The Highlander Next Door by Janet Chapman Read Free Book Online Page A

his truck parked in front of the post office. “I’ll give ye a ride home,” he said as Macie pulled the edges of his jacket around her with a murmured thank-you. “What?” he asked when he saw her glance over at him—specifically at his chest.
    “Have you ever shot anyone in the line of duty?”
    Niall touched the butt of his pistol sticking out of the shoulder holster he was wearing. “Nay, just seeing the gun usually makes a man settle down.”
    “How come you don’t wear it on your belt like most policemen?”
    “Because I prefer to keep it hidden under my jacket.” He flashed her a grin. “My size alone seems to make women and children nervous.”
    “You’re going to look funny wearing a jacket when the weather finally warms up.”
    “Aye,” he agreed, walking to the passenger’s side of his truck. “Shep, no,” he rushed on when the dog came racing up just as Niall opened the passenger door.
    “Ewww, he’s soaking wet,” Macie said with a laugh, stepping back when Shep gave a good shake and covered them both with cold water.
    “We’re still working on our manners,” Niall said dryly as he helped Macie up into the seat. He handed her the seat belt, then closed the door, headed around the front of the truck, and got in behind the wheel.
    “Wait, what about Shep?” Macie asked when he slid the key in the ignition.
    “He’ll run home.”
    She grabbed his arm when he started the engine. “But it’s a good mile. Why can’t he ride in the back?”
    Niall nodded over his shoulder. “Because the backseat is full of paperwork and riding in the truck bed is dangerous. If I have to stop suddenly, he could be thrown out.”
    “You’re really going to make him run all the way home?”
    “You walk to and from town nearly every day, and last time I looked, Shep had two more legs than you do.” Niall checked for traffic and crossed the main road at a diagonal. “And the run will dry him off,” he added, the headlights illuminating Shep racing down the camp road ahead of them.
    The cab filled with a companionable silence, Macie not speaking again until they were nearly three quarters of the way there. “Were you serious about my asking Johnny to take me on a date?”
    “Didn’t the two of you go on dates before you came to Maine?” he asked, remembering Macie telling him she was from California.
    “I’d only met Johnny a couple of weeks before we got here. We just . . . um, we hooked up in Colorado at a rally protesting a new mineral mine. And when I told him I was making my way to a settlement in Maine that had been started by people who thought there was magic in this area, Johnny decided to come with me.”
    “Ye weren’t worried that messing with something powerful enough to actually move mountains and turn freshwater lakes into inland seas might be dangerous?”
    “Naw,” she scoffed, giving a negligent wave at Bottomless. “If magic caused that earthquake, it’s long gone. Other than occasional sharp claps of thunder when there isn’t even a cloud in the sky, nothing strange has happened around here in four years. And when some of the scientists came into the Bottoms Up and I asked them about the thunder, they assured me it was just aftershocks shifting the mountains.”
    Nay, lass, Niall thought with a silent chuckle, it’s the energy being manipulated by several powerful magic-makers causing those sonic booms.
    “So about Johnny,” she continued as he turned down the shelter’s driveway behind Shep. “Do you really think I can persuade him to leave the settlement?”
    “Maybe the question should be, have ye thought about what happens if he does.”
    “What do you mean? Then we can get married and be a real family.”
    “Simply having a child together doesn’t make a family, lass. Not if the parents aren’t first and foremost committed to
each other
.”
    She opened her door when he shut off the engine, then slid out before he could get around to help, the porch