Charmed by His Love by Janet Chapman Page A

wet.”
    Peg shot around him and pulled her son away from Galen and started walking to her house. “Come on, Peter. It’s time for your naps.”
    “Mommm.”
    “Let Pete stay here with me,” Galen called after her. “I’ll keep an eye on him.”
    She turned to see that even though Galen had moved away from Duncan, the look in her brother-in-law’s eyes sure as helldidn’t match his tone. “If Peter doesn’t mind being too tired to cook hot dogs over a campfire tonight,” she quickly prevaricated, “then I guess he can stay out here with you.”
    Peter gasped so hard, he actually stumbled backward just as Duncan folded his arms over his chest with a grin and—did he just wink at her again?
    Peg spun away and started for the house, pressing her cheek to Jacob’s wet hair as Peter ran up beside her. “We’re gonna have a campfire?” he asked excitedly. “Can we make jellyfish soup? And cook the snails?”
    “I think we’ll save the jellyfish and snails for your birthday, okay? Say good-bye to Uncle Galen.” Only Peg suddenly stopped, turned around, and walked toward Duncan, who was heading down the beach with Robbie MacBain. “You need to thank Mr. MacKeage for pulling you out of the water,” she whispered to Jacob. “Can you do that, big man? He was just like the Rescue Heroes you watch on TV. And you’re always supposed to thank a hero when he saves you.”
    Robbie spotted her and nudged Duncan, and both men stopped to let her catch up to them. Peg used her shoulder to nudge Jacob upright. “Mr. MacKeage, Jacob has something he wants to say to you.”
    “Tank you,” her son blurted at Duncan’s shirt buttons even as he turned and buried his face in her neck again.
    Peg sighed through her smile. “Yes, thank you, Mr. MacKeage, for pulling him out of the water.”
    “Jacob?” Duncan said in question. “Can you tell me what happened? What was that?” he asked with a chuckle when the boy muttered something into her neck. He ran his hand over Jacob’s wet hair. “Did you stumble and fall into the water, or did the ground give out underneath you?”
    “I saw what happened,” Peter chimed in. He pointed at where Duncan had waded in after Jacob. “We seen bubbles coming out of the water when we was standing at the edge.” He looked up at Peg, a tad worried yet somehow defiant—just like the father he was too young to remember used to get. “I swear we wasn’t in the water, Mom, ’cause you told us to keep our sneakers dry.” He craned his head back again, first glancing at Robbie, then at Duncan. “And the sand suddenly sunk. I jumped back just in time, but Repeat wasn’t fast enough. Seehow the water is all up there now?” he said, pointing a dozen yards down the beach.
    Peg shifted Jacob to her other hip when she realized her arms were going numb, but then signaled for Galen to take him when her brother-in-law walked up with his posse. “What’s going on?” he asked as he settled Jacob against his shoulder.
    “We believe the sides of the old pit are caving in,” Robbie MacBain said. He looked at Peg. “How steep was the bank on this side before it flooded?”
    “Not steep at all,” she said, frowning as she tried to picture it in her mind. She pointed to the west. “It was more vertical on that end, but even that’s been eroding over the last three years.”
    “How deep is it?” Duncan asked.
    Peg shrugged, looking at Galen. “What, maybe forty feet deep?”
    “More like sixty or seventy feet toward the west end.” He looked at the shoreline closest to them. “But this side is mostly sand, so it’s probably not all that stable, especially with the tides.” He gestured to the east where the water came in from the newly formed fiord. “And there’s no telling how deep that opening to the lake is.”
    Peg heard Duncan release a soft sigh and saw Robbie grin. “You do look like ye need a bath,” Robbie said.
    “I’m really not due for another two weeks,” Duncan