Highland Sons: The Mackay Saga by Dawn Ireland, Meggan Connors Page A

pretended to drink. She flirted. She danced, and with each change of partners, she came away with a little something extra to line her pockets. And more than once, her stomach dropped to the floor as she caught sight of the man with the red-gold hair watching her from across the room. She glanced in his direction again and their gazes collided, his lips curving into a smile and her heart bounced around beneath her breast as if on springs.
    She wondered what color his eyes were. She wondered if his voice would match his broad proportions and the handsome masculinity of his face. She wondered what it would feel like to dance in his arms.
    And because she did, she would never approach him.
    Instead, she focused on her latest dance partner. Or rather, she focused on the chain of his pocket watch. Her fingers had just curled around it when a man’s voice asked, “May I cut in?”
    He spoke in a deep, southern drawl, and Fiona’s fingers spasmed and dropped the chain. Her eyes shot up to his face. Him.
    Her dance partner stepped aside, and he took her into his arms. Everything about this moment felt so right, from the way his hand rested on her waist to the way he smelled like leather and man and linen, dried in the summer sun.
    “I’m Cameron Mackay.”
    A good Scottish name. Sakes alive, but she was in trouble. “It’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance, Cameron Mackay,” she said, carefully keeping her own accent out of her voice. Her Scottish brogue was just different enough to be noticeable even in a town crawling with Welsh and Cornish miners.
    The corners of his lips ticked up, and his hand tightened on her waist, though he didn’t pull her in closer to his body like she wanted him to. “And you are?”
    Fiona allowed her fingers to trail down his arm before placing her palm on shoulder. “I’m Elizabeth.”
    He studied her for a moment, and she wondered if he saw right through her. After a moment, he said, “Elizabeth what?”
    She gave him what she hoped was a dainty shrug. “Just Elizabeth.”
    His smile lit spaces in her soul she hadn’t even realized had gone dark, and a part of her long since ignored twisted.
    “Maybe I don’t like mysteries.” He arched a pale eyebrow suggestively, drew her body flush against him and whirled her around. The moment he loosened his hold on her as the dance warranted, her body ached with the loss.
    “I guess that’s too bad for you, because I’m a mysterious girl.”
    His laughter rumbled up from the hollows of his chest. “I bet. In that case, I might have to make an exception.”
    “I could be trouble.” It pained her how true those words were. She’d never warned a mark away before, and that’s precisely what she’d done, no matter how she’d tried to mask it with flirtation.
    Her eyes met his and his smile never faltered. Instead, it spread across his face and made his eyes crinkle at the corners, revealing a charming dent—not quite a dimple—in his left cheek.
    “Trouble,” he echoed, his dark eyes scanning her face. He released a breath of wry laughter. “Somehow, I don’t doubt it.”
    He was so close she had to tilt her head up to meet his gaze. Grinning, she said, “You’re a wise man.”
    His eyes glittered with amusement. “I’ve been called a great many things, but I’ve never been called wise.”
    “You're a trouble-maker, too?”
    “I’m living in Virginia City. What do you think?”
    He whirled her around the dance floor, and the way he held her made it hard to think, hard to breathe. Hard to fight against the desire to run her hands along his muscular shoulders and down his arms, to rest her head against his chest and listen to the beating of his heart.
    She took a deep breath to regain her wits. If she’d learned one thing, it was how to pretend to be something she wasn’t. Casting him a bright smile, she said, “I think the only people who would dare to live in a town like this are fortune hunters, trouble-makers, and the