The Dangerous Protector

by Janet Chapman

  “Why is there a steering wheel in front of me?” she asked when Duncan walked up beside her still open door.

  “Because the Jag was built for Scotland, not America,” he said, reaching in and tugging her out by the sleeve.

  He silently led her around the back of the car, and Willow saw Ray already jogging back to his boat. Duncan opened the left-side door, handed her in, then gently closed it behind her.

  Willow leaned her head back with a sigh and closed her eyes. She was so cold she was numb, and so tired she couldn’t even work up the energy to scold Duncan for following her and stealing her truck.

  “You got Luke out of bed just to come get my truck?” she asked, not bothering to open her eyes when Duncan slid behind the steering wheel.

  “That’s what friends are for” was all he said, starting the car.

  Willow smiled at the sound of the purring engine, and still didn’t open her eyes when Duncan reached across her, pulled the seat belt over her chest and waist, and snapped it into place.

  Willow thought about Duncan’s answer. Heck, Luke was a lot more than a good friend. He had taken two bullets and nearly drowned trying to stop Raoul Vegas from kidnaping Willow and Rachel when they’d been out kayaking.

  It had been two years ago, when Keenan Oakes had come to Puffin Harbor pretending to be Thaddeus Lakeman’s heir. Kee had brought five men with him: Duncan and Luke and Jason and Peter and Matthew. Rachel called them Kee’s disciples, but they were really partners in the business of salvaging whatever property paid well at the moment. Two years ago it had been stolen art, and the insurance reward had been substantial enough for Duncan to buy the old Drop Anchor with his share and remodel it into The Rosach Pub.

  Luke and Kee had decided to settle in Puffin Harbor—Kee with Rachel and Luke with the peace and quiet of the area—and together the two men had started restoring historical buildings in nearby coastal towns.

  Jason, Matt, and Peter still continued their lucrative salvage business, and last Willow had heard they’d been trying to refloat a sunken yacht off one of the Carribean Islands.

  Ahab, the captain of Kee’s schooner, the Seven-to-Two Odds, often went with them. But he usually stayed only long enough to get some woman so mad at him that he had to run back to Puffin Harbor to hide. Willow had noticed the Seven-to-Two Odds moored in front of Rachel and Kee’s house yesterday afternoon, which meant that Ahab was back in town.

  “Have ya fallen asleep?” Duncan asked as he pulled onto the main road and pushed the powerful car through its gears.

  “Yes,” she said, snuggling into his nice-smelling jacket.

  She only opened her eyes when she felt his hand on her chin, turning her face toward him. She could see his features in the glow of the dash lights, reflecting his serious gaze.

  “The next time ya need to meet someone on a deserted pier late at night, and head out ta sea with them, I’ll be going with ya, counselor.”

  Willow didn’t hear any undertone of warning in his voice this time, or even reprimand. No, the man was merely stating a fact. “Okay,” she said, pulling her chin free and closing her eyes again. “How about next Friday?”

  “Excuse me?” he said, clearly surprised by her capitulation.

  Lord, it felt good to catch Duncan off guard. It didn’t happen that often. “I need to have a look around Thunder Island, and you can take me,” she told him, pulling her hands up through the roomy sleeves to hug herself for warmth. “Can you scrape us up a boat by Friday?” she finished with a yawn that she didn’t even try to stifle.

  She never did hear his answer, since she quickly drifted off to sleep, not waking again until the gentle purr of the engine suddenly stopped.

  Willow blinked in the early dawn light at the parking lot they’d stopped in. “This isn’t home,” she said in sleepy confusion. “It’s the pub.”

  Duncan opened his door and got out. He walked around the car and unfastened her seat belt, lifted her out of the low sports coupe, and carried her toward the street.

  Willow patted his chest. “You get a gold star for bringing me here instead of your house,” she said, laying her head on his shoulder. “I’m impressed by your restraint.”

  His only answer was a faint smile as he stopped at the front door of The Rosach Pub, lowered her to her feet, and pulled his keys from his pocket. A stiff breeze blew in off the ocean from across the street, and Willow involuntarily shivered. Duncan put his arm around her to block her body with his, unlocked the door, and quickly hustled her inside.

  The warmth of the dark, silent pub enveloped Willow as Duncan led her around the long central bar. He slid an overstuffed leather couch closer to the hearth, gently pushed her onto it, and turned and started piling kindling and wood in the huge stone fireplace. Willow immediately propped her feet on the hearth and looked around with languid interest as Duncan silently headed into the kitchen the moment the fire snapped to life.

  There was nothing left of the old Drop Anchor. Willow knew the entire building had been gutted and rebuilt by Luke and Kee’s construction company, carefully following Rachel’s architectural designs, which had been based on Duncan’s vision.

  The walls were paneled with honey-stained local red oak, and matching booths and tables lined the large room. The plaster above the panels was painted a rich green and decorated with signs advertising ales and whiskies, a few nautical items, and even a set of crossed swords draped with a colorful plaid. The ceiling was wood strips finished in the same stain as the panels, and the floor was thick planking that had quickly weathered from the heavy traffic over the last year.

  A long working bar dominated the center of the pub, with seating on all four sides except where a giant oak barrel, looking older than time, sat on display at one end.

  The Rosach Pub had become a popular gathering place for locals on weeknights, Rachel had told Willow, and had been near to bursting with tourists on weekends this past summer.

  One could almost imagine they were sitting in a pub in Scotland, and Willow guessed that was exactly what Duncan had been aiming for. She tucked her chin inside his jacket and smiled as she pictured Duncan spending his early years in a pub just like this one.

  The image of his father’s nosing glass came to mind, and Willow realized that the legacy of Scotland’s gold was firmly entrenched in Duncan’s soul. It made sense to her now that he’d been teaching her the fine art of drinking aged whisky the first six months she’d known him.

  Too bad the lessons had stopped when she woke up in his bed.

  A good twenty minutes passed before Duncan emerged from the kitchen carrying a large mug. But instead of bringing it over to her, he went behind the bar, pulled a bottle from a lower shelf, and poured a healthy amount of what she assumed was whisky into the steaming mug. Then he came over and waited until she could free herself from his jacket before handing it to her.

  “Is this what you call a hot toddy?” she asked, lifting the mug to let the steam tickle her nose. She was surprised to smell chocolate and not coffee.

  “It’s what my mama would make when I caught a chill,” he said, sitting down on the couch beside her with a tired sigh.

  “You actually have a mother, too?” she asked, her teasing eyes meeting his firelit gaze.

  “And a brother and sister. Drink,” he ordered. “It’ll warm ya up from the inside out.”

  Since she was in such a complacent mood, Willow carefully sipped the heady concoction, moaning in pleasure when the potent chocolate coated her sea-parched throat like soft flannel. She took another sip, then another, and welcomed the delicious warmth spreading through her body.

  “How come you didn’t make one for yourself?” she asked after yet another sip, holding the mug out to him. “Here, you can have a taste of mine.”

  “I intend to,” he said, curling his arm around her shoulders and covering her mouth with his.

  The kiss was a gentle, unhurried assault that neither coaxed nor demanded a response, and Willow sim
ply let him have his taste. It was all she could do, really, since the whisky had turned her muscles to jelly. So she simply breathed in the smell of him, revisiting the taste of chocolate as their mouths melded together, and parted her lips with a sigh when his tongue slowly caressed hers.

  A deeper, bone-thawing heat washed through her, along with a sense of contentment. She loved Duncan’s kisses, the feel of his body engulfing hers, and the way his mere presence made her heart thump.

  She lifted a hand and cupped his face when he pulled back to smile into her eyes. “I’m a mind reader, you know,” she whispered, returning his smile. “And I see you’re wishing you’d taken me to your home instead of your pub.”

  He shook his head, his gaze locked on hers. “Nay, lass. I knew that if I did I wouldn’t have let ya leave.”

  She stroked her thumb over his tanned cheekbone. “My offer for an affair still stands, Duncan. No strings, no commitments, no more talk of marriage.”

  He turned his head and kissed her palm, then straightened, took the mug from her, and set it on the hearth. And before she knew what he was about, he slid a hand under her knees and scooped her onto this lap, then leaned back on the couch and studied her with heavy-lidded, assessing eyes.

  Willow felt a blush creep into her cheeks and quickly tucked her head against his shoulder and stared into the fire.

  “Ya cannot spend your whole life running, Willow,” he said softly, his broad hand cupping her hip. He used his free hand to lift her chin to look at him. “You’re smart enough to know that no matter how fast ya are, it’s only an illusion of safety. Love comes unbidden, lass, and is as unstoppable as the sunrise.”

  She pulled her chin free, returning her gaze to the fire. “You don’t think you’re a bit arrogant to assume I love you?” she asked without accusation.

  “Nay,” he said, his chest rumbling in amusement. “You’re the arrogant one, if ya think to continue denying your feelings.” He lifted her chin again, gave her a quick kiss on the lips, then tucked her head against his chest with a deep sigh. “I’ve the patience to outwait ya, Willow, and the means to eventually capture and keep ya.”

  She popped her head up and frowned at him. “What means?”

  “My body, of course,” he said, arching one brow. “Ya can’t seem to get enough of it,” he added with a quick laugh, his hand closing over her wrist when she tried to take a swing at him. “I’m going to use your passion against ya, counselor,” he said softly, his voice threatening and his eyes dancing. “So consider yourself warned.”

  “Forewarned is forearmed,” she snapped, trying to pull her hand free.

  “Aye,” he agreed, dragging her back against him and folding her in a fierce embrace. “But I thought it was only gentlemanly to warn ya.”

  She snorted into his chest.

  His arms tightened. “Tell me what favor you’re doing for Cobb. And explain those sick lobsters I just carried in from the car and put on ice.”

  Willow instantly relaxed against him, greatly relieved for the change of subject. “Something’s contaminated the waters around Thunder Island,” she said, quickly proceeding to tell him her tale, beginning with Ray’s phone call Monday and ending with last night’s boat ride into the Gulf of Maine.

  She left nothing out, not even her own thoughts about what was happening, and Duncan listened with the patience she’d come to expect from him, not interrupting once and not saying anything for several minutes once she was done.

  She’d almost drifted off to sleep when he finally said, “So I take it you’re heading back to Augusta today.”

  “No,” she answered against his shoulder, too damned tired to lift her head and look at him. “I’m going to Orono first. I know someone at the University of Maine who is an expert on lobsters, and I’m taking her my specimens. Then I’ll go to Augusta and dig through my files on all the licensed waste sites operating in Maine for the last five years. Right after,” she finished with a yawn, settling deeper against him, “I have a nap.”

  Duncan said nothing, instead twisting until he was stretched out on the couch with her on top of him. Willow decided she couldn’t ask for a warmer, more comfortable, more secure bed, and with one last yawn, she snuggled down and promptly fell asleep.

  Duncan stared up at the ceiling and examined Willow’s story from a dozen different angles, and decided that each one sent a cold chill down his spine. Any way he looked at it, the woman was rushing headlong into trouble.

  People willing to dump toxic waste in the ocean were also willing to commit even more crimes to cover their tracks. And Duncan knew Willow would go after them with the aggression of a lioness, not only because it was her job, but because it was her childhood playground they’d fouled.

  He tightened his arms around the softly snoring woman on his chest and slid a hand down her back to cup her bottom. Willow Foster was pure passion personified; she lived every day to the fullest, right up to the edge sometimes, without hesitation or apology—right up to the granite wall protecting her heart.

  She would go after the bad guys with the same passion she’d brought to his bed, and Duncan knew he couldn’t stop her, no matter that his gut was telling him to do just that. If he even hinted she should pass this problem off to investigators, it could very well mean the end of their tenuous relationship.

  And he was getting too close to risk acting like the throwback she accused him of being.

  To the world he was an affable, easygoing barkeep, but beneath his veneer of genial indifference Duncan had a core of solid steel that would stun most people if they looked closely enough. It was a side of himself he’d kept hidden from Willow up to this point, although he knew she suspected it existed. But he could feel her softening toward him, all but see the protective wall she’d built around her heart starting to crack as she slowly inched closer.

  Duncan didn’t take Willow’s refusal to love him personally. She simply refused to fall in love with any man, afraid of being vulnerable in what she perceived as emotional dependency. She was like a moth dancing around a flame, passionately flirting right up to the edge, then soaring away when the heat got too intense.

  It was all because of her parents.

  And because of an experience she’d had when she was fifteen.

  Rachel had explained this to Duncan, after Willow had left his bed and run back to Augusta, by telling him what had happened to her sister that long-ago summer. A boy Willow had been dating, and had started to like quite a bit, had gotten his foot tangled in a trap line while lobstering with his father, and been pulled overboard and dragged below the surface. The boy had drowned, as had his father while trying to save him.

  Since then, Rachel had explained, Willow had been shying away from anything remotely resembling a commitment.

  As for her parents’ role, Willow had grown up seeing them so passionately in love that just the thought of living without each other was impossible. Which was why for three years Willow hadn’t had any trouble believing her father had killed her mother and Thaddeus Lakeman in a jealous rage, and then killed himself. And even after they’d discovered Raoul Vegas, an art smuggler, had been the one to murder them, it was too late—the potentially destructive power of love was firmly entrenched in Willow’s psyche.

  And so to this day Willow continued to protect herself by keeping that final bastion of her heart locked safely away.

  Duncan had been searching for the key for nearly two years, and his patience was growing thin. Sometimes, usually alone in his bed late at night, he wondered if loving Willow Foster was nothing more than an exercise in frustration.

  He smiled derisively as he lifted her limp left hand and looked at the smudged words he’d written on her palm. When Luke had come to get her truck, Duncan had noticed a piece of paper sitting on the passenger’s seat on which she’d quickly scribbled the sentence to look it up later.

  Duncan tucked her hand over his heart and stared up at the ceiling again. Potes currere sed te occulere non
potes. Oh, did he wish to be a fly on the wall when she finally translated his not-so-subtle warning.

  He patted her bottom and sighed in fatigue. His worry over what she’d been doing at sea had made for an unusually long night, and he was in dire need of a nap himself. They had three hours, he figured, before the lunch crew showed up and started banging pots around.

  Duncan kissed Willow’s hair and closed his eyes, finally going to sleep on the decision that it was time he turned her own game back on the infuriatingly stubborn woman.

  Chapter Five

  It was after midnight when Willow finally stepped through the door of her apartment in Augusta, and lacking even the energy to hang up her jacket, she let it slide to the floor when she set down her briefcase and kicked off her shoes. She padded through the living room without bothering to turn on the lights, headed directly to the fridge in her tiny kitchen, and grabbed an already opened bottle of wine. She wiggled the cork free and drank straight from the bottle only to snort at the realization that she didn’t want wine, she wanted a large glass of thirty-year-old Scotch.

  It was all Duncan’s fault, damn him. She had awakened in The Rosach Pub with an acute awareness that the body beneath hers was fully aroused. Duncan’s hand had been stroking her backside, his other hand toying with her hair, and the heat radiating from him could have powered Puffin Harbor. There’d been a controlled strength in his touch, an almost palpable restraint, as if he’d been trying not to wake her while indulging himself in his sensual play.

  Willow’s own arousal had been immediate; the fine hairs on her body had stirred as her skin tightened in response to his touch, and her hips had unconsciously shifted to bring his arousal more fully against her own blossoming need.

  Realizing she was awake, Duncan had tilted her head and kissed her quite thoroughly, coaxing her to respond with more boldly intimate caresses, and Willow had wrapped her arms around his neck and returned his kiss with abandon.

  He’d run his hands under her sweater, encircling her ribs and lifting her just enough so his thumbs could trace her budded nipples through the thin lace of her bra. Willow remembered making a noise then—half moan, half demand—and sitting up and grabbing the hem of her sweater to pull it off over her head.