Moonlight Warrior

by Janet Chapman

  “I only met Mabel today.” Kenzie pulled the pen Matt had given him from his pocket, still leaning back in his chair, and nodded toward the papers on the banker’s left. “I’m not sure I wish to do business with a bank that is trying to take away a widow’s means of support.” He dropped his foot to the floor and reached for his check.

  The banker immediately leaned back, taking the check with him. “I was only able to get a three-month extension on Mabel’s business loan, but I give you my word, Mr. Gregor, that I will do everything in my power to persuade the main office to give Eve a working line of credit to expand their business.”

  Kenzie smiled, clicking the pen to make the ballpoint appear, and quickly signed his name. “Then I look forward to our doing business, Mr. Johnson.” He slid the signed document toward him. “Make the transfer. I’m eager to go explore my new land.”

  Kenzie settled Father Daar on the sheltered knoll overlooking the ocean so that the old priest was facing the late April sun. He placed a blanket over Daar’s legs before walking back to the truck for the basket of food.

  “I cannot believe we have to spend five more nights outdoors when we just paid a king’s ransom for a warm, dry house,” Daar muttered.

  “Which is occupied at the moment,” Kenzie said, setting the basket beside him. “You saw that someone was still living there when Alvin Bishop showed us the farmhouse after we signed the papers. And you heard him ask if I’d give his tenants five days to move out.”

  “I heard ye say you don’t mind waiting,” Daar said, opening the basket and scanning its contents. “I did not hear anyone ask me if I minded.” He grabbed one of the sandwiches and glared at Kenzie. “Nor did I see my name on the deed beside yours. Considering all the trouble your blackguard of a brother caused me last year, I believe I’m entitled to a portion of that check.”

  “You’ve taken a vow of poverty, remember?”

  Daar harrumphed and bit into his sandwich.

  Kenzie sat down beside him and rummaged through the food basket. “This is good land,” he said. “It has nearly four hundred acres and is surrounded by ocean on three sides, which will afford us plenty of privacy. And turning it into a working farm will be a good disguise for our true mission. The farmhouse seems sturdy, sitting high on a bluff overlooking the Gulf of Maine, though the barn is in need of repair.” He pointed at the ocean. “The deed claims we also own those small islands. I’m sure William will find one of them to his liking.”

  “Speaking of William, where is the accursed beast?” Daar asked, before stuffing the last of his sandwich in his mouth.

  “Holed up in a nearby pine grove,” Kenzie said. “He’ll join us after dark.” He lowered his own sandwich to his lap. “I’m worried that William’s not adjusting well to this century. Maybe the ocean air will give him some comfort by reminding him of his old homeland.”

  “Not that you gave any thought to my comfort,” Daar said. “The damp air makes my bones ache.”

  “The salt breeze will do you good as well, old man.”

  “I miss my cabin. TarStone Mountain has been my home for nearly forty years, and until you bullied your way into my life, I was perfectly content to die there.”

  “You’re many years away from dying, priest. So, what do ye think of Mabel Bishop and Eve Anderson?” Kenzie took a bite of one of the sandwiches he’d had the waitress make up for them at breakfast.

  “I think the daughter left no doubt she isn’t interested in you,” Daar said with a scowl. “Don’t think I didn’t notice the way ye were looking at her.” His scowl intensified. “Ye best not be entertaining any notions of being attracted to her. Women have a sneaky way of diverting a man’s attention from his true work.” The old priest’s face suddenly softened. “I know ye returned to being a man only a few months ago, Kenzie, but ye must fight any romantic notions of getting involved with a woman in this modern time. Helping displaced souls become human again is going to demand your full attention.”

  “I am well aware of my duties,” Kenzie countered. “I just wanted to touch the lass, to see if she felt as soft as she looked.” He sighed. “Ye needn’t worry, old man. Mabel said Eve doesn’t trust men after what her husband did to her, so it matters not if I find her attractive.”

  “Mabel Bishop is crazier than a loon.” Daar shot Kenzie a reproachful glare. “And ye had no business sticking your nose in her money problems. The whole point of us moving to this godforsaken coast was to remain anonymous. We haven’t been in town one day, and ye already started throwing your weight around to rescue some crazy woman ye just met.”

  “I was testing Matt’s theory that the pen he made me would prove to be mightier than my sword, even when I don’t use the magic he placed in it,” Kenzie said with a shrug, not at all contrite. “It does appear that in this age, ink is a rather powerful weapon. Instead of having to hold a sword to his throat to get Johnson to help Mabel and Eve, withholding my signature got him to give me his word to help them get credit to expand their business.”

  Daar was back to glowering at him again. “And if that hadn’t worked, you’d have gone to the truck and gotten your sword, I’ve no doubt. What’s a casserole? Do you suppose it’s something to eat?”

  “I have no idea.” Kenzie looked over to see Daar holding a large muffin. “I thought the older a person gets, the less of an appetite he has,” he said with a chuckle. “I’ve never met anyone who worries so much about his next meal before he’s even finished the one he’s eating. Yet you’re so thin, a good wind would carry ye off. Why do you eat as if every meal might be your last?”

  Daar stopped with the muffin halfway to his mouth. “God’s teeth, I’m eighteen hundred years old; every meal could be my last. And you were once an eleventh-century highland warrior who never knew where your next meal might come from. How many battles did you fight on an empty belly?”

  “All of them, if I wanted to win. A full belly would have slowed me down.” He gestured toward the basket of food. “But this is the twenty-first century, not the eleventh. And here a person can’t travel five miles without passing a store or diner.” He snorted. “You and William suffer from the same affliction. That beast is going to eat himself to death.”

  Daar set the muffin back in the basket with a sigh. “I visited Ireland once in the ninth century, about the time William would have been living there.” The aged priest puffed up his chest. “I was at the peak of my powers, and the council of drùidhs asked me to go straighten out some old witch who had gotten too big for her britches.”

  Kenzie gaped at him. “Is there a reason you’re just telling me this now, after I’ve spent months trying to help William? Could it have been the same witch who cursed him? Why didn’t ye tell me you knew her?”

  Daar shrugged. “I’d just as soon forget what happened in Ireland.” He shot Kenzie a defensive glare. “And because it matters not. My powers are gone, Gregor. I can’t help you with William any more than I can light a candle without a match, now.”

  “But I’m only just discovering my own abilities. And though you may have lost the magic, ye still have the knowledge. Do ye think I asked you to come here with me because of your cheery disposition? What happened to the hag?”

  “You’re a bigger blackguard than your brother,” Daar growled. “I only agreed to come with you and William because Pine Creek had too many wizards and too many damn bairns being born.” That said, he gathered the blanket around him and lay down, his back to Kenzie.

  “Ye left because you were bored to tears, now that you don’t have the power to interfere in everyone’s lives.” Kenzie sighed. “I’m sorry if I hurt your feelings. We’re a good fit, you and me, both of us being outcasts of sorts. And living on TarStone as a panther for the last three years…well, I’d have gone hungry many nights but for the meat you left out for me.”

  “I tossed out those leftovers for the raccoons.”

  Kenzie chuckled. “Aye, even when the wee bandits were taking their winter slee
p. So what happened to the old—” Kenzie suddenly got to his feet. “Do ye hear something?”

  Daar sat up, canting his head. “It’s only the breeze.”

  “Someone is calling out.” Kenzie walked to the crest of the knoll and scanned the shoreline to the west. “It coming from this direction. There! I see a woman.” He leapt onto a boulder for a better angle, and watched a wave nearly knock the woman off her feet as she scrambled up onto an island. “It’s Eve Anderson! She’s waded out to one of the islands, and she’s calling her mother.”

  “I knew those two were going to be trouble,” Daar muttered, standing up. “Women always are.”

  “The tide is coming in, and she’ll be trapped.” Kenzie jumped off the boulder and ran toward the island. “Bring the blanket. We’re going to need it.”

  Chapter Two

  Eve clung to the rocks as another wave washed over her. The moment it passed, she found a toehold higher up on the granite ledge, climbed out of the frothing surf, and ran toward the center of the island, hoping like hell she’d guessed right.

  “Mom! Are you here? Mom!”

  Dammit, she hadn’t noticed when her mother had left the house. She had brought Mabel home from the store as soon as Alvin Bishop had left, and started calling lawyers to see if he had the right to do what he’d done. She needed to get an alarm for the door so she’d know when her mother was wandering off.

  Except in five days, they wouldn’t have a door to put the alarm on, would they? The bastard had sold her home right out from under her mother—who was here, thank God.

  “Mom! The tide is rising, and we’re going to get trapped!”

  It was a small island, only thirty acres, and Eve knew it well. She and her mom had come here often for picnics, when Eve returned every summer after getting married six years ago.

  “Why are you all wet?” Mabel asked from the bench that overlooked the Gulf of Maine. She gave an involuntary shiver. “Evangeline, it’s too early in the year to go swimming. This is Jens’s fault. Your father had you playing in the tidal pools when you were three.”

  “I remember, Mama,” Eve said, taking her mother’s hand. “Let’s go back to the house and you can make me a cup of tea to warm me up. But we have to hurry. The tide’s coming in, and we’re going to have to wade to shore.”

  “Oh, dear. I’ve spent the entire day daydreaming again, and now I’m late getting dinner ready for Nathan.” Mabel stood up and started down the path. “Maybe I can throw together a can of soup and whatever I have in the fridge. Nathan won’t even realize he’s eating leftovers.”

  They were just approaching the water-covered gravel bar when Kenzie Gregor strode out of the ocean and rushed toward them.

  Mabel stopped in her tracks. “A tourist. I bet he wants to camp on our island. Tell him the state park is several miles farther east.”

  “Mr. Gregor!” Eve said in surprise.

  “I heard you shouting. Is Mabel okay? The tide’s coming in,” he said, giving them a quick visual inspection.

  Her mother eyed him curiously. “How do you know my name, young man? Did I have you in school?” She waggled her finger at him. “I don’t care how big you’ve grown; I’m still Mrs. Anderson to you.”

  Kenzie gave Eve a concerned glance, then smiled contritely at Mabel. “Forgive me, Mrs. Anderson. I forgot my manners. But you can be thankful I’ve grown big. I’ll carry you to shore.”

  He swept Mabel into his arms, then turned to Eve. “Stay here. I’ll come back for you.”

  Eve stepped past him onto the rocks. “I’ll lead the way. There’s only a narrow gravel bar. One wrong step and you’ll be swimming.”

  Eve guessed he must have muttered something inappropriate, for she heard her mother say, “Your mouth could use a good washing with soap, young man. Be careful!”

  “I won’t drop ye, I promise.”

  Her mother shrieked, and Eve turned to see a rogue wave soak them both.

  “Don’t worry, I’ve got her,” Kenzie said. “Keep going.”

  The distance to shore had grown to about twenty yards, and though the water was only up to Eve’s waist, the waves were building as the breeze picked up. She was definitely beginning to feel the cold—likely because this was her second soaking in only ten minutes.

  Eve braced herself for the wave she saw coming just as her mother gave another scream, this one ending in a woof of expelled air. An arm of solid muscle wrapped around Eve’s waist, and she was lifted off her feet and tucked up against an equally solid torso. She craned her neck to see Kenzie Gregor had hefted her mother over his shoulder so he could carry Eve like a football as he fought the swirling tide with another muttered curse.

  Eve felt a lecture coming on. Big, strong, take-charge men always lectured tiny women in these sort of situations. And didn’t she have a string of ex-boyfriends and one ex-husband to prove it? Just because she looked like some fragile little Kewpie doll, men always tried to take care of her—even though she was perfectly capable of taking care of herself.

  Heck, if she weighed what Kenzie Gregor did, the waves wouldn’t have been a problem. The man felt more solid than the granite he scaled as easily as if he were carrying two sacks of feathers.

  He set her on her feet, carefully set her mother down, then tossed his heavy leather jacket at Eve.

  With a swift economy of effort, Kenzie Gregor had her mother wrapped up in a blanket and was already striding away with the wet, shivering woman in his arms. “My truck’s just over the hill. We’ll take ye home,” he said, disappearing into the stunted spruce trees.

  The priest who had brought the blanket took hold of Eve’s arm and started to follow. He was obviously trying to help her, and Eve stifled a snort. It was all the old man could do to walk up the knoll himself! His outdated cassock certainly wasn’t helping matters, as the rising wind tangled it in his cane.

  “I’d not say a word on the ride home, if I were you,” he said, his sharp blue eyes reproachful. “Gregor doesn’t much care to have his commands ignored. Ye should have waited on the island like he told ye to.”

  Eve sighed, helping him over a rough spot. She had no intention of saying anything to Kenzie but thank you. When they reached the large SUV, it was running, her mother sitting in the front seat and Kenzie standing with the back door open. Eve started to help Father Daar into the backseat, but Kenzie nudged her inside.

  The blast of heat coming out of the floor and ceiling vents nearly took her breath away. Eve leaned forward and touched her mother’s shoulder. Mabel didn’t acknowledge her, but simply stared out the windshield. Father Daar climbed in next to Eve.

  Kenzie got behind the wheel, tucked the blanket more tightly around her mother, then looked back at Eve. “She seems to be in a daze. Should I drive to the nearest doctor?”

  “No. She’ll be fine. She…she does this sometimes. I just need to get her into some dry clothes and into bed. She’ll be okay after she has a nap.”

  He looked at Mabel again, leaning forward to see her eyes. When he still got no response, he put the truck in gear and slowly eased onto the dirt path toward home.

  A heavy knot had formed in Kenzie’s stomach the moment he pulled up in front of the sturdy white farmhouse, and by the time he was sitting at the table, looking around the well-maintained kitchen, he wanted to roar.

  He had bought Mabel and Eve’s home.

  “They don’t look as if they’re preparing to move,” Daar said as he fiddled with the large wood-burning cookstove that took up a good portion of one wall. He turned, his eyes troubled. “We’re in a mess, aren’t we, Gregor? Alvin Bishop sold us Mabel’s house.”

  Kenzie finished buttoning the shirt he’d gotten out of his truck along with a full change of dry clothes. He’d dressed right there in the kitchen, while Eve gave her mother a warm bath upstairs and put her to bed. “It’s beginning to look that way. Why would the man do such a thing to his brother’s widow?”

  “Because Alvin Bishop is a bastard,” Eve
said, walking into the kitchen.

  Kenzie stood up. “I wouldn’t have purchased this farm if I had known it was Mabel’s home.”

  She walked to the sink and started filling a container with water. “It doesn’t matter, Mr. Gregor. If you hadn’t bought it, someone else would have. From what Alvin told us, when he came with the eviction notice, the farm has been for sale for five months.” She dumped the water in the coffeemaker. “He put it on the market less than a month after his brother died.”

  “Are there not laws that allow a widow to keep her home?” Kenzie asked.

  Eve glanced briefly at Father Daar before returning her troubled gaze to Kenzie. “There are—if my mother had actually been married to Nathan.”

  “They weren’t married?” Daar asked, frowning in confusion.

  Eve’s face reddened. “My father died in a paper mill accident ten years ago. Mom later fell in love with Nathan Bishop, and they started living together six years ago, when I moved to Boston. If she had married Nathan, she would have lost her widow’s benefits, and she couldn’t afford that. So she and Nathan pretended they’d gotten married when they went to Bangor one weekend, and she came home calling herself Mrs. Bishop.”

  She smiled sadly. “You have to remember what generation my mother is from. Having been a well-respected schoolteacher in town, she simply couldn’t bring herself to live openly with a man.” She turned back to the counter and got several mugs down from the cupboard. “We’ll be out of here in five days, Mr. Gregor, and then the house is all yours.”

  “Where will ye go?”

  She stilled, not turning around. “We can live at the store until I find a place.”

  Kenzie gazed around the kitchen, taking in all of Mabel’s possessions and feminine touches. “But this is her home,” he whispered, the knot in his gut becoming so heavy that he had to sit down.