Charmed by His Love

by Janet Chapman

  Jacob broke free and, after giving Pete a push to keep going, he turned around. “Mr. Ma—Mr. Duncan?”

  “Yes, Jacob?”

  “You don’t forget to take the worry stone out of your pocket to rub it, okay?”

  “I won’t forget.”

  He started off again, but as was his mother’s habit, he suddenly stopped and turned and walked back to Duncan. “And thank you for telling me about my daddy being asleep when he drownded.” He shrugged his tiny shoulders. “I think it’s gonna make my belly not hurt so bad when I’m trying to remember him.”

  Duncan ran a finger over his cheek. “I’m glad, Jacob. And if ye want, we can tell your brother and sisters about it when we go up the mountain on Sunday for our picnic.”

  His eyes widened. “We’re going on a picnic?” he yelped, looking over his shoulder at Peg, then back at him. “On the mountain? Sunday?”

  Duncan snapped his head up at Peg’s gasp, and then dropped it into his hands with a silent curse. Dammit to hell; he’d thought she’d told them.

  “We’re going on a picnic?” Peter shouted. “Mom? Are we?”

  “I guess so,” Duncan heard her say, a decided edge in her voice.

  “That’s keeping an eye on her, Boss,” Alec said, sitting down beside him.

  “Is it going to be a company picnic or a private … affair?” Robbie asked, shoving a bottle of ale under Duncan’s nose, then sitting down once he took it.

  “I do admire a man who backs his word with action,” Mac said as he dropped down next to Robbie, his soft grunt of discomfort making Duncan smile into his bottle as he downed half the kick-in-the-ass in one gulp.

  Oh yeah; day one on the job and he felt like he’d worked an entire season—and the day still wasn’t over.

  Chapter Nine

  Peg stared out her bedroom window at the moon-bathed hillside and hugged herself on a shiver. If she lived to be a hundred and two, she would never forget turning around to see Jacob in Duncan’s arms, then watching him sitting on Duncan’s lap having an honest to God, everyday conversation with a virtual stranger who also happened to be a big, strong hero.

  She could have killed Mac and Olivia for pushing her to pin that badge on him, but had quickly decided it was her chance to pay Duncan back for worrying her to death by diving into the frigid water of the pit. That is, until she saw him silently signal Robbie to pick up Peter so that Jacob would allow Alec to pick him up. Her heart had risen into her throat then stayed there for Jacob’s entire conversation with Duncan afterward, and hadn’t fallen back into place until Duncan had mentioned their Sunday picnic.

  Peg released a heavy sigh at the realization that Olivia was right; little girls did need a man’s perspective of things, and so did little boys. Why hadn’t she ever thought to assure her children that their daddy’s death hadn’t been painful? But worse, why hadn’t she known it had been worrying Jacob? And even worse again, why had her youngest son discussed that worry with Duncan instead of her?

  When she’d casually asked Jacob while giving the twins their baths what he and Duncan had talked about, the boy had shot his brother a glance and said he’d tell her later. A bit alarmed that he was keeping secrets from her with a virtual stranger, Peg had made later come sooner by drying Peter off and sending him to go put on his pajamas.

  That’s when Jacob had told her he’d given Duncan one of his worry stones and then asked if he thought he could have saved himself or his brother. Peg’s heart rose right back into her throat again when he’d gone on to say that he’d also asked how come his big strong daddy hadn’t been able to save himself. Jacob had then told her that on their picnic, Mr. Duncan was going to help him explain to everyone that his dad had bumped his head when his excavator had fallen in the river, and it hadn’t hurt him to drown because he’d been asleep.

  Jacob had been nineteen months old when Billy had died, but apparently being too young to remember his father hadn’t stopped him from worrying about him hurting.

  Why hadn’t she known that?

  Nearly every day that first summer after Billy’s death, Peg had taken her children down to the spring-fed, two-acre pond in their pit to teach them to swim, being careful—or maybe foolish, she now realized—not to reveal that their daddy had swam about as well as a rock. By the end of the summer she’d been calling the four of them her little trout, and by the next spring they’d been dragging her down to the swimming hole every day to test the water temperature with their toes, declaring by early June that is was warm enough to resume their daily outdoor baths. Peg had watched from shore until at least the Fourth of July, claiming she was a warm-water bass, not a trout.

  Oh yeah, she owed Duncan MacKeage big-time for assuring Jacob that his daddy hadn’t hurt. And for saving her from prostitution by giving her a fair price for her gravel. And for helping butcher her deer, making her beach safe, rescuing her son, loaning her his truck, and … and for being a good man.

  Except she didn’t want Duncan to be good, or big and strong and quick, or sexy, dammit, because she really didn’t want to start liking him. But mostly she didn’t want to ever fall in love with him because she didn’t want to kill him.

  Peg started to turn away from the window with another sigh, only to catch a flash out of the corner of her eye. She stepped to the edge of the window and strained to see into the woods to the east, holding her breath when she thought she heard something. And there it was again: the distinct sound of tires going slowly on gravel.

  She ran out to the living room and opened the front door a crack just in time to see the moonlight reflect off the bumper of a vehicle—without any headlights—pulling up the narrow tote road along the east side of her property, and worried that whoever it was wouldn’t realize the road had washed away when the fiord had poured into the pit.

  She waited, holding her breath again until she saw a set of brake lights come on then go off just as she heard the engine quit. She stepped out onto the porch, squinting to see through the trees as she hugged her nightgown around her. Dammit, she thought she’d made it clear that the Thompson pit was no longer the local gathering place for teenagers looking to party.

  Doors opened and closed, and she frowned when she heard voices whispering, because in her experience teenagers never whispered. Unless it wasn’t kids, but— Peg snapped her gaze to the hillside, just barely able to see the excavator and harvester parked inside the back tree line. Diesel fuel, at today’s prices, was liquid gold! She didn’t know the size of a harvester’s tank, but an excavator held over a hundred gallons.

  Yeah, well, nobody was siphoning fuel from any equipment on her property.

  She quietly stepped back in the house and softly closed the door before heading to her bedroom. Oh, she’d love to call the sheriff to come catch the idiots red-handed; only problem was the closest deputy was over fifty miles away—assuming he wasn’t answering a call on the other side of the county.

  She pulled her jeans on under her nightgown, then pulled off the gown and plucked her sweatshirt out of the laundry, slipping it on over her head before hunting through the basket for some socks. If those yahoos out there hadn’t heard she didn’t tolerate trespassers, they were about to hear it tonight, she thought as she shoved her socks in her sweatshirt pocket. She walked over and pulled her shotgun out of the closet, then took the small strongbox off the top shelf and carried it to the window. Not wanting to turn on the light, she held it up to the moonlight and worked the combination, then set it on her bureau to take out the shotgun shells and shove them in her pocket.

  She walked into the hall and leaned the gun against the wall, then tiptoed into the girls’ room and gently shook Charlotte awake. “Come on, Charlie,” she whispered next to her ear before pulling her upright. “I need you to come out to the living room. Shh, it’s okay, honey, nothing’s wrong.” She then guided the girl ahead of her, snatching up the gun on her way by, smiling assurance when Charlotte finished rubbing her eyes awake and blinked at the s
hotgun.

  Her daughter sighed. “Trespassers again?” she whispered with a sleepy smile.

  “I’m afraid it’s not teenagers, but somebody who’s after the diesel fuel in the equipment,” Peg said, sitting down to slip on her socks and sneakers.

  “Then call the sheriff this time,” Charlotte said, rushing over to catch the gun Peg had leaned on the arm of the chair when it started to slide.

  “They’ll be long gone before he can get here.” Peg finished tying her sneakers and stood up. “Don’t worry, I’m not going to confront them; I’m just going to see what they’re up to and get their license plate number.”

  Charlotte handed her the shotgun. “You got birdshot?”

  Peg took the gun from her with a nod. “Same signal as always; you hear a shot, you call 911 first, and then call Grundy Watts and tell him to hightail it over here.” She walked to the pantry and pulled the business card off the bulletin board. “And then you call Mr. MacKeage and tell him what’s going on,” she instructed, handing her the card. “He’s staying at Inglenook, so he’s actually closer than Grundy.” She lifted Charlotte’s chin and kissed her forehead. “You’re growing up big and strong and smart, Charlie, and I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

  “Does that mean I’m grown-up enough to get my ears pierced?” Charlotte asked as she started pushing Peg toward the door. “Say, for my birthday next month?”

  Peg stopped and looked back at her beautiful little girl bathed in moonlight, and her heart rose into her throat again. “You know, I think that might be exactly what a nine-year-old should get for her birthday.”

  Charlotte gasped so hard, she had to use both hands to clutch her nightgown. “Really?” she squeaked in a whisper. “You’re gonna really let me get them pierced?”

  “We’ll go down to Bangor to have it done,” Peg said with a nod. “Just you and me on a mother-daughter date.”

  “Oh, Mom, thank you!” Charlotte cried, throwing her arms around her. She leaned her head back to look up, the moonlight revealing her beaming smile. “Can we get our fingernails done?”

  “And our toes,” Peg promised, kissing the top of her curly brown hair then stepping away. “But first I have to go see who’s out there trying to steal Duncan’s fuel.”

  “You’re just going to get their license plate number, right?” Charlotte warned more than asked. “You’re not gonna confront anyone.”

  “Not unless I recognize them and know they’re more stupid than dangerous. Then I’m going to stop them from committing a felony.”

  “Oh, Mom,” Charlotte said with a snort, running to the coffee table and picking up the phone. She climbed up on the couch and knelt facing the window, as was her ritual. “Just let all the air out of their tires so they got no way to lug the diesel fuel off.”

  Peg stilled with her hand on the doorknob. “What?”

  “That way they’ll be more worried about getting their truck out of here before sunrise instead of stealing anything, and you can just come back inside and go to bed.”

  “Ohmigod, Charlie, when did you get so sneaky?”

  Charlotte rolled her eyes, shooting Peg another moonbeam smile. “I’ve been living with you for almost nine years.” She waved her away. “Go on now; we both need our beauty sleep.”

  Peg opened the door with a snort, slipping outside before her smile disappeared on a shiver of horror. Good Lord, she thought as she headed down the stairs and across her driveway at a dead run. That girl was going to be flat-out scary at sixteen. But Peg smiled again as she ducked behind a tree at the edge of the tote road, figuring she had it coming since she’d turned her own mama’s hair prematurely gray.

  She quietly loaded the shotgun as she decided it was better to raise two smart and independent young ladies rather than two doormats for some dumb, chest-beating jerks. And if she died making it happen, every last one of her heathens were going to college so they could get the hell out of Spellbound Falls, because so help her God, not one of them was going to earn a living driving a stupid excavator.

  Peg double-checked to make sure the gun’s safety was on, smiling when she heard several of the thieving idiots cussing in whispers, figuring they’d just discovered they couldn’t reach the hillside because the road had been washed away. And that meant they had to go clear across her beach and all the way around the pit, giving them quite a hike for lugging back the heavy fuel—which also meant she’d be able to get a good look at them in the moonlight. And while they were gone, she might as well get their license plate number and let the air out of their tires so they could spread the word that the Thompson pit was no place to rip off the new boys in town.

  Gee, maybe Duncan would make her a hero’s badge for saving his fuel.

  Peg stood with her back to the tree, listening to branches snapping and an occasional curse as the men made their way down the steep wooded knoll beside their vehicle. It sounded like three, maybe four of them, but she didn’t recognize any of their voices or the SUV—at least not from this distance.

  Hearing them reach her beach, she peeked around the tree to make sure they hadn’t left anyone behind, then crouched down and quietly scurried toward the truck, guessing they—

  Peg’s scream never made it past the large hand that pressed over her mouth at the same time an arm pinned her arms to her sides and lifted her off her feet. She kicked out even while trying to bite the hand all but suffocating her, the arm around her middle nearly finishing the job when it tightened against her struggles.

  “Lady, you are one second away from feeling the flat of my sword on your backside,” he quietly growled into her hair.

  Duncan! Peg stopped struggling, but instead of loosening his hold or at least removing his hand so she could breathe, he turned and headed toward the main road like he was lugging off a— Wait, had he just said his sword?

  Well, of course he had, because everyone knew men said and did stupid things when they were angry. But threaten her with a sword? Seriously?

  “Ye try to trip me up with that shotgun or bite me again and I will put ye over my knee,” Duncan said quietly. He finally stopped when they reached the main road and set her on her feet, ripped the gun out of her hand and tossed it in the woods, and had her spun around and his nose stuck in her face before she even gulped in her first decent breath. “Are you insane or just suicidal? Ye don’t go after men all by yourself with a shotgun.”

  “Well, gee, I don’t own a sword.”

  He shook her.

  So she kicked him. Or at least she tried to, but he had her spun around and slammed up against his chest so fast, she ended up kicking herself in the ankle.

  “Where are your children?” he growled.

  “Charlotte’s keeping watch in the window,” she growled right back at him, “with the phone in her hand.”

  He muttered what sounded like a curse in some language she didn’t recognize and suddenly let her go, only to snag her hand and start dragging her down the main road toward her driveway. “Is there a reason you didn’t call your brother-in-law to come check out who was in your pit?” he asked, stopping to give her a jerk when she dug the nails of her free hand into his wrist. “That wasn’t an idle threat I gave ye, Peg,” he said way too quietly.

  Boy, he must be really angry, because she really believed him. “Um, Galen lives twenty miles away,” she said, shoving her free hand in her pocket. “Charlotte’s supposed to call 911 and then a neighbor if she hears a gunshot. And I gave her your cell phone number,” she rushed on when his eyes narrowed, “and told her to tell you what’s going on. Wait, my shotgun,” she said, trying to pull him to a stop when he started dragging her off again—only to stumble when she saw he really did have a sword strapped in some sort of sheath on his back.

  “The gun’s not going anywhere tonight.” He stopped and grabbed hold of her shoulders. “They’re almost to the equipment,” he said softly. “I’m taking you to your house, and you’re to go inside and tell Charlotte not to cal
l anyone, especially not 911. We’ve got this covered.”

  We? Come to think of it, what was he doing here? “Who in hell died and left you king?” she muttered, only to lean away when she saw the look in his eyes.

  “You step a toe outside before sunrise, and I swear to God I’m going to—”

  “Oh, give it a rest,” she snapped as she stomped down on his foot and jerked away, bolting for the house as she wondered if she might be insane and suicidal—although she did have sense to stay in the shadows of the trees lining her driveway.

  The man was guarding his excavator with a friggin’ sword!

  He caught up with her in less than two strides but merely ran beside her, not touching her again until he nudged her toward the end of the deck facing away from the pit, then pulled her to a stop next to the house. “I mean it, Peg,” he said tightly. “You go inside and stay there.”

  God, he wasn’t even a little winded, while she could barely catch her breath—although that was probably because her heart was pounding so hard it hurt.

  He suddenly crushed her against his chest, threading his fingers through her hair to hold her looking at him. “And, lady? I ever catch ye outside after dark again not wearing a bra, you’ll have only yourself to blame for the consequences.”

  He dropped his hands to her waist, had her lifted halfway over the railing before she even got out a gasp, and finished helping her the rest of the way with a less than gentle hand on her backside. She caught herself from falling flat on her face and spun around with a whispered growl of outrage, only to discover he’d vanished.

  Peg took a steadying breath as she ran trembling fingers through her hair, and brushed down the front of her sweatshirt as she walked to the door on rubbery legs. Okay, maybe she would fall in love with the sword-carrying, chest-beating jerk, so he’d have only himself to blame for the consequences of the Robinson curse.