the next two years.

“Uh-oh, your target is on the move,” Wil iam said, his

gaze fol owing Peg Thompson and her ambushing children

as they headed for the buffet table. He nudged Duncan.

“Now’s your chance to show us how it’s done, MacKeage.

Go strike up a conversation with the lass.”

“Maybe you could offer to let her children sit in your earth-

moving machine,” Kenzie suggested. “That would show her

ye don’t have any hard feelings.”

“Kids and heavy equipment are a dangerous mix,”

Duncan growled, glaring at the three of them. “Don’t you

gentlemen have wives and a girlfriend you should be

pestering?” He elbowed Wil iam. “Isn’t that Maddy dancing

with the king of Prussia?”

“Oh, Christ,” Wil iam muttered, striding off to go reclaim

his woman.

Kenzie also rushed off with a muttered curse when he

saw his wife, Eve, start to breastfeed their young infant son

under a blanket thrown over her shoulder.

Trace Huntsman, however, didn’t appear to be in any

hurry to leave. “If it’s any consolation,” Trace said, “Peg

Thompson was more rattled by this morning’s attack than

you were. Maddy and Eve and my girlfriend, Fiona, were

there when Peg came to Olivia’s cottage. Fiona told me it

took the four of them over twenty minutes to calm her

down.” He shot Duncan a grin. “The women al promised

Peg they would have done the exact same thing if they’d

caught a stranger manhandling their child. Can I ask what

you were thinking?”

“I wasn’t thinking,” Duncan said. “I manhandle dozens of

children every time my family gets together. Everyone looks

out for everyone’s kids, making sure the little heathens

don’t kil themselves or each other. Hel , that’s the definition

of clan.”

Duncan tugged his col ar away from his neck as he eyed

the widow Thompson leading her gaggle of children back

to their table, each trying to reach it without spil ing their

plates of food. He sighed, figuring he probably better

apologize to her again, seeing how she owned the only

working gravel pit in the area.

Just as soon as Mac had hired him to do the resort’s site

work, Duncan had started cal ing around to find the closest

gravel pit to Spel bound Fal s. He would eventual y dig his

own pit farther up the mountain, but he needed immediate

access to gravel to start building the road. Duncan had

been relieved to discover that the Thompson pit was just a

mile from where the resort road would start, and that it had

a horseback of good bank run gravel. Only he’d also

learned Bil Thompson had been kil ed in a construction

accident three years ago.

Which is why a feather could have knocked him over this

morning as he’d stood beside his truck in the parking lot

changing his shirt, when he’d final y put two and two

together and realized he’d just pissed off the person he

wanted to buy gravel from. Assuming she’d even sel to him

now. And then even if she did, he’d likely be paying an arm

and a leg for every last rock and grain of sand.

“Which branch of the military were you in?” Trace asked.

Duncan looked down at himself in surprise. “Funny; I

could have sworn I left my uniform in Iraq.”

Trace chuckled. “You forgot to leave that guarded

look with it.” He shrugged. “It’s common knowledge that

every MacKeage and MacBain serves a stint in the

military.” He suddenly frowned. “Only I’ve never heard it said

that any of the women in your families have served.”

“And they won’t as long as Greylen MacKeage and

Michael MacBain are stil lairds of our clans,” Duncan said

with a grin. “It’l take a few more generations before we let

our women deliberately put themselves in harm’s way.”

Trace shook his head. “You real y are al throwbacks. You

must have a hel of a time finding wives. Or is that why

some of you resort to kidnapping?”

Duncan decided he liked Trace Huntsman. “There’s no

‘resorting’ to it; we’re merely continuing a family tradition

that actual y seems to work more often than it backfires.

And besides, it beats the hel out of wasting time dating a

woman for two or three years once we’ve found the right

one.”

“You don’t think the woman might like to make sure

you’re the right one before she finds herself walking down

the aisle, wondering how she got there?”

Duncan shifted his weight off his knee with a shrug. “Not

according to my father. Dad claims time is the enemy when

it comes to courting; that if a man takes too long wooing a

woman, then he might as wel hand her his manhood on a

platter.”

Trace eyed him suspiciously. “Are you serious?”

“Tel me, Huntsman; how’s courting Fiona been working

for you?”

“We’re not talking about me,” he growled. “We’re talking

about you MacKeages and your habit of scaring women

into marrying you.”

“I did notice you managed to get an engagement ring on

her finger,” Duncan pressed on. “So when’s the wedding?”

Trace relaxed back on his hips and folded his arms over

his chest with a heavy sigh. “You don’t happen to have an

available cabin in Pine Creek, do you?”

Duncan slapped Trace on the back and started them

toward the refreshment table. “Considering Fiona is Matt

Gregor’s baby sister, I think you might want to look for a

cabin a little farther away. Hel , everyone within twenty miles

of Pine Creek heard Matt’s roar when he learned she was

openly living with you without benefit of marriage.”

Trace stopped in front of the large bowl of dark ale and

glared at Duncan. “A fact that has brought us ful circle back

to women being warriors. The only reason I’m stil alive is

because Fiona puts the fear of God into her brothers if they

so much as frown at me.” He looked at Peg Thompson,

then back at Duncan—specifical y at the scratch on his

cheek. “Trust me; the strong-arm approach won’t work on

any woman who can handle children. Not if a man values

his hide.”

Duncan refil ed his tankard. “Which is exactly why I’m stil

a bachelor,” he said, just before gulping down his third kick-

in-the-ass like a true highlander.

Chapter Three

Peg stared out the windshield of her van at Inglenook’s

main lodge, so disheartened that she couldn’t quit sobbing.

She had final y found a job that paid enough that she’d

final y be able to put a roof that didn’t leak over her

children’s head, yet here she was trying to pul herself

together long enough to quit. She couldn’t even give a two-

week notice, since the reason she was quitting was that

she couldn’t find affordable daycare for the twins. After

Jacob’s traumatizing incident Friday and her shameful

behavior Saturday, Peg had spent two sleepless nights and

al day Sunday wrestling with her decision to give her notice

first thing Monday morning.

And now it was Monday. And after a third sleepless night,

she stil couldn’t see any way around it, since Olivia had

hired her when Inglenook had been a family camp that

offered programs to keep her children occupied al day.

Only a little over a week ago that camp had closed when

Olivia’s ex-in-laws had sold the property to Mac and that

freaky earthquake had turned Bottomless Lake into the

ninth wonder of the world.

She stil had a job because a smal army of scientists

had replaced the campers, but now there weren’t any