Charmed by His Love (34 page)

He’d had a long talk with Ian when he’d gone home last weekend, and his nephew had told him that he hadn’t known he’d had a calling, either, until good old Roger de Keage had all but hit him over the head with it. But Ian had assured Duncan that the moment he’d touched the staff Roger had given him, he’d instantly understood the full scope of his power and how to control it.

Christ, he hoped that’s how it was going to work for him, because he really needed some clarity about what he was doing. He sighed, wondering if Peg might be willing to watch sunsets instead of sunrises from her kitchen window, because
he was pretty sure he needed to build their home on the seat of his power.

Duncan felt her stir and instantly stiffen, obviously so scared that she didn’t dare move even a muscle. He slowed the boat to an idle then shut off the engine, and gently cupped her face to look at him. “I’m sorry for putting ye out like that,” he said as he brushed his fingers over her forehead, hoping she could see his smile in the moonlight. “I’m guessing ye have one hell of a headache, but I thought it would be less traumatic than a rope and gag.”

Okay, that probably wasn’t the brightest thing to say, seeing how she shrank away from his touch and stopped breathing, the moonlight showing the terror in her eyes. He sighed again and slowly sat her up on the floor in front of him—ready to grab her if she decided jumping in the water might be preferable to being in the boat with him. “This isn’t what it seems, lass. I’m not really kidnapping—well, okay, I am, but not to do ye any harm. I have a powerful favor to ask, but I … You’re going to have to trust … Aw, hell, Peg,” he growled, scrubbing his face with his hands. “My word of honor, I’ll have ye back home safe and sound an hour after sunrise.”

She scrambled away with a gasp until she bumped into the next seat. “I can’t be gone all night. My children!”

“They’re perfectly safe with Mom and Dad.”

“But your parents are expecting us back no later than ten!”

He shook his head. “I told Dad that if we’re not home by eleven, then we won’t be back until morning.”

“Your
father
knows you’re doing this to me?” She dropped her gaze to his feet. “Please, Duncan, just take me home.”

“I promise I will—in the morning.” He reached forward to lift her chin. “But ye need to know that the magic’s going to make it seem like we’re gone for several days.”

She gasped again, clutching her coat closed at her throat as her eyes searched his. “Are you insane or am I?”

“Do you remember the night of the fire when Robbie and Alec and I arrived by boat, and ye noticed we all had the beginnings of beards?”

He saw confusion replace some of her fear as she slowly nodded.

“That was because we’d been on the mountain across the
fiord for two and a half days even though we’d left you just the afternoon before.”

“That’s not possible.”

“It is for the magic, lass. Because remember I told you that even if ye don’t believe, the magic goes about its business anyway?”

She dropped her gaze to his feet again, saying nothing—only to suddenly scramble toward him when something gently bumped the boat and surfaced right beside them. “Ohmigod, what is that?”

She was squeezing his neck so tightly, Duncan couldn’t help but smile that she was more afraid of things that went bump in the night than of him, apparently. “That would be a big old whale with a warped sense of humor.” He pried himself free, then turned Peg to put her back to his chest and wrapped his arms around her. “He’s just wanting to meet you, since I’ve told him all about this amazing woman I’ve been trying to catch the eye of.” He tightened his arms against her trembling. “I’m not sure if this is the same one or not, but a friend of Mac’s from Midnight Bay told me about this giant whale named Leviathan. Trace said he actually met Leviathan up close and personal one day, and that the beast is quite … friendly. He’s not going to hurt us, Peg. He’s just wanting to say hello.”

“P-please take me home,” she softly petitioned.

“In the morning,” he repeated, lowering her to sit between his legs. Keeping a hand on her shoulder, he reached back and started the engine. “I promise to have ye home before your children wake up.”

So with Peg huddled on the floor in front of him hugging herself and occasionally rubbing her forehead, Duncan resumed his trip at full throttle, not slowing down until he spotted the once again fully formed beach. The whale slipped back from keeping pace with them when Duncan shut off the engine and lifted the motor, and silently sank beneath the surface as they drifted up onto the gravel.

Peg didn’t move, and apparently wasn’t even willing to look at him. Duncan walked past her and climbed out and dragged the boat farther up onto the beach, then grabbed the rope on the bow and tied it to the closest tree. He took his
sword out and slipped it on over his shoulders, then grabbed the backpack and extended his free hand. “Come on, Peg.”

She still didn’t move except to curl into a tighter ball.

“The sooner we get going, the sooner you’ll be home, lass.” He sighed when she still refused to move. “And the more cooperative ye are, the less of a bastard I’ll be.”

She finally lifted her head. “You promised never to hurt me.”

“I’m trying to keep that promise by keeping you safe, but I need to get hold of the magic to do that.”

“W-what’s the favor you want from me?”

He dropped his hand. “There’s something I’m needing that’s in a cave up on the mountain behind me, but my shoulders are too broad to reach it. Wait; you aren’t claustrophobic, are you?” he asked, just now realizing that might be a problem. “Because there’s about twenty or thirty feet of the cave that’s quite narrow.”

She immediately nodded. “Yes. Yes, I’m scared to death of tight places,” she blatantly lied. “I just freeze up and can’t move.” She lowered her gaze and shrugged her shoulders. “So I guess I can’t help you, so you might as well take me home.” But curiosity apparently getting the best of her, she looked up again. “Um, what is it that you wanted me to get for you?” she asked, her gaze lifting to the mountain behind him. “Gold? Or tourmaline? Did you find a gem mine or something?”

“I doubt it’s gems,” he said, shaking his head. “I’m not exactly sure what’s in there because I can’t actually see it, because the cave curves too sharply.”

“Then how do you know something’s even there?” she snapped.

Duncan ran a hand over his jaw to hide his grin, glad to see she was finally tired of being afraid. “I just know. I can feel its energy.”

She snorted and settled back against the side of the boat and hugged her knees to her chest. “Then I guess you’re going to have to ask some narrow-shouldered fairy to crawl in there and get it for you.”

“Christ, you’re contrary,” he muttered, dropping the backpack. He walked along the boat, reached in, plucked her out, and stood her on her feet, then bent to get right in her face.
“We can do this the hard way if you insist, just so long as you realize we’re not leaving here until I have what I came for—even if it takes a
month
. You really want to be away from your children that long?”

“Fine,” she growled, jerking away and striding toward the woods. She waved over her shoulder. “Just so
you
realize that I’m pressing kidnapping charges against you the moment we get back.” She stopped and turned and even pointed a finger at him—which he happened to notice was trembling. “And I’m chaining off the pit, and if I ever see you on my land again, I’m digging out my shotgun.”

That said, she spun around and strode up into the trees, and Duncan finally let his grin escape as he wondered how long before Peg realized she didn’t know where to go. He walked over and snatched up the backpack and followed, only to find her standing in the middle of the bed of moss hugging herself as she looked around.

“The cave’s three-quarters of the way up the mountain,” he said, dropping to one knee beside her and opening the backpack. “I’ve brought ye a change of clothes and some sturdy boots that you might want to put on before we start the hike up.”

She turned to face him and stepped back. “You’ve had this
planned
?”

He pulled a pair of jeans and a sweatshirt out and set them on the ground. “For a few days,” he said with a nod. He looked up at her. “I came over here twice before; first trying to find what I was looking for, and then with Alec and Robbie. The first trip is when I found the pup and also when I fell into a hole inside the mountain. The last time was the night your house burned. I had hopes of reaching my … instrument of power without involving you, but it seems Mac has made that impossible.”

She took another step back. “What does Mac have to do with this?”

Duncan sat down and patted the moss beside him. “Come here, Peg, and I’ll tell you a fantastical tale that might help make sense of what we’re doing.”

She did sit down, but on the other side of the backpack. “If you think I’m going to— What is that noise I keep hearing?” she asked suddenly, looking around. “It sounds like breathing
or … snoring or something. Only it’s seems to be coming from everywhere.”

Duncan rolled to his knees in front of her. “You can
hear
that?” He grabbed her shoulders. “Truly, Peg, you can hear the mountain?”

She shrank away from him. “The mountain?” she whispered, looking around again. “You think it’s
breathing
? You … you hear it, too?”

He pulled her into his arms and kissed the top of her head. “Ah, lass, ye have no idea how relieved I am that you can sense the mountain’s energy.” He tilted her head back, although he couldn’t see her that well because they were in the woods. “That’s the magic, Peg. That’s what I’ve been talking about.” He hugged her to him again. “And you can feel it.”

“Mountains don’t breathe,” she muttered, pushing against his chest. She bent her knees when he let her go and wrapped her arms around them, apparently to keep him from hugging her again. “Mountains are inanimate objects made of rock and dirt and granite.”

“Tell the good people of Spellbound Falls they’re inanimate,” he said with a chuckle, sitting down beside her. “Because I’m pretty sure some of these mountains picked themselves up and
moved
about a month ago.” He rested his arms on his knees and looked toward the fiord. “Nothing’s inanimate, lass; quantum physics has already proven that much. Everything, even something as solid as granite, is nothing but pure energy.” He gestured behind him even though he wasn’t certain she could see it. “This mountain is very much alive, but at the moment it’s … napping.”

“Okay,” she said with a snort. “Now you’re just messing with me.” She picked up the clothes he’d set beside the pack and scrambled to her feet. “I have no idea why you’re so all-fired determined to make me believe mountains breathe and there’s something on this one that you— Um, Duncan?” she suddenly whispered in midsentence. “How did you pick out what size clothes to bring for me?”

He frowned up at her; enough moonlight reflecting off the water for him to see that she’d dropped the shirt and was holding the jeans up by the waist. “I guessed, mostly. I wear a
thirty-eight waist, and figured since you’re about half my size that you’d wear an eighteen or twenty.”

“You got me size
twenty
clothes?” she cried. She stepped up and held the jeans spread open in front of his face. “Do you honest to God think my ass is that wide?” she growled, shaking the pants at him.

Duncan snagged them out of her hands so she would quit hitting him with them. “I
think
that’s a loaded question coming from a woman,” he growled back, even as he held the pants up and realized they’d likely fall off
him
. “Why in hell are they bigger than mine if the number is less than half my waist size?”

She snatched them back. “Because women don’t like wearing big numbers on our asses.” She shook the jeans at him again. “Did you even unfold them to see if they at least looked like they’d fit me?”

Duncan dropped his chin to his chest to hide his grin. Christ, she was in a full-blown rage, and all over the size of a pair of jeans. But at least she was through being afraid of him—although she may be planning his death, he realized when she hurled the jeans at his head.

“Did you even look at them?” she repeated.

“Not closely,” he muttered, tossing the pants over his shoulder into the trees. “Wait, check out the other pair. I had the salesgirl go get them when I realized I should bring two changes of clothes, and I told her that you were just about her size. Maybe she grabbed smaller ones. Here,” he said, opening a side pocket on the pack and handing her a headlamp. “Put this on so you can see what you’re doing.”

She turned on the light, slid it on her head, and adjusted the straps, then pointed the three LED bulbs directly at him, making Duncan have to lift his hand before he went permanently blind. “Thanks,” she said far too cheerily, turning to look down into the top of the pack—which thankfully took the lights off him.

He heard her sigh just before she sat back on her heels holding the other jeans and blinded him again. “The only reason you’re not dead right now is because the salesgirl was a size smaller than me.” She straightened to her knees and trained
the light into the pack again, then reared up with a gasp when her hand came out holding a box.

Duncan closed his eyes when he saw what she was holding. “I … ah … I had a worry that it might be your time of the month.”

“Please tell me you didn’t buy this stuff from Ezra,” she whispered.

“Nay, I shopped in Turtleback Station.”

She dropped the box on the moss with a snort, then pulled two pairs of thick wool socks out of the pack, another sweatshirt—that he was afraid was size twenty—and finally the boots. She peeled back the tongue on one of them and shone the light inside before tossing them down. And then he heard her gasp again as her hand emerged with a pair of panties dangling from her finger.

“These you get in a size
four
?” she growled, blinding him with light as she shoved the scrap of lace in his face.

He snatched the panties away and shoved them in his pocket. “What in hell size do ye wear, then?”