Touch of Enchantment

  Tabitha uncurled her stiff fingers, realizing that she was still clutching the necklace. Sunlight struck the emerald, splintering into fragments. The gem's mischievous sparkle seemed to taunt her.

  It wouldn't be the first time her mother had tried to manipulate her with magic. All for her own good, of course, like the time Arian had cast a love spell on Brent Vondervan when Tabitha was seven. The poor besotted boy had followed Tabitha everywhere after that, fawning over her with such drooling adoration that she could no longer respect him, much less like him. Her own mother had believed she could only win a boy's heart with charms of the supernatural variety. The humiliation still stung.

  Tabitha's sense of betrayal flourished. Why, her parents and Uncle Cop were probably back at the Tower right now, toasting their cunning and sharing a hearty laugh at her expense! She started to toss the counterfeit heirloom away, but a pang of doubt stopped her. What if it was her only ticket back to her cozy penthouse?

  Seething with anger, she slipped the necklace on and scrambled to her feet. "Mother," she yelled at the sky. "I am not amused."

  Lucy paused in batting around a cricket to blink at her, and Tabitha realized she was standing in the middle of a meadow wearing nothing but an antique necklace, her L.L. Bean flannel pajamas, and a pair of chipmunk slippers.

  "You couldn't just buy me a ticket to Club Med, could you?" she muttered.

  She stuffed her glasses into her pajama shirt pocket and tried to figure out which way she should march. Her parents never left anything to chance and she doubted it was a coincidence that the meadow was bordered by a forest primeval identical to the ones in all of those silly fairy tales her mother had always insisted on reading to her.

  The trees were taller than any Tabitha had ever seen, their trunks nearly as broad as California redwoods. Shafts of sunlight pierced the leafy canopy woven from their boughs, transforming the forest floor into a dappled cathedral. Motes of pollen drifted through the air like fairy dust, but Tabitha was too disgruntled to be charmed by their sparkle. Only her mother could have conjured up such an idyllic setting. She wouldn't have been surprised to see Bambi and Thumper come bounding out of the forest, followed by Snow White trilling "Someday My Prince Will Come."

  "Oh, no," Tabitha whispered, her spirits plummeting even lower as a dreadful new possibility dawned in her mind. There was only one thing her hopelessly old-fashioned mama might want her to have more than a vacation.

  A man.

  Despite Tabitha's flawless arguments, she had never managed to convince her mother that a modern woman no longer needed a man to achieve happiness and fulfillment. Perhaps somewhere in the most secret corner of her heart, she'd never quite convinced herself either.

  Tabitha glared at the forest. She had far more to fear from Prince Charming than Snow White. If this was her mother's misguided attempt to set her up with a blind date, it should be only a matter of minutes before some simpering oaf came prancing out from the trees on his white horse.

  She frowned. Was it her imagination or had the bird-songs dwindled to silence? A waiting stillness seemed to have fallen over both forest and meadow. Even Lucy crouched in the grass. The sun ducked behind a wisp of cloud, sending an odd chill – half anticipation, half foreboding – down Tabitha's spine.

  She cocked her head, listening intently. Instead of the dainty clip-clop of silver-shod hooves, she heard a low-pitched roar, like the rumble of distant thunder. The earth beneath her feet began to shake.

  The roar swelled, sweeping toward Tabitha like an inevitable tide. Stricken by primitive terror, she backed away from the woods. She would have fled, but there was nowhere to hide. Her chipmunk slippers were not made for the uneven terrain. She stumbled and fell to her back just as a snorting black monster came thundering out of the forest.

  Before she could unleash the scream from her throat, the monster reared over her, deadly forelegs slicing at the air, nostrils flaring. Tabitha squeezed her eyes shut and waited to be trampled.

  She didn't open them until she felt the blade at her throat. Her bewildered gaze traced the length of the shimmering sword up to a gauntleted hand, then higher still to an implacable face haloed by an unruly mane of dark hair. Golden eyes, as voracious and pitiless as a tiger's, surveyed her unblinkingly.

  This was no prince, she thought dazedly, but more of a beast than the nightmarish creature he was riding.

  Making a valiant attempt to swallow around the knot of terror in her throat, Tabitha timidly croaked, "Excuse me, sir, but have you seen my mother?"

  Chapter 4

  He thought the creature was female, but he couldn't be sure. Any hint of its sex was buried beneath a shapeless tunic and a pair of loose leggings. It blinked up at him, its gray eyes startlingly large in its pallid face.

  "Who the hell are you?" he growled. "Did that murdering bastard send you to ambush me?"

  It lifted its cupped hands a few inches off the ground. "Do I look like someone sent to ambush you?"

  The thing had a point. It wore no armor and carried no weapon that he could see unless you counted those beseeching gray eyes. Definitely female, he decided with a grunt of mingled relief and pain. He might have been too long without a woman, but he'd yet to be swayed by any of the pretty young lads a few of his more jaded comrades favored.

  He steadied his grip on the sword, hoping the woman hadn't seen it waver. His chest heaved with exhaustion and he was forced to shake the sweat from his eyes before stealing a desperate glance over his shoulder.

  The forest betrayed no sign of pursuit, freeing him to return his attention to his trembling captive. "Have you no answer for my question? Who the hell are you?"

  To his surprise, the surly demand ignited a spark of spirit in the wench's eyes. "Wait just a minute! Maybe the question should be who the hell are yow?" Her eyes narrowed in a suspicious glare. "Don't I know you?" She began to mutter beneath her breath as she studied his face, making him wonder if he hadn't snared a lunatic. "Trim the hair. Give him a shave and a bath. Spritz him with Brut and slip him into an off-the-rack suit. Ah-ha!" she crowed. "You're George, aren't you? George… George…?" She snapped her fingers. "George Ruggles from Accounting!" She slanted him a glance that was almost coy. " 'Fess up now, Georgia boy. Did Daddy offer you a raise to play knight in shining armor to my damsel in distress?"

  His jaw went slack with shock as she swatted his sword aside and scrambled to her feet, brushing the grass from her shapely rump with both hands. "You can confide in me, you know. I promise it won't affect your Yearly Performance Evaluation."

  She was taller than he had expected, taller than any woman of his acquaintance. But far more disconcerting than her height was her brash attitude. Since he'd been old enough to wield a sword, he'd never met anyone, man or woman, who wasn't afraid of him.

  The sun was beating down on his head like an anvil. He clenched his teeth against a fresh wave of pain. "You may call me George if it pleases you, my lady, but 'tis not my name."

  She paced around him, making the horse prance and shy away from her. "Should I call you Prince then? Or will Mr. Charming do? And what would you like to call me? Guenevere perhaps?" She touched a hand to her rumpled hair and batted her sandy eyelashes at him. "Or would you prefer Rapunzel?"

  His ears burned beneath her incomprehensible taunts.

  He could think of several names he'd like to call her, none of them flattering. A small black cat appeared out of nowhere to scamper at her heels, forcing him to rein his stallion in tighter or risk trampling them both. Each nervous shuffle of the horse's hooves jarred his aching bones.

  She eyed his cracked leather gauntlets and tarnished chain mail with blatant derision. "So where's your shining armor, Lancelot? Is it back at the condo being polished or did you send it out to the dry cleaners?"

  She paced behind him again. All the better to slide a blade between his ribs, he thought dourly. Resisting the urge to clutch his shoulder, he wheeled the horse around to face her. The simple motion ma
de his ears ring and his head spin.

  "Cease your infernal pacing, woman!" he bellowed. "Or I'll – " He hesitated, at a loss to come up with a threat vile enough to stifle this chattering harpy.

  She flinched, but the cowed look in her eyes was quickly replaced by defiance. "Or you'll what?" she demanded, resting her hands on her hips. "Carry me off to your castle and ravish me? Chop my saucy little head off?" She shook that head in disgust. "I can't believe Mama thought I'd fall for this chauvinistic crap. Why didn't she just hire a mugger to knock me over the head and steal my purse?"

  She marched away from him. Ignoring the warning throb of his muscles, he drove the horse into her path. Before she could change course again, he hefted his sword and nudged aside the fabric of her tunic, bringing the blade's tip to bear against the swell of her left breast. Her eyes widened and she took several hasty steps backward. He urged the stallion forward, pinioning her against the trunk of a slender oak. As her gaze met his, he would have almost sworn he could feel her heart thundering beneath the blade's dangerous caress.

  A mixture of fear and doubt flickered through her eyes. "This isn't funny anymore, Mr. Ruggles," she said softly. "I hope you've kept your resume current, because after I tell my father about this little incident, you'll probably be needing it."

  She reached for his blade with a trembling hand, stirring reluctant admiration in him. But when she jerked her hand back, her fingertips were smeared with blood.

  At first he feared he had pricked her in his clumsiness. An old shame quickened in his gut, no less keen for its familiarity. He'd striven not to harm any woman since he'd sworn off breaking hearts.

  She did not yelp in distress or melt into a swoon. She simply stared at her hand as if seeing it for the first time. "Doesn't feel like ketchup," she muttered, her words even more inexplicable than her actions. She sniffed at her fingers. "Or smell like cherry cough syrup."

  She glanced down at her chest. A thin thread of blood trickled between her breasts, affirming his fears. But as her bewildered gaze met his and the ringing in his ears deepened to an inescapable roaring, he realized what she had already discovered. Twas not her blood staining her breast, but his own. His blood seeping from his body in welling drops that were rapidly becoming a steady trickle down the blade of his sword. Horror buffeted him as he realized it was he, and not she, who was in danger of swooning. The sword slipped from his numb fingers, tumbling harmlessly to the grass.

  He slumped over the horse's neck, clutching at the coarse mane. He could feel his powerful legs weakening, betrayed by the weight of the chain mail that was supposed to protect him. Sweat trickled into his eyes, its relentless sting blinding him.

  "Go," he gritted out. "Leave me be."

  At first he thought she would obey. He heard her skitter sideways, then hesitate, poised on the brink of flight.

  His flesh felt as if it were tearing from his bones as he summoned one last burst of strength to roar, "I bid you to leave my sight, woman. Now!"

  The effort shredded the tatters of his will. He could almost feel his pride crumbling along with his resolve, forcing him to choke out the one word he detested above all others. "Please…"

  Swaying in the saddle, he pried open his eyes to cast her a beseeching glance. Sir Colin of Ravenshaw had never fallen before anyone, especially not a woman.

  And in the end he didn't fall before this one either.

  He fell on her.

  Chapter 5

  Tabitha lay utterly still, afraid to breathe. In her most daring fantasies, she had wondered what it might feel like to have a man on top of her. To lay hip to hip, thigh to thigh, her tender breasts crushed against his brawny chest, his face nuzzled in her freshly washed hair.

  She sniffed lightly, unable to resist satisfying her clinical curiosity. Her father always walked around in a cloud of expensive aftershave and the handful of men she'd dared to date showered and shaved twice a day. She'd never before smelled the sweat of honest toil, tempered with the mingled musk of horse, woodsmoke, and leather. She found the combination earthy, yet as undeniably beguiling as the prickle of the stranger's unshaven jaw against her cheek. She half expected him to murmur some husky endearment.

  He groaned. Tabitha's eyes flew open. The poor man probably wouldn't be inclined to whisper sweet nothings in her ear while bleeding to death. As much as she wanted to believe he was just some flunky hired by her parents to woo her, the blood soaking the front of her pajama shirt felt alarmingly real.

  She tugged one hand free and shoved at his shoulder. "Mr. Ruggles?" she hissed. "George?"

  He groaned again and settled his body more firmly against hers. Tabitha squirmed at the increasing intimacy, but that only made things worse.

  This was frustrating. And it was her own fault. When he'd fixed her with that puppy-dog stare and started to tumble off the horse, she'd had every opportunity to hop out of harm's way. Instead, she'd given in to the inexplicable urge to break his fall. All she'd gotten for her heroic effort was to be pinned under his weight. She was afraid he'd crush her, but it was as if he'd deliberately landed so as to do her the least harm. Even the glasses in her shirt pocket seemed to have survived the impact.

  She turned her head, looking around for help. The horse stood a few feet away, placidly munching on a patch of clover as if he hadn't threatened to trample her to death only minutes before. Lucy had draped her small, furry body over a sun-drenched hillock and was blissfully napping.

  A butterfly perched briefly on Tabitha's nose, making her eyes cross, then fluttered away with blithe abandon. She sighed, wondering if she was destined to spend eternity trapped beneath this ill-tempered stranger.

  When she turned back, he was gazing down at her, his golden eyes more quizzical than threatening. Tabitha's breath stalled in her throat. He looked like a sleepy tiger trying to decide if he should eat his prey or simply toy with it.

  Tabitha did not need her glasses to see him clearly. She was nearsighted and he was very near indeed. She could feel the pounding of his heart as if it were her own.

  His face loomed in her vision – angry slashes of eyebrows over deep-set eyes; a strong, blunt nose; a mouth that had lost its smile, but not its winsome quirk; a stubborn jaw armored with dark stubble. The faint bags beneath his eyes hinted at exhaustion, but did not detract from the dangerous appeal of his thick, stubby lashes.

  Tabitha blinked. She'd never been the sort of woman to fall for a pair of bedroom eyes. His gruff words reminded her why.

  "Whose woman are you?"

  Her dismay erupted in outrage. "Why, of all the arrogant, politically incorrect, blatantly chauvinistic – "

  He behaved exactly as she would have expected an arrogant, politically incorrect, blatantly chauvinistic male to behave. He clapped a gauntleted hand over her mouth, stifling her words. She glared at him, tasting leather against her lips.

  "I asked you a simple question, lass. Do you belong to any man?"

  She shook her head furiously, but it wasn't until his gaze softened, becoming both tender and predatory, that she remembered she had practically invited him to ravish her before he'd come tumbling into her arms.

  She was being ridiculous. Surely no man who'd lost that much blood could –

  A faint shift of his hips brought a warm and fulsome weight to bear against the softness of her belly. Apparently, he hadn't lost that much blood.

  She gazed at him, the two of them suddenly reduced to something more elemental than the sum of their parts. Man. Woman. Power. Vulnerability. She felt a flicker of doubt. Her mother might bemoan the fact that Tabitha spent most of her Saturday nights at home watching reruns of The X-Files on the Sci-Fi network, but she wouldn't have set her up on a blind date with a rapist.

  Would she?

  As he freed her mouth and lowered his parted lips to hers, a fresh realization struck terror in Tabitha's heart. He wasn't going to rape her. He was going to kiss her. Struck by a vision of this mighty warrior squatting on her chest croa
king "rbbit, rbbit," she turned her face away and gave his chest a panicked shove.

  He rolled off of her with less resistance than she expected, groaning as if in mortal agony.

  Tabitha sprang to her feet. "You were going to kiss me!"

  "I know," he muttered, eyeing her warily. "Delirium must be setting in."

  She rested her hands on her hips, trying to decide whether to be relieved or insulted. "You can whine and moan all you like, you bogus Beowulf, but I'm not going to feel sorry for you." She pulled the sticky flannel from her skin, grimacing in distaste. "Why look what you've done! Ruined my very favorite pair of pajamas!"

  "Do forgive me. I'll take more care where I spill my heart's blood in the future."

  She flinched. As he lay there propped up on his elbows in the grass, those golden eyes burning with pride over his pinched, pale mouth, she discovered to her dismay that she did feel sorry for him.

  She dropped to her knees at his side. He eyed her with sullen suspicion, but allowed her to gently pry away the hand he'd cupped protectively over his shoulder.

  " 'Tis naught but a scratch," he muttered.

  Tabitha winced. Something had slashed through his armor, carving an ugly furrow just above his armpit. "If that's a scratch, I'd hate to see what you consider a laceration." She began to tear the hem from her pajama shirt.

  He nodded toward her straining hands. "I thought that was your favorite garment."

  "At the moment it's my only garment," she mumbled ruefully, using her teeth to rip free a broad strip of the flannel.

  He surprised her by cupping her throat in his hand, his grip somewhere between a caress and a threat. "I might not live to regret this if you turn out to be one of them."

  The ruthless glitter of his eyes convinced her that this man's enemy was not something she should ever aspire to be.