Charmed by His Love

by Janet Chapman

  “I sneaked outside and got this for you to hold. I got a big one ’cause your hurt looks big, so I thought a small rock wouldn’t do no good. You want it?” Duncan reached out, but the boy pulled back. “Only you can’t put it in your pocket when you’re done rubbing it, okay, ’cause it’s too big,” Jacob continued in a very serious whisper, “and it’ll look like your peanut’s … you know … hard.”

  Duncan rubbed his hands over his face to stifle a bark of laughter, having to love the kid’s determination to keep him civilized. He finally took the rock with his bandaged hand. “Then I definitely won’t put it in my pocket,” he said thickly. He reached into his jeans with his other hand and pulled out the worry stone the boy had given him last week. “I do believe that between the two of these, I should be feeling right as rain in no time. Thanks, Jacob. I appreciate the thought.”

  “How come you don’t got any kids?”

  Okay, it appeared somebody intended to take advantage of the fact the boss was out of sight. “Well, I suppose I should find a wife before I get kids, don’t you think?”

  “So how come you don’t got a wife?”

  “Because I haven’t found a woman willing to put up with me long enough that I can ask her to marry me.”

  Duncan stifled his smile when Jacob frowned. “What’s put up with you mean?”

  “It means the women can’t handle my tendency to be bossy, I guess. And I do get a little grouchy sometimes, and I’ve been told I’m a little scary when I’m angry.”

  The boy smiled. “You need to find someone like Mom. She’s not afraid of no one.” His eyes suddenly widened. “Hey, she could put up with you long enough for you to ask her to marry you. And then you could have your own tribe of kids. No, not tribe,” he said, shaking his head. “What did you call your family the other day?”

  “A clan.” Duncan glanced toward the attic hole, then leaned closer to Jacob. “But just between us men, your mother sort of scares me when she gets angry.”

  Jacob’s eyes widened again. “She does?”

  Duncan nodded. “Doesn’t she scare you when she gets angry?”

  “Naw,” the boy scoffed, even as he patted Duncan’s arm. “She’s just trying to act scary when she gets all scowly, ’cause she’s wanting us to be good so people will know we’re serverlized. She’s really all soft inside.” He patted Duncan’s arm again. “But you gotta act afraid if she scowls at you, okay, ’cause it makes her feel good.”

  “I’ll do that,” Duncan said with a large sigh of relief. “Thanks for telling me.”

  “So if you ask Mom to marry you, you could come live in our new house with us. You can sleep with Pete and me, ’cause Mom’s getting us our own bunk beds. That means we’ll have four beds,” he thought to explain.

  Okay; apparently Jacob didn’t have the finer points of marriage pinned down. “That’s very generous of you, but usually when people get married they sleep together in the same bed,” Duncan told him, figuring Peg was definitely going to get all scowly when the boy gave her that new bit of information.

  Jacob’s eyes widened again and he giggled. “You won’t fit in Mom’s bed with her. It’s small like Pete and mine are.”

  “Really?” Duncan asked in surprise.

  Jacob nodded. “How come your dog don’t got a name yet?”

  And that was the end of that discussion, apparently. “Well, the pup and I just met last night, and I haven’t been able to think of a name for him yet. Any suggestions?”

  Jacob looked at the pup that was trying to carry a piece of two-by-four lengthwise through the wall studs as Pete rushed over to turn the board so it would fit. “I think you should call him something to do with his color, like Yellow or something.”

  “Or we could come up with a noble name for him,” Duncan suggested, just now realizing that leaving this particular job to the children might end with his owning a dog named Sue. “Because he’s a really special dog. He took very good care of me when I got hurt until Alec found me. In fact, he was just like a rescue hero, so we should choose a strong, brave name for him, don’t you think? I’ll tell you what; why don’t you and Pete and your sisters start making a list of names and then we’ll all take a vote.”

  “Oh, we can do that,” Jacob said. “Charlotte can write and everything.” He beamed Duncan a bright smile. “I can write my name, and Pete can, too. And I can count to twenty and I know the whole alphelet. You wanna hear—”

  “Jacob,” Peg said far too sweetly, causing the boy to whip his head around. “Mr. Duncan is supposed to be having a nap, and you’re supposed to be working.”

  “It’s my fault,” Duncan said. “I was just asking Jacob to help me find a name for my new pup.”

  “Oh, we could name him Swiper,” Isabel interjected, rushing through the studs from the kitchen area. “Like the fox on Dora the Explorer.”

  “He’s not a fox and he don’t steal,” Pete said, dropping his piece of wood and also rushing over. “I think we should call him Fetch, ’cause he brings us wood.”

  Duncan didn’t even try to hide his grin when Peg scowled at the sight of her crew abandoning their jobs. “Jacob was just telling me that Charlotte can write and everything,” Duncan said, “so we were thinking about making a list of names and voting on them in a day or two.”

  “But it’s gotta be a noble name,” Jacob interjected. “’Cause the puppy’s like a rescue hero.”

  “Hey, we can make him a badge just like the one we made you,” Pete suggested.

  “But dogs don’t have wallets to carry it in,” Isabel pointed out.

  “No, but once we come up with a name,” Duncan offered, “I could have a metal badge made for him to wear on his collar.”

  Peg walked over while reaching in her pocket and pulled out a small prescription bottle. “I think it’s time for one of your meds,” she said far too sweetly. “Charlie, could you bring Duncan a glass of water, please?”

  “You do know there are child labor laws in this country, don’t you?” he asked while fighting back a laugh.

  “You try to unionize them and I’m going to accidentally misplace your meds,” she whispered, giving him another sweet smile as she handed him a pill, making Duncan wonder if the apple crisp had tasted so good because she’d smiled at it.

  “How soon before you’re ready to Sheetrock?” he asked.

  His sudden change of subject made her frown. “Um, just as soon as I finish insulating the exterior walls.”

  “I don’t know if you’re aware of it, but most of my men are carpenters,” he said. “And when the groundwork side of my business is slow, we keep busy by building houses. In fact, we spent all this winter finishing off a million-dollar camp on Pine Lake.”

  He saw her cheeks flush. “This place might not be perfect, but it’s completely up to state code and it’s solid.”

  “What? No, I’m not implying … I didn’t mean …” He blew out a sigh. “What I’m trying to say is that I have a couple of really good Sheetrockers who wouldn’t mind earning some extra money working evenings, since they’re going to be stuck here through the week. And I thought you might be interested in hiring them to rock and mud the house so all you’ll have to do is paint.”

  Her cheeks flushed even more. “Oh. Um, yeah,” she said with a nod. “That might be a good idea, actually.” She smiled somewhat sheepishly. “Because I really wasn’t looking forward to handling those large sheets of Sheetrock all … by myself,” she finished lamely as she shoved his prescription bottle in her pocket and spun away. “Okay, everyone back to work.”

  “Peg,” he said when everyone scrambled back to their assignments—after Charlotte handed him a paper cup of water and also beat a hasty retreat. Peg stopped and turned to face him. “I’m not the enemy,” he said quietly. He gestured around him. “And I apologize for that comment the day you shot … the day I came to negotiate for your gravel. You’ve done a hell of a job on the house all by yourself. My crew couldn’t have done any bet
ter.”

  “Thank you.”

  “And thank you for agreeing to let me stay here for the next few nights.”

  Her eyes widened and her face flushed again. “Nights?” she squeaked.

  Duncan frowned, feeling his own cheeks darken. “I thought Alec … Didn’t he … ?” Well, hell. “Never mind, I love sleeping on the ground.”

  Peg had her four tuckered-out babies all tucked into bed, and now she was trying to put the fifth baby to bed without hitting him over the head with a blunt object to do it. “Oh, for crying out loud, will you pull up your big-boy pants and get over yourself?” she growled, even as she wondered when her bedroom had gotten so small. Oh, that’s right; it had only seemed larger since the last big strong man had been in it three years ago. “You’ll barely fit in this bed as it is, and it won’t be the first night I’ve slept on the couch. And there’s an attached bathroom, so I don’t have to worry about your shocking my daughters in the middle of the night because you forgot your pajamas.”

  Speaking of which, Peg went into the bathroom and grabbed her gown and bathrobe off the back of the door and headed toward the hallway. “Sleep tight,” she said, only to gasp in surprise when a crutch shot up to block her path.

  Duncan hobbled over to replace it with his body. “I apologize, Peg. I hadn’t considered how difficult it might be for you to have a man in your house again. I can call Alec to come get me.”

  “Where’s all your crew staying?” she whispered, not quite able to lift her gaze above his chest.

  “Both Robbie’s and my men have filled Inglenook’s dormitory, and the rest are camping at the new site up the road to keep an eye on the equipment. Robbie and Alec are up on your hillside. Look at me, lass.”

  “I … I’d rather not.”

  He lifted her chin with his finger, his smile softening his ruggedly handsome features and making him so damned desirable that if he kissed her right now, she’d probably pass out before she remembered to punch him in his already battered belly.

  “My MacKeage word of honor, I won’t ever hurt ye, Peg.”

  “You already are, Duncan. I don’t want to want you. I can’t.” She pulled in a steadying breath. “I meant it the other day when I said I need to stay focused on my children. Maybe in another twenty years I’ll be able to think about … other stuff.”

  He leaned his crutches against the wall and pulled her into his arms, sighing into her hair as he used his chin to tuck her head against his chest. “You’re forgetting about the magic, lass; the benevolent kind that makes anything possible.”

  Oh God, a hug was worse than a kiss, and Peg felt her eyes start to sting at how big and strong and solid he felt, and how tempted she was to just lean into him. “I really don’t have time to believe in magic right now.”

  “Will ye at least give me a chance to show you what it’s capable of? And if ye decide that you still can’t believe, then I give you my word that I’ll … walk away.”

  Too late; sometime when she wasn’t looking, Duncan MacKeage had snuck into her heart, and just the thought of him walking away already hurt. “How about if I think about it?” she whispered. She patted his chest and leaned back to give him her best smile. “I’ll let you know … soon.”

  He eyed her suspiciously. “How soon?”

  She wiggled free and stepped back, clutching her gown and robe to her chest. “Well, once I know I can survive having you as a houseguest without wanting to kill you in your sleep, I suppose maybe then we could … you and I could … that we might …”

  He grabbed his crutches with a soft laugh and hobbled toward the bathroom. “I agree; maybe we should see how the next few days go before ye finish that thought. Sleep well, lass.”

  Peg stood in the middle of her once again large bedroom staring at the closed bathroom door and worried that that had been way too easy. She turned and slowly walked out of the room, a little bummed that he hadn’t even tried to steal a kiss.

  Duncan stood in Peg’s utterly feminine bathroom, his hands splayed on the counter as he stared into the sink wondering how he was going to explain the magic to her if he couldn’t even get it to cooperate with him. He’d told Alec what he’d found on his mountain during their ride to the hospital. The ride to Inglenook to shave and get cleaned up was a bit blurry, and he couldn’t even remember the ride from Inglenook to Peg’s. Alec had suggested that he and Robbie go with him to the cave once he healed and help him find whatever in hell he was looking for.

  Today was Monday, and his parents were coming Friday afternoon to spend the weekend—he hoped like hell the camp trailers waiting to be delivered were in place by then—so he figured he’d better be healed by Thursday night. Too bad he couldn’t just go spend a week on the mountain to heal and come back tomorrow morning.

  Come to think of it, he seemed to recall making that very suggestion to Alec on the ride back from the hospital. Alec had laughed and said that would ruin their plan of letting Peg fawn all over him—just before his nephew had gotten serious and said that they weren’t going back to that mountain without Robbie, since their clan Guardian knew more about the magic than either of them did.

  Duncan sighed and turned on the faucet and splashed water on his face, trying to wash away the fuzzy sensation the pain meds were causing. He stared at himself in the mirror and frowned, remembering Alec telling him about Peg’s van just before she’d met them at her new house. Land-raping bitch some bastard had spray-painted. Hell, he didn’t blame her for deep-sixing the van, but he still couldn’t get past the horror of her pushing it into a flooded old slate quarry all by herself, then walking out a muddy road in a cold, pouring rain and hitching a ride to Inglenook.

  Forget contrary; Peg Thompson needed a goddamned keeper.

  And why in hell did the woman sleep in a twin bed?

  Chapter Seventeen

  Duncan expelled all the air in his lungs to unwedge himself from the narrow cave and then ran the beam of his flashlight over the rock above it, looking for signs of weakness in the granite. “Dynamite would probably work.” He grinned over at Alec. “So I take back every disparaging thing I said about your going into military demolition. If I get some dynamite off the blasting contractor I hired for the road, can you get me in there,” he asked, waving the flashlight at the hole, “without bringing the mountain down on top of us?”

  “You can’t be serious,” Robbie said before Alec could respond. “Are ye insane, Duncan? You detonate even a small charge inside this mountain and you’re going to wipe northern Maine and half of Quebec off the map. Can ye not feel the strength of the energy pulsing through the rock?”

  Duncan sat down and stretched out his throbbing right leg as he leaned against the granite, rubbing his face with a muttered curse. They were so goddamned close. It had taken most of the night to get past the chasm, and then all day to explore the labyrinth of tunnels on the other side before they found what Duncan hoped like hell was the instrument of his power. Only they couldn’t reach it because they were all too broad-shouldered to fit through the remaining twenty feet of cave. And they couldn’t actually see what they were trying to reach because the tunnel started curving sharply to the right just five feet in.

  Something was in there, though, because all three of them could feel it.

  “I knew we should have brought the pup,” Duncan muttered. “He’d fit in there.”

  “And once he did, then what?” Robbie asked, sitting down across from him. “Are ye forgetting the other part of Mac’s suggestion, that you bring along someone with smaller hands?” He gave a derisive snort. “I’m guessing whoever goes in there will need opposable thumbs. Ye might as well accept the obvious: Mac’s determined that you involve Peg in the acquisition of your power.”

  “But why? Then I’ll have to admit I’m a hell of a lot more than just charmed, and the rule is we don’t expose the magic to anyone other than our spouses. And I don’t need that bastard choosing who I marry, or even that I marry at all. He’s s
upposed to be protecting our free will, and yet he’s hell-bent on not giving me any choice whatsoever.”

  “Mac has no say about our mates,” Robbie said, shaking his head. “Only Providence does, and then only to make sure the paths of two people destined to be together eventually cross. It’s up to us to recognize the gift we’re being given.” He grinned. “But our resident wizard does have access to the knowledge contained in the Trees of Life, so he must have discovered that Peg and you are meant for each other and he’s merely trying to … help.”

  Duncan hung his head in his hands even as he wondered why he wasn’t more disturbed by the notion it had been written in the stars that Peg would be his. Because despite having a hard time picturing himself as some poor woman’s husband, marrying this particular one meant he also became an instant father. He snorted. “So what in hell do you suppose Peg and her kids did to deserve me?” he muttered to no one in particular. “I’m the last per—”

  The ground beneath them suddenly heaved in a rippling shrug just as a distant rumbling came from deep below. “I don’t know about you guys,” Alec said, scrambling to his feet with a laugh, “but I’m thinking we’ve overstayed our welcome.”

  “We’re right behind you,” Robbie shouted as the rumbling grew louder.

  Duncan scrambled to his feet, but stopped to take one last glance at the end of the cave. “I’ll be back you contrary bastard, and ye better be on your best behavior for my woman,” he growled, turning away from the blinding light that suddenly shot from the narrow passage, the sound of raucous laughter pursuing him up the tunnel.

  The three of them reached the chasm and gingerly scrambled across the bridge they’d built out of small logs that morning, and they didn’t stop running until they stepped out under a nighttime sky that was actually darker than the cave had been.

  “Do ye smell that?” Robbie asked, looking around. “That’s smoke.”