Spellbound Falls

by Janet Chapman

  Duncan had spent the last thirty-five years wondering what his particular gift was. Not that he was in any hurry to find out, having several childhood scars from when more than one cousin’s attempts to work the magic had backfired.

  That’s why what had happened here last week wasn’t the least bit of a mystery to the clans, just an unpleasant shock to realize that Maximilian Oceanus had decided to make his home in Maine when the wizard had started rearranging the mountains and lakes to satisfy his desire to be near salt water and the woman he loved.

  Duncan sure as hell wasn’t complaining, since he was benefiting financially. Mac was building his bride a fancy resort up on one of the mountains he’d moved and had hired MacKeage Construction to do a little earth-moving of its own by building the road and prepping the resort site. Duncan figured the project would keep his fifteen-man crew and machinery working for at least two years.

  And in this economy, that was true magic.

  Spellbound Falls and Turtleback Station would certainly reap the rewards of Mac’s epic stunt, since there wasn’t much else around to bolster people’s standard of living. Not only would the resort keep the locals employed, but stores and restaurants and artisan shops would soon follow the influx of tourists.

  It would be much like what the MacKeage family business, TarStone Mountain Ski Resort, had done for Pine Creek, which was another small town about a hundred miles south as the crow flies. Only it was too bad Mac hadn’t parted a few more mountains to make a direct route from Pine Creek to Spellbound, so Duncan wouldn’t have to build a temporary camp for his crew to stay at through the week. As it was now, they had to drive halfway to Bangor before turning north and west again, making it a three-hour trip.

  Then again, maybe Mac didn’t want a direct route, since the clans had recently learned the wizard was actually allergic to the energy the drùidhs he commanded gave off. And that had everyone wondering why Mac had decided to live so close to Matt and Winter Gregor, who were two of the most powerful drùidhs on earth.

  Apparently the wizard’s love for Olivia was greater than his desire to breathe.

  Not that Duncan really cared why Mac was here; only that the money in his reputed bottomless satchel was green.

  “Have ye recovered from your trouncing this morning, MacKeage?” Kenzie Gregor asked. He looked toward the Thompson family sitting quietly at their table and chuckled. “I can see why ye were so soundly defeated, as together the five of them must outweigh you by at least two stone.”

  Wonderful; help a man rebuild his home after it was nearly destroyed by a demonic coastal storm, and the guy felt the need to get in a shot of his own. But then, Kenzie was an eleventh-century highlander who’d only arrived in this time a few years ago, so Duncan figured the warrior didn’t know better than to poke fun at a MacKeage. Kenzie might have his drùidh brother Matt to back him up, but the sheer number of MacKeages was usually enough to keep even good-natured ribbing to a minimum.

  “If you’re needing a lesson on defending yourself,” William Killkenny said as he walked up, a large tankard of mead in the ninth-century Irishman’s fist, “we could go find a clearing in the woods. I have my sword in the truck, and I’m more than willing to show another one of you moderns the art of proper fighting.” He looked toward the Thompson table, then back at Duncan and shook his head. “It pains me to see a man defeated by a wee slip of a woman and a few bairns.”

  “I think Duncan is probably more in need of dance lessons,” Trace Huntsman said, joining the group. “Have I taught you nothing of modern warfare, Killkenny?” Trace slapped Duncan on the shoulder even as he eyed William, making Duncan shift his weight back onto his wrenched knee. “Our friend here knows the only way he’s going to defeat the Thompson army is to lure their leader over to his side. And women today prefer a little wooing to feeling the flat of a sword on their backsides.”

  William arched a brow. “Then someone should have explained that to his cousin, don’t ye think? Hamish kidnapped Susan Wakely right out of Kenzie’s dooryard in broad daylight, and rumor has it he wouldn’t let the woman leave the mountain cabin he took her to until she agreed to marry him.”

  Trace gave Duncan a slow grin. “So I guess it’s true that you first-generation MacKeages inherited many of your fathers’ bad habits?” He shook his head. “You do know you’re giving us moderns a bad reputation with women, don’t you?” He nodded toward the Thompson table. “Maybe you should go ask her to dance and show these two throwbacks a better way to win the battle of the sexes.”

  “And let her trounce me twice in one day?” Duncan gestured in Peg’s direction. “I believe that’s bachelor number five walking away now, looking more shell-shocked than I was this morning.”

  “Sweet Christ,” William muttered. “The woman just refused to dance with a fourteenth-century king of Prussia.”

  “Who in hell are all these people?” Duncan asked, looking around Inglenook’s crowded dining hall.

  “Friends of Titus, mostly,” William said, “who aren’t about to incur old man Oceanus’s wrath by not showing up to his only son’s wedding.”

  “I can’t believe he dared to put time-travelers in the same room with modern locals,” Trace said, also glancing around.

  “And serve liquor,” Duncan added, just before taking another sip of mead—because he really needed another good kick in the ass. His knee was throbbing, the scratches on his neck were burning under his collar, and social gatherings weren’t exactly his idea of a good time. But like most everyone else here today—the small party from Midnight Bay plaguing him now likely the only exception—Duncan wasn’t about to insult the younger Oceanus, either, considering Mac was his meal ticket for the next two years.

  “Uh-oh, your target is on the move,” William said, his gaze following Peg Thompson and her ambushing children as they headed for the buffet table. He nudged Duncan. “Now’s your chance to show us how it’s done, MacKeage. Go strike up a conversation with the lass.”

  “Maybe you could offer to let her children sit in your earth-moving machine,” Kenzie suggested. “That would show her ye don’t have any hard feelings.”

  “Kids and heavy equipment are a dangerous mix,” Duncan growled, glaring at the three of them. “Don’t you gentlemen have wives and a girlfriend you should be pestering?” He elbowed William. “Isn’t that Maddy dancing with the king of Prussia?”

  “Oh, Christ,” William muttered, striding off to go reclaim his woman.

  Kenzie also rushed off with a muttered curse when he saw his wife, Eve, start to breast-feed their young infant son under a blanket thrown over her shoulder.

  Trace Huntsman, however, didn’t appear to be in any hurry to leave. “If it’s any consolation,” Trace said, “Peg Thompson was more rattled by this morning’s attack than you were. Maddy and Eve and my girlfriend, Fiona, were there when Peg came to Olivia’s cottage. Fiona told me it took the four of them over twenty minutes to calm her down.” He shot Duncan a grin. “The women all promised Peg they would have done the exact same thing if they’d caught a stranger manhandling their child. Can I ask what you were thinking?”

  “I wasn’t thinking,” Duncan said. “I manhandle dozens of children every time my family gets together. Everyone looks out for everyone’s kids, making sure the little heathens don’t kill themselves or each other. Hell, that’s the definition of clan.”

  Duncan tugged his collar away from his neck as he eyed the widow Thompson leading her gaggle of children back to their table, each trying to reach it without spilling their plates of food. He sighed, figuring he probably better apologize to her again, seeing how she owned the only working gravel pit in the area.

  Just as soon as Mac had hired him to do the resort’s site work, Duncan had started calling around to find the closest gravel pit to Spellbound Falls. He would eventually dig his own pit farther up the mountain, but he needed immediate access to gravel to start building the road. Duncan had been relieved to discover that the Thom
pson pit was just a mile from where the resort road would start, and that it had a horseback of good bank run gravel. He’d also learned Bill Thompson had been killed in a construction accident three years ago.

  Which is why a feather could have knocked him over this morning as he’d stood beside his truck in the parking lot changing his shirt, when he’d finally put two and two together and realized he’d just pissed off the person he wanted to buy gravel from. He hoped she’d still sell to him now. And then even if she did, he’d likely be paying an arm and a leg for every last rock and grain of sand.

  “Which branch of the military were you in?” Trace asked.

  Duncan looked down at himself in surprise. “Funny; I could have sworn I left my uniform in Iraq.”

  Trace chuckled. “You forgot to leave that guarded look with it.” He shrugged. “It’s common knowledge that every MacKeage and MacBain serves a stint in the military.” He suddenly frowned. “Only I’ve never heard it said that any of the women in your families have served.”

  “And they won’t as long as Greylen MacKeage and Michael MacBain are still lairds of our clans,” Duncan said with a grin. “It’ll take a few more generations before we let our women deliberately put themselves in harm’s way.”

  Trace shook his head. “You really are all throwbacks. You must have a hell of a time finding wives. Or is that why some of you resort to kidnapping?”

  Duncan decided he liked Trace Huntsman. “There’s no ‘resorting’ to it; we’re merely continuing a family tradition that actually seems to work more often than it backfires. And besides, it beats the hell out of wasting time dating a woman for two or three years once we’ve found the right one.”

  “You don’t think the woman might like to make sure you’re the right one before she finds herself walking down the aisle, wondering how she got there?”

  Duncan shifted his weight off his knee with a shrug. “Not according to my father. Dad claims time is the enemy when it comes to courting; that if a man takes too long wooing a woman, then he might as well hand her his manhood on a platter.”

  Trace eyed him suspiciously. “Are you serious?”

  “Tell me, Huntsman; how’s courting Fiona been working for you?”

  “We’re not talking about me,” he growled. “We’re talking about you MacKeages and your habit of scaring women into marrying you.”

  “I did notice you managed to get an engagement ring on her finger,” Duncan pressed on. “So when’s the wedding?”

  Trace relaxed back on his hips and folded his arms over his chest with a heavy sigh. “You don’t happen to have an available cabin in Pine Creek, do you?”

  Duncan slapped Trace on the back and started them toward the refreshment table. “Considering Fiona is Matt Gregor’s baby sister, I think you might want to look for a cabin a little farther away. Hell, everyone within twenty miles of Pine Creek heard Matt’s roar when he learned she was openly living with you without benefit of marriage.”

  Trace stopped in front of the large bowl of dark ale and glared at Duncan. “A fact that has brought us full circle back to women being warriors. The only reason I’m still alive is because Fiona puts the fear of God into her brothers if they so much as frown at me.” He looked at Peg Thompson, then back at Duncan—specifically at the scratch on his cheek. “Trust me; the strong-arm approach won’t work on any woman who can handle children. Not if a man values his hide.”

  Duncan refilled his tankard. “Which is exactly why I’m still a bachelor,” he said, just before gulping down his third kick-in-the-ass like a true highlander.