Read Lion of Caledonia: International Billionaires VII: The Scots for Free Online

she chose were what he’d call bland or muted or boring.
    Mousy.
    His mouth quirked into a quick grin.
    She must have caught the movement or perhaps some instinct alerted her. Turning her head slowly, she gave him a look. A look he’d received a hundred times in their brief acquaintance. A look he’d begun to despise.
    Her look gave him nothing.
    No irritation or annoyance. No responding humor or amusement. Not a touch of anything at all.
    His smile disappeared.
    As if satisfied she’d banished his humor, the mouse turned her focus back to the computer. The movement made the blonde fluff of her short hair swish on her brow.
    Even the color of her hair wasn’t interesting. It was blonde, a kind of boring blonde. He supposed one could claim it matched her very white skin. One could also say her skin was the kind most English women prized—fair and porcelain. He hadn’t spotted a freckle or a mole on that face of hers. He supposed one could claim she had pretty skin.
    He’d say her skin was rather drab. Along with her hair and her clothes.
    So why did he keep staring at her? Why did he have an urge a time or two or three to walk over and mess her hair, something he’d done long ago to get a girl’s attention? Why the hell did he want her to really look at him?
    He grunted at himself in disgust.
    Her hands immediately vibrated on the keyboard as if they were tied to his voice and responded to his every sound.
    The thought troubled him.
    Turning away from her with abrupt determination, he focused on the billowing clouds riding the horizon. He pinned his gaze on the roiling waves of the loch he owned. He pushed every thought out of his head other than the one that mattered.
    Just like that, as it always did, the story came roaring into his head and heart, and his soul settled into what he was meant to do.
    The click of her fingers on the keys mingled with his spoken words as another hour flew by.
    A thrill of triumph ran through him. The story was his best so far. Surprisingly. He had to admit, even over his male pride, he’d been afraid six months ago. Six months ago, when duty had called and he’d had to come back to this obscene estate his wife had chosen and his mother had loved. Back to being caged by family obligations. Back to being alone.
    He’d been afraid of losing Tre. Afraid that without Tre, he wouldn’t be able to write.
    “Don’t be a dobber,” Tremaine Lamont had stated in his thick Scots accent when Cam had expressed a bit of his unease. “You’ll be fine on your own. I’m just the typist.”
    It had taken him six months to find another story and find enough courage to advertise for a transcriber. But the first three hadn’t lasted more than a week among them, and none of the words he’d spoken to them had been right, anyway.
    Not until now.
    Not until the mouse.
    Unlike Tre, she never interrupted or gave suggestions. She merely typed and then left. Yet something about her quiet, her stillness, something about her presence brought the story out of him in a way that had never happened with Tre.
    The thought struck him as disloyal, so he tucked it into the bottom of his mind.
    He still missed Tre.
    Or maybe, if he were completely truthful, he missed the life he’d had with his best friend and partner. The traveling to the Middle East or the depths of Africa. The adrenaline rush as they escaped danger. The excitement of running into another godforsaken town in a war zone and finding the next story. He with his trusty tape recorder and Tre with his ever-present camera.
    They’d been a team.
    Then, six months ago, they hadn’t been.
    “No, no,” Tre had said, his head shaking. “Not for me. Ye know that.”
    Not for him, the staying in one place, and living a normal, boring life. Not for Tre, and although he’d been stuck here for months, not for Cam, either. He’d been so sure of that fact, and so sure of his failure after months of trying, that before Jennet Douglas had appeared, he’d