Chapter Five

Watching Gabriella disappear up the road on the back of William’s motorcycle, Fiona stood at the bottom of the stairs leading up to her apartment, torn between wanting to run inside and staying to face her landlord like a confident, modern woman. She started walking Misneach around the yard, trying to persuade herself that she wasn’t afraid of Mr. Huntsman and that there wasn’t any reason they couldn’t have a calm, civilized discussion about her owning a pet. But half an hour later, worried he might not be in the mood to hear how having a dog would benefit the both of them, Fiona found herself waiting for him halfway up the stairs.

Just as soon as she’d sat down, Misneach had flopped down with a doggy sigh and immediately fallen asleep on the step above her, apparently exhausted from all that had happened to him today. The poor little bugger; he must be so confused and frightened and feeling so powerless that falling asleep was his only defense. For didn’t she herself know the horrors of waking up one morning belonging to one master, only to be bartered off before nightfall to another one for a few measly coins?

“Don’t worry, my little friend,” she whispered, stroking his wavy coat of dust-colored fur. “If Mr. Huntsman says you can’t stay, you have my word of honor that I will not hand you off to another master. I learned all about surviving the elements when I was a hawk, and we’ll just go live in the woods if he won’t let me keep you. You’ll give me courage, and I will give you my loyalty, and together we will make a formidable team.” She kissed the top of his head. “And if by some miracle Mr. Huntsman does agree to let you stay, then you must also become a perfect tenant and do your business in the tall grass and not jump on him with muddy paws. Oh, and no barking when he’s home, as he works very long hours and needs his sleep,” she added in a stern whisper.

Fiona sat upright when she heard the distinct rumble of her landlord’s pickup turning into the driveway, and that persistent knot in her gut rose into her chest, squeezing her suddenly pounding heart. She stood up, hoping it would help her breathe normally, only to realize that she might appear to be looking down her nose at him. So she sat back down and folded her hands on her lap, again wishing she’d never gone to town.

But when Misneach gave a soft little puppy snore, Fiona realized that if she hadn’t, there was a good chance he would be in that terrible shelter right now, praying that he could go to sleep and never wake up.

The old green pickup came to a halt just out of her line of vision, and she heard the engine shut off and the vehicle’s door open and close.

And then nothing.

She leaned forward and frowned down at the porch. He had to have seen her sitting on the stairs when he’d driven in. Why wasn’t he coming to discuss her new pet?

Gathering her courage, because she knew that postponing the confrontation would only add to her angst, Fiona started down the steps. But she plopped back down with a gasp when her landlord silently rounded the corner of the house carrying her bag of dog food. He set it on the bottom step, then pulled some money out of his pocket and held it up for her to see.

“Johnnie Dempster asked me to give this to you. He told me once he thought about it, he decided he wanted you to have the dog when he realized it was going to a good home,” he said, tucking the money under the bag of food.

Fiona stood up in alarm. “Oh no, you must give it back to him! I do not wish to feel beholden to Mr. Dempster.”

“Hey, I tried to get him to keep at least a hundred, but he insisted on giving it all back minus what he spent on the food and leash. Don’t worry; Johnnie’s not looking for a new girlfriend. He just got rid of the last one with his skin barely intact.” He stared up at her for several seconds and then suddenly blew out a sigh. “Dempster’s a good man, Fiona, and he has a passion for dogs. But your new little friend there,” he said, gesturing toward Misneach, “was the runt of the litter, and Johnnie knows he’ll make a better companion than a hunter, so he’s beholden to you for taking it off his hands.”

Fiona plopped back down on the stairs, trying to decide if she believed him or not. “And you … you will let me keep Misneach?” she whispered, looking at his broad chest because she wasn’t quite able to meet his gaze.

She saw him shrug. “I’ve wanted to get a dog myself but didn’t think it was fair, considering the long hours I’m gone from the house. Truth is, I like the idea of having a dog around to keep the raccoons and skunks out of the barn.” Although it didn’t quite reach his eyes, he smiled up at her. “Just teach him to do his business in the woods, and keep him out of the trash.”

Fiona jumped to her feet again, unable to contain her excitement. “I promise, you won’t even know he’s here!”

Misneach came awake with a startled yelp and tumbled down several steps before he slammed into Fiona’s legs, knocking her off balance. She tried to grab the railing with one hand and Misneach’s leash with the other, only she missed both when the leash tangled in her legs. But just as she felt herself falling, she was suddenly swept off her feet and gently set on the stairs.

“Th-thank you,” she whispered in horror.

But she was talking to Trace Huntsman’s back. And if she hadn’t still been shivering from the feel of his warm, powerful arms around her, she might have thought nothing had happened as she watched her landlord disappear around the corner of the house—with Misneach, leash flapping behind him, yapping excitedly at his heels.

Fiona shivered again. She couldn’t believe a man could move that fast or so silently; yet he must have, or she would have been lying in a heap on the ground right now.

Hearing a sudden yelp followed by strangled cries of distress, Fiona rushed down the remaining steps to find Misneach hanging off the side of the porch, frantically pawing the air. But before she could even reach him, Mr. Huntsman was there, unsnapping the leash from his collar before lowering him to the ground.

Fiona swept the whimpering puppy into her arms and whispered soothing words into his trembling fur. But when she lifted her gaze to thank her landlord, the man had once again disappeared as silently as a ghost.

She frowned down at the leash. The handle had wedged in a crack between two rotten boards, apparently bringing Misneach to an abrupt halt before flinging him off the porch. She kissed the top of his head and set him down, then pulled the leash free. But before she could snap it onto his collar, the pup was off again, racing after his savior.

“Misneach, no!” Fiona cried, chasing after him. “Come he—”

The rest of her command got muffled in Trace Huntsman’s chest. She bounced off him and would have fallen back if he hadn’t caught her by the shoulders.

“Just out of curiosity,” he muttered, setting her on her feet and turning away, “how many trees did you crash into when you were a hawk?”

Fiona gaped at his retreating back. Was he implying that she was clumsy?

“None!” she snapped, marching after him. “I’ll have you know I could pluck a dove right out of the air, even in a strong gale. Misneach, come here!” she demanded when the pup started nipping at his heels again.

He reached into the bed of his pickup and pulled out a large roll of plastic and a bundle of thin wooden sticks. Then he stepped over her pet and walked past her without breaking stride as he headed toward the front of the house.

“Misneach, come!” she shouted, rushing after them again.

Her landlord dropped everything at the foot of her stairs, then walked past her again back in the direction of his truck. This time, Fiona managed to capture the pup, who immediately started struggling when she tried to snap the leash onto his collar. “You will behave yourself,” she quietly hissed, “before Mr. Huntsman changes his mind about letting you live here.”

But the moment she got the leash on him, the little contortionist slipped out of his collar and ran off again. “Misneach!” Fiona cried, growing truly frantic when he disappeared into the barn.

She barged in after him, but her eyes didn’t adjust to the darkness quickly enough, and she would have smacked into a post if a large hand hadn’t caught hold of her sleeve and pulled her around it at the last minute.

“Leave the pup be,” he said, striding out of the barn carrying a leather pouch with a hammer hanging on it and a small pail filled with nails. “He’s following me because he’s used to being around men,” he continued, stopping to fasten the belt around his waist. “And there’s really no reason for you to restrain him here in the yard.”

“But he might run out to the road and get hit by a vehicle.”

He took the leash and collar out of her hand before she even realized what he was doing, and replaced it with a pair of leather gloves that he pulled from his hind pocket. “He’ll stick close to us,” he said, picking up the pail and heading back around the front of the house.

Fiona looked at the gloves in her hand, wondering what she was supposed to do with them. She ran to catch up with him and Misneach, but when she reached the foot of her stairs, neither of them was there. The roll of plastic and bundle of wood were gone, and the pail was sitting in their place.

“Bring the nails,” he called from somewhere behind the house.

The stiff breeze blowing in off the bay caught the hem of her long coat just as she rounded the corner, and Misneach lunged toward the material with a playful yelp. Only the pup bumped into the pail instead, knocking it out of her hand. She let out a cry of dismay, and despite her attempts to catch it, all of the nails flew out of the pail and disappeared into the tall grass.

It took every ounce of courage Fiona possessed not to turn tail and run, even though she knew Mr. Huntsman would catch her before she reached her stairs. And it definitely was beyond her ability to look at him, knowing the anger she’d see in his eyes.

But several pounding heartbeats later, when he still hadn’t said anything, she finally worked up the nerve to look up.

Only he was gone.

And so was Misneach.

Fiona bent at the waist, the memory piercing her like a sword of that long-ago day when her pet goose had caused her to spill an entire pot of stew. She had been forced to make a new one with the young goose—and then she’d been forced to eat it.

She dropped to her knees, grabbed the pail, and started picking up whatever nails she could find, praying to God that Trace Huntsman wouldn’t take out his anger at her on a poor, innocent puppy.

“I’m picking them up!” she screamed as she frantically searched the ground. “I’ll find every last one, I promise! Please, just give me time to find them!”

“Here, this will help,” he said quietly, setting a rectangular piece of metal the size of a shoe on the ground and then walking away.

Misneach bounded up and started licking her face, and Fiona blindly pulled the puppy under her as she leaned over him. She swiped at her eyes with the back of one hand as she held her pet protectively beneath her, and picked up the heavy piece of metal—only to discover several nails stuck to the underside of it.

“It’s a magnet,” her landlord said from several feet away as he started unrolling the plastic. “Just run it over the ground, and it will attract the nails. Then brush them off into the pail and run it over the ground again.”

With a whispered plea for Misneach to behave himself, Fiona began working as quickly as her shaking allowed, her silent tears of relief dripping onto her hands. She could actually hear the nails clinking against the mysterious metal as she pushed the tall grass aside to slide it over the ground.

The magnet held such power that she had a difficult time prying off the nails. But every time she lifted it up, several dozen more nails were clinging to it, and in less than five minutes, she had the pail nearly full.

But even more magical than the magnet was that Trace Huntsman hadn’t flown into a rage. In fact, she saw him giving Misneach playful little shoves as he unrolled the plastic along the back side of the house. But as fewer and fewer nails clung to the magnet each time she lifted it, and her shaking subsided and her tears dried up, Fiona’s terror slowly turned to shame.

She had utterly humiliated herself in front of this man, and probably lost any chance she might have had of getting him to respect her as a modern woman.

Maybe she should go live in the woods.

“You’ve found most of them,” he said, pulling a knife out of a large pocket on his work belt and cutting the plastic. Then he cut the cord binding the bundle of wood. “Here, take these laths down to the other end of the house,” he said, holding out several of the flat sticks when she stood up. Only he didn’t immediately hand them over. “But first, you might want to put on the gloves I gave you.”

Fiona patted the pockets of her coat, then spun around so he wouldn’t see her further humiliation as she tried to remember what she’d done with the gloves.

Her cheeks burned like hot coals when she heard him sigh. “You’re not getting those gloves back,” he said, giving a chuckle, “unless you have a spare set of hawk wings under your coat.”

Fiona turned to see him looking toward the ocean, and she spotted Misneach racing along the bottom of the bluff the house sat on, her leather gloves in his mouth. The pup splashed into one of the shallow tidal pools without even slowing down, tossed the gloves into the air, and then pounced on each one as it started to sink.

“Misneach!” she shouted, looking for a place to descend the steep bank.

But she came to an abrupt halt when Huntsman thrust the sticks toward her again. “Forget the gloves,” he said, walking away as soon as she took them. “We have only about an hour of daylight left to get this side of the house banked.”

“Banked?” she repeated, although she was once again talking to his back and had to chase after him.

“What did you do in the eleventh century to keep the snow from blowing through the cracks in your house?” he asked, lifting one edge of the plastic. He held it against the clapboards, about a foot above the granite foundation. “Here, hold one of those laths over the plastic while I nail it in place.”

Fiona dropped the flat sticks onto the ground, picked one up, and then held it in place. He pulled his hammer and a couple of nails out of his belt and started nailing through the wood and plastic directly into the siding on the house.

Holding her end of the lath by the very tip the moment he got one side of it nailed, Fiona leaned away when he nailed her end.

Not because she was afraid of him but because he smelled strongly of fish!

And for some reason, the thought of this big, powerful man doing what might be considered woman’s work, stuffing little bags with bait fish he had to cut up himself, made her feel somewhat giddy.

Then again, it could be the fish fumes causing her lightheadedness.

Either way, that knot in her belly slowly started unraveling.

“We cut fir and pine boughs and tucked them around the bottom of our house,” she told him, grabbing another lath and placing it over the plastic he held up.

“We’ll do that tomorrow afternoon,” he said around a nail he’d stuck in his mouth as he pounded in another one. “The boughs will keep the plastic from billowing up and hold the snow against it for added insulation.”

We? He expected her to help him again tomorrow?

“I assume Misneach is Gaelic. What does it mean?” he asked, waiting for her to set another lath in place.

Fiona didn’t answer him right away. If she said it meant “noble one” as she’d told Johnnie Dempster, Mr. Huntsman might discover she had lied to him if Kenzie or William told him otherwise. But neither did she want to further humiliate herself by revealing her weakness.

“I named him ‘Courage,’” she finally admitted. “Because of how brave he was today when he lost the only home he’s ever known,” she added in a rush.

He glanced over at her, and then with a snort drove a nail through the lath in one powerful stroke. “That pup’s not courageous; it’s clueless.” He walked to the pail and filled his work belt with another fistful of nails. “Mother Nature designed all babies that way, so they’ll attach themselves to anyone who pays attention to them. Hell, they’ll even remain loyal to someone who kicks them around for sport.”

Hearing the slight edge in his voice, she didn’t respond.

They continued working their way down the house in companionable silence, and the unraveling sensation inside her made Fiona realize how wonderful it felt to be working. She held another lath in place and stared at her hands, trying to remember the last time she’d done anything truly constructive. She’d helped Kenzie with his displaced souls when she’d been a hawk, but when was the last time she’d helped another human being without being forced to?

It really was quite empowering.

And she didn’t even mind that it was a man she was helping.

Nor was she bothered when he inevitably brushed up against her, not even when his large, callused hand suddenly shot out to cup her face protectively when her feet got tangled up in the blowing plastic and she nearly fell against the house.

“Thank you,” she murmured, tucking several strands of hair back into her braid.

“The wind’s picking up, and the temperature’s dropping with the sun,” he said, turning to the ocean. He gave a sharp whistle, causing Misneach to stop right in the middle of a tidal pool and look up. When he gave another whistle, the pup started running toward them. “Why don’t you and Misneach head inside? I can finish this.”

“But it will go faster if I continue to help.”

He took the lath out of her hand and used it to gesture at Misneach, struggling up over the bluff. “A full-grown Chesapeake can splash around in cold water all day, but he hasn’t got much meat on his bones yet. You’d better get him warmed up before he catches a chill. There’s dry firewood in the shed, and the stove in your front room works if you want to build a fire. In fact, I prefer you burn wood once it gets really cold, to save on heating oil. I assume you know how to run a woodstove?”

She picked up Misneach and started around the house. “I know how it works.”

“Fiona.”

She stopped at the corner and turned toward him.

“Thank you.” He gestured toward the plastic. “I appreciate your help.”

Before she even realized what she was doing, Fiona shot him a beaming smile. “You’re welcome, Mr. Huntsman.”

“It’s Trace,” he said when she turned away. “My old man was Mr. Huntsman.”

Wondering at the edge in his voice again, she shot him another smile, although this one was a bit forced. “You’re welcome, Trace.”