The Heart of a Hero (8 page)

“I’m not letting any stupid boys distract me from my studies. And I’ve decided I’m not trying out for band, either.”

Julia stepped back into the hall, making Trisha step back in surprise. “Being distracted by college boys is part of your education,” she growled. “And so are extracurricular activities. You’ve been living like a nun all through high school,” she said softly, touching Trisha’s curls. “Please don’t hide in your books at college, too.”

Trisha gave a sad smile, even as she lifted her chin. “I’ve only been following your example. When was the last time
you
went on a date?” She in turn tugged on a lock of Julia’s wild mess of hair. “I’ll start dating when you do.”

“I don’t have a campus full of men to choose from.” Julia waved toward the living room. “And unless we suddenly have an explosion of frogs and I start running around kissing them, there’s not much chance of finding Prince Charming in Spellbound Falls.”

“Then move to Orono with me.”

Julia sighed and stepped back into the bathroom. “We’ve had this discussion before, and my answer is still no.” She leaned against the half-closed door. “I’m still holding out hope for Reggie, and Jerilynn’s pregnancy seems to be having a positive effect on Tom, especially the closer she gets to her due date. And besides—”

“And besides,”
Trisha said, cutting her off as the girl headed for her bedroom—that had its own bath, because Julia had figured a teenager needed more mirror time than a thirty-year-old who’d given up trying to impress men.
“I need to experience being independent,”
she mimicked. The girl then poked her head into the hall and grinned back at her. “My deal stands; I’ll start dating when you do,” she finished, just before wisely disappearing into her room and closing the door.

“Okay, fine,” Julia growled. “I’ll start dating when it starts raining frogs.”

* * * 

Soaking up the weak but still surprisingly warm November sun, Julia sauntered home from the housekeeping facilities behind the second hotel segment, having indeed fallen back into her routine of cleaning cottages, hunting for a new source of pinecones, and trying not to worry about Trisha. Oh, and battling some persistent felines that weren’t about to let two silly little lock pins keep them out of their old home.

Big Cat must have simply
leaned
on the door, because when Julia had gotten home that same afternoon, she’d found an explosion of feathers in the living room, a live frog—that she hadn’t even been tempted to kiss—in the bathroom, and muddy paw prints on the
counters
. And Tuesday morning, she and Trisha had awakened to find they weren’t alone in their beds again, even though Julia had replaced the pins with heavy nails and shoved a chair up against the cupboard as added insurance. Only that morning Big Cat had brought along a fat white buddy—apparently Nicholas had three cats, not two—and Julia had managed to slide out of bed before it could snag her pajama pants. She’d met Trisha in the hallway just as the girl had been coming to tell her their nocturnal visitors were back, and they’d repeated the food-luring trick using leftover tuna casserole.

There was now a piece of scrap plywood Julia had filched from the resort’s maintenance shed covering the outside of the cat door, being held in place by a couple of heavy pieces of firewood she’d filched from the woodshed, because she hadn’t quite dared to drive nails into the building’s siding. In retaliation, she’d arrived home that afternoon to find their front pathway littered with enough bird feathers to stuff a pillow.

So other than her ongoing war with Nicholas’s cats, the only unanticipated addition to Julia’s plan to put her humiliating weekend behind her was that she had to
actively
avoid Nova Mare’s director of security now that she was living at the resort. It seemed that every morning as she walked from her apartment to housekeeping, she narrowly escaped Nicholas coming in or out of the registration pavilion that also housed the resort’s offices. Then, walking home yesterday afternoon, he’d been coming out of the barn leading a monstrous, scary-looking horse, and Julia had seen him just in time to scurry behind a tree before
he
saw
her
.

But she hadn’t been quite so successful this morning, nearly running Nicholas over with her cart when she’d rounded a curve—she hadn’t been speeding, since
her
cart was about as fast as a turtle—as he’d been coming back from an obviously long run on the mountain trails with four of his big, strapping security guards. Julia had nearly driven into a tree at the sight of all that naked chest and leg muscle glistening with sweat despite it being only fifty degrees out with a crisp wind. For crying out loud, it had taken her heart half an hour to quit racing and her cheeks at least twice as long to cool down, the amusement in Nicholas’s sky-blue eyes as he’d given her a wink on his way by making Julia nearly wear out the wheels of her vacuum on her next cottage.

For a second there, she’d seriously thought about
becoming
the town slut.

That had actually lifted her spirits, though, when she’d realized Clay hadn’t completely killed her interest in men, since there seemed to be a few sparks of what she suspected might be passion left floating around inside her somewhere. Still, she wasn’t letting that welcome revelation override her common sense, and she sure as heck wasn’t going to start daydreaming about Nicholas kissing her again.

So she daydreamed about being Inglenook’s guest liaison instead.

In fact, Nicholas notwithstanding, over the last few days Julia had often wanted to pinch herself to make sure she was still alive, because it certainly felt like she had died and gone to heaven. The last time she’d left the mountain had been to pick up Trisha at the marina when Duncan had brought her across the fiord Sunday afternoon, and truthfully, Julia didn’t care if she stayed up here until the day she really
did
die.

She hadn’t even left to get groceries, instead leaving that chore to Trisha.

They’d actually started a ritual of nocturnal swims in the outdoor heated saltwater pool, in utter and complete awe to be floating on their backs staring up at the stars that seemed close enough to touch. And Trisha appeared to be embracing adulthood now that she truly felt free. Reggie was still being a brat, although Julia figured he was angrier at being stuck alone with their father than at having to load the cedar into his pickup and drive it clear up the mountain, even for
twice
what she’d been paying him.

When she’d called to check on Tom Sunday afternoon, she’d learned he hadn’t pressed charges for the minor concussion he’d received, but Julia hadn’t expected him to. Although her brother was just as tired of their father’s drunken tirades, Tom wasn’t about to bite the hand of the person who fed him. Not with a baby arriving in about six weeks and Jerilynn having had to quit waitressing at Angie’s Bar in Turtleback when she’d started showing—because apparently men didn’t like knocked-up barmaids serving them drinks at a stripper’s club. Still, the fact Tom had rushed to their sister’s rescue warmed Julia’s heart, and like she’d told Trisha last Monday morning at five
A.M.
, she wasn’t quite ready to give up on the two boys.

Just exiting the cart path, Julia halted in surprise when she saw Jerilynn sitting on one of the wooden love seats on the common green. She looked around and saw Tom’s old pickup parked in a visitor parking slot beside the registration pavilion, but not seeing Tom, she rushed down to the green. “Jerilynn, what are you doing here?” she asked, noticing her sister-in-law had on makeup and was wearing her Sunday coat.

“Oh, Jules,” Jerilynn said in surprise, reaching up to clasp her arm. “I was hoping I’d see you. Come on, sit down,” she said, tugging Julia down beside her. “My God, the view up here is amazing.” She rested her hands on her protruding belly and nudged Julia with her shoulder. “I’d give anything to work up here looking at this all day.”

“What are you doing here, Jerilynn?” Julia asked again, glancing over her shoulder before looking back at her sister-in-law. “Did you come up here alone, hoping to see me? Is Tom okay? Reggie?”

“Oh, no,” Jerilynn rushed to assure her, her pixie face lighting with her smile. “Everyone’s fine. I came up with Tom.” She gestured behind them. “He’s in talking to Nicholas, and when they’re done Nicholas is taking us to Alus . . . Eellises . . . How do you say the restaurant’s name again?” Jerilynn asked. She tugged on the edges of her coat, not that it came anywhere close to closing, her face turning pink as she leaned closer. “I don’t want to embarrass Tom by sounding ignorant in front of his new boss.”

It took Julia a moment to close her slackened jaw, not that it came any closer to closing than Jerilynn’s coat. “Boss?” she whispered. “Are you saying Nicholas is Tom’s new
boss
?”

Jerilynn nodded, her smile beaming again as her bright blue eyes sparkled in the low-hanging sun. “Nicholas came by our house early Monday morning before Tom left for the mill, saying he wanted to see for himself how Tom was doing. And they stood out in the driveway talking so long that I was tempted to take some coffee out to them.” Her smile widened. “Mostly being nosy. But just about the time I worked up the nerve, Nicholas left and Tom came back inside and said he wasn’t going to the mill that day and hopefully not ever again. He said Nicholas had just offered him a job as a security guard at Inglenook, only he’d have to start right away so he can be trained by May.”

This time Julia actually used her hand to close her mouth and then sat her chin in her palm to keep it closed, utterly speechless.

“What’s Nicholas’s last name, Jules? I can’t go around calling Tom’s boss by his first name. And the restaurant? How do you pronounce it again?”

“It . . . um, it’s
EE-uh-luss-es
. The
Ae
sounds like a long
E
, then
UH
, then
LUSS
, and then the apostrophe
S
. Aeolus is the Greek god of the winds.”

“And Nicholas’s last name?”

“He doesn’t have one,” Julia snapped. She took a deep breath. “Sorry. I’m just . . . Seeing you up here caught me by surprise. Um, don’t take this wrong, okay, but why would Nicholas hire Tom as a security guard? I mean, Tom’s not . . . he can’t . . .” Julia blew out a sigh. “Heck, Jerilynn, face it: Tom can’t fight his way out of a wet paper bag, mostly because he
hates
violence. And Daddy knocked him out cold Saturday. So why would Nicholas offer him a job as a guard?” she repeated.

Jerilynn went back to smiling. “I asked Tom the same thing. And he told me Nicholas said he can teach a man how to fight, but that he can’t teach him courage. He said he was impressed by how Tom hadn’t hesitated to go up against a drunken man who outweighed him by over a hundred pounds.” She touched Julia’s arm and leaned into her again, even as she used her other hand to pat her belly. “And Nicholas said he’s going to have Olivia waive the waiting period for the medical insurance, so me and the baby will be covered when Tom starts work tomorrow.” Her hand on Julia’s arm tightened. “Do you realize how much they pay their security guards here, Jules?” she whispered. “It’s over three times what Tom was making at the mill, and it comes with a whole bunch of benefits, some I’ve never even heard of before. There’s even a retirement plan. Tom said if we don’t go crazy with all the extra money, we can probably get a loan to buy the house we’re renting in about a year.”

Julia turned to prop her elbow on the back of the wooden love seat so she could hold up her chin with her palm again. Nicholas had hired her brother?

“You don’t have a problem with Tom working for the resort, too, do you, Jules? Or that he’ll be part of what Nicholas called his elite team of guards, and that he’ll be earning more than you do as a housekeeper?”

Julia pulled her chin out of her hand to give her sister-in-law a warm hug. “Are you kidding? I’m as excited as you are.” She gave her an exaggerated scowl. “But he better not try to lord his position over me, because I’m still his big sister.” She patted Jerilynn’s belly. “And I intend to be this one’s favorite aunt, but don’t tell Trish—” Julia whipped her head around when she heard Tom’s nervous laugh, and saw Nicholas and her brother and another man coming out the side door of the pavilion. “Darn,” she muttered, slumping down in the seat.

“Jules, what are you doing?” Jerilynn asked, gawking at her.

Julia kept her eyes trained on the men by peeking through the chair’s slats, and started backing across the green the moment they turned away as Nicholas gestured toward the summit. “It’s going to take me a month of Sundays before I can face Nicholas after what happened at the house,” Julia explained as she darted a glance at where she was going before looking back at the men still facing the summit. “The guy lugged all my stuff out in
trash bags
,” she growled, knowing Jerilynn would understand, since the girl’s home situation had been even worse before she’d run off and married Tom. “Tell my brother I’m really happy for him. For both of you.”

Julia straightened when she reached the trees and pointed at her still-gawking sister-in-law. “And you stop worrying about embarrassing Tom and enjoy your dinner at Aeolus’s,” she continued in a loud whisper. “You’re beautiful, Jerilynn. You get flustered, you just shoot Nicholas one of your pixie smiles, and he’ll forget what he was even talking about. Oh, and don’t panic when you see they don’t have prices on the menu. Get the surf ’n’ turf. I hear it’s delicious. I’ll be in touch,” she finished, giving a wave as she turned and disappeared into the trees.

Chapter Seven

Nicholas was quickly coming to the conclusion that it was easier to mount a war campaign than it was to romantically pursue Julia Campbell. The woman was living and working practically under his nose, and yet he couldn’t seem to get close enough to even talk to her—the irony not lost on him that he wasn’t exactly a conversationalist. Hell, he was seriously thinking of ambushing her while she was cleaning her cot—

The explosion of pain, followed by the realization more was coming, made Nicholas take a decidedly stupid swing in retaliation, only to have his legs kicked out from under him, sending him sprawling onto his back with a curse vile enough to make his opponent drop down beside him with a laugh.

“I’ve had more satisfying battles with
Henry
,” Mac said, also gasping for breath as they both lay staring up at the roof of the massive cavern. “Is there a reason you’re fighting like a ten-year-old boy? Because I’m fairly certain the last time I was able to knock you on your ass so easily was . . .” Mac suddenly sat up, his eyes narrowing. “. . . was when your mind was back in bed with some . . . I believe it was that fair-haired Teutonic noblewoman. What was her name? Bertilda?”

“Bertilla,” Nicholas growled, carefully poking the lump over his left ear. “And I was distracted because she’d just told me she was pregnant.”

Mac flopped on his back again. “You barely escaped that one, did you not?” He turned his head and grinned. “Didn’t the lady have the disposition of a . . . harpy seal?”

“First,” Nicholas said on a hiss as he sat up, “she was no lady, as I subsequently discovered when
four
men claimed the child was theirs.” He rolled to his knees and used a grunt to propel himself to his feet. “And secondly,” he added, extending his hand down to Mac, “
you
introduced us.”

Mac pulled his hand back in midreach. “I thought you two were perfect for each other,” the wizard muttered, getting himself to his feet, then grinning as he straightened. “Seeing how she never shut up and you’re quieter than all your cats put together.” He sobered when Nicholas crouched in preparation to attack, and raised his hands. “Wait. I believe we should discuss
today’s
distraction before I knock you on your ass again.” He arched a regal brow. “What sort of lady trouble are you having this time?”

Nicholas straightened. “What makes you think I’m having lady trouble?”

“Do I look like I was born yesterday? The only times I’ve ever managed to best you without getting several of my teeth loosened in the process, a woman was involved. So what’s this one’s name? Do I know her?”

“There can’t be a woman involved if I can’t even get close to her.”

“Who?”

“Julia Campbell.”

“The Julia Campbell you
kissed
within half an hour of meeting her?”

“How do you know I— Olivia,” Nicholas growled as he crouched again. “By the gods, women love to talk.”

“Having someone to tell secrets to is one of the benefits of marriage,” Mac said, “which you would know if you stopped being so damned self-contained long enough to find a wife.” He sobered again. “Would you care for some advice, Nicholas?”

“Thanks, but I’d rather not hear advice on women from a man who wanted his sister to marry an idiot.”

“I wanted Carolina to be happy.”

Nicholas straightened again. “Lina’s so happy, she’s glowing.”

“She’s glowing because she’s pregnant,” Mac snapped as he in turn crouched to attack. “And
unmarried
. And if MacKeage doesn’t put a ring on her finger before she starts showing, I’m going to personally make sure this is the
only
child he sires.”

“You know, I never realized what a sore loser you are,” Nicholas said with a laugh, lunging without the prerequisite crouch when Mac straightened in surprise. He slammed into the wizard with the entire force of his weight, sending them both into the dark, subterranean pool of seawater.

“Poseidon’s teeth!” Mac bellowed when he surfaced, which he followed with a wild swing—which found only air when Nicholas dove again. “What did you do that for?” the wizard growled when Nicholas resurfaced.

He shrugged. “I thought it was something a ten-year-old would do.”

Mac scrubbed his face with his hands and, despite the water only being slightly above forty degrees, started floating on his back. “Mother will be impressed when she sees the mess you’ve made of us.”

Not being a true Atlantean, Nicholas swam to the ledge and pulled himself out of the frigid water, then grabbed his shirt and wiped his face. “They’re arriving over a week early, aren’t they?” he asked, unbuckling his belt and peeling off his wet pants. “I thought they weren’t coming until just before Olivia’s Thanksgiving holiday.”

Nicholas heard Mac sigh. “Olivia contacted them yesterday and asked if they couldn’t come now, as she’s in desperate need of Mother’s help.”

“Ah, yes,” Nicholas said, crumpling up his pants to wring them out. “I guess Rana would be the one I’d call if my director of special events suddenly ran off to Fiji without warning.” He grinned. “Do you suppose Olivia will give me a raise for not making her have to look for a new director of security as well?”

Mac lifted his head to glare at him. “Why would you want a raise if you can’t even remember to
cash
your paychecks? As for that resort in Fiji, I hope the bastards know that stealing my wife’s event planner just bought them a seven-year plague of sand fleas,” he muttered, finally swimming to shore and climbing out of the water. “Back to your woman trouble. My
advice
,” Mac said as he snagged his shirt off a ledge and started wiping down his chest, “is that you refrain from calling Julia a walking disaster.” He grinned. “At least to her face.”

Nicholas shook out his pants and started putting them on. “Is there nothing Olivia doesn’t tell you?”

“Sorry, my friend, but apparently lying in bed sharing the high points of the day is considered foreplay to women.” Mac stopped wiping and scowled. “And not talking is apparently the signal it’s time to go to
sleep
.”

Nicholas stilled with his pants halfway up his thighs. “You’re not serious.”

The wizard shook his head. “Women equate communicating with intimacy, Nicholas. You’re going to have to
talk
to Julia if you want to woo her. And when you do, try compliments instead of baiting her.”

“I called her a walking disaster to get the defeated look out of her eyes—which worked, I might add.”

“By the gods, you’re a horse’s ass. It’s a short-lived victory, because all she’ll remember is the insult.”

Nicholas buckled his belt with a sigh. “It would appear I keep seeing Julia at her worst—or rather, what
she
sees as her worst.”

“And what do you see?”

“A lovely lady who’s strong and resilient, and who’s also too proud to accept help from anyone.”

“Sometimes pride is a woman’s only defense,” Mac said softly. “And judging from what Olivia told me after Saturday’s little incident, Julia has every reason not to trust anyone—especially men.”

“Why? What did Olivia say?”

Mac slipped on his shirt. “Do I look like a gossiping woman? If you truly are interested in Julia, then maybe you should stop approaching her like an opponent you wish to conquer. You’re not running Genghis Khan to ground this time, Nicholas.”

“I’m not trying to annihilate Julia; I’m merely trying to get her in my bed.”

Mac arched a brow. “For
merely
pleasure?”

“I can’t know that,” Nicholas snapped, “if I can’t even get near her.” Since they’d stripped to just their pants to do battle, Nicholas sat down and pulled his socks from his boots. “For all I know, Julia is completely turned off men.”

Mac sat down beside him and also started dressing his feet. “I’ve seen you take in defensively aggressive cats even a saint would walk past,” he said quietly, “and turn them into pussycats. Was Solomon not such a wretch when you found him?”

Nicholas stopped lacing his boot and grinned. “Sol’s no pussycat; he’s a beast with an attitude.”

“Like his mentor?” Mac said with a chuckle, only to sober again. “Then use your magic touch on Julia instead of seeing her as a conquest.”

“And how do you know how I’ve been conducting my pursuit?”

“I know
you
. Except for being completely blind when it comes to my sister and your cats, you view everything as victory or defeat.”

“This coming from a man who pursued women across every continent over tens of centuries,” Nicholas drawled, “until a twenty-first-century mere slip of a lonely widow finally called your bluff by calling your
daddy
.” He got to his feet and grinned down at his scowling friend. “I was there when Titus got that call, by the way. And if I remember correctly, Olivia rattled
him
so badly that he had your poor mother standing on Inglenook’s doorstep at the crack of dawn the very next morning.”

Mac stood up, Nicholas presumed, to better glare at him. “Mother didn’t mind using the magic to get here because she was anxious to meet Henry.”

“She was suddenly more anxious to meet the woman her son was calling
marita
,” Nicholas countered, stifling a grin at the prospect that if he couldn’t beat Mac today, he could at least prick his temper. “Even though you had yet to tell your
wife
you’d married her several days earlier.”

Mac stepped closer. “At least I had the sense to pursue a woman who wasn’t a walking disaster.”

“No, according to your sister, Olivia was the mouse that roared,” Nicholas said as he suddenly reached out and snagged Mac’s shoulders. He dropped onto his back and sent the surprised wizard sailing over him, then lay grinning up at the roof of the cave as Mac’s shouted curse ended abruptly with a splash. But Nicholas scrambled to his feet when the massive subterranean pool suddenly began frothing with geysers of seawater spewing several fathoms into the air, the noise drowning out his laughter when a metal behemoth lifted the once again cursing wizard out of the water as it surfaced.

“By the gods,” Mac shouted as he scrambled to stand upright on the vessel now dwarfing its cavernous hiding spot deep inside Whisper Mountain. “I swear I will—” The rest of the mighty theurgist’s threat was lost to the jets of steam that suddenly shot out of several valves, one of which sent Mac scrambling to safety with a startled yelp before he could once again stand glaring down at Nicholas.

A small door opened on the giant underwater vessel with a hiss of pressurized air just before a gangplank emerged, followed by Titus Oceanus—making Nicholas rush over with a curse of his own when he saw the elder theurgist carrying Rana.

“I’m fine,” Rana assured him as Titus stepped onto the ledge. “Or I will be as soon as I feel solid ground beneath me again.” She turned and gave her husband a tight smile. “I swear I don’t know whether to feel cherished or insulted when you start coddling me. You know I get a silly bellyache every time you use the magic to get us here in a hurry, and you know I’m fine within minutes of—Maximilian, what on earth are you doing on top of our ship?” she called up to her son. “And why are you soaked?”

“Nicholas was being a
sore loser
.” Mac then slid down the curved side of the vessel, landed with a grunt when he bounced off the wall of the cave, and walked over and extended his arms. “Let me take her,” he said to his father.

Nicholas shoved him out of the way. “You’re wet. I’ll take her.”

Titus stepped back, giving them both a regal glare. “I believe I’m still capable of looking after my wife.”

Rana leaned her head onto Titus’s neck—Nicholas assumed to hide her smile. “Actually, I believe I’m still capable of looking after myself. Sweetheart,” she added, her smile widening when Titus muttered something under his breath as he set her on a large rock—then immediately sat beside her and wrapped an arm around her shoulders.

“So,” Rana said, smoothing down her shirt with a deep sigh as her gaze traveled over Nicholas’s wet pants and her son’s wet pants, shirt,
and
boots, “what were you two gentlemen discussing that ended with the both of you taking a swim?”

“I was trying to explain to our illustrious warrior here,” Mac began before Nicholas could, “that kissing a woman within thirty minutes of meeting her and calling her a walking disaster to her face is probably not the best way to begin a romantic pursuit.”

“
Now
who’s acting ten?” Nicholas snapped, even as he felt his neck heat up when Rana’s brows lifted in surprise.

“You’ve begun a romantic pursuit, Nicholas? Of a wo—” She suddenly smoothed down her shirt again. “Yes, well, how wonderful. Is she anyone I know?”

“He’s dallying with the help,” Mac answered before Nicholas could. “But you may know her, as she takes care of the cottages. Her name is Julia Campbell.”

Rana shook her head, although she was still looking at Nicholas, her expressive brown eyes speculative. “No, I enjoy tending our cottage myself. So, Nicholas, you’ve finally found a lady who’s lovely enough to pursue . . . romantically?”

Whatever Mac had intended to answer for him came out a grunt instead when Nicholas drove his elbow into the wizard’s ribs and stepped forward. “As a matter of fact,” he said, extending his hand to Rana, “I have. Which I wish to speak with you about,” he continued, tucking her arm through his when she stood up, then leading her toward the large metal door in the side of the cavern. “As I prefer taking advice from someone who
knows
what they’re talking about,” he said over his shoulder, “rather than someone who needed magic tricks and an epic stunt to catch his lady’s interest.”