Charmed by His Love (15 page)

She walked into the hall and leaned the gun against the wall, then tiptoed into the girls’ room and gently shook Charlotte awake. “Come on, Charlie,” she whispered next to her ear before pulling her upright. “I need you to come out to the living room. Shh, it’s okay, honey, nothing’s wrong.” She then guided the girl ahead of her, snatching up the gun on her way by, smiling assurance when Charlotte finished rubbing her eyes awake and blinked at the shotgun.

Her daughter sighed. “Trespassers again?” she whispered with a sleepy smile.

“I’m afraid it’s not teenagers, but somebody who’s after the diesel fuel in the equipment,” Peg said, sitting down to slip on her socks and sneakers.

“Then call the sheriff this time,” Charlotte said, rushing over to catch the gun Peg had leaned on the arm of the chair when it started to slide.

“They’ll be long gone before he can get here.” Peg finished tying her sneakers and stood up. “Don’t worry, I’m not going to confront them; I’m just going to see what they’re up to and get their license plate number.”

Charlotte handed her the shotgun. “You got birdshot?”

Peg took the gun from her with a nod. “Same signal as always; you hear a shot, you call 911 first, and then call Grundy Watts and tell him to hightail it over here.” She walked to the pantry and pulled the business card off the bulletin board. “And then you call Mr. MacKeage and tell him what’s going on,” she instructed, handing her the card. “He’s staying at Inglenook, so he’s actually closer than Grundy.” She lifted Charlotte’s chin and kissed her forehead. “You’re growing up big and strong and smart, Charlie, and I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

“Does that mean I’m grown-up enough to get my ears pierced?” Charlotte asked as she started pushing Peg toward the door. “Say, for my birthday next month?”

Peg stopped and looked back at her beautiful little girl bathed in moonlight, and her heart rose into her throat again.
“You know, I think that might be exactly what a nine-year-old should get for her birthday.”

Charlotte gasped so hard, she had to use both hands to clutch her nightgown. “Really?” she squeaked in a whisper. “You’re gonna really let me get them pierced?”

“We’ll go down to Bangor to have it done,” Peg said with a nod. “Just you and me on a mother-daughter date.”

“Oh, Mom, thank you!” Charlotte cried, throwing her arms around her. She leaned her head back to look up, the moonlight revealing her beaming smile. “Can we get our fingernails done?”

“And our toes,” Peg promised, kissing the top of her curly brown hair then stepping away. “But first I have to go see who’s out there trying to steal Duncan’s fuel.”

“You’re just going to get their license plate number, right?” Charlotte warned more than asked. “You’re not gonna confront anyone.”

“Not unless I recognize them and know they’re more stupid than dangerous. Then I’m going to stop them from committing a felony.”

“Oh, Mom,” Charlotte said with a snort, running to the coffee table and picking up the phone. She climbed up on the couch and knelt facing the window, as was her ritual. “Just let all the air out of their tires so they got no way to lug the diesel fuel off.”

Peg stilled with her hand on the doorknob. “What?”

“That way they’ll be more worried about getting their truck out of here before sunrise instead of stealing anything, and you can just come back inside and go to bed.”

“Ohmigod, Charlie, when did you get so sneaky?”

Charlotte rolled her eyes, shooting Peg another moonbeam smile. “I’ve been living with you for almost nine years.” She waved her away. “Go on now; we both need our beauty sleep.”

Peg opened the door with a snort, slipping outside before her smile disappeared on a shiver of horror. Good Lord, she thought as she headed down the stairs and across her driveway at a dead run. That girl was going to be flat-out scary at sixteen. But Peg smiled again as she ducked behind a tree at the edge of the tote road, figuring she had it coming since she’d turned her own mama’s hair prematurely gray.

She quietly loaded the shotgun as she decided it was better to raise two smart and independent young ladies rather than two doormats for some dumb, chest-beating jerks. And if she died making it happen, every last one of her heathens were going to college so they could get the hell out of Spellbound Falls, because so help her God, not one of them was going to earn a living driving a stupid excavator.

Peg double-checked to make sure the gun’s safety was on, smiling when she heard several of the thieving idiots cussing in whispers, figuring they’d just discovered they couldn’t reach the hillside because the road had been washed away. And that meant they had to go clear across her beach and all the way around the pit, giving them quite a hike for lugging back the heavy fuel—which also meant she’d be able to get a good look at them in the moonlight. And while they were gone, she might as well get their license plate number and let the air out of their tires so they could spread the word that the Thompson pit was no place to rip off the new boys in town.

Gee, maybe Duncan would make
her
a hero’s badge for saving his fuel.

Peg stood with her back to the tree, listening to branches snapping and an occasional curse as the men made their way down the steep wooded knoll beside their vehicle. It sounded like three, maybe four of them, but she didn’t recognize any of their voices or the SUV—at least not from this distance.

Hearing them reach her beach, she peeked around the tree to make sure they hadn’t left anyone behind, then crouched down and quietly scurried toward the truck, guessing they—

Peg’s scream never made it past the large hand that pressed over her mouth at the same time an arm pinned her arms to her sides and lifted her off her feet. She kicked out even while trying to bite the hand all but suffocating her, the arm around her middle nearly finishing the job when it tightened against her struggles.

“Lady, you are one second away from feeling the flat of my sword on your backside,” he quietly growled into her hair.

Duncan! Peg stopped struggling, but instead of loosening his hold or at least removing his hand so she could breathe, he turned and headed toward the main road like he was lugging off a— Wait, had he just said his
sword
?

Well, of course he had, because everyone knew men said and did stupid things when they were angry. But threaten her with a sword? Seriously?

“Ye try to trip me up with that shotgun or bite me again and I
will
put ye over my knee,” Duncan said quietly. He finally stopped when they reached the main road and set her on her feet, ripped the gun out of her hand and tossed it in the woods, and had her spun around and his nose stuck in her face before she even gulped in her first decent breath. “Are you insane or just suicidal? Ye don’t go after men all by yourself with a shotgun.”

“Well, gee, I don’t own a
sword
.”

He shook her.

So she kicked him. Or at least she tried to, but he had her spun around and slammed up against his chest so fast, she ended up kicking herself in the ankle.

“Where are your children?” he growled.

“Charlotte’s keeping watch in the window,” she growled right back at him, “with the phone in her hand.”

He muttered what sounded like a curse in some language she didn’t recognize and suddenly let her go, only to snag her hand and start dragging her down the main road toward her driveway. “Is there a reason you didn’t call your brother-in-law to come check out who was in your pit?” he asked, stopping to give her a jerk when she dug the nails of her free hand into his wrist. “That wasn’t an idle threat I gave ye, Peg,” he said way too quietly.

Boy, he must be really angry, because she really believed him. “Um, Galen lives twenty miles away,” she said, shoving her free hand in her pocket. “Charlotte’s supposed to call 911 and then a neighbor if she hears a gunshot. And I gave her your cell phone number,” she rushed on when his eyes narrowed, “and told her to tell you what’s going on. Wait, my shotgun,” she said, trying to pull him to a stop when he started dragging her off again—only to stumble when she saw he really
did
have a sword strapped in some sort of sheath on his back.

“The gun’s not going anywhere tonight.” He stopped and grabbed hold of her shoulders. “They’re almost to the equipment,” he said softly. “I’m taking you to your house, and you’re
to go inside and tell Charlotte not to call anyone, especially not 911. We’ve got this covered.”

We? Come to think of it, what was
he
doing here? “Who in hell died and left you king?” she muttered, only to lean away when she saw the look in his eyes.

“You step a toe outside before sunrise, and I swear to God I’m going to—”

“Oh, give it a rest,” she snapped as she stomped down on his foot and jerked away, bolting for the house as she wondered if she might be insane
and
suicidal—although she did have sense to stay in the shadows of the trees lining her driveway.

The man was guarding his excavator with a friggin’ sword!

He caught up with her in less than two strides but merely ran beside her, not touching her again until he nudged her toward the end of the deck facing away from the pit, then pulled her to a stop next to the house. “I mean it, Peg,” he said tightly. “You go inside and
stay
there.”

God, he wasn’t even a little winded, while she could barely catch her breath—although that was probably because her heart was pounding so hard it hurt.

He suddenly crushed her against his chest, threading his fingers through her hair to hold her looking at him. “And, lady? I ever catch ye outside after dark again not wearing a bra, you’ll have only yourself to blame for the consequences.”

He dropped his hands to her waist, had her lifted halfway over the railing before she even got out a gasp, and finished helping her the rest of the way with a less than gentle hand on her backside. She caught herself from falling flat on her face and spun around with a whispered growl of outrage, only to discover he’d vanished.

Peg took a steadying breath as she ran trembling fingers through her hair, and brushed down the front of her sweatshirt as she walked to the door on rubbery legs. Okay, maybe she
would
fall in love with the sword-carrying, chest-beating jerk, so he’d have only himself to blame for the consequences of the Robinson curse.

The door opened just as she was reaching for the knob, and Charlotte pulled her inside. “What’s going on? Where’s your gun? I thought I saw you walking out the tote road with somebody.”

“Did you call 911?” she asked, leading Charlotte into the bedroom.

“No, not yet; I didn’t hear your signal.”

Peg led her over to the window and unlocked it, then pulled her daughter down on her knees beside her. “Duncan’s out there,” she said, slowly lifting the window open. “And Robbie and Alec, I think.” She snorted. “They must have camped out on the hillside, worried about someone stealing their fuel.”

“Then let’s call the sheriff,” Charlotte whispered, holding up the phone.

Peg took it from her and set it on the floor. “Duncan said not to. And he’s right; you don’t pull into a town you’re trying to do business in and have the locals arrested the very first night. That’s why I was only going to give them hell if I recognized them.”

“Is that what Duncan’s going to do?”

Peg wrapped her arm around the girl. “I guess we’re about to find out, aren’t we? Let’s watch and listen; and that way maybe we’ll learn how big strong men deal with trespassers. Um, speaking of which, you might get your very first up-close look at a really angry man tonight, Charlie. So if Duncan comes in here acting like a chest-beating jerk once everything is over, you just smile and nod, okay, no matter what outrageous thing he says. You need to understand that when men get angry, they go a bit crazy.” She gave her wide-eyed daughter a squeeze. “But it’s usually only to cover up the fact that they’re scared we womenfolk might get hurt.”

“Was Duncan angry at you just now?”

“Um, maybe just a tad.” She sighed. “Which is why my shotgun is now in the woods and we’re probably not going on that picnic Sun—” The hillside suddenly flooded with light just as the harvester and excavator engines roared to life, followed almost immediately by shouts of startled men.

“Ohmigod,” Charlotte gasped, covering her mouth with her hands. She pointed to the left side of the woods. “Ohmigod, he’s chasing them with the excavator!”

Peg gave her daughter a fierce squeeze. “Quit swearing,” she muttered as they both watched two men stumbling over branches and bumping into tree stumps as they ran down the hill just feet ahead of the reaching boom of the excavator, its
bucket rattling up and down. “Ohmigod,” Peg in turn gasped when another man fell over the side of the bank, his panicked shout ending abruptly when he hit the water.

“Um, Mom? Did Duncan have that sword he had in his truck this morning with him tonight?” Charlotte whispered, pointing up the hill. “Or is that a stick he’s holding to that man’s chest lying in front of the harvester while he’s … talking to him?”

Peg watched Duncan suddenly step back and the man on the ground jump to his feet and start running, not even slowing down when he reached the bank—jumping off it right into the water. “Ohmigod,” she said, hugging Charlotte.

The lights on the harvester suddenly went off, followed almost immediately by the excavator’s lights, which was followed by utter silence when their respective engines shut down. Well, it was silent except for the sound of splashing as the two men swam toward the east side of the pit, and one of the other men let loose a string of curses when he ran into one of the boulders on the beach. His buddy hauled him back to his feet and they started running to where the fiord cut into the pit and waded into the water to haul out their two coughing cohorts.

Branches snapped as the four of them scrambled up the wooded knoll to their vehicle. The SUV’s engine started with a whining roar and gravel spewed from its tires as backup lights—and this time headlights—arced through the trees as it backed out of sight. Peg felt Charlotte holding her breath just like she was as they listened to the vehicle screech to a halt on the pavement, then go squealing away.