The MacGregor Brides Read Online Free PDF Page A

indicated a lack of interest—or one who was sending out mixed signals. When he met a woman who attracted him, he let her know it. Straight out, no games, no pretenses. He figured it was up to the woman in question to pick up the ball from there.
    Since Laura MacGregor wasn’t picking up the ball, hadn’t even acknowledged that he’d tossed one in her direction, he should have shrugged it off, forgotten her and gone about his business.
    But he wasn’t having any luck in doing that.
    It had been nearly three weeks since he first saw her, four days since he last saw her. And she was still on his mind. Not just the picture of her in that sexy little outfit she’d worn in the kitchen—though that image certainly popped into his mind with annoying regularity. It was her face that hounded him, he thought, the cold courage in it when she’d whipped up that knife and faced him down. It was the intelligence and determination in her eyes when she’d spoken of law and justice. It was the cocky smile curving that incredibly tempting mouth as she’d walked down the stairs the day he began the installation of her security system.
    It was, he was forced to admit, the whole damn package.
    In his small, crowded office off Boylston, he rubbed his tired eyes, ran his hands through hair badly in need of a trim. She was keeping him up at night, and it was ticking him off. What he needed to do was pull out his address book and find a companionable woman to spend an evening with. Someone uncomplicated and undemanding.
    Why in the hell didn’t he want someone uncomplicated and undemanding?
    He’d be damned if he was going to pick up the phone and call Laura. He’d asked her out, she’d refused. He’d told her he’d be available if she changed her mind. She hadn’t changed it. He hadn’t made a fool of himself over a female since he was twelve and fell madly in love with his best friend’s older sister, the sixteen-year-old goddess Marsha Bartlett. He’d mooned over her for two months, followed her around like a slavish puppy and suffered the taunts of the entire seventh grade of Saint Anne’s Elementary.
    Marsha Bartlett had never paid any attention to him, and had gone on to marry an oral surgeon. And Royce didn’t moon after females anymore.
    “Grow up, Cameron,” he ordered himself, and turned back to his computer screen to fiddle with the proposed security system on an office building in South Boston.
    When the phone shrilled, he ignored it until the fourth ring. Swearing, he snatched it up. Obviously his secretary was off powdering her nose again.
    “Cameron Security.”
    “And this would be Cameron himself?”
    Royce recognized the voice. There was no mistaking that full-blooded Scot. “It would be, Mr.MacGregor.”
    “Good, just the man I’m after. You’ve seen to my granddaughters.”
    “The system’s up and operative.” And the bill, he thought—the hefty bill—was in the mail. “It’s the best money can buy.”
    “I’m counting on that, boy. I want my wife’s mind at rest. She frets.”
    “So you said.”
    “And you tested the system personally?”
    “As you requested. Any attempt to break in or undermine the system sends an alarm straight to the nearest cop shop and my own personal beeper.”
    “Good, good. But those girls have to use it to be protected. They’re young, you know, and busy with their interests. My wife’s worried that they may be careless and forget to turn it on altogether.”
    “Mr. MacGregor, I can only guarantee the system if it’s in use.”
    “Exactly, exactly. Why, I was telling Anna just this morning that you’ve done everything you could do. But she’s got this in her mind now, and is worrying on it. I was thinking, just to soothe her, we could do a test. If you’d go by sometime—tonight’s as good a time as any—and just see if you can get inside …”
    “Hold it. Let me get this straight. You want me to break into your granddaughters’ house?”
    “Well,