backpack. “I’ve brought ye a change of clothes and some
sturdy boots that you might want to put on before we start
the hike up.”
She turned to face him and stepped back. “You’ve had
this planned?”
He pul ed a pair of jeans and a sweatshirt out and set
them on the ground. “For a few days,” he said with a nod.
He looked up at her. “I came over here twice before; first
trying to find what I was looking for, and then with Alec and
Robbie. The first trip is when I found the pup and also when
I fel into a hole inside the mountain. The last time was the
night your house burned. I had hopes of reaching my …
instrument of power without involving you, but it seems Mac
has made that impossible.”
She took another step back. “What does Mac have to do
with this?”
Duncan sat down and patted the moss beside him.
“Come here, Peg, and I’l tel you a fantastical tale that
might help make sense of what we’re doing.”
She did sit down, but on the other side of the backpack.
“If you think I’m going to— What is that noise I keep
hearing?” she asked suddenly, looking around. “It sounds
like breathing or … snoring or something. Only it’s seems
to be coming from everywhere.”
Duncan rol ed to his knees in front of her. “You can hear
that?” He grabbed her shoulders. “Truly, Peg, you can hear
the mountain?”
She shrank away from him. “The mountain?” she
whispered, looking around again. “You think it’s breathing?
You … you hear it, too?”
He pul ed her into his arms and kissed the top of her
head. “Ah, lass, ye have no idea how relieved I am that you
can sense the mountain’s energy.” He tilted her head back,
although he couldn’t see her that wel because they were in
the woods. “That’s the magic, Peg. That’s what I’ve been
talking about.” He hugged her to him again. “And you can
feel it.”
“Mountains don’t breathe,” she muttered, pushing against
his chest. She bent her knees when he let her go and
wrapped her arms around them, apparently to keep him
from hugging her again. “Mountains are inanimate objects
made of rock and dirt and granite.”
“Tel the good people of Spel bound Fal s they’re
inanimate,” he said with a chuckle, sitting down beside her.
“Because I’m pretty sure some of these mountains picked
themselves up and movedabout a month ago.” He rested
his arms on his knees and looked toward the fiord.
“Nothing’s inanimate, lass; quantum physics has already
proven that much. Everything, even something as solid as
granite, is nothing but pure energy.” He gestured behind
him even though he wasn’t certain she could see it. “This
mountain is very much alive, but at the moment it’s …
napping.”
“Okay,” she said with a snort. “Now you’re just messing
with me.” She picked up the clothes he’d set beside the
pack and scrambled to her feet. “I have no idea why you’re
so al -fired determined to make me believe mountains
breathe and there’s something on this one that you— Um,
Duncan?” she suddenly whispered in midsentence. “How
did you pick out what size clothes to bring for me?”
He frowned up at her; enough moonlight reflecting off the
water for him to see that she’d dropped the shirt and was
holding the jeans up by the waist. “I guessed, mostly. I wear
a thirty-eight waist, and figured since you’re about half my
size that you’d wear an eighteen or twenty.”
“You got me size twentyclothes?” she cried. She
stepped up and held the jeans spread open in front of his
face. “Do you honest to God think my ass is that wide?” she
growled, shaking the pants at him.
Duncan snagged them out of her hands so she would
quit hitting him with them. “I thinkthat’s a loaded question coming from a woman,” he growled back, even as he held
the pants up and realized they’d likely fal off him. “Why in hel are they bigger than mine if the number is less than half
my waist size?”
She snatched them back. “Because women don’t like
wearing big numbers on our asses.” She shook the jeans at
him again. “Did you even unfold them to see if they at least
looked like they’d fit me?”
Duncan dropped his chin to his chest to hide his grin.
Christ, she was in a ful -blown rage, and al over the size of
a pair of jeans. But at least she was through being afraid of
him—although she may be planning his death, he realized
when she hurled the jeans at his head.
“Did you even look at them?” she repeated.
“Not closely,” he muttered, tossing the pants over his
shoulder into the trees. “Wait, check out the other pair. I had
the salesgirl go get them when I realized I should bring two
changes of clothes, and I told her that you were just about
her size. Maybe she grabbed smal er ones. Here,” he said,
opening a side pocket on the pack and handing her a
headlamp. “Put this on so you can see what you’re doing.”
She turned on the light, slid it on her head, and adjusted
the straps, then pointed the three LED bulbs directly at him,
making Duncan have to lift his hand before he went
permanently blind. “Thanks,” she said far too cheerily,
turning to look down into the top of the pack—which
thankful y took the lights off him.
He heard her sigh just before she sat back on her heels
holding the other jeans and blinded him again. “The only
reason you’re not dead right now is because the salesgirl
was a size smal er than me.” She straightened to her knees
and trained the light into the pack again, then reared up
with a gasp when her hand came out holding a box.
Duncan closed his eyes when he saw what she was
holding. “I … ah … I had a worry that it might be your time of
the month.”
“Please tel me you didn’t buy this stuff from Ezra,” she
whispered.
“Nay, I shopped in Turtleback Station.”
She dropped the box on the moss with a snort, then
pul ed two pairs of thick wool socks out of the pack, another
sweatshirt—that he was afraid was size twenty—and final y
the boots. She peeled back the tongue on one of them and
shone the light inside before tossing them down. And then
he heard her gasp again as her hand emerged with a pair
of panties dangling from her finger.
“These you get in a size four?” she growled, blinding him
with light as she shoved the scrap of lace in his face.
He snatched the panties away and shoved them in his
pocket. “What in hel size do ye wear, then?”
He didn’t know how she did it, but her nose lifted in the
air even while she stil managed to keep the headlamp
blaring at him. “Women do not discuss their sizes with men.
I can’t wait to see what you got me for a bra,” she said,
training the light down inside the pack again.
Duncan tried to stifle his chuckle but out it came anyway,
although he was afraid it sounded more nervous than
humorous. “I didn’t get ye a bra.”
“Because?” she asked far too softly.
“Because last time I checked I was a red-blooded male,
and for us bras are just one more confounding obstacle
we’ve got to get past.”
That little comment was met by silence as the lamp’s
beam dropped toward the ground, only to suddenly shoot
up into the forest as she scrambled to her feet. “I’d better
go change,” she said.
Duncan jumped up to cut her off and pul ed her into his
arms. “You’re perfectly safe with me, Peg,” he quietly told