Charmed by His Love Read Online Free PDF Page B

trounce me twice in one day?” Duncan gestured in Peg’s direction. “I believe that’s bachelor number five walking away now, looking more shell-shocked than I was this morning.”
    “Sweet Christ,” William muttered. “The woman just refused to dance with a fourteenth-century king of Prussia.”
    “Who in hell are all these people?” Duncan asked, looking around Inglenook’s crowded dining hall.
    “Friends of Titus, mostly,” William said, “who aren’t about to incur old man Oceanus’s wrath by not showing up to his only son’s wedding.”
    “I can’t believe he dared to put time-travelers in the same room with modern locals,” Trace said, also glancing around.
    “And serve liquor,” Duncan added, just before taking another sip of mead—because he really needed another good kick-in-the-ass. His knee was throbbing, the scratches on his neck were burning under his collar, and social gatherings weren’t exactly his idea of a good time. But like most everyone else here today—the small party from Midnight Bay plaguing him now likely the only exception—Duncan wasn’t about to insult the younger Oceanus, either, considering Mac was his meal ticket for the next two years.
    “Uh-oh, your target is on the move,” William said, his gaze following 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 William. “Isn’t that Maddy dancing with the king of Prussia?”
    “Oh, Christ,” William 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 all 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 kill themselves or each other. Hell, that’s the definition of
clan
.”
    Duncan tugged his collar 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 spilling 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 calling around to find the closest gravel pit to Spellbound Falls. He would eventually 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 Bill Thompson had been killed 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 finally put two and two