A Highland Folly by Jo Ann Ferguson Read Free Book Online Page A

appropriate—”
    â€œFor me to address you as Anice.” He stood and picked up the gun. “After all, I think you and I shall be seeing much of each other in the coming weeks.”
    â€œWhat gave you that idea?”
    â€œYou.”
    â€œMe?”
    â€œI cannot believe that you shall simply forget we were shot at on the hill beyond the cottage.”
    â€œI—” She kneaded her abruptly cold fingers and winced.
    â€œHow do you fare?” he asked as he took her sore hand and cradled it in his.
    She wanted to answer that she was doing better, but her voice seemed to have vanished like a shout down an abandoned well. Gazing down at his broad fingers holding her hand as gently as if it were a newborn lamb, she resisted the temptation to rest her head against his shoulder. She was baffled by her reaction, and, although she wanted to savor it, she drew her hand away.
    â€œI am healing well. So my aunt Coira tells me.” She shivered. “You are wrong. I do wish I could forget all of this ever happened.”
    â€œBut that would allow the person who fired on us to get away with his crime.” One corner of his mouth tipped up. “Or her crime.”
    Her eyes widened. “You think the shooter could be a woman?”
    Lucais fought his own fingers that yearned to cup her cheek that drained of color, leaving the shadow of the bruise a dark accusation on her forehead. In the past two days, he had asked questions of everyone he had met. Questions about Anice Kinloch. She was nothing as he had expected a daft Kinloch to be. The rest of the family? If what he had seen when he brought her to Ardkinloch was an accurate example, then they were as lost in the past as most of the rest of the Highlands. Anice had seen beyond these hills, so she might be able to understand something other than the traditions that were strangling Scotland, leaving it stagnant as the rest of Great Britain and the world moved forward.
    â€œNothing has persuaded me that the shooter was a woman. However, we would be unwise to overlook anyone or any reason for the gun being fired at us.”
    â€œYou are enjoying this mystery!”
    He was about to retort that she was mad, then he smiled. “In a way, you are correct. Mayhap it is because of my training as an engineer, but I believe there is a solution to every problem.”
    â€œAnd you take great pleasure in finding that solution.”
    â€œThat is true.”
    â€œAs you will in completing the bridge across the Abhainn an Uruisg.” Her laugh was as lyrical as the song from the birds overhead, a countermelody to the creaking gate when she latched it.
    He matched her steps across the field, but, for the first time, he found his gaze drifting from the ridge where the bridge would emerge. If Anice sensed his stare, she gave no sign. She laughed as a bark showed where her dog was racing across the ridge.
    â€œThere,” she said, pointing to a ruddy flash. “There’s Pippy.”
    â€œWhere is your other pet?”
    â€œBonito? He is wherever the sheep are.” Scanning the hill, she said, “Near the lower rubble of the castle.”
    â€œSo I see.” That was a lie, because he could not pull his gaze from her lustrous smile, save to admire how the light breeze teased him with a hint of the curves hidden beneath her demure gown.
    â€œNo, you do not see.”
    His eyes met hers, and he knew he had been short-witted to think that she was unaware of his regard. From the first words they had exchanged, he had noted how she easily countered each comment he made.
    â€œExcuse me?” Lucais asked.
    â€œYou do not see the trouble brewing here with the beginning of the road project or a way to resolve it.”
    â€œI am quite aware of the problems we may face. I am not oblivious of it. I intend to rectify it. As I told you, I like finding solutions,” he replied, abruptly as serious as she was.
    â€œSo do I,