No Risk Refused

The picture he’d carried in his mind before that had been of a little girl with red curls and freckles, a face that had frowned easily when he’d teased her, and a temper that he’d enjoyed igniting. Calling her “Princess” usually succeeded in eliciting both responses. But she had a smile that he’d wanted to trigger almost as much as the frown.

What he’d enjoyed most about her during those long summer afternoons when they’d played together was the fact that she was willing to try anything. Eager, in fact. She’d been fun—for a girl.

But what he’d felt at his mother’s wedding had been something else. And that was the image that still lingered in his mind. Her red-gold curls were tied back with a green ribbon. He’d wanted to run his hands through those curls. At nine, her body had been sturdy and athletic. At twenty, it had been slim as a wand, and he’d wanted to explore every single inch of it. Desire was far too tame a word for what he’d felt. But it was her eyes that had nearly finished him off that day. He had no clear idea of how long he had looked into them. But he’d never forget the color—a pale and misty green that he could have sworn he was drowning in.

Cam drew in a deep breath and let it out. He’d wanted her that day in a way he’d never wanted anyone or anything before. In a way he’d never wanted anyone since. And he’d been rash enough to ask her to dance. If she’d agreed, if he’d held her in his arms, he still wasn’t sure what would have happened. Perhaps she’d had some idea of the possible consequences because she’d turned him down flat.

He wasn’t sure why she was popping into his mind more frequently lately. Perhaps because he was back in the States. Perhaps because she’d never really left his mind. Perhaps because it was only possible to avoid something for so long and then …

“Got a minute, Sutherland?”

Cam turned as his boss walked into the room. Seven years ago Daryl Garnett had recruited him to work for the CIA. Cam had trained under the man at the farm and Daryl had been one of his mentors ever since, and he’d invited Cam to join the Domestic Operations section he headed up in D.C.

“I think I just got something on my old nemesis.” Daryl moved around Cam’s desk and taped two photos on the whiteboard that covered nearly one wall. “Meet Gianni Scalzo.”

Cam turned to study the photos. He’d seen one of them before because Daryl carried a smaller version in his wallet, the way a man might carry a photo of his family. But Gianni Scalzo wasn’t family. He was a con man extraordinaire who’d put a bullet in Daryl’s knee and limited his career as a covert field operative.

Since then, Daryl had been steadily working his way up in the training and management side of the Agency, but he’d made a hobby out of tracking Scalzo down.

In the photo that Cam had seen before, Scalzo had long, curly, shoulder-length hair—Mel Gibson in the first Lethal Weapon. In shorts and sunglasses, he looked very much at home on the prow of a sailboat. The man standing next to him in the picture was shorter, less athletic in build, the kind of man that you wouldn’t notice if you passed him on the street. Interpol believed he was Scalzo’s partner. Daryl agreed. Both men were masters at disguise, but the partner had always stayed in the shadows.

The man in the second photo was older. His short dark hair boasted just a sprinkle of gray and he had a well-trimmed mustache and goatee. Not Mel Gibson but he still had a sort of middle-aged movie star quality. Next to him stood a pretty young blonde.

“What do you think?” Daryl asked.

“It’s a difficult call. The more important question is what do you think? You’re the one who met him in person.”

“Allowing for the passage of time, I’m betting they’re one and the same,” Daryl said. “I felt it as soon as I saw the picture. I had one of our techs run a facial analysis of the two photos.”

Cam moved closer to study the two images more closely. “What were the results?”

“Inconclusive.” A tall lanky man in his mid-fifties, Daryl stood shoulder to shoulder with Cam at the whiteboard. “Right now, I’m having someone age the photo of Scalzo on the sailboat.”

“How long have you been looking for Scalzo now?” Cam asked.

Daryl tapped the leg that had retired him from the field. “Fifteen years, three months and nine days.”

“The age difference is about right. Who tipped you off to take a look at the guy?” Cam asked.

“Ben Slack contacted me an hour ago and I asked him to email me the photo,” Daryl said. “He was in your class at the farm.”

Cam remembered Ben, and anyone who had been trained by Daryl would know of his interest in tracking Scalzo down.

“Ben says the Securities and Exchange Commission is ‘looking at’ this guy,” Daryl said. “One problem I’ve always had in tracing Scalzo was that the man avoids getting his picture taken. But this guy is getting married, so he couldn’t very well refuse to have an engagement picture published.”

“What else have you got?” Cam asked.

“If the Securities and Exchange Commission is sniffing around him, he could be using the same M.O. as Scalzo did in Italy, and the same one that he used in Portland a few years ago. I was nearly in time to get him. He changes looks, identities and locations, but the scam he and his partner run remains the same. They target financial planners—some who handle select clients as well as others who manage pension funds. Scalzo is always the front man. He infiltrates the social strata first—buys an estate, joins the right clubs. That’s exactly what this guy has been doing in the Long Island area for the last year and a half. He promises huge returns to his investors and he delivers them. After the recent scandals, that’s enough to bring him to the attention of the Securities and Exchange Commission.”

“It sounds like the same kind of scam my father tried to run, but your nemesis is much better at it.”

Daryl’s hand settled on Cam’s shoulder. He didn’t have to say a word. As the man who’d recruited Cam, Daryl had accessed all the details on his father’s background. A rich and pampered young man, Cam’s dad, David Fedderman, had relied on his parents to buy him out of scrapes all of his life. Once he’d joined Fedderman Trust, he’d spent all of his time wining and dining clients and traveling to locate new investment opportunities. When it had finally been revealed that he’d been dipping into clients’ accounts to the tune of hundreds of thousands, his parents hadn’t been able to buy Davie out of serving jail time. They had, however, tried to get custody of Cam and his brothers in a brutal lawsuit. But Beth’s lawyer had finally prevailed and she’d immediately changed their last name to hers—Sutherland. They hadn’t heard from any of the Feddermans since.

What wasn’t in all the files was the fact that his father hadn’t been any more skilled at being a father or a husband than he’d been at being a crook. Cam had been ten when it had all gone down, and what he recalled most was that after the arrest, he’d never heard his mother cry herself to sleep anymore.

Daryl looked at him then. “Any chance you could help me out with this?”

Cam smiled at him. “I thought you’d never ask. Do we have any way to connect this guy to the Portland crime?”

“That’s what I’ll start on next. Scalzo’s good.” His smile widened. “But the Portland police have a set of prints for the alias he operated under there. I’ve got a call into the P.D. there right now.”

Cam tapped the second man in the sailboat photo. “What about his partner?”

“There’s no sign of him. He stays out of sight, out of mind.” “What’s your plan?”

“I’ve got some vacation time coming, so I’m going to take a few days to see what I can dig up on Long Island,” Daryl said. “Maybe I can get a whiff of the partner or a glimpse of Scalzo. I think I can recognize him in person.”

“Let me know what you need on this end.” Then he remembered Reid’s text. “But I may have to make a quick trip up to the Adirondacks to check out a family thing.”

Daryl grinned at him. “Luck is on my side.” He pointed to the engagement photo of the man he was sure was Scalzo. “My friend here is getting married in this little place in the Adirondacks this coming Saturday. Castle MacPherson. Ever heard of it?”

Cam stared at him. “Yeah. As a matter of fact, I have. That’s my stepfather’s place.”

“So you’re familiar with it?”

“Somewhat.” Not enough to know that people were scheduling weddings there. He turned to his desk, did a quick search for Castle MacPherson on his computer and found himself looking at Adair’s smiling face. The impact of just seeing her stopped him short for a minute. The fancy wedding hairdo was gone. But the eyes were the same pale, mysterious green. He had to remind himself to take a breath.

“A wedding destination spot, huh?”

Realizing that Daryl was leaning over his shoulder reading the computer screen, Cam reined in his thoughts and scanned the web page. By the time he finished, he’d noted Vi’s photo also, along with a shot of the castle, the gardens and the stone arch. And he’d clicked on a link that led to a small feature article in the New York Times that provided a brief history of the castle as well as the story of the legend and Eleanor Campbell MacPherson’s missing sapphires.

“And here I thought that wedding destinations involved sandy beaches and drinks with little umbrellas in them,” Daryl remarked. “But I guess a stone arch with the promise of a happy-ever-after would have a definite draw. Do you know if the two women are alone up there?”

“They won’t be for long.” Turning, he glanced back up at the photos on his whiteboard. “I’m going to be an unofficial guest at the upcoming wedding.”

“Thanks.” Daryl patted him on the shoulder. “I’ll need a day to get my ducks all in a row and make sure he’s my guy. Then I’ll get in touch.”

BY THE TIME five-thirty rolled around, Cam had his own ducks lined up and he was ready to hit the road for the castle. He answered Reid’s call on the first ring and once he and his brothers had exchanged greetings, he said, “Problem solved. I’m about to give Vi a call to let her know that I’ll be leaving later tonight.” Suiting the action to words, he stepped into the elevator and pushed the button to the garage.

“How did you know Mom and A.D. wanted one of us to go up there?” Reid asked.

“I called her,” Cam said. “You sent me the text an hour ago. Just because you’re the oldest and Mom always calls you doesn’t mean Duncan or I can’t take the initiative.”

“You tell him, bro,” Duncan said, laughing.

“I thought we should discuss it first. What if we all took the initiative and we’d all dropped everything to run up there?” Reid asked with just a trace of annoyance in his tone.

“I checked,” Cam explained. “Duncan’s in Montana and you’re on the way to Dulles right now because the Vice President is flying to Paris.”

“How did you—?” Reid began.

“He’s CIA,” Duncan said. “And, as the middle brother, he always has to show off.”

“And I’m usually the one who gets the field assignments,” Cam pointed out. “I figured I’d get started.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah.” But Cam could hear the smile in Reid’s tone.

“Plus, you knew I’d jump at the chance once Mom told me that Vi and Adair had discovered an earring from Eleanor’s missing dowry.”

“One of the sapphires?” Duncan asked. “Wait. Time out. We’re talking about one of the sapphire earrings that was probably worn by Mary Stuart on her coronation day?”

“That would be correct,” Cam said.

“If I’d known that, I could have gotten away. The local police made an arrest yesterday, and I’m just hanging around to get some fishing in. Remember all the games we played that summer pretending to find those jewels?”

Cam remembered them well, and the discovery of one of them would allow him the perfect cover to visit the castle. There was no need to let his brothers know that the castle might have other problems, not until Daryl had identified Saturday’s groom-to-be as Gianni Scalzo.

“When can you get there, Cam?” Reid asked.

Always the organizing big brother, Cam thought. But all he said was, “My ETA will be early morning. I’ll check out the security system and find a better place to secure the earring than Angus One’s secret cupboard inside the house. That’s were they’ve put it, and I’m betting that most of the population of Glen Loch knows all about that cupboard, including how to pull the lever to get into it. Have a safe flight, Reid. Catch a fish for me, Duncan.”

He ended the call and walked toward his car. He had no doubt he could handle providing security for the earring Adair and Vi had found. The real problem he was facing was how he was going to handle Adair.

4

ADAIR’S EYES SNAPPED open. It took a moment for the rest of her mind to register reality. She was in bed and it was still dark. Moonlight poured through the windows. A quick glance at her digital alarm told her that she must have just dozed off. Three-thirty in the morning and something had awakened her.

Not Cam Sutherland. He’d called Vi and said he’d be arriving in the morning. But she could definitely blame him for the hot, sweaty dream that had awakened her shortly after midnight. That was when she’d opened her balcony doors to cool off.

The sound came again and she recognized it immediately. Alba was barking. Adair let out the breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding. Her aunt’s room was in the west wing on the other side of the main staircase, and Vi had mentioned the dog was waking up and barking during the night for no apparent reason. So far she’d managed to sleep through Alba’s nightly ritual.

Not tonight. That’s what very little sleep, a lightning strike and the discovery of a priceless sapphire earring would do for you. But they were going to keep the discovery under wraps. That’s what her father had advised when Aunt Vi had called him. And he’d said he was going to call Reid to let him know so that arrangements could be made to check out the security at the castle. In the meantime, she and Vi had hidden the earring away in a place that was as good as Fort Knox—Angus One’s secret cupboard.

Alba continued to bark.

Adair stared up at the ceiling. She’d already lost enough sleep. She didn’t need a dog robbing her of the rest of it. She was about to burrow her head beneath the pillow when she heard something else.

Not a bark. More of a … what? A creak?

Jumping out of bed, she padded softly to the door, opened it and listened hard.

Nothing.

Even the dog had gone silent. Aunt Vi had probably quieted her.

She stood there and counted to one hundred while she told herself it was nothing. The castle had never had a break-in. And Vi had assured her the latest updates on the security system had been installed.

But then she recalled how the dog had barked shortly after they’d found the earring. Alba had sensed someone or something in the hills above the stone arch. And she had been holding the earring in her hand. If there’d been someone up there lurking or spying, they’d been in a perfect position to have seen it.

Turning, she paced back into her room and checked the time. Three-forty. Then she strode back to the door and debated going downstairs. To what? To search for an intruder? Barefoot and weaponless?

No way. But there was no way she’d be able to fall back asleep either. She looked around for a weapon. Where was a large brass candlestick when you needed one? Settling on a sizable stoneware pitcher, she grabbed the handle and crept softly into the hallway.

At the top of the stairs she paused, listening again.

Nothing.

There was half a flight of stairs to a landing where tall stained glass windows filtered the moonlight. Once she reached it, she would be visible to anyone below in the foyer. She had to chance it. Taking a deep breath, she moved quickly down the stairs, rounded the curve of the banister, then slipped into the shadows and flattened her back against the wall.

She made herself take slow, silent breaths—in and out—while she counted to one hundred again. And listened. Nothing moved in the large, open foyer below. Nothing made a sound.

As seconds ticked by, she began to question whether or not she’d imagined the noise she’d heard earlier. It was an old house, she reminded herself.

She was ready to go back to her bedroom again when she heard something. A definite creak this time, as if someone had stepped on a board.

Seconds later, she heard it again.

Her heart thudded against her rib cage and she tightened her grip on the handle of the pitcher.

Security system or not, she was not alone in the house. She scanned the foyer again but the shadows didn’t budge. Step by step she started down the stairs. Slow and easy, she told herself. At the bottom she paused and listened again. To her right was a door that opened into the dining room, and an archway that led to the west wing that housed the library and the kitchen. To her left was a door that led to the main parlor.

Wood scraped against wood, and this time the creak was loud and familiar. Adrenaline spiked and her heart thudded even harder as she pinpointed the sound. The main parlor. And she knew exactly what was making it.

Someone was breaking into Angus One’s secret cupboard where she and Aunt Vi had put the earring. Temper surged through her, pushing fear aside. She was not going to let anyone steal that earring.

She moved quietly toward the door to the parlor and saw that it was ajar. The crack wasn’t wide enough to see inside the room. For a couple of seconds she debated what to do. If she called out, asked who it was, she’d alert them.

Not her best move.

The creaking sound came again, then the scrape of wood against wood. Then nothing.

Except for the footsteps. The carpeting muffled them, but they were getting closer. No time to debate her best move. She climbed onto the seat of a chair flanking the door and raised the pitcher over her head.

The opening in the door slowly widened. She stopped breathing. When the figure stepped into the foyer, she brought the pitcher down hard on his head.

He fell like a tree and the pitcher clattered and rolled across the wooden floor until it thudded into a wall.

He wasn’t moving a muscle. And he was big. The foyer was a good twelve feet wide and the man’s body filled a great deal of it.

Was he dead? Had she killed him? Her knees went so weak she nearly tumbled as she climbed down from the chair.

He moaned.

Relief had her sitting down hard in the chair. Not dead. She drew in a deep breath and the burn in her lungs told her she needed the oxygen.

The figure on the floor moaned again, then his hand snaked out, grabbed her ankle and jerked. She fell hard, the impact singing through her as he rolled on top of her and crushed her beneath him.

He was even bigger than she’d first thought. Still she fought. She went for his face but he blocked the move and pinned her hands over her head. His chest was like a slab of rock. So were his thighs. When she tried to kick he scissored his legs, trapping hers. Finally she screamed, but the only sound she mustered was a squeak.

“Princess?” Releasing her hands he levered himself up, taking some of his weight off her.

Shock was her first response. It was dark in the foyer but she knew that voice. And there was only one person who called her that. “Cam?”

For a moment neither of them moved. Adair felt as if her mind had become a clean slate, and something was happening to her body. All the fight had gone out of it and it was softening, sort of molding itself to his. Flames ignited at every contact point.

His body seemed to be growing even harder. She was intensely aware of every plane and angle, and the thrill of lying there beneath him was so much better than she’d ever imagined in her fantasies. His mouth was close, too. She could feel the warmth of his breath on her lips.

Panic spurted. She had to do something. Push him away. But her muscles seemed paralyzed. And her brain wasn’t doing much better.

She was going to have to rely on her mouth. “Get off of me.”

When he rolled away and rose to his feet, Adair realized that she’d never said anything more contrary to her desire. She’d wanted him to continue to lie on top of her; she’d wanted his mouth on hers. She’d wanted him to touch her the way he had in the dream she’d had a few hours ago. She’d wanted …

Stop, she said to herself.

Get back down here, she wanted to say to him.

“I’m going to have a hell of a headache in the morning, Princess. Are you all right?”

The easiness of his tone and his use of the nickname he’d given her helped her to gather her thoughts. So did the fact that he’d backed a few steps away and didn’t offer her his hand as she stood up. If he had …

Don’t go there.

“I’m just fine.” That was a total lie. She still couldn’t feel her legs, but she managed to fist her hands on her hips. “I’ll be a lot better once you answer some questions. First, what are you doing breaking into the castle in the middle of the night and into Angus’s secret cupboard? Second, how did you even know about that cupboard? It’s a MacPherson secret. Last, but not least, where is the earring?”

The barrage of questions made Cam smile. Even in the dimness he could see the flash of fire in her eyes. The heat they’d generated together a few seconds ago threatened to erupt again. He’d been right about the hair-trigger effect she’d have on his senses. It had taken all of his control to get up when she’d told him to. Every cell in his body had been focused on kissing her. And he’d have wanted to do a lot more than that. He still did. He was a man who trusted his impulses, went with them. In two quick strides, he could …

As if she sensed his intentions, she took a quick step back. “Are you going to answer my questions or not?”

She was close to the stairs and if his memory was correct, she was fast. If she ran she might get away. He might be able to let her.

It took a wise man to know when his first impulse wasn’t his best one.

“Well?” She tapped her foot.

He held up a hand. “It’s taking me a few seconds to process all of the questions. If you ever decide to give up the wedding destination gig, the CIA will hire you. They can always use a good interrogator.”

“I could use some answers.”

“I’m here because your dad and my mom called Reid. They thought that one of us should check out the earring and the security system. I made much better time than I expected to, and I didn’t want to wake you.”

“So you broke in?”

“I decided to check out the security system and the earring without bothering you and your aunt Vi. The system is pretty good. It would take a pro or someone with a buddy on the inside to get through it. And since your dad mentioned that you’d put the earring in Angus’s secret cupboard, I just wanted to check and see if it was still there. It was.”

“How did you know about the secret cupboard?”

“My brother and I convinced your sister Nell to show it to us years ago. And I was a bit worried about how ‘secret’ it was.”

For a moment she said nothing. He felt the pull between them even more strongly than he’d felt it seven years ago, and he knew she felt it, too.

She turned and started up the stairs. “I’ll show you to your room.”

“Wait.” He turned to pick up his duffel, and his hand collided with something else. A stoneware pitcher. It had to have been what she’d clubbed him with. “Way to go, Princess. I’ve never been taken out by a pitcher before.”

“My pleasure,” she said as she led the way up the staircase.

“I’ll bet.” But he didn’t say it out loud, nor did he let the chuckle escape as he followed her.

“YOU’RE WILLING TO share your recipe for these delicious scones?” Bunny Maitland sprang from her chair, excitement clear in her voice.