“Go on, sweetheart,” he softly petitioned. “That’s my girl. Go visit our beautiful place.”

Megan felt herself tightening, spiraling inward, deep into the depths of the magical place he always took her. She crested with a shout of release, her entire body convulsing in waves of blinding heat. Time stopped and the physical world receded as she floated in a wondrous landscape of colorful, energized light.

“Come back to me, Megan,” she heard from a distance. “That’s it, sweetheart, come back so we can go there together.”

Megan suddenly found herself back in Jack’s embrace; he was stroking her hair, gentling her with soothing whispers as wave after wave of energy continued pulsing through her.

“That’s my girl,” he whispered in her ear. Megan realized he was sitting up, she was still straddling him, and he was still embedded deeply inside her. “Was it as beautiful as ever?” he asked, calming her with caresses to her body and tender kisses to her face.

“You weren’t there with me.”

“I’ll go with you next time, I promise.”

He lifted her off him, then turned them both until she was lying on the sleeping bag. Kneeling between her legs, he pulled her backside up onto his thighs, and Megan realized that the baby wasn’t in his way in this position.

He slowly entered her, his gaze locked on her face with such intensity, waves of heated awareness washed through her again. “Beautiful Megan,” he whispered, slipping deeply inside her, then pulling nearly out, then sliding even deeper. “I see our magical place every time I look in your eyes.”

She reached out, wanting to hold him, but he took her hands and set them over her head, wrapping her fingers around a fir bough. “Lie still,” he tenderly commanded, grasping her hips, “and let me watch you blossom. I’ll go with you this time, I promise.”

He set a gentle and thoroughly mesmerizing rhythm, and Megan felt herself focusing inward again, sensing she wasn’t alone this time. Jack definitely was present; she could feel the power of his energy threatening to take her into a storm of such intensity that she cried out.

“Shhh,” he soothed, even as he quickened his pace. “You can let go, sweetheart. You’re always safe when you’re with me,” he said, touching her intimately as he continued his gentle assault. “Come with me,” he commanded, thrusting deeper.

The storm he had conjured sucked her into its swirling vortex, and Megan was suddenly floating through a wondrous landscape of shimmering light. And this time Jack was right beside her as they explored the beautiful world together. The colors were intensified tenfold, the warmth more penetrating, the sense of wonder intoxicating.

“We can’t stay,” Jack whispered, cupping her head in his hands and kissing her deeply. “We’ll come back again soon, I promise. But you need to sleep now.”

She reluctantly let him lead her back, not wanting to leave such euphoric beauty where she felt so warm and safe—and so loved. She yawned, cuddling into his embrace.

“That’s it, little one, let me hold you in my arms. Dream with me, Megan, and let me introduce you to our son.”

She snuggled against him with a sigh of profound contentment. She didn’t know how he did it, but every time they made love, he carried her off to this beautiful place that existed only when she was with him, and then she would wake up in his arms, feeling utterly and completely loved. It had happened the very first time they’d made love, and had only intensified over the next month. If she didn’t know better, she might wonder if Jack really did possess some sort of magical power that…

A beautiful woman suddenly stepped out of the shimmering ether, carrying a baby in her arms.

Chapter Seventeen

I t was just breaking dawn when Megan opened her eyes to find herself wrapped up like a mummy in the sleeping bag. The fire was roaring, her clothes were in a pile beside her, and Jack was nowhere to be found. He’d left a beer bottle full of water next to her clothes, along with a power bar—which meant he’d had at least one more stashed someplace yesterday.

Megan squirmed free of the sleeping bag and sat up, only to scramble back under the covers when she realized how cold it was. She reached out one hand to her clothes, sighing in relief to find that Jack had set them by the fire to warm up. She pulled everything under the sleeping bag with her, then contorted in every position imaginable while getting dressed.

She was panting by the time she slipped into her boots and stood up. Not bothering to put on her ski suit yet, she headed behind her favorite tree to take care of business, then hustled back to the fire and slipped into her suit. She grabbed the bottle of water and power bar and headed toward the lake in search of Jack.

She spotted him standing beside his snowmobile, his feet planted wide and his hands on his hips. And though he was a fair distance away, she’d swear she could see a look of disgust on his face. She took her time walking out on a snowpack hard enough that she barely sank in, eating the power bar and drinking water that tasted faintly of beer.

The closer Megan got to him, the more her heart raced with the memory of last night. He looked…he looked…oh damn, she had fallen in love with him all over again!

“Good morning,” she said when she finally reached him.

Jack started to say something, but when his gaze met hers he snapped his mouth shut without saying a word. Two flags of color appeared on his cheekbones. Megan took another bite of her breakfast to cover her smile. The man was actually blushing!

Over their lovemaking last night?

He was such an easy mark. “Do you think you’ll be able to get it up soon—I mean unstuck soon, or are we going to have to walk? Or,” she purred, “we could just cozy back up to the fire and wait for the cavalry to arrive.”

His cheekbones turned nearly purple. He walked around her and headed to shore, still without saying so much as good morning. Megan polished off the last of the power bar and gulped down the rest of her water as she grinned at his back. She was such a bad person, but really, a saint couldn’t have passed up an opportunity like that. Teasing Jack was easier than shooting fish in a barrel.

She stuffed the wrapper and bottle in her pocket and walked around his sled, eyeing it in sympathy. It was stuck up to its running boards in slush that had frozen solid overnight. They’d need a chisel, if not a blowtorch, to free the damn thing.

She turned in a circle studying the landscape, trying to figure out where they were, and realized she had absolutely no idea. She hadn’t been this far north on the lake in ten or twelve years. Megan started walking to the ledge sticking up through the ice, curious about where her sled had gone in.

She could see the tracks Jack had made dragging her out, the rope he’d used, and her helmet lying on the ice several yards away. There were more tracks indicating where he’d walked up onto the north side of the ledge, where the ice wasn’t weak. From there his footprints moved down into the water. She couldn’t see any sign of her sled, since the hole had skimmed over with a thin layer of ice, and she gave an involuntary shiver. Jack must have stripped off his clothes on the ledge, gone into that dark, freezing lake to get the dry sack, then scrambled back out and quickly dressed.

She really shouldn’t have teased him this morning.

There were other tracks going in and out of the hole, as well. Megan walked toward them, giving the ledge a wide berth, and stopped beside the carcass of a half-eaten fish. So, she’d been right, some…thing had been fishing. Something heavy. The impressions in the snow were deep, seven or eight feet long and about three feet wide, and if she wasn’t mistaken, some of them looked to be from a tail. She hunched down and touched the snowpack where what appeared to be a wing had brushed against it, then stood up and started following the tracks away from the hole.