Charmed by His Love (31 page)

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?

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 supposed 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.”

Duncan also looked around from the vantage point of their being three-quarters of the way up the mountain. “But it’s not a campfire.”

“There,” Alec said, pointing. “Down across the fiord, do ye see that faint glow?”

“Christ, that’s the pit!” Duncan snarled, already making his way into the trees. “They must have torched our equipment.”

“Nay, that’s not diesel fuel,” Robbie said from right behind him. “That’s the smell of a structure fire.”

A chill unlike any he’d ever experienced ran up the length of Duncan’s spine, propelling him through the darkness like a man pursued by demons—or rather like a man who suddenly knew the terror of losing all that he loved in an instant.

Peg stood beside her truck on the tote road overlooking her pit, numbed nearly insensate as she watched the flames shooting into the night sky beyond the knoll.

“Please, Mrs. Thompson, won’t you at least sit in the truck where it’s warm?” Sam Dalton once again petitioned.

“I’m fine, Sam,” she murmured as she glanced behind her to see her children also watching the fire—the girls with an
arm wrapped around each of the twins and the pup’s nose pressed up against the glass between them. She looked back toward the flashing red strobes of the fire engines, hearing the distant shouts of men rising above the heavy whine of pumps pulling water out of the cove.

She’d awakened to pounding on her door a little over an hour ago and opened it to a man she didn’t know. Her house in the woods was on fire, he’d told her, and he wanted her and the children out of her home on the chance the fire might spread. He’d also told her they’d already called 911, and that the rest of Duncan’s crew was on their way from the campsite up the main road.

Peg had immediately gotten the children dressed and sent them to stand up on the tote road next to the fiord while she had run to the garage with her arms full of blankets. She’d driven the SUV over to the road and parked it out of the way, leaving it running with the heater on and her children safely inside. She’d spent the last hour keeping watch for Duncan, a little bummed that he hadn’t come looking for her. But then, she hadn’t seen him or Alec or Robbie since they’d climbed in Duncan’s truck at four this afternoon—no, yesterday afternoon, as it was already breaking dawn.

“It could be an electrical fire,” Sam said hesitantly, obviously at a loss for how to deal with her. “That happens more often than you know on homes under construction.”

“There wasn’t any power running to the house,” Peg said as she continued watching the fire ravage three years of desperately hard work. “I had the temporary service cut off several years ago and used a generator when I needed power.”

“Duncan had six men staying on the hillside,” Sam said, “and not one of them heard anything. The two guys on watch said they didn’t know anything was wrong until they saw the flames because the breeze was blowing away from them.” The older man sidled closer and finally just wrapped an arm around her. “With the firemen here now, they’ll be able to keep it away from your home,” he assured her, his hand patting her arm. “And the fire marshal will find out what started it.”

Not that it mattered, Peg thought as she stifled a sigh; because accidental or arson, her nearly finished house would still be burned down to its foundation.

Sam’s arm tightened protectively when a boat suddenly came roaring into the cove from the fiord and slammed almost full length up onto the beach before three men scrambled out and started running toward the knoll.

“Duncan!” Peg shouted when she recognized them in the dawn light. She broke away from Sam and ran down the knoll. “We’re up here!”

The men stopped and turned and started running toward her, Duncan stopping just in time to catch Peg when she threw herself into his arms.

“Christ, I’ve never been so scared in my life,” he growled, hugging her tightly as he threaded his fingers through her hair to hold her against his chest. He tilted her head back. “Where are the children?” he asked thickly as he gazed up past her. She felt his chest expand and deflate on a sigh, and he squeezed her against him again. “I thought your goddamned house was on fire.”

“My new house is,” she said into his jacket, his arms tightening when she shuddered. She wiped her eyes and leaned back. “I brought the kids up here in case it spread.” She buried her face in his chest again and wrapped her arms around him, only at the last minute remembering his sore ribs. “Can … Will you just hold me a minute?”

“Forever, lass.” He pressed his face to her hair and squeezed her again. “Promise me everyone’s okay; that the children are all okay.”

“They’re fine. Your men alerted us.”

“What in hell happened?” he growled as he lifted his head, although his hug didn’t lessen—and Peg realized he wasn’t growling at her. “There were supposed to be two men on watch at all times.”

“There were, Boss. And the first sign that anything was wrong was when they saw flames shooting out of the new house.”

Duncan leaned away to look down at her. “I need to see the children,” he said, his voice thick again as he started toward the truck with his arm around her. “They must be scared out of their minds.”

Suddenly drunk with relief that he was here, Peg gave a semihysterical laugh. “Peter said he didn’t want to move into that dumb old house anyway.”

Duncan veered to put a tree between them and the truck and stopped, turning to palm her face and brush his thumbs over her damp cheeks. “I’ll build ye a new house.” He lowered his lips just shy of touching hers, the flashing lights reflecting his intense gaze. “And have ye all moved in within a month.” He kissed her then, she suspected to keep her from protesting, and Peg wrapped her arms around his waist and melted into him to kiss him back—then nearly fell over when he suddenly straightened.

“
Now
ye respond?” he growled, grabbing her hand and heading up to the truck. “Hell, if I’d known that was all it would take, I’d have torched the goddamned house myself.” He opened the rear hatch. “Come here, you heathens, and let me see for myself that you’re okay,” he said, catching Jacob when the boy threw himself at him. He tucked Peter up against his other side and pulled first Isabel then Charlotte closer and gave the four of them a hug that lasted a full minute.

Peg used the sleeve of her sweatshirt to wipe her eyes in time to see the pup trying to squeeze into the group embrace just as another pair of strong arms eased her back against a solid chest. “I’m sorely glad you’re all okay, lass,” Alec said, giving her a gentle squeeze. “I swear to God that was the longest boat ride I’ve ever taken.”

Peg craned her head around to look up at him. “Where did you all go in a boat?” Alec dropped his arms and stepped away when Duncan turned to lean on the bumper with Peter and Jacob in his arms, so Peg asked him. “What were you guys doing out on the fiord?”

“We climbed a mountain on the other side,” Duncan said, “so we could get a look at where we’re laying out the resort road from that perspective.”

“At night?”

He shrugged, shrugging both boys. “There’s enough of a moon to see the contours better than in the daytime, actually. We were three-quarters of the way up one of the mountains when we smelled smoke and saw the glow of flames.”

Peg looked toward the fiord, then toward her house that was nothing but billowing smoke now, and then she looked directly at Duncan. “The wind’s blowing in the wrong direction for you to have smelled smoke over there.”

“It must be blowing in that direction higher up,” he said, giving her a wink.

“Your … You look like you haven’t shaved in a couple of days.” Peg turned to Alec. “So do you,” she said, even as she realized it couldn’t be true, since she’d just had lunch with them yesterday when her mom and aunt had fed both Robbie’s and Duncan’s crews here at the pit.

“We do go through a lot of razors,” Alec drawled, rubbing his grinning jaw.

“Why don’t ye shut off the truck, Peg,” Duncan said, straightening to stand with the boys in his arms. “And bring those blankets so we can all sit out here together and watch the firemen work.”

“Please put the boys down, Duncan,” she said when Alec headed to the driver’s door to shut off the truck instead. “Your ribs aren’t healed enough to hold them.”

“I’m right as rain, Peg,” he said, his eyes lighting with the first rays of sun peeking over the mountains across the fiord. He gave the boys a jostle. “In fact, I do believe I’ve never felt better in my life.”