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Niall said. “What does a wee babe care what color its room is? I’m not even sure they can see past their noses for several months.”
    Three sets of incredulous eyes turned on him, and Titus merely sighed again.
    “The babes don’t care,” Duncan said. “Their
mothers
do.”
    “Women nest,” Nicholas muttered, “and the nest has to be lined with
perfect
feathers.”
    “At least for the first one or two babes,” Mac added. “Then they turn everything over to the older siblings and us husbands.”
    “Aye,” Duncan agreed, “while constantly threatening to kill us in our sleep if we get them pregnant again.”
    “Until their friends get pregnant,” Mac countered, shooting a pointed glare at Duncan and then at Nicholas, “and they suddenly announce they want ‘just one more.’” Mac then turned his glare on Niall, as did the other two expectant fathers. “You want to be part of this conversation, MacKeage, go steal yourself a wife and get her pregnant.”
    Knowing he didn’t have a hope in hell of changing
this
subject, Niall stood up with a laugh. “Thank you for the advice, gentlemen, but I believe I’ll wait for a brave lass to come along and steal
me
.”
    “You might want to be careful what you wish for,” Titus said quietly, “lest you find yourself being taken on a one-way boat ride up the fiord by a pint-sized spitfire.”
    On that note, Niall hightailed it for the door as he tried to recall if he had ever referred to Miss Callahan quite that way around the scheming old magic-maker.
    •   •   •
    Niall exited the Bottoms Up to find Shep licking an ice-cream cone being held by what appeared to be a three – or four-year-old tourist; the only problem being he wasn’t sure if the little girl was wanting to share her treat with a dog that looked her level in the eyes, or if she hadn’t dared say no. As for the girl’s parents . . . Well, the mother looked poised to whisk her child to safety and the father appeared ready to use his camera bag as a weapon even as he kept snapping pictures of his daughter feeding a stray dog in Maine. Niall cleared his throat, causing Shep to whip his head around in surprise, only to sigh when the dog turned back and gave the girl’s
face
a lick before trotting over—too happily licking his own snout to be feeling guilty, apparently.
    Niall sent the parents a sheepish nod and stepped into the brightly painted crosswalk glistening under the newly installed streetlamps, which were already on even though it was nearing the longest day of the year. But the town proper sat in the looming shadow of Bent Mountain, which was responsible for the waterfall that thundered into a deep pool of frothing water before Spellbound Stream continued under the foot – and road bridges and shot into Bottomless.
    “Am I going to have to take ye back to Kenzie Gregor for another little talk?” Niall asked when they reached the old railroad bed the grange ladies had converted to a footpath. Besides being Matt’s brother, Kenzie was an eleventh-century highland warrior who lived down on the coast near Trace Huntsman, along with their good friend William Killkenny, an Irish nobleman who’d come to this century seeking Kenzie’s help when an old hag’s curse had turned him into a dragon twelve hundred years ago.
    Maine, it would appear, was growing rife with time-travelers.
    When Niall had first gotten Shep, he’d barely been able to get close enough to tend his wounds, and coaxing the snarling, defensive dog to eat out of his hand had been an exercise in patience. Shep’s distrust of people—males in particular—had at first forced Niall to camp out in the woods for fear of putting Winter and her children at risk. That is, until Matt had suggested the dog might benefit from a visit to his brother in Midnight Bay, since Kenzie was able to . . . talk to animals.
    Not that Niall thought the highlander’s gift strange, considering Kenzie had spent several