“It was Foster Graves, and he is a drunk,” Duncan said. “I heard ye wrapped his head in your T-shirt and drove him to the clinic.”
“Aye,” Niall said with a nod. “I was worried he’d bleed out before an ambulance could arrive. At the time, considering he smelled of whiskey as much as blood, I dismissed the story he told me about what had happened as nothing more than the ramblings of an inebriated man with a head injury.” He shrugged. “But lately I’ve been thinking that what Foster kept calling ‘divine intervention’ was actually Telos.”
“I heard he told anyone willing to listen,” Alec said, “that a huge black bear just sauntered up to his car and lifted it off him. But like you, everyone thought the blow to his head had made him delusional.”
“Aye, that’s the tale he told me. So after leaving him in Bentley’s care,” Niall continued, “I went back and found the car. It took some doing, as it appeared Foster had been going quite fast when he missed a curve and ended up deep in the woods down a steep bank. If he hadn’t made it back up to the road, the man probably would have bled out within the hour and his body not discovered for days.”
“And did you see any sign of this divine bear?” Nicholas asked.
Niall gave a nod. “The tracks were unmistakable. And from the size and depth of the paw prints, I’d estimate the bruin went six or seven hundred pounds.”
“That’s damn big for a Maine black bear,” Alec said.
“I’m just telling ye what I found. There was a pool of blood where Foster had lain for some time, along with the impression of where his car, which was up on its side, had been covering a good part of his body.”
“Maybe the car did land on him,” Duncan speculated, “but the momentum kept it rolling onto its side before finally stopping. And the paw prints could have been made while you were driving him to the clinic. Hell, there’s nothing to say a curious bear hadn’t shown up while Foster had been lying there, taken a few sniffs, and left the man to die in peace.”
“Aye,” Niall said evenly. “All acceptable explanations, except for the tracks also indicating the bear had dragged Foster up the steep bank to the road.”
Everyone fell silent, apparently trying to decide for themselves what had really happened—that is, until Alec suddenly chuckled.
“What?” Nicholas asked.
“It seems I may have also had a divine intervention.” Alec looked at Duncan. “You remember my mentioning several weeks ago that I went looking for a pond I’d heard had trout the size of salmon about twenty miles north of town?”
Duncan grinned. “What I remember is that ye caught hell from your wife for getting all the way up the fiord before realizing you’d dropped her and your son off at your mother-in-law’s that morning.”
“I wasn’t thinking straight,” Alec muttered. “I just wanted to get home because I was chilled from being caught in a rainstorm and had forgotten to bring extra clothes.”
“What does your fishing trip have to do with Telos?” Nicholas asked.
“The rainstorm—nay, it was more of a deluge—that came out of nowhere. I’d left my truck parked about a mile from the pond and hiked in, but when I started back after getting soaked, not a quarter mile from where I’d been fishing I came to a small burned section of woods that hadn’t been burned on my way in.”
“Are ye saying you believe the forest god put out the fire?” Duncan asked.
“You got a better explanation for a rainstorm appearing out of nowhere on a sunny afternoon and hitting only a small area? My truck never got touched.”
“Well, gentlemen,” Nicholas said quietly, “for as . . . altruistic as Telos sounds, he may actually become a problem.”
“How?” Niall asked.
“Using the magic to interfere or intercede on behalf of people—or worse, directly interact with them, as he did with Birch and Foster Graves—is the very thing Titus has been protecting mankind from all these millennia. Titus cultivated the Trees of Life specifically to keep gods from using mortals as nothing more than pawns, and sometimes even currency, in their petty wars against one another. Why do you think he and Maximilian practice a hands-off approach when it comes to man-made disasters?”
Duncan snorted. “They both interfere all the time.”
“Not directly,” Nicholas countered. “Mac couldn’t force fishermen all over the world to stop using traps and nets that continue ghost-fishing for years after being lost at sea. But he could draw attention to the problem and encourage change in fishing practices by washing the offending equipment filled with dead and dying sea mammals and birds up onto beaches in every coastal country.” He grinned at Duncan. “And Mac couldn’t make you and Peg fall in love even though he knew you were a match, but he could create a situation where the two of you would decide of your own free will that you couldn’t live without each other. And if I remember correctly,” the warrior growled, losing his grin as he looked at Alec, “you were counting on the fact that Titus and Mac couldn’t retaliate for your keeping Carolina’s whereabouts a secret from them.”
Alec grinned back and Niall stifled a grin of his own as he remembered his cousin walking in and out of the magically secured Nova Mare right under Nicholas’s nose, frustrating the warrior to no end.
“And you, Niall,” Nicholas continued. “Titus could only invite you to come to this century to vie for Carolina’s hand in marriage. That you accepted was your decision.”
Niall lifted a brow. “You would expect me to refuse a personally delivered invitation from Titus Oceanus?”
The warrior’s grin returned. “You didn’t seem to let who he was get in your way of staying here.”
“What about moving mountains and turning freshwater lakes into inland seas?” Alec asked before Niall could form a response. “Ye don’t consider that to be interfering in people’s lives?”
“Mac manipulated the planet, not mankind,” Nicholas explained, “which are two distinctly different energies. The people his little stunt affected four years ago were free to react to the change in their landscape however they wished. As with all natural phenomena—storms, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions—men are free to view them either as disasters or as blessings in disguise.”
“And Mac bringing Matt Gregor’s sister, Fiona, back from the dead and dropping her in this century,” Duncan said, “as well as William Killkenny’s sister, Gabriella; how is that not directly interfering in their lives?”
Nicholas folded his arms over his chest. “Both women stubbornly held on to their identities after their deaths, so Mac was merely granting their deep desire to continue the lives so crudely taken from them as themselves.”
A thoughtful hush fell again, with Alec and Duncan rolling to their knees and training their binoculars on the island and Niall simply staring out at the water.
“Do you know what Telos means, Niall?” Nicholas softly asked into the silence.
“I did some research after Birch’s accident,” Niall admitted. “And near as I can tell, it’s the root word for teleologia, which refers to the belief that all in nature has purpose, at the same time promoting the existence of a . . . Designer, or what we refer to as Providence.” He shrugged. “Some streams of philosophy contend that everything—plants, animals, people, and even the planet—is here seeking self-realization.”
“Télos is Greek for goal or end cause,” Nicholas elaborated, “implying that even the universe itself is seeking its ultimate purpose.” He gestured at where Telos was perched. “And despite that train of thought running parallel with Titus’s and Maximilian’s, it would appear Earth’s newest god has decided his purpose is to nudge mankind along on its journey.” Nicholas turned and lifted his scope to his eye with a soft snort. “One person, plant, and animal at a time, apparently.”
“So does that mean Mac and Titus will get involved if Telos continues taking a direct and active role in p
eople’s lives?” Niall asked.
Alec and Duncan also looked at Nicholas when the warrior glanced over his shoulder. “I can’t imagine them standing by with their hands in their pockets while a fellow deity tries to impose his own definition of purpose on mankind.” A dangerous look came into his deep blue eyes. “Because should Telos overstep a line only the Oceanuses can see,” he said quietly, turning away and lifting his ancient spyglass to the island again, “I’m afraid moving mountains and creating inland seas will definitely seem like a blessing compared to the havoc two clashing divinities could wreak on this area.”
“Sweet Christ,” Niall whispered. “Are ye saying we could find ourselves at the center of a mythological war?”
Nicholas shrugged as he continued looking through his glass. “That, gentlemen, is a question I’m afraid only time can answer.”
Chapter Eighteen
Birch pushed the curtain aside and looked out the kitchen door window for the third time in ten minutes, only to see that Niall still wasn’t home. The man had driven in around six yesterday afternoon, handed Jake what had looked like a take-out dinner from the Drunken Moose, changed his clothes, then left carrying an unusually long rifle case without so much as a glance at the main house. And the bright blue pickup still parked in the driveway meant Jake had stayed at the cottage with Shep, and Niall had spent the night . . . somewhere else.
Birch couldn’t decide if her foul mood this morning was from plain old fear, or from her having spent the night tossing and turning in bed instead of sleeping draped over a warm mountain of muscle. On the one hand she was afraid police work—of the dangerous kind—was the reason Niall hadn’t come home, and on the other she was worried his absence didn’t have anything to do with his job. She didn’t consider herself the jealous type, but if the maddening man was going to go around telling people she was his girlfriend, he damn well better consider them exclusive.
She had actually been inches away from knocking on his door last night when Birch had realized the pickup she’d just walked past hadn’t been Niall’s. So she’d shoved her hands in her pockets and trudged home feeling more disappointed than she cared to admit, but had stopped halfway to the main house and considered marching back and asking Jake where in hell his boss was. But she’d continued home, realizing that showing up at Chief MacKeage’s door at eleven o’clock in her pajamas—okay, she’d been wearing her slut on the hunt little number under her robe—might have given Officer Sheppard the impression she and Niall were a couple.
Which they obviously were not, seeing how the man couldn’t be bothered to tell her he’d be away all night. He had a cell phone; how much effort did it take to send a stupid text? Granted, she hadn’t exactly been nice to him lately, but even an idiot would have realized that kiss in his station meant she’d forgiven him for acting like a caveman.
She let the curtain fall back and walked to the counter, disgruntled that men were so annoying—and she was lumping Claude St. Germaine in with the lot of them this morning. What did her father think he was doing, moving here? For that matter, what kind of work did he expect to find in the wilderness?
The man didn’t know the first thing about cutting timber or driving something the size of a logging truck, and wood harvesting seemed to be the only industry in the area, other than tourism. And she really couldn’t see Claude pandering to tourists, since she was pretty sure that required a sense of humor. Her father didn’t even have any hobbies he could turn into a business except for his little obsession with weaponry, but he couldn’t even legally carry a gun in this country, much less bring his collection here without having a damn good reason for lugging a small arsenal across the border. And if he wanted to stay in law enforcement, he’d have to go to an American academy, which would mean he’d basically be starting his career all over again at fifty years old.
Oh. Wait. She forgot. He didn’t have to work because he was freaking wealthy.
Was there a reason he hadn’t shared that interesting little detail with her in the last twenty-five years? Never found the right time, her ass. As for his feeling it wasn’t all that important . . . Mon Dieu, who in their right mind carried a mortgage when they had a small fortune sitting in the bank collecting more dust than interest?
And to think she’d offered to chip in when he had insisted on purchasing a house in the suburbs instead of an affordable condo in the city because he’d wanted Mimi to have a yard to run around in every other weekend. “Yeah, well, you’re buying your own vehicles from now on,” she muttered, glaring at the cold coffeemaker—the one Noreen had always set the timer on every night so they’d all wake up to the smell of brewing coffee. “And you’re taking me to dinner at Aeolus’s Whisper and picking up the check.”
Birch blew out a sigh as she glanced around the semi-clean kitchen, wondering when her life had gotten so out of control. Forget that someone had tried to kill her—and still hoped to, for all she knew; her father had quit his job and was moving to Maine, her mother had spent most of yesterday with an unmarried man only to return home with a distinctive twinkle in her eyes, her boyfriend hadn’t come home last night, and she’d lost her cook just as she was becoming overrun with residents.
Oh, and she still hadn’t made it back to that cute little artisan shop. Merde, the way things were going, that perfect purse would probably walk past her slung over the shoulder of a freaking tourist.
Hearing tires crunching on the gravel driveway—because no one had closed and locked the windows last night—Birch ran to the door and moved the curtain aside just in time to see her father pull in next to her SUV. It wasn’t the fact he was here at six in the morning that alarmed her, but rather the smashed roof and broken rear side window on his beautiful Lexus. But her alarm turned to outright panic when Claude rounded the bumper looking worse than his car.
Birch scrambled out the door and ran down the steps. “Did someone try to run you off the road?” she cried, skidding to a halt when Claude stopped in the middle of the walkway and frowned at her.
“Huh? No,” he said, looking back and gesturing at the Lexus. “A huge tree branch at the campground snapped off and broke the window.”
“But you’re limping. And you look like hell.”
He touched the goose egg above his left eye, then rubbed a hand over the stubble on his jaw. “I’m limping because I had to sleep in the car last night, and I look like hell because the only dry clothes I have are what I wore yesterday—which I also slept in.” He looked past her at the house. “You got any coffee brewed? I didn’t want to stop at the Drunken Moose looking like this, and my camp stove is probably halfway to Canada by now.”
“What happened?” Birch asked, walking over and slipping her arm through his, then starting toward the house. “You told me you bought a tent and all the gear you would need to camp out until you found a house.”
“A storm hit sometime around midnight,” he explained. “And considering the wind was strong enough to uproot several trees, my tent probably beat my stove across the border.” He gingerly felt the lump on his forehead and winced. “I think the lid off someone’s cooler hit me when I crawled out of my tent just before it filled with air and shot off like a balloon. The campground erupted in chaos with people scrambling to their vehicles as gear and awnings and chairs turned into projectiles.”
He brought them to a halt halfway up the steps. “The storm raged for almost an hour before the rain and wind suddenly stopped and a weird silence settled over everything. Nothing moved for a good five minutes, not even people. But just as I was about to go check on everyone, an engine started up, then another one, and headlights came on and most of the campers left without even bothering to hunt down their gear. And when daylight came and I crawled out of my car, I thought I’d stepped into a war zone. Tents and awnings were plastered against trees, several pop-up campers were mangled nearly beyond recognition, and three fifth wheels were actually tipp
ed over. What few people had stayed were just standing around in a daze like I was, staring in disbelief.”
Birch looked over her shoulder at the yard. “We didn’t get a storm last night. In fact, I had to get up and close my blinds because the full moon was shining in my face.”
Claude slipped his arm free, walked up one more step, and grabbed the rail for support as he turned and sat down on the porch with a groan. “The campground’s at least twenty miles south of here,” he said, squinting against the sun as he looked up at her. “The storm blew in from the east off Bottomless, and I noticed on my drive up that the destruction stopped about a couple of miles north of the campground.”
“But storms usually come from the west.”
He shrugged, only to groan again and carefully flex his shoulders as if working kinks out of his muscles, then clasped his hands and rested his forearms on his knees. “The next vehicle you buy me will have to be a truck like that one,” he said, nodding at her SUV. “Something big enough to let me sleep in stretched out.”
“You’re dusting off your bankbook and buying your own vehicles from now on.”
He started to shrug again but stopped, giving her a wounded look that Birch didn’t believe for a minute. “Will you at least help me pick them out? And also come house shopping with me? Once I’ve narrowed it down to one or two,” he rushed on before she could respond. “I realize you’re busy, but I value your opinion. And if you’re there, the real estate broker can’t take advantage of—what do you call it?—my blatant disregard for budgets when it comes to making large purchases.”
“You can afford to buy a mansion right on Bottomless if you want.”
He sat up a little straighter. “Well heck, I suppose I can.” But then he shook his head. “Not a mansion, though, because I don’t want to have to dust and vacuum a bunch of rooms I’ll never use. But I wouldn’t mind a nice little cottage right on the water. One with a beach,” he added, looking down the lawn at the Center’s beach. “And also a dock, because I think I’d like to get a boat and take up fishing.” He squinted up at her again. “So will you help me look at cottages?”
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