Courting Carolina (11 page)

“Did you make the friend who helped you run away swear such an oath?”

This time Jane hesitated. “Why are you men so stubborn? You actually make everything more complicated with all your male posturing.” She sighed, pressing her nose into his chest. “I’m never going to find an ordinary man to love me, am I?”

He snorted. “Sorry, lass, but I’m afraid we all become posturing, lust-blinded idiots when there’s a beautiful woman watching.”

Her poking fingers started stroking his chest. “Speaking of lust,” she whispered, “when are you going to finish what you started tonight?” One of her really long legs ran up the length of his and wrapped around his thigh as she pressed forward into his groin. “I thought you were going to make love to me.”

“I did,” he growled, jerking his hips back.

“But we didn’t actually…We never…And you didn’t—”

“Oh, but I did, lass,” he lied with a derisive chuckle. “Just like a schoolboy.”

Her eyes rounded, her mouth forming a perfect
O
.

Alec kissed her, then rolled away and sat up to stare out at the fiord, noticing the tide had reached the rock he’d been sitting on. “Not that it matters, because my pants will be staying on whenever we’re horizon—”

She was on her feet and running before he even finished. Alec jumped up and caught her in three strides, only to have her hand shoot out of the sleeve of his shirt and poke him in the chest again. “You’re no different from all the other men,” she snapped. “You haven’t even met my father and you’re too afraid to make love to me.”

He pulled her to him before she could poke him again. “This isn’t about your father, Jane, it’s about
you
. And until you want to make love for all the right reasons, nothing more than what we did tonight is going to happen between us.”

“What do you mean, all the right reasons?”

“I mean that until ye see me only as a
man you want
instead of a good way to get out from under your father’s rule, your one lonely condom is staying in that pouch with your other precious jewels.”

Her mouth opened only to snap shut again, and Alec saw her cheeks flush and her eyes well with tears.

He pressed his hands to her face to keep her looking at him. “I’m sorry for being so blunt, but ye need to know how I feel. You’ve managed to hold on to your virginity this long; please don’t toss it away merely to win a senseless war. Give it to the man lucky enough to earn your love.”

“Do…do you know why I’m still a virgin?” she whispered, her tears spilling free. “Because all the men I’ve ever been allowed to be around were too afraid even to hold my hand. And those I’ve been with since I’ve been on my own were…I didn’t…I couldn’t…” She pulled in a shuddering breath. “Never mind, I understand. If you’ll be so kind as to let me stay tonight, I’ll leave first thing in the morning.”

“No,” he growled, tightening his grip when she tried to step away. “You can’t run forever, Jane. Stand up to your father here and now, with me standing beside you.”

“But at what cost? Because you were right, you know; you’ll be in the direct line of fire if this all goes to hell in a handbasket, and the price you could end up paying is more than I’m willing to live with.”

“I’m not afraid of your father, lass.”

“You should—”

He kissed her before she could finish, then swept her into his arms and carried her across the pebbled beach to the stream. “I’ll make a deal with ye, then,” he said over her sputtering protests, standing her next to her satchel. “Let me worry about finding a way to deal with your father that doesn’t involve using your condom, and you worry about finding the best way to deal with me.”

She stilled. “What do you mean, deal with you?”

“I mean,” he said quietly, getting right in her face and stifling a grin when she didn’t back away, “that every time I
catch you lying to me or acting clueless, I’m going to kiss you. And every time you look embarrassed or grateful, I’m going to strip you naked right on the spot and do exactly what I did to you tonight.”

Her eyes kept widening with every threat he made—only to suddenly narrow. “And if I catch you lying to me, I will return the favor,” she snapped, giving him a shove and bending to grab her satchel.

Alec used the momentum to pivot away and headed down the beach toward the boulder. “Ye certainly have my permission to try.”

“Wait, where are you going?”

“For a swim,” he said without looking back.

“In the
fiord
? But it’s freezing!”

“It won’t be by the time I’m done. Get dressed and call your pet so we can leave. I have one more stop I need to make before we head back to camp.”

Chapter Six

Alec stood several yards back in the woods, waiting to see if Jane intended to keep her promise to stay put, only to be pleasantly surprised to realize she did. He patted the spark plug he’d slid in his pocket after stashing her and Kit a mile down the shore from Inglenook—which had once been a camp for families that Olivia had run for her ex-in-laws, but was now the base for the scientists studying the two-year-old inland Bottomless Sea—and silently turned and ran through the forest to go ask a
friend
some questions. Not that the answers would make much difference, considering he’d already stepped in front of the goddamned bus. But he really couldn’t imagine living with himself if he abandoned Jane to her fate despite there being a good chance he could die if he took up her battle—seeing how her father was the most powerful magic-maker on the planet and her brother the second most powerful. Christ, even idiots knew that incurring the wrath of either man was tantamount to suicide.

So what was Sam Waters doing helping Jane?

Alec stopped fifty feet short of Inglenook’s grounds
keeper’s cottage and saw light coming from several of the windows and only Sam’s SUV parked in the driveway. He crept through the shadows around the small house, hesitating at the bathroom window long enough to decide that Sam was showering alone, then slipped back to the kitchen door and silently let himself in—only to grin when he saw the table was set with candles, two wineglasses, and a sad-looking bouquet of flowers. And if he wasn’t mistaken, there was a distinct smell of burning chicken in the air.

Alec walked over and turned off the oven, grabbed one of the strawberries off the platter and dipped it in the bowl of chocolate, then popped it in his mouth as he crept down the hall. He pressed his back to the wall when the shower shut off, and grinned again when the door opened and Sam came limping out wearing nothing more than a towel around his waist—only to stop mid-limp when Alec came up behind him and touched the blade of his knife to his throat.

“I have some questions to ask you, Waters, and if I don’t particularly like your answers, you’re going to spend a very long night watching yourself slowly bleed to death. We’ll begin with why you told Carolina Oceanus to come to me if she gets into trouble,” Alec quietly growled, having already figured out that Jane landing in his neck of the woods had been no accident.

“Have you ever seen my son-in-law angry, MacKeage? Because I think it might really piss him off if you kill me.”

Alec pressed the knife deeper. “I’ll take my chances with Mac.”

Sam Waters very carefully nodded. “Which is exactly why I told Carolina to run to you if she ever found herself in more trouble than she could handle.”

“Why me? Why not her brother?”

“For as much as he loves his sister, Mac’s hands are ultimately tied, because when push comes to shove, she’s still Titus’s daughter. And in their world, that makes the old man the boss of her.”

“Again, why send her to
me
?”

“Because the way I figure it, the only hope Carolina has
of ever being the boss of herself is to find a champion who understands the magic and isn’t afraid of it. And,” Sam rushed on when Alec put more pressure on the knife, “if I had to pick the one man who might stand a snowball’s chance in hell against Titus, it’s you.”

“Why goddamn me?”

Alec canted the blade when Sam hesitated and slowly drew it across his windpipe. “Shit. Okay. I picked you because whenever it was decided a mission was doomed to fail from the outset, we simply sent in…
the Celt
.”

Alec went as still as stone. “Who the hell are you?”

“Twenty-two missions in eight years,” Sam continued. “And that bastard always came back. Sometimes on a gurney, but he always returned successful.”

Alec stepped away, dropping his hands to his sides.

“I personally sent him on most of those missions, although back then he was only a thick file to me,” Sam went on as he rubbed his throat. He turned with a glare and wiped his bloody fingers on his towel. “But even after getting to know him up close and personal these last two years, I still can’t reconcile the carefree, boyishly charming Alec MacKeage with the ruthless, utterly focused weapon we just had to aim and pull the trigger on.” He shook his head. “Shit, half the time we expected you to blow up in our faces and the rest of the time we almost wished you would, because I swear the more difficult the mission was, the scarier you got.”

“You obviously have me mixed up with someone else.”

Sam shook his head again. “Your own parents don’t know you as well as I do. I bet your mother still doesn’t know all those packages she sent to Afghanistan through your three
tours
of duty were being opened and photographed in DC so you could write and thank her for the maple cream cookies and blue socks. And I’m damn certain your father doesn’t know you had a vasectomy nine years ago.” He arched a brow. “Been rethinking that decision since you got ou—”

Alec was on him before he’d even finished, this time pressing his arm to Sam’s throat and the tip of his knife into the towel below Sam’s waist. “You know why I always came
back?” he quietly asked. “Because I had no intention of dying until I found the bastard who blew our cover on my sixth mission out.”

Sam’s eyes flared briefly, then suddenly narrowed. “That’s why you walked away three years ago without so much as a backward glance. You didn’t get out because you botched the job and got your partner killed; it all went down exactly like you planned.”

The phone rang and neither man moved; Alec because he hadn’t gotten all the answers he wanted, and Sam likely because he still had a knife in his groin.

“Sam, sweetie,” a feminine voice said after the beep, “your not answering better not mean you plan to meet me at the door wearing only a towel again.” A sigh came over the line. “You promised we’d at least get to light the candles and actually eat this time before we…” Her laugh was husky. “Well, I’m just turning onto the Inglenook road. Be there in a few minutes, sweets.”

“Ah, do you mind?” Sam said as he carefully lifted away from the knife. “I’d really hate to disappoint my lady friend this evening.”

Alec stepped away with a snort. “Now I see why you’ve been gaining weight this summer.” He arched a brow. “You do know that Vanetta’s husband nearly beat her to death, don’t you, and that he
accidentally
died of carbon-monoxide poisoning when he got drunk and left his car running in their garage?”

“I know,” Sam said with a nod as he adjusted his towel. “But what worries me is how you know. Netta told me everyone believes she moved here from Alabama and bought the Drunken Moose because she needed to get away from the fond memories of her dead husband.”

Alec turned and walked to the kitchen. “It must be my boyish Celtic charm that makes people want to confide in me.”

“Wait,” Sam said, causing Alec to stop with his hand on the doorknob. “If Carolina ran to you, she must be in some pretty bad trouble. Is she in danger?”

“Not anymore, or for the time being.”

“What in hell does that mean?”

“It means that I took care of two of the bastards trying to ransom her back to her father after holding her for three days before she escaped. But it also means I give her a month before she gets into trouble again.”

“Shit, she was kidnapped? But how did they even know who she was? I gave her the best cover possible.” He shook his head. “Knowing Carolina, she didn’t go quietly.” Sam’s eyes darkened. “Was she hurt?”

“They were afraid Titus wouldn’t pay full price if they didn’t return her whole and hearty.” Alec shot Sam a warning glare. “I’m nobody’s champion, especially Carolina Oceanus’s. And when you see her again, you two better have a little talk on how she’s going about being an independent woman. Do you realize she’s been lugging around a single condom, looking for an unsuspecting schmuck she can trust enough to
devalue
her before her father can marry her off?”

Sam’s jaw momentarily went slack, but then his sharp gray eyes lit with interest. “You worried about looking like a trustworthy schmuck?”

Alec snorted. “Look, hell; I’ve pretty much been acting like one for the last two days. Jane might think that once the deed’s done she’ll finally be free, but she doesn’t have a clue about men. Not if she thinks one condom is all she’s going to need.”

“No clue about men in general or you in particular?” Sam asked with a grin. “You MacKeages are rather possessive when it comes to your women, I’ve noticed.”