Charmed by His Love (43 page)
“They won’t, lass. I’ll have ye right as rain before we leave here. But I’m going to need your cooperation, wife, to let me heal you.”
She lifted her head to finally look at him. “H-how?”
He smiled. “By kissing away your boo-boos,” he said, partly to piss her off but mostly because he was serious about touching every inch of her trembling body.
She looked down at her lap, but not before he saw a slight scowl tug at one corner of her swollen mouth, and Duncan took his first full breath since he’d heard Peter and Jacob shouting from the boat out on the fiord.
“Where … where’s Chris?” she asked, glancing at where he’d been standing.
“Right here, actually, only four hundred years in the past.”
She looked up, this time with a hint of a smile as she pressed a trembling hand to his cheek and sighed. “You can be a real bastard like that sometimes,” she said, dropping her hand and snuggling against him with another sigh. “Okay, husband, you may start kissing away.”
Peg stood at the end of the Inglenook road, undecided who was going to burst into tears first, her or Duncan or Mac. Well okay, the men might not actually cry, but they definitely weren’t looking all that big and strong and unkillable at the moment. But having barely survived this ordeal twice already and knowing this time would be even worse, Peg had all her pockets stuffed with tissues.
Hell, even Hero knew something was afoot.
Olivia seemed to be the only one who didn’t look as if she were attending a funeral, instead appearing eager to have the whole matter over with so she could get to the Drunken Moose for some cinnamon buns. Yeah, well, the woman would be wearing a different expression six years from now. But then, Peg thought with a sigh, she’d be wearing the same expression herself for the
fourth
time.
She really, really needed to have a little talk with Providence, because she really didn’t think she could go through this a fifth or sixth time.
“Mom,” Jacob whispered, tugging on Peg’s sleeve. He held up his other hand to her. “Maybe you should keep this in your pocket today, ’cause you look like you need it more than me.”
Peg dropped down to one knee and closed Jacob’s fingers
over the small, smooth stone Duncan had given him last night when he’d tucked the boys into bed, which was identical to the one he’d handed Peter. “Thanks, sweetie, but I think you better take it with you. And if you get even a little bit scared today, you reach in your pocket and close your fist around your very own piece of home.” She pulled the straps of his backpack together to press them against his chest and smiled. “Remember Duncan said that rock is filled with very powerful magic because it came from deep inside our mountain, and that all you have to do is close your eyes and picture swimming in the warm water pool when you’re holding it, and you’ll start feeling right as rain in no time.”
“But don’t forget to take it out of your pocket first,” Duncan said thickly, having also dropped to one knee. He brushed a hand—that Peg noticed was shaking slightly—over Jacob’s hair. “You’re going to be fine,” he murmured, even as Peg wondered if he was trying to reassure the boy or himself.
She saw her husband suddenly stiffen then quickly stand up, his gaze shooting down the main road. He scooped Peter up in one arm, then reached down and helped her stand before he scooped Jacob up in his other arm. Mac was also holding Henry, Peg noticed just as she heard the rumble of the school bus climbing the long grade that crested a quarter of a mile down the road.
“Quick, everyone,” Olivia said, pulling a camera out of her pocket. “All of you stand together and I’ll get the bus in the picture with you when it stops.”
Everyone dutifully moved to the opposite side of the Inglenook road as directed. Peg pulled Charlotte and Isabel in front of her as she tucked herself up against Duncan’s chest between the twins. Sophie held Mac’s hand as he held Henry in his other arm, and Hero trotted over and sat down in front of everyone—only facing the main road instead of the lens.
“Wait. You need to be in the picture, too,” Peg said. “Trip the timer and set the camera on the hood of your truck.”
Olivia snapped one quick shot, then rushed around the front fender of Mac’s SUV. She set the camera on the hood, then leaned down to align it, pushed a button, and ran over to tuck herself behind her daughter against Mac’s side. “Smile,
everyone,” she said just as the school bus ground to a halt on the main road, sending a billowing cloud of dust toward them.
“Duncan,” Jacob said. “You got to let us down ’cause we got to get on the bus.”
Peg took a fortifying breath and turned, reaching up to take Peter away from him. Only Duncan stepped back, his grip on the boys tightening. “I’ve got them,” he growled thickly. “You’re not supposed to be lifting anything heavy.”
Peg looked down to hide her consternation as he turned and very slowly walked to the school bus, still carrying the twins. And then she took another deep breath when Charlotte slid her hand into hers.
“You’ll be okay, Mom,” her daughter said as she started leading Peg toward the bus. She gave her a squeeze as she tilted her head up with a smile. “I’m not real sure about Duncan, though.”
Peg pulled her to a stop, then grabbed Isabel’s sleeve to stop her, also. “What am I going to do all day without the boys stuck to me like glue? And you two,” she said, smoothing down each girl’s pretty new jacket. She tucked a strand of hair behind Charlotte’s ear to expose one of her shiny birthstone earrings. “We had so much fun together this summer out on Bottomless and hiking the mountain.”
Charlotte patted Peg’s arm, smiling crookedly. “We’ll be back this afternoon, Mom. And don’t worry; Isabel and I will keep an eye on Pete and Repeat.”
Peg bunched Charlotte’s jacket in her fist. “You don’t let anyone at school call him Repeat, you understand? If you hear them, you go tell the principal.”
“Mommm,”
Isabel said, pulling Peg along. “Duncan’s waiting at the door for you to kiss the boys good-bye.”
“Oh. Oh! Peter, Jacob,” she said, rushing to them. She pulled each one down and gave them each several loud kisses. “You both be good, you hear?” she said, gripping their arms as she valiantly held her tears inside. “I promise I’ll be right there at Ezra’s store waiting to pick you up off the bus this afternoon.”
“Mommm, good-bye,”
Peter whispered tightly, eyeing the children on the bus eyeing them.
Only instead of setting them down, Duncan walked right up into the bus behind Sophie and Isabel and Charlotte, followed by Mac carrying Henry.
Olivia slid her arm through Peg’s with a laugh. “Wouldn’t it be nice if there were a bus that took the men away all day, too?”
Peg found her first real smile of the morning as she patted her slightly bulging belly. “I swear Duncan spends more time watching me than he does working.” She sighed. “Apparently pregnant women can’t even lift something as heavy as a paintbrush, much less hang curtains. And God forbid I should want to go for a walk in the woods
all by myself
,” she said with a laugh.
Olivia snorted, patting her own protruding belly. “Mac flew into a panic the other day when I said I was taking Sophie to Bangor to have a mother-daughter day before school started. I swear no fewer than two dozen seagulls followed us all the way down to Bangor and back, the little spies.” She gestured toward the bus—which the men were
still
on. “Honestly, you’d think Henry was going to Siberia the way my dear sweet husband has been acting all morning.”
Peg shook her head. “I would like to have been a fly on the wall after you took Henry in to be tested for his grade level. I bet no one at school knew what to do with him.” She gave Olivia’s arm a squeeze. “I’m glad you only let them put him ahead two grades. He might be the smartest kid on the planet, but he’s still only six years old. Isabel’s pretty miffed Henry’s starting school in the third grade with Sophie instead of in her class.”
“She can’t be any more upset than Mac is,” Olivia said. “When Sophie showed him some of her schoolwork from last year, he threatened to open a private school for all our children right here at Inglenook.” She leaned closer. “He wanted to bring in a couple of teachers from Atlantis, claiming he was fluent in six languages and doing algebra by the time he was Sophie’s age.”
“He’s a friggin’ wizard,” Peg said on a laugh. “He was probably doing algebra in the womb.” She glanced down at Olivia’s belly, figuring they’d have their babies within a few weeks of
each other. “So, when are you going to tell me if you’re having a boy or a girl?”
“When it’s born,” Olivia said. “Mac wants to be surprised, so he’s not peeking.”
They both looked up at the sound of the bus finally leaving, and Peg had to grab Duncan as Olivia grabbed Mac, and the women pulled them over to the side of the road. Duncan had brought his little clan over on the pontoon boat this morning to join the Oceanuses so all the children could meet the bus together for the thirty-mile ride to Turtleback Station on this first day of school.
“The bus turns here,” Olivia explained when Mac frowned at her, “because this is its last stop now that Peg lives across the fiord.”
The men wrapped their arms around their respective wives, Duncan resting his chin on Peg’s head. She smiled when she felt the tension in him as the school bus backed into the Inglenook road then turned and headed toward town, and Peg felt her first tear slip free when she saw Peter and Jacob’s excited little faces looking out the window as they waved to her.
Duncan dropped his arms from around her when the bus suddenly stopped not a hundred yards down the road and the driver’s head popped out a window. “Somebody want to come get this dog off the bus?” he hollered back with a grin.
Duncan took off with a muttered curse, running down the road and disappearing up the ditch side of the bus, only to reappear a minute later carrying Hero as the dog kept whining and frantically struggling to get down.
Mac suddenly ushered Peg and Olivia toward the SUV. “We should probably hurry to the Drunken Moose before all the buns are gone,” he said, opening the back door for Peg before leading Olivia around to the front passenger side.
Duncan tossed Hero in the back, then got in the seat next to Peg. “Let’s go,” he said, his attention on the bus rumbling out of sight down over the hill.
Mac pulled onto the main road without even looking for traffic, and Olivia glanced over her shoulder at Peg, her eyes dancing with amusement. But instead of going around the bus when it pulled over to let them pass, Mac patiently made every
stop it did to pick up more children before reaching town. And then, instead of pulling into one of the open parking slots, he stopped right in the middle of the road.
“Why don’t you ladies go in and visit with Ezra,” Mac suggested to Olivia. “There’s a store in Turtleback that Duncan says has the exact pair of work boots I need for the construction site, so I believe we might as well run down and get them right now. We’ll be back in no time, and then we’ll all go over to the Drunken Moose for breakfast.”
Peg figured Olivia didn’t move quite fast enough when she saw Mac unclip his wife’s seat belt, then lean over and give her a quick kiss on the cheek just as her door suddenly opened on its own. “See you soon, honey.”
Duncan pulled Peg out his side of the truck with him, gave her a quick kiss on her forehead, then hugged her. “Ye don’t fret over the boys,” he whispered. “They’ll be just fine,” he said, again making Peg wonder who he was trying to reassure when he jumped in the front seat and Mac took off before he even had his door closed.
Olivia slid her arm through Peg’s and started walking toward the path leading down to the newly reconstructed park at the foot of the falls. “How much do you want to bet they get halfway back here before they remember they went to buy boots?” she asked, pulling Peg down beside her on one of the benches.
Mimicking Olivia, Peg also leaned back, folded her hands over her belly, and shook her head with a laugh that still had a lingering trace of tears. “Aren’t we lucky to have both fallen in love with big, strong, invincible men?”
“And charmed,” Olivia whispered, nudging Peg’s shoulder with her own. “Let’s not forget how charmed they both are.”
LETTER FROM LAKEWATCH
Spring 2012
Dear Readers,
Mother Nature absolutely has no modesty. I can personally attest to this, as for the last several days there’s been a lot of sex going on just outside my writing studio. I’ve stormed out onto my deck and shouted that I’m trying to write a book here, so could everyone please
go get a room
, only to be answered by such raucous laughter that I had to slink back inside and close my windows and pull the shades.
Honestly, I swear they shouted right back at me to
get a life, lady
.
It’s not just those horny mallard drakes all vying for the attention of a single harried hen, either. It’s my dear sweet crows renewing their vows of monogamy while directing maiden aunts and bachelor uncles on building a new nest. It’s a pair of bald eagles trying to get this year’s family started while putting up with last year’s offspring complaining that they’re bored and can’t find anything to eat. And it’s loons showing up with the first crack in the ice large enough to be a landing strip and immediately starting in with their haunting, tremulous calls day and night. It’s male woodpeckers incessantly tapping a metal chimney, hoping there’s a cute little female within earshot. Muskrats, robins, squirrels, skunks, fox, osprey, Canada geese; you name it and LakeWatch has it—all having sex (or trying damned hard to) right there in broad daylight, in
plain sight of children walking home from school. Heck, even the frogs and peepers are calling from the bogs before the ice is completely gone from the lake.
I’m beginning to think one of the most powerful forces in the universe is the need to reproduce. Pacific salmon
die
swimming upstream to lay their eggs. A mama octopus starves tending her brood and is too weak to save herself once her little octopi set off to explore the deep blue sea. Even plants are more concerned with furthering their species than saving themselves, putting their energies into propagation at the first signs of stress. (I believe I’ve mentioned before that I’m addicted to the Discovery Channel.)
Speaking of energy; I must be getting old, because I look at young people and wonder where they get the energy to deal with all the drama involved in pairing up while trying to get their own lives in order. I feel even older still seeing them having babies, when my husband and I need naps after our grandkids come visit for just a few hours.
I digress. Sorry. Back to Mother Nature’s immodesty and how that inspires my writing. I get a lot of raised eyebrows when I say I’m a romance author—usually from the men. The women usually just ask for titles. (When my husband gets one of those raised eyebrows, he just says he does all my research. Honestly, he says that with a perfectly straight face! But it effectively forestalls any more questions, and is quite often met with envy from the men.)
From the prudes I immediately get, “Oh, you write
those
kinds of books.”
Yes, I do, and I’m damned proud of it. Can somebody please tell me how to tell a story involving two people falling in love and
not
have sex be part of their journey? Sure, I could have the hero sweep the heroine into his arms and carry her into the bedroom, then have him kick the door closed with his foot to keep the reader out. But honestly, I want to go in there with them, because I’ve discovered you find out an awful lot about people when they’re naked. Stuff you would never find out when they’re all dressed up in their designer-label armor. A sassy-mouthed vixen suddenly
becomes self-conscious; a powerful warrior hesitates; a wallflower awakens.
It’s not about the sex; it’s about the love. It’s discovering
who
is really hiding behind the masks people hold up to the big scary world, and about the truly most powerful force in the universe—that of love rippling with passion and desire.
Birds do it, bees do it; and if those noisy ducks can do it with wild abandon right there on my beachfront, then by God my hero and heroine had better let me—and my readers—sneak into the bedroom while they do it.
We promise we won’t giggle … too loudly.
Until later from a raucous LakeWatch, you keep reading and I’ll keep writing.
Janet
