Read Online Charmed by His Love by Janet Chapman - Free Book Online Page A

bag in the bin, wondering how Duncan was still a bachelor well into his thirties … unless he was married.
    He held out his hand. “I need the saw.”
    Nope, no ring. But then, Billy hadn’t worn a wedding band, either, because they were dangerous around machinery. “This will have to do,” she said, handing him the cleaver, “because it would take me at least an hour to find a hacksaw in the pile of tools in the garage.”
    She watched his face darken slightly as he started prying on a shoulder socket. “Mac told me your husband was killed in a construction accident three years ago,” he said quietly as he worked. “I recall hearing a few years back about an excavator rolling into a river some thirty miles from here.” He stopped to look at her. “Was that him?”
    She nodded. “Billy was trying to free up an ice jam that had wedged against a bridge and was causing the river to flood the town above it, when the ground gave way under his excavator. It … it took them two days to find his body.”
    He went to work on the deer again. “I’m sorry. I can’t even begin to imagine what it’s like to send someone you love off to work in the morning and not have him ever come home again. What are ye planning to do with the sawlogs?”
    Peg blinked at the sudden change in subject, then held open another bag for the pieces of stew meat he was cutting off the bone. “Billy started building us a new house back over that knoll about two months after the twins were born,” she said, nodding behind her. “It was all framed up and weather-tight, and he’d just started on the interior when he died.” She smiled sadly when Duncan sat back on his heels. “It was his idea to cut the pine growing on the hillside and have it sawed into lumber, then planed into tongue-and-groove knotty pine for the interior walls.”
    “That’s why you want the logs? You plan to hire someone to finish the house?”
    “No, I intend to finish it.”
    His eyes widened in surprise. “All by yourself?”
    She sat up a little straighter. “I’ll have you know that I’ve run all the electrical wiring and roughed in the plumbing over the last three years, and just last month I finished insulating the attic.” She smiled again, this time smugly. “And thanks to your buying my gravel, I’ll have the house ready for us to move into by this fall.”
    “All by
yourself
?” he repeated.
    Peg stopped smiling. “Of course not. I have a small army of gnomes who cut the boards and hand them to me, a bunch of fairies who run the wires up through the rafters because I’m afraid of heights, and an entire crew of elves that come in every night to clean up the mess we made that day.”
    He went back to work on the deer—again rather aggressively.
    “Construction’s not exactly rocket science,” she muttered, picking up the smaller knife and slicing steaks off the ribs once he pulled the front shoulder free. “And the kids help—even Peter and Jacob.” She stopped cutting to glare at him. “Or don’t you think women are capable of doing more than keeping house and raising babies?”
    He set down the cleaver and stood up. “I think,” he said ever so softly, “that I’d better go check out that hillside before I have to meet Mac to hike the mountain. I’ll bring over the agreement for you to sign tomorrow morning,” he finished, reaching down to grab his jacket before turning away.
    “Duncan.”
    He stopped and turned back to her.
    “Thank you for helping me,” she said, gesturing at the deer, “and for giving me a fair price for my gravel.”
    He merely nodded, then turned and headed down the knoll.
    Peg rested her fists on her knees, watching him stop at the edge of the water and wash his hands. He then rolled down his sleeves, slid on his jacket, and made his way around the flooded pit before finally disappearing into the trees on the hillside.
    She dropped her gaze to the half-butchered deer and sighed, wondering what had