No Risk Refused Page 3

  Vi merely met her eyes, saying nothing. It was a ploy that her aunt had used very successfully when she and her sisters had been trying to explain some of the mischief they’d gotten into.

  “Okay, maybe he’s just a jerk,” she conceded. “A jerk she’s in love with.”

  “Or maybe he’s just as nervous as the bride. When you first explained your business plan to me you defined our role pretty clearly.”

  Adair raised a hand, palm out. “Right. We’re not matchmakers or relationship counselors. Our job is to provide the perfect wedding and let the stone arch do its work.”

  She rose then and walked to the low stone wall that bordered the veranda. Beyond the gardens she could see the curve of the stone arch. Vi joined her and put an arm around her shoulder. “But? I hear a but in there.”

  “I can’t help thinking that’s what the lightning strike was about. I suggested to Rexie that she kiss Lawrence today during the rehearsal to seal the deal. That way she could walk down the aisle on Saturday knowing that she was marrying her true love. But the lightning prevented the kiss. Maybe the power of the stones is working against this wedding.”

  Even as she said the words, an image from an old movie filled her mind—a bride running down the aisle. Quickly, she shoved it aside. That kind of thing didn’t happen in real life. Did it? “We really need to pull off this wedding, Aunt Vi.”

  Vi gave her a hug. “Then you’re going to find a way to do it. Why don’t you go down to the arch now and think about it while I get started on dinner. Use the power.”

  Shoving her hands in her pockets, Adair moved around the veranda’s low wall and started down one of the paths. Gardening wasn’t her thing. She couldn’t even begin to name the plants that bloomed everywhere in profusion.

  Except for the roses. And she’d recognized the lilacs and violets earlier in the spring. Gardening was one of her aunt Vi’s talents. Angus One had built the original garden for Eleanor but it had been well tended by their descendants. In fact, all the MacPhersons who’d been born and raised here at the castle had benefitted from a very rich gene pool. Some of them had turned to education. It was one of her great-great-uncles who’d been a cofounder of the nearby Huntleigh College. There were three paintings in the castle that bore Eleanor’s signature. And Angus One was credited with the design of the castle. And he had to have had some serious engineering skills to have pulled off the construction of the stone arch.

  Stepping out of the gardens, she crossed the grass verge until she reached the row of chairs they’d placed in front of the stones for the rehearsal. The arch itself was ten feet tall at its center, ten feet long and eight feet wide. The summer the Sutherland triplets had played here, they’d measured it off to the inch.

  The boys had been ten that year, she’d been nine and her sisters eight and six. They’d been fascinated by the Sutherlands. Cam in particular had intrigued her. They’d taken turns deciding the games they would play on those long afternoons. And the ones Cam chose had been her favorites. There was always a risk involved, something that made her heart race faster.

  His favorite game had been “pirate and treasure.” More than once he’d chosen her as his partner, and together they’d climbed up the cliff face to the west of the castle. Adair’s heart raced just thinking about it. Aunt Vi and her father had always forbidden them to go to the cliffs. But they could hardly admit that to the Sutherlands.

  When she realized she was smiling, Adair made herself stop. She hadn’t come here to the stone arch to think about Cam Sutherland. She’d managed not to think about him for years. She hadn’t even seen him since that night after their parents’ wedding, when she and her sisters had come out here with a bottle of champagne to write out their secret fantasies about their ideal fantasy lovers.

  She’d written her fantasy about Cam. She hadn’t been able to get him out of her head from the instant her eyes had met his during the ceremony. In that moment of eye contact only, no one else had existed. The intensity of the awareness she’d felt, the depth of it, had been something she’d never experienced before. When he’d asked her to dance later, she’d seen the challenge in his eyes. He’d known the effect he was having on her. But she’d refused the dance, preferring the safety she’d felt in his brother Reid’s arms.

  It was only later, with a little help from the champagne, that she’d given full flight to her desire and her fantasy. Just thinking about it made her knees feel so weak that she sank onto the narrow ledge that ran along the side of the arch. Cam spelled trouble for her. And she didn’t kid herself. She’d increased the problem exponentially when she’d written her fantasy down on paper and buried it in the arch.

  The whole thing had been her idea, and she’d talked her sisters into doing the same thing. Adair the great planner. In the back of her mind she’d had some idea that if she wrote a fantasy about Reid or Duncan, she could negate what she was feeling for Cam.

  Hadn’t worked out. The instant her pen had struck paper, it had all been about Cam and no one but Cam.

  Calm down. Adair forced herself to breathe in, breathe out.

  You’ve avoided him for years. His job at the CIA has kept him overseas. There’s nothing to worry about.

  Except the power of the stones.

  And there might be a way to lessen that.…

  Dropping to her knees, Adair traced her fingers along the base of the arch, trying to find the loose stones that she and her sisters had discovered when they were children. Behind them there was a niche just big enough to hold the metal box they’d used for years. Any fantasy that she’d put into the box could be taken out. Then she just might have less to worry about.

  None of the stones were loose.

  That couldn’t be. Lowering herself to her stomach, Adair squinted at the stones as she ran her hands along them again. There wasn’t even a crack she could get a finger into.

  Had the lightning shifted things?

  The sound of Alba’s bell had her scrambling to her feet. Once the dog reached the arch, she wandered around to the side and started pawing at some stones. Adair spotted her aunt as she stepped out of the gardens.

  “Find any damage?” Vi called.

  “Seems pretty solid.” Adair brushed her hands off on her slacks. And she was going to put that box and the fantasies it contained out of her mind. Why on earth was she obsessing about Cam Sutherland all of a sudden? Avoidance had worked so far, and there wasn’t any reason to think that it wouldn’t continue to work.

  Unless you don’t want it to.…

  Pushing the thought firmly away, Adair stepped out of the stone arch. “I have an idea about how to avoid the runaway bride disaster.”

  Vi smiled at her. “I’m all ears.”

  “You distract Bunny tomorrow and give me some time alone with Rexie. Maybe she’ll tell me what’s bothering her. I’d like to know what really happened with her first husband that’s making her so nervous about taking a second chance.”

  Vi smiled. “I can handle Bunny. She’s very interested in getting the recipe for the scones I served with her herb tea.”

  “You never give that recipe out.”

  “I won’t this time either, but I have several older versions of it that I can bear to part with.”

  Alba’s bell jingled again, and she suddenly appeared around the side of the arch with something in her mouth. The dog dropped what looked like a leather pouch on the ground at their feet.

  She and Vi dropped to their knees together. Then Adair picked up the pouch. It was folded like an envelope with another pouch inside of it and another pouch in side of that. “Chinese boxes,” Adair murmured.

  But when she opened the last one, all she could do was stare. Inside lay a sapphire earring set in gold. The gem was the size of her thumbnail and it dangled from a link of gold chain.

  Vi caught her breath. “Oh, my.”

  Oh, my, indeed. Adair recognized it right away. Eleanor Campbell MacPherson was wearing it in the portrait that h
ung in the main parlor. And Mary Stuart might very well have worn it on the day she was crowned.

  But Eleanor’s dowry had been missing for years. The theory was that one of the Anguses had sold it long ago.

  With the earring still lying in the palm of her hand, she stood and walked around to the side of the stone arch where Alba had been digging. Sure enough, there was a pile of stones that looked as if they’d shaken loose during the storm.

  “Who on earth put this here and why?” Adair breathed.

  Alba began to bark. When Adair glanced at her, she saw that the dog wasn’t looking at the loose stones but at the wooded hill that sloped sharply upward beyond the stone arch. Alba continued to bark as she raced to the hedge that separated the gardens from the trees. Adair ran her gaze up the hill, trying to see what was upsetting the dog, but she saw nothing.

  “There’s something up there she doesn’t like,” Vi said as she moved past Adair to take the dog’s collar and pat her head.

  Even as the dog quieted, Adair scanned the hill again and still saw nothing.

  “We’d better get that earring inside and then we’ll have to call your father and let him know,” Vi said.

  Adair stared down at the earring and as she did, it seemed to glow. She could have sworn that she felt a warmth in her hands. After all these years, a part of Eleanor’s dowry had shown up. Why now, she couldn’t help but wonder. And why had it been hidden away in the stone arch?

  3

  Received a call from Mom and A.D. Need our help. Conference call with all three of us at five-thirty?

  CAM SUTHERLAND READ the short text from his brother Reid twice. Some things never changed. In spite of the fact that he and his brothers were triplets, there’d always been a pecking order. From the time they were little, if his mom needed something she’d always called on Reid, the oldest. Even now, she used him as her main contact person, and it was his job to relay the information and/or request.

  Because his younger brother Duncan had always been studious and a bit shy, he’d always seemed to receive extra attention, too. Not that his mom had a lot to spread around. Her work teaching and her research had always absorbed her. “Absentminded professor” might have been a term coined to describe her. But after their father had been sent to prison, Beth Sutherland’s academic success and her publications had been key to keeping custody of her sons. So from the age of ten, they’d all pitched in.

  And they’d fallen into roles. Reid had become the leader and organizer, Duncan had offered ideas and analysis, and it had usually fallen on Cam to carry out the missions. Not that he’d complained. He’d always preferred action over giving advice or orders.

  His mother didn’t turn to them very often anymore, but he had no doubt that he would probably get the assignment. His older brother’s new duties in the Secret Service serving on the Vice President’s security detail were keeping Reid very busy, and the last time he’d talked to Duncan, who worked as a profiler in the Behavioral Sciences division of the FBI, he’d been consulting on a case in Montana.

  Then with a frown Cam read the text again. His mom and A. D. MacPherson were in Scotland, and if they’d taken the time to call, his best guess was that something was going on at the castle. From what he’d last heard, Viola MacPherson lived alone there now. The image of a tiny, energetic woman popped into his mind. He hadn’t forgotten her scones or her brownies. Except for Christmas and birthday cards, he hadn’t seen Aunt Vi or visited the castle since his mother had married the successful landscape painter seven years ago. That had been his senior year in college and he’d joined the CIA right away. For five years he’d worked a variety of covert operations overseas. He’d enjoyed the travel and the challenge of the assignments, but when an opportunity had presented itself to transfer to the Domestic Operations section in D.C., he’d been ready for a change. He still worked in the field but his assignments tended to be of shorter duration, and as a side benefit he got to work for an old and dear friend.

  The last he’d heard, the MacPherson sisters had been as busy as he, his brothers and their parents, and were pursuing career goals. Not that he knew what they were doing exactly. He’d avoided thinking about them for years.

  Especially Adair.

  He strode to the window of his office, but it wasn’t the scenery that he saw. It was Adair MacPherson’s face. The image of her standing beneath that stone arch during his mother’s wedding to A. D. MacPherson had been popping into his mind lately. It had been a late-fall wedding. He and his brothers had been tied up in classes so they’d booked flights that arrived on the morning of the ceremony and left that evening.

  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.”