The engine clicked three times in quick succession then fell silent again. A bead of sweat formed on the pilot’s right temple. That was the kind of thing you didn’t see when you were safely ensconced in first class on a jumbo jet heading for L.A. She could go a long time before seeing it again.
Still, he was going out of his way to be kind to a total stranger who was on the verge of a nervous breakdown. Maybe he was right. If they talked, she wouldn’t be able to think.
She forced her voice into the bright and cheerful range. “So tell me more about Sophie.”
He met her eyes and she saw something that might have been gratitude. “To this day I don’t know much about her, but she knew all there was to know about me.” He paused a beat. “More even than you, lassie.”
The image of him, stark naked and glorious, rose once again before her, and her entire body was suffused with sudden heat. “I’m sorry. I should have let you know I was standing there.”
He grinned and she found herself grinning back at him, despite her fear. “Looking’s not a crime.”
“Now you tell me,” she murmured. “You were talking about Sophie…”
He tried the engine again, and again nothing happened. A second bead of sweat joined the first. “She knew I was the one who broke the parson’s window on Easter Sunday.”
“And I suppose she told everyone.”
“Worse,” he said. “She held it over my head, the sorceress did. Made me weed her garden every day until the first frost as punishment.”
“A witch,” Sam agreed as he twisted another set of dials. Please, God, she thought. Please, please!
“And myself so young and innocent.” The engine came within a hairbreadth of catching but failed once more.
“What else did she see?” Sam asked. Fire, flood, famine…plane crashes.
“She saw a long and happy life.”
“Can you trust her?”
“Ask me again in thirty seconds.”
She didn’t have to. His words were drowned out by the wonderful, welcome whine and rattle of the plane’s engine as it finally kicked in. The nose angled up and they rose through the rain, above the treetops, and bounced their way through the clouds.
“You can breathe again,” he said. The relief in his voice was unmistakable.
“I’m trying to but my lungs won’t cooperate.” She swiveled in her seat and looked at him. “Was it as close as I think it was?”
“Closer.”
His face was in profile. The large proud head. Strong jaw. Straight nose. Lashes long and thick enough to make a woman weep with envy. She felt a fluttering in the pit of her belly and turned away.
“What brings you to Stewart’s castle?” the pilot asked after a few minutes of silence.
She considered lying to him but thought better of it. “Business,” she said.
“Not romance?”
“From what I’ve heard, Mr. Stewart isn’t looking for love. A gallery owner in Glasgow told me he never leaves the castle.”
“And who else did you talk to?”
“A banker in Edinburgh, a collector just outside St. Andrews. Believe me, there are lots of stories out there about the elusive Mr. Stewart.” A thought occurred to her. “You said you know everyone in Loch Glenraven. That must mean you know Stewart.”
“Our paths have crossed,” the pilot said carefully.
She waited for him to say more and when he didn’t, she prodded, “So what’s he like? Did you ever fly him anyplace? Have you ever been inside the castle? Is he young, old, somewhere in between?”
“You ask too many questions, lass. Best you find out on your own.”
“Would you introduce me to him?” It would save her the trouble of scaling the castle walls.
“I canna do that. The people of Glenraven respect each other’s privacy. I’d do nothing to betray any one of them.”
Tall, dark and honorable. It was a good thing Sam was the practical type. If she was the least bit romantic, she’d be half in love with him by now.
SO THEY WERE TALKING about him in Glasgow and Edinburgh, were they? Duncan Stewart hid his dissatisfaction behind the business of flying a plane. They were there to display and sell his work, not spread gossip from the Borders to the Highlands. He revealed his heart in his work. That should be enough for the vultures.
But it wasn’t. They wanted the hows and the whys of each piece he sculpted, wanted them so badly they were willing to dig into the layers of his past to find them. But no matter how hard they tried to find his castle, no one had managed to until now.
“And who was it who told you about Glenraven?” he asked. “The Edinburgh banker or the St. Andrews collector?” He’d trusted them all.
“Neither one, actually.” She had an easy way of talking that made every word sound the gospel truth. He pitied the man who loved her. One look into those clear blue eyes and he would believe the world was flat if she told him it was so. He was immune to that now and glad for it. “I figured that out myself, but I wasn’t certain until you confirmed it.”
And damn him for the fool he was. She’d worked some manner of sorcery on him. He wasn’t one to let down his guard that easily.
“You narrowed it down to Glenraven on your own?”
“Serendipity,” she said, her drawl sliding up and down the word. She told him how she’d bought some newspapers at a kiosk in Glasgow and by chance happened onto a story about the Glenraven library. One of his earliest works, uncredited, was on display in the lobby, and she had recognized it as a Stewart at once, despite the grainy black-and-white newspaper photo.
It occurred to Duncan that he could save them both a great deal of time and effort if he told her who he was and why she was on a fool’s errand, but she was so lovely, so animated as she told him of her plans, that he couldn’t
