Free The Highlander Next Door by Janet Chapman Page A

“then maybe the lass will quit spitting at us long enough for me to ask her out to dinner and for you to finally give Mimi that bone I saw ye bury down on the beach.”
    Niall flipped on his sirens and lights when a group of tourists started into the crosswalk, then wove through traffic as cars pulled to the edges of the road and stopped. “Well, that’s certainly handy when I’m in a hurry,” he murmured, pressing on the accelerator once he passed the spot where the old railroad bed crossed at the end of the town proper. “Or we
may
finally win over the ladies,” he told Shep, his mood darkening again, “if the only reason Birch isn’t answering her phone is that she’s out of range.”
    Because if Vaughn had caught her leaving with Misty and there’d been any sort of altercation beyond a verbal spewing of fire and brimstone, the bastard would be seeing the inside of a hospital instead of Spellbound Falls’ new holding cell.
    Aye, it would appear Birch was developing a bad habit of her own, in that she kept blindly rushing to women’s rescue—armed with nothing more than a tiny canister of bear spray, no less—which had Niall thinking that Hazel wasn’t the only Callahan who might be needing a keeper.

Chapter Five

    Niall stopped his truck next to the familiar red compact car half-driven into the bushes, his hopes dashed that the absence of a bridge had been enough to deter Birch from her mission. But it was obvious the spitfire had simply waded across the fast-moving brook, which for her would be thigh-high in places. The only thing that kept him from roaring in frustration were the slip marks in the gravel on the opposite bank, indicating she hadn’t fallen and been swept downstream. That the tracks were dry, however, said he was behind her by at least an hour.
    A lot could happen in an hour.
    Hell, a confrontation could turn deadly in the blink of an eye.
    Niall engaged the four-wheel-drive and edged his truck into the water, ignoring Shep’s whining as the dog stood on the passenger seat with his nose pressed against the windshield. They made it halfway across before the tires began fighting for purchase on the various-sized rocks, Shep giving a snarl when the truck lurched violently enough to send him tumbling over the console. “Will you relax,” Niall muttered, shoving the dog away and gunning the motor to make it up the opposite bank. “I’m not letting ye out to run ahead. We’ll go another half mile and make the rest of our way on foot,” he added, also ignoring the fact he’d developed the habit of talking to his dog.
    But hell, it had to beat talking to himself.
    Niall eventually stopped and turned around by repeatedly driving the truck’s nose and tailgate into the bushes until he was facing the way he’d come, then backed up the narrow road and stopped between two large trees to cut off Vaughn’s escape route. He tossed the key on the floor as he got out ahead of Shep, deciding to leave
his
means of escape unlocked on the chance he’d have to tell Birch to make a run for it, then patted his leg to signal his first officer to stay beside him and broke into a ground-eating lope.
    Spotting the unpainted two-story house a short while later, Niall veered into the woods and crouched on the edge of the clearing—Shep standing beside him on full alert, the dog’s nostrils flaring like a blacksmith’s bellows—and took note of the fairly new pickup and short-bodied logging truck parked next to a barn. But except for a large workhorse and two young cattle grazing in a small field and a dozen or so chickens milling about the yard, the place appeared deserted.
    The only thing wrong with the peaceful scene was the heaviness he felt in the air, reminding Niall of the aftermath of hard and bloody battles when the deafening peal of clashing swords and screams of men would suddenly give way to an eerie silence. He stood up and reached under the back of his jacket and pulled out the compact