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 itto 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. Hisgràineag 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 bagand 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 forward 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?”