But she just couldn’t work up the nerve to start something that would end with her taking off her clothes.
Morgan answered his own question, not with words but with action. He cupped the sides of her face and pulled Sadie into his kiss, canting her head to access her mouth fully.
Her resistance faltered under the siege of his sensual, enticing lips. His hands sent shivers down her spine as they wrapped around her back and pulled her against his solid body.
Sadie quit fighting—both Morgan and herself. She trailed her mouth over his jaw, tracing the edge of his beard with her lips. She felt his groan rumble through every inch of her own trembling body, felt his muscles tense, heard his indrawn breath.
She dropped her hands to his shoulders, then his chest, digging her fingers into his shirt.She groaned this time, as she followed her fingers with her mouth, kissing his neck and throat. She worked at the buttons of his shirt. One came open. The next one popped off. And God bless the rest, they retreated without a fight.
Sadie pushed his shirt aside and caught her breath again. He was magnificent. Better than she remembered.
He still wore that strange-looking object around his neck, dangling from a leather cord over his breast bone. It looked to be made of sandstone or wood, swirling lines that appeared to be in constant motion.
An illusion of the disappearing sun.
Or her own emotions, maybe.
“Why couldn’t you have been a dork?” Sadie asked with a sigh of resignation.
He pulled back and looked at her though narrowed eyes. “What is a dork?”
Sadie gave him a slow, warm grin. “It’s a term of endearment,” she whispered, curling her fingers into the mat of hair on his chest. “One that fits you better than that sword you carry around like some medieval warrior.”
So quickly that she didn’t even have time to scream, Sadie found herself flat on her back on the ground, one very unamused male lying on top of her.
“Don’t throw my words back at me, Mercedes.”
Pleased to have her brain back in charge of her hormones, Sadie gave him a huge, satisfyingly smug smile.
Morgan did not respond. He had gone suddenly tense, his face raised to the sky, his head cocked to the side as if he were listening for something.
“Do you hear that?” he whispered.
Sadie held her breath and listened, too. And she heard what he had, far off in the distance, the low rumble of an approaching storm.
“That’s thunder,” she said, turning her head to the western sky. “The front’s moving in.”
She looked back at him and smiled. “We’re in for a good soaking, judging by the heaviness of the air. Did you bring a tent?”
He still wasn’t listening to her. He released her so suddenly, and scrambled off so quickly, that Sadie couldn’t stifle a grunt of surprise. He stood over her, facing west, his hands clenched into fists and his entire countenance as fierce and foreboding as the churning sky.
Sadie scrambled to her own feet and took hold of his sleeve. “It’s just a thunderstorm, Morgan. A cold front is moving down from Canada tonight, washing away the humidity.”
He shrugged her off and took several steps back. Sadie could only stare at him. This great big bear of a man was afraid of thunderstorms? Lightning flashed on the other side of the valley, and she saw Morgan flinch violently.
She also saw his expression clearly for that one brief moment. Tightly controlled, stone-cold terror was etched into every line of his face.
“Morgan,” she said, moving toward him again.
He took another step back, holding up his hands to stop her advance. “Don’t come near me, Mercedes,” he said, his voice harsh with warning.
Lightning struck high on a mountain across the valley, sending a wave of rumbling thunder toward them. Another flash, farther north, then another, the strikes echoing like cannons along the length of the river. A west wind kicked up, pushed ahead of the arriving storm, sending a flurry of leaves into the air around them. The rain arrived with surprising force, beating more leaves from the trees and adding to the chaos.
Morgan suddenly pivoted on his heel, strode to his canoe, and picked up his sword.
Sadie ran after him.
He whirled back toward her.“Falbh!”
She stopped on the spot at the sight of that sword pointed at her.
“Begone!” he shouted, waving his weapon toward the woods. “Go back to your camp.”
She could only stare at him in shock and confusion. He suddenly slid his sword back into its sheath and settled it over his shoulders onto his back. Lightning flashed again, closer this time, sending the smell of ozone through the air as thunder shook the ground with resonating force.
Sadie blinked against the brightness of the lightning and the driving rain, then blinked again when she realized she was staring at nothing.
Morgan MacKeage was gone.
Chapter Twelve
Daar paced the length of his cabin porch,then stopped suddenly to frown at the darkening sky. Lightning flashed in the distance, creating a halo over the mountains to the west.
Another storm was visiting the valley.
There was something happening here, more than just Morgan and Mercedes’ conflict over a park being built. For eighty years the balance of good and evil in the valley had been uneven, since the death of Jedediah Plum. The restless prospector still roamed this valley, waiting for justice finally to be served. And in that time the darkness had been building, gathering strength for the inevitable confrontation.
Daar had spent the entire summer trying to learn the reason for this impending clash of powers. Why here, in Mercedes’ valley? And why now of all times, just when he was finally getting Morgan settled into a new and promising life?
Daar rubbed the back of his neck and blew out a tired sigh. As best as he could tell, the violent death of Jedediah Plum had gone unpunished, and the murderer’s spirit of greed was still alive today in his descendants. An evil had gone unavenged eighty years ago, tilting in its favor the balance of energy in this valley. The blackness Daar and Morgan had seen earlier this summer had been entrenched here since that long-ago murder.
And just recently, in this generation, Daar had learned through his spells that the darkness had gathered even more strength. Other murders, somehow connected to Jedediah Plum, had again gone unpunished.
The yellow light, which symbolized not only Mercedes but also her family, seemed to be equally involved. It was possible that Caroline Quill had been the second victim of the darkness and Frank Quill the third.
And Mercedes might be in danger of becoming the fourth.
Daar had tried many spells over the last few weeks, attempting to vanquish the blackness. But the churning powers would not be budged. It was happening here, now, and to the folly of all who stumbled into its path. The energies needed to be rebalanced.
Grievous wrongs had to be righted. A simple, lonely prospector wanted peace.
That Mercedes and Morgan were sitting smack in the middle of this war was beyond the wizard’s power to control. He had done what he could to protect them. It was now up to the warrior to unite with the woman against the darkness and lead them both safely through the coming maelstrom.
Daar’s delicate cane began to hum in his hand, and he lifted it skyward and waved it at the valley beyond. He saw the glow of a familiar green light, charged with energy, running through the forest, desperate, driven, aimlessly searching for safety.
Daar shook his head. No words of assurance could convince Morgan that he was not in danger of being sent on another journey through time. For two years the wizard had made promises to all the Highlanders, but only Greylen seemed to believe him.
Probably because Grey thought that Daar’s banished staff had left him powerless.
The humming grew louder. Insistent. Daar fought to control his staff as it pulled against the turbulence of the approaching storm. Yellow light, as bright and vibrant as the sun, sparked through the wizard’s mind.