She tried to pull away again, but Morgan wouldn’t let go. “I’m not jesting, Mercedes.
The Dolan brothers are not to be trusted. You need to be just as guarded as I am.”
“You expect me to trust you without question, don’t you?”
He grinned and spread his fingers to encompass her entire face. “I expect obedience,gràineag, when it comes to your safety.”
She suddenly leaned forward, grabbing his shoulders and pushing him off balance.
They both ended up on the ground, Mercedes stretched full-length on top of him. She kissed him, her tongue slipping inside his mouth as she sensually wiggled her sexy body against his.
Morgan immediately placed both of his hands on her luscious bum, pulling into his erection with a groan of frustration. He wanted her again.
But not like this, with nothing but dirt for a bed.
Going against every urge he possessed, Morgan took hold of her shoulders and lifted her away. His teeth clenched in restraint and his gaze locked on her swollen lips, he set her on the ground beside him.
“Tonight, wife, we will finish what we began last night.”
She blinked at him, then scrambled away. With another curse, Morgan stood up and walked into the forest without looking back.
And Sadie couldn’t decide if she had just been rejected or threatened. Or if she should be insulted or scared.
And she couldn’t decide if Morgan kept calling her wife to rile her or if he thought she needed to be constantly reminded of that disconcerting fact.
She would like to be his wife. Maybe. She could imagine what it would be like waking up beside Morgan every morning for the rest of her life, her in her nightgown buttoned up to her neck, him buck naked and beautiful.
Sadie snorted, went back to the fire, and stirred the soup. She was weaving a dream fantasy for herself. But she hadn’t felt this alive, this excited about what the future might hold, since before the house fire.
And that was the one thing keeping her from realizing her dream. That stupid fire. She had killed two people she loved. Her carelessness, her inattention to detail, had resulted in a tragedy so horrific she could never be forgiven. Her scars were nothing compared with their deaths. She deserved every horrible one of them.
What she didn’t deserve was a husband as beautiful as Morgan MacKeage. But that didn
’t mean she couldn’t at least love him, couldn’t be married to him if he continued to insist on it.
It didn’t mean he couldn’t eventually love her back.
Sadie caught a glimpse of movement out of the corner of her eye and turned to see a canoe come into sight, two men paddling it toward the shore where her kayak was beached. She stood up, scanned the woods for signs of Morgan, then slowly walked over to greet Harry and Dwayne.
Morgan began to limp the moment he wasout of Sadie’s sight. He rubbed his throbbing thigh and cursed his bad luck for getting hurt.
But then, better him than Mercedes. His chest tightened at that thought. She could have been in the lead boat, battling the moose, and him not able to reach her in time.
Or she could have been out here all alone, as she had been this past summer. Anything could have happened to her. She could have fallen during one of her ribbon-planting hikes, have drowned running some of the more violent rapids on the river, or simply have taken a fever with no one to tend her.
He knew from experience that Mercedes was reckless. She didn’t always think before she acted. Hell, what if it had been some other guy she’d taken pictures of, instead of him? What dangers might she have faced?
The woman needed a keeper.
Morgan stopped at a stream that ran into the river and looked down into the crystal-clear water that slowly disappeared into the slightly brackish Prospect River. He turned and started upstream, lifting his gaze to the mountains ahead.
He knew where he was, and he didn’t like it. This was the same stream that flowed from the cliff, through his gorge, then eventually into this valley. And he and Mercedes were camped not half a mile away.
He didn’t want her to see this stream. Didn’t want her to realize that it was special. Once he had her allegiance, then he could show her the waterfall.
Faol silently stepped into his path, planting his feet and curling his lips into an almost human smile.
“You scavenging dog. You leave that moose alone, or I’ll have your hide tacked on the wall beside it.”
Faol dropped his head, stepped into the stream, and began to lap the water, not the least bit bothered by the threat. Morgan remembered he was supposed to be looking for drinking water himself. He moved above Faol and knelt on the bank, submerging the bottle and letting it fill. He capped it, set it on the grass, then leaned down to take his own drink.
A sharp, crackling sensation shot through his body the moment his lips touched the water. Morgan grabbed the burl dangling from his neck into the stream that was now vibrating with the force of a thousand bees taking flight. He straightened abruptly as heat seared through his body and sparks of green light danced in his eyes.
The wolf gave a yelp of alarm and shot past Morgan, knocking him backward onto the river bank. The tingling lessened, and the burl settled into a soft hum.
Morgan lifted it from his chest to see it better. The cherrywood was swirling, pulling against his hand in the direction of the stream.
Well, hell. The magic was seeking its own. It felt the lure of Daar’s old staff coursing through the water. Morgan lifted the burl over his head, gripped it in his fist, and touched his hand to the water again.
Needles of energy shot up his arm, through his chest, spreading to every inch of his body. The wound on his thigh throbbed as heat gathered around it like the touch of a hot poker.
He pulled his hand back, and it stopped.
He opened his fist and stared at the swirling, vibrating burl that glowed with intense light. What had thedrùidh said? That this burl carried the magic and that Morgan must find a way to add to its strength?
Well, it seemed he just had.
Not that he understood it. He’d gotten the burl wet many times since receiving it, but this was the first time it had touched this particular water. And that was the secret. This magical stream that the towering trees drank from, that grew big fish, and that now sent energy coursing through his body.
Morgan slipped the burl back over his head and stood up. He unbuttoned his shirt and threw it on the ground, then stripped off his boots and pants and tossed them beside the shirt. He ripped the bandage off his thigh and examined his wound.
The skin around it was pulsing, pulling against the stitches he’d set. The jagged edges of flesh were tingling, swelling, throbbing together as if trying to become one again. The knots of thread suddenly snapped, sending pain shooting all the way to his teeth.
Morgan waded into the stream up to his waist, then sat down until all but his shoulders were submerged. The burl dangled in the water. Sparks shot from it in every direction, scattering bubbles of light around him. He closed his eyes and let the energy course through him, leaning back until only his face remained exposed to the air.
Color swirled through his mind. Warmth wrapped his skin in a blanket of heat so intense that breathing was difficult. The humming grew louder. The water boiled, bubbles exploding around him like sparks from a bonfire.
Morgan sank below the surface, twisting and kicking his feet in an attempt to outswim the chaos. He felt as if he had the strength of a legion of men, as if he possessed the power to bend the laws of nature.
And the ability to heal himself.