Courting Carolina (3 page)

Oh, but he was tempted to let her stay, if for no other reason than to keep himself entertained for a few days. That is, until he remembered her battered though otherwise flawless body and felt his groin grow heavy. Hell, spending even one night in the same lean-to as the beautiful woman would
likely test the noble intentions of a saint, much less a man who’d been all alone in the woods all summer.

Alec followed the wolf into the forest from where they’d emerged onto the trail earlier and tried to remember when the last time was that he’d been so immediately captivated by a woman. Especially an obviously high-maintenance princess who’d given him a fictitious name, who didn’t want anyone—including her family—to know where she was, and who woke up from a nightmare and started issuing orders.

He found the men right where he’d left them, the only problem being the bastards were dead. Hell, one of them was actually smoldering, as was the exploded tree he was crumpled against. The other guy was riddled with shrapnel, a large piece of wood so forcibly driven into his chest that it was sticking out of his back.

Alec crouched to his heels and rubbed his face in his hands, then stared at the men in dismay. This ought to be interesting to explain to the sheriff: two fried corpses that upon closer examination would show cracked ribs and broken arms and a knife wound, and also a discharged gun nearby. Oh, and a battered, not-missing woman in his sleeping bag going by the name of Jane Smith, who also happened to have an illegal pet wolf named Kitty.

Speaking of which, where was Kitty?

Alec scrubbed his face again, undecided what to do, then suddenly stilled. Well hell, it wasn’t his fault these two idiots had chosen this particular piece of wilderness to settle their differences, was it? In fact, he could think of several scenarios for their being out here, from a drug deal gone bad to a botched smuggling trip to…to an execution interrupted by a thunderstorm that had killed both executioner and executee.

As for the beautiful princess in his sleeping bag…well, what princess? He could let her stay a few days to get back her strength, then run her down to Spellbound Falls in his boat in the middle of the night, hand her a few dollars, and kiss her saint-tempting mouth good-bye. After all, he used to make his living orchestrating damage control—on damage
he’d caused, usually. In fact, he’d been so good at it that he’d had to leave the game before he’d irrevocably damaged himself.

Alec went over and started carefully rifling through their pockets, only to come up empty-handed. He didn’t find a wallet, money or loose change, or even any lint—which meant they weren’t going to tell him what was going on any more than the woman was. But just as he started to stand, he noticed the odd-looking burn mark on the smoldering bastard’s shirt, unbuttoned a couple of buttons, and pulled away the material.

“Bingo,” he murmured, taking his knife out of its sheath. He cut the leather cord and peeled the medallion off the charred skin before buttoning the guy’s shirt back up and standing.

He studied what appeared to be an ancient coin of some sort as he walked to the other man and crouched down, used the tip of his knife to snag the cord around the bastard’s neck, and lifted another medallion out of his shirt. He sliced the cord then held the coins beside each other, frowning at the identical symbols crudely stamped into what he suspected was bronze, before turning them over to see writing in a language he didn’t recognize.

Okay then; these weren’t telling him anything, either, since he didn’t have a clue what the symbol was. Could it be the calling card of some criminal organization? Or judging by the men’s plain, almost crude clothes, maybe a cult? Or for all he knew, these two bastards could be members of an arcane fraternity he’d heard about a few years back that got its jollies pulling elaborate international crimes, and Jane Smith could be nothing more than the innocent victim of a pledge prank that had gone bad when she’d escaped.

Alec shoved the medallions in his pocket as he walked a short distance away, deciding to keep them secret until he got more pieces of the puzzle to put together. He sat down, slipped off his pack, then reached in past the now useless rope and medical kit and pulled out the satellite phone—because the resort owner and his boss, Olivia Oceanus, had
decided
cell
phones ruined the wilderness experience for her guests and had talked her wizard husband into blocking reception in the resort’s backcountry. He dialed 911, dutifully reported the
accident
he’d stumbled across—because he really didn’t want to bury the problem under a rock—and gave the dispatcher the coordinates. He also gave his satellite phone number, saying the sheriff could give him a call when he arrived so Alec could lead him to the bodies.

He shoved the phone back in his pack, then started walking the area looking for wolf and smaller shoe tracks in the scattered patches of mud. He erased them all the way up to where she’d collapsed before he backtracked through the scene and headed down to the fiord, again leaving only the tracks the men had made. He eventually found where they stopped—or rather, had started—at the inland sea’s high tide line; the problem being that he didn’t find the boat they had to have used to get here. He saw only his boat, which was pulled into the trees and turned over, its motor stowed beneath it. He looked out at the fiord, wondering if the storm’s waves had set their boat adrift. But if the men had been chasing her, then there should be two boats floating out on the water instead of none. That is, unless she’d escaped the moment they’d stepped ashore and the storm had sunk their boat.

Alec faced the looming mountain at the end of the fiord and frowned. He knew the water was over two thousand feet deep in the unnatural waterway, and that the underground saltwater river ran up from the Gulf of Maine before it continued north all the way to the St. Lawrence Seaway. The twelve-mile-long fiord had been added to Bottomless Lake when an earthquake had pushed several mountains apart two and a half years ago, at the same time turning Maine’s second largest freshwater lake into the new Bottomless Sea—all compliments of Spellbound Falls’s resident wizard, Maximilian Oceanus, who also happened to be Olivia’s husband and Alec’s other boss.

None of which explained how Jane and Kitty and the two dead men had gotten here. But at the moment he honestly
didn’t care, as he had damage control to see to, a woman to hide—and feed—and two bags to find. He’d found her missing shoe when he’d followed their trail down, making him realize that she’d traveled over half a mile wearing only one shoe.

Which meant Jane Smith was one hell of a
tough
princess.

Alec gave a sharp whistle then waited, and smiled when Kitty—Christ, he needed to find a better name for the noble warrior—silently stepped out of the woods less than forty feet away. “Well?” he asked, lifting his hands in the universal gesture of question. “Did ye find your lady’s bags or not?”

The wolf trotted to the overturned boat and scratched at its gunwale.

Okay then, he guessed that settled that mystery. Jane had stashed them under his boat, which implied she’d had enough lead on the men to take the time to hide her bags. Correction: Her
luggage
, Alec discovered when he pulled out two heavy satchels.

Oh yeah, the lady was definitely high maintenance.

He shoved the wolf away and opened the smaller of the two bags and started pulling out…girly stuff. Toiletries, mostly: a silver brush and comb and mirror set, two ditty bags full of makeup and lotions, some pretty expensive perfume, then an iPad and an iPod, and a…She’d brought an alarm clock on her great escape?

But on closer inspection, he saw it was also a sound machine. Honest to God, the label said it had fifty digital recordings to lull you to sleep, including a waterfall, a heartbeat, thunderstorm, nighttime woods, ocean surf—complete with seagulls—and the gentle sound of a crackling fire, just to name a few.

Alec tossed the machine onto the growing pile with a snort, then picked up one of the ditty bags again. “Let’s see what’s in your medicine cabinet, sweetheart,” he murmured, unzipping it. Nothing interesting, he discovered as he pawed through the tubes and containers of makeup. He found more of the same in the second bag. Hell, the woman didn’t even
have aspirin. He picked up another small tubular bag and unrolled it to expose several clear pouches, about half of which were filled with jewelry. He unzipped one and pulled out a necklace, giving a soft whistle. Just the center stone—which was an emerald and definitely real—could feed a small nation for a year.

Okay then; Jane Smith was rich.

Or else a very expensive date.

He replaced the necklace and started to roll the tube back up, but stopped when one particular item caught his eye. He unzipped the pouch and pulled out the small packet and started to smile, only to suddenly frown when his years of training to notice even the smallest detail kicked into gear. That seemed a bit odd; why keep a condom with her jewelry instead of in her toiletries bag?

A nagging little warning alarm went off in his gut, telling him it just didn’t fit. He wouldn’t have thought anything of it if he’d found it anyplace else, but there was only one, and the woman appeared to be treating it like a precious jewel.

Alec placed the packet back in its pouch and rolled the bag back up, deciding to catalog the condom in the back of his mind along with all the other peculiarities about his beautiful guest that didn’t add up. He peered down into the satchel again, pulled out the tall boots lying across the bottom, but stopped in the act of throwing them to the side and looked inside one of them. “Bingo,” he said, pulling out a thin leather wallet.

He dropped the boot and opened the wallet, then sat back on his heels with another quiet whistle at the sight of no fewer than ten credit cards. He pulled one out;
Jane Smith
, he read. He pulled out another one and saw it was issued on a European bank. He fingered through the other cards until he found
three
driver’s licenses belonging to Jane Smith, who was five feet eleven and thirty years old, had lied about her weight he knew from carrying her, and who apparently lived in New York City—at a very uptown address—as well as Monte Carlo and South Africa.

Well, at least she was keeping her lies somewhat simple.

She had about a thousand dollars in cash in various currencies, the bulk being American. But no photos of family or anything of a personal nature other than a sales receipt for the boots—which she’d apparently had custom made in New York for the tidy sum of twenty-nine hundred bucks.

Hell, his entire wardrobe hadn’t cost three thousand dollars. Alec stuffed everything back in the wallet, shoved it back in the boot, then repacked the bag. He sighed, willing to concede that his hunting rifle had cost him several grand, so he supposed spending was a relative matter. He gave a quick glance at the sun to see it was nearing noon, then hauled over Jane’s other monstrous satchel and pulled back the zipper—only to have its contents explode free. “For the love of Christ, is there anything you
didn’t
bring?” He swiped a pair of purple lace panties off his arm, plucked the matching bra—noting the rather full cup size—off his thigh, and smiled.

Damn, he had a thing for sexy underwear.

Just as his mysterious guest did, apparently.

Alec drove his hand down through the clothes in the satchel, feeling around until he was satisfied Jane hadn’t brought anything practical to her kidnapping, like a knife or handgun or Taser or bazooka. Nope, she hadn’t even packed any hand grenades.

He stuffed everything back in the bag, then had to press his knee down on the damn thing to get it zipped closed. He straightened with a long-suffering sigh and stared in the direction of his uncle’s home halfway up the fiord on the opposite shore. Should he let Duncan know what was going on?

Probably not. A little over two years ago, Duncan had become a husband and instant father to four little heathens—which had turned into five exactly nine months later—and the man didn’t seem to be anywhere near to recovering yet. Alec decided he shouldn’t say anything to Mac and Olivia, either, as he didn’t want anyone making him turn over the order-issuing, straight-faced lying, beautiful gift the storm gods had seen fit to present him with this morning. Because,
hey, he was just tired enough of his own company that he was actually looking forward to camping out with a princess. And all that really mattered was that she was safe, right?

Well, safe from anyone who might still be chasing her, Alec decided with a grin as he picked up her bags and headed toward camp. Because safety was also a relative matter, and he wasn’t making any promises to the storm gods
or
Jane about keeping his hands off her.

And he definitely wasn’t making such a foolish promise to himself.

As for Kitty…well, considering he’d survived being shot twice, blown up to hell and back once, and stabbed more times than he cared to remember, Alec figured the wolf would just have to get in line if it wanted a turn at him.

Chapter Two