Secrets of the Highlander

by Janet Chapman

  “That’s a good point, Father,” Kenzie said. “Which is why I’ve been thinking to move in with you. Ye no longer have the magic to help make things easy, and I’m needing a place to live. I can chop your wood and lug your water. It could work out well for both of us.”

  Daar glared at Greylen. “I don’t need a babysitter—especially a pagan from the Gregor clan. Just catch the vandals so we’ll be safe again.”

  “We now have policemen to keep us safe,” Grey returned. “We no longer can take matters into our own hands. And I think it’s a good idea for Kenzie to move in with you.” He looked at Kenzie. “You’re sure you wish to do this? Ye know you’re welcome to stay here. And Daar is our obligation, not yours.”

  “I’m not having that black devil in my home!” Daar banged his fork on the table. “I don’t want anyone living with me.”

  “Father,” Grace interjected, touching his arm. “You can’t continue to live alone. You could fall and break a leg, and it might be hours or days before someone showed up. This is a wise move, and it’s very kind of Kenzie to offer.” She gave Kenzie a crooked smile. “Especially considering how well he knows you.”

  “I believe Daar and I will get along fine,” Kenzie said, grinning at the scowling priest. “Besides, I’ve a need to feel the forest around me again.”

  “Can ye cook, Gregor?” Daar asked.

  Kenzie nodded.

  “Then ye best be providing your own food. I’m a priest, ye know, and have taken a vow of poverty. I can’t have ye eating me out of house and home.”

  “I will provide for both of us, Father.” Kenzie turned to his brother. “Have you sensed anything different in the air lately?”

  “Like what?” Matt asked in surprise. His eyes narrowed. “You can feel something?”

  Kenzie shrugged. “It’s more of a smell, but nothing I recognize. It’s…unnatural. Pungent.”

  “I’ve felt nothing,” Matt said. “Have you, Winter?”

  “Nope. The only thing I’ve been feeling lately is tired. I had no idea growing a baby was so hard.” She looked at her mother. “How did you survive five pregnancies, especially two sets of twins?”

  “I wasn’t running an art gallery, getting married, building a house, and saving the world while carrying any of you girls,” Grace said with a laugh. “You’ll start feeling better now that you’re into your second trimester.” She looked at Megan. “You seem to have gotten your energy back all of a sudden. And from the glow on your face, I’d say trouble’s brewing. What are you up to now?”

  Megan gave her an innocent look. “I’m five months’ pregnant. I’m supposed to glow.”

  “What’s up, daughter?” Greylen demanded. “I’ve also noticed that look in your eyes that ye get whenever you’re scheming.”

  “Maybe I’m just thinking about Cam’s suggestion that I ask Jack Stone on a date.”

  Cam choked on her food and Megan reached over and slapped her on the back.

  “You don’t have to jump out of the frying pan into the fire,” Cam said. “And you do realize the man carries a gun for a living?”

  Ignoring her, Meg looked at Chelsea. “How tall is Jack Stone?”

  “A couple inches under six feet, I guess. Simon pointed him out as he was walking to his cruiser.”

  Megan went back to eating, satisfied that she’d turned her parents’ scrutiny away from her.

  But Cam, apparently, wasn’t done causing trouble. “Then let’s double-date,” she suggested. “You can ask out Jack Stone, and Kenzie, you can be my date. We could all go to dinner in Greenville tomorrow night.”

  Several bites of food got stuck in several windpipes at that announcement.

  “It’s been awhile since I’ve gone on a…a date,” Kenzie said into the silence. “I’m not sure what’s expected of me in this century.”

  “You don’t have to do any thing,” Cam drawled. “Just leave your sword home and be your big, handsome self.”

  Megan glared at Cam. “For all we know, Jack Stone is married.”

  “No, he’s not,” Chelsea piped up. “Simon told me he helped Stone move into the Watson place on the lake, and that he’s definitely a bachelor. He doesn’t own enough stuff to fill a pickup.”

  Megan wanted to strangle both of her sisters.

  “I think it’s a wonderful idea, Megan,” Grace said. “You should wear that new maternity outfit Winter gave you for Christmas.”

  “I can’t go out tomorrow night,” she said, quickly backtracking. “I’m driving to Augusta to apply for a position that just opened up.”

  “I didn’t know you were looking for a job,” Grace said.

  “Meg found a posting for a field biologist right here on Pine Lake,” Cam said. “But I think there’s something strange about it. What are the chances of a job suddenly opening up right here, right now?”

  “Why is that strange?” Greylen asked.

  “It’s being privately funded. You remember what happened to Aunt Sadie, don’t you? This could also be a scam.”

  “It isn’t,” Megan countered. “A freelance biologist named Mark Collins is heading up an impact study of the wildlife in this watershed. It’s required, to build a new resort.”

  “We didn’t have to do an impact study when we built our ski resort,” Grey pointed out.

  “That was thirty-six years ago, Daddy. Today you can’t build anything without first studying the consequences.”

  “But why do you want this job? You’re going to be very busy in four more months.” He cradled his arms as if he were rocking a baby.

  Megan smiled. “I’ll get one of those baby backpacks.” She looked at her mother. “That’s how you carried Robbie when you brought him home from Virginia, and you told us Daddy carried all us girls in a pack until we could walk. I can’t think of a better way to spend my first summer with my child—out in the field doing what I love.”

  “It sounds like a wonderful idea,” Grace said.

  “And you’ll still be able to live here at Gù Brath,” her father added.

  Megan shook her head. “I’m going to look for my own place.”

  “Why?” Elizabeth asked.

  “Because I’m too old to be living at home with my parents. And because I need to start building a nest in which to raise my child.”

  No one disputed that reasoning, though her father looked like she’d just kicked him in the shin.

  “We will discuss your moving out tomorrow night, when you return from speaking with Mark Collins,” he said.

  Megan sighed and nodded. She might be twenty-nine and living on her own for ten years, but there was nothing like running back home to Daddy to make a girl feel nine years old again.

  Chapter Four

  Being the chief of police had its perks, Jack realized as he walked around Pine Creek PowerSports. He couldn’t remember the last time someone had let him shop after-hours. Then again, thinking Jack was about to drop ten grand on a snowmobile might be the real reason Paul Dempsey didn’t mind missing dinner.

  “If you’re looking for speed, this is the baby you want,” Dempsey said, patting the dark cherry cowling of a snowmobile that looked as if it belonged in a Star Wars movie. “Don’t let the fact that it’s a four-stroke scare you off. She’s got plenty of get-up-and-go, and her top end is one hundred and nine miles per hour right out of the crate.”

  Get-up-and-go sounded good. Apparently this machine could live up to its looks. “I don’t see a hitch for a fishing sled.” Jack bent over to study the mess of wires and engine parts exposed when Dempsey lifted the cowling.

  “This baby isn’t for fishing!” Paul said. “It’s designed for trail riding.”

  “So I can’t ride trails and fish with it?”

  Paul looked wounded. “Well, you could. But it’d be a sin to hitch a sled behind this beauty.” He gently closed the cowling with a sigh and crossed the crowded showroom. “If you’re looking mostly to fish, you’ll want this one,” he said, stopping beside
a bigger and definitely less aerodynamic snowmobile. “It’s got a longer track, the clutch is geared lower for towing, and it’s a two-stroke. This is the workhorse of the fleet.”

  It was also three grand cheaper.

  Jack looked back at the dark cherry snowmobile.

  Dempsey immediately returned to the expensive machine. “People sit up and take notice when a man shows up on a sled like this one.” He pulled a rag from his back pocket and he started to caress the hood, more than polish it. “Ain’t nothing on this lake that can catch it. And being a four-stroke, it’ll give you better gas mileage, as well as run quieter and cleaner.”

  Jack looked back at the fishing machine. Damn, it was ugly. “If I buy one tonight, can you deliver it to my house tomorrow? I’m renting the Watson place in Frog Cove, out on the end of the point.”

  Dempsey shook his head. “Don’t gotta deliver it. You can just drive it home.”

  “It’s got to be ten miles out to my place.”

  “Don’t matter. You just go down the side of this road here, cut through the center of town to the lake, and head up the western shoreline. It’ll take you twenty minutes, tops.”

  “It’s legal for snowmobiles to travel on plowed roads?”

  “Not really, but no one will bother you. We do it all the time.” Paul’s face suddenly reddened. “Leastwise, no one used to bother us. You gonna start enforcing that ordinance? ’Cause I gotta tell you, that would kill business downtown. Snowmobilers make up half of Pine Creek’s winter sales, especially at the restaurants.”

  Jack gave him an easy smile. “I’ve only been here a week. I’m not sure yet which ordinances I’m supposed to enforce and which ones I’m not.”

  Dempsey relaxed and started polishing the snowmobile again. “I’ve got a helmet that perfectly matches this paint. You show up in that and a black leather suit, and you’ll have to beat the snow bunnies off with a stick.”

  Jack gave one last look at the ugly black workhorse, then held out his hand to Paul. “I’ll take this one,” he said, closing the deal with a handshake, “and I’ll pick it up tomorrow afternoon.” He reached inside his jacket for his wallet. “Is a check drawn on a Canadian bank okay? I haven’t set up with a bank account here yet.”

  “I take credit cards.”

  Jack shook his head. “I don’t use them. I’ll open an account tomorrow, get some money transferred, and bring you cash.”

  Paul chuckled as he headed for the counter. “Don’t bother. I’ll take your check. I can’t imagine our police chief would try passing bad paper around town.” He started writing up the sales slip. “Say, what happened down at Marge’s bakery, anyway? Is it true the little bastards trashed the place?”

  “Pretty much. Any little bastards in particular you referring to?”

  Paul looked up with a frown. “Hell, everyone knows Tommy Cleary and his brothers are behind all our missing stuff.”

  “Nothing of value was taken,” Jack told him. “Just a couple of pies and day-old doughnuts.”

  “They swiped a snowblower off my lot about a month ago. Found it sitting on Main Street the next day, right in front of the Pine Creek Art Gallery.”

  “Would that be Winter MacKeage’s place?” Jack asked as he took out his pen and began writing the check.

  “She’s the owner and artist, though she’s a Gregor now. She married some rich bastard from away. They’re living in a cottage on the lake right across the cove from you, while they build a huge house up on Bear Mountain. Winter’s sister, Megan, has been running the gallery most of the fall.” Dempsey shook his head when Jack looked up. “Too bad about Megan.”

  “How’s that?”

  “She’s pregnant. Came home a little over four months ago, looking like a whipped puppy. Word is the bastard sent her packing when she told him she was having his kid.”

  “A woman named Libby MacBain and an elderly lady were running the art gallery when I stopped in to introduce myself,” Jack said.

  “The old lady would be Gram Katie, Libby’s mom. They’re minding the store because the MacKeages have a big shindig up at their place every Christmas. Old Greylen had seven daughters, the poor bastard, but he managed to get five of them married off. I think that leaves only the scientist who works down at NASA, and Megan.” He snorted. “I’m surprised Greylen didn’t go after the guy with a shotgun.”

  “That his style, is it?”

  Dempsey started writing some very large numbers on the sales slip. “The MacKeages are nice enough folks, but a bit strange. They’re like an old-fashioned clan from Scotland, and the MacBains are related to them somehow. If it weren’t for the lovely women they married, they’d be a bunch of cranky old hermits, living off in the woods someplace.”

  “I’ve met Michael MacBain.”

  “That would be Libby’s husband. He owns a Christmas tree farm just outside of town. You and Simon ever come into more trouble than you can handle, you call his son, Robbie. He was in the Special Forces for a while. He’s a good man to have on your side in a fight.”

  “Thanks for the tip. So, what’s the damage?” Jack asked, peering down at the sales slip.

  “That depends on if I have a leather suit that fits you,” Paul said, sizing him up. He walked over to a rack of black leather jackets. “You wear a large?”

  “Yup. And medium pants.” Jack slipped on the jacket Paul held out to him and flexed his arms. “Feels good.”

  “You might want a bigger size to cover that gun.”

  Jack looked down at the revolver on his belt. “I’m going to have to do something about this damn thing. It’s been driving me crazy all week.” He took off the jacket. “This is fine. Medium on the helmet, too.” He walked back to the counter, set the jacket down, then walked over and sat on the snowmobile he’d just bought.

  Yup, if this baby didn’t make him one of the locals, nothing would.

  Megan came into the living room and plopped down in an overstuffed chair by the hearth, opposite her mother. “You are looking at a woman who is once again gainfully employed.”

  “That quickly?” Grace asked in surprise. “Was it your credentials that got you the job, or was Mark Collins bowled over by your smile?”

  Megan laughed. “It must have been my credentials, since Mark wasn’t even there. A secretary faxed him my résumé, he called back in twenty minutes, and we had a phone interview.”

  “So is the position what you expected?” Camry asked from the couch, where she was coloring with Elizabeth’s almost-three-year-old son, Joel.

  “Even better: I’ll be my own boss. Mark said he only expects to make it into the field a couple of times this spring and summer. Using the state’s criteria, I’m to design the survey—which Mark has to approve—then do the work and hand in the results next September.”

  “What university is he affiliated with?” Grace asked.

  “None. He owns a freelance environmental consulting firm that services large corporations worldwide, including paper and chemical mills, oil companies, mineral mines, and such. If a company wants to expand, they call Mark to do an impact study to meet governmental requirements. He called from his office in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.”

  “And he’s got an office in Maine?” Cam asked.

  “No. It turned out the address listed in the posting was the resort developer in Augusta. It was their secretary who put me in touch with Mark.”

  “And he hired you without even bothering to check your references?” Grace asked.

  “He remembered seeing my name affiliated with that pipeline oil spill study I headed up in Alaska four years ago,” Megan explained. “And I could hear a keyboard tapping over the phone, so he was probably doing an Internet search on me as we spoke. Mark said he prefers contracting with regional engineers and biologists when he can, because we’re familiar with the local regulations.”

  “But you haven’t lived in Maine for ten years,” Grace pointed out.

  Megan shrugged. “I listed Maine as
my current residence.”

  “Speaking of which,” Cam said, setting Joel on the couch so she could stand up. “Beth and I found you a place to live today. A couple she teaches with is moving, and they’re planning to rent out their house in Frog Cove with the option to buy. Beth and Chelsea are over there right now, negotiating your lease.”

  Megan sat up straighter. “Where in Frog Cove? Is it on the lake?”

  Cam nodded. “Out on the point. So if you buy a boat, you can travel to most of your work by water this summer. It’s perfect, Meg. There are two bedrooms downstairs and two more upstairs, it’s got a beautiful woodstove in the living room, and it has a great view of Bear Mountain. You can even see Winter and Matt’s cottage directly across the cove.” Cam batted her eyelashes. “And Jack Stone lives just three houses down.”

  “I should warn you that your father isn’t happy about this,” Grace said, going to Joel, who had decided eating a crayon was more fun than coloring with it. “No matter how much I reasoned with him last night, I couldn’t convince Grey that going back to your fieldwork is exactly what you need right now.”

  “Why is he so upset?” Megan asked. “It’s not like I’m moving to Siberia. I’ll only be eight or nine miles away.”

  Grace sat on the couch with Joel on her lap. “He doesn’t like the idea of you living alone with a brand-new baby. He claims that back in the twelfth century, a man his age no longer had to worry about his daughters; he’d have married them off by sixteen and turned the worrying over to their husbands.” She chuckled softly. “He thinks society never should have done away with arranged marriages. He’ll eventually calm down, once he sees you’re able to manage everything—which I know you will.” She shot Meg a crooked smile. “But you’ll probably have to move back to Gù Brath when you get near your due date. Your father will camp on your doorstep if you don’t, ready to rush you to the hospital at your first contraction.”

  “But you had us girls at home. And Beth had a midwife for Kadin and Joel. I’m using the same woman for my delivery.”

  Grace sighed. “Let’s not mention that to your father just yet, okay? Let’s let him get used to your moving out, first.”