Jennifer Ashley: Mackenzie Family Christmas: The Perfect Gift

"Wasn't expecting you 'til next week," his father said in his rumbling baritone.

"Wasn't expecting to come so soon." Daniel blew out smoke. "But I thought it was time to leave Edinburgh."

Cameron's eyes glinted. "You owe someone money?"

"Naw, they owed it to me. And are being bad-tempered about it. But when I claim my clockwork numbers machine can add a string of figures faster than a human being, they need to believe me."

"Clockwork numbers machine, eh?" Cameron took a long draw on his cigar, following it with a swallow of bitter. "What professor is teaching you that?"

Daniel shrugged. "No professor. Something I'm looking into on me own."

Cameron emphasized his words with fingers holding his cigar. "You begged me to go to that university, Danny. You're taking the degree."

"Oh, I'll have it, don't you worry." Daniel smiled up at the barmaid as she set the ale in front of him.

"How are you, Kirsten? No girls as fine as you in Edinburgh, that's the truth."

The barmaid Kirsten had very blond hair, large blue eyes, a ready smile, and a body that stopped a man in his tracks. She was a few years older than Daniel, but had been perfectly happy to teach him to kiss once upon a time. "Och, don't lie to me, lad," she said good-naturedly then moved back to the taps under the watchful eye of her father.

"Why aren't you at the house?" Daniel asked. "Billing and cooing with me sweet stepmama?"

"Ainsley, Beth, and Isabella are planning a grand Christmas and Hogmanay feasting. Including a ball or two, bonfires, banquets, and numerous other festivities. There are decorators, extra servants, supplies coming at all hours, the ladies making lists, running about, and chattering, always chattering."

Daniel took a sip of the ale. Not the best in the world, but it had a bite that told him he was home. "Ye fled for your sanity, did ye? Will stepmama be happy when she finds you gone?"

"She won't notice. Not for a while."

"What will you do to escape the madness tomorrow?"

"See to the horses. They don't need to become too soft."

Daniel smiled to himself. Cameron loved his racehorses and would use any excuse to head for the stables or paddocks.

But looking at him across the table, Daniel saw the change in his father. He still possessed his hard edge and a grating note to his voice, but a new light had softened his eyes.

Cameron Mackenzie had held himself away from the world for a long time. Oh, he caroused and wenched with the best of them, but no one got past his granite shell. Time was, Daniel's father wouldn't have cared what a woman was doing with her time when he wasn't with her--he'd go about his business and give no thought to her at all.

Now, though Cameron smoked and drank in this masculine haven, he was fully aware that he'd go home to Ainsley, that she'd give him her bright smile, and pull Cameron, a great bear of a man, down to kiss his cheek.

Good to see his father so happy.

Cameron sat in companionable silence, while Daniel caught up on the local gossip. He let himself be enticed into a game of cards, winning hands and losing them. He was soundly beaten at darts, because he wasn't good at it, which he knew. He passed out the winnings with graciousness, and by that time, the publican was ready to close for the night.

Daniel walked side by side with his father, their breaths fogging out in the frosty night, the first flakes of snow falling when they reached the gates of Kilmorgan Castle. They said good night to the gatekeeper and his family and bent their heads to the wind for the last half mile to the house.

Kilmorgan was lit from top to bottom. Daniel and Cameron entered to find chandeliers blazing, the hall table filled with burning lamps instead of greenery, and the majordomo distributing the lamps to members of the household. All the servants were up, as were Daniel's uncles and aunts, including Eleanor, who clung to a newel post at the top of the stairs.

"What the devil?" Cameron shouted into the noise.

Hart turned to him, eyes blazing anger. "I was about to send someone to run for you."

Before Daniel could ask why, Ainsley cut through the crowd straight for Cameron, the myriad lights dancing on her fair hair. "Gavina is gone," she said, a frantic note in her voice. "We can't find her anywhere."

*** *** *** Cameron's world stopped and narrowed to his wife, her face smudged with dust, her gray eyes wide with fear, and her words: We can't find her anywhere.

Gavina, Cameron's pretty one-year-old daughter with hair of gold like her mother's--no, she couldn't be truly gone. Ever since she learned to walk, she'd been leading them a merry dance, often disappearing, but she'd always been easily found.

The knot in Cameron's stomach was nothing to the stark terror in Ainsley's eyes. Cameron ignored the throng around him and pulled Ainsley into his arms. The scent of roses touched him as he closed his arms around her shaking body.

"We'll find her, love." He kissed her hair. "She can't have gone far."

"But it's snowing. And so cold."

Cameron felt her panic. Ainsley had lost her first baby, the poor mite dying after only one day. That child had been called Gavina, and so Cam and Ainsley had named their first wee one in honor of her.

Gavina Mackenzie was robust and healthy, too robust sometimes. But Cameron understood Ainsley's fear and shared it.

"We've looked in all the likely places," Hart was saying. "Now we're combing the house top to bottom. Every nook and cranny--every single one, understand?" He pointed at groundskeepers. "You five and me, we'll cover the outbuildings. We all meet back here in an hour and report, sooner if she's found, of course."

The servants and household dispersed. Mac, still in his painting kilt with the red scarf over his hair, took Isabella's hand and led her up and up the stairs to the very top of the house.

Ainsley slid out of Cameron's arms, tears on her face. "Go with Hart," she said, touching Cam's chest.

"Find her. Please."

"I will, love." Cameron held Ainsley until the very last minute, then she rushed away after Isabella and Mac.

Daniel grabbed a lantern. "We'll find her. Don't you worry. Her legs are short. Difficult for her to walk a long way."

"Short but very, very fast." Cameron had seen Gavina totter down a hall with the speed of one of his thoroughbred colts, gone in the blink of an eye. Ainsley blamed herself, Cameron saw that.

And where was I? Cameron thought grimly. In the bloody pub. Like the old days. Not looking after my girl, just as I didn't look after my boy.

His boy now stood beside him, Cameron's same height if not his breadth, none the worse for Cameron's fatherly neglect. Daniel had gone missing regularly, Cameron remembered, at first wanting his father to come find him, and later wanting his father not to find him.

Daniel had been a lonely, neglected boy. No one could say that Gavina was neglected in any way--

Cameron had been making sure of that. She'd wandered off, he told himself. She'd gone exploring and gotten lost.

In the dark, in the cold, with the snow coming down . . .

Cameron walked faster and faster, the other men with lanterns falling behind him. Only Daniel kept up.

"They say they already looked in the stables," Daniel said. "Where else does she like to go?"

"Everywhere," Cameron said darkly. "She likes the gardens. Ainsley's not fool enough to let her go out there at night."

"I'm thinking stepmama did not exactly let her go anywhere."

Cameron growled to himself and kept walking. Gavina wasn't used to Kilmorgan--she'd been here only a couple of times since her birth, and last year at this time she'd been a tiny thing in a cradle.

This year, she'd been fascinated by Hart's big house, by the nursery she shared with her cousins, by the decorations her mother and aunts were strewing about the house, by the back halls and stairs that the servants traversed. She also liked the big, formal gardens with their maze-like paths and gigantic fountains. The fountains weren't playing now, but she'd liked the one of Apollo's chariot and horses.