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He shrugged. ‘I don’t know. It might be possible to bring Invergair Hal into the twentieth century without losing its character. What do you think?’

He lifted a quizzical brow in her direction.

‘I...’ Riona didn’t want to discuss the home he planned sharing with someone else. ‘I don’t think it’s any of my business.’

‘No, probably not,’ he agreed, ‘though that doesn’t usual y stop you expressing an opinion.’

Riona’s mouth compressed into a thin line. ‘I’m hardly in a position to do so. After al , it seems I’m back to being your tenant.’

‘True,’ he conceded. ‘Which, of course, means I have some interest in your future intentions. For instance, do you plan to run the croft on your own or is there some man waiting in the wings?’

‘Man? What man?’ Riona snapped at this absurdity.

‘I don’t know.’ His tone remained studiously neutral. ‘There’s Fergus Ross. Presumably he’l come home again and then—’

‘Forget it!’ Riona cut in sharply. ‘Fergus and I are over for good. It’s just you who keeps dragging his name up.’

‘Only because you’ve never real y told me about him,’ he countered in response.

But if it was an invitation for Riona to reveal al , she turned it down. Talking about Fergus would simply cause more bitterness between them.

Cameron, however, wasn’t about to let it go. ‘As a matter of fact, Dr Macnab has tried to set me straight about your sailor friend. Or, at least, about the night I drove him up here. The doc says you let him sleep on your couch because it was too late for him to go home. He says you were never real y serious about Fergus, just obligated.’

‘And you believe him?’ Somehow Riona doubted it.

‘I don’t know.’ His eyes rested on her face, as if he might read the truth there. ‘You tel me.’

But Riona refused to play his game, whatever it was. ‘What’s the point? It doesn’t—’

‘If you say it doesn’t matter—’ Cameron took the words out of her mouth ‘—just once more, Riona Macleod, I swear I’l do something crazy...

crazier even than chasing you halfway across the world! So let’s have it straight. What’s Fergus Ross to you?’ he demanded in a tone that warned her to push him no further.

‘Nothing.’ Riona threw the word back at him, then, tired of the whole business, relayed flatly, ‘I went to school with Fergus, and only knew him

slightly. The winter my grandfather was il , he came home on leave.’ She paused for breath, and her face reflected the misery of that time. ‘My grandfather, he wanted to die at home, and I couldn’t manage on my own. Fergus helped...’

‘He was in love with you,’ Cameron concluded with a hard edge.

Riona shook her head. ‘He said he was, but it was just words.’

‘And you?’ Cameron watched conflicting emotions chase across her face.

‘I thought I was,’ she admitted almost fiercely, ‘but it wasn’t real. I slept with him, though, and that’s what you want to know. I was grateful to him, and I was lonely, and I slept with him. Is that so terrible?’ she demanded, even as the tears col ected at the back of her eyes.

She waited for condemnation from Cameron. None came. Instead a hand reached out to gently touch her face. ‘No, it’s not so terrible,’ he agreed

quietly. ‘I just wished you’d told me.’

‘I tried.’ A tear slipped down her face and was rubbed away by a long, tapered finger. ‘I tried, but you thought I was a virgin, and I felt if you knew the truth you wouldn’t want me any more.’ She confessed the absurdity of it in a rush.

‘Want you?’ He shut his eyes for a moment in a gesture of despair. ‘Ree, I wanted you from the first day we met and I’ve never stopped wanting

you. You must know that,’ he urged, as she turned doubting eyes on him. ‘What do you think the other night was about? I meant to wait, but I needed you too much. I haven’t been able to touch another woman since you.’

‘But Melissa—’ Riona began to protest, only to be rudely cut off.

‘God, would you shut up about Melissa?’ Cameron final y lost patience, and, pushing away from the table, crossed back to the sink. Only when he

had put distance between them did he continue, ‘Do you real y imagine I give a damn about Melissa?’

‘I know you do.’ Riona wondered why he was pretending otherwise. He didn’t have to. ‘Melissa told me—’

‘A sight too much,’ he interrupted in exasperation, ‘but who can blame her, when she has such a receptive audience? Melissa plays games with

people. Don’t you understand that?’

‘I’m not stupid,’ Riona snapped back. ‘I know she likes manipulating people, and hurting them. But that doesn’t change the fact she wants to marry

you, and you can’t deny it.’

‘Wel , if she does,’ he admitted the possibility, ‘it’s through nothing I’ve done. As far as I’m concerned, she’s my stepsister, period... Yes, al right, you saw us together on Friday night, but real y you saw nothing. I took Melissa away from the party because she was drunk and she made a total y

unappealing pass at me. Satisfied?’

‘But if you married her—’ Riona stil couldn’t accept she was his wiling choice ‘—you’d get control over Harcourt Adams.’

‘So? Has it ever occurred to you that I might not want Harcourt Adams?’ he said in exasperation. ‘My father sold his soul and married Barbara for

control of the business. Do you think I want to do the same?’

‘I don’t know.’ Riona was unconvinced.

‘God, what do I need to do to prove it?’ he appealed in frustration, then, without giving her the chance to answer, suggested, ‘I could always marry you, as planned. Then maybe you’l believe me.’

‘That’s not funny!’ Riona stood up and started to col ect the tea things, a swath of blonde hair hiding the hurt on her face.

He moved out of her way as she came towards the sink, and al owed her to deposit the dishes, before catching hold of her arm. ‘It wasn’t meant to

be funny, Ree,’ he sighed back. ‘Don’t you get it yet? Come here.’

Gently he tried to pul her round towards him, but Riona resisted, steeling herself against him. ‘Don’t start that again. It’s not fair.’

‘Why not?’ He lifted a hand to caress the back of her neck, making her shiver. ‘If it’s the only way I can have you—’

‘No.’ She jerked back from him, and came up hard against the dresser. ‘I don’t want to. Not any more.’

‘Don’t you?’ He moved in on her, an arm trapping her at each side, not touching, not needing to. ‘You’l always want me, Ree. Just as I’l always

want you. It’s the way things are.’

With nowhere to run, Riona begged him, ‘Stop doing this to me, Cameron.’

‘Doing what?’ He lifted a hand to touch her cheek, and she visibly trembled.

‘Using me!’ she cried out against her own weakness. ‘You think because I’m a nobody it’s OK for you to treat me how you like.’

‘A nobody?’ he repeated in disbelief.

‘Not rich like your family,’ she added, ‘or social y acceptable or—’

He interrupted her with a short, harsh laugh. ‘Oh, I get it. You mean poor little defenceless Riona with no one to protect her from the big bad

American? Is that real y how you see us?’

He laughed again, and, bristling with temper, Riona tried to break free from his hold. He pushed her back against the dresser.

‘Wel , don’t kid yourself,’ he told her, straight. ‘You give as good as you get, Riona Macleod, and I’ve got the scars to prove it. Sure, I got it wrong about Fergus. I admit that. But it was hardly surprising. There was me, acting like a lovesick adolescent, spil ing my guts out to you, planning our lives together, and al the time you’re stringing me along, not once tel ing me what you real y felt,’ he finished angrily, his hands holding her arms painful y tight.

‘B-but...’ Riona stammered in protest
‘...you
walked out on
me.’

‘Why do you think?’ he demanded, but didn’t wait for an answer. ‘You don’t imagine it was just finding about Fergus? He made me see, that’s al .

There he was, hitching in the dark, desperate to get home to
his
girl, so sure of you—just as I’d been. That’s when I realised you’d never said it. A dozen times I’d told you I loved you, and not once had you ever said it back.’

Riona shook her head. She had said it. She must have. She’d showed it, anyway. Hadn’t it been obvious?

Not to Cameron, it seemed, as he continued harshly, ‘Wel , I guess I’l have to live with the fact, because you’re going to marry me whether you like it or not, Riona Macleod.’

‘I...’ Riona stared at him in hope. ‘Are you saying... saying that you...?’

‘I’m not saying anything,’ he told her roughly.

But Riona needed the words. ‘You’re saying you
want
to marry me?’

‘What else?’ he growled in less than lover-like tones.

Riona’s doubts returned. ‘It’s Rory, isn’t it? You’re marrying me for his sake.’

‘God, you stil don’t get it yet, do you?’ Cameron swore under his breath at her obtuseness. ‘Then let me spel it out for you. I left here, hating you. I spent a year trying to shut you out of my mind. Yet I was on a plane to Britain within a day of hearing you’d had a baby.’

‘You knew before you returned?’ Riona hadn’t realised that.

‘Yeah, I knew,’ he admitted roughly. ‘What do you think brought me back? And no, it wasn’t to play Daddy. I just thought—I’ve got her... If it’s

mine, I’ve got her.’

‘But
you
left
me...
’ Riona stil didn’t understand.

‘Of course I left!’ he almost shouted at her. ‘If I hadn’t, I would have kil ed you. Or, worse, I would have got down on my knees and begged you to choose me, not Ross. So I got out, while I stil had some pride, some sanity. But then I heard about Rory and it gave me the chance to come back, to demand, not beg, believing your position made you helpless. I thought, I can have her without admitting I love her—to anybody, including myself. I can pretend I’m doing what’s right, and forget it’s the only thing I can do, when life without you is impossible. I—’

‘Don’t say any more.’ Riona looked at him with wonder as she final y understood. He was handing her his pride—the pride that had demanded he

leave her— and she wanted to weep for the waste of it, a year of their lives together lost.

‘I think, Cameron,’ she went on softly, ‘it’s my turn to say it. I loved you last summer, and when you left I thought I would die. I love you now. I’l always love you.’

His eyes ran over her beautiful face and saw her love, as true and simple and painful as his own.

‘I do mean it,’ she promised. ‘I love you. I love you. I—’

The words were stolen from her, caught in her throat as he bent his head to touch his lips to hers. It was a special kiss, of love rather than passion, a kiss to seal the lifetime they final y realised they would spend together. When it threatened to turn into something else, he broke off and set her at arm’s length. So often they had made love when they should have talked.

‘You love me,’ he repeated, and, at her nod of confirmation, laughed aloud. ‘She puts me through hel , then tel s me she loves me.’

‘
I
put you through hel ?’ Riona protested at the nerve of it, and proved love hadn’t made her completely soft as she recounted, ‘So who jumped to conclusions, and went stomping off back to America? And who—?’

‘Told me Rory wasn’t mine,’ he reminded her of one of her worst offences, although his wry tone suggested she’d been forgiven it, forgiven

everything.

‘Only because I thought you’d not want him,’ Riona confessed in turn.

‘Oh, I want him al right, but I want you more.’ He reached out to cup her face. ‘You see, Riona Macleod, you’re in my blood and in my heart, and

without you I know I’m nothing.’

He meant every word, as he confessed himself vulnerable, yet it was his strength Riona saw, and his strength she loved.

‘Then be honest,’ she pleaded. ‘You have me, now and for always. The rest is up to you—Boston or Invergair?’

‘You’d return?’ he said in disbelief.

‘Yes, I’d return. I realise I’m not the best executive wife material—’ she smiled weakly at this understatement ‘—but I’d do my best to fit in.’

‘You wouldn’t fit in. Not in a mil ion years,’ he claimed, but a broad smile told her he loved her for the fact. ‘And I don’t want you to. I’ve wasted twelve years of my life with Harcourt Adams, doing a job that bores me rigid, mostly to please my father. And al the time my natural inheritance was here, on land that my mother’s family worked four hundred years before Harcourt Adams was ever founded.’

‘Are you sure?’ Riona was scared to start believing again in the dream.

‘Sure as I am of my love for you.’ He kissed her brow with a tenderness that turned her heart over.

Riona struggled to hold on to reality. ‘But what about your family?’

‘You can be sure Barbara won’t cry too many tears,’ he commented drily, ‘and Melissa wil marry some other poor sucker and make his life a

misery. My father...wel , I’ve already talked it over with him. He gave me the choice. He’d hand over the running of Harcourt Adams to me now in the hope of ensuring my succession... or he’d give me his blessing and wish me wel . I took the blessing.’

‘He didn’t mind?’ Riona wondered at his father’s generosity.

‘I expect he did,’ Cameron admitted, ‘but he understood wel enough. I guess he remembers what it was like to love a Scottish girl so much he could hardly bear to live without her.’

For the first time Cameron mentioned his father’s grief at the loss of his mother, and Riona felt a terrible sadness for both, aware that a second

marriage had never real y fil ed the void.

‘He’l miss you,’ she said quietly.

‘I’l miss him, too,’ Cameron responded, ‘but my life’s here with you and Rory, and the sooner we get started on it, the better. So, why don’t we go get our son and take him home to Invergair Hal ?’ he suggested, and held out a hand to her.

Riona hesitated a moment, realising what he was asking. If she went home with him now, the whole of Invergair would be talking of it tomorrow.

But would that matter?

She slipped her hand in his as she decided, no, it didn’t matter. Nothing mattered but that they wasted no more time apart.