Page 9

A sensible man would wish himself back in the car of a plummeting balloon.

He plowed on. “You were engaged to Malcolm Crawford. He seems a good sort.”

“He is.” She turned her gaze to the ground and plucked at the grass. “He’s a verra good sort. He’s married now. To Ada Dunbar.”

“Dunbar.” James nodded. He had no idea which Dunbar girl was which, but he could summon a generic Dunbar girl to mind. Snub-nosed and ginger. Given to giggling. He knew all the local families. Dearnrigg was small and sparsely populated, and he’d spent far more time here than on his father’s estates in the Lothians and Northumberland. His parents had always been particularly fond of the isles.

“He changed his mind.” James frowned. “He threw you over?” For some reason, the thought rankled. Malcolm Crawford trifling with Isobel MacKinnon. Disappointing her. Dear God, had she wept? Would she weep now, to recollect her heartbreak? He wasn’t prepared for tears.

“I changed my mind.” She picked a tiny yellow flower and twirled it.

“You threw him over.” He decided not to interrogate his relief. He glanced back at the sheep cote. “You’re happier in your . . .”

An olive twig, James. You can manage.

“. . . cottage,” he finished.

“I adore my cottage.” She looked up, looked at him, eyes bright. “The walls had more holes than a colander, but I plugged them up and now it’s warm and dry and cozy. And peaceful. It’s lovely to have a room all your own.”

She smiled, and suddenly, all the loveliness of which she spoke transfigured her features.

She was lovely. Prickly, prideful Isobel MacKinnon, with the flinty eyes and bossy mouth. She was lovely as the summer day. The wind rifled her hair, wafted its fragrance. She smelled as though she bathed in a mountain spring that bubbled through primrose and heather.

The knowledge struck him with terrible force.

He wanted her. Wanted Isobel MacKinnon. The thorn in his side. The bane of existence.

Poxy whoreson’s puke-stocking of a week.

He almost scrambled backwards. But that would be nearly as embarrassing an admission as leaning forward, inhaling more deeply.

“Well.” He stayed where he was and returned her smile, as though nothing had changed. As though the world hadn’t turned upside down.

A modicum of grudging respect, fine.

A sudden torrent of carnal longing?

Agitating. Alarming. Absurd.

“Malcolm adores Ada,” she said. “He and I got engaged because our families expected it.”

James said nothing. The engagement had made sense to him, too. The MacKinnons and the Crawfords leased adjacent fields. Isobel was the eldest of her siblings; Malcolm the eldest of his. They were roughly the same age, both tall and strapping.

Their bairns will be braw. He’d overhead many a murmur to that effect.

“Neither of us wanted it.” Isobel gave a one-shouldered shrug. “I realized first.”

“That you prefer to live alone, in your cottage.”

“For now.” She shrugged again.

“An unusual choice.” He hesitated. “But it seems to suit you.”

“It does suit me.” A dimple dented her left cheek.

So what?

He knew she had a dimple, like he knew she had a chipped bicuspid, and the foul habit of chewing the end of her braid.