Jack sucked in his breath at the sight of her. Her shoulder-length red hair kept blowing in her face despite her attempts to tuck it behind her ears, her lightly freckled cheeks were flushed from the cold, and her eyes—which Jack knew were startling green—were narrowed against the noon sun as she looked up at the man holding her shoulders.
Jack had made the TarStone Ski Resort part of his daily rounds, fairly confident that if he were to drive past Megan, she wouldn’t recognize him. Seeing people out of context of their known environment, especially when their looks had changed as much as his had, always made hiding in plain sight easier.
While cruising through the resort’s parking lot this morning, he’d spotted Megan leaving her home on horseback, snuggled against the chest of a man he’d never seen in town. Jack was good with faces, postures, mannerisms, and genetic heritages. And though the man had been a couple of hundred yards away, Jack hadn’t seen any resemblance to any of the MacKeage and MacBain men he’d met, other than the guy’s size.
Jack trained the powerful rifle scope on him now. He surely was a big bastard, at least a foot taller than Megan’s five foot three. His shoulders were broad and he had the build of someone Jack would want on his side in a fight.
A cousin? Or an uncle, maybe?
Or a boyfriend?
The sound of a vehicle approaching from the direction of town ended his surveillance, as well as his speculation. Jack strode to the rear of his truck and set the rifle back in its case, then dropped the hatch just as a blue and white pickup rounded the corner and came to a sliding halt.
Officer Simon Pratt emerged through the cloud of powdered snow he’d created. “Your radio’s not working,” he said, peering in the open front door of Jack’s SUV. “Hey, it’s not even turned on,” he added, reaching inside to the console. He straightened and frowned at Jack. “Ethel and I have been calling your cell and radio all morning, and I’ve spent the last two hours hunting you down.”
Jack pulled his cell phone out of his pocket to check for a signal, only to discover it wasn’t turned on, either. “Sorry,” he said, turning the phone on before tucking it back in his pocket. “So what’s up?”
“The bakery was broken into last night. The place is a mess.”
“They broke in? And trashed the place?” he asked in surprise. “But that’s not their MO. They usually just take stuff sitting around outside.”
Simon shrugged. “The bakery’s not open on Monday, so the owner didn’t arrive until eight this morning. She’d planned to catch up on some paperwork, and found the back door busted open and most of her supplies scattered everywhere. She called our office, and Ethel and I have been looking for you ever since. We were just about to call the sheriff.”
“Why?”
His question seemed to startle Simon. “Because we couldn’t find you.”
Jack gave him a level look. “Did it ever occur to you to just go to the bakery without me and process the scene?”
“Ah, sure, I did that, I mean, I secured the scene. I strung tape around the place and had the owner put a Closed Until Further Notice sign in the front window.”
Jack plucked his binoculars off the seat and slid into his cruiser. “Then let’s go have a look at your crime scene. On the way, try to recall what the academy taught you about processing a break-in.”
“My crime scene?” Simon looked startled again.
“You took the call, didn’t you?”
“Well, yeah. But you’re the chief.”
“And I won’t always be available, will I? So since you’re my second in command, I expect you to deal with whatever comes up.” He lifted a brow. “You graduated with honors, right?”
Simon squared his shoulders. “I could process that scene in my sleep.”
“Then I’ll follow your lead,” Jack said, closing his door.
He watched Simon stride back to his truck, looking a good two inches taller. Jack turned the key in the ignition and put his truck in gear, gave one last frowning glance at TarStone, and stepped on the accelerator.
Oh, yeah. He would definitely follow Simon’s lead—because despite what his résumé implied, Jack didn’t know squat about processing a crime scene, since his talents ran in a completely different direction.
Chapter Two
M egan looked at Kenzie as if he’d just sprouted a second head. He forced himself to remain perfectly still, though he wanted to pull her against his chest and soothe her shock. He just as desperately wanted to run deep into the forest in shame. He realized his grip on her shoulders had grown fierce and stepped back, tucking his hands behind him. He could only imagine how she felt. Until he’d actually said the words out loud, even he had started to believe it had been nothing more than a two-hundred-year-long nightmare.
“Y-you can’t be Gesader,” she whispered, her face as pale as the snow. “I’ve known him since he was a cub.”
“You’ve known me, lass. You only need look at me, Megan, to realize it’s true. Are these not the eyes of your pet?” he asked, touching his face under one eye, then covering his heart with his hand. “I’m the panther cub MacBain brought forward from twelfth-century Scotland.”
She backed up a step, as if trying to distance herself from what he was saying. “But you can’t be Gesader,” she repeated in a barely audible whisper, taking another step back.
His urge to comfort her finally won out, and Kenzie moved with lightning speed to gather her in his arms. She immediately started to struggle, so he simply sat down in the snow with her on his lap. “I lay dying on the battlefield when Matt found me a thousand years ago,” he explained. “And that was the day my brother made his deal with Providence.”
She went still and stared straight ahead at Pine Lake, her curiosity apparently overriding her horror.
“Matt had no way of knowing what his demand would set into motion,” he continued. “I was the only family Matt had left and I was mortally wounded. So my brother accepted his calling as a powerful drùidh, on the condition that my life be spared.”
She remained silent and rigid in his embrace. He took a shuddering breath and continued. “Only I’d already started heading for this incredibly bright light, ye see, that offered me blessed relief.” He leaned in close, his chin brushing her hair. “I so badly wanted to experience what that light promised, but apparently Matt needed me more. Only it was too late for me to continue living as Kenzie Gregor, and I hung in limbo for what seemed like forever before I suddenly became a young colt—born of a mare right there on the battlefield.”
Megan gave a soft gasp.
“I spent the next two hundred years as various animals. I lived, died, and was reborn hundreds of times as both wild and domestic creatures.”
“Then Matt gained nothing,” she said with no emotion. “You weren’t Kenzie, you were an animal.”
“Aye, but we still recognized each other, lass. And four times a year, on the solstices and the equinoxes, I became a man again for twenty-four hours.”
“So your becoming a…an animal upset the continuum?”
He brushed a strand of her hair from her face and tucked it behind her ear. “Matt’s deal with Providence was in blatant disregard for my own free will, Megan. I was never given the chance to decide if I would prefer death or life as an animal.”
She turned her head to look up to him. “What would you have chosen?”
“Death. Which I finally did after two centuries, when I asked Matt to please find a way to allow me to die one last time, preferably as a man. He realized he needed help to undo his wrong, and began devising a way to meet your sister. He lured Robbie MacBain back to twelfth-century Scotland to bring the taproot from his tree of life, and me, forward to this time.”