Текст книги "Wedding The Highlander"

Автор книги: Джанет Чапмен

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With a nod of thanks, Grace waddled over to the chair and sat down with a sigh of relief.

“Thanks,” she said, patting her belly with both hands. “I swear she’s playing soccer in there.”

Libby nodded at Grace’s stomach. “Your seventh, Robbie said?”

“Yup. Another healthy and happy girl, having a grand old time at my expense.”

“When are you due?”

Grace cocked her head to the side and grinned at Libby.

“December twentieth, this year.”

“This year?”

Grace held up four fingers. “Four pregnancies, not counting this one, and six daughters.

All born either on December twentieth or twenty-first, depending on when Winter Solstice was that year.” She waved at the air. “I don’t keep track of the date, just the day.”

“All your daughters were born on Winter Solstice?” Libby asked. She pointed at Grace’s belly. “And you’re expecting this one the same day?”

Grace gave a small laugh. “Why not? It’s convenient, having all the birthday parties at once.”

“But you can’t expect all your children to be born on the same day,” Libby impolitely repeated. “It’s improbable.”

“Said the doctor to the mathematician,” Grace quietly agreed with a slow nod, leveling her gaze at Libby.

Libby gasped. She felt the bottom drop out of her new life. “But… how… how did you know?”

“That you’re Elizabeth Hart, renowned trauma surgeon from Cedars-Sinai?” Grace asked, lifting one brow. “Did you expect me to let my nephew rent his house to a complete stranger off the Internet?”

Libby returned her visitor’s level stare. “Who else knows besides you? Michael?

Robbie?”

Grace shook her head. “No. Just my husband.” She shot Libby a conspirator’s smile.

“Since you didn’t mention that fact in your e-mails, I assumed you didn’t want it advertised.” She shrugged. “I don’t know why you’ve come here, but I don’t really care, Libby. As long as you continue to be the level-headed, intelligent woman my sources say you are, I don’t have a problem with your wanting to hide here. Pine Creek is a haven to more than one lost soul.”

“I’m not hiding,” Libby softly defended. “Except maybe from myself,” she admitted. She smiled at her new friend, immediately deciding she could trust Grace. “I thought I might be one of those lost souls you mentioned, but if I had doubts about what I’m doing, I don’t anymore. The closer I got to Pine Creek today, the louder the voice in my head told me I was finally where I belonged.”

Grace set one hand on her knee and the other on the back of the chair and awkwardly pushed herself to her feet. She walked over to Libby and engulfed her in a warm, sisterly hug. “That’s good,” she whispered. “’Cause this town can use a woman of your talent.”

Libby leaned back. “I… I’m through with doctoring.”

Grace gave Libby a wink as she pulled away. “I wasn’t talking about your talent with a scalpel,” she said softly.

Robbie came through the door with his arms loaded with paper sacks. Libby rushed to help the boy, wondering what her new friend meant by her comment,

“You shouldn’t have done this for me, Grace,” Libby scolded. “It’s a tiring chore for someone in your condition.”

Grace snorted. “It’s less tiring than keeping six girls entertained. I’ll have to go rescue my husband from them soon, but I have time for tea,” she said, reaching into one of the sacks and pulling out a box of tea.

“Did you buy any water?” Libby asked, looking through the other bags.

Grace laughed. Robbie gave Libby a quizzical look. “You don’t buy water at the store,”

he told her. “You turn on the faucet.”

“It’s well water,” Grace clarified. “And the sweetest in the country.”

Libby felt a blush creep into her cheeks. “I’m not such a city girl that I’m unredeemable,”

she said lamely. “I just had a momentary brain cramp.”

Grace patted Libby’s arm as she walked past her with the teakettle. “It took me months to reacclimate,” Grace assured her. She put the kettle on the range to boil and then walked over to the table and picked up Libby’s soggy computer. “This doesn’t look good.” She turned to Libby. “What happened?”

“She decided to give her car a bath in our pond,” Robbie answered before she could, laughing at his own joke.

“Remember? I told you Papa had to fish her out.” He shot a devilish look at Libby. “We thought about throwing her back, though, so she could grow some more.”

Grace messed the boy’s hair. “Your father’s sense of humor is not something to emulate, Robbie,” she chided. “Go look it up in the dictionary in the living room,” she added at his questioning frown.

Grace turned her attention to Libby’s own questioning look the moment Robbie ran into the living room. “When he’s not acting like the eight-year-old he really is, he can be quite brilliant. And often quite scary.”

“He must be in, what, second grade?” Libby asked.

Grace nodded. “He reads at an eighth-grade level, thanks to Michael. And his grasp of mathematics is well beyond that, compliments of his Sutter genes,” Grace said with a proud smile.

“He looks much older than eight,” Libby said, still skeptical.

“That’s thanks to Michael, too. But then, you’ve met his father,” Grace added, a twinkle brightening her eyes. “I heard you were about to take a swing at him.”

“I only managed to make him laugh.”

Grace patted Libby’s arm and then opened a cupboard and took down two mugs. “And that, Libby Hart, is a miracle,” she said. She nodded her smile of approval. “I’ve probably seen Michael laugh only twice since I’ve known him. And both times were at another person’s expense. Once at my own.”

“The man sounds wonderful,” Libby said.

Grace MacKeage suddenly turned serious. “He is wonderful,” she declared with all the loyalty of a sister-in-law.

“They don’t make men like Michael MacBain anymore.”

“You mean big and ferocious-looking?” Libby asked, deciding to lighten the mood.

But Grace nodded agreement. “Yes, Michael can be intimidating, if you let him.” She looked up and down Libby’s small body, and Grace’s smile suddenly returned. “You might have to stand on a chair, but I think you can give back just as good as you get.”

Libby didn’t disagree. She did decide that she was supposed to be the hostess here, even though it was Grace’s family home. She took over the chore of making the tea and waved Grace back to her seat.

“But I’m supposed to emulate my papa,” Robbie said as he walked back into the kitchen. “It means to try to be equal to, if not better than, a person. I want to be just like Papa.”

Libby carried the mugs of tea to the table and sat down, amused by her new landlord.

“You can grow big like your papa,” Grace agreed, pulling Robbie up against her belly to hug him. “And you can even emulate Michael’s manly swagger.” She took hold of his chin and forced him to look at her. “But you will be more civilized, Robert MacBain, when it comes to women.”

“Papa can be civilized,” he countered, grinning up at his aunt. “He buttoned Libby’s shirt up so I wouldn’t see her breasts. That was civilized, don’t you think?”

Libby had just taken a sip of her tea, but instead of swallowing, she spit it all over the table. She slapped her hands to her flaming cheeks and stared in horror at Grace.

Grace lifted a brow and smiled at Libby, then looked back at Robbie and nodded. “That was a very civilized thing for Michael to do,” she agreed. She set the boy away and gave him a pat on his backside. “Why don’t you go arrange some paper and kindling in the hearth? I’m sure Libby would like to light a fire this evening to stare at while she contemplates just what she’s gotten herself into here.”

Robbie ran back into the living room, eager to do his important chore, and Grace turned laughing eyes on Libby.

Libby continued to stare in horrified silence.

“I’m scared to death to tell you how similar our arrivals to Pine Creek are,” Grace said, shaking her head. “For fear you’ll turn around and run back to California.”

That cryptic remark brought Libby out of her stupor. “How similar?” she asked, blinking at Grace’s very pregnant belly, wondering just how similar their lives would continue to be.

Grace nodded toward the kitchen door at Libby’s ruined suitcase. “I also had an accident arriving here, and everything I brought with me was ruined.”

She smiled as she said this, and Libby became intrigued. “What sort of accident?”

“My plane crashed,” Grace said, waving it away as if it were unimportant. She nodded at Libby’s computer. “Even my laptop was ruined, like yours. But that’s not the point of this story. I was also unconscious in the arms of a very large, very intimidating man.”

She patted her belly. “That was eight years and almost seven babies ago.”

Libby was back to being horrified.

Grace laughed and awkwardly stood up. “You’ve come to a good place, Elizabeth Hart.

This house will keep you warm and cozy, the land will recharge your batteries, and the people will welcome you.” She walked to the living room door to watch Robbie lay up the fire, then turned to Libby again, an impish smile lighting her eyes. “And Michael MacBain is going to drive you crazy, but that won’t stop you from falling in love with him anyway.”

Chapter Five

Libby spent the first night in her new hometossing and twisting in her bed as unsettling dreams ran through her mind. In her mind’s eye, she could see a huge white bird fluttering against the ceiling over her head, its beating wings charging the air with a pulsing blue light; a large, snorting, out-of-control horse galloping through the woods with her clinging to its back, screaming in terror for someone to help her; and a giant, with hands like forged steel and eyes as deep and dark as the granite of the mountains, shouting over the howl of the wind.

Libby opened her eyes and screamed at the top of her lungs.

A large hand covered her mouth. “My God, woman, but you do love to holler,” Michael MacBain whispered, his face mere inches from hers.

The heat of his hand, the feel of his warm breath brushing her cheeks, and the weight of his large, very male body pushing against her sent prickles of awareness through every nerve in Libby’s body. The howl of the wind from her dream continued, the rain driving against the bedroom windows only adding to the chaos of her reeling emotions.

“I’m going to remove my hand,” Michael said, his eyes reflecting off what appeared to be the beam of a flashlight lying on the bed beside them. “And if you scream again,” he continued softly, “I just might shut you up with a kiss this time. Do you understand, Libby?”

Libby frantically nodded.

What in hell was he doing there in the middle of the night?

But, more important, why wasn’t she afraid?

She should be scared to death, waking up to find a man she’d only met yesterday in her bedroom. But truth be told, Libby was more afraid of herself at the moment. It had been a long time since she’d felt the kind of energy that sparked between them.

And it was then that Libby realized why he was there.

Michael MacBain felt the energy, too, and it scared him just as much as it scared her. He was in her bedroom in the dead of night, hoping to unnerve her enough that she’d run back to California before that energy created a very big problem for both of them.

Oh, she was sorely tempted to call his bluff.

As if he could read her thoughts, he suddenly stood up.

Libby sat up in bed, hugging the blankets to her chest.

Michael took a step back and ran his hand through his hair. “Dammit, woman. Why in hell aren’t you slapping my face?”

Libby couldn’t help but smile as she ran her own shaking hand through her hair. “I can be contrary that way,” she told him. “When I think a person has an ulterior motive, I have this need to call his bluff more often than not.”

“My God,” he breathed. “You’re reckless.”

“I’m not afraid of you, Michael.”

“You should be,” he growled, taking a step toward the bed. “Do you not realize what could have just happened between us?”

“Nothing would have happened, Michael, so stop posturing. You didn’t really come here to mess up my sheets.”

He gaped at her, clearly at a loss for words, then scrubbed his face with his hands. He gave a growl from deep in his chest, and suddenly he was on top of her again—only this time, he wasn’t sitting, he was lying beside her, trapping her under the blankets.

One of his hands wrapped around her shoulders, and the other hand caught her hip as he pulled her tightly against him. Libby found herself nose to nose with the giant, staring into his turbulent gray eyes.

It was probably time to panic. Michael MacBain was obviously not used to having his bluff called. And truth told, Libby was not used to being manhandled by large, angry men.

Yes, she should have been scared. And she would have been, but for the simple, telling act of Michael carefully moving away from her swollen knee, using his leg to trap her thigh instead.

“Don’t mistake me for one of your civilized California men,” he said softly, contradicting his action. “It’s not only distance you’ve traveled to get here, Libby Hart.

Men in these mountains have a tendency to finish what we start, and we don’t allow anyone, especially a tiny thing like you, to call our bluff.”

“What’s your point, Michael?”

“Dammit, Libby. Do you even realize why you were lured here?”

She shouldn’t smile. But Libby simply couldn’t help herself. “Your son is looking for a new mama,” she told him. “And he seems to think I might be a good candidate.”

He reared back to glare at her. “So you admit you’re hunting for a husband?”

Her smile turned into a laugh. “I am not.”

It was obvious he didn’t believe her when his hand tightened on her backside. Libby quit smiling.

“So you admit you came here tonight to scare me away?” she asked, turning his question back on him.

“I came because I was worried about you in this storm.”

“What storm?”

He let out a sigh strong enough to move her hair. “The snow has turned to a driving rain,” he explained with growing impatience. “The electricity’s gone out.”

“You came all the way over here, broke into my house, and woke me up to tell me the power’s out? How very sweet of you.”

He leaned more of his weight on her. “Are you always this reckless when you have a two-hundred-pound man pushing you into the mattress, lady, or do you merely have a death wish?”

“I haven’t been on a mattress with a two-hundred-pound man in a very long time,” she told him, wiggling a bit so she could breathe more easily. “Are you going to get up?”

“I haven’t decided,” he snapped, moving back against her. He brushed a curl from her face but stopped and fingered what Libby knew was her white lock of hair. He studied it and then studied her face.

“Why have you come here?”

Libby guessed Michael had decided not to get up but to talk instead. And she didn’t know if she should be relieved or alarmed.

“I’m starting a new life.”

“What was wrong with your old life?”

“It didn’t fit anymore. I suddenly found myself unable to breathe. Like now.”

He lifted his weight, but only slightly, as he continued to study her. And Libby’s relief slowly turned to alarm. She was beginning to get hot under the covers, and it wasn’t from too many blankets.

Michael MacBain had the most beautiful eyes Libby had ever seen. And that little flutter in the pit of her stomach was becoming an internal storm that mocked the one raging outside.

“Are you going to tell me what you did in your former life?”

“No.”

“But you are saying that you’re not here to find yourself a husband and a ready-made family.”

“That’s the story I’m sticking to.”

“I won’t allow you to break my son’s heart, Libby.”

“I won’t, Michael.”

He was silent for a bit, his finger again toying with her hair. One corner of his mouth turned up. “Then that leaves us two choices. I can show you how to run the generator, or we can—how did you so nicely put it?—mess up your sheets.”

Oh, she was tempted. Making love to Michael MacBain would most likely be the experience of a lifetime.

“I’ve always wanted to run a generator,” she said.

Libby would give him credit, he didn’t appear disappointed. His smile was a little crooked, but her answer seemed to please him. Or was that relief she saw relaxing the harsh planes of his face?

She took her first full breath since waking, when Michael finally lifted himself away and stood up. He picked up the flashlight and shined it at her, keeping the beam out of her eyes.

“Dress warm,” he told her. “The power’s been out for several hours, and the house has grown cold.” He tossed the flashlight onto the bed and walked away but stopped at the door and turned back to her.

“And Libby?”

“Yes, Michael?”

“Contrary to what my son is hoping for, I have no intention of ever marrying. But you should know that I do intend to have you. And for that reason alone, you should fear me, lass. Be wise, Libby, and be afraid.”

Chapter Six

It was noon,and Libby was sitting in her new living room, watching the wonderfully smelly and messy wood fire crackling in her new hearth. She rearranged the towel of ice more comfortably over her knee and sighed in contentment.

The storm had blown itself out, and the power had come back on not twenty minutes after Michael had left without showing her the generator. He’d warned her of his intentions and then simply walked out.

Yeah. The sky had cleared, but it appeared the electrical storm between them had only just begun.

Libby wasn’t sure how she felt about that. She’d been honest when she told Michael she hadn’t come here looking for a husband or a ready-made family. She was trying to build a new life for herself. Well, she’d certainly started it off with a bang. She’d not only crashed into a farm pond, she’d crashed into the arms of a very sexy, very large mountain of testosterone.

A mountain who intended to have her.

Libby couldn’t remember the last time a man had said he wanted her. And never had it been put to her quite so bluntly—or so honestly.

And that was why she wasn’t afraid of Michael MacBain. Truly honest men, even those who thought of themselves as uncivilized, need not be feared. They were throwbacks to a nobler time—becoming quite rare in this day but definitely interesting to deal with.

And she could deal with Michael, if that’s what the man wanted. Heck, she’d be crazy not to take him up on his offer. And how dangerous could it be to mess up the sheets with him? She was made of stern stuff. Her heart could handle a flaming affair as long as she knew from the beginning that it wouldn’t lead to anything permanent.

Libby opened the towel on her knee and pulled out a half-melted ice cube. She popped it into her mouth and crunched it between her teeth, wondering if the wood fire was getting out of control or if just the thought of getting naked with Michael MacBain was making her hot.

A knock sounded on her kitchen door, and Libby stilled in the act of popping another ice cube into her mouth. Oh, Lord, it had better not be him, she thought. She wasn’t ready to face Michael so soon. Not when her thoughts of having an affair with the man were probably written all over her face.

“Hello, the house!” came a booming shout, accompanied by another, more violent knock.

“I’m coming,” Libby hollered back, getting up from the chair and limping into the kitchen. She tossed her towel of ice into the sink as she walked by but stopped to peek through the sheer curtain before opening the door.

There was a very large man standing on her porch, with wild, graying auburn hair and a beard that looked bushy enough for birds to nest in. He was glaring at the window as he knocked again, rattling the entire door on its hinges.

Libby pulled the curtain aside and smiled back. “Can I help you?” she asked.

The man’s glare disappeared along with his eyebrows into his hairline, when he realized that he had to look down to see her.

“My name’s Ian MacKeage, Miss Hart,” he said in a gruff and barely understandable Scottish accent as he attempted to soften the harsh planes of his face with a smile. “I’ve brung ya the hens young Robbie asked for.”

Libby immediately recognized the name and opened the door.

“What hens?” she asked, stepping onto the porch when he stepped back.

The man’s chin dropped to his chest, his eyebrows rose out of sight again, and he just stood there and stared at her.

“Where’s the rest of ya?” he asked, only to snap his mouth shut and duck his suddenly red face. “I… I’m being sorry for saying so, lass, but you’re a might tiny thing, and I… I… ” He snapped his mouth shut again and rubbed his beefy hand over his face, as if he could scrub away his words.

Libby was beginning to wonder if she had moved to the land of giants. Ian MacKeage, for all his advancing years, was a brute. He stood a good foot taller than she did, but most of his size was made up of broad shoulders, massive arms, and an impressively large barrel chest.

“I’m sorry,” he said again. “It’s just that I was expecting someone a bit, well… ” He smiled and shook his head.

“Has Michael seen ya yet?”

Libby wasn’t above a good joke, even when she was the brunt of it. “He wanted to throw me back into his pond so I could grow bigger,” she told Ian, enjoying his shocked expression.

“Michael would never do nothing like that, Miss Hart,” he quickly defended. “The boy’s got more manners than that.”

Boy? Ian considered Michael a boy?

“What hens are you talking about?” she asked.

It took him a moment to realize she’d changed the subject. “Oh, the hens Robbie wanted for ya,” he said, waving toward his pickup truck. “He insisted on pullets, but I only had eight, so I threw in a few old ones to make up the dozen.”

“And a pullet is?” Libby prodded.

“A young hen. They were hatched this spring and have already started laying.”

“A dozen?” Libby repeated softly, only now realizing the implication of owning that many hens. “What am I going to do with a dozen eggs every day?”

Ian gave her an odd look. “Ya bake with them, woman. Ya make cookies and cakes and stuff.” His eyebrows lifted again when she didn’t readily nod agreement. “Ya mean ya don’t bake? Does young Robbie know this?”

Libby was also beginning to wonder if she’d come here to start her new life or been lured to be surrogate mother to Robbie and sexual entertainment for Michael MacBain.

Was everyone in Pine Creek in on this little conspiracy?

Hell. Even Grace had alluded to it yesterday.

“I… I can bake,” Libby said, wondering why she was admitting such a thing. “I just can’t see using a dozen eggs every day. Who’s going to eat that amount of food?” she asked, already knowing what Ian was going to say and not wanting to hear it.

“Michael and Robbie,” he said anyway. “And John. They got no one to bake for them now.” He shook his head. “MacBain can’t cook worth a damn, and that’s a fact. The boy might do okay over an open fire, but a stove defeats him. Young Robbie’s been eating at Gu Bràth a lot lately.”

“Gu Bràth?”

“That’s our home,” Ian said, pointing toward the same ridge Robbie had indicated yesterday. “Me and Grace and Grey and the hellions live there.”

“The hellions?”

Ian grinned. “Grace’s bairns. The lasses,” he explained at her quizzical look. “Heather’s almost eight, and Sarah and Camry are almost six, Chelsea and Megan will be four, and Elizabeth will be three this December.”

He leaned closer and whispered his next words. “But don’t call them hellions in front of Grace,” he confided with a conspirator’s wink. “Although I’ve heard her call them that a few times herself.” He straightened back up and puffed out his already impressive chest. “They’re good bairns for girls, though they can talk a man’s ear off if he ain’t learned to hide quick enough.”

“I met Grace yesterday,” Libby told him, nodding.

“She said she was over,” Ian said. “But it seems she forgot to mention that a good wind would blow ya away.”

Libby was getting sorely tired of her size being such a big issue. She puffed up her own

–unimpressive—chest and glared at Ian MacKeage. “Don’t let the package fool you,”

she told him. “I’m much tougher than I look.”

He raised both hands in supplication, his grin wide enough to show through his beard.

“Now, lass, I’m not wanting to hurt your feelings. I’m only teasing you a wee bit. Come on,” he said, turning toward his truck. “We’ll see how tough ya are when it comes to dealing with a dozen flapping hens.”

Half an hour later, Libby felt confident she had passed Ian’s test. All twelve hens were now eating their heads off in her coop, and she had only eight or ten peck marks to show for her efforts.

“Do you know where I can buy a truck around here?” she asked. “Something like yours,” she said. “Only not quite so big,” she added as she struggled to close the tailgate without looking as if she was about to collapse under its weight.

Ian must have realized she was in danger of being flattened, and he flipped the tailgate up with a flick of his wrist.

“I believe Callum’s got a truck he’s wanting to sell. But it’s not a pickup like mine. It’s a Suburban.”

“Oh, that would be even better. I can haul my product to craft shows without worrying about getting anything wet. How do I get in contact with Callum?”

“I’ll have him drop by with the truck tonight,” Ian told her. He cocked his head and gave her a curious look. “It’s not that old a truck, lass. It might cost a bit more than you were planning on spending.”

“I think I can scrape the money together,” she told him.

“Grace said you make jewelry?”

“I work with glass,” Libby confirmed, nodding. “And I hope to find a shop in town to rent so I can set up a studio. Do you know of anyplace that might be available?”

“There’s a couple of empty storefronts that might work. Check with the Dolan brothers.

They bought Hellman’s Outfitter Store, but it’s called Dolan’s Outfitter Store now, and I think they own the whole building. There’s an empty space at one end of it,” he finished, walking around the truck and opening the door.

Libby waited until he climbed in. “Thank you, Ian, for the information and for bringing me the hens. What do I owe you for them?”

“Already been paid for,” he said with a wink. “Robbie hatched them and told me last week they were part of the rent.”

He shut the door, started the truck, and rolled down the window. “Stay outta the wind, lass, so we don’t have to chase ya clear into the next county,” he got off as a parting shot as he drove away, his laughter trailing in the dust of his wheels.

Libby waited until she was sure he was out of sight, then shot Ian MacKeage a very unladylike gesture.

“And I thought I was uncivilized,” a deep, laughing voice said from behind her.

Libby whirled in surprise, then gasped and took several steps back the moment she realized exactly what a warhorse was. It was a long-necked, hairy-tailed elephant minus the trunk.

And Michael MacBain was sitting on top of the monster.

He held out his hand.

Libby took another step back.

Michael’s smile widened. “Come on, Libby,” he beckoned. “Take a ride with me while I go check on an old man who lives on the mountain.”

Libby rubbed her hen-pecked palms on her thighs and stared at Michael’s outstretched hand. Damn him. He couldn’t say what he had said this morning and then come riding in here and expect her just to jump up and go with him.

“I… I don’t have a riding helmet,” she whispered, knowing he heard her. “And nobody should ride without one,” she added.

He said nothing to that but merely continued to hold out his hand.

“I have a hundred million things to do.”

He still had nothing to say.

“You… you don’t even have a saddle on that monster.”

Again, he said nothing, his hand as patiently steady as his penetrating gray gaze.

“Dammit, Michael, I can’t go with you yet. I mean now. I can’t go with you right now.”

With no signal from its rider that she could detect, the elephant walked forward and stopped beside her. Libby refused to lose any more ground and suddenly found Michael’s outstretched hand mere inches away.

“Come with me,” he whispered, the deep timbre of his voice raising the fine hairs on her neck. “You’ve nothing to fear from me, Libby. Not today.”

Of its own volition, her left hand rose up and set itself in his. Michael repositioned her grip, firmly grasping her around the arm just above her elbow, and swung her onto the horse behind him so swiftly and smoothly Libby barely had time to squeak.

She closed her eyes the moment the monstrous beast started to move. Michael dug her nails out of his stomach and repositioned her hands around his waist.

Libby discovered that hugging him was like hugging a large tree. The man was definitely just as solid, only much warmer than a tree. He smelled nicer, too.

And so, with her eyes closed, her body crushed into Michael as if her life depended on it, and TarStone Mountain looming ahead, Libby prayed that she had just consigned her soul to an archangel—and not to the devil himself.

Chapter Seven

God save himfrom reckless women.

Michael couldn’t believe Libby had come with him. It was possible she hadn’t understood him this morning, but he didn’t think so. Which meant that either she was considering his offer, or the woman should be locked up for her own safety.

“So this is Stomper,” she said, removing one of her death-gripping hands from his waist and patting the horse’s side.

Stomper thought a fly was on him and gave a violent swish of his tail as he kicked up a hind leg to swat it. Libby gasped and dug her nails into Michael’s stomach again.

“Wh-who lives on the mountain?” she asked.

Michael heard the worry in her voice but didn’t know if it was the horse making Libby nervous or if she had finally realized the dangerous position she’d put herself in, now that they were quickly leaving civilization behind.

“He’s a priest who goes by the name of Daar,” he told her, prying her nails out of his belly again and patting her hands flat. “He has a cabin partway up TarStone.”

“He lives by himself? I thought priests lived in rectories or something.”

“He’s an old priest and has no church,” Michael explained, trying to ignore his passenger’s soft breasts pressing into his back. The woman was clinging to him so tightly it felt as if she were trying to melt into his skin.

Now, there was a maddening thought.