Page 107 of Death at a Highland Wedding

I wanted him to tell me he did.

No, I just wanted him to tell me hecould.I didn’t actually expect him to say he felt the same way I did.

A tiny voice in me whispers,But it would have been nice.

Damnit. I don’t want to be that person. I’m the practical one who knows the most she can hope for is an admission of deeper feelings that could blossom into more.

But Iamhoping for those deeper feelings. Is that fair to Gray? I’ve known guys who seemed happy to be friends until they admitted to hoping for more and it hurt. Ithurt.My friendship hadn’t been enough.Ihadn’t been enough.

A few had half joked—even complained—about being “friend-zoned.” God how I hated that phrase. As if the only reason men befriended women was in hopes of sex.

Once I made it clear that I wasn’t interested, they’d ended the friendship. But that’s not what I’d do with Gray, because that is not why I’m in this relationship. His friendship isn’t a consolation prize. It’s themainprize and anything else is a bonus.

Does that make it better? I think so.

I need to be absolutely certain that if I’m angry over this marriage-of-convenience nonsense, I’m not actually angry because he isn’t offering more.

I’m walking and thinking when I hear a tiny meow. I almost ignore it. I’ve been sleeping in the same room as a wildcat kitten. I’m accustomed to meows. Except I’m not in my room. I’m outside.

The meow comes again, small and plaintive.

I stop and peer along the side of the road. The noise comes from inside a row of bushes.

Had we missed one of the wildcat kittens?

Gray and I had followed the mother and her babies, and there’d been three. Had there been a fourth somewhere? Or another wildcat with kittens? Or did one of the two in the barn escape?

These are all valid explanations. Explanations that should have me walking into those bushes to rescue a lost kitten.

Instead, the hairs on my neck rise. I’m thrown back a year, jogging through the Grassmarket in the twenty-first century, hearing a woman in trouble and going to investigate. Because of course I’d try to help.

I’d been lured in by a killer, which is how I ended up in Victorian Scotland.

In this case, I hate to say it, but I’m not hearing apersonin distress. It’s a kitten, and I’m not even sure it’s distressed about anything except being lost. There are no larger predators out here. I can head to the barn, check on the kittens, and if one is missing, I’ll make a decision then.

I look around. There’s no sign of anyone, and I might feel silly being suspicious, but my hand still slides into my pocket for my derringer. I don’t even have time to feel around the oversized pocket depths before I’m cursing.

My derringer is in the dress I was wearing earlier, and I’d pulled on a different—darker—one for this nighttime foray.

I do have my switchblade, though, in the pocket of my cloak. I palm it and then resume walking, my gaze and all my attention on that stand of bushes. I get three steps before a crackle sounds behind me, and I realize I’d been watching the wrong damn bushes.

I wheel, knife blade shooting out… and find myself staring down the barrel of a rifle.

“Not going to help that poor wee kitty?” Müller says, mangling a Scottish accent.

I say nothing. My brain is whirring as I assess my surroundings. I’m on the road to the house, in a stretch with bushes on either side. The rows of bushes aren’t thick enough to make this an inescapable gauntlet, but with the shadows, I can’t see a clear way through to the fields beyond.

Müller waggles the gun barrel. “Forgot your little gun, girl?”

I only adjust my grip on the knife, which makes him laugh. It’s a dry, raspy sound, raw with contempt.

If this is an ambush of opportunity, he wouldn’t have had time to get the cat. Did he know I was coming to see Gray? How? He’d never get in the house to read the note.

Does it matter?

It might. There’s a big difference between targeting me and ambushing the first person who steps out of the house alone. A difference that will tell me how to play this.

“I thought you were gone,” I say at last. “Your cottage is empty.”