water on her face and rinse out her mouth. Why in hel did
she keep thinking she should know someone named
MacKeage from Pine Creek?
She’d been to TarStone Mountain Ski Resort in Pine
Creek—twice, actual y. Once over February vacation her
senior year, when their high school basketbal team had
been so bad they hadn’t even made it to the tournament,
and al the seniors had decided to go skiing as a
consolation prize. And she and Bil y had honeymooned at
TarStone, which they’d been able to afford only because it
had been off-season.
Peg walked to the kitchen, deciding she must have heard
the name MacKeage on one of her trips. And she did recal
a good number of people at the resort and in town spoke
with a slight Scottish brogue like Duncan’s, and that she
and her girlfriends had found it quite sexy—although Bil y
hadn’t been amused when she’d asked him to please rol
his Rs on their honeymoon.
Peg picked up her pace when the cuckoo clock her in-
laws had given them for a wedding present announced she
only had four hours before she had to catch the school bus
in town on her way to her mother-in-law’s to pick up the
boys. She dug through the pantry for a couple of bins and
grabbed the box of freezer bags she’d bought specifical y
for the deer. Setting the bags in the bin, she added a large
cleaver—because she didn’t have time to hunt through the
garage for a hacksaw—then tossed in several hand towels
and a bar of soap before she rushed back out the door.
She stopped on the deck at the sight of the large pickup
sitting behind her van, and drew in a shuddering breath.
She’d never seen it before, but if it were red instead of dark
green, it could have been an identical twin to her late
husband’s truck. Bil y’s pickup had also worn several layers
of mud and road dust and a company emblem on the door,
its cargo bed crowded with a diesel fuel tank and large
toolbox. Except their emblem had said Thompson
Constructioninstead of MacKeage.
The pickup had been the first thing she’d sold after Bil y
had been kil ed, so her heart would stop lurching every time
she’d drive in the yard before she remembered he wasn’t
home. But it had been when she’d caught Isabel—who’d
only been three at the time—glaring up at the driver’s door
with fat tears streaming down her cheeks as she’d shouted
to her daddy to come home now that the sheer force of
Bil y’s death had brought Peg to her knees.
She repositioned the bins on her hip, careful y
walked down her rickety old stairs, and ran along the
shoreline and up the steep bank to the woods. She came to
a stop and took a calming breath when she saw Duncan
kneeling beside the deer, his jacket off and his sleeves
rol ed up as he expertly dealt with the animal.
“You don’t have to do this,” she said, setting down the
equipment and kneeling across from him. She held out her
hand. “I can take over now.”
He rol ed the already skinned animal over and
began butchering it with obvious experience. “Thanks, but I
prefer you unarmed.”
Peg ducked her head, figuring he deserved a couple of
cheap shots after what she and her kids had done to him.
Good Lord, those were herclaw marks on his neck, and
she hadn’t missed that he’d been limping at the wedding.
“I’m sorry we attacked you the other day,” she whispered.
“And first chance we get, my children wil apologize to you,
too. They … We’re more civilized than that.”
He sat back on his heels, his steady green eyes
darkening with concern. “You also might want to have a talk
with them about confronting strange men, because the next
guy might actual y retaliate.”
Peg felt her cheeks heat again. “Don’t worry; they got the
lecture of their lives that night. The card you left in my door
mentioned you want to buy gravel,” she said, deciding it
was time to change the subject. She gestured toward the
pit. “But as you can see, it’s underwater.”
He used the knife to point at the far end of the pit. “Do
you own the land to the north? How far back?” he asked
when she nodded.
“I have a hundred and eighty-four acres, almost al of it
running up that hil side.” She shook her head. “But the
horseback runs east to west, and my land stops three
hundred yards in the woods to the west of the pit.”
He went back to butchering the deer. “Would you mind if I
brought over my excavator tomorrow and dug a few test
holes to the north? There’s a good chance that vein of
gravel runs up the hil side as wel .”
Peg’s heart started pounding with excitement. Oh God, it
would be the answer to her prayers if it did. That is, until she
remembered she now owned lakefront property. “It doesn’t
matter which direction it runs,” she said, her shoulders
slumping. “The Land Use Regulatory Commission wil
never let you expand the pit because of the fiord.” She
snorted and opened the box of freezer bags. “Up until last
week, I lived nearly two miles from the lake.”
“Let me deal with LURC and getting the permits,” he
said, holding out several steaks and nodding for her to
open one of the bags. “I’l find a way to meet the required
setbacks.” He arched a brow. “Assuming we can settle on
a price.”
Peg set the steaks in the bin and grabbed another bag,
her heart pounding again. “I guess that would depend on
how many yards you’re looking to buy.”
His eyes suddenly lit with amusement. “Thirty wheeler
loads a day, five days a week for at least two months—or
maybe even wel into summer if I have to go al the way up
the mountain before I find decent gravel on Mac’s land. And
I was thinking two dol ars a yard is a fair price for everyone
concerned.”
Peg jumped to her feet and actual y stumbled backward.
Two dol ars a yard! And with twelve yards in a wheeler,
times thirty trips a day … Holy hel , that was seven hundred
and twenty dol ars a day!
She suddenly stiffened, crumpling the plastic bag in her
fist. “Do you think I just crawled out from under a rock, or
that because I’m a woman I don’t know what gravel costs?
I’m not letting you pay me two dol ars a yard!”
Duncan MacKeage also stood up, his amusement gone.
“Two fifty then, but not a penny more.”
“No!” Peg said on a gasp, taking a step back—until she
realized what she was doing and stepped forward and
pointed toward her house. “You can just get in your truck
and drive back to Inglenook, Mr. MacKeage, and tel Olivia
that I don’t appreciate being played for a fool!”
“What in hel are you talking about? Two-fifty a yard is a
damn fair offer. And what’s Olivia got to do with this,
anyway?” He thumped his chest. “I’m the one signing the
checks, not the Oceanuses, so it’s my profit you’re trying to
gouge.”
“Then I’l tel youthe same thing I told Olivia; I am not a
charity case!” she al but shouted, bolting for the house.
“Oh, no you don’t,” he muttered, catching her within three
strides. He turned her around to face him, his hands on her
arms tightening against her struggles. “Peg, listen to me,”
he said calmly. “I think we have our wires crossed.” He
relaxed his grip when she stil ed, but didn’t let her go.
“What’s youridea of a fair price?”
“There isn’t anyone in a hundred miles of here who would
pay more than a dol ar for stumpage.” She started
struggling again when he smiled. “So if Olivia told you to