The Black Sheep and the Princess (15 page)

“Turns out my mechanically inclined brain isn't limited to trouble-shooting engine problems. Seems it also does a pretty good job when applied to various kinds of technology,” he answered seriously enough, though the grin lingered. “It didn't hurt that my years as a detective fine-tuned my problem-solving skills.” He half shrugged. “In my current field, it's a useful combination.”

“In your current field,” she repeated. “Good Samaritan techno security whiz.”

He sketched a short bow. “I'm just a simple fairy godfather, at your service.”

Her lips quirked. “You really need to stop saying that.”

“Don't worry,” he said, “I'm secure enough in my manhood to handle the moniker.” He looked back at his PDA and started tapping again. “God knows I've been called worse in my lifetime.” He scanned the field, the sky, then, distracted once again by the mission at hand, stepped back into the barn, still tapping on his PDA screen.

She stared openly now, trying to keep up with the information overload that was Donovan MacLeod, her mind spinning…her body clamoring. Not a wise combination. Not if she was going to be spending any appreciable alone time with him. Which, apparently, she was, seeing as they'd spent most of the day already all but joined at the hip.

She stepped into the barn behind him, and the question came out before she realized she'd thought it. “Where are you sleeping?”

He looked up, obviously surprised. “Excuse me?”

“Sleeping,” she repeated, brazening it out, knowing he'd tease her. Knowing it wouldn't make that whole clamoring thing any easier to handle. But if she was going to get any peace tonight, she had to know where his body was going to be located in relationship to hers. “Back at camp, last night, where did you sleep?”

“In my rental. It was too late when I got up there to scope out any of the cabins. If you don't mind, I'll move my stuff into the first one down the hill from yours. It looks to be in decent shape, and the proximity would be a wise security measure.”

“The electricity isn't hooked up and no bathroom facilities yet.”

“Not a problem on the electricity. The running water, though…”

And instantly visions of him in her shower clouded her already fogged brain. The fog grew even thicker as she wasn't exactly picturing him alone in there. She was staring again, and worse, imagining what he looked like beneath that Taz T-shirt and those beat-up jeans. She'd seen him shirtless more often than not as a teenager. It had been the fuel for more fevered dreams than she could count. Something told her those youthful fantasies wouldn't come close to the images her very adult subconscious mind could conjure up now.

“You, uh, you can always use—” She paused to clear her throat. “We'll work something out.”

His lips quirked a little, as if he knew exactly the direction her thoughts had taken her, but, mercifully, he didn't tease her. “Thanks, I appreciate that.”

When he didn't return his attention to his PDA, she folded her arms, tucking her hands against her body, and shifting her feet as if trying to get warm. Truth was, she wasn't remotely cold. Quite the opposite actually. “Are we all done here?”

“Just about.” He held her gaze for another too long moment, then made one last sweeping turn, tapping in a few more things, before tucking the PDA away again. “I think we're all set.” She turned to go, but he stepped in front of her. “You okay?”

“Yeah, yeah, fine, I'm fine,” she said, the words coming too fast. How was she to tell him it wasn't the situation at the camp or the possible problem with Shelby that had her on edge, but her purported “fairy godfather” who was making her crazy? “I just want to get on the road, get somewhere where you can call in and see if Finn has any information for us. Start figuring out what the hell is going on, then maybe I can figure out what Shelby is up to and if I'm going to be able to get him to keep his end of the agreement, or if I'm going to even have the camp I dreamed of, much less get it open in time, and—”

“Whoa, whoa.” He took her by the elbows and shook them a little, loosening them away from her body. “We'll get it all figured out. You weren't this spooked before I came along, I know that, but it's not a bad thing that you are now. Only fools don't get scared or nervous in tough situations. Keeps you sharp and alert.”

She forced herself to lift her gaze to his.
The only thing that scares me and makes me nervous right now is you
. Though she appreciated the way he'd immediately stepped in and grounded her. How could he be such a calming influence in one way, and total chaos to her system in every other way?

“Yesterday I was worried about a little graffiti and Shelby being a no-show. Yesterday I was thinking I had some teenagers with too much time on their hands playing pranks and an inconsiderate stepbrother who was bogging down the paperwork process because he was probably off doing something self-centered and didn't care if he strung me along a little longer.” She took a small breath, tried to square her shoulders and stand straighter, mostly because what she really wanted to do was curl against his nice, broad chest and allow herself a moment, just a moment, of someone else sharing her burden and comforting her and making her believe everything was going to be okay. It was a moment she couldn't afford to take. “Today, I have an entire town involved in what might be some kind of scam to undermine my efforts to build a camp, a stepbrother who very well might be involved in the whole thing. And a man who I haven't seen in eighteen years is plotting coordinates so he can land a helicopter in a cornfield to drop off supersecret spy supplies to put up God knows what kind of surveillance for my little youth camp.” She tried for a casual, unaffected-by-all-this smile and likely missed by a mile. “So yeah, spooked is only the beginning of what I am.”

Mac held her gaze for far too long. Long enough to make her rethink the relative merits of her hands-off rule. He was a danger to her equilibrium every time she got within five feet of him, but she didn't look away. Just when she was giving in to the need to lean closer—to see if he might drop his chin, lower his head, slide his hands up her arms and cup the back of her neck so he could tilt her mouth up to his, taste her again—he dropped his hands away completely, though he didn't step back.

“That's how things like this happen,” he said calmly.

At first she thought by “this” he meant the crazy, out-of-control chemistry popping and sizzling between them, but then he went on, and she felt her cheeks color.

“You'll be going along in life, thinking you've got it all figured out, doing what has to be done, then something happens to change all that, to throw it off. There isn't usually a warning. Maybe lots of little ones in retrospect, but there's always a day when things irrevocably change, when you sit up and realize that it's not going to be just another day. That something's not right, and needs a closer look. You just hope that day comes soon enough so you can make a difference in your favor.”

“And has it?” she asked, still struggling to put his words in the context of the vandalizing issues and Shelby's possible involvement in…whatever the hell was really going on. It was hard to think of anything except that the single biggest change in her life at the moment was the sudden presence of him in it.

He lifted a hand, as if he was going to caress her cheek, and she held her breath, but didn't move away. He checked the motion at the last second, let his hand fall back by his side. She had to work at not letting her shoulders slump in disappointment. It was her own stupid rule, after all.

“I hope so,” he said, quite seriously.

Not the ringing affirmation she was looking for.

Alarm began to creep back in, replacing the zing of pheromones and heightened awareness. He was just being honest, and she'd always be better served by that than false bravado. “Me, too. Thank you,” she said.

“For?”

“Showing up. And for knowing how to map helicopter coordinates.” Her lips trembled a bit more with this smile. “I guess I need the help after all. I'm—I'm glad you're here.”

She didn't get the cocky smile she anticipated. Instead, his expression grew even more serious. “We'll get to the bottom of what's going on, that I can promise you. As for what we can do about it when we find out, that remains to be seen. Sounds like there are legal issues involved, and I won't lie, that complicates things.”

“Even for guys with supersecret helicopters at their disposal?”

“Not all rules are made to be broken.”

“Can I get that in writing?”

A hint of a smile ghosted the corners of his mouth. “I wish I could promise you a slam dunk. I can't. But we'll do everything we can, and that's usually a lot more than most.”

She shivered, though it had nothing to do with the cool, damp interior of the barn. “‘We' isn't a word I've had much experience with.”

His lips curved fully then, and in his smile was all the reassurance she found she needed. “You'll get used to it. I'm not going anywhere until we've done all we can do.”

There was the tiniest pang, then, at the realization that he'd be leaving again, which was ridiculous as she'd barely gotten used to the idea of him being here in the first place. Which made what she did next that much more foolish. “I am regretting one thing,” she blurted, her gaze dropping from his eyes, to his mouth, then forcibly back up to his eyes again. If the way his pupils slowly expanded was any indication, he hadn't missed the slip. But then she'd bank that he rarely missed anything.

“What would that be?” he asked, his voice a shade rougher.

“Rashly made rules of conduct.”

His throat worked, and her pulse shot up. “In my experience, self-preservation is always a smart move,” he said, but his own gaze dropped to her mouth, all but feasted there for a long moment, if the hungry look in his eyes was any gauge to what he was thinking, then slowly moved back up to hers.

She stood all but quivering before him, realizing she'd put herself in yet another dangerous predicament, but the potential outcome of this one didn't give her a tension headache; it made her muscles tighten in the sweet ache of anticipation. It was an entirely different, rather delicious sort of tension. “Yeah. I've gotten pretty good at that.”
Until you showed up
.

“Funny how, before, I wouldn't have guessed you'd have ever had to. Worry about self-preservation, I mean.”

“With a mother like Louisa and family like Shelby?”

“True. I guess I wasn't thinking about family members.”

“What, then? You know I haven't been living in the lap of luxury all these years, cushioned from the big bad world by some kind of trust fund.”

“I was speaking of the seventeen-year-old me. Back then I thought it would be the most wonderful thing in the world to be able to just hop in that little sports car of yours and take off for points unknown.”

“As I recall, you had a Harley, or some kind of bike. Why didn't you just hop on and leave?”

“As soon as I got the thing running, and hit legal age, I did. But I only got as far as New York City.” He smiled. “Not all of us can hop a jet in addition to a sports car.”

“I wasn't a jet-setter, even before Louisa cut me off.”

“I know. But you could have been. In other words, you had options that I didn't.” He didn't say it with any animosity or jealousy; it was simply fact. She supposed he had a point.

She cocked her head. “What option would you have exercised if money, or the lack thereof, hadn't been an obstacle?”

“I'm more curious to know why you didn't. Exercise those options, I mean. Seems you could have done a world of good with all that Sutherland backing.”

“If you're talking about before my mother's death, then the answer is she simply never would have let me control things. Even though I would have had a trust fund and other family income to rely on, the deal would have been that Louisa called all the shots.”

“She was a philanthropist, as I recall. Wouldn't she have supported your interest in helping the underprivileged or handicapped?”

“Oh, she loved cutting checks. As long as the
New York Times
got wind of her latest donation. She wouldn't have minded me following in those footsteps. But to actually get in and work at fixing it with my own two hands?” She shook her head. “Too common. She'd worked way too hard to distance herself from the common folk for me to become one of them.”

“Was that what caused the final rift between you two?”

“No, we'd been butting heads all along. I never fit in the mold she'd created for me since the day she'd changed my last name from Pepperdine to Sutherland so the world would think I was one of them.”

“Why not take back your real last name?”

She shrugged. “Doesn't feel any more mine than this one. And I didn't need the symbolism.” She smiled. “Suddenly having zero dollars in my bank account and all my credit cards cut off was symbolism enough for me. It wasn't like my name was opening any doors. No one knew who my mother was if I didn't tell them.”