The Pursuit Read Online Free PDF Page A

to his ears.
    He walked slowly toward her, aware that his pulse was racing. “Actually, I’m visiting, though I did used to live a few miles southeast of here.”
    “Did you, now?” She appeared thoughtful for a moment. “And here I was thinking I knew everyone from a good twenty miles ’round.”
    “It was a long time ago. You might not even have been born yet before I moved away…well, you were surely too young to know all your neighbors back then.”
    She did look no more than seventeen or eighteen,yet she had to be older than that to have two children already, and older than tykes to go by the sound of their giggling coming from the pond. He’d yet to see the children clearly, just their heads bobbing in the water.
    “That’s surely possible, I suppose. Your ‘long time ago’ could be twice m’age, e’en thrice.”
    Lincoln stared incredulously. She glanced to the side and down, her thick hair falling over her cheek so he couldn’t see her face for a moment. But she couldn’t hold back the laugh for long.
    He blinked. Good God, she didn’t even know him, and she’d just teased him. How charming—and refreshing—to meet a woman who wasn’t primly demure or excessively stiff upon first acquaintance. He could so easily have taken offense, but she didn’t seem to take that into account. Or if she did, she didn’t care.
    She flipped her hair back, not trying to be enticing or seductive, yet she was nonetheless. She was still wearing an impish grin, one dimple present and so tempting. He had the strongest urge to delve into it with his tongue, to make her laugh while making love to her so he could…Bloody hell, had he lost his mind?
    He looked away himself, before he did something really beyond the pale, like kiss her in plain sight of her family. He didn’t dally with married women. Never had, never would. Well, he’d been absolutely firm in that resolve—until now. He stared at her daughters, could see their faces now as they glanced up at him curiously.
    They were both blond, very pretty, possibly seven or eight in age. They didn’t take after their mother, but then they didn’t take after the father either—at least by what could be seen of his coal black hair under the hat he had tipped over his face. Seven or eight? That was starting a family a bit young by any standards.
    Staring at the children for a few seconds did help to get his mind off of seducing their mother—for the moment. “Very well,” he said as he glanced back at the woman. “It was nineteen years ago, and I was just ten, which makes me not quite…thrice your age.”
    Another laugh, filled with delight that he’d joined in the teasing. “You’re sure, then? Adding up tallies was ne’er m’strong suit, ye ken.”
    “Quite sure—that is, supposing you’re a bit more than nine years old.”
    “Och, a wee bit more at least.”
    He smiled. “By the by, I’m Lincoln Burnett.”
    “Melissa MacGregor.”
    She thrust out her hand to shake his in a manly manner, rather than offering it for a brief touch as a lady would. He took it, regardless, and didn’t want to let it go, wanted to kiss it instead. But hand kissing was old-fashioned, done more as an overture these days, a not-so-subtle statement of obvious attraction. He bloody well hoped he wasn’t so obvious in his own attraction to her.
    He let go of her hand. He should leave now that he’d done the common-courtesy brief chat,but found himself asking instead, “You live nearby, then, do you?”
    He shouldn’t have asked, didn’t really want to know, didn’t want to be tempted to seek her out once he did. It’d be infinitely better if he never saw her again.
    “Nae, Kregora is much farther south. I’m visiting m’grandda for a day or so. ’Tis him who lives up here.”
    He didn’t recognize the name Kregora, but he did vaguely recall that a small branch of the MacGregor clan lived in an old ruined castle some nine or ten miles southeast of the Ross