How peaceful. How serene.
Charlotte sighed at the silence as she shut off the ignition. What could possibly be more wonderful?
CHAPTER TWO
“MAGGIE!” Charlotte shaded her eyes and stared at the rocky headland several hundred yards in front of her.
Then she turned and gazed back down the long curve of the bay, toward where she’d left her vehicle, almost hidden in the tall grass. Each individual footprint she’d made in the cool, firm sand as she’d rounded the bay was in sharp focus. A third of the way back to the Suburban, she could see the windbreaker and sweater she’d discarded, along with her socks and shoes. She was still hot, even though clouds had scudded in from somewhere to partially block the sun and a steady breeze had sprung up.
Charlotte frowned. Maybe Maggie had backtracked behind her while she was running? They’d played at the edge of the water for a while and then shared lunch—an apple, a bag of Doritos and some beef jerky, plus kibble for Maggie, sitting on the grass beside the truck. Then Charlotte had decided to go for a run. She was in no hurry to leave, although she’d considered going on to Charlottetown that afternoon.
“Maggie!” No answering bark. Annoyed, Charlotte tried whistling—a faint, ineffective sound whipped away by the rising wind. The tide had turned when they’d arrived but was still a long way out on the shallow sandy tidal flats. Charlotte had spent a good hour tossing a stick in the surf, laughing as the retriever leaped into the rolling waves time and again, before they’d returned to the shore for their lunch.
She gazed back toward the sea. The tide had come in considerably. No sign of a dog, but that was to be expected. Maggie wouldn’t have gone out to the water by herself. Maggie never wandered—never.
But there was no big black dog now. Charlotte broke into a slow, cool-down lope. She wasn’t really worried. Ten more minutes and she’d make her goal, the rocks that marked the headland, then go back. Maggie was bound to show up by the time she reached the Suburban.
Whoa. Charlotte stopped dead. She tilted her head slightly, listening. A dog? On the land side? Toward that straggle of trees on the other side of the dunes? She remained still, aware of her heavy breathing and the pounding of her pulse. Now that she wasn’t running, she felt chilled in her loose cotton cargo pants and perspiration-soaked T-shirt.
There! A chorus of barking followed by a single, excited bark. More like a yip. Maggie?
“Maggie!” Charlotte tried the whistle again, but her lips were so stiff that no sound emerged. Her teeth chattered.
Damn that dog, anyway! So much for blue ribbons in obedience. Charlotte veered toward the dunes, which blocked her view of the land, toward the steep hill that rose from the shore. This was totally unlike Maggie! It wasn’t as though she was a terrier, following her nose after mice. Or a spaniel, snuffling around in the underbrush for birds. She was a retriever. So what was she doing in the woods, barking after squirrels or chasing rabbits?
Charlotte reached the top of the dune and peered toward the copse of trees where she’d heard the barking. “Maggie! Yoo-hoo! Come, Mag-gie, come!”
No sign of Maggie, but Charlotte heard something that alarmed her. Another dog? The deeper tones didn’t sound right. She squinted at the dark trees, eyes shaded, willing Maggie to appear. The prospect of having to go after her, to navigate clumps of saw-edged grass and broken sticks and dead sea things did not appeal.
“Ma’am?”
Charlotte shrieked and felt the goosebumps double in size all over her shivering body. “Omigosh! I didn’t hear you coming!”
“I’m sorry, ma’am.” A boy of thirteen or fourteen had emerged over the side of the dune from the north. He turned red as a beet. “You lookin’ for something, ma’am?”
“My dog. She’s—” Charlotte waved in the general direction of the woods “—in there somewhere.”
“Your dog?” The boy seemed puzzled. He put two fingers to his mouth and let fly a piercing whistle, one long and two short.
To Charlotte’s amazement, a dog shot out of the trees. Maggie! Oh, no—there was another black dog, right behind the first one. They ran together, occasionally turning to nip playfully and to paw each other with their front feet, then run side by side again. Neither animal headed their way.
“Y-yours?” Charlotte was befuddled.
“Liam’s.” The boy looked over his shoulder, then glanced at her again. He seemed worried. “My dad’s cousin.”
Liam Connery? No. She wasn’t ready to meet him; she wasn’t dressed properly. She hadn’t thought of what she was going to say yet. She had a definite, much-tweaked plan for their first meeting, and this wasn’t it. But it had to be him—how many Liams could there be in this tiny corner of the island?
The boy sent her another look. He was handsome, with fair skin and piercing blue eyes and a few freckles still left from childhood. “Liam’s right mad about Scout going over the side like that….”
He stared toward the two dogs, now running in a madcap manner along the line where the grass met the trees, his expression about as helpless as Charlotte felt. Then she saw him glance over his shoulder.
“Scout’s here, Liam, just like you figured,” he said. “He’s goin’ after another dog. I called him but he’s a bad old boy and he won’t come.”
To her horror, Charlotte saw a man striding toward them up the same side of the dune the boy had taken, dressed in a camouflage jacket and carrying a—a big gun! He had another dog with him, a large brown dog with a coarse-looking coat, wavy along the back.
The ominous comments she’d heard at the diner, about Liam Connery not taking to strangers, skipped through her mind.
This was Liam Connery? The man approaching didn’t resemble the boy of her memories. He was tall and powerful looking. Dark hair—that was as she remembered—dark eyes, what she could see of them. What color had his eyes been—brown? Green? She couldn’t recall. A three-day growth of beard gave him a dangerous, lawless air. Scuffed lace-up work boots, a faded plaid shirt under the open jacket. The gun slung over his shoulder. Hair in need of a trim.
He stood beside the boy—ignoring her completely—and gazed out at the dogs frolicking halfway up the side of the hill.
“Well, Goddammit. Would you look at that.”
That was all he said, in a low, forceful tone that made her skin crawl. Charlotte was shivering uncontrollably. She wished she’d tied her windbreaker around her waist instead of dropping it on the sand several hundred yards back. The brown dog sat attentively at the man’s side, ears alert, but showing no sign of joining the other two dogs.
“Your bitch, ma’am?” He finally glanced her way. The drawled query shocked her. She wasn’t used to calling Maggie a bitch, even though she knew that was the proper name for a female dog.
“Y-yes,” she managed to say. “M-my sister’s, actually.” She turned to him, but his attention was back on the hillside.
“She wouldn’t be in heat, would she?”
He looked directly at her without a trace of recognition in his eyes. They were brown—a very dark brown—shot with gold and green. She shook her head. “No—at least, I don’t think so.”
“Good,” he continued flatly. “Most people would have the sense not to let loose a bitch in heat.”
“It’s my sister’s dog,” Charlotte answered, her voice small. She decided this definitely wasn’t the time to tell him she was delivering Maggie to his kennel.
Liam frowned,