Loving the Highlander

by Janet Chapman

  Greylen had silently pointed to the pile of rubble that had once been the cliff at the far end of what had once been the pool. Morgan had walked over, pushed a few rocks out of the way, and started digging until he had amassed a small pile of gold nuggets. He’d tied the nuggets up in his shirt and then climbed the rubble, using his considerable strength to finish the destruction. Morgan had rained a final avalanche of boulders down over Hellman’s grave, then dusted off his hands and walked away.

  Daar continued to search for that small hint of magic that seemed to have survived. He needed a new staff, and it would be nice if he could find a branch from this place. The cherrywood growing here had soaked up the magical energy from the waters that had flowed from the high mountain lake. This was blessed wood, and a cane from here would be much easier to train.

  Daar wanted one now more than ever. He didn’t care to be powerless when it came to dealing with the MacKeages. For mere mortals, they were proving themselves powerful enough in their own right.

  Faol suddenly stepped into sight, trotting over to one of the small remaining puddles. He took a drink, lazily lapping at the water for several minutes, before he lifted his head and stared at Daar.

  “Duncan, ya old warmonger,” Daar said, not unkindly. “Your sons have found themselves good lives here. There’s no need for ya still to be hanging around.”

  Faol rumbled a growl from his chest and turned and started climbing over the rubble. The wolf briefly disappeared from sight. He reappeared just off to Daar’s right, holding a two-foot-long stick in his mouth.

  With a shout of surprise, Daar jumped to his feet. “That’s my old staff!” he yelped, quickly scrambling over the rubble to reach the wolf. “The half Grey threw away two years ago. Give that to me!”

  Faol trotted toward the valley.

  “Hey! Get back here, you damn dog!” Daar shouted, awkwardly following him. “That’s my staff!”

  His tail wagging like a banner of victory, Faol picked up his pace and continued down the winding and now dry streambed, Daar’s staff held in his mouth like a prize of war.

  The aging wizard ran until he was out of breath and couldn’t go on, bending over with his hands on his knees, tiredly panting, overjoyed to know his old staff had shot free of the waterfall before it had closed, and frustrated that it was still out of his reach.

  A howl came to Daar then, climbing up the side of the valley toward him in maddening echoes of triumph.

  Daar sat down on a nearby log, pulling his white collar from his frock and undoing three buttons. God’s teeth, but he was reaching the end of his patience. He kept losing his magic.

  He shook his weary head in dismay. He’d had that old staff with him for more than fourteen hundred years, a gift from his mentor when Daar had been a young man of seventy-nine. And in only two years the MacKeages had managed to destroy not only it but the new staff he’d been training for Greylen and Grace’s unborn daughter, Winter.

  All that remained of his magic was now being carried away by a mean-spirited wolf. And just what was Daar going to tell Grey’s seventh daughter, Winter, when she came to him a grown woman ready to become a wizard?

  Daar stood up finally, having caught most of his breath back. He needed that two-foot piece of his old staff. Faol couldn’t actually take it with him when he went back to wherever he came from. Spirits crossed over; material things did not.

  With a disheartened sigh filled with self-pity, Daar stopped chasing the wolf and started walking instead in the direction of Michael MacBain’s home. Perhaps it was time he got better acquainted with MacBain and his young son while he searched for his old staff, which he was determined to find. Until then, he was staying the hell away from the MacKeages.

  It took Sadie two hours to make it to the logging camp, and for every step of the way, she wished she had the old priest’s cane. Not for its magic but for the help it would give her to walk.

  She had sneaked away from the MacKeages and Father Daar like a thief, not wanting to face Greylen’s wrath any longer—and definitely too cowardly to face Morgan when he woke up.

  The beautiful gorge he’d tried so hard to protect was completely destroyed, thanks to her. He’d revealed its location and its magic in order to save her life and then had destroyed it saving her life a second time.

  And she had nothing to give him in return. She didn’t even have her beauty anymore, which he had so greatly enjoyed yesterday when they’d spent the afternoon making love.

  Even the gold was out of reach now.

  But for that she was glad.

  Morgan was right. Gold made people do terrible things. It turned them into murderers.

  Sadie unzipped the fly on the tent to pulled out her sleeping bag, which she tied to the pack Eric had left discarded on the ground. The pack, the sleeping bag, and the food would allow Sadie to survive for the next few days, until she could decide what to do.

  For the entire next day, Morgan quietly followed his wife, patiently waiting for Mercedes to get over her bout of self-pity. He was anxious to bring her home and finally start their peaceful union, but he was keeping his distance for now, for her sake. It appeared she needed this time to think about everything that had happened over the last couple of days.

  And so he sat in the shadows of the night, watching her sleep. He’d seen her bathe this morning, and his worry had lessened that the magic she had given him to save his life would take hers. He had seen the scars from the house fire covering her body again and the place where Eric Hellman’s bullet had pierced her skin. And Morgan had silently thanked God that not all the magic had been pulled from Mercedes’ body. Enough had been left to make healing only a matter of time. Already she had gained back most of her strength.

  But the scars that had killed half of her family would always remain. Morgan didn’t care as long as she was well.

  She cared, though, he feared. She’d been so open with him that day in the pool after the magic had healed her body. Morgan sighed, wondering if Mercedes would ever be that free with him again.

  He would demand that she be.

  No. He would beg.

  He loved her more than he loved life and was growing tired of this directionless pilgrimage his strong-minded wife insisted on traveling. How the hell long did it take to realize her heart belonged to him?

  Morgan settled himself more comfortably against the tree, pulled his plaid more warmly around him, and closed his eyes with another sigh. If she didn’t soon come around, he’d have to give Mercedes a bit of a push and see what sort of results he got. His gràineag would either run deeper into the valley or come up spitting and swinging and cursing.

  He hoped with all his heart it would be the latter.

  Sadie rolled out of her sleeping bag and quickly danced to the fire and stirred it up, adding first kindling and then large branches to coax it back into flames. She set her battered pot full of water on the grate, willing it to hurry up and boil as she rubbed her hands together and held them over the stingy fire.

  It was time that she quit sulking. She would go to Morgan today and explain to him that no matter what had happened, they belonged together.

  But first she had to find the Dolan brothers. She still had a bit of gold left in her pocket, and she’d give them the nuggets and let them know there was nothing left.

  Sadie drank her coffee, broke camp, and headed south along the bank of the Prospect. Her resolve to set Morgan straight on how things would be between them added momentum to her pace.

  But within ten minutes, Sadie realized she was being followed. And within another three minutes, she recognized her stalker.

  “Come out here, big boy,” Sadie cajoled with an eager laugh, clapping her hands to call him.

  Faol stepped into her path not five paces in front of her, his big green eyes looking sappy, his tongue hanging out of his mouth, his ears perked forward, and his tail wagging a mile a minute.

  “I’m so glad you’re okay,” Sadie said, walking forw
ard and patting his broad head.

  Sadie continued along the bank of the Prospect with her silent traveling companion, until she finally came to a large green canoe pulled up onshore. She stopped to signal Faol to stay back, only to realize the wolf had disappeared. Sadie turned from the river and traveled inland about a hundred yards.

  “Hello the camp!” she called out. “Don’t shoot. It’s me.”

  “Missy Sadie Quill—oh, I mean Mrs. Sadie MacKeage,” Dwayne said excitedly, bolting to his feet and running to greet her, waving like crazy. “What brings you out here today? I thought you’d be home cooking dinner for your new husband.” He waggled his finger at her. “Feeding Morgan is going to be a full-time job.”

  Sadie narrowed her eyes at Dwayne. “It’s Morgan now? What happened to ‘that MacKeage guy’?”

  Dwayne reddened in the face slightly. “He said we could call him Morgan, Sadie.” He suddenly grinned. “I like your new husband. He ate my stew and belched loud enough to wake the bears.”

  It was Sadie who got red in the face all of a sudden, and it wasn’t embarrassment. “Morgan was here? When?”

  “Yesterday,” Dwayne told her, frowning. “Didn’t he tell you he was coming to see us? And what he was doing?”

  “Ah, yeah. He did mention it,” she quickly prevaricated.

  Dwayne suddenly snapped his mouth shut, his frown turning into a glare as he waggled a finger at her again, this time scolding. “You just never mind, missy. I don’t know nothing.”

  “Where’s Harry?” Sadie asked, looking over Dwayne’s shoulder at the camp behind him.

  Dwayne stepped to the left to block her view. “Harry’s in town buying us some supplies.”

  Sadie sighed and rubbed her forehead. “It’s okay, Dwayne. The reason I’m not home cooking for my husband is that I’m checking to see if Morgan really did come visit you and that he did what he said he was going to do.”

  Her convoluted words nicely confusing him, Dwayne frowned again. He thought for a minute, shook his head, and suddenly smiled at her.

  “I guess I can show you. Since the gift’s really from you and all,” he whispered, as if afraid even the trees might hear what he was saying.

  He shot a suspicious look around the rim of his campsite, then excitedly waved Sadie over to some boxes stacked by a honeysuckle bush. He put his finger to his lips for her to be quiet and looked around again just before he crouched down on his knees.

  Sadie took a look around herself and then bent to see what he was doing. Dwayne pushed several of the boxes out of the way and started digging in the dirt.

  “We hid it good, didn’t we?” he whispered, pawing the sand away like a groundhog.

  “You surely did,” Sadie quietly agreed, shrugging her pack off her back and kneeling beside him.

  Sadie gasped when Dwayne pulled a quart-sized Mason jar out of the ground and brushed the sand off it. “You hid it real good,” she whispered in awe, blinking at the jar full of gold nuggets.

  Dwayne continued to pet the jar, reverently cleaning every speck of sand off it with a slightly trembling hand.

  “Morgan told me and Harry this was all the gold,” he said, his voice still quiet and reverent. He looked at her, clutching the jar to his chest and grinning like a child at the circus. “That you and him found Jedediah’s gold, Sadie, and that you want us to have it. That you don’t need it none, being you have a rich husband now.”

  Unable to speak, Sadie nodded, feeling her face heat again. Dwayne suddenly grabbed her around the neck and noisily and very wetly kissed her shocked mouth.

  And then he scrambled back, the gold still clutched to his chest, his own face as red as a sunset. He shot a look around his campsite with wide, horrified eyes.

  “I—I didn’t mean to do that!” he yelped, his entire neck and face now blistering red. “I mean, I…but…” He looked around the campsite again. “I don’t want your husband to think I was…that I was…”

  Sadie patted his arm and stood up, finally gathering her wits enough to smile at him. “It’s okay, Dwayne. Morgan understands that you and Harry are my friends. He wouldn’t take offense even if he were here. Which he isn’t,” she assured the still worried man.

  Sadie reached a hand into her pocket and curled her fingers over the two gold nuggets she still possessed. She had planned to give them to Harry and Dwayne, but now the gesture seemed lame, considering she had apparently already given them a fortune.

  Why had Morgan brought this gold to them?

  And just where had he gotten it? Everything had been destroyed. The gold had been buried under thousands of tons of granite.

  “Did Morgan tell you why he—I mean, why we gave you the gold?” Sadie asked, waving her hand at the jar Dwayne was still clutching.

  “Because you don’t need it none,” he repeated, crawling on his knees to the honeysuckle bush. He put the jar back in the ground, carefully covered it up with sand, and set the boxes back over it.

  “Did he tell you where we found the gold?” Sadie asked.

  Dwayne looked at her and frowned. “No. We asked, but he wouldn’t tell us nothing. He just said this was all of it, that there weren’t no more.”

  He stood up and brushed off his hands, suddenly narrowing his eyes in suspicion. “Was he telling the truth, Sadie? Is this all of it?”

  She nodded. “Best as we can tell, Dwayne. There wasn’t really a mine. Jedediah had only found a large deposit of placer gold, not the source.”

  “Where?” he asked, cocking his head and squinting one eye. “Was it close to a logging camp? Say, about a mile or so north of the camp?”

  Sadie shook her head. “Nope,” she lied, smiling while she did, having already decided it would be best to guide the Dolans to look elsewhere. “It isn’t even in this valley, Dwayne.” She pointed toward the mountains. “It’s in the next valley over, almost in Canada.”

  “The next valley!” Dwayne shouted, only to look quickly around himself again. He stepped closer, lowering his voice. “You mean, we’ve been searching the wrong valley all these years? Even Frank?” He narrowed his eyes again. “Your daddy thought it was near the Prospect. And Harry and me even found flakes of placer gold here.”

  Sadie shrugged. “We all thought it was here, Dwayne. But if you were to look in the valley to the west, you’d probably find several old logging camps.”

  “Where?” he whispered, taking another step closer. He set his face into a puppy-dog look of pleading. “Can you at least give me a hint, Sadie?”

  “Why? It’s all gone, Dwayne.”

  “But there might be more.”

  “Why do you need more?” she asked, waving toward the honeysuckle bush. “There’s enough there to go to Russia and bring back a dozen wives if you want.”

  Dwayne was startled by the idea. “We don’t want a dozen,” he said, looking horrified again. “We only need two.” He suddenly grinned. “Morgan helped us pick them out.”

  “He what?”

  Dwayne strode over to his tent, picked up a magazine, and came running back to her, leafing through the pages as he ran.

  “Here,” he said, slapping the page with his dirty, callused finger. “Morgan said I should pick this one.”

  Sadie leaned away to focus on the page that was now being held in front of her face. A fortyish woman was smiling back at her, looking shy and a whole lot scared.

  Dwayne suddenly pulled the magazine back and turned to another page. He held it up to her again. “He said Harry should pick this lady,” Dwayne said, pointing to another woman.

  This one was a bit older, a bit more worn-looking, also smiling with what appeared to be…hope.

  Sadie smiled at her old friend. “They’re pretty, Dwayne,” she said. “They look like they’ll make you and Harry fine wives.”

  Dwayne moved beside her, held out the magazine, and leafed through it again. “I liked this one,” he said, showing her the picture of a twenty-something woman. “I think she’s beautiful.”<
br />
  “She is.”

  Dwayne looked over at Sadie, his mouth lifted at one corner, his dusty gray-hazel eyes shining with wisdom. He was shaking his head at her.

  “Morgan said she wasn’t beautiful,” Dwayne told her with authority, nodding his head in agreement with her husband. “Morgan said beauty isn’t here,” Dwayne elaborated, tapping the young woman’s face. “That’s it’s here,” he explained, quickly turning the page to the woman Morgan had chosen for him. Dwayne touched his finger to the older woman’s eyes, then let it trail down to stop just below the photo, where her heart would be.

  “Morgan said me and Harry have to look really deep below the surface to find beauty in a woman. That if we’re wanting good wives, we won’t be tricked by a pretty face.” Dwayne squinted one eye at her, letting the magazine drop to his side. “Like you, Sadie,” he said.

  “Like me? Morgan said like me?”

  “Naw,” Dwayne said, shaking his head again. “I’m saying it. Look at your hand,” he told her, waving toward her gloved right hand. “And I know you got other scars. But that didn’t stop Morgan none from picking you.” He smiled and touched her hair. “Because you got yourself a wise husband, Sadie. He looked real deep and saw your beauty.”

  A lump the size of a boulder got stuck in Sadie’s throat.

  Dwayne let his finger slide down her hair until he could tug on the end of it, his grin warm and his voice tender. “You’re a beautiful lady, Sadie,” he said in a whisper. “I only hope my new wife is half as pretty as you are.”

  Sadie threw herself into Dwayne’s arms and struggled to hold back tears born of the fear and uncertainty of the last three days. Her old friend wrapped his arms around her, squeezing her tightly, and frantically apologized.

  “Hell’s bells, Sadie,” he growled. “I didn’t mean to make you cry!”

  “You didn’t,” she said. “Morgan did.”

  Dwayne quickly set her away from him and scanned the bushes surrounding the campsite.