Courting Carolina (23 page)

Alec came awake with a groan, then used a growl to propel himself upright only to go perfectly still at the sight of five—no,
six
—wolves sitting scattered around him in the lean-to, their wet fur glistening in the rising sun.

Son of a bitch, where was his knife? He was still dressed—because undressing had been too much effort after limping back to the lean-to last night—but he was pretty sure he’d pulled the sheath off his belt so the hilt wouldn’t keep jabbing his ribs while he’d slept. But where in the name of God had he put it?

Making sure not to show any outward sign, Alec inwardly tensed in preparation of defending himself, despite knowing he didn’t stand a snowball’s chance in hell of surviving. Six goddamn wolves. Christ, talk about pissing off Jane’s father; the old bastard really was going to feed him to the orcas.

Where in hell was his knife?

Hearing soft thumping, it took Alec a moment to realize the closest wolf was wagging its tail. “Kit?” he whispered,
squinting into the rising sun trying to make out its features. The thumping grew faster and the wolf ducked its head with a soft whine, then suddenly stood up, walked over, and gave him a smelly lick on the face. Alec didn’t move so much as a muscle, uncertain if that had been a friendly hello or a taste. One of the other wolves tilted its head back on a huge yawn, then lay down and rested its chin on its paws with a heavy sigh—the other four following its lead and dropping like dominoes. Kit flopped down and rested his broad snout on Alec’s thigh, his lupine brows puckered over soulful eyes as he gazed up at him.

Okay then; either he had six new buddies or the orca-wolves needed a little nap before they ripped him to shreds. Still, he’d feel better if he could get his hands on his knife—which he finally saw sticking out from under Kit.

So now what was he supposed to do? Because he was pretty sure going back to sleep was out of the question. Nor was he inclined to pick his way over a small herd of wolves and bolt for the safety of the privy only to get trapped there. Alec started to lift his hands to rub his face, but stopped in midlift when all six heads rose.

Christ, just what he needed; six spies. Or jailors, maybe? Had Titus sent them to make sure he stayed away from Nova Mare?

Well, he supposed it beat becoming bait chum. Alec finished raising his hands and rubbed his face—gingerly, in deference to his swollen jaw—then gazed around the lean-to. Damn, it felt empty despite being full of wolves. It was also too damned quiet.

Keeping an eye on his
guests
, Alec slowly reached for his duffel bag and slid it over, unzipped it, then shoved a hand inside and felt around. He pulled out a plastic bag and opened it, gathered up a fistful of Jane’s hair, and held it out to Kit.

“Smell familiar?” he asked when the wolf pressed his nose into the hair. Alec reached in the bag again and pulled out more of the tresses he’d cut off Jane that first night—that he’d secretly hidden instead of putting in the trash—then
spent several minutes weaving the strands together until he had a braid almost two inches thick. “Ye want me to make a smaller one you can wear like a collar?” he asked Kit as he pulled more hair out of the bag. He softly chuckled. “Or I could attach it to your mane and let it dangle behind one of your ears like my old man, if ye want.”

Kit belly-crawled closer and pressed his head against Alec’s chest with a soft whine. “Aye, I miss her, too,” he murmured as he carefully wove a thin braid of Jane’s hair into the wolf’s fur. “Just a minute, don’t move,” he said, reaching in his duffel again and pulling out his ditty bag. “I need something to tie it off so it doesn’t come undone.”

He found a small rawhide lace and secured the braid, then reached under Kit for his knife, unsheathed it, and cut off the ends of the lace. “There, now ye look like a true highland warrior.” He chuckled again; partly because he was talking to a wolf as if it understood him, but mostly because Kit canted his head trying to see his lady’s token.

Two of the wolves got to their feet as they eyed the dangling braid, making Alec stiffen with his knife half-sheathed when they moved closer—only to feel the hairs on his arms raise when Kit rolled back his lips on a soft snarl, which effectively sent the pair scurrying back to their spots near the front rail.

Okay then, Kit was apparently the boss of this ragtag pack. Good to know—assuming the wolf didn’t try to be the boss of
him
.

So…what to do now?

Being careful to treat Kit with respect in front of his buddies, Alec carefully pushed the wolf off his lap and slowly rose to his feet, taking a relieved breath when the other wolves didn’t stir. He pressed a hand to his ribs and took a deeper breath, then blew it out on a sigh as he decided nothing was cracked or broken, which meant he should be back in fighting form in no time.

Alec spent the day lazily tidying up the already neat shelter, napping, repacking his larger backpack to make it lighter, gathering firewood for the increasingly colder nights, napping
again, and generally keeping himself limber without overdoing it. The wolves spent the day following him around, although he noticed a couple of them would silently slip away only to return a few of hours later as two more disappeared. They were running down to the fiord to feed, he figured, rotating shifts so there were always at least four with him at any given time—which brought him back to wondering if they were guards instead of simply liking his company. Then again, maybe Kit had told his pod-mates all about his little adventure with Jane and was upping his popularity by giving guided tours of land life.

He’d have to see if he couldn’t scare up a big old bear to give them a real thrill.

Waking up from his most recent nap, and after checking the position of the waning moon and figuring it was nearing midnight, Alec slipped into his boots and pulled a dark sweatshirt on over his sweater. He grabbed the larger one of Jane’s satchels—that had been stashed under the back of the shelter in case Duncan showed up unexpectedly again—and walked down the stairs to the trail, the six wolves silently falling into step around him as he headed toward Nova Mare.

“I thought we agreed you wouldn’t make me have to come after you.”

Jane spun around with a shriek, which she quickly followed with a heated curse aimed at the far end of the porch. “Dammit, Nikki, you scared ten years off my life.”

She saw the dark figure shrug as he sat on the floor leaning against the front of her cottage. “Ten years off thousands isn’t so bad.”

“What are you doing out here?”

“Enjoying the crisp night air.”

She snorted. “So much for trust between friends,” she muttered, bending down to pick up the blankets and pillow she’d dropped.

“What brings you outside tonight, Lina?”

Jane walked to the center of the porch and dropped the bedding, then got down on her knees and grabbed the feather mattress topper she’d stolen off the bed. “I came out to enjoy the crisp night air,” she drawled, folding the topper in half lengthwise and smoothing it out. She plopped the pillow at one end, flopped down with a dramatic sigh, then pulled the quilt she’d also taken off the bed over herself. “Go away, Nicholas. I’m not going anywhere.”

“I’m not your jailor, Lina; I’m here to protect you.”

She shifted onto her stomach and bunched the pillow under her chin. “He’s not going to come after me.”

“I would, if I were him.”

“Yes, but only because we both know how much you hate losing. You would come after me just on principle.”

“I’ve been led to believe the men of his clan live by a similar code.”

“Go away, Nicholas.”

“It’s not really MacKeage I’m worried about,” he continued as if she hadn’t spoken. “Or are you forgetting there’s still one kidnapper unaccounted for?”

Jane lifted her head in surprise. “Do you honestly think anyone would dare try to snatch me from Nova Mare?”

“We
honestly
didn’t think anyone would dare snatch you at all. Hell, Lina; the gods themselves won’t go anywhere near you.” It was too dark to be sure, but she thought he grinned. “Or hadn’t you noticed they were unusually silent during your little two-year tantrum?”

Jane dropped her head. “Go away, Nikki. I need my beauty sleep.”

He gave a soft snort. “You can’t improve on perfection, princess.”

“Yes, I love you, too,” she muttered into the pillow. “Look, I have to be up at the crack of dawn to go rabbit hunting with…with either Aaron of someplace or what’s-his-name, the Bedouin—whichever idiot brought the falcon.”

“Devonshire,” Nicholas said with a chuckle. “The Arab brought the mare. You’re not really sleeping out here tonight? It’s nearly freezing.”

“I have on warm clothes and plenty of blankets,” she said without looking up. “Now
go away
.”

She heard him get to his feet, sensed him drop to one knee beside her, then felt the blanket tuck tightly around her just as his lips touched her hair. “I’m well acquainted with how hard it is to go from sleeping under the stars to having four walls and a roof close in around you.” He gently squeezed her shoulder and stood up. “Sweet dreams, Lina,” he said quietly.

And then he was gone.

Jane gave a heavy sigh that ended on a sob. Dreams, hell; she’d more likely have nightmares of seeing Alec’s bloody face and hearing the thud of fists pummeling him as he valiantly—and foolishly—tried to protect her. Dammit, she’d had no right to involve him in her stupid war with her father. Alec had been nothing but kind to her, and in return she’d deceived him and gotten him beaten up.

Sweet Athena, she missed the scoundrel. How could she have known the man less than two weeks, yet feel like flotsam drifting without direction or purpose after being separated only one day? When she’d awakened in that empty, too-soft bed this morning still exhausted from having cried herself to sleep, and realized she’d never again wake up to Alec’s beautiful smile or feel him pulling her intimately against the evidence of his desire, she had come very close to dying inside.

And she just might have remained wallowing in despair and self-pity if not for the realization that she had some pretty powerful allies—two of whom were married to some pretty powerful men. And Sam; she had to believe Sam wouldn’t abandon her. She’d thought at first that he might have, when he’d come after her with Mac and her father. That is, until he’d stayed behind with Duncan and Trace, and she’d realized Sam intended to quietly continue working
within
the family as he championed not only her but hopefully Alec as well now.

No, she simply couldn’t give up; not with her mother and sister-in-law and Sam fighting beside her. And Alec; if the
scoundrel had known all along who she was and had risked his very life so she could live
hers
, then she refused to concede defeat. So she’d spent a good part of today in Turtleback Station and Spellbound Falls with her mom and Olivia and princess hugs-a-lot—with Nicholas quietly shadowing them—shopping for clothes, getting manicures and their hair trimmed, and stopping into the Drunken Moose for pie before heading back to Nova Mare in time for dinner.

Dinner had been…interesting. All six time-traveling suitors had arrived and were settled in, all looking overwhelmed by the wonders of the twenty-first century but by no means put off their goal of catching her interest—all while giving each other narrow-eyed glares.

What in the name of Zeus was her father thinking to bring six powerful warriors together in the same place at the same time, with each of them knowing there could be only one groom? Because if the prospective bride didn’t murder them in sheer frustration, they’d likely start murdering each other to better their odds.

So while eating dinner at Aeolus’s Whisper with her mom and Olivia and Henry and Sophie—her father and Mac wisely deciding to babysit the cherub—Jane had politely smiled through Nicholas’s introductions as her various suitors had each come rushing into the restaurant upon hearing she was there, after which she had coyly ignored them. Well, that is until Aaron—she was fairly certain he was the infidel-killing Crusader, judging by the looks the Bedouin had been giving him—had boldly fallen into step beside her as she’d strolled to her cottage with Nicholas silently falling back to stroll several paces behind them.

Thus, her first outing was falcon hunting for rabbits at the crack of dawn.

Yes, she intended to pour all of her considerable princess talents into appearing sincerely interested in each of the buffoons to make her mother’s role in their pact easier, and as an added bonus, Jane hoped her sudden turnaround drove her father crazy trying to figure out what she was up to.

As for Mackie…well, if her heavy-fisted brother dared
to say one disparaging thing to her about Alec, she intended to blacken his other eye.

Too excited to take one of the slow electric carts, Jane exited Nova Mare’s registration pavilion and ran flat-out toward the large barn set back in the woods at the far end of the resort. She gave smiled nods as she dodged guests in carts headed to the restaurant to have breakfast with the rising sun, and took only cursory notice of the three separate hotels—that eventually would be five—staggered at varying elevations over the resort’s hundred-acre campus. Only a single story high and consisting of eight guest rooms flanked by two suites, each hotel was carved into the rise of the mountain with only the front facade of floor-to-ceiling windows exposed.

The entire resort, from the hotel to the cottages to Mac and Olivia’s private lodge, had been carefully designed to blend in with the forested terrain yet give each guest an unobstructed view of the spectacular forty-mile-long Bottomless Sea. From any vantage point below, whether looking up at Whisper Mountain from town or from a boat, a person would see nothing but a natural landscape with only occasional hints of man-made structures. The architecture was nothing short of inspired, and Nova Mare was already well on its way to becoming one of the world’s more fashionable destinations.

But if someone without deep pockets wished to have a rustic Maine-woods experience, Olivia had plans to accommodate them as well. Besides buying most of the timberland around the newly formed inland sea two and a half years ago, Mac had also secretly purchased the family camp Olivia had run for her ex-in-laws—that
she
had secretly been planning to buy, it turns out. Inglenook sat on the shore of Bottomless, consisting of a main lodge and ten weathered cabins that Olivia hoped to open to budget-minded families just as soon as the scientists moved to the permanent facility they were building in Spellbound and she could refurbish all
the cabins. And the wilderness trail was slated to open next spring for the true nature enthusiasts—providing Alec finished it before he had to leave to go be a ski bum again.