And she could deal with Michael, if that’s what the man wanted. Heck, she’d be crazy not to take him up on his offer. And how dangerous could it be to mess up the sheets with him? She was made of stern stuff. Her heart could handle a flaming affair as long as she knew from the beginning that it wouldn’t lead to anything permanent.

Libby opened the towel on her knee and pulled out a half-melted ice cube. She popped it into her mouth and crunched it between her teeth, wondering if the wood fire was getting out of control or if just the thought of getting naked with Michael MacBain was making her hot.

A knock sounded on her kitchen door, and Libby stilled in the act of popping another ice cube into her mouth. Oh, Lord, it had better not be him, she thought. She wasn’t ready to face Michael so soon. Not when her thoughts of having an affair with the man were probably written all over her face.

“Hello, the house!” came a booming shout, accompanied by another, more violent knock.

“I’m coming,” Libby hollered back, getting up from the chair and limping into the kitchen. She tossed her towel of ice into the sink as she walked by but stopped to peek through the sheer curtain before opening the door.

There was a very large man standing on her porch, with wild, graying auburn hair and a beard that looked bushy enough for birds to nest in. He was glaring at the window as he knocked again, rattling the entire door on its hinges.

Libby pulled the curtain aside and smiled back. “Can I help you?” she asked.

The man’s glare disappeared along with his eyebrows into his hairline, when he realized that he had to look down to see her.

“My name’s Ian MacKeage, Miss Hart,” he said in a gruff and barely understandable Scottish accent as he attempted to soften the harsh planes of his face with a smile. “I’ve brung ya the hens young Robbie asked for.”

Libby immediately recognized the name and opened the door.

“What hens?” she asked, stepping onto the porch when he stepped back.

The man’s chin dropped to his chest, his eyebrows rose out of sight again, and he just stood there and stared at her.

“Where’s the rest of ya?” he asked, only to snap his mouth shut and duck his suddenly red face. “I… I’m being sorry for saying so, lass, but you’re a might tiny thing, and I… I… ” He snapped his mouth shut again and rubbed his beefy hand over his face, as if he could scrub away his words.

Libby was beginning to wonder if she had moved to the land of giants. Ian MacKeage, for all his advancing years, was a brute. He stood a good foot taller than she did, but most of his size was made up of broad shoulders, massive arms, and an impressively large barrel chest.

“I’m sorry,” he said again. “It’s just that I was expecting someone a bit, well… ” He smiled and shook his head.

“Has Michael seen ya yet?”

Libby wasn’t above a good joke, even when she was the brunt of it. “He wanted to throw me back into his pond so I could grow bigger,” she told Ian, enjoying his shocked expression.

“Michael would never do nothing like that, Miss Hart,” he quickly defended. “The boy’s got more manners than that.”

Boy? Ian considered Michael a boy?

“What hens are you talking about?” she asked.

It took him a moment to realize she’d changed the subject. “Oh, the hens Robbie wanted for ya,” he said, waving toward his pickup truck. “He insisted on pullets, but I only had eight, so I threw in a few old ones to make up the dozen.”

“And a pullet is?” Libby prodded.

“A young hen. They were hatched this spring and have already started laying.”

“A dozen?” Libby repeated softly, only now realizing the implication of owning that many hens. “What am I going to do with a dozen eggs every day?”

Ian gave her an odd look. “Ya bake with them, woman. Ya make cookies and cakes and stuff.” His eyebrows lifted again when she didn’t readily nod agreement. “Ya mean ya don’t bake? Does young Robbie know this?”

Libby was also beginning to wonder if she’d come here to start her new life or been lured to be surrogate mother to Robbie and sexual entertainment for Michael MacBain.

Was everyone in Pine Creek in on this little conspiracy?

Hell. Even Grace had alluded to it yesterday.

“I… I can bake,” Libby said, wondering why she was admitting such a thing. “I just can’t see using a dozen eggs every day. Who’s going to eat that amount of food?” she asked, already knowing what Ian was going to say and not wanting to hear it.

“Michael and Robbie,” he said anyway. “And John. They got no one to bake for them now.” He shook his head. “MacBain can’t cook worth a damn, and that’s a fact. The boy might do okay over an open fire, but a stove defeats him. Young Robbie’s been eating at Gu Bràth a lot lately.”

“Gu Bràth?”

“That’s our home,” Ian said, pointing toward the same ridge Robbie had indicated yesterday. “Me and Grace and Grey and the hellions live there.”

“The hellions?”

Ian grinned. “Grace’s bairns. The lasses,” he explained at her quizzical look. “Heather’s almost eight, and Sarah and Camry are almost six, Chelsea and Megan will be four, and Elizabeth will be three this December.”

He leaned closer and whispered his next words. “But don’t call them hellions in front of Grace,” he confided with a conspirator’s wink. “Although I’ve heard her call them that a few times herself.” He straightened back up and puffed out his already impressive chest. “They’re good bairns for girls, though they can talk a man’s ear off if he ain’t learned to hide quick enough.”

“I met Grace yesterday,” Libby told him, nodding.

“She said she was over,” Ian said. “But it seems she forgot to mention that a good wind would blow ya away.”

Libby was getting sorely tired of her size being such a big issue. She puffed up her own

—unimpressive—chest and glared at Ian MacKeage. “Don’t let the package fool you,”

she told him. “I’m much tougher than I look.”

He raised both hands in supplication, his grin wide enough to show through his beard.

“Now, lass, I’m not wanting to hurt your feelings. I’m only teasing you a wee bit. Come on,” he said, turning toward his truck. “We’ll see how tough ya are when it comes to dealing with a dozen flapping hens.”

Half an hour later, Libby felt confident she had passed Ian’s test. All twelve hens were now eating their heads off in her coop, and she had only eight or ten peck marks to show for her efforts.

“Do you know where I can buy a truck around here?” she asked. “Something like yours,” she said. “Only not quite so big,” she added as she struggled to close the tailgate without looking as if she was about to collapse under its weight.

Ian must have realized she was in danger of being flattened, and he flipped the tailgate up with a flick of his wrist.

“I believe Callum’s got a truck he’s wanting to sell. But it’s not a pickup like mine. It’s a Suburban.”

“Oh, that would be even better. I can haul my product to craft shows without worrying about getting anything wet. How do I get in contact with Callum?”

“I’ll have him drop by with the truck tonight,” Ian told her. He cocked his head and gave her a curious look. “It’s not that old a truck, lass. It might cost a bit more than you were planning on spending.”

“I think I can scrape the money together,” she told him.

“Grace said you make jewelry?”

“I work with glass,” Libby confirmed, nodding. “And I hope to find a shop in town to rent so I can set up a studio. Do you know of anyplace that might be available?”

“There’s a couple of empty storefronts that might work. Check with the Dolan brothers.

They bought Hellman’s Outfitter Store, but it’s called Dolan’s Outfitter Store now, and I think they own the whole building. There’s an empty space at one end of it,” he finished, walking around the truck and opening the door.