“Except me,” she said coolly. “And threat or not, we both know there’s no one you’d rather have in your corner than Caleb if the going got rough. So drop it, MacDuff. See you at lunch.” She closed the door behind her and headed for the grand staircase.

*  *  *

She wasn’t really annoyed with MacDuff, Jane thought resignedly. They’d known each other far too long. Most of the time the barbed interplay between him and Caleb even amused her. MacDuff was everything a laird should be with his tall, well-muscled body and the intelligence that shone out of those keen gray-blue eyes. But that intelligence could be deliberately obstructive when he decided to exert the half-mischievous, half-mocking side of his character. Or perhaps it was just that she’d been aware from the moment she’d opened her eyes this morning that she hadn’t seen or spoken to Caleb for the last two weeks, and it hurt more than usual. He’d told her that might be the case before he’d left, and it wasn’t as if she wasn’t accustomed to the demands MI6 and other agencies and world organizations periodically made on Caleb. Because he was totally unique, they called on him when there was a dictator to erase, a rogue government that needed taking down, a brilliant scientist to be extracted, or any other complicated situation that no one else could handle. And it wasn’t as if he even accepted every assignment. As she’d told MacDuff, just recently he’d spent months with Jane guarding her family. He and Jane both had their own careers, and she was being unfair to ask any more of him. All he asked of her when he was on one of those damn assignments was that she let him make arrangements so that he’d know she was safe. Like this stay at MacDuff’s Run, where she had MacDuff and his guards keeping a constant eye on her, she thought ruefully. But she hadn’t kept that promise to Caleb today; from the moment she’d opened her eyes this morning she’d felt lonely and on edge and wanted desperately to see Caleb, touch him, be with him. It had been an emotion that she couldn’t deny, so she’d played truant and gone out into the fog to try to forget everything but her own work. An action that had gotten poor Fergus in trouble, she thought guiltily. She’d have to make it up to him. Though it wasn’t as if she couldn’t take care of herself. She’d been raised by Joe Quinn, and her adopted father was not only a detective but a former Navy SEAL, and he had taught her well. She’d even taken her pistol with her this morning for additional protection.