“What do you know of a priest with a magic cane?” he asked.
Sadie blinked again. Morgan had gone deathly pale and frighteningly still, but for the fire of inquest in his now emerald-black eyes.
“I… I met the old priest who lives up on TarStone Mountain,” she said, not knowing what to make of his reaction.
“When?”
“The other day. Thursday. He came to visit me.”
Morgan’s hands on her shoulders tightened. “You stay away from Daar,” he told her. He shook her slightly. “Understand, Mercedes? You stay away from that old priest.”
She could only gape at him.
He shook her again. “You’re not to believe anything he tells you.”
And with that command issued, Morgan turned on his heel and started toward her house again. And again, Sadie found herself gaping at his back. His moods changed more often than the weather.
She ran to catch up. “Wait,” she said, grabbing his arm. “There’s something I want to ask you.”
He stopped and turned to her.
“I want to know if you’re the one stealing my trail markers.”
“Trail markers?”
“My orange ribbons. You said so yourself, earlier tonight, that you didn’t want a park built in Prospect Valley. Are you taking my ribbons, hoping to stop it?”
“And will taking the ribbons stop it?”
“No.”
“Weren’t some of those ribbons on MacKeage land?” he asked, crossing his arms over his chest as he looked at her.
Sadie dropped her gaze to the knot in his tie. “They might have been,” she quietly admitted. “But stealing ribbons won’t stop the park.”
He took hold of her hand and started walking again, this time across the grass, in the direction of the town pier that jutted into Pine Lake. Sadie allowed him to lead her to a bench, aware that he hadn’t answered her question and resigned to the fact that he probably would never admit to stealing her trail markers.
“Why a park in Prospect Valley?” he asked as he settled her on the bench and then stood across from her, leaning against the pier rail.
“Why not? It’s a beautiful valley with plenty of recreational features. We have the opportunity to offer four-season use—camping, hiking, kayaking, snowmobiling, fishing. You name the sport, and the public can come here to do it.”
“We? Who is this ‘we’ you speak of?”
“Right now it’s a group of businessmen from around the state who have formed a consortium. Eric Hellman hired me to help work up a proposal to present to our legislature.”
“These businessmen, what is their gain? Why have they come together with the hope of building a park here?”
Sadie frowned at his question. “Maybe because they want to see this vast wilderness preserved for future generations.”
“Or maybe they hope to profit?” he asked very quietly. “Will they donate all the land to this park, or are they intending to sell lots for vacation homes?”
“But that’s the point,” Sadie said, leaning forward to make her own point. “Not only will the park open a beautiful piece of land to the public, it will also help grow the economy of this area. Just as your ski resort has done. Look at all the shops and inns that have cropped up since you opened. The population of Pine Creek is nearly double in winter.
With a new park, that economic boom could be year-round.”
“And then what do you have, Mercedes? Another small city with hordes of people overrunning the wilderness, crowding the animals onto smaller and smaller tracts of land?”
Sadie stood up, pulling the lapels of Morgan’s coat tightly around her. Morgan stepped away from the rail and took hold of her shoulders.
“I know why the businessmen have come up with this plan, Mercedes. But I don’t understand your connection. What is it you hope to gain?”
“Nothing,” she said, torn between pulling away and wanting to lean into his broad chest.
The man was making her angry.
But he still smelled sexy.
“Since I learned to walk, I’ve been hiking that valley,” she continued, looking up into his serious, deep green eyes. “And I want to be part of preserving it.”
“Has the valley not been happily existing all these years without your intervention? Can a person not hike and fish and hunt there now? And will turning it into a park not ultimately destroy the valley, if more and more people come here?”
Dammit. She hated that his argument made a certain kind of sense. Hadn’t she had that very worry herself? Wasn’t it still a concern?
“Why are you so against the park?” she asked. “Your family will likely profit the most.
Your hotel will be full winter and summer. Your restaurant on the summit could be open year-round.”
“It’s already open year-round. And how much profit does one family need? Especially at the expense of the land.”
Morgan suddenly released her shoulders, took hold of her right hand again, and started walking them toward her house.
“My camera. I want it back,” she said, deciding it was time to change the subject and probably better to keep a line drawn between them.
He was too handsome and tall and masculine and… and too damned sexy to be attracted to her. She would bet that when Morgan MacKeage made love to a woman, they both got naked, sweaty, and completely consumed by each other. All the lights would be on.
The covers would be stripped from the bed, with no place to hide. Everything would be exposed.
Well, if she lived to be a hundred, she was never getting undressed in front of a man.
Especially a man who could give Adonis a run for his money.
“What camera?”
“What?” Sadie asked, completely lost in her train of thought. “Oh. The camera I had with me the other day, that you took the film out of. I want my pack, my GPS, and my camera back.”
“I don’t have your camera. I left it on the ground.”
“You must have come back later and gotten it, along with everything else.” She squeezed his hand which was holding hers. “I want my stuff back.”
“On my honor, lass. I didn’t return and take your belongings,” he said softly. “Did you go back and look for them?”
“Yes.” Sadie sighed into the night. “I’m never going to see my stuff again, am I?
Someone else must have come along and found it.”
“I’ll buy you a new camera, Mercedes. It’s my fault yours got lost.”
“It doesn’t matter. The camera can’t be replaced, anyway. It was my dad’s.”
He used his grip on her hand to stop them again. “I’m sorry,” he said simply, staring down at her with serious eyes.
Sadie straightened her shoulders. “It was my fault. I walked away without even thinking about my stuff.”
He raised a finger to her cheek and brushed a strand of hair off her face, tucking it behind her ear.
“We didn’t get off to a very good start, did we, lass?”
Sadie balled her left hand into a fist and shoved it into her pocket, determined not to run her own finger over his cheek.
Lord, she was attracted to this man, and it had nothing to do with having seen every naked inch of him four days ago.
Well, maybe that had a little bit to do with it. But it was more than this unfamiliar stirring of lust she was feeling right now as she stared up into his warm, mesmerizing forest-green eyes. It was the warmth of his touch, the way he held her gloved hand as if it were a perfectly normal act, the way he looked at her, smiled at her, and made her feel… well… special.
“The start of what?” she asked.
“Excuse me?”
“You said we didn’t get off to a very good start. The start of what?”
He tugged her forward, pulling her off balance toward him, and released her to wrap both of his arms around her. He hugged her to him tightly, and his chest heaved with another deep sigh.