Chapter Nine

She was actually going to do it. The little witch intended to serve him goat’s milk again, even though he’d told her he hated the stuff. She must have figured out that he’d been messing with her about putting the skunks in Maddy’s truck, which meant that Kenzie hadn’t been jesting when he’d said Fiona rarely got mad but that she did like to get even.

He couldn’t let her get away with it, of course, or the next thing he knew, she’d be buying his socks. What in hell was it with women, anyway, that they refused to leave a man alone in his misery? Single women were the worst kind of snipers, waiting to ambush the first available chump to step into their crosshairs. And apparently, the more miserable a guy was, the more attractive a target he made.

Yeah, well, he was quite capable of taking care of himself, thank you very much. Any soldier who managed to survive boot camp knew how to make a bed, put a crease in a pair of pants sharp enough to cut paper, and shine a toilet with only a toothbrush.

Except he wasn’t in the military anymore, and if he wanted to sleep on dirty sheets, dress in marginally clean clothes, and wash dishes only once a week, it was his God-given right to do so, dammit. And what was so god-awful wrong with a little dust, anyway? Any idiot knew that sterile environments made a person’s immune system so weak that even a common cold could prove deadly.

It wasn’t like he was going to become one of those crazy old hermits who walked around town muttering obscenities at everyone; he was physically and mentally strong. Hell, old Rusty Peterson had looked after himself for nearly a quarter-century, and the feisty ninety-four-year-old probably would have lived to be a hundred if he hadn’t walked in front of that delivery truck on his way to the mailbox last winter.

Seeing Fiona approaching with a tray of food, a large tumbler of milk prominently on display, Trace swept his arm across the table beside his recliner. “Here, let me make a place for you to set that,” he said over the sound of books and magazines, a couple of empty beer bottles, and other small items clattering to the floor.

“Thank you,” she said sweetly, though maybe a tad aggressively. She set the tray on the table, then dropped a spotless hand towel onto his lap, presumably for him to use as a napkin. “Is there anything else you’d like me to get you before Gabriella and I go try and catch our two little stink-bomb buddies?” she asked, her smile warm enough to melt butter.

Trace rubbed his hands over his face, tempted to ask her to get him one of his guns so he could shoot himself. “No, I’m fine. Thank you,” he said, keeping his face covered as he listened to her quietly walk away.

Dammit to hell, he didn’t like being waited on by a woman trying to atone for her supposed sins against him. And he sure as hell didn’t like how he noticed the intrinsic grace of her movements, or the way her eyes sparkled like sunshine, or how his heart seemed to speed up and all his blood rushed south whenever he caught sight of her.

Okay; either it had been way too long since he’d had sex, or he really was fatally attracted to walking disasters.

Because he sure as hell was attracted to her.

Trace spread his fingers to make sure she was gone and then lowered his hands to glare at the tray sitting beside him. It was obvious that Fiona Gregor was familiar with at least some of men’s baser appetites, because she’d made him a sandwich big enough to choke a horse. He grabbed the glass of milk and downed half of it in one swallow, then sat staring toward the kitchen, listening to her explaining to Misneach that if he didn’t want to smell like their landlord, he’d better stay away from the skunks.

Trace wondered when his ego had gotten so big that he thought he had to be everyone’s hero. Although he certainly had a knack for pulling off impossible military missions, when had he decided that his personal mission in life was to save the world one person at a time?

And why in hell did that person always seem to be a woman?

He gave a derisive snort and downed the rest of the milk. As near as he could tell, he’d started acting the hero at age seven, when he’d punched Johnnie Dempster—his best buddy at the time—in the nose for saying something to Paula Pringle that had made the first-grader cry. Having remembered how good it had made him feel, that punch had been the first of many schoolyard and then gravel-pit fights, which had eventually led to one massive explosion at age seventeen.

That’s when he’d gone into the military in order to escape going to jail.

After spending the night cruising the roads with his uncle Marvin in search of the man’s missing daughters, Trace had walked into his kitchen at two in the morning to find his mother cowering in the corner beneath his drunken father, cradling her ribs and holding her other arm protectively over her head.

The towering brute had even had the balls to kick her in front of Trace, when she’d tried getting to her feet so she could pretend—again—that nothing was wrong. Trace had stood staring at his mother’s battered face for several raging heartbeats, only to realize that he was finally strong enough, and sure as hell angry enough, to rescue a woman who had needed a hero for her entire miserable marriage.

All of his life, Trace had watched his father repeatedly make his mother pay for getting pregnant at sixteen and listened to the bastard blame her for trapping him in a dead-end job in order to support a wife and a child he’d never wanted.

That was the day the unwanted child had liberated his father by beating him to a bloody pulp and kicking his drunken ass out the door and all the way down to the docks. Trace had then thrown the bastard into the ocean with a final warning that if he ever came near either one of them again, he would kill him.

After taking her to a hospital to have her cheek sutured and her ribs wrapped, Trace had driven his mother to a divorce lawyer in Ellsworth. He’d changed the locks on the doors when they’d gotten home, tossed his father’s belongings into the old man’s truck and driven it to the cannery, and walked away without once looking back.

Their peace had lasted exactly one week, before the sheriff had shown up with a restraining order against him and his mother in one hand and a warrant for Trace’s arrest for assault in the other.

Waving a list of juvenile altercations under his nose and pointing out that Grange Huntsman would probably walk with a limp the rest of his life, the DA—who just happened to be female—had given Trace a choice between fighting for his country or prosecution, pointing out that he couldn’t very well support his mother from a jail cell.

Three months later, on his eighteenth birthday, Trace had left for boot camp.

His mother had moved in with her sister, Maddy’s mom, and started building a new life for herself. She’d gone back to school to become a paralegal, eventually growing independent enough that she’d started depositing the checks Trace sent home into an account in his name. And six years ago, she’d married a man who thought she alone was responsible for making the sun shine.

Grange Huntsman had left Midnight Bay not long after Trace had, to pursue the life he claimed they’d stolen from him, only to die a couple of months later in some alley in Boston from alcohol poisoning. Uncle Marvin was the only one to attend the bastard’s funeral, and then likely only so he could spit on his brother’s grave.

Blowing out a sigh that did nothing to quell his frustration, Trace picked up the sandwich and peeled back one of the slices of bread. And yup, that sure as hell looked like Eve Gregor’s award-winning goat cheese to him, slathered over all that meat.

What a terrible thing to do to perfectly good chicken.

He took a large bite and chewed without tasting, wondering how a person went about getting revenge on a walking disaster without overstepping the bounds of fair play. He didn’t want to actually scare the woman, much less crush her blossoming spirit; he just wanted to pay her back for organizing his tools and turning his home into a zoo, and for the skunks, for his being laid up, and for the goat’s milk.

But mostly, he wanted to make her stop making him want her.

Threatening to cut off all of Maddy’s hair had certainly served him well when his then-thirteen-year-old cousin had caught him screwing Leslie Simpson in the woods behind his house. But he’d dared to make such a threat only because he’d known that not only would Maddy have survived the injustice but the little Peeping Tom would have risen to the challenge. And then the brat would have one-upped him, just like she had last night by stealing his shoes, disabling his truck, and dressing him in Sesame Street pajamas.

Hell, maybe he would put the skunks in her SUV.

As for Fiona … well, old lady Peterson had been a schoolteacher, and Trace was pretty sure he’d seen one of those handheld antique school bells kicking around here somewhere—the ones teachers would ring to call kids in from recess that could be heard nearly all over town.

It could definitely be heard as far as his upstairs apartment. And seeing how it was his tenant’s fault that he was out of commission for a week, he should probably find that bell and ring it whenever he needed something.

Hell, maybe he’d been going about this attraction thing all wrong. Instead of going out of his way to make sure Fiona wasn’t afraid of him, he should be making sure she absolutely, positively, without question disliked him.

Because really, what man could possibly be attracted to a hostile woman?

It certainly had worked on Mac when the fool had tried to steal Maddy from William. But after spending a single afternoon with Peeps, the drùidh had decided he sure as hell didn’t want to spend a lifetime with a woman who called him pond scum to his face.

Trace took another large bite of his sandwich and felt some of the cheese plop onto his chest. He frowned down at the clean shirt he’d spent twenty minutes hunting for this morning and tried wiping it off, only to end up smearing it into the material.

Well, Christ, he’d been out of the military only five months, and he’d already turned into a slob. Come to think of it, he hadn’t gotten his hair cut since he’d come home, and he bothered to shave only once a week, and then only because he went to his mom’s for Sunday supper—usually wearing clothes still damp from the dryer because he’d forget to throw in a load of wash the night before.

Giving up on the shirt, Trace stuffed the last of his sandwich into his mouth and used the towel to wipe the cheese off his face. He stopped in mid-wipe to crush the soft material into his nose and frowned. Apparently not all of his olfactory cells were dead, because he’d swear he could smell roses—just as he had the afternoon Fiona helped him bank the house.

Great. Wonderful. How friggin’ nice of her to spread her scent over all his stuff.

The porch door slammed open, and Trace dropped the towel when he heard footsteps running through the kitchen. “There’s a storm coming,” Fiona said, barging into the living room. She kicked the footrest closed on the recliner and tried to haul him out of the chair. “Come on, I have to get you to the basement where you’ll be safe.”

He refused to budge. “What do you mean, a storm’s coming? As in a plain old nor’easter or a storm involving one of Kenzie’s displaced souls?”

She hauled Trace to his feet—but only because he let her. “All I know is that it’s an unnatural storm,” she said, thrusting the crutches under his arms. “Gabriella’s bridling Buttercup so I can take her home.” She started shoving at him. “I promise I’ll be gone only twenty minutes, and then I’ll gallop right back here to protect you,” she said, giving him a harder shove when he didn’t move.

Was she serious? She intended to come back and protect him?

Trace let the crutches fall to the floor, grabbed her arms to stop her shoving, and held her facing him. “Calm down,” he said evenly, “and tell me how you know it’s not just a plain old snowstorm.”

“I just know!” she snapped, struggling to get free. But when he wouldn’t let her go, she went perfectly still. “Don’t make me hurt you,” she softly threatened.

Was she serious?

Christ, he was tempted to let her try.

His shirt pocket suddenly started ringing and vibrating at the same time Fiona’s jacket also started ringing. Gabriella came rushing into the kitchen just then and ran into the living room to the sound of her phone blaring out a jaunty tune.

Fiona jerked free and reached into her pocket even as she reached toward his chest with her other hand. “This one’s yours,” she said, handing Trace his cell phone as she plucked hers out of his shirt pocket.

All three of them said hello at the same time.

“We have company coming, Huntsman,” William growled into Trace’s ear. “And I need ye to keep Gabriella there with you until it’s over.”

“But I want to help!” Trace heard Fiona cry into her phone.

“What’s coming in?” he asked William. “And what do you need me to do?”

“There’s not enough time for ye to get the women to Kenzie’s,” William said. “So we’re counting on you to keep them safe. Can ye manage okay with your knee?”

“I’ll manage. Do you have any idea what we’re facing?”

“Nay, except it appears to be an unusually powerful energy. Kenzie believes whoever is chasing the soul seeking sanctuary is hell-bent not to let him reach us, so this may run well into the night. Maddy is talking to Gabriella right now, but I need ye to … my sister might …” The Irishman blew out a heavy sigh. “Hell, there’s a good chance the girl may get hysterical.”

“I will keep her and Fiona safe,” Trace promised, closing his phone when the line went dead. He turned to find Fiona still arguing with her brother. He plucked her phone out of her hand and snapped it shut.

“Hey!” she cried, trying to grab it back.

He shoved it into his pants pocket. “You want to help,” he said quietly, nodding toward Gabriella, who was staring sightlessly ahead at nothing, “then help your friend get through this.” Trace picked up his crutches and hobbled into the kitchen. “Where’s Misneach?” he asked, stopping at the door to slip into a jacket.

“He’s still outside,” Fiona said, her arm around Gabriella as she followed him.

“Go to the mudroom,” he instructed. “You’ll find a door hidden inside the back wall of the closet. It opens onto a set of stairs that leads down to a corridor. Take a left at the bottom, and you’ll eventually come to another door made of steel. Open it, and you’ll find a flashlight on a shelf on the right. Take Gabriella into the room and then bolt the door closed behind you. And Fiona?”

“Yes?”

“You don’t unlock that door for any reason, unless you hear me knock on it three times, and then not until I’ve done it twice. Got that? Two sets of three knocks, and that way, you’ll know it’s me.”

“But—”

“There’s enough food and water to last you several days,” he cut in. “But you wait at least two days before you come out if I don’t show up before then.”

“But you must come with us. You can’t even walk!”

Trace shot her a slow grin. “Don’t worry. I promise I’ll hurry back to protect you.”

The look she gave him was fierce enough to turn away the coming storm. He opened the outside door and found Misneach standing on the porch, the pup’s hackles raised as he growled menacingly toward the ocean.

Hell, there seemed to be an epidemic of heroes going around.

Trace scooped up the pup, limped over to Gabriella, and placed him in her arms as he nodded at Fiona. “Let her be responsible for Misneach so she’ll have something to do. Go on, head down to the room.” He had to physically turn her around and then nudge her. “And don’t forget, two sets of three knocks, or two days.”

He was surprised that she didn’t argue, even though it was obvious that she wanted to. But then, eleventh-century women were taught from birth not to contradict men, weren’t they? Which was nice in a crisis, he supposed, but likely boring the rest of the time.

Trace followed as Fiona led Gabriella into the mudroom, and he waited as she opened the closet door and pushed against the back wall. “There’s a hidden latch on the left, and it opens inward, so watch that first step. It’s going to be pitch-black, and you won’t find a flashlight until you reach the room, so you’ll have to feel your way.”

Fiona scowled at him standing there watching her. “Did they kick you out of your war because it took you all day just to get to the battle?”

Apparently, being obedient didn’t mean she had to be silent.

God help him, he wanted to kiss that scowl off her face.

He handed Fiona her cell phone. “It won’t work in the room, because the walls are thick and lined with steel, so shut it off to save the battery for when you come out. Oh, and Fiona? Don’t touch any of the equipment I’ve got down there.” He shot her a grin. “Or you just might find a real mess to clean up when you come out.”

“Please come down with us,” she whispered, her eyes filled with concern.

“I will, just as soon as I see exactly what we’re up against.”

Gabriella gave a soft scream when something slammed onto the porch roof before it smacked against the railing on its way to the ground.

Trace figured that was one less shutter he’d have to take down.

He touched the young girl’s chin to make her look at him. “You’re safe, Gabriella. Nothing and no one can breach that room. But it’s going to be your job to keep Misneach calm, okay?”

“M-madeline told me she and Sarah were on their way to Kenzie’s house,” Gabriella whispered, “because Eve has a powerful weapon to fight off the dark magic. Did Kenzie give you a magical pen, too?”

Trace smiled. “I have something just as magical and even more powerful.”

“What is it?”

He brushed the girl’s hair over her shoulder and gave Misneach a quick scratch on the ear. “It’s called modern technology. So if you hear a loud boom and the room shakes around you, you’ll know that I’m making my own kind of magic,” he said, giving Fiona a nod and softly closing the closet door.

Just as soon as he heard them start down the stairs, Trace looked around the mudroom. He grabbed one of the folded sheets he spotted on the dryer. He limped into the kitchen, sat down, pulled his multitool out of its sheath, and cut the sheet into strips. He wrapped a couple of the strips tightly around his right knee and stood up to test his leg.

Leaving the crutches by the back door, Trace limped onto the porch and then shouldered his way through the blinding snow and gale-force wind blowing in off the bay. Seeing the fidgeting horse tied to a post when he entered the barn, he slipped off its bridle and pushed it into the storm, figuring that it stood a better chance of surviving outside. He shooed the goat out behind the horse, then went to the chicken coop and opened the door to let them choose to stay or leave.

He walked to the back of the barn and looked out the window, but the blizzard conditions wouldn’t let him see more than a couple of feet. The old barn gave a loud snap when a strong gust shifted the structure, and over the howl of the wind, he heard a large branch snap off a tree out front and crash to the ground.

A cold chill that had nothing to do with the plummeting temperature raced up his spine when Trace heard the eerie and now familiar sound of screaming demons.

Christ, they sounded close.

A dark … something … momentarily cast the window in shadow, causing him to step back in surprise. Why in hell weren’t they chasing the soul to An Téarmann—which was a good six miles away—instead of coming here? It was supposed to be known throughout all of time that Kenzie’s home was a sanctuary the black magic couldn’t breach.

Trace headed into the attached shed at a limping run, scattering several of the hens, and squeezed behind the rows of stacked firewood. Dammit, he wasn’t prepared to face an army of demons; about the only thing he was prepared for was to ride out whatever sort of hell they brought with them.

He folded back a heavy canvas tarp, grabbed his backpack, and slid it over his shoulders, then strapped his sidearm around his waist and lashed it to his thigh. He had hoped he’d have more time to be fully operational, but even though he’d been working like a madman for two months, he’d only been able to build the safe room, secure the immediate perimeter, and install less than half the electronics he needed.

He’d had no idea the tunnels even existed when he’d bought the house, and he probably never would have known if he hadn’t stumbled upon them when he’d been searching the cellar, looking for a structurally sound place to build a safe room.

Apparently old man Rusty Peterson’s grandfather had done a bit of smuggling in the late eighteen hundreds and early twentieth century, and based on some of the old newspapers and crates Trace had found in them, Gavin Peterson, Rusty’s father, had continued the family tradition and actually expanded the tunnels during prohibition.

If Rusty’s sons had been aware of their family history, they hadn’t told Trace what a gem he was getting when they’d sold him the house.

Then again, there was a good chance the secret had died with Rusty Peterson. He hoped it had, as the fewer people who knew about a hidey-hole, the better.

Except that now Fiona and Gabriella knew about the room, but considering their own laundry list of secrets, Trace figured he could trust them with his.

When he heard what sounded like a window blowing out in the barn, he sidestepped his way farther down the back side of the woodpile. Since he wouldn’t be much help to William and Kenzie with a bum knee, and because he didn’t know shit about fighting physical demons without Kenzie’s magic, the only sensible thing to do was retreat.

Sliding a few heavy boxes out of the way, relieved that Fiona hadn’t gotten this far in her cleaning, he stuck his finger in a knothole in the floor and lifted a hidden doorway. Taking one last look around, Trace stepped down into the darkness—even as he wondered if the women had noticed how spotless he kept his hidey-hole.