Her Scoundrel Read online

  Mari leaned toward Kat and whispered, “Now that’s one pirate most damsels wouldn’t mind boarding their boats.”

  Kat elbowed her sister in the side. “Hush. You’re terrible. It’s obvious you’ve been spending far too much time with our grandmother.”

  “Girls!” that same grandmother said as they approached. “Guess what? Jake and I have mutual friends in London. Isn’t it a small world?”

  “It’s not the world that’s small, Monique,” Kat said, her smile indulgent, “but your circle of friends that’s so large. The only reason you don’t have friends on the moon is that you haven’t found a way to visit the place.”

  “Give me time, Katrina. Give me time.”

  It was as good a segue as Kat could hope for.

  “Time does change things.” She met Jake Kimball’s gaze. “Sir, may I speak with you alone for a moment?”

  Kimball glanced at Luke, who shrugged. Kat tamped down her annoyance at the implied seeking of permission from her brother-in-law, and walked far enough away not to be heard by inquisitive relatives. Kimball fell in beside her, and though she didn’t look, she felt the weight of his gaze upon her.

  Out of the blue, he stated, “You have beautiful hair. The color reminds me of—” he reached into his pocket, pulled out a coin, a Spanish doubloon and handed it to her “—old gold that’s been rescued from the sea.”

  The coin was fascinating, Kimball’s comparison to her hair disconcerting. Kat tried to hand the coin back to him, but he wouldn’t take it. “For the child.”

  Her child. Yes. Kat could not, would not, forget about her child. “Have you had enough time to reconsider? Will you sell me the cross?”

  “Sorry, but no.”

  Kat lifted her shoulders in a casual shrug that belied the intensity of the emotions churning within her. Her action caused her shawl to slip. “You’re making a mistake. Just remember, Mr. Kimball, when bad luck begins to haunt your door, I know a way to turn the tide. I’ll stay in touch, Mr. Kimball. Believe me, there will come a time when you’ll be only too happy to be rid of the Sacred Heart Altar Cross.”

  “That sounds like a threat. You know—” the scoundrel winked at her “—if you weren’t so gorgeous, with all this talk about bad luck and curses, I’d worry I’d stumbled across a witch.”

  Cocky pirate, Kat thought as she readjusted her shawl by taking it all the way off, then resettled it around her shoulders. “I’m no witch, Kimball. But you should still beware. I’m a McBride Menace.”

  Jake Kimball appeared thunderstruck, and it took Kat aback. Had the McBride sisters’ reputation traveled farther than she’d thought?

  A calculating look flashed through Kimball’s eyes and caused Kat a shiver of unease. “A menace, hmm?” he murmured, reaching out and touching her hair. “What is that, some sort of witch? Have you cast a spell on me? Will you turn me into a toad? Somehow I see a woman like you chanting incantations over a pot.”

  The man was flirting with her! What sort of scoundrel would flirt with a woman seven months gone with another man’s child while her family stood within shouting distance? He must have ulterior motives. Yet, her feminine side couldn’t help but respond to the attentions of this alluring man. She leaned forward slightly. “You’d be surprised at what a woman like me might do.”

  His grin flashed wicked. He touched her hair again, gently tugged a strand from her braid and let it slide across the skin of his fingers. “Oh, yeah?”

  “McBride Menaces don’t rely on spells to get what we want, Mr. Kimball. Our methods are far more creative.”

  “Is that a fact?” His gaze focused on her mouth.

  “Oh, no.” Kat licked her lips, swayed toward him. His eyes narrowed, blazed heat, and power washed through Kat like an ocean wave. Typical man. Typical scoundrel.

  “No, Mr. Kimball,” she repeated, stepping away and grinning. “It’s a promise.”

  She all but strutted back toward the carriage. Halfway there, his voice stopped her in her tracks. “Do you want the Sacred Heart Cross, Katrina McBride?”

  Kat turned around. “I do.”

  “Then I propose a trade. I’ll give you my cross for that pretty necklace you’re wearing.”

  Kat clutched her emerald pendant. “My necklace? You want my necklace?”

  The pirate shrugged as he walked toward her. “I like baubles. It will be a bad trade on my part, I know. One jewel compared with dozens on the cross. However, you, too, are a jewel, my dear. You make a beautiful picture, standing here beside the sea, ripe and luscious and glowing. The necklace will remind me of you.”

  What a load of nonsense. “It’s the bad luck, isn’t it? I convinced you. You know you need to get rid of the cross and, pirate that you are, you recognize the value of my necklace and you’re trying to make the best deal you can.”

  “I can show you appraisal papers for the cross. It’s worth nine times the amount I paid Rory for it.”

  Kat’s eyes widened. “I can’t pay that much.”

  “It’s not for sale. It’s only up for trade. I want the necklace, Kat McBride.”

  “Why?”

  “I told you why.”

  She shook her head. “You spun a nonsensical story.”

  “You are a beautiful woman.”

  Kat realized just how dangerous a man he was when the utter conviction in his voice almost convinced her he meant it. “I cannot give you my necklace. It’s a family heirloom.”

  “Family?” His eyes lit. “Tell me everything you know about the necklace.”

  She wasn’t about to stand here and explain about Roslin of Strathardle. “It’s one of three that came to me and my sisters from our Scots ancestors. I cannot split the set, not even for the cross. My sisters would kill me.”

  He opened his mouth as if to protest, then apparently reconsidered. “If you change your mind, I expect to remain here in Galveston for another month. After that, letters can reach me through Kimball Incorporated offices in New York.”

  A cool breeze swept in off the water, and Kat gathered her shawl around her shoulders once again. “I can be reached in Fort Worth through my sister’s candy shop, Indulgences. Feel free to contact me when you’re ready to change your luck.”

  Kat felt his gaze upon her as she made her way to the waiting carriage. As Luke helped her up into her seat, the breeze picked up, and Kat lost her slight grip upon her shawl. It swirled into the air, fluttering toward the water’s edge, until a tanned hand reached up and grabbed it.

  “Y’all have a nice trip back into town,” Kimball said as he handed Kat her shawl. When their fingers touched, a shiver of foreboding swept over her. The calculating look in his eyes made her uneasy. What was he thinking? What was he planning?

  Jake tipped an imaginary hat and winked. “Guess I’d best get back to digging. All of a sudden I’m feeling lucky.”

  Now, why in the world did that sound like a threat?

  CHAPTER TWO

  JAKE KIMBALL WAS A pragmatic man.

  He didn’t believe in luck, good or bad. He didn’t believe in fate or fancy or fantasy, not since his journey a decade earlier on the far side of the world. Doing so might take him into that obsessive world that ultimately had destroyed his brother. Be damned if he’d travel down that particular path.

  No, Jake believed in research. Extensive, comprehensive, relentless research. He believed in the tangible. He believed in what could be proven.

  So why, then, was he sneaking through the window of a private residence in Fort Worth, Texas, searching for a piece of jewelry because it resembled something he’d once seen in a dream?

  He wondered if he hadn’t lost his mind.

  With the McBride family congregating at Tye McBride’s home for a birthday celebration, Jake decided to take advantage of the opportunity to search Willow Hill for the necklace he’d seen twice in his life—once in a dream, then again around Kat McBride’s neck.

  He’d spent much of the last month in Fort Worth learning
everything he could about the trio of necklaces worn by Kat and her sisters. Hanging around a relatively small town for weeks while asking questions about one of its most prominent families without drawing their notice had taken both skill and cunning. Yet what he’d learned had intrigued him.

  The McBride sisters began wearing the necklaces two years ago. Publicly they told the story Kat had given him on the beach in Galveston, that the necklaces were old family heirlooms. Privately they told a ridiculous story about a magical Scotswoman and prophecy foretold. Jake considered it all a bunch of hoohaw and had twice left town, determined to put the matter behind him. Nevertheless, old dreams about Daniel haunted him, and new possibilities plagued him, which was why he now found himself tiptoeing through Willow Hill’s kitchen salivating over the lingering aroma of freshly baked ginger cookies.

  Upstairs, thankful the family had left a hall light burning, Jake checked two bedrooms before finding one with clothing suited to an expectant mother hanging in the wardrobe. He didn’t truly expect to find the necklace—apparently she seldom appeared in public without it. What he hoped to identify were likely places she’d store it while at home. That way he’d shorten his time inside her bedroom when she occupied it.

  He’d decided to steal the damned thing and be done with the speculation once and for all.

  More than ten years after the fact, with his father gone and no longer able to rake Jake over the coals for having come home from Tibet alone, Jake had almost let go of the guilt and made peace with his brother’s disappearance. He believed his brother died on that mountain, either in the cave or by wandering into the cold in fevered confusion, though he never found a body. He’d searched hard for a full week, until the guides conveyed the message that they were leaving, no matter what. He’d searched again on two subsequent expeditions his father organized and funded. He’d given his best effort to finding his brother. He could feel good about that.

  Yet, ever since Kat McBride paid him that visit on the Galveston beach, Daniel’s ghost had haunted him.

  Jake was a pragmatic, down-to-earth fellow. He believed man made his own luck and was the master of his own destiny. He didn’t believe in witches or ghosts or mythical, magical cities hidden within a ring of snowcapped mountains.

  Still, if the slightest chance existed that he was wrong, that there was something to this otherworldly folderol, well, he couldn’t ignore it. He didn’t like stealing a treasured piece of jewelry from a young woman who’d already suffered her fair share of hard licks, but he didn’t see a way around it. He’d tried to trade for it, to no avail. He’d tried to buy it through intermediaries, but that didn’t work, either. But because the necklace was a perfect replica of the one in his dream, because it involved his brother, his hero, his greatest failure, Jake couldn’t afford to be nice.

  He searched her dressing table, opened drawers, sifted through keepsakes in a cigar box, and then, because he was, after all, a man, he took a moment to sniff the scents in the perfume bottles. With the alluring, spicy scent of bergamot lingering in the air, he turned his attention to a chest of drawers. A wooden box with carved-ivory inlay sat atop it. Jake flipped open the lid and murmured, “Yes.”

  Kat McBride’s jewelry box held a modest cache of baubles. A locket, pearl earrings. More earrings. A pair of gold bracelets. Not a single ring. Guess she didn’t keep her faithless “husband’s”—or Rory Callahan never gave her one.

  The bastard. It was too bad a nice young woman like Kat McBride had gotten tangled up with the likes of Callahan. She didn’t deserve it.

  It’s too damned bad she got tangled up with the likes of me, too.

  Jake shut the jewelry box, then continued his survey of her bedroom and tried to ignore his conscience. The table beside her bed offered a likely spot if she removed the necklace last thing at night, then donned it again immediately upon rising in the morning. Jake subtly shifted the lamp and short stack of books beside her bed, leaving room for the necklace to allow for a clean pickup, if need be.

  That ought to do it. He’d watched the house for the previous two nights. Half past three in the morning looked to be a good time to burgle Willow Hill. His intention was to slip back outside, settle down in his observation spot, then keep watch as the McBrides returned home and went to sleep. Then, if all went as planned, he’d slip inside the way he’d come in tonight, head straight for Kat’s room, grab the necklace and go. He’d head back to Galveston first thing tomorrow morning.

  He was halfway to the bedroom door when he heard the sound of footsteps pounding up the stairs along with a man’s panicked voice. Jake froze, listened intently, then quickly dove for the only hiding place in sight. He crawled under her bed just as her door burst open. Jake spied a man’s pair of shoes and his trousers from mid- calf down heading toward the bed.

  “Jenny!” Trace McBride called. “Hurry. Pull down her sheets so we can get her to bed.”

  “Papa,” Kat McBride said in a long-suffering tone. “I don’t need to go to bed. I don’t need to be carried.”

  “You don’t know what you need. You’ve never had a baby before. I’ve had six!”

  A woman’s slippers and skirts shuffled into view. “Put her down, Trace. You’ll hurt your back.”

  “Jenny! She’s having a baby!”

  “Yes, but not this second, Trace.”

  Kat added, “That’s right Papa. I haven’t had a single pain.”

  “But…but…but…your, um…You’re all…um…”

  Jenny McBride clucked her tongue. “Put her down, darling, and let me help her change. Remember when I had Tommy? My pains didn’t start until six hours after my water broke. This is a first baby. We’ll have plenty of time.”

  “The bed—”

  “Let her change first.”

  Trace set his daughter down, mumbled something about hardheaded women, then exited the room. Jake heard the door shut.

  “Thank goodness,” Jenny McBride muttered. “I’m afraid that man will drive us both crazy before this is done.”

  “He’s nervous, isn’t he?”

  “Terrified. You’re his little girl.”

  Jake heard the rustle of clothing, then petticoats dropped. The women discussed feminine birthing details he’d never considered and would just as soon not know. Vaginal tearing? Afterbirth? When the bed above him dipped and Kat McBride wiggled her bare feet, Jake broke out in a sweat and wished he was anywhere but here.

  Then he heard the soft clink of chain against wood. She’d set the necklace on her bedside table, right in the spot he’d cleared for it, he’d bet.

  Damn. His fingers itched to reach up and grab it, but prudence won out.

  Above him, Kat and her mother spoke briefly about the birthday party they’d been forced to leave early before talk returned to the subject of labor and delivery. Listening, Jake wished there was something to the whole witchy business. He’d give just about anything if a sorcerer could whisk him out of here.

  What a humiliating position he found himself in, hiding beneath a woman’s bed. He’d hidden from a husband in a wardrobe once or twice before, but never beneath the bed. If his friend Dair MacRae could see him now, he’d bust a gut laughing.

  When the women’s discussion turned to the possibility of breast engorgement, Jake considered giving himself up. If he didn’t think it likely that doing so would put the necklace out of his reach for good, he’d roll out from beneath the bed this second.

  How long did having babies take? An hour? Two? He had no experience whatsoever in that respect.

  “I don’t want to stay in bed, Mama. I’ll go crazy sitting around waiting for this to happen.”

  “What do you want to do?”

  “I’d like to take a walk.”

  Yes! Jake held his breath and waited anxiously for Jenny McBride’s response.

  “I think that’s a good idea,” Jenny McBride responded, stating the best bit of news Jake had heard all night “Let’s get your coat and shoes on, then we’ll
go deal with your father.”

  “Can’t I just sneak out?”

  “Kat” Jenny chastised.

  “Oh, all right.”

  Moments later the door closed behind the women. Jake waited half a minute before crawling from beneath the bed. A quick glance toward her night table had his lips stretching in a grin. The large emerald pendant surrounded by gold filigree, ancient and Gaelic in appearance and suspended from a heavy gold chain, lay just where he wanted it.

  Jake slipped Kat McBride’s necklace into his pocket then sneaked out of Willow Hill.

  THE BRUTAL waves of pain washed over Kat McBride, one on top of the other, allowing little time to rest in between.

  “That’s it darling,” her mother, Jenny, said. “You’re doing fine. You’re doing great. It won’t be long now.”

  “Hurts,” Kat gasped out as the agony eased.

  “I know, baby.” Jenny wiped her daughter’s brow with a damp cloth.

  “I can’t do it, Mama. I can’t. Make it stop. Make it go…oh…” The pain bore down once again, vicious and intense. Heat flashed through her body, and Kat thought she might vomit. Her huge belly was as hard as granite.

  “Maybe I could rub her stomach,” her sister Emma suggested. “Would that help?”

  Unable to verbally respond, Kat snapped at her sister’s fingers.

  “I think that means no,” Jenny observed.

  Mari nervously patted her younger sister’s hand. “Try to think of something other than the pain, Kat. Think of a peaceful, gold and scarlet sunset. Or of a paper boat floating on the Trinity River. Or maybe, if peaceful doesn’t work, think of something that will capture your attention. I know. Think about Jake Kimball and his latest reply to your letters. That’ll certainly make you stew. That’ll take your mind off the pa—”

  As the contraction peaked, Kat let out a loud, agonized scream.

  “—in. Or maybe not,” Mari concluded as a loud crash sounded outside Kat’s bedroom door.