Praise for the novels of Janet Chapman
“Janet Chapman is a keeper.”
—Linda Howard, New York Times bestselling author
“Full of intrigue and passion . . . red-hot romance.”
—Publishers Weekly
“A story filled with wit and tenderness.”
—Booklist
“[Chapman] is unmatched and unforgettable.”
—RT Book Reviews
“The combination of wit, clever dialogue, charismatic characters, magic, and love makes this story absolutely enchanting.”
—Romance Junkies
“A Perfect 10 is a fitting rating for . . . a novel which is both tender and joyful.”
—Romance Reviews Today
Jove Titles by Janet Chapman
HIGHLANDER FOR THE HOLIDAYS
SPELLBOUND FALLS
CHARMED BY HIS LOVE
COURTING CAROLINA
THE HEART OF A HERO
FOR THE LOVE OF MAGIC
THE HIGHLANDER NEXT DOOR
IT’S A WONDERFUL WIFE
FROM KISS TO QUEEN
CALL IT MAGIC
A JOVE BOOK
Published by Berkley
An imprint of Penguin Random House LLC
penguinrandomhouse.com
Copyright © 2020 by The Estate of Janet B. Chapman
Excerpt from From Kiss to Queen copyright © 2016 by Janet Chapman
Penguin Random House supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin Random House to continue to publish books for every reader.
A JOVE BOOK, BERKLEY, and the BERKLEY & B colophon are registered trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC.
ISBN: 9780515155204
Ebook ISBN: 9780698156623
First Edition: May 2020
Cover art by Jim Griffin
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
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Contents
Praise for Janet Chapman
Titles by Janet Chapman
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Epilogue
Dear Reader
Excerpt for From Kiss to Queen
About the Author
A heartfelt thank-you to all the brave men and women who hit the ground running every time those alarms go off, and in particular, thank you to Orono Fire & Rescue.
Prologue
Gunnar Wolfe lifted the landing gear the moment he cleared the small Colorado runway, directed one last scowl at the mountains he’d wasted three days searching, and turned the small private jet east. Already having called once to say he’d be a day late to his new job in Spellbound Falls, Maine, he was damned close to blowing a second 7:00 a.m. roll call. The last thing he wanted was to waste the favors he’d had to cash in to snag the last firefighter position on one of the top fire and rescue squads in the country.
Engaging the autopilot once he reached cruising altitude, Gunnar signed off with the tower, switched the radio to cabin speakers, and pulled off his headphones. He leaned back in his seat with a heavy sigh and wondered, for the hundredth time since setting out on this crazy odyssey nearly a week ago, what in hell he was doing chasing halfway around the world after a woman he’d never even met.
A woman, he’d finally concluded, who didn’t want to be found.
What had begun as a potential distraction provided by a good friend’s matchmaking wife had, as of three days ago, turned into a personal mission to track down Katy MacBain, who’d mysteriously gone missing after finishing a four-week wilderness rescue course in Colorado. About the only thing Gunnar could say with any level of confidence was that Miss MacBain was still alive. Or she had been four days ago, when she’d driven off alone in the rental pickup delivered to the motel she’d spent two days holed up in—also alone, the desk clerk had assured him.
There, the paper trail Gunnar had been following just flat-out vanished. Hell, his computer hacker couldn’t even get a ping on her cell phone signal. And here he was—a man who made his living hunting down and severing the heads of criminal organizations, independent terrorist cells, and petty regimes, stymied by a twenty-eight-year-old part-time real estate broker and volunteer paramedic who still lived at home with Mommy and Daddy. Or she had, until somehow managing to wrangle herself a position on one of the more premier fire and rescue squads in the country.
Christ, he hoped Katy had pointed that rental truck east and was driving to Maine, as he didn’t want to think he might be abandoning a woman in trouble. In his experience, women only went into hiding for one of two reasons: to nurse a broken heart or to escape some no-good bastard trying to break them.
This should teach him to mind his own business the next time he stumbled upon a kidnapped queen. Why hadn’t he just called his royal buddy, Markov Lakeland—king of the young country of Shelkova, just across the Bering Sea from Alaska—and simply told the man where he could find his missing wife and aunt? Getting mixed up in their reunion had led Gunnar straight from the frying pan into the fire.
He sighed, remembering the look on his friend’s face when Markov strode into the village carrying the weight of six desperate days of not knowing if he’d ever see his wife again. Gunnar could swear he’d felt the ground shift when Markov had pulled Jane into his arms. For the first time in his life, Gunnar had found himself wondering what it would feel like to love someone that much.
And so had begun a three-month-long fantasy, fueled by a persistent queen who sent email after email with outrageous stories about her very tall, very beautiful, very best childhood friend who, having missed the royal wedding, had given her promise to be in Shelkova in time for the royal birth.
Only Katy MacBain had once again been a no-show, and Jane had gone into labor two weeks early smack in the middle of a palace overrun by well-groomed, ill-mannered nomads on a collective mission to find wives. And now it was Gunnar’s mission, once again, to locate a missing woman and restore order in at least one small corner of the world.
Chapter One
Two weeks later
Katy MacBain’s heart sank when she saw that one of the late a
rrivals they’d been holding the plane for was a kid.
Please stop. Please stop walking, she silently pleaded to the young boy striding down the aisle of the crowded commuter jet. Katy sighed in relief when the decidedly winded, harried-looking woman following him grabbed the loop on his backpack and pulled him to a halt five rows away.
It wasn’t that she didn’t like kids, but this one looked more excited than an astronaut boarding a spaceship to Mars. And in her experience, excited little boys liked to fidget. And talk. Considering she’d just spent the last ten hours zigzagging across the country, trying to get from Idaho to Maine, Katy feared her head would explode if she had to spend the final leg of this hellacious journey being nice. It would be too much for her, when she was barely keeping it together.
She groaned inwardly when, after eyeing the man next to the vacant seat, the woman nudged the boy forward once more. Katy looked back in hopes there were more empty seats behind her, but the duo stopped at her row.
“I wasn’t able to get us seats together.” The desperation in her eyes contradicted her congenial smile as she apologized to Katy. “But don’t worry,” she rushed on, her gaze dropping to the book in Katy’s hands. “Shiloh brought plenty of things to keep him busy.”
Two deep dimples punctuated the six- or seven-year-old’s bright grin. “I brought a book to read, too. Mine’s on raising chickens.”
How . . . weird. “Why don’t I just go take your other seat,” Katy said, bending to grab her own backpack from the floor in front of her.
“I already asked the flight attendant, and he said it’s too late to change seats because the passenger list has already been filed.”
Katy grabbed her backpack and straightened. “I’m sure they won’t mind if he at least takes the window seat.”
“I prefer Shiloh be on the aisle where I can see him,” the woman said, jostling her carry-on and large purse in order to slip off the boy’s backpack.
“Could you ladies swap recipes after we’re airborne?” came a male voice from a couple of rows back. “We’ve been stuck at this gate over twenty minutes waiting for you.”
The woman aimed her congenial smile in his direction. “And I greatly appreciate your patience.”
Only the kid ducked past her to face the man. “Our other plane was late, and we had to run across the whole terminal. But I needed to stop and use the bathroom, ’cause I don’t like the toilets on the planes, and I knew I couldn’t hold it all the way to Maine.”
Several chuckles and a loud feminine gasp drowned out whatever the man muttered. “People don’t want to hear about that,” the woman said, settling the boy down beside Katy, tucking an array of games, books, snacks, and other items into the pocket in front of him and then popping his backpack into the overhead compartment.
As she dug around for his seat belt, he said, “But I had to explain it to him, Mom, ’cause he thinks it’s your fault we’re late.” Shiloh leaned into the aisle, twisting to look back at the man. “Mom picked me up and ran like a cheetah so we wouldn’t miss the plane. And if you don’t know, cheetahs are the fastest land animal on the planet.”
That well-aimed salvo effectively put the grump in his place, and Katy found her first smile of the day. Because really, who wouldn’t want to sit next to a little boy willing to defend his mother at his own expense? In fact, Katy was afraid she was already halfway in love with the little warrior herself. More than that, she was relieved to have a distraction from the dark thoughts that threatened to consume her.
“You don’t gotta worry I’ll make you sick or anything,” the boy said as he twisted toward her to help his mother hunt for the other half of his seat belt. “Even though Mom told me to hurry when I used the bathroom, I made sure to wash my hands real good so’s to kill all those nasty public germs.”
“Thank you for that.” Katy fished the buckle out of the crack and handed the belt to Shiloh. Smiling at his mother, she said, “Go spend the next couple of hours relaxing. We’re all good here.”
Ignoring the heavy male sigh from several rows back, the woman leaned down and gave her son a quick kiss on the cheek. “Don’t go talking the lady’s ears off,” she reminded the boy over the soft whoosh of the jet’s front door closing.
“Let me help you stow your bag and get seated,” the flight attendant offered, taking the woman’s carry-on and walking up the aisle as the plane gave a slight lurch backward.
“I’ll be good, Mom,” Shiloh said as he pulled a book from the seat pocket. “I’m gonna study which breeds are the best layers and see what dates I can get the chicks delivered.”
Ah. The kid was going to raise chickens. Katy leaned her head back and closed her eyes to the drone of the idling engines as they taxied to the runway.
“You’re supposed to watch while he tells us what to do in an emergency,” he whispered.
“This is my fourth flight today. I could probably give the demo myself. In fact,” she added, opening only one eye at him, “I happen to know you’re supposed to put on your own oxygen mask before you help me put on mine.”
The kid gaped at her for a full three seconds, but Katy saw his tiny shoulders go back and his chest puff out as he returned his attention to the attendant. The captain came on the speaker, thanked everyone for flying with them, and said they were next in line for takeoff. The weather in Bangor, Maine, was seventy-three degrees with clear blue skies, and thanks to a good tailwind, he expected to be landing in one hour and forty-seven minutes.
Katy figured she could subtract several degrees off that temperature for her eventual destination up in the northwestern mountains. In fact, by the time she got there around nine or ten tonight, it would probably be closer to fifty.
She’d hadn’t given herself much time before starting her new job in Spellbound Falls—and that was by choice. She didn’t want to spend even one day at home in Pine Creek answering questions about the two months she’d been in Colorado—mostly because she’d actually spent the last two weeks in Idaho trying to forget what had happened in Colorado.
She’d agreed to only a quick dinner in Bangor with her folks before heading up the mountain. She hoped she could make it through that much. Because even though she’d gotten really good at lying over the phone, Katy wasn’t sure how long she could hold up under her father’s scrutiny. And if by some miracle she made it through dinner, there was still the chance her mother would know all was not well—physically or emotionally—with her youngest daughter.
Which brought Katy back to her ongoing litany of the last few days. Please, please let me be healed—at least enough to fool Mom. Deep down, Katy knew she’d been getting by on adrenaline and denial, but she had to. This was no time to fall apart. She needed to make the most of this job, needed to become the person it would demand her to be. By rescuing others, she’d rescue herself. That was her new, and only, mantra.
As of three weeks ago, when she’d finally decided she could no longer deny inheriting her mother’s little . . . gift, Katy had obsessed over whether or not it was possible to actually hide an injury or illness from a former trauma surgeon who also happened to be a medical intuitive. If not, then a motherly hug might be all it was going to take for everything to go to hell in a handbasket right there in the middle of Bangor International Airport.
Please, please don’t let Robbie be with them. Because hiding anything from her magical big brother was nearly impossible, considering he was Guardian of the MacKeage and MacBain and Gregor clans and could friggin’ travel through time at will.
Was there a reason she couldn’t have been born into a normal family with plain old everyday talents instead of being a first-generation Highlander whose father hailed from twelfth-century Scotland? Not to mention her two male MacKeage cousins who could manipulate the energy of mountains and Winter MacKeage Gregor was an actual drùidh.
Funny how the MacKeage and MacBain males were
strongly encouraged to do at least one tour of duty in the military—in essence putting themselves in harm’s way on purpose—but a MacBain female who was strong and capable and a damn good equestrian couldn’t do something even remotely dangerous if it served no intrinsic purpose to humanity in general or the clans in particular.
So Katy had rebelled by not going to college. Instead, she’d taken a night course at the regional high school and gotten her real estate license. The problem was she’d been damn good at that, too, which was why everyone had been surprised when instead of buying the business when her boss retired five years ago, Katy had run off to Bangor and enrolled in a two-year course to become a paramedic.
She’d felt crazy and brave and filled with more purpose than she’d found in her life to that point. And if her family didn’t quite understand, that had to be okay. Just like they might not understand how monumental it felt to finally be on the verge of something most people her age managed years before, having a place of her own, however small and humble. In a family the size and intensity of the MacKeages, solitude always seemed both impossible and undesirable. But these days, for so many reasons, a new wind was blowing in Katy’s life. It was time to find her own spot in the world.
And then came the news story four months ago about a rescue squad being formed in a small mountain town a hundred crooked miles to the north. Once again, she’d quietly left home, then called her parents from Colorado to tell them she was taking a wilderness rescue course for her new job on Spellbound Falls Fire & Rescue. It was also why she’d waited until there had been two thousand miles between them before mentioning she’d even applied for the position, much less gotten it.
But good grief, this was the twenty-first century, not the twelfth. If she’d been born in her father’s original time, she’d be considered a hopeless spinster at twenty-eight—assuming she hadn’t been married off at fifteen and already anticipating the arrival of her first grandchild.
No, she definitely would have been a spinster, likely shunned for her . . . gift.
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