Charmed by His Love (20 page)

Peg tossed her purse and the paper plates across the driver’s seat onto the floor and jumped in, only to stop with the key half-slid in the ignition when she smelled fumes. She looked in back but everything was its normal messy self and sniffed again, deciding it smelled chemically. She tripped the hood latch and got back out and walked around the front of the van, but stopped in the act of lifting the hood when she noticed something on the front passenger fender.

Peg walked around the side of the van and nearly fell in the ditch when she stumbled backward, clutching her jacket as she read the words spray-painted the entire length of the lower side of her van. She glanced right and left and then turned to face the woods as she slowly backed up onto the road. She looked toward the path and saw people on the trestle, but nobody she recognized.

She started shaking. Oh God, what if the twins had been with her? There was no way she could drive this van home looking like that and … saying what it did. She shoved the van’s hood closed, rushed around and reached in and got her purse, then ran down the road trying to decide what to do.

Oh God, she couldn’t let anyone see that side of her van!

She stopped at the end of the horse trailer parked in front of the church and leaned a hand on the tailgate to catch her breath, deciding to call her mom to come get the boys and go meet the bus while she got rid of the van. Peg took one last deep breath as she straightened. Yeah, she’d hide it on some tote road for now and decide what to do about it tonight when she had more time to think. She walked around the end of the
trailer just in time to see Jacob—still on Robbie’s shoulders—reaching up to the bars to pat the large nose pressed against them.

“What’s wrong?” Alec asked the moment he turned and saw her. He walked over with Peter in his arms. “You’ve been running,” he said, looking over her shoulder, then back at her. “What’s wrong?” he repeated softly.

“Nothing,” Peg said with a winded smile. “I was just down at the other end of town when I saw the horse trailer, and I ran up here to relieve you of your two little helpers.” She shrugged, mostly to loosen the knot in her pounding chest. “I have to get going anyway, to meet the bus at the Inglenook road.”

“Mom, the horses are going to Inglenook,” Jacob said excitedly as Robbie walked over. “And Mr. Robbie said we can
ride
on them. But only if you say it’s okay.”

Peg looked at Robbie. “Logging horses don’t mind letting people ride them?”

“They’re not harness drafts,” he said, appearing offended. “They’re mounts.”

“Why would anyone ride such large horses?” she asked in surprise.

“Because we’re large men,” Alec said with a chuckle. “If you’re meeting the bus at Inglenook, the boys could ride with us if you’d like.”

“Yeah,” the twins said almost in unison.

“Pleeeze?”
Jacob added.

Oh God, leaving them while she was a stone’s throw away was one thing, but letting them go with the men? “Um, I have an errand to run.” Damn, she’d lied herself into a corner she just realized. “So I was going to have my mother come meet me at the end of the Inglenook road and take the children home.” And she still had to figure out how to get herself home.

Alec’s eyes narrowed in suspicion. “We can save your mother the trip by watching the boys and then Charlotte and Isabel until you get back. That is, if you’re comfortable leaving them with us.”

Oh God, was she? “My errand might take me an hour or two to run.”

“Olivia’s at home,” Robbie reminded her, his smile not quite reaching his eyes as his gaze searched hers. “Is the van
running okay? Because Gunter’s pretty good with engines,” he said, waving at the young man standing at the front of the rig.

“No. No, it’s running just fine. There’s just something … personal I have to do without the children.” She sighed and shoved her hands in her pockets so he or Alec wouldn’t see them shaking.

“Pete was just telling me that he’s going to school on the bus this fall,” Alec said. “And that he’s worried you’re going to miss him something fierce. This might be good practice for both of you.”

Robbie reached down on his belt, unclipped his cell phone, and held it out to her. “Take this, Peg, and you can call Alec’s phone and talk to either of the boys any time ye want during your errand.”

Peg pulled a hand out of her pocket, quickly took the phone, and clutched it to her chest. “They … they can be a handful sometimes.”

Alec chuckled, jouncing Peter. “I think we can handle them. What do you say, Mr. Pete? Are you going to pull any tricks on us?”

Apparently taking the question seriously, Peter vigorously shook his head, then looked at Peg. “Please, Mom? We want to go with the men.”

Peg saw Jacob vigorously nodding agreement with Peter, and she blew out a sigh and did her damnedest to smile. “Okay, you can go, and I’ll be right there to pick you up in one hour.”

“You take as long as ye need on your errand,” Robbie said. He nodded at her hand. “And call us every five minutes if ye want. Alec’s number is programmed in. And so is Duncan’s.”

“Where is he?” she asked, unable to believe she’d forgotten about him.

A sparkle came into Robbie’s eyes. “Up on the mountain with Mac.”

“Oh. Oh!” she repeated when she remembered Olivia telling her what they did up there. “Um, I’m going now.”

“Good-bye, then,” Alec said with a chuckle when she didn’t move.

“Mommm, leave,”
Peter whispered. “We got important work to do.”

Peg was pretty sure she had something important to do,
too. “Oh! Okay, good-bye,” she said, turning away only to turn back and walk up to Robbie and pull on Jacob’s sleeve to get him to bend down. But it was hopeless; she still couldn’t reach Jacob’s cheek—that is, until Robbie dropped to one knee. “Bye, big man. Be good.”

She kissed Peter in Alec’s arms. “You be extra good, you got it?”

“I got it,” Peter said, wiping her kiss on his shoulder only to stop when he realized what he was doing. “Good-
bye
, Mom.”

Peg gestured with the cell phone as she turned and headed back to her van. “They can call me if they want, too. It won’t interrupt my errand.” She started walking backward. “And thank you.”

She turned and started running, once again focusing on what she needed to do. But at least now she had a cell phone to call someone for a ride. So other than being the owner of a heap of scrap covered with vile words that she needed to get rid of, at least things were looking up in the little boys being around big strong men department.

Now, if she could just figure out how to actually use the phone, because honest to God, this was the first time she’d ever even held one.

Duncan stared down at the cell phone in his hand, tempted to throw it against one of the stall doors. What in hell was Peg doing—other than lying through her teeth?

“So what did she say?” Alec asked.

“She said she’s just coming in the Inglenook road.” He glanced at Peg’s four children brushing two of the horses tied in the aisle and frowned at Robbie. “Ye have no idea what was bothering her earlier, or what her personal errand was?”

“She had the look of someone being hunted at first,” Robbie said. “But then her worry turned to leaving the boys with us.”

“Which itself shows how cornered she obviously felt,” Alec added, “to agree to let us bring them here and also watch the girls.”

Duncan looked out the barn door and noticed the rain had finally slowed to a drizzle. “She sounded cold. And she—” He strode to the end of the aisle when he saw the car crest the knoll and watched it turn a circle into the parking lot and stop.

Peg got out and bent down to thank the driver, then closed the door and started toward the barn as the car drove off, shoving her hands in her jacket pockets as she hunched her shoulders. Christ, her pants were muddied all the way to her knees,
and if he wasn’t mistaken she was limping slightly. She suddenly stopped halfway to the barn when she spotted him just as Alec and Robbie came up to flank his sides.

“She’s been walking a muddy road for several miles,” Robbie also observed quietly. “And she looks soaked through and chilled to the bone.”

She started running toward them, which apparently hurt enough that she slowed back to a hurried walk. “Are the kids in the barn?” she asked as she approached, not making eye contact as she tried to veer past them.

Duncan stepped into her path, making her stop—although she didn’t lift her gaze to his. “Where’s your van?”

“I sold it to a junk dealer.” She tried to move past him. “Charlie, are you in there?”

He stepped in front of her again. “Who brought ye here?”

She finally looked up, and it was all he could do to hold his ground against the desperation in her eyes. “Somebody heading in the same direction I was. Charlie?” she called. “Get out here, please. Could you go see if Olivia can give us a ride home?” she asked when all four children came running out of the barn.

“Never mind, Charlotte,” Duncan said, giving Peg a look that dared her to argue. “I’ll take ye home.”

“Mom, we’ve been brushing the horses,” Pete said, rushing to her. “You gotta come see them. They’re huge!”

“Tomorrow, Peter.” She reached out to take Jacob’s hand. “Come on, guys, we need to go home.”

“I’ll get our book bags,” Charlotte said, heading back into the barn at the same time Peg turned away and headed toward Duncan’s truck.

“Where’s our van?” he heard Peter ask as he and Isabel ran to catch up to her.

“I sold it. We’ll get a new one next week,” Peg said, her voice trailing off as she rounded the front of his truck and opened the back door to let the kids in.

Isabel suddenly ran back with something in her hand. “Mom said to tell you thank you for letting her use your cell phone,” the girl said, handing it to Robbie and then rushing away just as Charlotte ran by with their book bags.

“Any idea what’s going on?” Duncan asked, watching Peg
climb in the passenger’s seat as Charlotte got in the back. He heard the engine start and saw Peg fiddling with the buttons on the dash—he assumed to start the heater. He looked first at Alec, then Robbie. “Because I agree with that hunted look.”

“She told us her van was parked at the other end of town,” Robbie said, “but that it was running fine.” He shrugged. “It’s possible she did sell it.”

“Before she had a replacement?” Duncan whispered so he wouldn’t roar. Dammit to hell, what was she hiding? He shook his head. “I’m guessing she ditched it on some old tote road for some reason, and that’s why she’s soaked and covered in mud.” He looked at Robbie. “I need to go back to Pine Creek tonight, so could you look into the missing van for me tomorrow … doing whatever in your power it takes to find it?”

Robbie nodded. “I’ll find it.”

Duncan turned to Alec. “I’m going to drive the wheeler back and leave my pickup for Peg.” He smiled tightly. “But I’ll let you wait until tomorrow to tell her, because I doubt she’s open to hearing it from me right now. You keep an eye on her while I’m gone, and see if ye can find out in town what may have happened.”

“People have a tendency to shut up when someone from away walks in,” Alec said. “Why don’t we just ask Mac to help?”

Duncan snorted. “Because the bastard’s too busy not interfering in people’s lives.” He started toward his truck, but stopped and looked back. “Oh, and Alec, while you’re in town tomorrow, see if ye can’t find us a camp cook. The one I had lined up called me this morning and said he couldn’t make it for family reasons.”

His nephew nodded. “I’ll do what I can on both counts.”

Duncan jogged to the truck and climbed in to dead silence but for the blast of the heater fan. He looked in back to see the twins sharing a seat belt in the middle between the girls, then silently put the truck in gear and headed out of the parking lot. The ride to Peg’s house was just as silent, making him wonder what she’d said to the children. Christ, she was visibly shivering.

He pulled in to her empty driveway, and Peg had her door open before he even shut off the truck. “Thank you for the
ride,” she said before softly closing the door. She opened the back door. “I’ll start supper once I get out of the shower, and you all wash up at the kitchen sink. Charlie, help the boys put on their pajamas.”

“No bath tonight?” Peter asked as he slid out.

“Not tonight. But take a washcloth to your face and hands, because you’ve been handling horses. Go,” she said, giving Jacob a nudge when he tried to say something.

Duncan got out, watching the kids troop onto the deck and into the house like good little soldiers as he followed Peg up the stairs and pulled her to a stop. “You need to tell me what’s going on.”

“No, I don’t.”

“I can help you.”

“Yes, I’m sure you can. But I can’t get in the habit of letting someone else solve my problems.” She made a valiant effort to smile past her chattering teeth. “No matter how broad … well, because I can’t,” she finished on a growl, spinning away.

He caught her sleeve and turned her back around, wrapping her up in his arms—partly to keep her warm but mostly just to piss her off. “I’ll find that van if I have to drive down every tote road between here and Turtleback Station.”