Kenzie just stared at William.
William glanced down at his long curved claws, then polished them on his chest as he looked at Kenzie. “What? Am I being too crude for you again?” He snorted. “You’re turning into one of these modern pansies who hand over their balls to their women to carry around in their pockets. Eve is carrying your babe, and you’re following her around like a puppy, begging her to marry you. You’re a warrior, for chrissakes! Act like one! Tie her up if you have to, and stand her in front of the old priest.”
Kenzie walked toward the edge of the small clearing. “After your soup, if ye feel like taking a little walk to rebuild your strength, ye might want to go watch what’s going on at the house. Maddy and another friend of Eve’s have come over this evening to help the crew with the repairs.”
Kenzie let go of Eve’s hand when they came to the shoreline, reached into his shirt pocket, and handed her a ballpoint pen. Eve held it up to the moonlight to get a brief look at it, then carefully put it back in his pocket.
He took it out and tried to give it to her again.
“I don’t want it,” she said, tucking her hands behind her back. “That’s yours, and you need it.”
“If you’d held it more than two seconds, you would have realized this one is smaller, made for your hand.”
When she still refused to take it, he simply tucked the point of it in the opening of her blouse, then tapped it down into her bra. Eve gasped and shoved her chest toward him. “Take it out before it accidentally goes off!”
He tucked his hands behind his back. “It won’t accidentally go off. You can even use it to write with.”
Eve stared down at her chest, taking shallow breaths that started to make her dizzy. When blazing light didn’t suddenly shoot out, she raised her eyes to his. “Is it an old highland tradition to give a woman you want to marry a pen?”
“They didn’t have ballpoint pens back in the eleventh century,” he said, his eyes glinting in the moonlight. “And whether or not we marry, this pen is yours. You’re to carry it with you at all times.”
“So if it’s a writing instrument, why do I have to carry it at all times?”
“Because it’s also a weapon.”
She immediately shoved her chest at him again. “I don’t want a magical pen.” She forced a smile. “It’s really sweet of you to offer me one, though. It’s just that I wouldn’t know what to do with it.” She suddenly had a thought. “Unless I can use it to turn Susan Wakely into a toad?”
He plucked the pen out of her bra, set it in her palm, then closed her fingers over it. “Ye can’t turn anyone into anything with it. This is merely protection from the dark magic.”
Eve frowned. “But all you did was push the clicker on yours that night, and light shot out where the ballpoint should have been. If I try to write with it, I’ll blow something up.”
Still holding her fingers closed over the pen, he used his thumb to push down the clicker. Eve flinched, but only a ballpoint popped out the other end.
“Everything depends on your intention,” he told her, clicking it several times, making the ballpoint pop in and out. “If ye want to write, it’s a writing instrument. When ye want to protect yourself, it becomes a weapon.”
Kenzie turned her hand so that the end pointed safely away, and clicked it again. A pencil-thin stream of light shot out the end and exploded a tiny rock several feet away.
“Holy shit,” she whispered, and extended the pen toward him. “I don’t want it. I might kill someone.”
“Only if ye want to kill them,” he said. “It’s what your intention is, Eve. With just a little practice it will tune itself to you, then carry out your intentions without your even having to think about it.”
“So if Maddy were to try to write with it, it wouldn’t go off on her?”
“Once it’s tuned to you, it won’t even work for me.”
She looked down at the pen. It really was quite pretty, for a lethal weapon. It was made of some wood she couldn’t identify, and felt substantially heavy yet surprisingly right, as if it were made just for her. “Where did you get it?”
“When we visited Pine Creek, I asked Matt to make a pen like the one he made me, sized for your hand.”
She looked up at him again. “What’s so special about Matt, that he can make magical pens?”
“He’s a drùidh. And so is Winter.”
“A drùidh? As in a pagan priest?”
“Nay. That’s a modern definition. In Gaelic, drùidh loosely translates to wizard.”
“Matt and Winter are wizards?”
He lightly tapped the tip of her nose. “And they can turn people into toads.”
No wonder she’d felt like their home had been filled with magic. Boy, this rabbit hole just kept getting deeper and deeper.
“Um, how do I know when the dark magic is threatening me?”
“You’ll know. And if ye only suspect you’re in danger, your pen will certainly tell ye. It will start vibrating like a modern cell phone.”
“Does it only work on dark magic? Let’s say I was walking down an alley some night and a man jumped out and attacked me. Could I blast him to smithereens?”
“If that was your intention.”
“Holy shit,” Eve whispered. She held the pen up in the moonlight.
“But if your intention is only to get away from your attacker, then it won’t blast him to smithereens,” he said, amusement lacing his voice. “I told ye, once it tunes itself to you, it will be whatever you need it to be at that moment.”
“But what happens if our son gets hold of it? Since it’s tuned to me while I’m pregnant, would it be tuned to him?”
“It won’t work for him. When the time comes, each of our children will be given his or her own pen.” He took hold of her shoulders, kissed the tip of her nose, then turned her around so that her back was against him. “Okay, let’s practice a bit. Click the pen, but expect the ballpoint to appear.”
Eve held it pointing out to sea, clicked the head of it, and a thin stream of blinding light shot out, sending up a tall plume of steam where it hit the water. She immediately clicked it off and frowned up at Kenzie. “It didn’t work.”
“Because you didn’t believe one word I just told ye, and you expected light to come out.” He held onto her shoulders and faced her back out to sea. “Picture the ballpoint appearing, Eve. Expect it to appear.”
“But if I’m scrambling to protect myself, I’m not going to stop and think ballpoint or light. I’m just going to point and shoot.”
“Ye only have to concentrate on what ye want until it’s tuned to you. Then you won’t have to think at all. It will know what ye want, because it’s an extension of your energy.”
“It’s not a trick of my mind, is it, like what that witch did to William?” She smiled up at him. “Are you trying to trick me into believing I have a powerful weapon to protect myself?”
He turned her back to face the sea. “Honest to God, I had less trouble teaching the puppies to piddle outdoors instead of in the barn. Can ye at least try?”
“To piddle outdoors?” she asked.
He sighed.
Eve stifled a giggle. Teasing him was so much fun, because it was so easy. She couldn’t decide which endeared her more: that he’d asked his brother to make a pen especially for her, that he trusted her with the magic, or that he respected her ability to take care of herself and their child.
Or children.
Eve clicked the pen and the ballpoint appeared, then clicked it again and watched it disappear. She pointed it down at a piece of driftwood on the beach, clicked the head of the pen, and didn’t even flinch when the driftwood blew to smithereens.
Kenzie wrapped his arms around her with a laugh. “Again,” he commanded.
She clicked the pen and made the ballpoint appear, then repeated the action several times.
“Now make that piece of driftwood over there only burst into flames,” he told her, point
ing down the beach to her left.
Eve aimed the pen, pictured a small flame appearing on the driftwood, and clicked. Light shot from the pen, the wood smoked for only a second, and then a single tongue of flame rose out of it. Eve blew on the end of her fancy pen like it was a smoking gun, and tucked it into her cleavage.
Kenzie kissed her cheek with a laugh. “You put most highland women to shame. Winter started landslides and set half the woods on fire when she was trying to master the magic.”
Eve turned in his arms and shot him an arrogant grin. “So does that mean if I practice and practice, I can be a drùidh like Winter?”
“Sorry,” he said, shaking his head. “Winter’s power was several thousand years in the making. And Matt is descended from the Children of the Mist, and is the most powerful drùidh alive today.”
“What exactly do drùidhs do?”
“They guard the Trees of Life.”
“And what role do the Trees of Life play?”
“They control the energies of the Earth. If the trees die, so does mankind.”
“That’s pretty important work.”
He kissed her nose. “So is growing a baby. Come on,” he said, taking her hand and heading toward the bluff. “It’s time for bed.”
“But camp is that way,” she said, pointing in the opposite direction. She tried to pull him to a stop. “It doesn’t look good to all those men if we both disappear until morning.”
He finally stopped and turned to her. “Are ye saying you want to share my bed in a camp full of men?”
“Of course not. I intend to sleep next to my mother.”
“So ye don’t mind embarrassing me in front of my family and friends?”
“How would that embarrass you?” she asked, confused.
“Ian, Hamish, Duncan MacKeage and Robbie MacBain all know that you belong to me now, and they’ll question my ability to control my woman.”
Eve gaped at him. “And just when did I become your woman?”
His grin slashed in the moonlight. “The night on the cliff in the storm.” He leaned down so he was looking her directly in the eyes, all traces of his smile gone. “Or more precisely, the moment you decided to jump my love-starved bones.”
He didn’t look like he was joking.
“So…are you saying that as long as those men are here, we have to sleep at your old campsite so you won’t be embarrassed?”
He started leading her up the bluff again. “Ye might want to warn Maddy and Susan what they’ll be in for if one of the MacKeages takes a liking to them,” he said with a chuckle. “Even though they were born in this century, they prefer the courtship practices of their fathers’ time. Those lasses could find themselves stolen away to a cabin high on TarStone Mountain.”
“That’s kidnapping!”
“Only if the woman presses charges.”
“And what makes you think a modern woman wouldn’t?”
“Because by the time she got free, she’d only be thinking about marrying him,” he said, sweeping her off her feet and carrying her up the bluff.
Chapter Twenty-two
In less than ten days, a nearly finished—and bigger—barn sat where the old one had been, and she and Mabel and Daar had moved back into a totally remodeled house four days ago.
Eve suspected magic was involved, but she couldn’t prove it.
Both Maddy and Susan had taken two-week vacations, and had worked right alongside Eve trying to feed the men three meals a day—which was much easier once the stainless steel, double-ovened, eight-burners-and-a-griddle commercial range Kenzie had bought was hooked up.
Eve had also noticed there was a new hand-powered butter churn sitting on the porch, but she had refused even to lift the cover and look inside. Mabel was churning their butter over at Maddy’s house with Maddy’s mom, when both women weren’t tending Bishop’s Hearth and Home and Bakery, which was now open only from noon to four, five days a week. If people wanted baked goods or to buy a woodstove, Eve figured they could adjust their schedules accordingly.
What a difference a few months made, she mused as she checked the stew in one of four large pots. Only two months ago she’d been newly divorced and looking bankruptcy in the eye, as well as looking for a place where she and her mother could live.
But that was before she belonged to Kenzie Gregor, she thought with a smile, touching her belly. She wasn’t showing yet, but she’d switched to elastic-waist pants because her belly got softer as it prepared to stretch with her son.
“Have you seen Susan?” Maddy asked, striding through the kitchen. She poured herself a glass of water, guzzled down half of it, and turned to frown at Eve. “She went missing around eleven this morning without saying a word to anyone. Her car’s still here, but nobody’s seen her.”
Eve gasped in alarm. “Are Ian, Duncan, or Hamish missing?”
Maddy finished her water and shrugged. “I have no idea.”
Eve started for the door, but suddenly stopped. If one of those highlanders had abducted Susan, who was she to spoil their fun? Susan would think she’d died and gone to heaven if a rugged Scotsman whisked her off to some mountain hideaway.
Eve turned back to Maddy just as her friend was wiping her cleavage with a damp towel. “My God, how many push-up bras do you own? I swear you’ve worn a different colored one every day this week.”
Maddy adjusted her ample bosom back into place with a grin. “Hey, a girl’s gotta use whatever assets she has. When was the last time you saw that much unmarried testosterone in Midnight Bay? Never!” she answered her own question. “And Duncan told me he actually owns a kilt and a sword. I bet it’s a really big sword.” She grinned. “And thick, and strong, and…unbreakable.”
Eve nearly doubled over in laughter. “You are sooo bad.” She pointed at the door. “Those aren’t boy toys out there, and you are playing with fire. What are you going to do if one of them tries to sweep you off your feet?”
“I’m going to blow his socks off,” she drawled. “Or anything else I find when I undress him.”
“I mean it, Maddy. You are literally playing with fire.”
“I like fire in a man. I passed on Kenzie because he scared the bejeezus out of me, but ‘once bitten, twice shy’ is not how I want to live the rest of my life.” She waved her hand at Eve. “My God, the dust hadn’t even settled from Parker, and look where you are now. I’ve been hiding behind my youthful mistake for six years! Your courage to follow your heart has given me the courage to dig mine out of mothballs, shine it up, and put it back in my chest.” She gave Eve a long, fierce hug, and when she pulled away, there were tears in her eyes.
“I’m really just practicing on those guys out there,” she softly admitted, “because I’m not quite that brave yet.” She swiped at her eyes, then shot Eve a lopsided smile. “Sorry for turning all sappy, but it’s been a tough week, realizing what a coward I’ve been and how much work I have ahead of me. And the house seems so empty without Sarah. I swear I didn’t know a little girl could take up so much space.”
“When are Billy’s parents bringing her back?”
“Not for another two weeks. I thought a motor-home tour of every state east of the Mississippi would be good for her, but it’s nearly killed me.” She looked out the window above the sink, then turned to Eve. “Have you seen Mabel? Mom’s out there setting the dinner table under the oak tree, and she’s been looking for Mabel to help her for the last half hour.”
“She must be out for a walk,” Eve said, going out onto the porch.
She scanned the dooryard, but saw only men working. Her mother must be with William again. Sheesh, for a dragon, he sure seemed to need a lot of babying.
“She often loses track of time when she goes for a walk,” Eve said when Maddy stepped onto the porch beside her. “If you’ll watch the stew, I’ll go find her.”
“Maybe she’s on her island,” Maddy suggested, going back in the house.
Eve walked to the barn, and had just
reached the door when Robbie suddenly took hold of her arm and led her away.
“If you don’t want to see what kind of damage a dragon can do when he’s angry,” Robbie said before she could ask about Mabel, “then you might want to tell Maddy to go home and change her clothes. Better yet, tell her to stay home until after my crew leaves.”
“What? Why? Maddy hasn’t done anything wrong.” She suddenly smiled. “Wait…angry dragon? Has William got a crush on her?”
Robbie didn’t return her smile. “I’m worried it’s more than a crush. That beast is very near to exploding, and the next time he sees your friend sashaying by one of my crew, all hell might break loose. I’m serious, Eve: send Maddy home. William’s liable to kill the next man who even talks to her.”
Eve looked around. “Is he out there watching us right now?”
“No, he’s with Kenzie. There’s another storm heading this way, and they’ve gone to investigate.”
Eve clutched his arm. “Is it that witch again?”
“No, but it is unnatural. We think another soul like William is trying to reach Kenzie.”
Eve gaped. “Another dragon is coming here?”
He shook his head. “Kenzie never knows what’s going to show up until it actually does.”
“Um…does this happen often?”
“Even before he changed back to a man six months ago, he’d already embraced his calling as a soul warrior. He helped a couple of displaced souls when he was Gesader.”
“Gesader?”
Robbie frowned at her. “The panther?” His eyes widened, and he cursed in Gaelic. “Hell, he told me he was going to tell you.”
“Six months ago, Kenzie was a p-panther?”
“Ask your husband your questions.” He started to walk away.
Eve felt her rabbit hole caving in on her. She belonged to a soul warrior?
“Wait—did my mother go with Kenzie and William?”
Robbie shook his head. “No. I haven’t seen Mabel for an hour at least.”
Eve looked around the dooryard. “Hey, did one of your men take my wood delivery truck to town to pick up something? It was parked over there,” she said, pointing to the end of the driveway.
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