Catherine turned to them, crossed her fingers behind her back, and hoped she didn’t fry in hell for fibbing to a priest. “Oh, I forgot to tell you, Robbie. Your father and Libby are coming for supper tonight. I told them we eat at six.”

Robbie looked from her to the priest, then back at her, one eyebrow raised speculatively.

He finally shook his head at Father Daar. “My family obligations come first.”

Father Daar eyed Catherine suspiciously. “Ya’re making commitments for yar boss without checking with him first?”

Crossing a second set of fingers, Catherine nodded. “It seemed important to his father, and I didn’t dare refuse.”

The priest looked back at Robbie but nodded toward her. “I warned ya a woman would only complicate yar life. They just love interfering in a man’s work.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Robbie drawled, leaning back in his chair and smiling at Catherine.

“They come in handy sometimes. I think they add a certain… excitement.”

Catherine uncrossed her fingers and closed her hands into fists, smiling back at him. “I’

m sorry I won’t be able to drive you to work this morning, but I have torun into town.”

That wiped the smirk off his face.

Catherine spun around, walked into her bedroom and softly closed the door, and leaned against it and closed her eyes with a sigh.

Excitement, huh?

Oh, she’d show the man some excitement, all right—and a good deal of leg!

“Your plan isn’t working, priest,” Robbie growled, knowing it wasn’t Daar putting the bite in his voice but Catherine.

She was intending to run all over the countryside again, dressed inshort shorts and leaving a trail of ditched logging trucks in her wake. He was going to have to do something about that.

“Then come up with a better plan!” Daar snapped, glaring at him. “Just as long as ya make it happen soon. I still need to nurture that root into a sapling.”

Robbie took a calming breath and looked away from the bedroom door and tried to focus his attention on Daar. “How long has that oak been growing on MacKeage land?

Would it have existed when the Highlanders lived there? Would they know about it?”

“Nay,” Daar said, shaking his head. “Cùram’s only been living there six years now.”

“But you’re saying itis there, that I just can’t see it?”

“Aye. He’s hidden it from ya.”

“And you still won’t come back with me to unmask his spell? What would happen if he discovered you there?”

Daar hunched over his plate of shortbread, curled his hands around his cup of coffee, and spoke down to it. “Twenty years ago, I might have stood a chance against him,”

Daar whispered. He looked up at Robbie. “But only a chance. A hundred years ago, I might have beaten him.” He straightened his shoulders. “Hell, I did beat him, when I matched Judy MacKinnon to Duncan MacKeage.” The olddrùidh narrowed his eyes.

“But if ya take me back there now, Robbie, ya may as well run me through with yar sword,” he whispered. “Cùram would finish me.”

The door to Catherine’s bedroom opened, and she came striding out, dressed in shorts, a sweatshirt, and running shoes. A person could have heard a mouse sneeze as she silently walked across the kitchen, her chin held high and her fists clenched at her sides.

She didn’t even look at them. She merely opened the porch door, stepped out, and softly closed it behind her.

Robbie slowly bent the fork in his hand until the tines touched the handle, and turned to Daar. “Just tell me how to find the tree. Give me something to work with.”

Daar shook his head. “I have nothing. As it is, ya’re going to have to use yar own powers to travel back and forth from now on. My staff has grown too weak,” he said, fingering the nearly smooth cherry cane lying on the table beside his plate.

“My own powers,” Robbie softly repeated.

“Aye. Ya can no longer deny them, MacBain. Ya’ve learned the full extent of your gift, and ignoring it won’t make it go away.”

“I don’t want that kind of power!”

“Do ya think Iasked to be adrùidh? It’s not exactly something ya wish for. Providence decides our destinies. Yar own mother understood this, and it didn’t stop her from having you. It’s not a curse, boy,” Daar snapped, leaning forward. “It’s a gift. Yar mama not only gave ya life but the gift of yar calling. Embrace it. Use it! Explore the full extent of yar abilities, and thank God that ya have the means to protect those ya love.”

Robbie carefully set the destroyed fork by his plate and stared down at the tiny bandage covering the dagger cut on his right hand. Aye, he had seen his calling in the midst of the violent storm, and it had scared the holy hell out of him. He’d come face to face with his mother, as the beautiful mortal woman she’d once been, and she had shown him his destiny.

“It was Mary who revealed my powers to me,” he whispered, still staring down at his hand. “She showed me everything.”

“Aye,” Daar said softly. “And ya saw that guardians even have power overdrùidhs, didn’t ya? Mary showed ya how she saved her sister’s life by using my own staff to protect Grace from the freezing waters of the high mountain pond.”

“Aye,” Robbie said, still not looking up.

“It’s what keeps everything balanced,” Daar continued. “For as powerful asdrùidhs are, providence has given the world an army of knights to protect it as well.”

“Then what’s your role?” Robbie asked, looking up. “Why dodrùidhs even exist?”

“To nurture the knowledge. To grow our trees and keep the continuum moving forward.”

“And blow things up in the process,” Robbie muttered, standing up and carrying his uneaten shortbread to the counter. “Four days from now, I’ll be on the summit at sunset, and I’ll have Ian MacKeage with me.”

“What! Nay! Ya cannot.”

“Aye, I can,” Robbie told him, glancing toward the porch, then back at the priest. “Ian has asked me to take him back, and I have agreed.”

“But the continuum. You’re going to upset the energy. He knows too much of the future.”

“He’ll not mess with the magic,” Robbie assured him. “He only wants to go home and be with his wife and children.”

Daar also stood, but he snatched up his uneaten shortbread and stuffed it in his pocket.

“Then may God have mercy on us,” he whispered, walking to the door. “Because if that old goat manages to upset the continuum, we’re all doomed.”

“That didn’t seem to be a worry when you cast your spell to bring them here,” Robbie pointed out, walking onto the porch behind him.

Daar stopped at the bottom of the steps and looked back. “They would have woke up back in their original time, not minutes after they’d left,” he explained. “And probably finished trying to kill each other. It was already part of the original spell, that they wouldn’t remember this time.” He pointed his cane at Robbie. “But it only works if they go back by way of my first incantation,” he said. “You and Ian are going back ten years after that, to after Cùram arrived.”

“Ian will give me his word not to upset your energy,” Robbie promised. “He only wishes to die in the arms of his family.”

Daar stared at him in silence for several seconds, then finally nodded. “Aye. If Ian gives his word, that’s enough,” he softly agreed. “Then I’ll meet ya on the summit in four days,” he confirmed, turning toward the woods, reaching in his pocket and pulling out a piece of shortbread as he walked away.

Robbie looked up at TarStone and blew out his breath. Aye, only four days before Ian MacKeage walked out of their lives.

Catherine ran downhill toward town, setting an easy pace for the first mile to let her muscles warm up. She tried to concentrate on the rhythm of her feet hitting the ground, but thoughts of Robbie and Father Daar kept interfering. What in heck were they up to?