To Catch a Highlander

Pocket Books

Copyright © 2008 by Karen Hawkins

First Pocket Books paperback edition January 2008

To Ron Chapman

A tall, handsome, broad-shouldered hero with steely blue eyes.

Umh, that
was
how you asked me to describe you, wasn't it?

And his beautiful wife, TJ (aka "Goldilocks"), who does a great job keeping "Ole Steely Eyes" in line.

Och, me lassies! The fun ye'll have when ye've a man of yer own to torment!

Old Woman Nora from
Loch Lomond
to her three wee granddaughters one cold evening

"You lost
everything
?" Sophia MacFarlane's voice cracked on the last word.

Robert MacFarlane, known as "Red" to his daughter and his gambling companions, winced. "Aye, lass. I—I lost it all."

Sophia sank into her chair, her face ashen. "Even… even the house?"

Red swallowed with difficulty. He'd always thought it best to get bad news out fast, but looking at his daughter's quivering bottom lip, he questioned his own advice.

Her wide, light blue eyes and thick lashes were wet with unshed tears. "But how? You were to go to
Edinburgh
and sell Mother's diamonds for the new roof. How did you end up in a game of chance?"

"I stopped in
Stirling
, though now I wish to God I hadn't. I'd heard on the road that there was to be a race between the fastest horses in
England
. At first, I just thought to watch, but Andrew MacGregor was there, and—"

Sophia's lips twisted. "MacGregor has always been trouble."

"
Psht
. 'Tis my own bloody fault and no one else's. Lass, I only thought to help you—"

"
Help
me? By losing the house that I love?"

"I didn't plan it that way!" Distress poured through his voice. "I thought if I could win just once, I could pay for the repairs on the roof, and you wouldn't be forced to sell your mother's diamond set." His brow lowered. "I didn't like the idea of selling it to begin with."

She pressed her fists to her forehead. "I
told
you I didn't care a feather for the diamonds. I only wanted the roof fixed!"

He set his jaw. "Beatrice wished you to wear those diamonds when you married, just as she wore them when I married her."

Sophia's eyes flashed. "Once the roof began to leak, Mama would have been the first to say the diamonds had to go."

Red reluctantly, admitted to himself that Sophie was right. Except when she was caught up in a challenge, Beatrice had been the pinnacle of solid common sense—despite growing up in one of the largest manor houses in Scotland, surrounded by servants with nothing to do but spoil her rotten and do her thinking for her.

But Beatrice was not the sort of woman to let others do for her what she could easily do for herself. She was strong and independent, character traits her own father had deplored.

Every time she had attempted to act on her own, her father would furiously damp down on her freedoms. Back and forth the two went, until, at the tender age of seventeen, Beatrice had kicked off the family traces and eloped with an unknown adventurer named Robert MacFarlane.

It had been the greatest stroke of luck Red had ever experienced, and it had changed him forever. Life before Beatrice was exciting, but life with Beatrice was exciting and warm and damned near perfect. She made every inn, no matter how sordid and cold, feel like home. In return, Red filled her life with excitement and romance and love. Not once had either of them regretted their impulsive marriage.

Red wished for the millionth time that Beatrice were still with him today. "Sophie, I just couldn't let your mama's diamonds go without a fight I meant no harm, but now… I've lost it all." He swiped at his eyes angrily. "But I'll find a way to fix this, see if I don't!"

Sophia's expression softened as she took his hand between hers. "We'll just have to think of a way out of this mess." She sat silently, her brows knitted.

Red looked at her hopefully. If anyone could think of a way out of this mess, it was Sophie. She'd do it; he knew she would. He watched her face, noting how the sun gleamed through the curtains to gild her already golden curls. The light warmed her skin to cream and traced the delicate line of her heart-shaped face. With her thick lashes, sparkling eyes, and perfect nose, it was hard to imagine a more beautiful woman.

But her obvious beauty and delicate appearance were misleading; from early on, Sophie had her parents' rapacious appetite for excitement. The three had followed the game and traveled from inn to inn across all of
Europe
without complaint, delighting in each new location, every leaky inn. While Red had plied his trade, Beatrice had made their daughter's life as normal as possible, serving as governess, tutor, and mother all in one.

Beatrice had kept them all safe and sane, laughing at muddy roads and mocking ill-tempered innkeepers until Sophie and Red would dissolve into laughter. She made certain their clothes were dry and clean, their rooms organized and welcoming. Red and Sophie's entire world had revolved around merry, never-weary Beatrice—which was why her unexpected death years ago had been so devastating.

Sophie was so like Beatrice, it made Red's heart ache. Though society might say a lass of twenty-seven was firmly on the shelf, any man who saw her gold and pink loveliness would think otherwise. While she carried herself with a mature air that clearly told her years, she didn't look a day over eighteen.

Sophia's expression grew graver, and her tender lips pursed as she tapped a slender finger on her chin.

Red silently cursed his friend MacGregor, cursed the ill luck of the cards, and especially cursed the circumstances that had made him hope.

Hope for most people was a good thing, something to carry one through a difficult time. Hope for a gambler was ruin.

One should never wager what one couldn't afford to lose. Yet in the heat of this game, his heart had swelled with insidious hope at the chance to fix things for his Sophie. Of course, he'd lost; gambling was not a game to be based on feelings. He, of all men, knew that. For years, he and his lovely Beatrice had made their livelihood based on his ability to turn the cards and play on other men's hopes.

How she would have scolded him for taking chances with the only two things she'd left their daughter. It had been her fondest wish that their Sophie should have a proper home. So she'd tucked away the deed to a house that had been tossed onto a table by a desperate nobleman during one of Red's games and had refused to part with it even when times were lean.

Unfortunately, fortune was a fickle lady and poor Beatrice didn't live to see the house she'd guarded for her daughter.

After Beatrice's death, Red and Sophia had left
Italy
and traveled to
Scotland
to take possession of the house on the hill. They'd arrived on a chilled, blustery day, when clouds gathered over the tall, square stone house, the closed doors and windows cold and unwelcoming, a heavy growth of vines almost hiding it from view.

Sophia had immediately set about making the house into MacFarlane House. Together, they scrubbed and polished, hammered and nailed, fixed and cleaned, until the place was something to behold. Slowly, as they worked, their hearts began to heal, and the house became a real home. Thus it had been for eleven years.

Sophia straightened her shoulders with a determined air, and Red looked at her hopefully.

"We can't just sit back and let a stranger take our home…" Her gaze flickered past him to encompass the sitting room. "I couldn't bear to see such a thing."

Red followed her gaze. The wood paneling gleamed softly, and thick Oriental rugs carpeted the room, softening the glossy wood floors. An intricate carving decorated the fireplace, where a large mantelpiece held a carved ormolu clock and a pair of charming brass and crystal candelabras. Several decorative chairs sat before the fireplace, simple yet elegant, covered with red and gold striped velvet and flanked by glossy Chippendale side tables. In one corner stood a small escritoire carved in the French fashion, flanked by intricately carved curio cabinets holding an assortment of china. Sunlight streamed past red velvet curtains and warmed the wood paneling, suffusing the chamber with the rich scents of beeswax and lemon.

With a small fire to offset the spring chill, it was difficult to imagine a more welcoming and beautiful room.

But the centerpiece of it all was sitting in the chair opposite him now: his beautiful daughter, Sophie, with her gold hair, heart-shaped face, and plump lips, just like her mother. The only similarity between Sophie and her father were their unusual eyes; a liquid, pale blue fringed with a wealth of curling dark brown lashes.

As a youth, tough and street-wise Red had gotten into many a fight with larger lads who had made the error of laughing at the length of his lashes. Red's fists had been hard even at the young age of eight, so few made the mistake of laughing twice. He wished he could solve his current difficulties so easily. It would take a keener head than this to get out of their current difficulties. "If anyone can find a way out of this mess, it'd be you," Red said stoutly.

Sophia smiled, her heart buoyed by her father's obvious belief in her abilities. She glanced out the window to where the gentle breeze rustled among the roses in the garden. The new path wound through the pink, red, yellow, and lavender flowers to the swaying green trees beyond, passing the white stone fountain where a pink marble angel perched on the edge of a large basin, its fingers forever trailing in the splashing water. Soon someone else would be standing here, taking solace in the garden, instead of her.

The thought ignited her anger. How
dare
someone sit in
her
garden without her permission, especially after all of the work she'd done! There had to be a way… Sophia drummed her fingers on the arm of her chair. How could they turn this horrid tide of ill fortune? They had no money and less credit. She didn't know anyone who could help, either; their only wealthy acquaintance was the squire and his fortune was tied up in his own estate, as it should be.

No, if they wished to win back their house, then—She froze, her mind whirling at a sudden thought. "We have neither the money nor the credit to buy back the house, but we
do
have talent and luck. Since the house was lost in a game, I'll simply win it back in one."

"You?"

"Aye. No one would think I could play cards as well as you."

"That's true," Red said slowly. When she was young, he'd taught her how to palm a card, deal from the bottom of the deck, mark the face cards with her hairpin—a thousand little tricks that, when put together, meant that one rarely lost.

But the
real
trick was her brain. Knowing when to play which card, remembering who held what—those were the talents that made a player great, and Sophie had mastered them all by the time she was twelve.

He'd also taught her about the mind-set of the game, of how winning could mean one thing to one person and something entirely different to another; how to read a man and tell if he was desperate and thus close to making an error; and how wanting something very badly could distract a person until he'd lost it all.

Red rubbed his chin. "It might work, lass, but it could prove dangerous. Men like Dougal MacLean may look as soft as a goose's backside, but they're cold and hard if they think they've been cheated. Your mother wouldn't have liked the thought of your playing a game for real stakes, either."

Sophia's heart tightened. She couldn't let MacFarlane House go. It was all she had left of Mama.

She pushed the emotion away, her voice hardening. "What you know of this man?"

"Dougal MacLean? Not much. Mostly rumor." Red ran a hand through his hair. Once a bright red, now it was threaded with white and had faded to auburn. "He is known as a rake and handsome as the day is long. You'd need to keep your wits about you."