“I thank you for your offer, but we MacKeages take care of our own.” Winter suddenly spotted Gesader high up in a large oak tree, sprawled on a branch overhanging the tote road, his huge, unblinking yellow eyes locked on the procession making its way toward him. “So,” she said brightly, turning to Matt with a broad smile, “why don’t you tell me what it is you want in a home, so I can begin to picture it in my mind.”
Matt looked at her sharply, and Winter realized she may have sounded a bit too enthused while changing the subject.
“I don’t want a very large home,” he said. “Something more comfortable than showy. I was thinking logs, maybe. A northern lodge, all wood inside and out, with a tall central room that has a large stone hearth.”
Winter nodded. “That would certainly fit nicely on your mountain,” she agreed, canting her head and looking upward, as if she were picturing Matt’s home. “With plenty of windows facing west to catch the sunset,” she added as they slowly rode under her silent, motionless pet. She looked behind her and waved to Megan. “Come on, Meg. Get Butterball moving,” she called back, turning her glare up on Gesader, who had turned his head and was now watching her and Matt riding away.
Gesader gave Winter a panther smile that nicely showed off his fangs, then casually started cleaning one of his paws with his broad pink tongue.
“I was thinking of getting the timber for the house off my land,” Matt continued. Winter turned back around and smiled at him. “I’ve read that a sawmill can be set up right on the site to make dimensional lumber.”
“There are some portable mills around here,” she told him. “But I think the logs have to season before you build with them. You’ll have to ask a contractor.”
Megan finally caught up, giving Winter an amused look while bobbing her eyebrows to say that she had seen Gesader. Megan then took over the conversation with Matt, helping him weigh the pros and cons of cutting his own timber.
Winter only half listened, thinking instead that she was going to kill that black imp for taking such a chance, when it suddenly dawned on her why Matt seemed so familiar.
Matheson Gregor’s eyes were the mirror image of Gesader’s.
Matt sat reclined on the high, flat boulder and slowly savored the last bite of his tart apple pie.
Megan had pulled an entire picnic from her saddlebags about half an hour ago, when they’d stopped on a bluff high up on Bear Mountain. Matt had taken the generous portion of food Megan had handed him and climbed up on the huge boulder to eat while the two sisters opted to sit on a log about twenty feet away. But instead of enjoying the stunning view of Pine Lake over a thousand feet below, Matt found watching Megan and Winter a far more interesting diversion.
They were definitely sisters; they both had rich, strawberry blonde hair, trim figures, flawless complexions, and similar facial features and mannerisms. Winter’s hair was woven into a single braid that reached clear to her waist, while Megan’s hair fell loosely down to her shoulders. Winter was about three or four inches taller than Megan, and maybe a tad more curved in all the right places. Both wore snug jeans, scuffed boots, and heavy fleeces over turtleneck jerseys.
The only difference between the women was their eyes. Megan’s eyes were a sharp, clear green, while Winter’s were an even more vivid crystalline blue, as deep and as reflective as the late September sky overhead. Both women appeared comfortable in the forest, though Matt wasn’t surprised, learning that Megan was a field biologist and having seen Winter’s paintings.
Winter MacKeage didn’t just paint animals, she painted…well, she painted their souls. She somehow managed to draw an observer deep into the world she created on nothing more than canvas, bringing the flat surface to life in an almost mystical way. Hell, even her carefully detailed trees and moss-covered boulders seemed to resonate with energy.
The moment he’d spotted the painting hanging in her gallery window of a mother deer and two fawns grazing in a springtime meadow, Matt had realized he not only had to meet the artist—which he had innately known was female—but that he had to find a way to enter her mystical world.
Winter MacKeage’s physical beauty was merely a bonus.
Matt thought back to their conversation at the resort. He’d almost blown it back at Gù Brath, when he’d let his anger at Megan’s predicament get the best of him. He’d come damn close to scaring Winter off, and that was definitely the last thing he wanted to do.
Matt lazily brushed the crumbs off his chest, listening to the low hum of Megan and Winter talking as he gazed out over Pine Lake. The sun hung low in the sky, and he guessed they had about two hours before it dropped behind the chain of mountains on the western shore of the lake, which was nearly thirty-five miles long and seventeen miles across at its widest point. It was a massive body of water, set close to the Canadian border to the northwest, completely surrounded by rugged mountains and wilderness broken only by occasional small towns.
His research had also revealed the lake was fast becoming a retirement community for corporate executives who were tired of urban congestion. Retirement wasn’t what had brought him here, though. No, it was the land itself that had drawn him: the mountains, clear waters teeming with fish, and the hum of energy that seemed to pulse through the air like nuclear fission.
That, and his unfinished business with his brother.
“How come you have a slight accent and Megan doesn’t?” Matt asked, brushing the last of the crumbs off his hands.
Both women looked up, Megan smiling and Winter frowning.
“I’ve spent most of the last nine years away from my family,” Megan answered before Winter could. “College wiped out what was left of my brogue.”
“College didn’t wipe out your brogue?” he asked Winter.
Her frown turned into a scowl, and Matt held in his smile. Winter MacKeage was a prickly little thing, always trying to stand her ground against him.
“I didn’t care for college,” she said, getting to her feet and gathering up the leftover food rather than look at him.
“You didn’t even attend art school?”
She finally looked up, her expression saying it was none of his business. But again it was Megan who answered for her, also standing up. “College isn’t for everyone,” she said. “Not if their path is leading them in another direction.”
Matt jumped down from the boulder and held up his hands in supplication. “I have nothing against uneducated women,” he said, watching with amusement as Winter bristled in outrage.
“I am well educated,” she snapped.
Again Matt held up his hands, finally freeing his laughter. “I’m teasing, Winter. There’s an intelligence in your paintings the rest of us can only hope to have. You see and feel and understand more about life than a whole university of scholars. I was just teasing,” he repeated.
The poor woman didn’t seem to know how to respond, all that bluster she’d worked up slowly deflating as she stared at him.
“We need to get down to Talking Tom’s,” Megan said, packing up what was left of the picnic.
“It’s going to get chilly as soon as that sun sets, and you need to get your jacket, Winter.”
“Talking Tom?” Matt repeated, going over and helping Megan by handing her the wrappers to put in her saddlebags.
“He lives in the cabin on the point,” Megan explained. “And Winter forgot her jacket there this morning.”
“In my cabin?”
Megan straightened, her chin lifting defensively. “Tom’s lived there for the last two and a half years, not bothering anyone. It’s an old run-down cabin, and it’s only accessible by boat or on foot. He’s not bothering anyone,” she repeated.
And again, Matt held up his hands. “I was just surprised to hear that anyone lives there. Why do you call him Talking Tom?”
“Everyone calls him that, because he talks to himself when he walks the woods,” Winter told Matt, apparently having gotten over his teasing, though her scowl was still in place. “He talks to himself so the bears hear him coming. There’s nothing nastier than walking up on a surprised bear. That’s why we have bells on our horses.”