The Highlander Next Door

Book 6: A Spellbound Falls Romance

by Janet Chapman

Genres: Contemporary Romance; Paranormal Romance; Time Travel Romance

Synopsis

From the New York Times bestselling author Janet Chapman, comes this delightful tale of a young woman who's had enough of men . . . until she meets her spectacular new neighbor.



Legend has it love is carried on the rising mists of Spellbound Falls, and not even time-traveling highlanders are immune to its magic . . .



Birch Callahan has seen the trouble men can cause. After witnessing her mother's four marriages, Birch now runs a women's shelter and doesn't want a man in her life. But there's something about her neighbor, Niall MacKeage. Birch can't figure out how the cop can be so big and gruff and yet so insightful and compassionate—and sexy. Or how she's falling for a man who acts like someone from the twelfth century.



Niall knows that Birch is attracted to him, even if she seems to distrust all men. Yet he also knows she has a secret—something that drives her to place herself in harm's way for the women of her shelter. Niall would gladly rush to Birch's side to protect her from harm, but with their secrets standing between them, he'll have to reveal his own truth if he wants to keep her . . .

Release date: August 26, 2014

Publisher: Berkley

Print pages: 432

Sample

Chapter One

Despite knowing the orcas and sharks inhabiting the inland sea were under strict orders not to harm humans, Niall put more power to his strokes when he felt something brush against his leg—because, hell, he wasn’t completely suicidal. An idiot, maybe, for taking a moonlight swim, but he figured he’d rather face a killer whale than go chest-to-nose with a pint-sized spitfire determined to drive him crazy.

Birch Callahan hadn’t been on the job a week before she’d started telling him how to do his job; the only problem being that as chief of police, Niall was fairly certain that didn’t include stirring the good people of Spellbound Falls into more of an uproar. He really couldn’t arrest a man for being a penny-pinching grouch, and even if he could, it wasn’t like he had a jail into which he could throw the poor bastard. But if he caught wind of Mrs. Grouch poisoning her husband again . . . well, maybe sitting in some sturdy wooden stocks in the town park would cool off the couple.

He’d have to check if public punishment was legal in this century.

Not that there was anything private about the Kents’ domestic little war.

Niall stopped swimming and listened to the steady breathing off to his right, then silently sank below the surface when he spotted the broad head coming toward him. But remembering he wasn’t suicidal, he resurfaced well behind the dark mass of solid muscle and fangs to see his pet swimming in circles, its head craned out of the water as it searched the moon-bathed swells with obvious alarm.

“Hey, pooch,” he whispered, causing the huge Chesapeake to whip around with a startled snarl. “Ye worried a shark might mistake you for a tasty harbor seal?” he added with a laugh, heading for shore when the dog started paddling toward him. But not about to bite the hand that fed it, Shep merely powered past with a grumbling growl as Niall settled into an easy pace and let his mind return to his pint-sized problem.

For a woman who supposedly had enough university degrees in human behavior to be running Spellbound Falls’ new Crisis Center, Birch Callahan didn’t seem to know when she was being played. If Noreen Kent was being abused by her husband of forty-six years, Niall would place himself in those stocks.

He still wasn’t sure how wanting a new cookstove had turned into a full-blown war between the couple, much less how it had escalated into the townspeople taking sides. But hell, Logan was still unsteady on his feet from his bout of food poisoning, even though Noreen swears she hadn’t deliberately undercooked the now-infamous dinner. As for showing up at the women’s shelter and claiming she feared for her life after Logan shot the offending stove point-blank with both shotgun barrels . . . well, Niall couldn’t arrest a man for destroying his own property, considering his wife hadn’t even been home at the time.

Noreen was a drama queen, and Birch was only feeding the drama by publicly siding with the seventy-year-old woman. That Birch had personally escorted Noreen back to the scene of the crime to gather some belongings only further proved Niall’s point that the spitfire had more passion for her job than common sense. All of which was why, upon finding himself a bachelor, Logan was now eating three meals a day at the Drunken Moose—ironically spending more money than the cost of a new stove—although the poor bastard was dining alone as of late, since he apparently couldn’t operate a clothes washer any more than he could work a toaster.

Niall stopped swimming again when he heard Shep’s excited barks mixed with the shouts of their neighbor, then powered toward shore with a groan of defeat at the realization he was going chest-to-nose tonight after all. He waded onto the beach and ran up the lawn, but broke into a grin when he saw the tug-of-war taking place in the driveway he shared with the shelter. Aye, Birch might be driving him crazy, but it was more from lusting after the beautiful woman than wanting to throttle her.

Shep finally ended the tug-of-war by simply snapping the broom handle in half, only to quickly grab up the bristled end and tear around the dooryard with his prize.

Niall reached Birch just as she straightened from picking up what remained of the handle and plucked it out of her hand when she headed after Shep. “For the love of God, woman, do ye truly have no sense of self-preservation?”

Birch rounded on him, even as she pointed at the small white dog peeking out from under the car parked next to the main house. “He was terrorizing Mimi again.” She then pointed at Shep. “Next time I’m going to take a shovel to the amorous idiot.”

Niall speared the broken handle clean over the roof of his tiny cottage. “You don’t go after a powerful dog with nothing more than a broom.”

“I’m not afraid of a mutt that’s too dumb to even realize Mimi’s been spayed.”

Niall closed his eyes and tried counting to ten, but only made it to five. “Then I suggest you become afraid,” he said softly so he wouldn’t shout. “Because a less understanding dog would have latched on to you rather than the broom.”

Birch reached in her pocket as she turned toward Shep, who had stopped running victory laps in favor of dropping his prize in front of Mimi. “Maybe a mouthful of bear spray will knock some sense into him.”

Niall plucked the small canister out of her hand and threw it past his pickup in the direction of the camp road.

“Hey!” she yelped, rounding on him again.

“I ever catch wind of you spraying Shep,” he said, not even trying to disguise his anger, “and I will arrest you for cruelty.”

Her eyes widened in surprise, even as she took a step back. “I see. You refuse to do anything about an abusive husband, but you won’t think twice about arresting a woman for defending herself. Is that how the law works for you, Chief MacKeage?” She then muttered what Niall assumed was a French curse before he could respond, and spun on her heel. “I can see why this town needed a women’s shelter, if you and your stupid dog are examples of the male population.” She suddenly stopped and turned to him again. “And I want you to start wearing a robe when you go swimming.”

“Excuse me?”

“This place is a sanctuary,” she whispered tightly. “And the last thing my residents need is to be traumatized by an all-but-naked man strutting down to the beach every evening and reminding them of the hulking brutes they’ve run away from.”

For the love of God, Logan Kent barely came up to his wife’s nose, Macie Atwater’s man was a pacifist, and the new girl, Cassandra, had run away from her slap-happy aunt. “Those traumatized residents?” Niall asked, gesturing at the four women lined up along the shelter’s porch rail, two of whom were smiling, one who was scowling, and—good Lord, Birch’s mother just winked at him. Niall smoothed a hand over his naked chest. “Are ye sure my size and lack of clothes is bothering them, Birch?”

Obviously realizing she was the only one being bothered, Birch crossed her arms under her lovely bosom. “I told you I prefer you call me Miss Callahan.”

Niall made it all the way to the count of six and calmly said, “We’re on the same side, lass. I care about your residents as much as you do.”

“Then go arrest Logan Kent.”

“It’s not against the law to shoot a cookstove. Nor is it a crime,” he added softly, in deference to their audience, “to call your wife an old windbag during an argument.”

The poor woman gasped so hard that she took another step back. “Verbal abuse is just as victimizing as physical.”

“What about relentless nagging?” he shot back, still keeping his voice low. “Is harping on a person until he explodes also considered abuse?”

“It’s not the . . . That doesn’t mean . . . Mon Dieu, you are such a man.”

“Why, thank you for noticing,” he said, smoothing down his drying chest hair.

“You’re impossible!” she hissed as she turned and stormed off.

“Then we’re even,” he whispered. “Come on, Shep,” he said when Birch kicked the broom out of her way and crouched on her hands and knees to retrieve Mimi.

“I want you to start chaining that mutt,” she called out as Niall headed to his cottage. “Or do you also have a double standard when it comes to leash laws?”

Only able to guess what a leash law was, Niall turned to see Birch clutching the small dog to her bosom, her chin lifted in challenge. “A chained dog isn’t much help against an intruder looking to cause trouble for one of your residents. Why don’t ye try seeing Shep as your first line of defense instead of as the enemy?”

She dropped her chin into her pet’s head of curly white fur. “Then make him stop terrorizing Mimi.”

“You don’t think terrorizing is a bit extreme to call a good-natured dog trying to get to know his pretty new neighbor?” Like his owner is trying to do, Niall refrained from adding. “If you’d give them some time together instead of always rushing to the rescue, you’d realize Shep is only wanting to play.”

Her chin lifted again. “Mimi was mauled by a large male dog when she was a puppy and nearly died. She’s perfectly fine with females and only gets snappy and defensive around huge males.”

Just like her owner, Niall decided. “I will keep better track of Shep,” he said with a nod, heading for his cottage and breaking into a grin at her muttered thank-you—even as he tried to imagine all that spitfire passion in bed.

• • •

“Niall’s right, you know. If you would just spend some time with Shep, you’d realize he’s nothing but an overgrown puppy.”

Birch stopped searching for her can of bear spray and aimed the flashlight beam at her mother’s chest. “That monster is no puppy.”

“Shep’s barely three. Niall rescued him from an abusive owner a year ago.”

“He told you that?”

“No. Peg told me.”

Birch went back to working her way up the driveway. Peg was married to Duncan MacKeage, who was Niall’s cousin. Besides being a town councilman, Duncan owned a construction company and worked almost exclusively for the ultraexpensive Nova Mare and Inglenook resorts in town, which were owned by Maximilian and Olivia Oceanus.

Olivia was the one who had hired Birch as director of the Spellbound Falls Crisis Center a little over a month ago, although the shelter and equally new Birthing Clinic in the basement of the town’s only church were really the pet projects of five local women. Olivia’s mother-in-law, Rana Oceanus—whose husband, Titus, was reputed to be richer than God—seemed to be the head benefactress, while Olivia, Peg, and Julia Salohcin did most of the hands-on work. Director of special events for Nova Mare, Julia was married to a veritable giant named Nicholas, who also worked for the Oceanuses as head of security for both of the resorts. Rounding out the close-knit, civic-minded group was Vanetta Thurber, owner of a restaurant named the Drunken Moose and a bar aptly named the Bottoms Up.

Near as Birch could tell, with the exception of Vanetta, all the women were spending their husbands’ money as fast as the men could earn it. Come to think of it, all the women were married to giants—again, except for Vanetta. Everest Thurber managed the Bottoms Up for his wife and seemed to be the only normal-sized male in the lot, as well as the only one of the men who was from Maine. Well, Niall and Duncan were supposedly from a town south of here, but their accents didn’t really fit, as Mainers living this close to the border usually sounded more Canadian than American, much less Scottish.

Not that Birch cared who was bankrolling the Crisis Center, as long as everyone left her alone to do her job. Even though she’d been hoping to get a position at a prestigious university close to Montreal, she’d snatched up the first job she could find, even if it was in the middle of nowhere in a foreign country, to protect her mother from the last parasite she’d married—husband freaking four.

Honest to God, most twelve-year-olds were less naive than her mother.

Hazel Callahan (Birch had once again insisted her mom take back her maiden name after divorcing The Leech two months ago) had never met a person she didn’t like. And if that person happened to have a Y chromosome and buckets of charm, Hazel usually fell in love with him—usually within days. In fact, she’d married parasite number two, His Highness the King of Nowhere, not three months after Birch had left for college. Her mother had then shown up at her graduation four years later with The Loser, and married The Leech when Birch had made the mistake of leaving Hazel alone to go after her doctorate. Husband number one had managed to hang on through most of Birch’s teenage years, but The Bastard had hit a tree and died—and hopefully was rotting in hell—while celebrating his wife’s thirty-fifth birthday by using her money to take his mistress skiing in Europe.

Ironically, Hazel had never married her prom-night sperm donor, although that hadn’t prevented Birch from having to deal with his family.

Basically, calling the men her mother seemed to attract like magnets likeable was about the same as calling a hundred-pound Chesapeake Bay retriever a puppy.

“Word is Niall caught the guy beating Shep,” Hazel continued. “Only no one knows for sure, because he refuses to talk about it. Peg said Niall was living in Pine Creek with his cousin at the time when he just showed up one day with the thin, badly limping dog.”

Well, that would explain his reaction when she’d threatened to spray Shep. Birch went back to searching for the bear spray her next-door nemesis had thrown into the night—likely wishing he could throw her instead. The conceited jerk—thinking she even noticed his hulking size and broad chest and sculpted muscles.

She sure as heck never noticed his piercing green eyes.

“You wouldn’t really have sprayed Shep, would you?” Hazel asked, awkwardly bending to move a fern out of the way.

“Of course not. I was just trying to make a point.”

“And what point would that be? That Niall better not mess with you any more than Shep better mess with Mimi?”

“I was letting him know I’m not afraid of him or his stupid dog. And who does the guy think he is, anyway, lecturing me about going after any dog with a broom? Does he think I’m just going to stand back and watch Mimi get mauled again?”

“I believe Niall was pointing out that you could have been mauled. It’s his nature to be protective.”

“Why? Because he’s a cop?” Birch muttered, thinking the man’s nature ran more along the lines of being bossy. He was condescending, too, dismissing her concern for Noreen and apparently only enforcing the laws he wanted to.

“No. Because he’s a highlander.”

Birch stopped searching again. “A what?”

“If you would get your nose out of those emotionally draining women’s fiction books long enough to read a good steamy romance, you’d recognize an authentic Scottish highlander when you saw one.”

Birch kicked an ankle-twisting rock off the driveway into the woods. “Mon Dieu, Mama, you have to stop downloading those stupid novels off the Internet. And you need to stop flirting with Chief MacKeage.”

“My word of honor,” Hazel said, obviously fighting a smile as she held up her hand in a Girl Guides of Canada salute. “I will not marry Niall.”

“You couldn’t even if you wanted to, because they limit people in the States to four marriages,” Birch said, figuring she already was going to hell for all the lies she’d told her mother in the last two months, so what was one more?

“Honestly?” Hazel said in surprise. She shrugged and resumed searching. “Then I guess that means there’s nothing to stop you from marrying Niall.”

Birch silently groaned, knowing exactly where this conversation was going—again. “I’m really not in the mood to discuss my love life.”

“What love life? Oh, here it is.” Her mom straightened and handed Birch the canister of bear spray, the flashlight once again revealing her smile. “Come on, admit it. You’re attracted to Niall.”

“What on earth makes you say that?”

“Oh, I don’t know. Maybe because you haven’t said one civil word to the man since you discovered him living next door? So I can’t help but find myself agreeing with Queen Gertrude: ‘The lady doth protest too much, methinks.’”

“You’re actually quoting Shakespeare to me?”

“William was the bard of love,” Hazel said with all the conviction of a dedicated theater junkie.

“Gertrude wasn’t talking about love in that scene,” Birch countered. “She thought the woman in the play Hamlet had staged for his murderous stepfather was promising too much by saying she would never remarry if her husband died. So instead of taking shots at my love life, you might try quoting your beloved William to yourself.”

That got Birch a laugh. “I should have known taking you to the Stratford Festival in Ontario every summer would come back and bite me on the butt.”

“What I’m protesting is that Chief MacKeage refuses to take Noreen seriously.”

Hazel rolled her eyes. “You know as well as I do that Noreen is not a battered woman. Personally, I think Logan is the one who should be seeking shelter here.”

“He discharged a gun inside their house.”

“I would have shot that stove, too, if I knew how to load a shotgun. I’m just surprised Logan had the strength, considering he still looks like a soft breeze could knock him over. Noreen nearly killed him trying to make her point.”

“She did not undercook that chicken on purpose. The oven had a faulty thermostat and two of the burners had quit working. Logan wouldn’t have gotten sick if he simply would have bought a new stove in the first place.”

Hazel blinked at her, clearly nonplussed. “Will you please tell me why you insist on believing Noreen?”

“Because I have to believe every woman who comes to me saying she’s being abused. Don’t you understand, Mama?” Birch said gently. “It’s not my place to judge these women or decide if they are or are not in danger. My job is to give them a voice. I can only make sure they’re safe and empower them until they grow confident enough to empower themselves.”

Birch squeaked in surprise when her mother suddenly threw her arms around her in a fierce hug. “Oh, bébé, you are so wise!” She leaned away to clasp Birch’s face, squishing her cheeks. “And I am so proud of you for championing women.”

Birch gently wiggled free and bent to pick up the flashlight she’d dropped. “I’m just doing the job I was trained to do.” She straightened and shot her mother a crooked smile. “And that includes championing abused men.”

The flashlight revealed a twinkle in Hazel’s eyes. “Including Niall MacKeage?”

It was Birch’s turn to roll her eyes. “If someone’s going to be stupid enough to threaten a hulking brute who runs around with a gun strapped to his chest,” she said, shoving the spray in her pocket and heading down the driveway, “then I would take Chief MacKeage’s side.”

Hazel fell into step beside her, grasped Birch’s hand, and playfully swung it between them. “Can you explain something to me? If you know Noreen is exaggerating this fight with her husband, why do you keep insisting Niall arrest Logan?”

“Because I need him to take Noreen’s claim seriously, too. This time it might only be a lonely woman caught up in all the attention she’s getting, but next time it could be a life-and-death situation. I need to know I can count on the police.”

Her mother pulled them to a stop. “At the risk of sticking my nose in your business, has it occurred to you to simply tell Niall that you know what’s going on, but that it’s important the two of you work as a team on these matters?”

“He’s a cop, Mama. At best he would laugh in my face, and at worst he would arrest Noreen for making false charges against her husband.”

“Oh, bébé,” Hazel said sadly. “Not all police chiefs are like your grand-père St. Germaine. In fact, very few are as coldhearted as Fredrick.” She nudged Birch’s shoulder. “However, I believe highlanders are attentive husbands and good lovers.”

“Who told you that?”

“I’ve gathered as much from Peg. And I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but the twins she’s carrying will make her sixth and seventhchildren.”

Birch headed down the driveway again. “Duncan has them living halfway up the fiord where their home can only be reached by boat, and word is his cousin, Alec MacKeage, is building a house all the way at the north end of Bottomless. So what I’ve noticed is that highlanders apparently like to keep their wives isolated and pregnant.” She turned and walked backward, shining the flashlight at her mother’s feet to illuminate the uneven driveway. “I’ve also noticed that except for Vanetta and Rana, all the women on the Center’s committee are pregnant. And so is Macie, and now maybe Cassandra as well. Hasn’t anyone in Spellbound Falls heard of birth control?”

Hazel stopped walking and clasped her chest. “Oh, wouldn’t it be wonderful if there’s something in the water around here and you also become pregnant?”

Birch stumbled to a halt. “Are you nuts?”

“Well, at the rate you’re going, I’ll be dead before you give me grandbabies.”

“You only just turned fifty.”

“There really could be something in the water if you believe the legend written on a plaque in the park,” Hazel went on excitedly. “It claims that any couple who kiss while standing in the mist rising from Spellbound Falls will fall deeply in love.”

“When were you in the park?” Birch asked, trying not to sound alarmed that her mother had gone into town without her.

“You remember. I took little Charlie and Ella for a walk there while you were talking to Peg and Olivia outside the Trading Post last week.”

“Oh. Yes. That’s right.”

Damn if her mother didn’t get that twinkle in her eyes again. “Maybe you and Niall could go sit in the park for your little talk about solving Noreen’s problem.”

Having absolutely no idea how to respond, Birch silently turned and walked up the path to the back porch of the main house, making a mental note to drink only bottled water from now on.

And never, ever, be in that park at the same time as Chief MacKeage.

Chapter Two

Niall sat in the moon-cast shadows of the Bottomless Mercantile and Trading Post with his ears tuned for any sound other than the muted roar of the falls several hundred yards away and wondered what made him think he had any business being the police chief of Spellbound Falls and Turtleback Station. Hell, forget he was a lawman; he didn’t have any business even being alive.

But when Titus Oceanus shows up in twelfth-century Scotland looking for a husband for his daughter, only a suicidal idiot would refuse the powerful magic-maker’s personal invitation to come compete for her hand. Niall was just thankful his twenty-first-century cousin, Alec, had decided to eliminate the other five time-traveling suitors before helping Niall find sanctuary with two of their magical clansmen in Pine Creek. Not that he wouldn’t have manned up and married the beautiful and intelligent Princess Carolina if Alec hadn’t finally come to his senses. But in all honesty, Niall was more attracted to pint-sized spitfires than he was to leggy princesses who looked him nearly level in the eyes.

Since about three weeks ago, however, he was finding himself attracted to one tiny redhead in particular—even if she did seem to have a chip on her shoulder when it came to males. But when he looked past her prickly behavior, Birch’s eyes reminded Niall of the heather growing wild all over his long-lost highlands. And though she might appear as delicate as a kitten, there was no mistaking the woman had a lion-sized attitude when it came to protecting her residents.

Birch’s choice of professions did baffle him, though, making Niall wonder if she might have had some personal experience with abusive men. Why else, according to Duncan, would a woman spend eight years in university to get advanced degrees in social work, only to move to a small town in a whole different country? Birch had even dragged her mother into the wilderness with her, although both women’s wardrobes suggested they were city people.

Niall released a silent sigh, just as baffled as to what he was doing here. Despite the responsibilities that came with having been laird of the MacKeages, he often found himself missing the simplicity of twelfth-century Scotland, when a man knew which side of right and wrong he stood on, how to serve his clan, and how to treat women and children. Nine hundred years ago, life was at worst an everyday struggle for survival and at best a testament to a person’s willingness to embrace that struggle.

And if they were lucky, to actually find joy in it.

Basically, he’d been born in a time when men were men and women loved them for it. But for the twenty months he’d been living in modern-day Maine, his everyday struggles had been those of displacement, frustration, and too often bewilderment—decidedly foreign notions for a warrior who had once owned his destiny.

In his original time, for instance, if a woman found herself dealing with an abusive husband or father, she merely brought her complaint to her laird, and he would go pay the bastard a visit. Few men were foolish enough to anger their laird a second time, but if the abuse did happen again, punishment was swift, painful, and publicly humiliating. Despite having little say in matters back then, women were recognized as the very heart of a clan. Whether young or old or married or widowed, they were respected for their contributions, protected by all, and revered for their amazing strength of spirit.

Which was why, when Birch had first come to him with Noreen’s claim two weeks ago, Niall had immediately paid Logan Kent a visit. What he’d found was a once-strong, wiry woodsman with joints stiffened from years of laboring in harsh weather, who now found himself with only a modest savings, a small monthly government check, and a powerful fear that he hadn’t planned well for old age. So as all once-strong, self-reliant men were prone to do when they felt an uncertain future pressing on their shoulders, Logan had turned tightfisted and grouchy. And like any roost-ruling woman who suddenly found herself with a husband constantly underfoot and sticking his nose in her business, Noreen had panicked.

Nay, he couldn’t arrest a man for being scared.

Niall looked at his watch and grinned in satisfaction. None of the buildings in town would be decorated with crudely spray-painted cartoons again anytime soon, he decided. But then, he didn’t suppose the small gang of vandals was in any hurry to continue their crime spree, since he was fairly certain one of the little hellions had pissed his pants two nights ago when he’d found himself being chased by ahulking brute with a badge and gun and a growling dog with equally lethal fangs.

But upon realizing the culprits couldn’t be more than twelve years old, Niall hadn’t put much effort into the chase, figuring a good scare, as well as learning the new police chief wasn’t a nine-to-five lawman, would make them see the error of their young ways.

Not that he had a jail to toss them into if he had dec