No Risk Refused. Cara Summers

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СКАЧАТЬ tried for a serene smile. The clouds were still a good distance away, she assured herself. Time enough to panic once the lightning started. She waved to get her aunt’s attention.

      Viola MacPherson had moved to the castle after Adair’s mom, Marianne, had died. She’d been four, her sisters three and one. Their father had buried himself in his painting, so it was their aunt who’d raised them. She’d given up her job at the nearby college and devoted her life to creating a home for them while providing a haven where their father could continue with his landscape painting.

      Now in her late fifties, Viola looked and projected the energy of a much younger woman. Adair had inherited her aunt’s tiny stature as well as the curse of naturally curly red hair. Viola’s cascade of ringlets was gray now, and she managed them by pulling them back from her face. She favored long skirts or wide-leg pants and tunics that went with her gypsy look.

      At a signal from Adair, Vi began to play Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy.”

      Thunder sounded faintly in the distance.

      Refusing to look out over the lake again, Adair directed the flower girl to start down the short path that led from the rose garden to the stone arch. When the little girl was halfway there, Adair gestured to the maid of honor.

      “Daddy’s still on his phone,” Rexie whispered.

      “Mr. Maitland.” Adair spoke in a low tone.

      Frowning at Adair, the man stuffed his cell in a pocket and moved to his daughter’s side. “That was an important call.”

      Adair smiled at him. “And this is a very important moment for your daughter. Go.”

      Thunder rumbled—closer this time.

      Rexie and her father were halfway to the minister when the dark clouds settled like a lid over the garden with such speed and finality she wondered they hadn’t heard a loud clang.

      Lightning flashed behind her just as Rexie and her dad made it to the shelter of the stone arch. Adair hurried up the path, grabbing Bunny’s arm on the way. Together they power-walked to join the rest of the wedding party.

      Cello in hand, Aunt Vi was the last to make it before the next crack of thunder sounded. Then for a moment, no one spoke as they huddled shoulder to shoulder and watched nature put on a powerful show. Lightning crisscrossed the sky at times so bright Adair found herself blinking. The intermittent explosions of thunder made her wonder if this was what it might be like to be trapped in a bunker during an attack.

      And her mind flashed back to the night of her father’s wedding. There’d been a storm like this that night, also. The Sutherland boys, Reid, Cam and Duncan, had flown in just for the wedding and then gone back to their colleges right after the ceremony. She and her sisters hadn’t seen them since that long-ago summer when the boys’ mother, Beth, had been a visiting professor at nearby Huntleigh College and she’d gotten her father’s permission to use the library at the castle for the research she was doing for a historical novel she was writing on the MacPherson clan.

      That was the summer when Adair’s fascination with Cam had begun. Because she’d hated him. He’d been a relentless tease, always pulling her curls and calling her “Princess” because she lived in a “castle.” And he’d constantly nagged her to try things she’d never tried before—like climbing over the stone arch.

      There were days during that summer when she’d wanted to strangle him.

      But strangling hadn’t been on her mind the night of her father’s wedding to Beth Sutherland. Because in the twelve years that had passed, the Sutherlands had changed. Drastically. From annoying, know-it-all ten-year-olds to attractive young men.

      What hadn’t changed had been her fascination with Cam. It had flared immediately from the instant he’d arrived at the castle that day.

      They weren’t kids on a playdate any more. And while their parents had been pledging their vows beneath the stone arch, her eyes had locked on his, and she’d wanted him in a way that she’d never wanted anyone—or anything. It had thrilled her, terrified her. And it had fueled the fantasy that she’d committed to paper and put into the special metal box that she and her sisters had hidden away in the stone arch.

      Lightning flashed again and the thunder roared, instantaneous and deafening, refocusing her thoughts on the present.

      Vi whispered in her ear. “This isn’t good.”

      Adair had to agree with her aunt. In all her years growing up at the castle, she’d never seen a storm like this one. And it had to happen the day of Rexie Maitland’s wedding rehearsal.

      They were so tightly packed in the space that Adair had to crane her neck to meet Rexie’s eyes. Panic was what she saw and she felt an answering surge in herself. Pushing it down, she kept her voice calm and spaced her words to fit in between the claps of thunder. “We should go forward with the rehearsal.”

      Not sure how much Rexie heard in the cacophony of sound bombarding them, Adair pursed her lips and pantomimed a kiss. Then she held her breath, willing Rexie to kiss Lawrence and seal the deal. Not for the first time, she wished she had at least a smidgen of the power Macbeth’s witches had.

      Thunder cracked so loud Adair was certain the rocks beneath her feet moved. Aunt Vi grabbed her hand and held on hard. Adair kept her gaze on Rexie, her willpower on at full throttle.

      Finally, Rexie turned to Lawrence and put her hands on his shoulders to get his attention. A second later, he began to lower his head.

      Lightning flashed, so close this time that Adair could smell it, and the ground beneath them shook—enough to tear Rexie out of Lawrence’s arms just before their lips met and thrust her backward into the minister. Adair heard stones tumble from the front of the arch before thunder deafened her.

      When the earth stilled again, Adair found herself held tightly in her aunt Vi’s arms, a cello pressed hard against her thigh. Rexie was in her mother’s arms. Not good. Lawrence and Winston had their heads close. The maid of honor had picked up the flower girl and the best man had slumped onto a ledge, his face sheet-white.

      When the storm had moved off so that conversation was a possibility, everyone began to talk at once, their voices pitched almost as low as the now-fading thunder. But the main consensus was that the stone arch they were standing under had just been struck by lightning.

      Vi was looking at the stones that formed the arch over their heads. “We’re lucky they held, but we should have someone check them.”

      Adair figured checking the stone arch was the least of her problems. The biggest one was headed toward her, elbowing her way through the group. When Rexie reached her, she said, “I’m calling off the wedding.” Then she burst into tears.

       2

      AN HOUR LATER, Adair stepped out of her room and went in search of her aunt. After finally seeing the Maitlands off, she’d spent some time in the shower replaying everything that had happened in her mind, going over the should-have-saids and could-have-dones. Her ex-boyfriend Bax had always criticized her for trying to second-guess herself.

      Maybe he’d been right. In the downsizing at her former company, he’d kept his job. She hadn’t.

      Pushing that thought out of her mind, СКАЧАТЬ