He flopped backward with a groan and closed his eyes as he recalled the dream he’d actually lived through, apparently. He remembered hiking up and down and across the mountain with the pup like a man possessed, searching for something he hoped he’d recognize when he found it; making camp every evening wherever they happened to be, and eating whatever he could hunt or catch.
Duncan’s breath hitched when he remembered finding the cave three-quarters of the way up the mountain facing the fiord, and how he’d followed the pup when it had run inside as if it had been there before. It had been tight going for the first ten yards before the cave had opened large enough that he could stand, and the first thing Duncan had noticed was that
the air had been unusually warm. The second thing being that the walls were glowing, emitting enough light for him to see the tunnel continued at a downward incline farther into the heart of the mountain.
He’d also noticed that the snoring had been more pronounced.
He’d let the pup lead him deeper into the cave, and estimated they were a good quarter mile inside the mountain when the floor had simply stopped. Duncan had tried to look down what appeared to be a chasm, but hadn’t been able to tell how deep it was because its walls weren’t glowing. However, there had been a noticeably hot column of air whooshing out of it and then suddenly sucking back in, sort of like … breathing. He could see the glowing tunnel continued on past the thirty-foot-wide chasm and opted for the route he could see—assuming he could get past the hole. Hence the fall that had awakened him from his dream that had
really happened
.
He remembered how lying at the bottom looking up had allowed him to see the hole was about twenty feet deep. He had then tried to figure out if any bones were broken that would force him to lie there until he rotted, or if he was going to be able to escape a hole he suspected had been carved out of sheer contrariness.
Although he didn’t know how someone with less broad shoulders and smaller hands would have helped him out of this particular predicament, he supposed Peg could have at least thrown him a rope if he’d brought her along—whereas the pup had only stared over the edge and whined, dropping an occasional bit of drool on him. Thanks to his never-say-die DNA, it had taken him nearly half a day by his estimation to find the combination of foot- and handholds to climb out, and most of the night to limp back to his original campsite at the pool.
Duncan scratched the thick stubble on his jaw as he stared up at the crystalline blue sky dotted with puffy white clouds shaped like whales. If he believed the length of his beard, he’d been on his mountain at least five days. “So is there a reason the sky’s not filled with search helicopters?” he growled. “I’ve been missing for five goddamned days. Or are ye all forgetting that I sign your paychecks?”
Hell, Peg could have at least been worried enough to send someone looking for him. And what was up with Alec and Robbie? He’d told them he intended to explore his mountain Sunday night. Granted, Robbie had gone home to his wife and own little heathens Sunday morning and wasn’t due back until Tuesday, but this was goddamned
Friday
, so where in hell was everyone?
Duncan used his righteous indignation to propel himself upright again, then set his elbows on his bent knees to hold his head in his hands. He was going to have to stop growling at people, he supposed, so they wouldn’t all be celebrating the fact the boss had gone AWOL.
“Peg could at least be missing me,” he repeated out loud this time, rolling onto his hands and knees. He slowly stood up, then had to grab a nearby tree to keep from falling flat on his face before he finally felt steady enough to limp to the pool and gingerly sit down. He wrapped an arm around the pup when it came over and had to lean away when it tried to lick his face.
“Hey, you’re fattening up,” he said, running his fingers over its ribs. “Apparently I’ve managed to put some flesh back on your bones this week.” He hugged the dog to him. “You’d rally the troops if I went missing, wouldn’t you, because we’re buddies now.” He snorted. “And I feed you.”
He nudged the dog away and rolled onto his side to dunk his head in the water, then rubbed his face with his hands. Slowly beginning to feel human again and really not wanting to rot here, Duncan stood up and looked around. “I guess we walk down to the shoreline and hope the scientists are more interested in studying the fiord than the main body of Bottomless,” he told the dog as he started following the stream from where it spilled out of the pool.
Inglenook was on the opposite shore of Bottomless, but Peg’s gravel pit was only about two miles up the fiord. “It’s at least a mile across if we mosey down the shore in that direction,” he told his faithful traveling companion—the one that hadn’t abandoned him and had whined encouragement the entire time he’d crawled out of that hole. “But we’d have to swim across whale-infested waters to get there.”
Or maybe he could signal whoever was on Peg’s hillside
clearing the top off the new pit. It sure beat the hell out of walking the entire way around the fiord. His decision made, Duncan started hiking diagonally toward where he’d come ashore
five goddamned nights ago
, only to have to stop and cut himself a walking stick when his right knee kept threatening to give out.
Oh yeah, he must have really pissed off the magic at some time; probably when he’d been a full-of-himself teenager more interested in nailing every ski bunny that came to the resort instead of buckling down to learn the business he was due to take over with the other first-generation MacKeage males. He finally reached the place where he’d come ashore and stood staring across the waterway at the opposite side and snorted. He wouldn’t be taking over anything anytime soon, since Laird Greylen, Grey’s brother, Morgan—who was Alec and Ian’s father—and his own father, Callum, showed no signs of slowing down even though Callum was in his eighties, Grey in his midseventies, and Morgan was turning sixty-nine later this year.
But then, the MacKeage men were
charmed
, apparently, according to their new resident wizard’s bride, Miss Talks-a-lot. He couldn’t believe the woman had actually told Peg he was old-fashioned.
Christ, he just wanted to fall into a soft bed and stay there until his body quit screaming. And then he was firing his entire crew for not coming to look for—
The pup started barking excitedly, snapping Duncan out of his black mood at the thought it had spotted something. He started down to what was left of the beach only to have his knee finally explode in pain, the rest of his descent made in a tumbling roll that finally ended when he slammed into an unmovable metal object.
A boat. His goddamned boat! It was sitting high and dry on a gravel bar the low tide had exposed, and when he stretched to look over the gunwale he saw his backpack and sword sitting on the floor right where he’d left them. He leaned back with a groaned sigh and didn’t even try to stop the pup from licking his face. What were the chances of his boat drifting back to the exact same spot? He snorted. More likely it had been pushed here by a diabolical whale with a warped sense of humor.
“We’re okay now,” he murmured, finally nudging the pup away. “I’ll have ye back in civilization in an hour. I’m buying you a fifty-pound bag of dog food and then I’m taking you to meet a tribe of little heathens you’re instantly going to fall in love with.” He grabbed the dog’s snout to look him in the eye. “Ye can have the children, but I don’t want ye making puppy-dog eyes at the lady, understand? If she’s going to be fawning over anyone, it’s going to be me. And she owes me an apple crisp today, so ye don’t get under her fee—”
The sound of a racing engine pushing water made Duncan stretch to look over the top of his boat, and he spotted another small boat heading up the center of the fiord. It suddenly turned toward him, and he recognized Alec at the tiller.
“Ye have my permission to bite the bastard if ye want,” he told the pup as he leaned back with another groaned sigh. “Or if that’s a little too intimidating for you, ye might at least lift a leg and whiz on his boots.”
The engine slowed to an idle, then shut off, and Duncan grabbed the pup when it tried to run off just as the boat scraped to a stop on the gravel bar a few yards away.
“You intend to spend the morning sitting here contemplating life,
Boss
?” Alec said, stepping onto the gravel bar. “You’re late to work.”
“
I’m
late?” Duncan growled. “I’ve been gone five goddamned days and you’re just now coming to look for me?”
Alec halted in midstep, his expression going from confusion to shock. “What in hell happened to you? Ye look like ye tangled with a bear and lost.”
“I fell. So where in hell have you been for the last five days?”
Alec went back to looking confused. “Five? I’ve been with you up until yesterday morning, when I helped ye saddle the horses for your picnic with Peg.” He finished walking over and squatted down, then gave the pup a pat. “Who’s your friend?”
It was Duncan’s turn to be confused. “I found him when I landed here
five
days ago. So how could you have been with me yesterday morning when I was lying twenty feet down in a hole in the middle of my goddamned mountain?”
Alec shook his head and sat down to lean against the boat
beside him. “It’s Monday morning, Duncan.” He suddenly straightened away to look at him. “You believe you’ve been here—for Christ’s sakes, ye have a
beard
.” He scrambled to his feet and stepped away before turning to look up at the mountain, and then slowly lowered his gaze to Duncan. “You did it; you traveled through time just like Robbie did when he took old Uncle Ian home to the eleventh century. You just spent five days on your mountain, but were only gone overnight in this time.”
“Robbie said the magic was turned off here,” Duncan whispered, hugging the pup as he tried to decide if the notion thrilled him or filled him with terror. “And I couldn’t find anything that might be considered an instrument of my power, so I couldn’t have turned the magic back on.”
“Ye must have found something,” Alec said just as softly. “Because no one grows that kind of beard overnight, and I swear this is Monday morning.”
Duncan snorted. “I found a twenty-foot-deep hole inside the mountain.” He looked up at Alec and grinned. “And a pool that has brook trout the size of salmon.” He lifted the pup. “And this guy. Or rather, he found me within two minutes of my coming ashore. I think he’s been stranded here since the earthquake created the fiord.”
“Can ye walk?”
Duncan shook his head. “My last fall just blew out my knee. And if my ribs didn’t get cracked when I fell down the hole, they sure as hell feel like they are now.”
Alec folded his arms over his chest and grinned down at him. “When did you become a walking disaster? Or should I say a
falling
disaster?”
Duncan rested his chin on his dog. “It started about half an hour after I landed in Spellbound Falls, right about the time I was attacked by the Thompson tribe.” He snorted. “And it’s been all downhill from there.” He lifted narrowed eyes to his nephew. “It’s Mac; I think he’s out to get me.”
“But why? He wouldn’t hand you the contract of a lifetime and then beat ye to a bloody pulp. He needs you to build his road and prep the resort site.”
“Personally, I think marriage has addled the bastard’s
brain,” Duncan muttered. “From what Trace Huntsman told me at the wedding, Mac not only was a confirmed bachelor, but a skirt-chaser in just about every century in recorded history.”
“Like you, ye mean?” Alec drawled past his grin. “Except for the century part.”
“I don’t chase skirts.”
“No, they chase you.” His eyes lit with laughter. “Ye just don’t work too hard outrunning them. Or don’t you remember Jessie’s friend Merissa? And then there was that woman from Greenville who slowly began moving in with you one bra and panty and bottle of shampoo at a time last winter.”
“She started getting her mail delivered to my house,” Duncan growled, even as he felt heat climbing up the back of his neck. Christ, he hadn’t even realized what she was doing until he’d tripped over a litter box one morning despite not owning a cat. “I’m still finding stuff that belongs to her. But what in hell does any of that have to do with any of this?” he asked, waving up at his mountain.
“You said yourself that misery loves company. If Mac is happily married, he’s going to make sure any skirt-chasing bachelor he comes across is going to join him in wedded bliss.”
Duncan set the pup down with a snort. “He doesn’t have to beat the hell out of me to get his point across,” he said as he tried to grab the gunwale to pull himself up, only to fall back with a groan just as Alec rushed forward to catch him.
Alec pulled Duncan’s arm over his shoulder, then grabbed his belt and lifted him to his feet. But when he couldn’t even stand on his good leg, his nephew gave a sigh as he put his shoulder low on Duncan’s stomach and slowly hefted him over his back.
“Dammit, my ribs,” Duncan hissed, grabbing Alec’s belt to hold himself away.
“Then loosen up. Christ, ye weigh a ton,” Alec said on a grunt as he strode toward the boat he’d driven here. “Since ye look like you’re about to pass out, I’ll tow your boat back,” he said as he carefully lowered Duncan into the front seat.
“At least get my sword out of it first. Come on, pup,” Duncan said, patting the gunwale. The young dog just stared at him, its tail wagging frantically as it looked at the woods then
back at him in indecision. “Come on,” he repeated, patting the gunwale again. “T-bone steaks, little heathens, a soft bed; come on, pup.”
“Maybe all it wants is to be called something other than ‘pup,’” Alec said, setting the sword on the seat next to Duncan.
“I’m going to let Peg’s kids name him.”
“Now doesn’t that sound domestic?” Alec said with a chuckle as he walked back to Duncan’s boat—only to swerve at the last minute and scoop the dog up in his arms. “Easy now,” he crooned, carrying it to the boat. “He’s a mite scrawny, but by the look of those paws he’s going to be a monster. Besides the obvious lab, what other breed does he have, do ye think?”