Read Spellbound Falls [5] For the Love of Magic for Free Online Page B

one of your time-traveling guests gets drunk and starts busting up one of the towns’ bars.”
    Nicholas leaned back and folded his arms over his chest. “No.”
    “Would this chief of police not be required to have graduated from your state’s law enforcement academy?” Titus asked.
    Duncan snorted. “Even I can conjure up a diploma.”
    “No,” Nicholas repeated, this time directing his dissent at Titus. “I’m not giving up one of my men.” He leaned forward to glare at Duncan. “Offer the position to Alec or another one of your MacKeage or MacBain cousins. All the men in your clans have served in the military and they’re familiar with the magic.”
    “Jane’s not going to let Alec strap on a gun,” Duncan countered, using his nephew’s pet name for Carolina. “Assuming I could even talk him into it,” he added with a shake of his head. “I’m not sure what happened, but Alec came home from his last tour of duty a friggin’ pacifist.”
    “He must have forgotten that a year ago last September,” Mac drawled as he rubbed his jaw, referring to his heated little encounter with the man who was about to become his brother-in-law—hopefully
before
he became a father.
    Apparently deciding he wasn’t getting anywhere with Nicholas this time, Duncan looked up at Titus. “Give me one of your Atlantean warriors.”
    Knowing Nicholas wasn’t budging, Titus offered an alternative. “What about your ancestor, Niall MacKeage? He’s had a year and a half to acclimate to this century.”
    Duncan stilled in surprise, then suddenly shook his head. “The guy’s wrecked two trucks, a snowmobile,
and
a jet boat, and last fall he somehow managed to bury one of my excavators under ten feet of dirt
while
he was in it.” His eyes turned pained. “Niall also has a love-hate relationship with firearms, and his solution to most problems is bludgeoning them to death.”
    “He sounds perfect,” Nicholas snapped.
    Duncan shot to his feet. “He’s a loose cannon,” the highlander snapped back. “Jack’s already hauled Niall into jail twice; once for tossing some guy out of Pete’s Bar and Grill
without
opening the door first, then another time for asking a young girl on a date.”
    “Dating is a crime?” Mac said in surprise.
    “She was
sixteen
.”
    “Then why hasn’t de Gairn sent Niall back to his original time?” Mac asked, referring to Matt Gregor—who was married to Greylen MacKeage’s youngest daughter—by his drùidh name.
    Duncan dropped his head with a sigh. “Because Niall is old Uncle Ian’s eldest son, and apparently after Ian returned home, he secretly told Niall all about living in this time and that his dying wish was for his son to live in this century.”
    “How accommodating of us to invite him here to court Carolina,” Mac muttered.
    “Has no one considered that Niall might simply be bored?” Titus asked. “The man was laird of the clan MacKeage back in the twelfth century, after all, and is likely having trouble adjusting to a society where his skills are outdated. Perhaps he merely needs something on which to focus his passion and energy.”
    “I agree,” Nicholas interjected, leaning back again and folding his arms with a smug smile. “Niall MacKeage would make a perfect chief of police.”
    “Not as perfect as an Atlantean warrior,” Duncan returned tightly. “This place is crawling with foreign tourists, and Niall doesn’t speak all the languages like your men.”
    “Neither do you, Duncan,” Titus quietly pointed out.
    “God dammit, the guy’s likely to shoot somebody his first day on the job!”
    “Clans don’t elect stupid men as their lairds,” Maximilian calmly interjected. “Could you not at least think about offering the position to Niall?”
    Duncan narrowed his eyes at him. “You want
another
MacKeage moving to Spellbound Falls?”
    Mac grinned. “I have no more sisters to protect from your clansmen.”
    Not that he’d succeeded in protecting