‘Mr Cameron, but—’ she tried to continue.
He cut in again. ‘No, Cameron’s my first name.’
‘Mr Whatever-your-name is, then!’ Riona snapped in exasperation. ‘The point is I don’t want your opinion. I’ll probably never want your opinion. In fact, I can’t think of anyone’s opinion I’d want less!’ she declared on a strident note and jerked her arm free.
‘Thank you for the lift,’ she added gruffly, and got out of the car before he could stop her. He climbed out, too, but remained on the driver’s side, returning her slightly alarmed look with a smile. The smile suggested he hadn’t taken offence. Riona thought that was a great pity.
She glowered back at him, and he drawled, ‘Say, has anyone ever told you how beautiful you look when you’re mad...? Because if they have, I’m afraid they were lying,’ he declared in amused tones. ‘That incredibly sexy mouth goes into a thin, grumpy line. And your eyes, well, they go from a green reminiscent of—’
‘This is absurd!’ Riona finally interrupted the running commentary. ‘Look, I’m grateful for the lift, but it doesn’t give you discussion rights on my private life or my appearance. So if you don’t mind...?’
She looked from him to the track down the hill, and waited for him to take the hint.
He did eventually, concluding, ‘I guess that means I’m not being invited in for coffee.’
‘Astute as well as sensitive,’ Riona muttered under her breath.
He caught it and laughed. ‘Well, never mind, I’ll take a raincheck.’
Then, while Riona was still 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 all 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 all—just long enough to change her life for ever.
The next time she’d seen him was that night at the ceilidh in the village hall. It was a weekly event in the summer, a mixture of song, dancing and recitation that brought crofters from all over the peninsula of Invergair.
Riona had to attend the ceilidh because, when her grandfather had fallen ill, 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, allowing 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 ‘Really. 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 hall. It also hinted at the first swell of her breasts, a fact that she hadn’t really noticed until the American’s gaze lingered there.
Riona had always found her figure an embarrassment. She didn’t mind being tall—at five nine, she was taller 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 all.
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 travelled back to her face, and he gave her one of his slow smiles. ‘I guess I was being obvious.’
‘Painfully,’ 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 in Scotland.’
Not sure if this was meant to be a joke or what, Riona scowled in response.
She countered, ‘So why did you come if you have such a low opinion of the place?’
‘On the contrary—’ he shook his head ‘—I think it’s a wonderful country. Drunk or sober, no one can rival the Scots for their generosity of spirit. It makes you quite forget their occasional bloody-mindedness,’ he said on a wry note.
Again he was probably joking, but Riona wasn’t laughing. ‘Do you know what I like about you Americans?’ she rallied.
‘No, what?’ He actually smiled.
‘Your stunning diplomacy,’ she answered with dead-pan sarcasm, then smiled, too—before walking away.
She was intercepted again, but this time by Dr Macnab. ‘Well, good evening, lass,’ he greeted her, then added, ‘I see you’ve met him.’
‘Who?’
‘The American.’
‘Oh, him.’ Riona pulled a face.
‘You didn’t like him?’ The doctor frowned.
‘Not so you’d notice,’ she shrugged back. ‘I just hope the new laird isn’t like him.’
The Doctor’s frown changed to a look of puzzlement, before he sighed, ‘I’m rather afraid he is, lass.’
It took Riona a moment to catch on. They’d been waiting months for the new laird’s arrival, ever since Sir Hector had finally pegged out at ninety-five. They’d heard he was an American, a C H Adams from Boston, and that was about it. They’d worked out for themselves that he wasn’t too interested in his inheritance, having failed to materialise to claim it in person.
‘You don’t mean...’ Riona prayed she’d misunderstood.
She hadn’t, as the doctor went on, ‘Aye, that’s the man himself. Sir Hector’s great-nephew.’
‘Oh, God!’ Riona closed her eyes in despair. She had just cut dead the man who owned the cottage in which she lived and the croft she worked.
‘What’s wrong?’ the doctor asked.
‘Nothing really.’ Riona grimaced. ‘I was just rather insulting to him.’
‘Dearie me,’ Dr Macnab exclaimed