Mystical Warrior (22 page)

“Excuse me?”

“Besides,” he growled, “you won’t have time even to
smile at another man, because you’ll be too busy working for me.” He took his pointer finger and pointed down the stairs. “You be standing on my porch at four a.m. tomorrow, and make sure you’re dressed warm, because it gets friggin’ cold at sea this time of year.”

“
That’s
your plan?” Mac barked, appearing even more shocked than she was. “You’re going to take her to work with you?”

“Rick and I need help, and she needs a job,” Trace said, turning back to Fiona. “Because your rent just went up a hundred bucks a month. Landlords always charge extra for animals, and my deal with Kenzie didn’t include a zoo.” He pointed his finger at her again, only this time Fiona noticed it was shaking quite badly. “And your brother’s not paying the difference,
you are,
which means you need to get off your duff and earn some honest money.”

“That’s telling her,” Mac muttered, grabbing Trace’s sleeve again. “Can we please go inside to have this discussion?” He gave him a shove. “It’s freezing out.”

Trace pushed back against Mac as he tried to elbow the drùidh in the ribs but missed. “Are you nuts? You don’t ever go inside a woman’s apartment, day or night, even if she was civil enough to invite you in.” He turned his glare on her again. “And you
especially
don’t go in if she’s looking for a sperm donor.”

Even though she couldn’t stifle her gasp of surprise, Fiona glared right back at him. “I’m not inviting you in because you’re drunk.”

“Here’s a suggestion,” Mac said, blowing into his clenched fists. “Let’s all go downstairs to have our little … chat. I will even do the honors of making us hot cocoa.”

“If a little chill in the air bothers you, then go sit in the truck.” Trace snorted. “No, wait. You can’t, because the truck is sitting in a snowbank a mile down the road.” He turned back to Fiona and pointed his finger right at her nose. “Five a.m. sharp and not a minute later, or I’ll dock your pay an hour.”

She very generously refrained from pointing out that he’d originally wanted her standing on his porch at four, not five. But still at a loss as to why Trace was so angry at her—other than that he didn’t seem to want her smiling at men—Fiona gave him a warm smile. “Thank you for offering me a job, but I already have one.”

He swayed back on his feet. “You what?” he yelped as Mac caught him.

“And it starts at the civil hour of eight,” she continued. “And goes until six.”

He narrowed his bloodshot eyes at her. “Doing what?”

“Watching a gentleman’s two young children.”

He leaned toward her. “At his house or here?” he asked ever so softly.

“Um … here,” she said, leaning away.

“Why aren’t you watching them for the gentleman’s
wife
?”

Fiona inched away from his escalating anger. “His wife died two years ago, so he’s been raising his two children all by himself. And when he came here tonight to—”

“When he
what
?” Trace shouted, stumbling toward her.

“Enough!” Mac snapped, shoving him the rest of the way inside and closing the door behind them. “This is getting interesting, actually, but I’m starting to miss parts of the conversation because my teeth are chattering too loudly.”
He dragged Trace into Fiona’s front room, then shoved him down onto the couch and turned to hold his hands over the woodstove. “Would you happen to have any … coffee, I believe, is what they think sobers them up.” He smiled at her. “If not, tea or anything hot will do.”

They both turned at the sound of snoring coming from the couch.

Mac sighed. “It would have helped if the truck heater had hit him that hard and knocked him out.” He looked at her, shaking his head. “You would think being a warrior would have hardened his nerves, but when he wasn’t gripping the dash on our ride back from Oak Harbor tonight, he was grabbing the steering wheel and shouting at me to keep to one side of the road.” He shrugged. “Which made no sense if there wasn’t another vehicle coming toward us. I slowed down and veered to the edge whenever I saw headlights coming at us.”

“Mac, do you know why he’s so angry at me?” she asked, gesturing at Trace, who was flopped over sideways on her couch in an awkward position.

God help her, it was all she could do not to go over there and straighten him out.

“He’s angry that you tried to seduce him with the intention of making a child.”

“What?” she gasped, taking a step back. “But I wasn’t … I didn’t …” Fiona felt her cheeks fill with heat. “He
told
what happened down in the safe room?” she squeaked, deciding she’d rather go over and kick Trace instead.

Mac tucked his hands behind him as he backed toward the stove. “Not the details, just the generalities of what led up to your little misunderstanding.” He arched a brow. “Are
you saying that at the time you never once thought of the possibility that you could make a child?”

“No!” She pointed at the couch. “And you better tell him that the moment he wakes up.” She dropped her hand, fighting tears. “I can’t believe he thought I would deceive him about something as important as fathering a child.”

“You’d have to know about his childhood to understand why he jumped to that conclusion,” Mac said gently. “Trace’s father blamed his mother for getting pregnant when she was sixteen and trapping him in a marriage he didn’t want.”

“Th-that’s why his father beat him?” she whispered, seeing one more piece of the puzzle fall into place. “Just because he’d been born?”

The drùidh nodded. “I’m afraid Trace is quite sensitive about fathering children, which is why you mustn’t take his anger tonight personally. It’s not about you, Fiona, it’s about him.” He folded his arms over his chest. “And so I would ask, if you weren’t looking to get with child, what
were
you doing down in that room?”

Fiona spun away and ran to the kitchen. “We forgot Misneach outside.”

But when she couldn’t get the door to open, even after she checked to make sure it wasn’t locked, she turned to find Mac standing in the front-room doorway.

“I’m only asking because I’d like to know if you are attracted to Trace or not,” he continued, apparently unconcerned that her pet was freezing to death.

“You locked the door.”

“It will open just as soon as you answer my question.”

“But what does my liking or not liking him matter to you?”

“It shouldn’t, really.” He smiled sheepishly. “But it appears I have a romantic side I wasn’t aware of until just recently.” He shrugged. “Probably because I’m finding it’s easier to stick my nose in other people’s affairs than it is to get my own affairs in order. So, are you attracted to that drunken lout on your couch or not?”

She turned back and rattled the doorknob again as she looked down through the window to see Misneach sitting on the porch, his whole body shivering as he stared up at her. She spun back to Mac. “Okay, here’s the thing. I’m sure you know how much I don’t like men, but I don’t … dislike Trace.” She pointed her finger at the drùidh. “And if you tell him that, I swear I’ll poison your dinner.”

Up went that brow again, and his eyes took on an amused twinkle. “So, you were merely
not disliking
him two days ago when you took off all your clothes?”

“I was trying to be modern!” she snapped. “Women today can sleep with a man simply
because we can.
”

“And Trace just happened to be available and willing and … what? Safe? You felt comfortable with him because he’s a friend of Kenzie’s?”

“Well, yeah,” she said, deciding that was as good a reason as any for why she’d made a complete fool of herself.

“Then can I ask how you’re planning to go about getting a child, if you don’t want anything to do with men and hadn’t been trying to have one with Trace?”

Fiona immediately brightened. “Oh, but it truly is possible now! I was watching a show on television yesterday, and there was a woman getting something called artificial insem … insem … I wrote it down,” she said, rushing to the counter. “Artificial insemination,” she read from the piece
of paper she picked up. She looked at Mac. “A doctor places a man’s seed inside the woman, and she gets pregnant without having to have sex. Isn’t that wonderful?” She waved the paper at him. “I knew there would be a miraculous way to have children without involving a man in this modern time.”

Up when Mac’s brow again. “I believe a man’s got to be involved somehow, if you want his seed.”

“Oh, but the show said there are
banks
of it, just like the banks that hold people’s money. I can get the seed from one of them.”

“Without knowing whom it belongs to?” he asked. “What if the gentleman who put his seed in the bank is … oh, I don’t know,” he said with a shrug. “What if he’s stupid or a ne’er-do-well, or he’s sickly or old?” He smiled. “Or so ugly that no woman will sleep with him? Is it not important to you what sort of lineage your baby will have? And do you not question why a man would give his seed to a woman he doesn’t even know, to create a child he will never see?”

Fiona dropped her hand holding the paper, her shoulders slumping as she looked down at the floor. “I—I hadn’t thought about any of that,” she whispered.

Mac walked over and lifted her chin. “You will have your babes, Fiona,” he said gently. “But maybe not today or tomorrow or even next week, okay? Why don’t you focus on just being alive for the moment and let good old-fashioned Mother Nature take care of the details of when and how and with whom?”

“But I’m thirty years old, Mac. If Mama and Papa hadn’t kept us isolated from society, I would have had several children by now.”

“Your parents were trying to protect you, Fiona. They
knew that the very society you yearned to be part of had a tendency to fear and ultimately annihilate anyone who was different. Did you not learn that lesson the hard way, when that man caught you alone in the woods and asked you to come home and heal his dying father?”

“But I’m not a healer. My mother was the Guardian, only she was dead.”

“And when he realized you didn’t have your mother’s magic and couldn’t help him, that’s when he turned on you, isn’t it?” Mac took hold of her shoulders. “I’m sorry, Fiona, for all that you went through, and if I could, I would undo it. But it’s important for you to understand that what you endured served to make you the strong, resilient, and determined woman you are now. No man will ever take advantage of you again, because you won’t let him.” He brushed a finger down her cheek. “Especially not that drunken lout snoring on your couch.”

Mac stepped away just as the door popped open on its own, and Misneach ran straight to the front room without even looking at them. And when Fiona followed Mac into the room, it was to find the pup sitting on Trace’s chest, licking his snoring face.

“Your pet’s really not all that discerning, is he?” Mac said with a chuckle, lifting Misneach off and handing him to Fiona. He then grabbed Trace’s wrists and hauled him into a sitting position, then pulled him to his feet and flung him over his shoulders in one smooth movement. He straightened and turned to Fiona, and grinned. “Will you be okay alone here, if I decide to go to sea with Trace and Rick?”

“But isn’t it dangerous for you out there? Won’t the demons get you?”

He started toward the door with Trace hefted over his shoulders. “Ah, but I’ll have a secret weapon with me this time,” he said, stopping on the top landing to turn to her—and bumping Trace’s head on the doorjamb.

The drunken lout didn’t even flinch.

“What secret weapon?”

He shrugged his shoulder, which caused Trace’s head to bump the doorjamb again. “Huntsman told me he was a weapon the military would aim at anything they wanted destroyed, so I figure to aim him at the demons if they happen upon us.”

“Mac,” she said when he started to turn away. “You’ll tell Trace that I wasn’t trying to make a baby with him?”

“I don’t think he’s going to believe me. Or even you, if you tell him yourself.” He nodded. “But I will give him your message. The gentleman you’re working for—how did you find out he needed someone to watch his children?”

Fiona tucked Misneach up under her chin to keep the pup from straining toward Trace. “Eve Gregor allowed me to put a notice in her store that said I would take in children during the day. Mr. Getze stops in regularly to buy bread and eggs from her, and he saw my notice the very same afternoon I put it up. He called me yesterday and asked if he could come over and meet with me tonight and see my apartment.”

“Did you check to see if Eve knew anything about him before you let Mr. Getze come here?”

“I did. And she assured me that he’s a nice man and that she knew him because he went to her school, only he was a year ahead of her. She said he married a woman he met in college and works as a lawyer in Ellsworth. But
his wife died of something called cancer two years ago, and Mr. Getze told me that he’s been taking the children to a day-care center near his work. But he’d prefer to have someone here in town watch them now, as it’s time for the older child, a little boy named Daniel, to start preschool. He wants Daniel to be with the same children he’ll be going to regular school with. He brought them with him last night,” she told Mac, smiling at the memory of those two precious children. “Daniel is four, and Kate will be three in May. They’re both so adorable I nearly offered to watch them for free.”

Mac arched his brow, and Fiona smiled again. “Don’t worry; he’s paying me very well. When I asked Eve what I should charge, she called a friend and found out the going rate in the area is a hundred and forty dollars a week for each child. But Mr. Getze said that if I supply their lunches, he’ll pay me three hundred dollars a week to watch them Monday through Friday.” Her smile turned sad. “I wish you could have seen those children, Mac. Kate’s hair looked like her brother had braided it instead of Mr. Getze, and Daniel was missing a button on his shirt, and his pants were too small.” She shook her head. “The poor man is obviously doing the best he can, but he doesn’t seem to know much about children. Any time he told them not to do something and they did it anyway, he just sighed.” She smiled. “I’m hoping that with a little encouragement, he can learn how to make them behave before they grow to be brats.”