A wee burn must be what they called a creek or a stream back in Tennessee, but she had no idea what a garden dyke was. “Mairwen doesn’t own this land anymore. I do.” She hated to sound rude, but something about this just wasn’t adding up. “And to be perfectly blunt, I haven’t budgeted for a repairman since I’m a pretty capable person. Thank you.” She started to close the door, but he stopped it with the toe of his boot, irritating her immensely. Before she could shoulder it shut, he gave her an apologetic smile and a tip of his head, which made him even nicer to gaze upon.
“Budgeted?” he repeated, before she could decide what to do.
She really needed coffee to deal with this. “Yes. Budgeted.”
His brows rose, and recognition filled his face. “Ah, the cost, ye mean?”
“Yes. The cost.”
He shook his head. “No cost, mistress.”
Now she had him. This had to be some sort of scam. “You work for free? Is this some sort of community service or something?”
He blinked slowly, and his amiable expression shifted to a pained scowl. “I dinna ken what ye mean.”
“How can there not be any cost? Even the supplies to fix those things you mentioned will cost something.”
Resettling his stance, his already bulging forearms flexed even larger as he clenched his fists at his sides. “Mairwen feels it is her responsibility to pay for the repairs since she meant to have them completed before ye arrived.” With a smoldering look that firmly put her in her place—or tried to—he tipped what she took as a condescending nod. “There is always a cost, as ye obviously well know.”
Otto galloped through the house and exploded out the front door before she could catch hold of him. Teeth bared and hackles raised, he barked with a ferocity she’d never seen in him before.
“Otto, stop!”
The man stood his ground, eyeing the dog as if slightly bored with the entire performance. Then he crouched to Otto’s level and stared at him, nose to nose.
Great. She was about to get sued when her dog tore into the man’s face and incurred who knew how many medical bills for corrective surgery. She latched onto Otto’s collar and pulled. “You must stop. Now. This is not acceptable.” It was then she realized the canine had gone quiet, even though he remained locked in place in front of the man, staring back at him. “Mr. Shadowmist, perhaps you should go.”
“Ye may call me Mathison,” he said, remaining in place, still nose to nose with the dog, matching Otto’s glare. “And this fine lad and I are merely coming to an understanding. Dinna fash yerself, aye?”
Then Otto sat and leaned against her leg, his signal that he felt insecure. She knelt beside him and pulled him into a hug. “It’s all right, Otto. Mr. Shadowmist…Mathison…means us no harm.”
The man in black nodded. “That is correct. I would never harm either of ye.”
And even though she’d never met this person before, she knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that he meant every word. Keeping a firm hold on Otto’s harness, she stood. “If you want to go look at those things Mairwen hired you to fix, that’s fine. I’ll catch up with you in a little while.”
His smile somehow made his eyes an even brighter blue. “Thank ye, mistress. Ye’ll not regret it.”
“We’ll see,” she muttered as she backed into the house with Otto, closed the door, and locked it.
Chapter
Four
“She is watching us again from the window,” Dubh said.
Mathison continued fitting the large flat stones together to repair the garden fence without the benefit of mortar. “Good.” He paused his construction to remove his shirt and made a show of stretching, then wiping the sweat from his brow. The mate bond always stirred lust first, the need to join physically, but the knowing, the contentment that came from the reunion of the separated souls, didn’t come until later. If he could stir Calia’s yearning for the physical side of the mate bond, perhaps they could unite completely before Mairwen helped him take his chosen one back to the Ninth Realm, where they both belonged.
“We could complete this work much faster if we used our magic.”
“The work enables us to be around the lady and make her more comfortable with our presence.” Mathison understood his wolf’s impatience. He felt the same. He longed for this woman. But he also knew how precarious the situation was. Winning Calia’s trust and acceptance could not be rushed. To do so could very well make the entire plan go awry.
“At least she has started to trust us. Remember what she told her beastie.”
“Aye.” Mathison hoisted a particularly large rock into place, leaned against it to steady it, then wedged two more smaller ones under either end of it. This dyke would survive several centuries of whatever the Highlands saw fit to wreak upon it.
“I brought you a glass of sweet tea,” said the voice that had quickly become the sweetest sound he had ever heard.
He turned from his labors and fought not to react as Calia stood there in another pair of those dark blue trews that hugged the fine shapeliness of her bottom while her thin, fitted tunic clung to her uppermost curves. She held out a tall glass with chunks of ice floating in it. It was the same color as tea from a cup, but he’d never seen tea served in such a way before. “Ye put ice in it?”
