Charmed by His Love (7 page)

Peg stood up and stepped over to the sink to splash water on her face and rinse out her mouth. Why in hell did she keep thinking she should know someone named MacKeage from Pine Creek?

She’d been to TarStone Mountain Ski Resort in Pine Creek—twice, actually. Once over February vacation her senior year, when their high school basketball team had been so bad they hadn’t even made it to the tournament, and all the
seniors had decided to go skiing as a consolation prize. And she and Billy had honeymooned at TarStone, which they’d been able to afford only because it had been off-season.

Peg walked to the kitchen, deciding she must have heard the name MacKeage on one of her trips. And she did recall a good number of people at the resort and in town spoke with a slight Scottish brogue like Duncan’s, and that she and her girlfriends had found it quite sexy—although Billy hadn’t been amused when she’d asked him to please roll his
R
s on their honeymoon.

Peg picked up her pace when the cuckoo clock her in-laws had given them for a wedding present announced she only had four hours before she had to catch the school bus in town on her way to her mother-in-law’s to pick up the boys. She dug through the pantry for a couple of bins and grabbed the box of freezer bags she’d bought specifically for the deer. Setting the bags in the bin, she added a large cleaver—because she didn’t have time to hunt through the garage for a hacksaw—then tossed in several hand towels and a bar of soap before she rushed back out the door.

She stopped on the deck at the sight of the large pickup sitting behind her van, and drew in a shuddering breath. She’d never seen it before, but if it were red instead of dark green, it could have been an identical twin to her late husband’s truck. Billy’s pickup had also worn several layers of mud and road dust and a company emblem on the door, its cargo bed crowded with a diesel fuel tank and large toolbox. Except their emblem had said
Thompson Construction
instead of
MacKeage
.

The pickup had been the first thing she’d sold after Billy had been killed, so her heart would stop lurching every time she’d drive in the yard before she remembered he wasn’t home. But it had been when she’d caught Isabel—who’d only been three at the time—glaring up at the driver’s door with fat tears streaming down her cheeks as she’d shouted to her daddy to come home now that the sheer force of Billy’s death had brought Peg to her knees.

She repositioned the bins on her hip, carefully walked down her rickety old stairs, and ran along the shoreline and up the steep bank to the woods. She came to a stop and took a calming breath when she saw Duncan kneeling beside the deer, his
jacket off and his sleeves rolled up as he expertly dealt with the animal.

“You don’t have to do this,” she said, setting down the equipment and kneeling across from him. She held out her hand. “I can take over now.”

He rolled the already skinned animal over and began butchering it with obvious experience. “Thanks, but I prefer you unarmed.”

Peg ducked her head, figuring he deserved a couple of cheap shots after what she and her kids had done to him. Good Lord, those were
her
claw marks on his neck, and she hadn’t missed that he’d been limping at the wedding. “I’m sorry we attacked you the other day,” she whispered. “And first chance we get, my children will apologize to you, too. They … We’re more civilized than that.”

He sat back on his heels, his steady green eyes darkening with concern. “You also might want to have a talk with them about confronting strange men, because the next guy might actually retaliate.”

Peg felt her cheeks heat again. “Don’t worry; they got the lecture of their lives that night. The card you left in my door mentioned you want to buy gravel,” she said, deciding it was time to change the subject. She gestured toward the pit. “But as you can see, it’s underwater.”

He used the knife to point at the far end of the pit. “Do you own the land to the north? How far back?” he asked when she nodded.

“I have a hundred and eighty-four acres, almost all of it running up that hillside.” She shook her head. “But the horseback runs east to west, and my land stops three hundred yards in the woods to the west of the pit.”

He went back to butchering the deer. “Would you mind if I brought over my excavator tomorrow and dug a few test holes to the north? There’s a good chance that vein of gravel runs up the hillside as well.”

Peg’s heart started pounding with excitement. Oh God, it would be the answer to her prayers if it did. That is, until she remembered she now owned lakefront property. “It doesn’t matter which direction it runs,” she said, her shoulders slumping. “The Land Use Regulatory Commission will never let you
expand the pit because of the fiord.” She snorted and opened the box of freezer bags. “Up until last week, I lived nearly two miles from the lake.”

“Let me deal with LURC and getting the permits,” he said, holding out several steaks and nodding for her to open one of the bags. “I’ll find a way to meet the required setbacks.” He arched a brow. “Assuming we can settle on a price.”

Peg set the steaks in the bin and grabbed another bag, her heart pounding again. “I guess that would depend on how many yards you’re looking to buy.”

His eyes suddenly lit with amusement. “Thirty wheeler loads a day, five days a week for at least two months—or maybe even well into summer if I have to go all the way up the mountain before I find decent gravel on Mac’s land. And I was thinking two dollars a yard is a fair price for everyone concerned.”

Peg jumped to her feet and actually stumbled backward. Two dollars a yard! And with twelve yards in a wheeler, times thirty trips a day … Holy hell, that was seven hundred and twenty dollars a day!

She suddenly stiffened, crumpling the plastic bag in her fist. “Do you think I just crawled out from under a rock, or that because I’m a woman I don’t know what gravel costs? I’m not letting you pay me two dollars a yard!”

Duncan MacKeage also stood up, his amusement gone. “Two fifty then, but not a penny more.”

“No!” Peg said on a gasp, taking a step back—until she realized what she was doing and stepped forward and pointed toward her house. “You can just get in your truck and drive back to Inglenook, Mr. MacKeage, and tell Olivia that I don’t appreciate being played for a fool!”

“What in hell are you talking about? Two-fifty a yard is a damn fair offer. And what’s Olivia got to do with this, anyway?” He thumped his chest. “I’m the one signing the checks, not the Oceanuses, so it’s my profit you’re trying to gouge.”

“Then I’ll tell
you
the same thing I told Olivia; I am not a charity case!” she all but shouted, bolting for the house.

“Oh, no you don’t,” he muttered, catching her within three strides. He turned her around to face him, his hands on her arms tightening against her struggles. “Peg, listen to me,” he
said calmly. “I think we have our wires crossed.” He relaxed his grip when she stilled, but didn’t let her go. “What’s
your
idea of a fair price?”

“There isn’t anyone in a hundred miles of here who would pay more than a dollar for stumpage.” She started struggling again when he smiled. “So if Olivia told you to offer me two fifty, you can just go back and tell her that I don’t want or
need
her charity.”

“Aw, Peg,” he said, letting her go and stepping away. “I don’t think Olivia even knows I want to buy gravel from you.”

Peg balled her hands into fists to counter the tingling in her arms from where he’d held her. “Then why did you offer me twice the going rate?”

“Because the
going rate
just rose in direct proportion to your pit’s proximity to the new Bottomless Sea, or don’t you realize the building boom that’s going to follow that underground saltwater river here? Hell, a year from now you’ll be kicking yourself for selling me gravel for only two bucks a yard.”

“Two
fifty
,” Peg quickly corrected, her heart pounding with excitement again.

“God dammit, you were expecting to get a dollar.” He stepped toward her. “Two dollars even, and I’ll throw in a couple of days’ labor from my crew to make some minor repairs on your house.”

She had to crane her neck to look him in the eye because he was so close, and she shook her head. “Two twenty-five a yard and I get the logs from the hillside. And I want them neatly stacked in my driveway so I can have a portable sawmill come cut them into lumber.” She shot him a tight smile. “You can have the pulpwood.”

He folded his arms over his chest, his eyes narrowing. “I’ve already worked out my deal with the logger I’ve hired to clear the road up the mountain.”

“Then renegotiate with him. I want those sawlogs.”

“Okay, if you’ll settle on two dollars a yard.”

Peg pointed at the hillside. “That gravel is all that’s standing between me and prostitution,” she growled, only to cover her mouth with a gasp when his jaw slackened. “Destitution!
It’s all that’s standing between me and
destitution
!” she cried, splaying her hands to cover her blistering face.

“Okay, then,” he said, sounding like he was fighting back laughter, “for the sake of men everywhere, I’ll give you two twenty-five a yard for the gravel, along with any logs we cut on your land.” She jumped in surprise when he lowered her hands and held them in his. “And I’ll do some repairs on your house,” he continued, the amusement in his eyes contradicting his serious tone, “for your promise not to attack me again—or any of my crew.”

Peg was tempted to give her promise
after
she kicked the laughing jerk.

Apparently he was a mind reader, because he suddenly let her go and stepped back, then held out his right hand. “Deal?” Only just as she started to reach out, he pulled it back. “With exclusive rights to your gravel,” he added, all trace of amusement gone. “If I’m going through the trouble of expanding your pit, I want to be the only one hauling out of it.”

Hell, for two dollars and twenty-five cents a yard he could camp out in her pit for all she cared. She extended her hand. “Deal.”

He shook it, then swapped it to his left hand and started leading her back up the knoll. “We’ll get the deer in your freezer, and then I have a purchase agreement in my truck that I need you to sign.”

“Um … don’t take this the wrong way, okay?” she said, moving to the other side of the deer and kneeling beside the bin once he let her go. “But am I supposed to keep track of how many loads you haul?” She felt her face redden at his intense stare. “I … My husband never sold stumpage because he wanted the full price he got by hauling the gravel himself, so I’m not really sure how this works.” She shrugged. “I’ve only sold an odd load here and there in the last three years, when someone needed to patch a camp road or fix their driveway.”

He knelt down with a heavy sigh. “I know you don’t know anything about me, but even if you weren’t a personal friend of Mac and Olivia’s, I value my reputation as an honest businessman a hell of a lot more than a few stolen loads of dirt. I’ll
keep track of every load that leaves your pit and personally deliver you a tally slip and a check every Friday afternoon. And when I’m done hauling I’ll make sure your pit is safe, so you won’t have to worry about any steep banks caving in on your children.”

Peg dropped her gaze. “Thank you,” she said, pulling another bag out of the box.

“Don’t take this the wrong way, okay?” he said, amusement in his voice again. “But can you tell me what precipitated your family’s little attack on Saturday? I got the impression you all thought I was some man who had scared your son.”

“Jacob—he’s the younger of the twins—had a run-in with one of the scientists the day before, and it was all I could do to get him back to Inglenook that morning. From what Jacob told me, the guy caught him trying to climb up on the submarine and pulled him off and started dragging him toward the lake, saying he was going to use him for shark bait. Jacob’s only four, and the poor kid believed the bastard.”

Duncan stopped cutting, the look in his eyes making Peg lean back. “That morning you said you thought I was Claude; is he the bastard?”

“I … I’m not sure. But one of the interns told me Claude doesn’t have much use for kids. Or women,” she said with a smile, hoping to get that look out of his eyes. She reached out and touched his arm when she saw his jaw tighten. “It doesn’t matter anymore, Duncan. Jacob’s not going back to Inglenook while the scientists are there.”

He started cutting steaks off the deer again, rather aggressively, she noticed. “You’re not afraid that keeping him away from Inglenook might only make it worse? Kids have a tendency to build things up in their minds if they’re left to fester, so shouldn’t Jacob face his scary man and see he’s nothing more than a bully?”

“Do you have children?”

He grinned tightly. “Not that I know of.”

Peg sighed as she set the bag in the bin, wondering how Duncan was still a bachelor well into his thirties … unless he was married.

He held out his hand. “I need the saw.”

Nope, no ring. But then, Billy hadn’t worn a wedding band, either, because they were dangerous around machinery. “This will have to do,” she said, handing him the cleaver, “because it would take me at least an hour to find a hacksaw in the pile of tools in the garage.”

She watched his face darken slightly as he started prying on a shoulder socket. “Mac told me your husband was killed in a construction accident three years ago,” he said quietly as he worked. “I recall hearing a few years back about an excavator rolling into a river some thirty miles from here.” He stopped to look at her. “Was that him?”

She nodded. “Billy was trying to free up an ice jam that had wedged against a bridge and was causing the river to flood the town above it, when the ground gave way under his excavator. It … it took them two days to find his body.”

He went to work on the deer again. “I’m sorry. I can’t even begin to imagine what it’s like to send someone you love off to work in the morning and not have him ever come home again. What are ye planning to do with the sawlogs?”

Peg blinked at the sudden change in subject, then held open another bag for the pieces of stew meat he was cutting off the bone. “Billy started building us a new house back over that knoll about two months after the twins were born,” she said, nodding behind her. “It was all framed up and weather-tight, and he’d just started on the interior when he died.” She smiled sadly when Duncan sat back on his heels. “It was his idea to cut the pine growing on the hillside and have it sawed into lumber, then planed into tongue-and-groove knotty pine for the interior walls.”