She’s lived so long with this guilt, and nothing I say or do will change her mind. And now this obsession has turned dangerous. Somebody ransacked her cabin,” she ended with another wail.
Callum clutched her to him and rocked her back and forth. “Ah, woman,” he soothed.
“There is nothing you can do. This is Sadie’s journey to take.” He pushed Charlotte back, wiped her hair from her face, and gave her a warm smile. “But she’s not traveling alone anymore, little one. Morgan is with her. He’ll keep her safe from whoever did this.”
He gave her a quick kiss on the forehead and then smiled at her again. “And if I know my cousin, he’ll have your daughter so distracted she won’t have time to dwell on either the past or the future. She’ll be too busy trying to cope with the present, and with his undivided attention.”
She looked as if she wanted to believe him, as if she wanted to put her faith in Morgan MacKeage. Callum kissed her again, this time on the lips, this time much more passionately.
Aye, but he loved this woman who’d come storming into his life just six short months ago when she’d accidentally dumped an entire bowl of baked beans in his lap at the grange supper.
He hadn’t been looking for love at the time. Hell, he hadn’t even thought it possible.
Since the storm had brought them all here six years ago, Callum had tried to keep himself detached from this strange new world, to stay strong in the face of fear and uncertainty and the loneliness that came with both.
Charlotte Quill had scattered every one of his vows to the wind when her dinner had landed in his lap. Charlotte had thrown a fit of worry. She had been like the blow of a mace to his chest that night. Which was why Callum had taken Charlotte up on her offer and had taken his soiled clothes to her home the next day for her to clean.
Now he would use this camping trip to his advantage. Hell, he just might keep Charlotte out here until she agreed to marry him.
He wasn’t worried about Sadie, because Callum knew for a fact that Morgan was with her. He knew because his cousin’s dangerously spoiled war horse was staying at Gu Bràth while Morgan was away. Callum just hoped that Ian wouldn’t finally give in to his urge and shoot the contrary beast.
Reluctantly, Callum pulled away from Charlotte and set her firmly from him. “Don’t tempt me, woman,” he said through a tight smile. “We have a trip to plan and gear to put together.”
It seemed the woman had lost her tongue. Charlotte was just staring at him, starry-eyed and disheveled.
Aye. This was going to be a most rewarding adventure.
Sadie wasn’t sure how it had happened,but it seemed she had agreed to be Morgan’s wife for the next seven days. Of all the foolish notions a man could have, where had he come up with the idea that they were married?
Sadie dipped her kayak paddle into the water with lazy strokes, letting the current of the river do most of the work. Her attention was divided between the wolf jogging along the river bank and the man paddling his canoe in front of her.
The more she got to know Morgan MacKeage, the more she couldn’t figure him out. He was simply strange. She didn’t care what lame excuse he’d come up with, carrying a sword everywhere he went was a damned odd thing to do.
And this married thing. What kind of medieval notion was that, that two consenting adults making love constituted a lifelong commitment?
But more important—and the thing that scared her the most—was that she had so easily agreed to go along with his outrageous plan.
Was she in love?
No. But she was in lust. And for that reason alone, she had decided to spend the week pretending they were married, if that was the only way she’d get to have an affair with Morgan.
Which brought her right back to where she’d been last night before the storm had arrived, back to trying to figure out how to make love and still keep her shirt on.
* * *
And Morgan was trying to figure outhow to get Mercedes to talk. Her silence worried him. He’d bungled things last night, claiming her the way he had. And this morning he’d managed to dig the hole he was standing in deep enough that he might never be able to crawl free. Mercedes Quill was not a woman who liked being told what to do or how to do it—even when it was for her own good.
She was determined to build her park.
And he was determined to stop her to protect his gorge.
That damned wolf was not helping his cause. Faol had brought Sadie a tool of some sort and was now leading them to the place where he had found it.
And that place was near the mystical stream that ran through his gorge.
Morgan looked to the east, to Fraser Mountain, trying to decide if the tall trees were visible from this vantage point. He decided they were, but only because he knew to look for them. The gorge itself was deep, and because of that the tall trees appeared nearly level with the neighboring forest.
The mist, however, rose like the smoke of a smoldering fire before it slowly dispersed on the northwest breeze. But it was autumn, it was cold this morning, and mist was also rising from the river they were on.
Morgan absently trailed his oar in the water to guide the boat around a bend in the river.
And that was when he found himself bow-to-nose with an equally startled bull moose.
Now, in his experience, moose of either sex did not care for surprises. And this hulking bull was no exception. The great beast reared upward, churning the water with his front hooves, and charged toward him.
Cursing the lumbering weight of his loaded canoe, Morgan dug his oar deeply into the river and tried to power his way against the current, out of the path of the charging bull.
The hit, when it came, struck with enough force to send the boat backward, splintering wood and knocking the oar out of his hand. Morgan grabbed the gunnels for balance and rode the storm of choppy water.
The bull reared again and charged a second time. Morgan dove for his sword, rolling in the bottom of the boat as he scrambled to unsheathe it. Mercedes’ cry of alarm came to him over the sound of more splintering wood and the snorting of the enraged moose.
He was getting a little enraged himself.
A large antler appeared over him, just as two large hooves smashed down on the gunnel. The damned moose was trying to climb into the boat and kill him.
Morgan lifted his sword, grabbed the antler, and pushed it away. He drove his weapon deep into its neck. The bull jerked violently and bellowed in anger. His wife’s shout ended abruptly and turned to a blood-curdling scream.
The bull kicked out, slashing a razor-sharp hoof into his thigh. Morgan twisted his sword, driving it deeper, feeling it slip past the shoulder blade until it found the animal’
s heart.
Now in its death throes, the shuddering, heavy moose slowly slipped into the water, its only triumph that of finishing the destruction of his canoe. The boat snapped in half and rolled over, pulling Morgan and all his gear into the river.
Still holding the hilt of his sword, Morgan kicked his feet and pushed at the now dead moose, guiding them both toward the river bank. His feet touched bottom, and he turned, dragging the moose by the antlers. Once the animal scraped gravel, he let it go, pulled his sword from its body, and threw himself onto dry ground.
He lay on his back with his eyes closed, exhausted, breathing heavily, his muscles still quivering with battle-tense energy, reciting a list of curses that might have God striking him dead. He suddenly felt the coolness of a shadow fall over his face. Still he kept his eyes closed, loath to look up, not wishing to see the accusing glare of his obviously tender-hearted wife.
A warm tongue suddenly licked the side of his face, lapping the river water dripping from his hair. Morgan snapped his eyes open and sat up, shoving Faol away with another curse, this one out loud. The wolf backed off and went instead to inspect the kill.