Loving the Highlander

by Janet Chapman

  And he would find this mystical gorge.

  Sadie skirted the edge of the pool, walking beneath the waterfall and scooping up a handful of gold. She turned and looked out over her small piece of heaven.

  If this place were discovered, it surely would be destroyed.

  In order to keep this magic a secret, she would have to build the wilderness park farther down in the valley and find another way to access it instead of through MacKeage land.

  But she would have to worry about solving that problem later. Instead, Sadie set her mind to the bigger problem at hand now. She had to go to the logging camp and retrieve that diary before it was found.

  Sadie tucked the handful of gold into her pocket and walked over to the slumbering old priest. She eyed the cane in his hand. She needed some sort of weapon that could protect her if she ran into trouble. It was only two miles to the logging camp and back. With luck, she’d be gone less than an hour. She’d have Father Daar’s cane safely tucked back beside him before he woke up, and she’d be sitting here like a dutiful wife long before Morgan returned.

  Being as careful as she could, Sadie slowly slipped the cane from the sleeping priest’s hand. She quickly straightened, clasped the warm wood to her chest, and turned and set off at a jog through the magically giant trees.

  She nearly ran over Faol when she stepped into the darkness of the forest. The wolf jumped to his feet, whined, and started wagging his tail.

  “Shh. You’re going to wake Father Daar,” she said, giving him a pat on the head. “Feel like a hike, big boy?” she asked, blinking her eyes at the darkness.

  It took her a few minutes to locate the North Star and get her bearings and another few minutes for her eyes to adjust completely to the night forest. And then Sadie started south along the edge of Fraser Mountain, toward logging camp number three. Faol trotted ahead of her, his bushy tail wagging like a flag leading the way.

  In less than half an hour they reached the camp, and Sadie ran toward the tent her mother and Callum had left standing in wait for her and Morgan’s return.

  She heard Faol’s warning growl at the exact moment a gunshot cracked through the air, the muzzle blast flashing from a tree beside the tent.

  Faol’s yelp of pain was drowned out by her own scream of surprise. There were several shots in rapid succession, and all Sadie could see was the scurry of moving shadows where Faol had been standing. Another yelp, then the growl of an enraged beast, followed by another crack of gunfire.

  Sadie screamed and threw herself toward the tent. She unzipped it and dove inside to find her pack and the knife she usually carried. She pushed around her sleeping bag and dry packs but couldn’t find her backpack.

  “Looking for this?”

  Sadie whirled at the sound of the familiar voice. The beam of a flashlight sliced over her face. She held up her hand to see beyond the glare and gasped.

  “Eric!”

  He dropped her pack and grabbed her by the hair, pulling her out of the tent. With a yelp of her own, Sadie scrambled on her knees until she could stand up. She watched as Eric quickly scanned the forest with his flashlight, looking for Faol.

  “Where’s the MacKeage guy that dog belongs to?” Eric asked, turning the flashlight back on her.

  “H-he’s dead.”

  “He’s not. I saw him carrying you from the water. You were the one I shot.” He sent the beam of light over her body.

  Sadie gasped, trying to step back, but was pulled up short by his grip on her hair. “You were the one shooting? But why?” she cried, struggling to get free.

  He held her tightly. “I was aiming for MacKeage. I wanted him out of the way.”

  “Out of the way for what?” she whispered, holding herself perfectly still.

  “He was distracting you from your hunt for the gold. I’m sure I shot you by mistake,” he said, giving her hair a vicious tug.

  “You just grazed me. Th-that’s why I have this cane,” she said, pointing at the cane on the ground by the tent. “But the bullet went into Morgan, and he used up the last of his strength getting me to safety.”

  “You wouldn’t be here if MacKeage were dead. You’d be in town.” He tugged her hair again. “Where is he?”

  “O-okay, he’s not dead. But he’s wounded. I have him tucked down by the stream. I’m here to get my phone so I can call for help.”

  “The phone’s not in your pack, Quill. I checked.”

  “It’s got to be.” She pulled from his grasp and bent down to her pack, pretending to look for the phone. “I know it’s in here.”

  “No, it’s not. And neither is your knife,” he said, jerking her upright again. “I have it now. And I also have the diary, including the page you circled.”

  He released her and pulled his gun out of his belt. “You found the gold, didn’t you? That’s where MacKeage is now.”

  “No. No, we didn’t find anything. He really is hurt.”

  Eric shoved her in the direction she’d come from. “The diary says the gold is north of here. So let’s just go see.”

  Sadie bent, picked up Daar’s cane, and pretended to use it as a crutch. With a final look over her shoulder at where Faol had disappeared and a prayer that the wolf wasn’t too badly hurt, Sadie started limping back toward the stream.

  “Why are you doing this?” she asked as she set a course slightly northwest of where Father Daar was. “I want this park as much as you do. I would have told you the moment I found Jedediah’s gold.”

  Eric laughed. “The park’s not important to me, Quill. Granted, I’ll make a good chunk of money off my land once the park’s in operation, but I’d much rather find the gold. Why in hell do you think I talked the consortium into hiring you?”

  Sadie stopped and whirled on him. “You shot Morgan over some gold that might not even exist? Are you nuts?”

  He aimed the beam of his flashlight down the trail behind them, then poked her with it to get her moving again. “My great-granddaddy wasn’t nuts,” he said, walking behind her, keeping his beam scanning the woods. “Old Levi Hellman financed the store I now run with what gold Plum was carrying on him when he died.”

  “Your great-grandfather? Did he…was he the one who murdered Jedediah?”

  Eric shrugged. “Who the hell knows? Or even cares now? I just know that the Hellmans came into a good chunk of money eighty years ago, and there were stories passed down in our family that speculated about where it came from. And I’m guessing your daddy had heard the rumors, too. That’s why he never would discuss his search for the gold with me. And I know he was close to succeeding when the fire destroyed all his research.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “I knew he had Jean Lavoie’s diary. I saw his copy.”

  “When?”

  “The night of the fire,” he said, his voice low and angry. “And if your sister hadn’t caught me, I would have gotten it then.”

  Sadie whirled on him again, stumbling back when he bumped into her. “What are you saying?”

  She could just make out Eric’s sneer in the glow of his flashlight. “I’m saying that your sister didn’t burn in the fire, Quill. She was already dead.”

  She lunged at him with a shriek of anger, one hand coiled into a claw, the cane raised to strike in the other. They went tumbling to the ground, and Sadie tried to reach for his gun as they fought. He hit her on the side of her head with the flashlight, momentarily stunning her with the blow.

  Eric rolled to his feet, his gun back in his hand, and kicked her. “After the fire, I spent the next five years trying to talk Frank into resuming his research,” he continued as if nothing had happened. “But he’d lost his passion for the hunt. He wouldn’t even tell me where he’d found the diary when I alluded to it. I couldn’t come right out and mention the diary, because I wasn’t supposed to know he had it.”

  “Then how did you?” Sadie asked, rising onto her hands and knees, clutching the cane in her fist.

  “I only kn
ew Frank had found something important. He couldn’t wait for you to get home from school. He was like a kid with the key to the candy store.”

  Sadie glared at him past the flashlight beam. “So you broke into our house and tried to steal what he’d found.”

  Eric nodded. “But then Caroline came into the study. You really had left a candle burning, Quill,” he continued derisively. “Your sister was covering your ass. But we struggled, and that’s how the fire started. We knocked over the candle, and Lavoie’s diary burned before I could get to it.”

  Sadie stood up, and Eric took a guarded step back, raising his gun.

  “You’re a murderer,” she said in a low voice. “You killed my sister eight years ago, and you tried to kill me yesterday.”

  She could just make out that he was shaking his head. “No. It was Morgan MacKeage I was aiming at. Why in hell would I want to kill you?” he asked incredulously. “You’re the only one who knows this valley.”

  “And now I know you’re a murderer.”

  He nodded. “That doesn’t matter now. Where’s the gold?”

  Sadie realized then that he intended to kill her. And that she needed a way to stall for time until Morgan could get here. Surely he’d heard the gunshots. “So where did you really find the diary you gave me?”

  He laughed again, somewhat insanely. “I searched every museum in this state for eight years. But those bumbling Dolans managed to find it first. They came into the store last winter bragging their fool heads off that they had the next best thing to a map. And that’s when I started making plans to get you back here.”

  “Why didn’t you just work out a deal with Dwayne and Harry?”

  He scoffed, waving the gun in the air. “With those two? Between them they don’t even have a full brain.”

  “They found the diary.”

  “And I found a way to get it from them. Now, where’s the gold, Quill?”

  “It doesn’t exist,” she said. “I’ve already searched this entire side of the mountain. I found the cliff mentioned in the diary, but there was nothing there.”

  “You’re lying.” He took a threatening step toward her, his face twisted in anger in the beam of his flashlight.

  “But I did find placer gold in a stream near here,” she quickly amended, taking a step back.

  He stopped and was silent for several seconds, apparently trying to decide if he believed her or not. Sadie held the cane up in supplication and reached into her pocket with her other hand. She slowly drew out one gold nugget and held it up for Eric to see.

  “This is what I found,” she said in a voice that belied the anger she felt, handing him the nugget. “It’s large, Eric. It must have been close to the source. You could probably be rich just panning that stream. I don’t think there’s an actual mine, Eric. I think Jedediah found only this heavy placer gold.”

  He put the nugget into his shirt pocket, then took his flashlight and waved it at the trail. “Then let’s go, Quill. Show me.”

  Sadie turned and started them back in the direction of the stream, frantically thinking of what she should do next. Where the hell was her husband?

  And where should she lead Eric? To Prospect River? Or to the stream? She could buy a couple of hours waiting for Morgan to show up by taking Eric to the stream well below the pool and then pretend to search for the exact spot where she’d found the nugget.

  Sadie clasped Daar’s cane protectively to her chest, then remembered it was supposed to be her crutch. She started using it like a cane and tried to think of a way to make the magic work for her without blowing them all to kingdom come.

  What had the old priest mumbled to the cane when he started the fire? She needed to be able to speak to the cane. And the only word she knew in Gaelic was hedgehog.

  Morgan snapped his head up at the sound of gunfire echoing down the mountain. It was coming not from where Mercedes should have been waiting safely for him but from the old logging camp, where she’d probably gone.

  He knew she wouldn’t stay put.

  Morgan turned his gaze down the mountain to where Grey and Callum were trying to drive anyone lurking in the woods toward him. But they probably still were a couple of miles away. Ian had been posted at the river, protecting everyone’s back.

  Sweat now covering his forehead, Morgan abandoned his post and started running upstream at an angle that sent him toward the logging camp, hoping to intercept whoever had fired those shots.

  As they finally neared the stream, Sadie began speaking to Eric again, her voice loud enough that she hoped it would warn Morgan of her presence and that she was not alone.

  She hoped Morgan had heard Eric’s gunshots. An hour was enough time for Morgan to run to her rescue, wasn’t it?

  And Sadie worried about Faol. Was the wolf fatally wounded? Dead? Or was he quietly following them?

  “How did you find the logging camp?” Sadie asked, still walking with a pretend limp, still trying to stall for time.

  “That pack you picked up last Sunday,” Eric said. “I sewed a transmitter into the bottom of it.”

  Sadie stopped and looked back. “A transmitter?”

  “I sell them for hunting dogs,” he told her, nudging her shoulder to keep her moving. “They’re good for more than two miles.”

  “But why, Eric? Why leave me alone for ten weeks and then suddenly start interfering?”

  “Because the Dolans arrived. And I heard about your date with MacKeage, and I didn’t like the distraction he was making for you. So I decided it was time I intervened.”

  “Why ransack my cabin? It was you, wasn’t it?”

  “Because you always keep a journal, and I hoped you had made notes from Lavoie’s diary. That day I brought you the photos, I was going to look for it.”

  They finally reached the stream, and the anger of knowing she’d been forced to walk and talk calmly with the man who had murdered her sister threatened to boil over. Sadie stopped beside the water and turned, forcing herself to be calm.

  “This is it,” she said in an even tone, using Daar’s cane to point at the stream. “This is where I found the nugget.”

  “Where?” he asked, scanning the rippling water with the beam of his flashlight.

  “Just up there.” Sadie pointed at where she could hear the water churning over a sharp drop of ledge. “There’s a tiny bowl that forms an eddy just below that ledge. And the bottom of the pool is littered with nuggets.”

  She led him to the small eddy. Sadie turned so that Eric wouldn’t see her reach into her pocket and palmed a handful of the nuggets, hiding them in her fist as she made her way to the edge of the small pool over the falls.

  “There!” she yelled over the noise of the rippling cascade, throwing the nuggets into the churning water. “Shine your light there, at the eddy.”

  As she had hoped, Eric took one last cautious look around and tucked his gun into his belt. He scrambled over the strewn boulders to the edge of the eddy and shone his flashlight into the pool of water.

  Faint bits of gold sparkled back at him.

  Sadie took a small step away from him, into the blackness of the forest, but stopped when Eric turned his flashlight on her.

  “Get down here,” he said. “Hold the light for me.”

  Taking a look around, Sadie sighed and climbed down to Eric. Where in hell was Morgan? She may have foolishly gotten herself into this mess, but he was supposed to get her out of it.

  She crouched beside Eric. The moment he tried to hand her the flashlight, Sadie took Daar’s cane and smacked him over the back, putting all the force of her anger behind the blow. She heard Eric splashing in the pool as he tried to get back to his feet in the water. He shouted for her to stop, but she continued to run until gunfire erupted and tree bark exploded beside her. Sadie stopped and slowly turned around. Eric was standing in the pool, water dripping from his hair and clothes, the beam of his flashlight glinting off the barrel of his gun. He cocked the hammer to fire again, and ai
med the weapon at her chest.

  “Wait,” she said, “I lied. This is nothing,” she added, waving at the nuggets in the water. “There’s more gold upstream than you could carry in a lifetime. But it’s hidden. I can show you were it is.”

  Eric was silent for several seconds, then suddenly he waved the gun. “Then let’s go. But if you run again, Quill,” he added in a snarl as he stepped out of the pool, “I won’t miss next time.”

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Sadie led the way toward the magical pool, where she hoped Father Daar and his Gaelic words would make the cane do something magical to save them.

  Where was Morgan? And Callum and the others? Why wasn’t this mountain teeming with warriors, dammit?

  Sadie saw the glow of the grotto ahead and breathed a sigh of relief.

  “What’s that light?” Eric asked from behind her.

  “It must be coming daybreak.”

  “We’re on the west side of the mountain,” he countered, moving up beside her and peering through the tall trees. “The sun won’t reach here for hours.”

  “It’s a very high waterfall. Hear it, Eric? It sends up a mist that the sun’s rays must be touching. It’s filtering the light down.”

  Sadie led him through the trees until they reached the edge of the large, shimmering pool. She inconspicuously searched for Father Daar, but the priest was nowhere in sight.

  Suddenly, she spotted him on the far side of the pool, just to the left of the waterfall. He was frantically tugging on the branch of a cherrywood tree. Sadie immediately led Eric to the right side of the pool and spoke loudly, trying to warn Father Daar of their presence.

  “Wait until you see it, Eric. The entire floor of the cave is covered in gold nuggets.”

  She saw Father Daar shoot upright and whirl to face them. And then the old priest ducked behind the tree he’d been tugging on. He quietly pulled on a back branch instead.