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She shivered and felt her resolve weakening. Any moment he would reach for her and they’d make love again, and she’d forget once more that she

had no real place in his life.

She shook her head, and, before he could draw her back down, said, ‘So I’d like you to go. Now. Before anyone discovers us.’

‘Does it matter?’ he replied, and she could hear the smile in his voice as he came up to sit beside her in the narrow bed. ‘We’l be married soon.’

She shrugged off the hand that started to caress her shoulder, and hardened her heart to him. ‘It seems you weren’t listening earlier. I won’t marry you, Cameron.’

‘What? You can’t mean that.’ He reached an arm to switch on the bedside light, then half turned her in the bed to face him.

She lifted her head back a little, a deliberately proud gesture that also unconsciously displayed her beauty, the blonde hair streaming back from her face to reveal wide green eyes and a sulky pout. She knew she was provoking an argument, but that seemed the best way out.

‘Why can’t I? Did you think a quick... quick rol in the hay—’ she deliberately cheapened their love-making ‘—was going to change things?’

‘Why, you...’ Cameron broke off and made a grab for her arm, but she was already scrambling off the bed.

He fol owed and caught her before she could seek sanctuary in Rory’s room. He pul ed her round and shoved her against the wal . Frightened now,

Riona tried to twist out of his grip, but he trapped her body with his. She realised his intention and violently shook her head as she tried to escape the mouth seeking hers, but he grabbed a handful of her hair and forced her head up.

It was a kiss of punishment, wanting to hurt her, needing to hurt her for her cruel, careless words. Then gradual y it turned into something else as the heat from his hard, naked body lit a fire in her own. She felt desire kick in her stomach as his lips left hers to travel downwards over the damp silk of her skin. In a moment she would be lost again.

‘Don’t...’ she cried out and pushed hard at his shoulders.

Her rejection was unmistakable and he cursed crudely under his breath. He took a step back from her, and she saw anger and frustration in his face.

‘You want me, Ree. You’l always want me. Why fight it?’

‘Because it’s just sex, Cameron,’ she threw back at him, angry too that she’d been so close to letting him use her again. ‘Just sex and it means

nothing!’

She shouted so loudly the whole house might have heard. He visibly flinched, then looked ready to hit her. He raised a hand and slammed it hard

against the wal behind.

Riona felt a moment’s fright, then anger, as a wail came from the adjoining room. They had woken Rory.

‘He needs me.’ She gave him a look of contempt that demanded her release and he let her go.

She covered her nakedness with a bathrobe, and, without another word, went through to her son.

She returned thirty minutes later, and he was gone.

She tried to tel herself she’d won—she’d sent him away. But pride did nothing to take away the ache in her heart.

What a fool she’d been. He’d taken her out of need and she’d let him. She’d let him, because, for a little while, she’d imagined that there might be more, that there
had
to be more—the way he touched her, looked at her, made love to her. She’d refused to see that he was just using her.

But, with passion spent, she’d seen things as they real y were. She’d provided temporary relief, nothing more.

And that was the last time. She couldn’t let him turn her around again. The pleasure might be acute, but the pain was terminal.

No more, Riona promised herself, no more.

CHAPTER NINE

RIONA left the fol owing day. She didn’t plan it. She just did it. She saw Cameron speed away in his car with Melissa in the passenger seat and she knew she couldn’t take the pain.

She didn’t stop and think of Rory and Invergair. Having barely slept, she was no longer operating on sense or logic.

She threw clothes in one suitcase—the clothes they had arrived with—and simply walked downstairs and out of the door. No one stopped her. No

one saw her.

She walked until she reached the station, carrying the case in one hand, pushing Rory’s buggy with the other. It was al remarkably simple—a train

into Boston, taxi to the airport, flight to New York then on to another for London. By the time she arrived at Heathrow, Rory’s sleep pattern was so disrupted that she thought she might just as wel carry on. Two trains later, she had caught the old bus for Invergair.

She paid for nearly al of it with the American Express card Cameron had given her. She had no qualms about it. In the end he’d thank her. He’d

marry Melissa and have more children and breathe a sigh of relief that she and Rory had disappeared from his life.

She arrived in Invergair on the Sunday evening, almost drunk with exhaustion. She’d been travel ing for thirty-six hours.

She walked up from the bus-stop in the drizzling West Coast rain to Dr Macnab’s house with a sleeping Rory in her arms. She looked as bone-weary

as she felt when the doctor opened the door to her.

If she expected a surprised reaction from the old doctor, she was disappointed. He acted rather as if he would have been surprised had she not

returned, Rory in tow, and, to her relief, didn’t bombard her with questions.

Instead he sat her down with Rory stil asleep in her arms, asked her when she’d last eaten, and disappeared to make sandwiches.

He waited while she ate a little, then asked simply, ‘Are you home to stay, lass?’

‘Aye, I think so,’ she replied, then added simply, ‘Nothing was right, Doctor.’

‘No,’ the old man said with an understanding nod, and didn’t press for any further explanation.

Riona remembered just why she liked the doctor so much. ‘I’ve missed you, Doctor.’

‘Aye, myself as wel , lass.’ He confirmed his fondness for her in the same restrained Scottish fashion, before becoming his usual bluff self and

insisting she remain at his house overnight.

Riona didn’t put up much of a fight. She was too tired to argue, and saw the sense in it when the doctor pointed out that her croft might need some airing.

He used the same argument next day, in persuading her to leave Rory with Mrs Ross, his housekeeper, while he drove her up to Braeside at the start

of his rounds and left her to check over the place.

As she walked up the hil , Riona felt her spirits sinking. If anything, the croft looked more dilapidated than ever. In Boston, homesickness had made her remember only the good things about Invergair—the simplicity of the life, the honesty of the people. Her unhappiness had made her forget just how little she had to offer Rory.

She walked with head bowed until she rounded the side of the crofthouse. She half expected Jo to appear; though a neighbour was taking care of

him, she knew the col ie would wander back here occasional y. But there was no sign of him as she searched for the back-door key under the stone where she always left it. She found it but, when she turned it in the lock, the door remained shut. She turned the key again and the door opened. She assumed she hadn’t locked it. No alarm bel s rang until she’d entered the kitchen, and by then it was too late.

He was standing quite calmly by the sink, a cup in his hand.

He laid the cup down, saying, ‘Hel o, Ree.’

For a moment Riona felt she’d gone back in time to last summer. Then he’d had the right to let himself into her home, into her life. Not now.

She started to ask him what he was doing there, but the words dried in her throat. It was obvious why he was here—to take them back to America.

She shook her head. ‘I won’t go with you.’

‘Look, Ree, we have to...’ He moved towards her and she panicked.

Her hand on the door, she flung it open and ran blindly. She heard him behind her, cal ing. ‘Come on, Riona, don’t be stupid! Let’s talk.’

But Riona didn’t want to sit down and talk. She didn’t want to listen to al the reasons she should go through a pretence of a marriage, al the things he would give their son and al the things she never could.

She continued running up the hil , thrashing her way through the gorse and heather, ignoring his shouts to stop, the sounds of him chasing after her.

He caught her halfway up, grabbing at her jacket. Desperation gave her strength and she tore her arm free, striking out with the other. She hit him hard and, surprised by the attack, he let her go. But her freedom was temporary, as he chased her on up the hil and, no longer making concessions for her sex, brought her down with a leg tackle.

The heather cushioned her fal , but the wind was knocked from her. While she struggled for breath, he dragged her round and held her there.

‘You crazy little...’ He broke off as she freed an arm and tried to punch him with it. ‘Quit that. Quit that or maybe I’l forget you’re a woman!’

Riona wasn’t impressed by the threat. She knew Cameron too wel . He had never physical y hurt her and he never would.

She continued to struggle and he straddled her, pinning an arm to each side of her head. Even Riona knew by then that he had her trapped, but panic had turned to anger and she kept trying to buck him off her with her hips until she exhausted herself.

Then she lay underneath him, breathing hard, but not admitting defeat while her eyes could burn with anger.

There was no answering anger on Cameron’s face, as he held her, admiring her splendid Celtic temper, and her foolish courage, and her wild, natural beauty. For, far from forgetting she was a woman, the struggling body beneath him made him al too aware of it.

Their eyes met and held, and Riona felt her fury beginning to fade. In its place came the familiar weakness, the first stirring of another passion

catching the breath in her throat.

‘No.’ She shook her head as his mouth descended towards hers, and cried out against it, ‘No, Cameron! No!’

She couldn’t go through this again. If she let him take her once more, she would have no pride left, and, without pride, how could she carry on?

What stopped him? Not her words, perhaps, but the tears that sparked in her eyes. Or a realisation that they were destroying each other.

Whichever, he suddenly pushed himself away from her, and, standing, reached a hand down to pul her up. Riona swayed a little on her feet, but

wasn’t given the time to regain her balance as he dragged her along after him.

He kept hold of her hand until they reached the croft and were in the kitchen once more. It was just as wel as Riona suddenly felt too tired to stand on her own two feet.

‘Sit down. You look terrible,’ Cameron said with unflattering directness.

Riona didn’t argue, sinking down on one of the old, rickety chairs at the kitchen table. In hindsight her mad dash for the hil s seemed somewhat

melodramatic, especial y when Cameron proceeded to behave so normal y, fil ing up the kettle to place it on the stove that was already lit.

She noticed a smal box of groceries sitting on the dresser. ‘When did you arrive?’

‘Yesterday afternoon.’ He reached up in cupboards for teacups and saucers. ‘I flew Concorde early morning, got a plane from Heathrow to

Inverness, and a hire car from there.’

Riona frowned. She understood he must have overtaken her on the way, but she had seen no sign of the hire car.

‘I left the car with Dr Macnab,’ he explained.

Riona nodded, then scowled as the penny dropped. If he’d arrived yesterday afternoon, the doctor had known he was here and waiting for her. She

felt betrayed.

‘Don’t blame him.’ Cameron read her mind as he turned to lean back against the sink. ‘I told him what had happened and he, in turn, told me a few

things. Then we both decided I should have a chance to sort out things between us without you taking flight again.’

Riona’s mouth set into stubborn, sul en lines, as she repeated, ‘I won’t go back, Cameron.’

But if she expected an argument, he simply nodded. ‘OK, that’s understood. I guess I was crazy to think you could settle in Boston, even for a little while... I realised that wel enough last summer.’

‘Is that why you made up al those stories?’ Riona asked in accusing tones.

‘Stories?’

‘About settling in Invergair and running the estate.’

‘They weren’t stories, Ree,’ he claimed in reply. ‘I saw my future with you, the two of us running the estate together.’

Riona shook her head, refusing to believe he’d meant that dream. ‘You were never going to give up your life in Boston and your position in Harcourt Adams—just for Invergair.’

‘No, not just for Invergair.’ A look told her that once he would have given everything up for her.

Riona looked away. It was too late now, and she didn’t want reminding of what she’d lost.

‘Anyway,’ he ran on, ‘I have given it up...as of yesterday.’

Riona’s eyes returned to his face. ‘What do you mean?’

‘What I said,’ he answered unhelpful y, then kept her in suspense as he turned back to the stove to lift the kettle and pour hot water into the teapot.

He carried it over on a tray with cups and saucers and sat down on the chair round the table from her.

He poured them both tea, before continuing, ‘Of course, we’l have to come to some arrangement.’

‘Arrangement?’

‘I think it’s only fair I have Rory on weekends,’ he said with stunning composure.

Riona erupted immediately, ‘But I’m
not
going back to Boston!’

‘No? Wel , neither am I,’ he informed her, and, at her look of mystification, went on blandly, ‘I thought I’d just said. I’m coming back to Invergair—

to run the estate as planned.’

Riona’s heart sank like a stone. ‘So you and Melissa wil be setting up home in Invergair Hal ?’

‘Melissa?’
He looked surprised, then gave a derisive laugh. ‘Can you real y see Melissa living there? From memory, the plumbing alone would have her running back to Boston.’

‘Then you’l be building a new house,’ Riona concluded, and tried hard to seem indifferent, while inside she was devastated.