Sadie stormed into camp and walked past him to her tent. She crawled inside and quickly rolled up her sleeping bag, backed out, then zipped the door closed and carried her gear to her dry bags.
She continued to pack in silence, all the time feeling two sets of piercing green eyes watching her every move. Sadie willed her frazzled nerves to settle down; she needed for her hands not to shake, her throat not to close, and her eyes not to blur with tears.
Sadie MacKeage.
Mercedes Quill MacKeage.
She made a fist and hit the clothes in her bag, driving them deeper. Dammit. She didn’t care if it sounded nice. She was not that man’s wife. They couldn’t be married just because he said so.
Sadie snapped her bag closed with a violent jerk, picked it up and tossed it over her shoulder, and headed to the river.
Morgan MacKeage stood up and blocked her path.
She stared at his feet.
“You’ll eat breakfast first, wife.”
She brushed the hair out of her face and glared at him. “Stop calling me wife!” she shouted, shaking her fist at him. “And stop telling me what to do! I’m not a child, we are not married, and so help me,” she hissed, taking a step back and pointing her finger when he advanced toward her. “If you tackle me again, I’m going to bloody your face.”
Morgan dropped his head so she wouldn’t see his smile and was careful not to hurt her when he pounced on her again, twisting so that he took the brunt of the fall when they landed.
And he held her tight as she cursed him again, all the time thinking he must have been drunk on her kisses the night he’d stood on the mist-shrouded cliff and claimed her as his.
He could see now, this was not going to be a peaceful union.
Morgan grabbed at her flailing arms, buried his face in her neck, and smiled again. Who the hell cared if life was peaceful? He was just pleased she was no longer looking as if she wanted to cry.
He pinned both her hands between their bodies, holding her firmly on top of him with his arms wrapped around her back, and let her struggle in vain until she finally tired herself out.
Only then did he gently brush the hair off her face. “You’re making threats again, gràineag, that you can’t back up.” He kissed her flushed, angry cheek. “This recklessness must come from not having older brothers who plagued you as a child.”
“Let me go,” she whispered, trying to get free again.
Morgan rolled them over and sat up, pulling her onto his lap. “As soon as we negotiate a truce,” he promised, settling her comfortably but still keeping her trapped.
“You don’t negotiate.”
“This once, wife, I will try.” He touched the end of her nose. “But if you wish my cooperation in the future, don’t make me sorry this time. Now, which one of my sins would you like to begin with?”
He felt her take a giant, shuddering breath, and when Mercedes finally lifted her face to look at him, Morgan realized she was trying very hard to appear calmer than she was feeling.
“This married thing,” she started, her voice trembling.
Morgan fought the knot in his gut. “What about it?”
“You can’t just decide that we’re married, just like that,” she said, trying to snap her trapped fingers. “It takes two people to make a marriage. Two aware people.”
“I asked you,” he countered. “Do you not remember saying the words to me?”
“I thought you were asking for permission to…to…well, to do it,” she ended on a faint whisper, looking down at his chest. “Not if I wanted to marry you.”
“Then I’ll ask you now. Will you marry me, Mercedes?”
“No.”
He didn’t think so. Morgan lifted her chin to look at him. “Then we have a bit of a problem, lass. I consider the deed done.”
Her eyes widened, then suddenly narrowed. “And if I don’t?”
He gave her a huge grin and once more touched the end of her nose. “I’ll give you the answer to that in one week.”
Her eyes widened again. “What happens in one week?”
“We will sit down and discuss this marriage then. But for the next seven days,” he said quickly, before she could examine his plan too closely, “you will consider yourself my wife.”
He gave her a gentle squeeze. “I’m sorry for last night, Mercedes. It shouldn’t have happened.”
Her head snapped up. “It shouldn’t?”
“Not that way,” he clarified. “Not under a ledge in the middle of such a violent storm. That was not well done of me.”
“I started it,” she blurted out. “I mean, I followed you. And I…I wanted it, too.”
“Ah, yes. This affair you spoke of.”
She gave him a frown. “What’s wrong with a good oldfashioned flaming affair? Most men would jump at the idea.”
“But not most women,” he countered. “You demean yourself.”
“Yeah, well. How many frogs have you had to kiss?”
“What is it with you and frogs?”
“Never mind. I have another question. Why are you so hell-bent on us being married, anyway? Do you want to sabotage the park so badly that you’re willing to get married to do it?”
“Sabotage?”
He felt her exasperated sigh move through both of their bodies. “That’s the only reason you’re here, isn’t it?” she said. “You went on a blind date with me because you knew I was building a park. And you’re here now, demanding to be my husband, so you can stop me from finding the gold that will fund it.”
Holy hell. The woman had a warped mind—and a very low opinion of him. No, this was not going to be a peaceful union.
“There will be no park,” he replied. “And the gold has nothing to do with it, because I’m not selling my land to your group of people. And without that land, there will be no park,” he repeated, just in case she hadn’t heard him the first time.
He gave her a less than gentle squeeze. “And the park has nothing to do with our marriage,” he continued fiercely. “I want you, and now I have you. It’s that simple.”
“Well, I don’t know why,” she said, her voice quivering. “I can’t even do it right.”
“Do what?”
“M-make love,” she whispered. “When you stopped,” she said, somewhat louder this time.
Morgan could only stare at this poor, confused woman. She really did know nothing of men. Without thinking how she would react, he threw back his head and let out a deep laugh.
“It’s not funny. I’m apologizing here.”
“Ah, lass. I’m not really laughing at you,” he said with a lingering chuckle. “Well, I am, but mostly I’m laughing at myself. I stopped because I was done, Mercedes.”
“Done what?”
Well, hell. He could see that he was going to have to be blunt. “I was done making love to you. The shout you said I made was really a sound of pleasure and fulfillment, when I poured my seed deep inside you.”
“You poured your…” She suddenly snapped her mouth shut. Her eyes crossed, and her face sort of turned green—just before it went completely white.
“You…you didn’t use any protection, did you?” she asked in a whispered squeak.
“No.”
Her face turned green again. Morgan leaned back when he saw her hand go to her belly, afraid she was about to be sick.
“I could be pregnant.” She looked at him, her glare angry enough to make him lean back even farther. “Dammit to hell. I will not get pregnant.”
She jumped off his lap, making him grunt in surprise and cup himself protectively. She whirled and pointed her finger at him.
“I will not make my mother’s mistakes!” she all but shouted, her anger flushing her face back to a flaming red. “And I’m sure as hell not making my baby sister an aunt before she’s even three months old.”
She stomped off after that outburst, in the direction of the river. Morgan leaned back and scrubbed both his hands over his face, atte
mpting to wash away the still lingering echoes of their anything but successful truce. But then her last words finally caught his attention. What baby sister? He counted nine months forward on his fingers, then subtracted three.
And finally it dawned on him what her words meant.
Well, hell. Charlotte Quill was pregnant.
Chapter Fourteen
Charlotte Quill paced the length of Sadie’s cabin porch, the concern obvious in every taut line on her face. Callum stood in the door of the ransacked cabin, watching his woman work herself into a fine state of worry.
She stopped in front of him. “Who would do such a thing?” she asked with motherly outrage. “And where’s my daughter? Callum, there was blood on the floor,” she whispered, digging her nails into his arm.
Callum reached out and pulled her into a mighty embrace. “It’s old blood, Charlotte,” he assured her. “And Sadie is fine, I promise you,” he added. He pulled back and leaned down to look her in the eye. “I know for a fact that Morgan was coming out to see her. And this was the act of only one man, so you’ve nothing to worry about.”
Charlotte pulled free, took a step back, and stared at him. “How do you know that?”
“The muddy footprints he left. This happened this morning, after the storm.”
She resumed pacing, rubbing her hands up and down her arms, but stopped again and whirled to face him. “I’m going to find my daughter,” she suddenly announced. “I won’t have any peace until I see for myself that Sadie’s okay.”
Her tone was that of a woman expecting resistance, and Callum kept his smile to himself. Charlotte was almost as predictable as the sunrise. In fact, he’d already been mentally planning their camping trip into the valley since the moment he’d seen the destruction to Sadie’s cabin.
The first sign of trouble had been the door torn from its hinges. The second thing had been the odor of freshly opened food emanating through the gaping hole. The family of raccoons, whiskers caked with crumbs, had come running out of the cabin the moment Callum’s boots had hit the steps.
Charlotte, ignoring his command to go back to the truck, had silently followed him inside and silently looked around at the destruction. Furniture was overturned, a window was smashed, the bed slashed by a knife. But it wasn’t until Charlotte had seen the model of the valley that she had helped Sadie build that she had finally found her voice. She’d become a mother on a mission then, to avenge the violation of her daughter’s home. She was mad, worried, and just daring him to contradict her plan.
Callum reached out and pulled Charlotte back into his arms. “I’ll drop you off at home so you can pack your gear,” he told her, freeing his smile when she gasped in surprise. “I’ll get my own things together and then pick you up again.” He pulled back and looked at her. “Any idea where Sadie might be headed?”
Still looking shocked that he was being cooperative, Charlotte could only shake her head.
“Doesn’t she carry a cell phone?” he asked.
Charlotte nodded but scowled. “She does. But I haven’t been able to reach her on it once in these last ten weeks. She’s either misplacing it, breaking it, or letting the batteries run down.”
She pulled away from him, her motherly outrage returning threefold. “I swear that girl has the sense of a pine cone sometimes. She spends her time walking around with her mind in either the past or the future but never in the present. If she’s not wallowing in guilt, she’s planning absolution for her imagined sin.” She angrily waved at the woods surrounding the cabin. “Like this stupid park she’s trying to build. It’s not a work of joy for her but an obsession to obtain her father’s forgiveness.”
“Forgiveness for what?” Callum asked, trying to follow the woman’s logic.
“For killing Frank and Caroline.”
Callum was stunned. “Sadie didn’t kill her da,” he said. “Or Caroline. I thought it was a house fire.”
“That she started. Sadie went to bed and left a candle burning in the study.”
“But Frank died only three years ago.”
“From a weak heart,” Charlotte explained, worry and lingering grief etched into the lines of her face. “The fire damaged his lungs, and he never fully recovered.”
Standing stone-still and staring at his woman, Callum was appalled. “Do you blame your daughter, Charlotte?” he asked.
Outrage returned, and Callum watched as she balled her fists against her sides, as if restraining herself from striking him.
“Of course not,” she snapped. “I love my daughter.”
Charlotte’s anger suddenly deflated, and she threw herself into his arms, burying her face in his shirt with a loud wail of anguish. “Oh, Callum. I don’t know how to help her. She’s lived so long with this guilt, and nothing I say or do will change her mind. And now this obsession has turned dangerous. Somebody ransacked her cabin,” she ended with another wail.
Callum clutched her to him and rocked her back and forth. “Ah, woman,” he soothed. “There is nothing you can do. This is Sadie’s journey to take.” He pushed Charlotte back, wiped her hair from her face, and gave her a warm smile. “But she’s not traveling alone anymore, little one. Morgan is with her. He’ll keep her safe from whoever did this.”
He gave her a quick kiss on the forehead and then smiled at her again. “And if I know my cousin, he’ll have your daughter so distracted she won’t have time to dwell on either the past or the future. She’ll be too busy trying to cope with the present, and with his undivided attention.”
She looked as if she wanted to believe him, as if she wanted to put her faith in Morgan MacKeage. Callum kissed her again, this time on the lips, this time much more passionately.
Aye, but he loved this woman who’d come storming into his life just six short months ago when she’d accidentally dumped an entire bowl of baked beans in his lap at the grange supper.
He hadn’t been looking for love at the time. Hell, he hadn’t even thought it possible. Since the storm had brought them all here six years ago, Callum had tried to keep himself detached from this strange new world, to stay strong in the face of fear and uncertainty and the loneliness that came with both.
Charlotte Quill had scattered every one of his vows to the wind when her dinner had landed in his lap. Charlotte had thrown a fit of worry. She had been like the blow of a mace to his chest that night. Which was why Callum had taken Charlotte up on her offer and had taken his soiled clothes to her home the next day for her to clean.
Now he would use this camping trip to his advantage. Hell, he just might keep Charlotte out here until she agreed to marry him.
He wasn’t worried about Sadie, because Callum knew for a fact that Morgan was with her. He knew because his cousin’s dangerously spoiled war horse was staying at Gu Bràth while Morgan was away. Callum just hoped that Ian wouldn’t finally give in to his urge and shoot the contrary beast.
Reluctantly, Callum pulled away from Charlotte and set her firmly from him. “Don’t tempt me, woman,” he said through a tight smile. “We have a trip to plan and gear to put together.”
It seemed the woman had lost her tongue. Charlotte was just staring at him, starry-eyed and disheveled.
Aye. This was going to be a most rewarding adventure.
Sadie wasn’t sure how it had happened, but it seemed she had agreed to be Morgan’s wife for the next seven days. Of all the foolish notions a man could have, where had he come up with the idea that they were married?
Sadie dipped her kayak paddle into the water with lazy strokes, letting the current of the river do most of the work. Her attention was divided between the wolf jogging along the river bank and the man paddling his canoe in front of her.
The more she got to know Morgan MacKeage, the more she couldn’t figure him out. He was simply strange. She didn’t care what lame excuse he’d come up with, carrying a sword everywhere he went was a damned odd thing to do.
And this married thing. What kind of medieval notion was
that, that two consenting adults making love constituted a lifelong commitment?
But more important—and the thing that scared her the most—was that she had so easily agreed to go along with his outrageous plan.
Was she in love?
No. But she was in lust. And for that reason alone, she had decided to spend the week pretending they were married, if that was the only way she’d get to have an affair with Morgan.
Which brought her right back to where she’d been last night before the storm had arrived, back to trying to figure out how to make love and still keep her shirt on.
* * *
And Morgan was trying to figure out how to get Mercedes to talk. Her silence worried him. He’d bungled things last night, claiming her the way he had. And this morning he’d managed to dig the hole he was standing in deep enough that he might never be able to crawl free. Mercedes Quill was not a woman who liked being told what to do or how to do it—even when it was for her own good.
She was determined to build her park.
And he was determined to stop her to protect his gorge.
That damned wolf was not helping his cause. Faol had brought Sadie a tool of some sort and was now leading them to the place where he had found it.
And that place was near the mystical stream that ran through his gorge.
Morgan looked to the east, to Fraser Mountain, trying to decide if the tall trees were visible from this vantage point. He decided they were, but only because he knew to look for them. The gorge itself was deep, and because of that the tall trees appeared nearly level with the neighboring forest.
The mist, however, rose like the smoke of a smoldering fire before it slowly dispersed on the northwest breeze. But it was autumn, it was cold this morning, and mist was also rising from the river they were on.
Morgan absently trailed his oar in the water to guide the boat around a bend in the river. And that was when he found himself bow-to-nose with an equally startled bull moose.
Now, in his experience, moose of either sex did not care for surprises. And this hulking bull was no exception. The great beast reared upward, churning the water with his front hooves, and charged toward him.
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