Free Charmed by His Love by Janet Chapman Page B

groaned in pain, but he did manage to open both eyes. “I tangled with our new resident theurgist.”
    “Why?” Alec asked, looking around as if he expected Mac to materialize. “What in hell did ye do to piss him off?”
    “He wasn’t pissed off; he merely wanted some sport.” Duncan snorted again, this time using the pain to lever himself into a sitting position, then immediately hung his head in his hands with a curse. “Only problem is, Mac’s idea of sport involves swords. And not the dull ones we use at the summer games, either, but real weapons designed to draw blood. Some of it mine,” he muttered, straightening enough to run a hand over his torso. “Christ, I think one of my ribs is cracked.” He waved at the bed beside him. “Look under my pants.”
    Alec lifted the pants but dropped them on the floor in surprise, then reached down and slid the sword halfway out of itssheath. “This isn’t your sword. It looks authentic, like … like Dad’s.”
    “It’s my father’s,” Duncan whispered. “Mac gave it to me.”
    “But I thought Callum and old Uncle Ian’s swords were sold at auction forty years ago, along with several daggers.”
    “They were bought by an anonymous bidder named Maximilian Oceanus.”
    Alec squinted down at it. “That’s definitely fresh blood.” He straightened, arching a brow as he slid it back into its sheath and set it on the bed. “Mac’s?”
    Duncan swung his legs off the side of the bed, then hung his throbbing head in his hands again. “I might have lost the battle, but I did manage to spill a few drops of imperial blood, and the bastard’s also going to be a little slow getting out of bed this morning.” He lifted his head and grinned. “So I guess we’re building timber bridges, since that was our wager.”
    “And for the buckets of your blood that he spilled, what did Mac get?”
    Duncan lost his grin. “He gets me keeping an eye on a widow and her four little heathens for the next two months.”
    “Then you got the best of him after all. You actually like little heathens, and I’ve yet to meet a woman who didn’t fall all over herself trying to get your attention.”
    “Oh, Peg Thompson got my attention, all right.” Duncan ran a finger over the claw marks on his neck. “These are from her, not Mac. And yesterday, after nearly running me down with her minivan, I went to her house and thought she was shooting at me only to walk up on a deer that she’d nailed right between the eyes.”
    Alec folded his arms with a grin. “Does that mean my summer job comes with hazard pay?” His expression suddenly perked up. “No, never mind; I’ll settle for fringe benefits. How about if I keep an eye on the obviously discerning widow, since she doesn’t seem all that enamored with you? Is she as pretty as she is lethal?”
    Duncan sprang to his feet before he remembered it was going to hurt, his snarl all the more threatening for his pain. “I even catch you talking to Peg and you’re going to find yourself limping all the way back to TarStone Mountain.”
    Alec lifted his hands in supplication—although he was stillgrinning. “A tad protective, aren’t you, considering ye don’t seem all that enamored with the widow Thompson yourself.”
    “And pass the word along to the crew; the woman is off-limits.”
    “Including you?”
    “
Especially
me,” Duncan hissed as he bent down to swipe his pants off the floor. “Unhook the bulldozer you brought and hook your wheeler up to the excavator,” he said, carefully slipping into his pants. Christ, he hurt. And the worst part was that he’d agreed to meet Mac up on the mountain for another round tomorrow. “Did you happen to notice any lights on in the dining hall?” he asked as Alec headed for the door. “It’s the building behind this one.”
    “Sorry, all its windows are dark.”
    Duncan slid on his shirt, gritting his teeth against the pain. Damn, either he’d gotten out of shape over the