Courting Carolina by Janet Chapman Page A

back in the woods, waiting to see if Jane intended to keep her promise to stay put, only to be pleasantly surprised to realize she did. He patted the spark plug he’d slid in his pocket after stashing her and Kit a mile down the shore from Inglenook—which had once been a camp for families that Olivia had run for her ex-in-laws, but was now the base for the scientists studying the two-year-old inland Bottomless Sea—and silently turned and ran through the forest to go ask a friend some questions. Not that the answers would make much difference, considering he’d already stepped in front of the goddamned bus. But he really couldn’t imagine living with himself if he abandoned Jane to her fate despite there being a good chance he could die if he took up her battle—seeing how her father was the most powerful magic-maker on the planet and her brother the second most powerful. Christ, even idiots knew that incurring the wrath of either man was tantamount to suicide.
    So what was Sam Waters doing helping Jane?
    Alec stopped fifty feet short of Inglenook’s groundskeeper’s cottage and saw light coming from several of the windows and only Sam’s SUV parked in the driveway. He crept through the shadows around the small house, hesitating at the bathroom window long enough to decide that Sam was showering alone, then slipped back to the kitchen door and silently let himself in—only to grin when he saw the table was set with candles, two wineglasses, and a sad-looking bouquet of flowers. And if he wasn’t mistaken, there was a distinct smell of burning chicken in the air.
    Alec walked over and turned off the oven, grabbed one of the strawberries off the platter and dipped it in the bowl of chocolate, then popped it in his mouth as he crept down the hall. He pressed his back to the wall when the shower shut off, and grinned again when the door opened and Sam came limping out wearing nothing more than a towel around his waist—only to stop mid-limp when Alec came up behind him and touched the blade of his knife to his throat.
    “I have some questions to ask you, Waters, and if I don’t particularly like your answers, you’re going to spend a very long night watching yourself slowly bleed to death. We’ll begin with why you told Carolina Oceanus to come to me if she gets into trouble,” Alec quietly growled, having already figured out that Jane landing in his neck of the woods had been no accident.
    “Have you ever seen my son-in-law angry, MacKeage? Because I think it might really piss him off if you kill me.”
    Alec pressed the knife deeper. “I’ll take my chances with Mac.”
    Sam Waters very carefully nodded. “Which is exactly why I told Carolina to run to you if she ever found herself in more trouble than she could handle.”
    “Why me? Why not her brother?”
    “For as much as he loves his sister, Mac’s hands are ultimately tied, because when push comes to shove, she’s still Titus’s daughter. And in their world, that makes the old man the boss of her.”
    “Again, why send her to me ?”
    “Because the way I figure it, the only hope Carolina hasof ever being the boss of herself is to find a champion who understands the magic and isn’t afraid of it. And,” Sam rushed on when Alec put more pressure on the knife, “if I had to pick the one man who might stand a snowball’s chance in hell against Titus, it’s you.”
    “Why goddamn me?”
    Alec canted the blade when Sam hesitated and slowly drew it across his windpipe. “Shit. Okay. I picked you because whenever it was decided a mission was doomed to fail from the outset, we simply sent in… the Celt .”
    Alec went as still as stone. “Who the hell are you?”
    “Twenty-two missions in eight years,” Sam continued. “And that bastard always came back. Sometimes on a gurney, but he always returned successful.”
    Alec stepped away, dropping his hands to his sides.
    “I personally sent him on most of those missions, although back then he