From Kiss to Queen (32 page)

“Markov! This one isn't even out yet and you're trying to make another one!” Alexi shouted, running into the hallway to catch them kissing, only to slide to a stop when Jane suddenly clutched her belly on a small moan. Her brother-in-law turned the color of snow and took off down the hall. “Father! Dmitri! Sergei! Irina! God help us, the angels are
multiplying!”

LETTER FROM LAKEWATCH

Dear Readers,

For those of you who have been following my stories from the beginning, I hope you enjoyed the little surprise I snuck into this book. Yes, I know this was supposed to be a straight contemporary romance (no matter its over-the-top premise), but I simply couldn't resist having Jane Abbot's best friend be the daughter of one of my time-traveling highlanders.

For those of you new to my writing . . . well, let me explain. You see, the lion's share of my books have a touch of the magic in them (okay, maybe more than a touch), and throughout our journey together I've been asking my readers to believe that the magic is real. Yes, that's right;
the
magic, which implies there's only one. And from what I've gleaned from my ethereal characters, it's what powers the world.

They tell me the magic is there in the first breath we take and in our last, in those rays of sun hitting our face and the stars we gaze up at in awe every night. It keeps our hearts beating, shines from the eyes of a newborn, and pushes all those tender little sprouts out of the
ground. It fuels our hopes and dreams and desires, and kindly picks us up, dusts us off, and nudges us to keep going when we're about to give up.

Sometimes the magic's so subtle it's impossible to hear, like hair growing, a smile from a stranger, or inspiration dawning. Other times it speaks to us directly in the crunch of an apple, the haunting call of a loon, or an unsolicited “I love you.” And sometimes when we're too caught up in our everyday dramas to be paying attention, it jolts us out of ourselves with the force of a sudden and unpredicted thunderstorm sweeping down the lake. But maybe the coolest thing about the magic is that it goes about its business creating big and small miracles whether or not we believe it even exists. (And in case you're wondering, my ethereal buddies assure me it is
always
benevolent, even or especially when life throws us a curve.)

Some of my characters are pretty powerful magic-makers who can manipulate time and matter in order to go about their own business of protecting mankind from the lesser gods—and also just as often from ourselves.

But even mighty wizards are looking for happily-ever-afters. Remember the saying that the bigger they are, the harder they fall? Well, boy, do my magical men fall hard—usually for a no-nonsense woman merely focused on getting her own life in order. Only I don't want you to think the magic is exclusive to my books featuring larger-than-life heroes, because, trust me, without the help of a good miracle or two, my mere mortal men might not get the girl, either.

Which brings us back to the little surprise I snuck into this book . . .

What if I were to tell you that for years I've been looking for a way to . . . marry my contemporary and magical stories into one body of work? I mean, really, Maine is only so big; how could my characters
not
bump into each other? My mountain loggers live in the general vicinity of Pine Creek, and Midnight Bay is on the Down East coast not very far from Puffin Harbor and Keelstone Cove. Bangor and Portland and Ellsworth are often referenced, a lot of my characters shop at L.L.Bean, and tourism is a statewide industry.

So let's just go ahead and consider
From Kiss to Queen
the ceremonial book in which I married all my series together by the simple act of making Jane Abbot and Katy MacBain best friends. Because in doing so, I am now free to bring Gunnar Wolfe, a very contemporary hero, to Spellbound Falls—where, I might point out, the magic is
rarely
subtle.

Until then, you keep reading and believing.

And don't worry, I promise to keep writing!

Janet

Turn the page for a preview of the next Spellbound Falls romance from Janet Chapman

CALL IT MAGIC

Available soon from
Jove

K
aty MacBain sat on a bench in front of Spellbound Falls' new state-of-the-art safety building, sipping the worst cup of coffee to ever cross her lips, and tried to decide how she felt about this sudden turn of events. Because even with her parents' blessing, she was no longer sure if moving to this magical little wilderness town would still be the best decision she'd ever made, or if it had just become the biggest mistake of her life. The empowerment of going after and actually getting a position on what was being referred to as the most advanced fire and rescue squad in the state had certainly helped pull her through these last three weeks, only she'd just learned the team she was so proud to be part of was going through its own personal crisis.

What on earth had made the jovial, grandfatherly chief
who'd hired her four months ago suddenly up and quit what had to have been his dream job? Family reasons, the teenage intern had said when Katy had found him out back washing mud off an impressively large rescue truck. The four firefighters were taking showers, he'd informed her, having returned dirtier than their vehicle after spending most of last night reaching a party of backcountry hikers—one of whom was being transported to a hospital sixty miles away with a busted ankle.

Katy had headed back inside to the kid's muttered speculation as to what their remote access ambulance was going to look like when it returned, and she'd spent several minutes roaming through the likewise impressively large station before finding the kitchen. She'd hunted down a mug, filled it with the questionable remains of the coffeepot, and come outside in hopes that the bright June sun would help banish the chill of this morning's news.

Damn. She'd really liked Chief Gilmore. His keen hazel eyes had been filled with warm, patient humor as Katy had spent her entire interview in a nervous sweat trying to persuade him to take a chance on her, despite knowing she was the least experienced applicant competing for the final slot on the team he was pulling together. Heck, all the international news channels had carried the story of Chief Gilmore's search for the bravest and best firefighters and paramedics to man Spellbound Falls' innovative, multifaceted squad, subsequently drawing in applicants from all over the world.

Katy figured she must have been temporarily insane to even apply.

Or else Chief Gilmore had been for actually hiring her.

All of which had her worrying how the new chief would feel about inheriting a medic who possessed a sum total of three years of mostly volunteer experience. Would she be dismissed before even seeing her first paycheck, or would she be given the chance to—

“Must be nice.”

Katy squinted into the sun at the elderly gentleman standing on the sidewalk in front of the station. “Excuse me?”

“I was just saying how nice it must be,” he repeated, gesturing in her direction, “to have hard-earned tax dollars paying you probably double what anyone around here makes just to sit in the sun drinking coffee in front of a ridiculously overpriced fire station.”

“Be grateful she's here,” a deep male voice softly growled from behind her, “instead of out on some road trying to keep your wife or granddaughter from bleeding to death while we're cutting them out of what's left of their car.”

Katy spun on the bench, only to gape at the tall, broad-shouldered man standing in the open bay doorway, his ice-blue gaze locked on the complainer. Despite not seeing a badge, she immediately recognized he was a firefighter rather than a medic; although he wore a dark blue T-shirt identical to hers, his matching station pants didn't have cargo pockets to get in the way of quickly slipping into bunker gear.

“That was rather aggressive,” Katy said, even as she fought the urge to jump up and flee right along with the duly chastised gentleman scurrying off down the sidewalk toward town.

The firefighter turned those piercing eyes on her and shrugged. “When people stop making stupid comments, I'll stop correcting them. And speaking of not smart, lose the badge,” he added, nodding at the ID card she had clipped on her light jacket.

“Excuse me?”

“Our jobs are dangerous enough without pinning a target on our chests. Pissed-off people having a bad day often start shooting at anyone who looks like a lawman.”

Katy turned back around on the bench to watch the fleeing complainer disappear into the Bottomless Mercantile and Trading Post, and willed her heart to stop racing. Holy hell, were all the firefighters on the squad as imposing as this one? Even though she was used to being around large athletic men—considering there wasn't a male in her family under six-foot-three—Katy had a feeling that even a solid wall of her overprotective brothers and cousins wouldn't rattle this guy. “Thanks for the advice,” she said in what she hoped was an even voice, “but I think I'll wait for the new chief to tell me to lose the badge.”

“He just did.”

Katy shot to her feet and turned to face him in time to see his eyes flare briefly as they traveled up the length of her before coming to rest on hers. “You're the new chief?”

He stepped forward and held out his hand. “Gunnar Wolfe—with an
E
,” he said, using his other hand to tap the name
Wolfe
printed on his shirt. He dropped his unshaken hand when she didn't move and reached inside his pocket. He pulled out a flat leather case, held it up and
studied it, then turned it facing her and nodded. “Yup, the badge they gave me at the council meeting last night definitely says I'm chief of Spellbound Falls Fire and Rescue—at least for the next three months.” A sudden grin crinkled the corners of those insanely blue eyes. “And although my expertise runs more toward fire and rescue, I think you should know that I intend to be hands-on in all departments.”

Crap, a bossy boss. “What do you mean by ‘hands on'?”

“I mean that instead of spending all my time doing paperwork and placating three crews of cocky firefighters and medics, I intend to fight fires and rescue idiots off mountains in the pouring rain like I originally signed up for.”

“If you didn't want to be chief, then why didn't you just say no?”

“Because I definitely didn't sign up to take orders from the next guy in line.”

Katy refrained from asking who that was—partly because she didn't want to get involved in office politics her first day on the job, but mostly because she preferred to form her own opinion of any coworker she might have to trust with her life. “Does that mean you intend to go on a lot of the ambulance runs?”

His grin returned at her obvious alarm. “Don't worry, MacBain; I'm fairly certain Gilmore didn't hire you just to pretty up the station. So my deal is you stay out of burning buildings and I'll stay out of your bus.” He held out his hand again. “Welcome to the team.”

Double crap. Not only was this guy about as grandfatherly as she was, he appeared to be persistent. Katy grabbed
his decidedly large, calloused hand for a quick firm shake, only to find herself trapped when he refused to let go.

“You're one of four females, Katy,” he said, his tone matching the sudden seriousness in his eyes, “on an exclusive squad mostly made up of arrogant, overconfident men who don't have the words ‘back off' in either their professional or personal vocabularies. Anyone gives you any grief, I expect to be the first and
only
person to hear about it.” He just as suddenly grinned. “And by anyone, I'm including your female teammates. Although,” he drawled, his gaze traveling down the length of her then back to her eyes—which were only a few inches shy of being level with his—“I'm guessing you can handle anything the women might send your way.”

“I can also handle the men,” she said, giving a small tug on her hand.

His grip remained firm and his grin vanished again. “But you're not going to let it reach the point of having to handle anything, are you? Your first verbal cue that trouble is brewing, I want you running straight to me instead of those three burly cousins of yours who kindly introduced themselves to all us firefighters last week.”

Oh yeah; did she know her family or what? “Did you give this same warning to the other three women?”

He spun on his heel with a rumbling chuckle, a full two seconds passing before Katy realized her hand was being held by nothing but air. “Go feather your little home away from home with whatever lucky charms and inspirational posters you brought, then meet me at your bus in half an hour,” he said as he strode away. He stopped inside the open bay door, gestured toward the far end of
the station, and shot her a grin. “That would be the smaller black and yellow truck with
ambulance
written backwards on the hood.”

Several more seconds went by before she realized she was staring at nothing, and Katy released the breath she'd been holding. Although Gunnar Wolfe—with an
E
—could probably give cocky lessons to the men temporarily under his command, she really couldn't take offense at his trying to head off something she now knew could in fact become a major problem.

And just like that, without really understanding why, Katy decided everything was going to be okay. She also decided—again without understanding why—that she could trust Chief Wolfe. At least professionally, such as when it came to his holding the other end of a rope she might be dangling from halfway down some cliff, or trusting his judgment that it was okay to crawl inside a wrecked vehicle to reach a patient.

But outside of work, such as going to the Bottom's Up with the rest of the crew for beers after a particularly bad day? Katy unpinned her ID with a snort, stuffed it in her pocket, and headed inside. No, if she ever did find herself in a bar again, she wasn't even ordering water.

But then she suddenly smiled at the realization that she appeared to still have a job.

*   *   *

S
tanding in the private bathroom tucked behind the chief's office, Gunnar stopped wiping the water he'd splashed on his face and scowled at himself in the mirror. He rarely got caught off guard these days, and only
years of surviving by the skin of his teeth had saved him from not reacting when Katy MacBain had stood up and turned to face him. He'd known she was beautiful; hell, the photos he'd found of her on the Internet were partly responsible for drawing him here. But no picture, nothing he'd read about her, or any of the childhood tales Jane Lakeland had unapologetically used to pique his interest could have prepared him for the flesh-and-blood woman. Even knowing Katy was six-foot-one, he'd still been stunned to find himself barely having to look down to see the vibrancy in her startled gray eyes.

No, not gray; those long-lashed, sexy-as-hell eyes were the deep silver of an Icelandic fogbank backlit by the sun. And when she'd spun to him in surprise, the whip of that single long braid of mahogany hair as thick as his wrist had sent him even further back in his youth, to when he would sit on a bluff overlooking the wind-whipped northern Atlantic and dream of escaping his island home on an ancient Viking war boat in a bid to conquer the world.

She hadn't wanted to shake his hand, even though he had enough notches on his bedpost to know he didn't turn women off. And having met her three cousins—en masse—he figured Miss MacBain should be comfortable around large men. Hell, her chosen profession practically guaranteed she'd be surrounded by firefighters dwarfed only by their egos.

No, he was more inclined to believe her reluctance had to do with the last three weeks of her life that he couldn't account for. He'd managed to track down the rescue school she'd trained at in Colorado, only to learn that no
one had heard from Katy since graduation. She had surprised everyone, though, one of the interns had told him, by getting falling-down drunk when they'd gone to a local bar on the last night to celebrate, since they'd only seen her have an occasional glass of wine during the course. The head instructor had personally helped her into the van taking several other students to a motel near the Denver airport, making sure a couple of the women promised to see that Katy was safely tucked into bed. The kid had shrugged and said he assumed she'd flown home the next morning like she'd planned.

Only instead of using the rest of the round-trip ticket she'd purchased five weeks earlier, Miss MacBain had simply vanished.

It was then that what had started out as a potentially sensual distraction inspired by Jane Lakeland—queen of the fairly new country of Shelkova on the Bering Sea across from Alaska, and Katy's best friend since childhood—had suddenly turned into a personal mission to track down the missing, promise-breaking woman.

Jane had still named her and Markov's little bundle of joy after her BFF. Gunnar suddenly grinned at the mirror, figuring Princess Katherine Maine Lakeland—the first female born to a Lakeland male in twelve generations—was already ruling the palace, if not also firmly entrenched in the hearts of every last Shelkovan. Hell, when he'd called last week to make sure Jane was keeping
her
promise not to tell Katy the guy she'd hoped to fix her up with was headed to Maine to meet her, Markov had said his countrymen were still partying in the streets.

So the question wasn't only why had Katy broken her promise to be at the birth of her best friend's very first child, but why had she gone into hiding?

He'd drawn that conclusion after spending three days in Colorado—along with several hundred palm-greasing dollars—learning exactly nothing. Which was as disturbing as it was vexing, considering he really made his living hunting down people who didn't want to be found.

He'd at least been able to leave Denver fairly certain that Katy hadn't been kidnapped or murdered, thanks to a now somewhat wealthier motel clerk who had suddenly recalled seeing the woman in the photo Gunnar had showed him getting into a rental pickup truck she'd had delivered three days after she'd checked in. He hadn't been on duty the night she'd arrived, but the record showed she'd asked not to be disturbed for the next week—a small notation beside it mentioning sanitizing the room because the night clerk had been told she had a bad cold.