The Heart of a Hero

by Janet Chapman

  Still not hearing the telltale sound of a school bus laboring down the marina road, Julia set her coffee in the cup holder on the arm of the couch, then grabbed the bag with a sigh of defeat and pulled out one of the buns. She sank her teeth into it with a hum of pleasure as she watched Peg talking to the horse wranglers’ son while her daughter, Charlotte, and Olivia’s daughter, Sophie—both twelve-year-olds—hung on the teenager’s every word. Peg’s almost-ten-year-old, Isabel, was trying to interest Mac’s ten-year-old, Henry, in a book she’d pulled out of her backpack, and Peg’s eight-year-old twins, Peter and Jacob, were making a valiant attempt not to get their sneakers wet as they combed the shoreline of their old gravel pit for treasures the tide had left behind.

  Nicely rounding out the domestic scene, the MacKeages’ sappy canine mascot—aptly named Hero—was staring up at the two marina workers sitting in front of the office also wolfing down cinnamon buns. Yeah, well, if the bus didn’t get here soon, Julia decided as she licked icing off her fingers and took another hum-inducing bite of her own bun, she was eating the one she’d brought for Peg, too.

  Duncan had ridden across the fiord with his tribe this morning, met up with Mac when he’d brought his children and the wranglers’ son down from the summit, and the two men had taken off with Princess Hugs-a-lot and Duncan and Peg’s two-week-older son, Mur the Magnificent.

  Well, Duncan called the boy Mur, but Peg called her precious little baby Charlie. The poor kid’s official name was Murdoc Charles MacKeage, because, Peg had told Julia, that had been the only important argument she’d ever lost to her contrary, never-say-die husband.

  Hearing the bus just moments before it pulled into the parking lot, Julia picked up the bag holding the second cinnamon bun, rolled it closed with a sigh of regret, and lobbed it down the boat onto the couch opposite the captain’s chair. She then pulled out the fistful of napkins she’d stuffed in her pocket, licked one of them, and began wiping the icing off her mouth and chin.

  It was really quite warm for seven o’clock in the morning in mid-November, she realized, even as she hoped this spell of weather lasted until after the wedding taking place up in the gazebo. Which she’d learned yesterday from her staff would be followed by an outdoor reception that included long sticks to cook hot dogs and s’mores over a roaring bonfire. Who came all the way from Germany to a five-star resort to have a hot dog wedding, anyway? And then the new bride and groom planned to leave their international guests dancing around said bonfire while they took off on a weeklong hike through the wilderness in late November.

  Was it security’s responsibility to go find them if they got lost in a snowstorm?

  Julia picked up her coffee and took a sip, remembering more than one discussion with coworkers and townspeople of how strange and unexplainable . . . stuff seemed to happen at and around Nova Mare, a good deal of it involving the weather. Like sudden deafening claps of thunder that actually shook the ground even without there being any clouds in the sky. The oceanographers and geologists who’d jointly built a permanent facility just south of Spellbound Falls kept assuring everyone the earth-rumbling booms weren’t coming from the sky but from the mountain itself, and were aftershocks of the original earthquake.

  But that didn’t explain why the weather on top of the mountain and down on the fiord always seemed perfect for special events, even those planned months in advance. More than once, storms—affectionately known as nor’easters—barreling up the eastern seaboard heading straight for Maine would suddenly change direction and go out to sea. Or much to forecasters’ consternation, cold fronts racing down from Canada would all of a sudden slow to a crawl before they just as suddenly swept through after some over-the-top event.

  Like the epic earthquake and nor’easter that had hit simultaneously three and a half years ago—creating an inland sea, a twelve-mile-long fiord, and a couple of brand-new mountains that the scientists still couldn’t explain—the area’s unusually cooperative weather had become an equally baffling phenomenon. Some people—mostly from away—were calling it the work of the devil, and some—mostly locals—felt it was the handiwork of a benevolent God who wanted to bless the good folks of northern Maine for being such hardworking souls.

  And a good number of locals and people from away, as well as the strange folks who’d started some sort of colony down near Turtleback, were calling it magic.

  Julia still hadn’t decided which camp she was in, but Peg was definitely rooting for the magic angle; her childhood friend claimed that if falling in love with a man who was powerful enough to break a five-generation black widow curse wasn’t proof enough it existed, then how about that same man getting her pregnant even though she’d had her tubes tied after the twins had been born?

  Oh yeah, Peg was definitely a believer, and she hoped Julia had the good sense to also believe in the magic—just like they both had in kindergarten, when a simple little pebble had mysteriously soothed their fears.

  “You better not have eaten my bun, too,” Peg warned as she untied the boat. She gave it a shove away from the dock and stepped on board, then stopped in the middle of the deck to point at Julia—although she was smiling as she did. “You missed some icing on your cheek.”

  “Five more minutes and your bun was gone,” Julia muttered, licking her napkin and wiping her face again, only to stop in mid-wipe when Hero came barreling across the dock and lunged for the open door of the drifting boat—and missed.

  Peg got down on her knees with a sigh, grabbed the flailing dog by the collar, and hauled him up onto the deck. She immediately scrambled to her feet and positioned herself in front of Julia just as Hero gave a body-length shake that sent several gallons of frigid seawater flying.

  “Now that’s true friendship,” Julia said with a laugh, using her napkin to wipe some errant drops off her tote. “And why I would have done the same for you.”

  Peg walked back to the steering console, started the engine, and slowly turned the boat around, then idled toward the fiord. “Hey, leave that alone,” she growled when she noticed Hero nosing the bag on the couch across from her. “Go on, go lie down and dry off,” she added, pointing at a crumpled towel on the floor at the rear of the boat. Only then did she snatch the coffee Julia had set in the console’s cup holder, sit down, take a sip, then lower it with a groan of pleasure. “Why does coffee always taste better if you drink it outdoors from a cardboard cup?” she asked, leaning back in the big plush captain’s chair and taking another sip.

  “I think it has something to do with the fresh air,” Julia said, taking a sip of her own coffee as they idled through the opening in the old tote road that had been washed out when the earthquake had created the fiord—which had then poured in and flooded Peg’s old gravel pit. “Indoors, coffee has to compete with too many smells.”

  Peg set her cup in the holder, leaned over and snagged the bag off the couch, then pulled out the bun and took a bite large enough to choke a horse—again giving a groan of pleasure, only this time muffled by chewing. “So,” she said after swallowing, “to what do I owe this morning’s surprise visit?” Her eyes danced in the recently risen sun as she clutched her chest. “No wait, I know; you wanted to see my reaction in person when you tell me you’re coming with us to Pine Creek for Thanksgiving so you can—No, wait,” she repeated, holding up the bun as she reached for the throttle with her other hand. “Let’s go sit in the middle of the fiord so nobody will hear me shriek when I get all excited that you’ve finally come to your senses about having a simple, no-commitment date with Seamus MacKeage.”

  She pushed down on the throttle before Julia could respond, and the large boat surged through the gentle swells like they were merely ripples. Julia stared down at her coffee, using her thumbnail to make little indents in the cardboard sleeve. Peg was determined she’d go out with Duncan’s nephew, Seamus, who also happened to be Alec MacKeage’s younger brother. Seamus was home on leave from Washington, DC, Peg had offered in way of argument, so besides
its being safe to be seen on an actual date because the good people of Pine Creek didn’t know she was a slut, Seamus was leaving on Sunday, so she didn’t have to worry about any long-lasting commitment.

  Julia wondered if Peg had told Seamus he was being used for practice.

  Once they’d reached the center of the fiord, her friend brought the motor to an idle, shut it off, stood up and ran her sticky hands through the water Hero had splattered all over the console, then wiped them on her pants as she walked forward and sat down opposite Julia. “We plan to leave early Thursday morning and come back on Sunday. What time are you expecting Trisha to get back from New York on Sunday?”

  “They said not until sometime after six. But I’m not going to Pine Creek with you, Peg. I think I’ll invite Reggie to come have Thanksgiving with me at Nova Mare.”

  “I thought you said he was going hunting with Corey’s family for the week.”

  Darn, she’d forgotten she’d told her that. “Oh yeah, that’s right,” Julia said, tapping her forehead with her palm. “And I completely forgot that Jerilynn invited me to spend Thanksgiving with her and Tom, because she knows Trisha will be gone. And I don’t want to disappoint the girl, what with her being so close to her due date.”

  Peg leaned back and folded her arms under her breasts—she certainly couldn’t sleep on her stomach—and arched a brow. “When I saw Jerilynn at the post office the other day, she told me that she and Tom were going to her grandmother’s in Presque Isle for Thanksgiving and spending the night.”

  Julia rubbed her face with a groan, then lowered her hands with a snort. “Okay then, try this one on for size: If I provide the gun, will you just put me out of my misery?”

  Peg dropped her arms and sat up. “Are you crazy? No!”

  “Well, jeesh,” Julia said with an exaggerated glower. “I’d put you out of your misery if you asked me to, because we’re friends.” She grinned, nudging Peg’s foot with the toe of her shoe. “But only if you promised to leave me the twins.”

  Peg gaped at her. “You really must be crazy if you want Peter and Jacob.” She leaned back against her seat again. “I tell you what; you just go ahead and take them, and that’ll put me out of my misery,” she said with a laugh. “Because I swear, little boys turn into little snots the second they reach the age of reasoning, and suddenly arguing with everything Mom says is their new favorite sport.”

  Julia also leaned back and spread her arms out on the couch back. “I’d argue with them ’til the cows came home if I had those two precious little boys. But I’d settle for Charlotte and—” She shook her head. “No, you better keep Isabel, because I’m toast when she starts batting those long, girly lashes at me. So as a heads-up, I’ll be your official babysitter when Trisha heads off to college.”

  “Why don’t you start building your own little tribe of heathens, Jules?” Peg asked, suddenly serious. “Instead of changing sheets for rich tourists, crawl between them with some sexy . . . oh, some big sexy Scotsman.”

  Julia choked on a laugh. “You’re biased, Mrs. MacKeage.” But then she also sobered, blowing out a heavy sigh. “Okay, here’s the thing: I’m afraid I did two, maybe three really stupid things yesterday, and I need someone to talk me off the ledge before I make an even bigger fool of myself.”

  Peg straightened, her eyes filling with laughter again. “You did something stupid? Are we talking about the same Julia Campbell here? The town Miss Goody Two-shoes who can’t cuss worth a damn and who thinks men are God’s punishment to women for eating one silly apple? That Julia Campbell?” She snorted. “What did she do, flip off Christina Richie?”

  “No, we’re talking about Ms. Julia Campbell, who just agreed to be Nova Mare’s director of special events, and who—”

  Peg jumped up with a shriek and hauled Julia to her feet in a fierce hug. “Ohmigod, Jules! That’s wonderful!” She leaned back. “Wait, how can that be stupid?”

  Julia stepped away and gestured toward Whisper Mountain. “Yesterday Olivia handed me an outrageous salary, the keys to a truck and a house, and an entire staff to make wealthy people’s fantasies come true,” she said, trying to disguise the tremor in her voice by turning to pull her cell phone out of her tote. “And I’m such a backwoods country girl, I can’t even operate this stupid phone because it doesn’t have any buttons.”

  “I’ll have you texting God in half an hour,” Peg growled. “As for the rest of what you just said, I personally believe you’ll make a kick-ass event planner.”

  Julia gaped at her. “Why would you believe that?”

  “Gee, I don’t know; maybe because you’re the person who threw together a beautiful wedding in less than six hours when I came crying to you that Duncan was threatening to sleep in my bed that night with or without a wedding band on my finger?”

  “You walked down the aisle carrying pussy willows I cut off the side of the road.”

  Peg nodded. “And it was the nicest bouquet any bride could want, Julia, all wrapped up in gossamer ribbon. And not only did you fill the church with forsythia that you stole out of Christina’s front yard, you somehow persuaded Reverend Peter to drop his counseling prerequisite, got Vanetta to close early and all the waitresses to decorate for our reception, and even talked Sam into being our photographer and Ezra into walking me down the aisle.” She shook her head with a wince. “And I hope you know I worried for months what you used to blackmail Nick Patterson into leaving his precious bar in Turtleback long enough to deejay for us. And you did all of it in six hours. That sure sounds like one hell of an event planner to me.”

  Julia shoved her phone back in her tote. “I was helping a friend, not trying to create an over-the-top wedding for some billionaire wanting fireworks or a hundred white doves released. Who in their right mind expects the cleaning lady to suddenly morph into an event planner overnight?”

  Peg sat back down, stretched her arms across the seat back, and canted her head. “Olivia obviously does. And so do I. And deep down you do, too, or you wouldn’t have accepted the position.”

  “Will you please tell me when Olivia went from being the town mouse to the town matriarch?” Julia muttered. “And when did she start getting so bossy? Yesterday I was blindsided by a woman who used to run out of the Drunken Moose and hide in people’s vehicles just to avoid talking to someone.”

  Peg gave a chuckle. “She got a bit pushy with me, too, and issued an unnamed threat if I didn’t crawl out of Billy’s casket and into Duncan’s bed before she got back from her cross-country honeymoon.” Peg sighed. “Olivia’s always been assertive in that quiet way of hers, but I think falling in love with a man as big and scary as Mac makes her feel invincible. Trust that she knows what she’s doing, Jules. But more importantly, trust yourself. Um, you said two or three stupid things, so what else?”

  Julia walked to the front rail of the boat and hugged herself as she looked up at Whisper Mountain, realizing she could barely see the glass-fronted house—that she now knew also had a glass floor—since it blended into the trees as it dangled over the edge of a tall cliff. She took a deep breath in anticipation of Peg’s reaction. “I had sex with Nicholas last night.”

  Stark, absolute silence followed, lasting two, three, four pregnant heartbeats.

  Which reminded her . . . “And we didn’t use any protection.” Julia turned when Peg still said nothing, and saw her friend clutching her throat, staring at her in horror.

  “You made love last night,” Peg finally whispered, “to Nicholas?”

  “We didn’t ‘make love,’” Julia said, her own eyes widening in horror as she waved toward the mountain. “We had wild passionate sex on the floor of the event planner’s cabin. And then I ran into the bathroom and crawled out the window.” She hugged herself again. “He was standing outside next to a tree, waiting for me,” she continued softly. “And I . . . I got angry and told him that if he followed me, I was going to bludgeon him to death with my brand-new tote that was a gift from Rana.” She looke
d up to find Peg’s horror had turned to disbelief, and sighed. “I know threatening him was crazy, but I just wasn’t up to dealing with the . . . with whatever it is people do after they’ve just . . . Darn it, Peg, I had sex with Nicholas.”

  “I don’t know which shocks me more,” Peg said softly. “That you made love at all or that it was to Nicholas.” She stood up, shaking her head as she walked over. “You might see it as having wild passionate sex,” she said with a crooked smile, “but I doubt Nicholas sees it that way.” Peg led her to the couch opposite the steering wheel, sat her down, then grabbed Julia’s coffee and handed it to her before sitting down in the captain’s chair. “Nicholas is . . . He’s a lot like Mac and Duncan and Alec. You remember Alec, don’t you, who I kept trying to fix you up with before he ran off with Mac’s sister last year?”

  Julia mutely nodded.

  “Anyway,” Peg continued, “what I’m trying to say is that those four men are really quite frighteningly alike.”

  “You mean big and scary?”

  Peg nodded. “Yeah, they are that, but they’re also overly confident, stubborn, protective, and so maddeningly noble and old-fashioned that you’d swear they were all born in some long-forgotten century.” She shook her head again. “Nicholas has been here over a year now and hasn’t once shown interest in any woman. In fact, he’s gone out of his way to avoid them. And you’re telling me that he just suddenly decides to have sex with you?” She canted her head. “Why is that, I wonder, and why with you?”

  “I don’t know,” Julia snapped. “Maybe he heard I was the town slut and decided to relieve a year’s worth of pent-up sexual frustration.” She snorted. “I certainly proved the rumors right, didn’t I?”