She had been staring up at the ceiling for the last two hours, until the glowing stars were nothing more than blurry dots of light. Libby looked at her clock by the bed, cursed the fact that it wouldn’t be daylight for another three hours, and stared at the stars again.
He knew.
Michael knew her secret. He’d been right there with her last night, anchoring her, while she had tried to heal Alan Brewer. And he’d been holding Darren when she mended the boy’s broken arm. Michael had to have felt the energy coursing through her, seen exactly what she had seen, and realized what was happening.
So now he knew.
And he hadn’t said a word. He’d brought her home, tucked her into bed, given her a chaste kiss, and left.
What must he have thought? Was he lying in his own bed right now, looking up at his blank ceiling, wondering what sort of freak she was?
Libby tried to imagine how she’d feel if it were Michael who had this gift. Would she be afraid of him? Could she love an aberration if their roles were reversed?
But he did have a secret, and it wasn’t just who had crafted her bed, either. There was something mysterious about Michael that had to do with his past. Something had happened to him twelve years ago that had caused the strong, confident man to retreat to the mountains of Maine.
He told her he had been a warrior. Had he seen or done something so unsettling that it had sent him into hiding?
And what was Daar’s connection? Michael seemed to accept the priest’s claim that he was a wizard. Heck, he seemed actually to respect the old man.
But he wasn’t afraid of Daar. Just cautious. And guarded.
And unwilling to talk about her secret because he didn’t want to talk about his own?
Damn, what a mess.
Libby tossed back the covers and stumbled to the bathroom, only to nearly step on Trouble when he came scampering out the moment she opened the door. Guardian was right behind him, and she knew the two boys were headed upstairs to find their sister, who was likely sleeping with Kate.
Libby splashed water on her face, fluffed her hair, and brushed her teeth. She went back to the bedroom, dressed in layers of warm clothes, and headed into the kitchen. She found a paper and pencil and wrote her mother a note, telling Kate not to expect her at the Christmas shop until noon. Libby then put on her boots and jacket and hat and gloves, found her flashlight, and headed out onto the porch.
She just stood there for several minutes, staring up at black and silent TarStone Mountain, which rose like a sleeping giant into the star-studded sky.
It looked damned cold. And formidable.
It also looked like a good place to get lost.
Libby didn’t dare calculate her chances of finding Daar’s cabin, for fear she might get smart all of a sudden and not go. But she had to talk to the old priest before her mind really did explode. And so she snapped on her flashlight and headed across the yard and into the forest.
She couldn’t stop thinking about last night, couldn’t get past the fact that she hadn’t been able to do anything for Alan Brewer.
Why was that? What good was a gift that only worked some of the time? Why had she been able to heal Darren Brewer but not his father?
She needed to talk to somebody, and there was no one else she could turn to except an old priest who brought flowers back to life. The wizard damned well better have some answers for her, if she was foolish enough to brave the dark and scary forest and risk getting eaten by a bear.
Her determination served her well and carried Libby for the first hour of the climb until she heard something off to her left. A branch snapped, and she spun around and pointed her flashlight in the direction of the noise. But all she saw were leafless trees for as far as the flashlight beam would penetrate.
And then she saw two little pinpricks of light.
The eyes weren’t moving but staring at her, unblinking, just a few inches above the ground. Was it a tiny animal, a rabbit or a fox or something? Or was it a bear crouching low, preparing to strike?
Dammit. What was she doing out there in the middle of the woods at four-thirty in the morning, with only a flashlight and an overactive imagination?
A white blur suddenly swooped through the beam of her light, and Libby screamed. She stepped back, tripped on a rock, and fell into a growth of fir trees.
“Dammit, Mary!” she sputtered, slapping a branch out of her face. “You scared the hell out of me.”
Her only answer was the echo of her own voice.
Libby slowly got up, brushed herself off, and straightened her cap. Well, she wasn’t alone anymore—not that an owl would be much help against a bear. She continued walking in the only direction she knew to go, and that was up. But instead of just shining her flashlight on the ground, she now pointed it into the trees every so often, looking for the owl.
“Mary,” she called in a singsong voice, feeling more desperate than foolish. “Where’s Father Daar’s cottage?”
A sharp, high-pitched whistle came from her right, and Libby turned and started in that direction, her singsong turning to whispered curses as she ducked to avoid low branches and tripped over fallen trees. For nearly an hour, she followed Mary, sometimes with only a whistle to guide her, sometimes catching a glimpse of the owl gliding silently ahead. Finally, scratched, cold, and dog tired, Libby saw a faint light up ahead. She stumbled into the clearing but came to an abrupt stop at the sight of Daar standing on the porch of his cabin, silhouetted by the glow of a kerosene lamp hanging on the wall behind him.
“If ya don’t have my staff with ya, girl, ya can just turn around and go back down the mountain,” he said, his growling voice carrying through the crisp night air.
“I want a cup of coffee.”
“Ya can have one if ya brought my staff.”
“Michael has it.”
“Then have a mind ya don’t get ate by a bear on yar way back,” he said, turning and walking into his cabin.
Libby stood rooted to the ground, staring at the closed door of Daar’s cabin. She knew he had coffee in there; she could smell it, dammit.
She marched up to the cabin, stomped up the four steps and onto the porch, and used her flashlight to bang on the solid wooden door. “I’m not leaving!” she shouted. “I want a cup of coffee, and I want to talk to you.”
“Well, I don’t want to talk to ya,” came his muted reply.
“It’s a law that you have to give shelter to anyone lost in the woods,” Libby told him.
“Along with food and something warm to drink.”
“Ya just made that up. Now go away, before I turn ya into a dung beetle.”
Libby banged on the door again with her flashlight. When that got her no response, she leaned her head into the wood and quietly started to sob. “My—my gift is broken,” she whispered. “It wouldn’t work when I needed it last night.”
The door opened, and she fell into the arms of Father Daar.
Libby buried her face in his shoulder and continued her soft tirade. “I couldn’t heal Alan Brewer. I fixed Darren’s broken arm, but I couldn’t do anything for his father. There was so much chaos. The colors kept swirling and wouldn’t let me reach his injury.”
Apparently not knowing what to do with a woman crying all over him, Daar roughly patted her back with one hand while trying to push her away with the other. Finally, he guided them both over to the table and seated her in one of the chairs. Libby looked down at her clasped hands and continued.
“Nothing I tried would work. I even had Michael there, holding me, but I couldn’t get through to Alan.” She looked up. “It was as if he was fighting me. Why would he do that? He was in pain. Didn’t he want to be healed?”
Daar sat down in a chair next to her, scratching his beard, his eyes narrowed in thought.