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Catriona MacLeod had torn through the woods like a wild thing, her brown cloak whirling around her ankles and a waterfall of ringlets streaming out behind her.

That ridiculous hood had finally yielded its treasure, and quite a treasure it was, too, that glorious crown of tumbled russet curls, but there was no time for him to stop and admire it.

Of all the things she might have done, running from him was the very worst one she could have chosen, and not because he wasn’t the sort of man who let his quarry escape him.

That is, he was that sort of man, but he would have been content to let Catriona MacLeod go about her merry way, provided she led him to the hidden entrance of her castle first.

Alas, they were still a quarter of a mile from the castle when she chose to take to her heels. So, he was obliged to run after her, and once the chasing began, well . . . the chances this would end with a cordial understanding between them had just dwindled down to nothing.

There would be no agreement between them now .

No, now he was obliged to behave like a perfect savage and chase a tiny, terrified woman through the woods. Once he caught her, as he inevitably would, there was likely to be some scuffling, as scuffling did tend to go hand in hand with a chase.

None of which was likely to endear him to Catriona MacLeod.

But she’d left him no choice. The instant she burst into motion, he was after her, tearing through the woods like a wild boar after a defenseless squirrel.

It was rather an unsavory image, for a man who considered himself a gentleman.

If he’d paused for even an instant and given himself a chance to consider it, he would have just let her go and found some other way to achieve his ends, but his instincts worked against him.

He shot after her, and by God, she was fast , faster than any woman as petite as she was had a right to be, and the chase seemed to go on forever, until at last, there was a break in the gloom ahead of them.

They were nearing the tree line at the edge of the woods, and as the trees thinned, he caught a glimpse of Castle Cairncross’s turret. They were close now, yet still she ran like a thing possessed, her cloak flying out behind her.

But she wasn’t fast enough. He doubled his pace, his chest heaving, his harsh breaths echoing in his ears, his gaze fixed on the hems of her cloak, almost within reach . . .

It was the cloak that proved to be her downfall. Her heel got caught up in the voluminous skirts. She threw her hands out in front of her just as she pitched forward in a confused tumble of red hair and brown skirts.

He was only inches away from her by then, and he instinctively reached out a hand to catch her and . . . there! He grabbed her around the waist and jerked her backward against him, her slender shoulder blades slamming into his chest.

Her basket flew from her hand, the purple flowers scattering on the ground at their feet.

But Catriona MacLeod never made a sound.

She didn’t gasp, or scream, or cry out in any way. There was no squirming, no flailing, and no cursing. She didn’t attempt to jerk free, nor did she strike out at him.

The instant he touched her, she went utterly, unnaturally still.

It was, once again, the worst thing she could have done, and the last thing he expected.

It was too late for him to stop, by then.

His momentum hurled him forward, and he crashed into her, his chest striking her directly in the back, and then they were falling, falling, and he was going to crush her beneath him.

The ground came toward him in a sickening rush, her body tumbling like a rag doll in his arms as he wrapped his other arm around her shoulders and somehow—God only knew how—he managed to turn them so he hit the ground first. She jolted against his chest, and her breath left her lungs in a pained whoosh as they struck the ground with a bone-shattering thump.

Smack!

His back hit the ground, and she came down on top of him.

For a long, agonizing moment he couldn’t draw breath, his lungs frozen.

Oh, good Lord, what had he done? Something unforgivably stupid.

She was as still as a corpse on top of him, but her chest was moving in short, hard pants against his, and her warm breath drifted over the arm he’d wrapped around her shoulders.

Not a corpse, then, thank God. She must have fallen into a swoon.

The rain was coming down hard now. He blinked and reached up to wipe the water from his face. There was something stuck to his cheek, the edge of it tickling his bottom lip.

He peeled it off and frowned down at the crushed green stalk in his hand.

It was one of the purple flowers she’d picked earlier. The basket had flown from her hand when she fell, and the flowers had burst free of it in a shower of pink and purple petals. He sat there for a moment, staring at it, and that was when everything got strange.

His chest tightened as if an iron band were squeezing it. His breaths became short, labored, and there was the strangest tingling sensation in his fingertips.

What the devil? What was wrong with him? Had he hit his head? He reached up with an oddly unsteady hand to check for blood, but before he had a chance to draw another breath he was swamped with dizziness.

He lay there, unable to move, the branches above him swaying in the breeze, the leaves blurring together into an indistinct smear of dark green.

What was happening? The fall had knocked the wind out of him, but he’d taken dozens of falls in his lifetime, and it had never felt like this before, as if his head were floating away from his body. His lips were numb, as well, and his stomach was roiling with nausea.

Suddenly, the branches swimming in his vision were gone, and in their place was a pale, heart-shaped face with high cheekbones, a firm chin, a pretty pair of rosy lips, and the daintiest nose he’d ever seen.

He blinked at her.

A dainty nose . . .

Hadn’t he seen the tip of that nose before? And those curls . . .

They were such a particular shade of red, those curls, like . . . like . . . someone. He couldn’t remember who, but he’d seen that shade of red before, hadn’t he?

Yes, he was certain he had. He groped for the memory, but it eluded him, shying away every time he got close—

Wait.

Catriona MacLeod. Yes, that was right. He’d been chasing her, hadn’t he?

Her hood had fallen back, and the unruly mass of curls she’d been hiding underneath were loose now and floating around her face in the breeze.

And what an exquisite face it was, with creamy skin, a stubborn chin, and winged eyebrows over a pair of eyes the same dark shade of green as the darkest leaves in the woods.

“What . . . ?” He began, but his tongue felt thick and clumsy in his mouth, and it was too hard to make it form words, so he merely stared up at her, into those remarkable green eyes.

And all at once, a memory drifted through his mind, one from long ago.

When he’d grabbed her, right before they tumbled to the ground . . .

She’d gone still. Strangely, unnaturally still.

He’d seen that same sort of stillness only once before when he was a boy and he’d gone hunting with his father.

They’d been after a stag and had spent hours trailing it through the woods.

When they’d cornered it at last, and it had realized there was no way out, the stag had stilled in just the same sudden, unnerving way Catriona MacLeod did just before she hit the ground, its ears pricked, and tension in its long, graceful legs.

It had remained there just for an instant, as if suspended in time.

Right before it attacked.

It had charged directly at him and would certainly have killed him if his father hadn’t gotten a shot off just in time to save him. As it was, he still had a scar on his arm from where the stag had caught him with the tip of his antlers.

In that single, frozen instant, he knew.

It had been a mistake to chase Catriona MacLeod. A colossal mistake, one of enormous—perhaps deadly—proportions.

For all her delicate appearance, there was nothing helpless about her.

“I don’t . . .” What was he trying to say? He couldn’t remember.

Her lips were moving. She was saying something, but he couldn’t make sense of her words. “Wha . . . ?” He tried again, but it was no use. It was as if his mouth was full of gravel.

His tongue wouldn’t cooperate.

The pretty lips opened again, and a few words fell out. They sounded like, “You’re not Bryce Fraser.”

Bryce Fraser? Who in the world was . . . oh, the apothecary, in the village.

No, he wasn’t Bryce Fraser. Why would he be?

That couldn’t be what she’d said, could it? Why would she think Bryce Fraser had followed her into the woods? It didn’t make any sense, unless . . .

Unless . . . something.

Something disturbing, but his head was too dizzy to work out what, and his heart was pounding, and there was no time for puzzling over it, because her face was fading, black creeping in at the edges until the only part of her he could still see were her eyes, such an unusual dark green.

Had he ever seen eyes as green as hers?

The black tunnel at the edges of his vision swallowed her up before he could find the answer.