Page 2 of Utterly Dauntless

"Dunno. I entered adraw-ring...and won."

The girl gasped again. It seemed she'd been led to believe something different. Likely something far more romantic than, "Hey, I've got a free night at The Grand. Are ye up fer it?"

"How did they contact ye?"

A tighter pinch brought another yowl. "How do ye think? All anonymous, yeah?"

Grey turned him loose, gave the lass a quick nod of apology without giving her a second look, and excused himself. They were already arguing before the door closed, so the pup wouldn’t be coming after him. Surely, he wouldn't care to risk one of his sore ears again.

"Damn ye, Aries," Grey grumbled aloud, knowing that somewhere on God's green earth, she would be imagining exactly what had just transpired.

And she would be laughing.

Grey tookthe lift to the lobby, not wishing to spend another second in that hotel than absolutely necessary.

As he crossed toward the revolving doors, the porter waved at him. "You Mr. Strachan, sir?"

He noticed the phone in the young man's hand. "I am."

"A lady would like a word, sir."

For the length of a heartbeat, he hesitated. But if he had to choose between her mocking laughter and no sound of her voice at all, he'd choose the former every time, damn her.

He closed the distance and took the offered cell phone. "Hello, Aries."

"Grey." The silence was a mix of torture and bliss. At least she wasn't laughing. "Why on earth are you still looking for me?"

"Because I wouldnae wish to disappoint ye." He regretted the whisper instantly and sought for better control of himself. "Had I not come, ye'd have been weepin' in yer tea."

Another long stretch of silence then, during which they breathed in and out...together.

"Let it go," she said quietly. "The woman you want doesn't exist anymore. I've changed. You wouldn't like me like this."

"Like what, exactly."

"I'm not the witch you fell in love with all those years ago. You wouldn't recognize me."

"Not so many years."

He'd found her once, on a beach in Italy. She'd given in then, or so he'd thought. Said she was ready to stop pretending she could ever live without him. Had taken him back into her arms, had held on so tight how could he help but believe her? They'd spent two glorious days and nights together. Just long enough for the pieces of his heart to fall back into place, for the cracks to start filling in...

Then she slipped that heart, still beating, into her bag as she left in the night, quiet as a shadow. Shadow on shadow, there in the dark, and then gone…as if she'd never been there at all.

He'd drunk the bar dry before his friends came to collect him and take him back to Scotland. He'd made a phone call he never remembered making. And by the time they'd reached Inverness, he'd convinced himself the encounter had been nothing more than a dream he'd conjured. His friends still teased him about his powerful imagination.

"No," her voice pulled him out of that memory. "Not so many years, I guess."

And just like that, this web of delusion he'd woven dissolved like candy floss in the rain. He hadn’t imagined Italy, which means she had, in truth, left him a second time.

"Ye picked a pretty place," he said smoothly, hoping to seduce her with his voice as she was seducing him with hers. "I'll tarry a while, if ye'd like to join me..."

She sighed. "I'm a thousand miles away." Then her voice hardened. "But like I said, I'm not her anymore. You're in love with a ghost—" She caught her breath, realizing the irony.

"I suppose that makes two of us."

CHAPTER TWO

Aries cut off the call and stared at the burner phone in her trembling hand. After only a second or two, she let it drop onto the wet pavement of the bridge to destroy it. The crack of plastic under her boot was oddly painful, as if she'd crushed her own heart all over again. She didn't stop grinding, though, until the device was thoroughly decimated. Then she bent down, gathered the big pieces, and hurled them into the dark waters of the River Ness. The smaller bits she toed over the edge.

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