“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,” I
an 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.
Dammit. What had Robbie gotten him into? Or, rather, what had he gotten himself into by agreeing to allow his son to rent Mary’s home?
He didn’t want to be attracted to Libby. She was too small. Too outspoken. Too…dammit, she was too reckless.
Michael had known she would be trouble the moment she’d set her feet on his chest and pushed him into his pond.
And if that hadn’t been warning enough, she had threatened to call his bluff this morning when he’d gone to her house with every intention of scaring her off.
So what was he doing bringing her with him this afternoon?
Aw, hell. He had his own reckless streak, which was proving to be just as dangerous as Libby’s. Either that, or he had been too long without a woman.
Most likely, it was a combination of both.
But mostly, Michael had invited her along because he knew that sooner rather than later, the old priest would wander down off the mountain and into Libby’s yard. Daar was curious about Robbie’s new tenant and could be downright meddlesome at times, sticking his nose into places where it didn’t belong.
That was why Michael wanted to be there for their first meeting, so that he could control the conversation. He needed to make sure Libby understood that
Daar was a bit touched in the head and that she shouldn’t believe anything he said.
“You all have Scottish accents,” the cause of his restless night’s sleep said into his back. “I could barely understand a word Ian was saying. Even Robbie has a slight accent. Have you all lived here very long?”
“I’ve lived here ten years,” he told her. “Ian and the other MacKeages have been here almost twelve years.”
“What happened to Robbie’s mother?”
“She had an automobile accident when she was eight months pregnant. My son was surgically taken from Mary, and she died the next day.”
“I’m sorry,” Libby said softly against his back. “So Robbie never knew his mother.”
“He knows her. Everyone’s seen to that.”
Michael faced forward again and decided it was time to redirect this inquisition. “So, what made you move from California to Maine?”
There was a moment’s hesitation before she spoke. “I was afraid of earthquakes,” she muttered into his back.
Michael turned his head, only to find her tiny little chin lifted in defiance, just daring him to comment.
Which, of course, he couldn’t help but do. “So ya’re preferring blizzards instead? No, I’m thinking it’s a man you’re running from.”
“I am not,” she said, shoving at him to turn him around.
She nearly pushed herself off his horse instead. Libby let out a yelp and kicked her legs to catch her balance, and Stomper protested by bolting out from under both of them.
Michael had to choose between regaining control of his still powerful old warhorse or joining Libby for her journey to the ground. He twisted and wrapped his arms around the flailing, screaming woman and made sure that when they landed, Libby was on top.
The fact that he was laughing the whole way down was probably what enraged her the most. Michael captured her hands when she tried to shove away from him. And before her flailing knees unmanned him, he rolled them over and placed her safely beneath him.
“You idiot,” she hissed, squirming to get free. “That’s why you wear a helmet.”
“You don’t appear to have any broken bones,” he observed, pinning her shoving hands over her head.
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