Eyes of the Cat by Mimi Riser Page A

to stomp on his foot. Both blows went haywire.
    “Easy, lass.” Chuckling, he spun her about in his arms, so she faced him. “’Twas just a joke.” He smiled at her.
    Tabitha glared green daggers. “Well, I’m not laughing. And Big Chief better takum hands offum paleface squaw, before squaw knockum stupid grin offum Big Chief’s face!”
    He released her so fast she staggered two paces backward before catching her balance.
    “That wasn’t funny.” The chill in his voice sent an icy shudder down her spine.
    She shook it off and drew herself up with all the dignity she could muster. “I don’t see why not. If you can play Comanche, why can’t I?”
    “Because you’re not a Comanche.”
    “And you are , I suppose?”
    “Aye…I am.” And he angled away.
    Tabitha’s eyes widened, then narrowed. Around her in the moonlit courtyard, puddles flashed and the rampart’s towers loomed like shadowy giants, but all she saw was the tense muscular figure before her. Alan MacAllister thought he was a Comanche? Of all the… Wasn’t being the lord of a Highland fortress on the flat plains of Texas eccentric enough for him?
    She shook her head. The man was either a liar, a joker, or a lunatic. Probably all three. And she wanted nothing to do with any of them!
    “Right. Of course you are,” she said. “And I happen to be Shakespeare’s Prince Hamlet . Excuse me now, but I must go look for my father’s ghost.” Gathering her skirts together, she turned and darted up a nearby stairway that led to the top of the bailey wall, forgetting her earlier threat.
    “Tabitha— Don’t!” Alan caught up with her just as she reached the rain slick pathway behind the parapet. Grabbing her wrist, he jerked her around to face him.
    She skidded and shrieked. Not because of Alan, but because she suddenly realized something that, in her anger, she hadn’t stopped to consider from the ground: how high and exposed it was upon the wall. The parapet shielded the outer edge, but the inside of the pathway was a twenty-foot dizzying drop straight down to the massive, muddy courtyard below.
    Tabitha took one look at it and, without stopping to consider again, threw herself into his arms. It was probably the last thing he’d been expecting, and it knocked him backward a pace, but he rapidly rebalanced, swinging her off her feet and against his chest. She shivered and clutched his shoulders, burying her face against his neck to shut out the sight of the drop. Her hair had come loose and hung about them both, shimmering like a gold veil in the moonglow. Not that she could see it at the moment, but others could.
    “Now that was silly,” Alan said. “You didn’t really think I’d let you jump, did you?”
    “ What ?” She let out a slightly hysterical laugh. “Good heavens, I was being facetious when I said that. Heights terrify me! You couldn’t get me to leap off this wall if you lit a fire under me.”
    His arms tightened a fraction, but she was too unnerved to notice. Nor did she see what he was gazing at over her head, a small audience gathering in the yard below.
    “Opportunity knocks but once,” he quoted cryptically, a sudden, odd lilt in his voice that slipped past her, too. “All things considered then, dear, this looks like a perfect time for me to confess something.”
    “Oh no, you’re not going to tell me that you’re also an Arabian Sheik, or a Russian Cossack, or something like that, are you?” Tabitha groaned into his neck. His answering chuckle had an ominous ring to it, but she missed that warning as well.
    “Tabitha Tilda, the only thing I’ve any interest in being right now is your husband.”
    “ What ?” Her head flew up, and she glared at him.
    “That’s what I wanted to discuss at the spring.” Alan parried the glare with an incorrigible calm. “I’m asking you to marry me. And if you don’t say yes, I may become so down hearted, I’ll go weak and accidentally drop you off the