“Thank you. Are you headed to town to see a doctor?”
“No. I’m riding back up the mountain to see Father Daar.”
“But you can’t.” Catherine advanced on him without thought. “You need to be checked out. Twenty-four hours ago, you were nearly dead.”
He held up his hands, stopping her. “I’m fine, Cat. Still weak and a bit sore, but I’m mending just fine.” He gave her a crooked grin. “You do good work.”
Catherine realized that she had just scolded the man and immediately stepped back.
Robbie stepped closer. “About my little accident,” he said. “I’d rather no one knows I got hurt. If anyone calls today, especially my father, introduce yourself as my new housekeeper, but let’s keep how we met between you and me, okay? I don’t want to worry my family.”
Not knowing what to say, she simply nodded.
“The phone’s likely to ring off the wall,” he continued. “I run a large logging operation, and people are always calling here for something. You can either answer and take a message or let the machine do it.”
“Okay,” she said, turning and picking up several of the empty plates off the table.
“About Father Daar,” Robbie said, drawing her attention again. “He’s an old priest who lives halfway up the mountain. You’ll probably be meeting him soon, since he likes to invite himself over for meals. Don’t be surprised when he shows up.”
“Okay.”
He turned toward the door but stopped and looked back at her. “You did good this morning, Cat. With both the breakfast and with Peter. The boys need to know you can give as good as you get. They’ll quickly come to respect you, and then you’re home free.”
“My—my name is Catherine.”
He stared at her, the corner of his mouth kicked up in another grin, and slowly shook his head. “You’re not even close to being a Catherine,” he whispered. “You’re a beautiful and fierce and agile mountain cat, so you might as well get used to the name.”
Catherine had no clue how to respond to that, so she turned away, hiding her hotly blushing face, and started running water in the sink over the dishes.
“Catherine,” he said, making her look at him again. “I meant every word last night. You have nothing to fear from me.”
She didn’t know how to respond to that, either.
He must have decided her cheeks were about to combust from embarrassment, because he finally walked out the door, closing it softly behind himself.
Catherine stared at the spot where he’d stood.
A mountain cat? Cat, not Catherine. Beautiful, he’d said. Fierce. Agile. She suddenly smiled. Being compared to a cat was a compliment, she decided. And she would give him agile, and she certainly wanted to be fierce. But beautiful?
Catherine snorted. She was about as pretty as a rag doll left in the weather for a month.
He’d just added that part to score a few points.
He must really, really be desperate for a housekeeper.
Robbie stopped his horse in front of Daar’s cabin and sat staring at the old priest standing on the porch, obviously waiting for him.
“What happened to our agreement that you’d go to my father if I didn’t come back by sunrise?”
“But ya did come back,” Daar said. “I heard the storm. And I looked everywhere for ya, until I went to your boys for help.”
“I couldn’t make it back to the place where I had landed.”
Daar nodded. “I suspected as much. Ya needn’t worry about that,” he told him. “Even if you’re a thousand miles away, you’ll always return to TarStone. It’s the mountain that pulls ya. So, are ya gonna sit there all day and scowl at me, or will ya come sit down and tell me what happened?”
Robbie stayed right where he was. “Mary’s still there.”
“Ya left her?” Daar asked, straightening away from the rail.
“She left me. She willed the storm to come, then flew off before I could catch her.”
“But why?”
Robbie shook his head. “I couldn’t tell what she was thinking. The energy must have interfered.”
“Then ya must go back. Tonight.”
“Nay,” Robbie said, shaking his head again. “I’m too weak to survive the journey. I need a few days to heal.”
“Heal from what?”
“Four MacBain warriors ambushed me on the third night.”
Daar’s eyes widened, and he suddenly cackled with laughter. “Old habits die hard for those bastards,” he said, only to sober quickly. “So, the war your papa started is still going on?”
“It would seem so. There’s no tree, priest. And no Cùram de Gairn, either.”
Daar thumped his cane on the porch. “It’s there! Ya just didn’t look hard enough. I told ya Cùram was a tricky bastard.”
“I scoured the forest for three days, and there’s no large oak with any marks on it.”
Daar scratched his beard with the butt of his cane. “He’s disguised it,” he whispered.
“He knows I’m wanting a piece of the root, and he’s cloaked it in a spell.”
“Heknew I was coming? And you couldn’t have bothered to warn me?”
Daar held up his hand. “He knows nothing about ya, MacBain. He probably thinks I’d send back one of the old warriors and was most likely expecting Greylen.” He stepped back up to the rail. “But if he discovers that you’re my knight and that you’re also a guardian, the game changes. He can’t actually harm ya. It’s forbidden.”
“Apparently, my ancestors don’t know that,” Robbie drawled. “They had no qualms about trying to kill me.”
“Pfhaa,”Daar sputtered, waving his hand in dismissal. “Those lawless MacBains couldn’
t kill a wounded pig if their lives depended on it.”
Robbie canted his head. “Will you explain that to me?” he asked. “My father is a great warrior—and he’s a MacBain.”
Daar stared at him for several seconds, and Robbie could almost feel thedrùidh trying to decide what to say. The old priest finally let out a sigh, folded his hands over the top of his cane, and leaned forward.
“I suppose ya need to know what you’re up against. But ya must promise not to breathe a word of what I’m about to tell ya, Robbie,” he said quietly. “It could cause a terrible upset.”
He leaned closer and lowered his voice even more. “Greylen’s mother, Judy MacKinnon, had an identical twin named Blair.”
“That’s my grandmother’s name. Blair MacKinnon married my grandfather, Angus MacBain, and their first son was Michael.”
“Aye,” Daar said, nodding. “Blair is your grandmama, but ya have no blood ties to Angus. Blair came to their marriage already carrying Michael in her womb and passed him off as belonging to Angus.”
Robbie shook his head. “Angus would have known he wasn’t the first man Blair had been with and would have rejected her on their marriage night.”
“Aye,” Daar agreed, nodding. “But women have been fooling men about such things since the beginning of time.” He shrugged. “It’s survival that compels them, Robbie. Ya must remember that it was a time when such things mattered.”
“Who is my real grandfather, then?”
“Duncan MacKeage.”
“What? But he was married to Judy MacKinnon. Are you saying he fathered babes on both women? On sisters?”
Daar leaned over his crossed arms on the rail. “Judy died when Greylen was less than a year old, and Blair came to the MacKeage keep to tend her dead sister’s child for Duncan. But she had already been promised to Angus MacBain by contract and stayed with the MacKeages for only a year before she finally did her duty and married Angus.”
“But you say she went to Angus pregnant?”
“Aye. Judy and Blair were identical twins, and Duncan felt he was losing his young, beautiful wife all over again. The night before Blair was to leave, Duncan drank too much and ended up seducing her. It was a terrible thing to witness the next morning,”