for her indiscretion. Shaking her head, she said, “No, I don’t think that’s wise.”

“Why not?”

She sighed. “Seamus wouldn’t approve.”

“Is there some reason why that should matter?”

“He’s the leader of my band, Mr. Mackay.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

Her eyes met his, and she saw the question in his expression. “I’m no’ . . . engaged with him, if that’s what you mean.” The truth then came bubbling out of her in a rush. “He’d like to be. I can’t upset him like that.”

He captured her face in his hands, the calluses of his palms rough against her skin.

She closed her eyes, fighting the desire to melt into him.

He studied her for several seconds. “What if we went somewhere we wouldn’t be seen?”

“Where would we go, Mr. Mackay? This town is crawling with miners and gypsies. I can’t take the risk.” She put her hand in her pocket and felt his ring there. Her finger curled around it before she dropped it and removed her hand.

His thumbs moved over her cheek, and Fiona lost her objection in the raw power of his touch. “I know a place,” he murmured. “Meet me at The Globe, and I’ll take you there.”

Concern pinched her features as she looked up at him. He smoothed his fingers over her brow, and she closed her eyes, sinking into his touch. His lips brushed over her cheeks, her nose, and he dropped soft kisses along the line of her jaw. Her heart shuddered, and her mind went numb.

No one else existed. Not Seamus, not her band. Not the shadow of her dead husband. The ring in her pocket held no sway over here, for in those moments, there was no guilt, and no shame. Just Cameron, with his red-gold hair and haunted hazel eyes.

They were the only two people in the world.

Her agreement escaped her lips before she had the chance to stop it. “All right.”

The smile he gave her could have lit the sky. It lit hers, anyway. “Good,” he whispered. “Half an hour long enough for you?”

She swallowed against the nerves and the excitement building in her chest. “Yes.”

He kissed her lips once more before pulling away. “I’ll wait for you.”

With that, he turned and ducked under the flap of her tent.

For several minutes, Fiona could do nothing but stare at the space he had abandoned as the magic in her tent faded into ghosts that lingered long after he’d left.

The heavy rustling of fabric startled Cameron out of his thoughts, and he turned to find Fiona standing behind him, her countenance troubled and cautious.

His heart lightened, and he smiled. An unruly curl escaped from the bun at the nape of her neck and she tucked it back into place. He fought the desire to loosen those curls from their pins and run his hands through her dark hair. He shook his head. Such foolish, romantic notions, and he was neither foolish nor romantic.

“You came.”

She cleared her throat. “Yes.”

“I’d just about given up on you.”

Her fingers toyed with her skirt and her gaze shifted to the area behind him. She glanced over her shoulder, then turned back and colored slightly. “I . . . I had to think.”

She may be as skittish as an unbroken horse, but she’d come. Whatever else she might be, she’d come. He’d be a fool not to recognize the bravery in her actions.

He extended his hand to her, and she hesitated before accepting it. Rather than tucking it under his arm as he had intended, he threaded his fingers through hers and started toward his horse. “Can you ride?”

The lines between her brows smoothed and the corners of her mouth tugged upward into a rueful smile that set his heart to racing. “Can I ride?” She snorted and put her hands on her hips. “I’m no’ some city girl. I’m
Ceàrdannan.
Of course I can ride.”

He laughed at the spark of real fire in her dark eyes. She had a pretty face—full lips and high cheekbones—but her eyes had captivated him from the first moment he’d seen her. Long-lashed and dark, mysterious, and deep, he’d been positively bewitched. She could have any man she wanted, just by looking at him.

Yet she’d taken the chance to be with him.

Her eyes narrowed and her mouth twisted. “What?” she demanded, her irritation poorly disguised.

His thumb traced lazy circles over the top of her hand. He tightened his grasp when she tried to withdraw. “Nothing.” He tugged on her hand to bring her closer, and he didn’t miss the reluctance in her steps—or that she allowed it. She tilted her head up to look at him. “I was just thinking how beautiful you are.”

The corners of her lips curled into a smile, but she took a step back.

Immediately, he missed her proximity, but he made no move to bring her back into the space of his arms, though he wanted to with every beat of his heart. One wrong move and she’d go running.

He’d lose everything if she did.

Her gaze darted over his shoulder before she said, “So, where is it you’re taking me?”

He turned his head and followed her gaze, but didn’t see anything but a few drunken miners and a prostitute carrying a blanket. When he looked at her again, her features were pinched, as if something about the woman caused her pain.

Taking her small, callused hand in his, he led her to his horse, Midnight, an enormous black Friesian, the only extravagant thing he owned. “Out for a ride. We won’t be gone long. I promise to have you back at a reasonable hour.” He bent to offer her his hands as a stirrup. He only had the one horse and a saddle was impractical for two.

She raised a quizzical eyebrow. “You go up first. Pull me up behind you.”

With a grin, he hoisted himself up onto the horse’s back. He reached down, took her by the outstretched hand, and swung her up behind him. She settled on the horse’s back with a grace that surprised him, and unlike the proper ladies he’d met in the past, she straddled the horse like a man would, her thighs on either side of his. Her hands smoothed the fabric of her skirt, draping the folds of cloth over her legs.

His heart thundered as she circled his waist with her hands. He’d gone too long without a woman. He’d had his horse, his mine, and the dream of buying back his family’s ranch in Virginia to sustain him. For a long time—too long—those things had been enough.

“You all right back there?”

“Just go,” she said, her voice a faint whisper at his back. “Quickly.”

What was she afraid of? Granted, she’d told him Seamus—if that was his real name—wouldn’t approve of discovering them together. Perhaps that was it. What power did her brother-in-law hold over her, and why? Was it really something as simple as loyalty? Or was it something more than that?

Everything seemed to be complicated with this woman.

They rode in silence for a few minutes before he heard her chuckle. “You’ve got a horse like this, and you’re just going to make him walk?”

They passed the final building on the main street, then descended into the canyons and scrublands of mining country. “Don’t want to bounce you around too much. He’s big and a bit on the wild side. It can be a rough ride back there.”

She hitched up her skirt and moved closer to him, pressing her thighs and bare knees against him, her breasts against his back. Her hands tightened around his waist, and she said, “I can handle a rough ride.” The Scottish burr was suggestive and amused.

Cameron’s mind went blank. He shifted his seat to relieve the ache developing in his groin as she moved with him, her cheek flush against his back. Sucking in a ragged breath, he put his spurs to horse.

Her delighted laugh rang out as they rushed past a scraggly, wind-gnarled old juniper and into the desert scrub and the thickening dark. They crested the rise, away from the pounding of the ore processors, the moon shining silver in the dark and lighting the way. Cameron slowed his horse to a walk and stopped by a cluster of rocks not far from a shack. The building, little more than four narrow walls and a smokestack, perched on the side of a gully that only held water after a storm. Sometimes not even then.

She dismounted before he could even think to stop her, as graceful as an acrobat, and the triumphant smile she gave him lit the spaces of his heart he’d thought he’d abandoned or lost long ago. Spaces he’d thought had died during the war, or even before, when his brother had left the farm, and he not long after.

Her smile made him think of sweet grass and dark nights like this, when fireflies had danced around the moon and he had played with his brother down by the creek. There were no fireflies in this parched, dry land. No trees, no water, no creeks for children to play in that lasted longer than a season.

There was nothing here that ought to remind him of his past, yet he’d thought more about his family in the last few days than he had in years.

With a sigh, he dismounted and sat down on a large rock. He extended his hand to her and she took it, settling herself next to him. A cool breeze rustled her hair, lifting an escaped curl from the nape of her neck. He didn’t move to bring her closer, but the heat of her body next to his fanned his need for her. His hands ached to touch her.

With effort, he forced himself to remember why he had gone to see her today.

She rested her elbows on her knees and stared out at the moonlit landscape, a view that, during the day, went on forever. “Where are we, Mr. Mackay?”

He leaned back and looked up at the bright stars dotting the sky and wondered again what Duncan was doing at this very moment. He glanced over at his shack, at the entrance to his mineshaft, and said, “My claim.”

She took a long breath and kept her eyes locked on something in the distance. “The one you plan to sell.”

“Yeah,” he said.

“And after that? You really going back to Virginia?”

He nodded slowly. “I’m going to get my land back and start raising horses again. Make something of myself. Do something to make my family proud.”

She turned her head. Interested, suspicious dark eyes regarded him. “But you’ve made something of yourself already. Who says they’re no’ proud of you now, Mr. Mackay?”

“I lost the land. I need to get it back. For them.”

“
You
lost it?”

Cameron swallowed hard, not sure why he was admitting so much to her. Every time they spoke, he told her things he hadn’t shared with anyone. “I went to war. My ma couldn’t work the farm, and I knew she couldn’t when I left, but I went anyway. She had to sell it to pay the taxes.”

“And you kept the money?”

“No!” His voice was harsher than he had intended. Softening his reaction, he said, “I tried to give it to my brother. He wouldn’t take it. Gave me half, and I used it as seed money to get out here. Worked the mines for a year before I could buy this claim. And Midnight. I bought him, too.”

She regarded him for some time before turning her attention back to the brush covered hills in front of her. “I doona know why you think you owe anyone anything. The farm was lost. I’m no’ sure
you
are to blame for that. You paid your debt with what you had.”

Through clenched teeth, he said, “You don’t understand.”

She straightened and angled toward him. Her wide, dark eyes creased at the corners as she regarded him. “You’re right. I doona. But then, I’ve never had anything that meant much to me. I only had people.”

People. He’d had his brother, but he’d thrown that relationship away. All the letters in the world hadn’t really helped him reclaim it—only the land they’d once shared could do that. They sat silent for a time, and Cameron listened to her steady breathing, the soft swishing of fabric as she shifted.

Finally, she asked, “Why did you bring me here?”

He reached out and took her hand in his. Next to him, she was soft and small, but she wasn’t some delicate flower. She was a survivor, as hardy and wild as an unbroken mustang. “I wanted to talk to you, and that meant we had to go somewhere where we could be alone, where we wouldn’t be disturbed. I figured this to be as good a place as any.”

Extracting her hand from his, she drew in a long, slow breath and released it. She laced her fingers together, drew her feet up on the rock, and looped her arms around her knees. With a slow nod, she whispered, “It’s beautiful out tonight.” Though tension rested in the slope of her shoulders, in the tightness of her knuckles, her voice was reverent.

He smiled, glanced up at the sky, and allowed her the change in topic. Now that he had her here, he had plenty of time. “It is,” he said. “You know, it’s nights like this that remind me of being back home in Virginia.”

“I canno’ imagine Virginia City and Virginia have much in common, save the name.” The relief in her words was palpable.

“They don’t,” he agreed. “But sometimes I’ll come out here and just watch the stars. It reminds me of the times when Duncan and I would camp out back home.” He smiled at the memory.

“You miss him.”

“Yeah,” Cameron said, and his own admission surprised him.

He chewed his lower lip.
Stop it,
Duncan’s voice admonished in his head. He
used to tease Cameron about his nervous habit. It was a good thing he wasn’t here now. Whenever they’d get in trouble as boys, Cameron’s mother merely had to look at him to know when he was lying.

Christ, he hadn’t thought of those days in years.

“Where’s your brother now?”

“Ohio. With a woman he met near the end of the war. Has a passel of kids. Just had another one, in fact.”

“Have you seen him since you came out here?”

He cleared his throat and ran his fingers through his hair. Damn, this conversation was taking a more personal turn than he’d wanted. He’d meant to grill her about the ring, and instead, here he was, talking about his brother. “No. Except for about ten minutes four years ago, I haven’t seen him since the war began. Nine years.”

In her last letter to him, his mother had begged him to find Duncan and forgive him for his choices. He’d done the one, but never really done the other. Maybe because he’d never really forgiven himself for his part in their fractured relationship.

Fiona cocked her head and studied him. “What happened nine years ago?”

Cameron’s heart tumbled and raged inside his chest. He didn’t want to talk about Duncan, or everything that had passed between them on that day so long ago. Yet even though he intended to turn the topic, the truth instead escaped his lips. “We argued. He wanted us to fight on the same side in the war. He wanted us to protect our land together. I wanted to fight for freedom. We’d never had slaves, and I didn’t understand why Duncan would choose to fight for the Confederacy. He said I didn't understand the value of the land or our heritage. I accused him of not caring about the plight of fellow human beings. I said worse things than that. We were both wrong.”

He’d never told anyone that. Not his brother, not his brothers-in-arms, not his mother in any of the letters he’d written to her before she’d died.

“So what happened when you saw him?”

He set his jaw and admitted, “He gave me half the money and the family ring. For luck, he said. You know, the ring I lost, just like I lost everything else.”

She stiffened. “That's a bit harsh, don’t you think?” She shifted away from him. “Sounds like your brother forgave you.”

Cameron nodded slowly, less an agreement than an acknowledgement of her words. “In his letters, he said there was nothing to forgive.”

She unlaced her fingers and placed her hand upon his knee, giving it a gentle, companionable squeeze. “Then maybe you’ve lost less than you think.”

He stood to escape her touch. “What do you know about it?” he demanded, his voice as jagged as broken rock.

Surprise lit her features. She stood and faced him. Her dark eyes scanned his face, dropped to his balled fists, and returned to his face. “You want to know what I know?” she asked. “I know that when forgiveness is freely given, it should be taken. I know what it’s like to have no one in this world. I know what it’s like to abandon the only people who ever meant anything to you, and I know what it’s like to no’ be able to go back. That’s what I know.”

She met his gaze, the challenge evident in the words, carefully chosen and forcefully spoken.

“You have the members of your band,” he countered.

She shook her head and briefly looked away. “I doona have anyone. I wanted to leave my parents’ band to join my husband’s. My father told me no’ to do it, that Ross couldn’t be trusted, and we had words. I left. But unlike you, I
canno’
go back. I canno’ tell him he was right. I canno’ ask him to forgive me, because he will no’, and he should no’. I doona even know if he’s still alive.” Misery laced words softly spoken, and Cameron’s heart yielded, as it had yielded the first moment he’d seen her.