Michael’s other brow rose. “Ya lost her? In a foot race?”

“She was all legs,” Robbie defended. “Have you seen anyone new in town?”

“Nay,” Michael said, looking toward TarStone Mountain. “Ya say she was stealing eggs?” He looked back at Robbie, a frown creasing his weather-tanned brow. “It’s still below freezing at night. Surely she’s not camping out?”

Robbie shrugged. “She might be. This was the third raid this week.” He also let his gaze travel up the densely forested mountain and blew out a tired sigh. “I’ll have to go find her, I suppose.”

“I can help.”

“No, you can’t,” Robbie said with a chuckle. “Maggie wants that nursery finished before the kid outgrows her cradle.”

Michael scowled. “It would have been donebefore the babe was born if Libby and Kate and Maggie would only stop changing their minds. What does a wee bairn care about crown molding or the color of window trim?”

“What’s today’s color?”

“Either mauve or lilac.” He shrugged. “Not that I can tell the difference between them.

But apparently my granddaughter will be scarred for life if she has to sleep in a room painted the wrong color.”

“You still can’t bring yourself to call the babe by name, can you?” Robbie said. “Aubrey is a lovely name.”

“It’s a man’s name,” Michael shot back. “And it’s English.”

“Russell Dyer is English.”

“Don’t remind me.”

Robbie patted his father on the shoulder. “Russell’s a good man, Papa,” he said as he opened his door and got out.

Michael also got out and gave Robbie a crooked smile over the hood of the truck. “I know,” he softly conceded. “Maggie chose well.”

Robbie snorted and turned toward the house. “No thanks to you. You’re damn lucky they didn’t elope.”

“I wasn’t against the marriage,” Michael defended as they walked to the house. “I was just trying to make them slow down. Maggie’s not even twenty-two yet, and she’s already married and has a bairn.”

Robbie stopped to look at his father. “And at what age did women marry in your old time?” he asked.

“Society has gained eight hundred years of wisdom since then. And twenty-year-olds are too young to map out the rest of their lives.”

Robbie scaled the porch stairs two at a time and opened the door for his father. “I seem to remember a story about an even younger man trying to run off with a lass from another clan,” he said gently. “Were you not so deeply in love with Maura MacKeage eight hundred years ago that nothing else mattered?”

Michael stopped in the doorway and looked Robbie square in the eye. “I was young and foolish and so full of myself that I started a war, blaming the MacKeages for Maura’s death instead of myself. And that,” he whispered, “is the arrogance and ignorance of youth.”

“Do you ever miss the old times, Papa? Have you ever wanted to return, if only for a little while?”

Michael stared at him in silence for several seconds. “I have had such thoughts,” he finally admitted, his voice thick. He slowly shook his head. “After your mother died, and before I met Libby, I started up the mountain more than once, with you in my arms, intending to make the olddrùidh send us both back.”

Robbie went perfectly still. “What stopped you?”

“You,” Michael said, placing a steady, strong hand on Robbie’s shoulder. “I’d get halfway to Daar’s cottage, and you’d do something as simple as wave at a chipmunk, and I’d stare at you and think… I’d think… ”

“What?” Robbie asked. “What stopped you?”

“Your mama,” Michael whispered, looking toward TarStone Mountain. “Mary would fill my head with memories of her. Of us together. And I knew I couldn’t do it,” he said, looking back at Robbie. “I could not take you away from your future.”

“Daar said your coming here was an accident.”

“Aye. If ya don’t believe in destiny, then an accident is as good an answer as any.”

“So you truly feel that your ending up here and falling in love with my mother was destiny?”

“Aye,” Michael said, nodding as he finally entered the house. He tossed his jacket over a chair at the table and led Robbie through the kitchen and into the library. “I have never kept anything from you,” he said as he went to the hearth and stirred the coals of the dying fire. He looked over his shoulder. “Ya know my history and that of the MacKeages and Father Daar. Ya understand the magic that brought us here even better than we do. You’re mindful of Winter MacKeage’s destiny as Daar’s heir, and ya proved yourself a true guardian at the tender age of eight.”

“When I carried Rose Dolan through the snowstorm.”

“Aye,” Michael said, turning to face him. “Ya knew even then, even before we did, that ya had a special calling.” He smiled. “Have ya forgiven me for asking ya to come home five years ago?”

“There’s nothing to forgive,” Robbie said, grinning as he prepared to throw his father’s words back at him. “It was the arrogance and ignorance of a twenty-year-old that made me run off and join the army.”

Michael’s eyes danced. “Are ya sure it wasn’t Vicky Jones that sent ya running?”

Robbie shuddered. “That girl was downright scary,” he muttered. “She actually told me she’d been planning her wedding since she was ten.”

Michael turned serious. “Just as I think twenty is too young to get married, I’m thinking thirty is too old to still be single. Dammit, son, when was the last time you even went on a date?”

“I had a date a few weeks ago.”

Michael snorted. “Ya tookCody with ya.”

“And Peter nearly burned down the house while I was gone,” Robbie said with a chuckle. “Honest, Papa, I don’t enjoy living like a monk. It’s just that I don’t have time to date.”

“Because you’re too busy being a guardian toeveryone.”

“But I’m so good at it.”

“Aye. Too good.” Michael turned and placed a log on the glowing coals before facing Robbie again. “But at what price, son? Ya cannot take care of others at the expense of yourself. It’s time ya married and had bairns of your own.”

Robbie walked to the hearth and took down Robert MacBain’s sword, grasping its familiar weight in his fist as he turned to his father. “Would you mind much if I took this home with me?”

Michael glared at him. “Ya might ignore my petitions for grandbabies, but ya cannot ignore your man’s needs. You’re afraid, son,” he said softly. “But your fear is misguided.”

Robbie rested the flat of the sword on his shoulder and raised a brow. “And what exactly am I afraid of?”

“Of letting a woman distract ya from your calling.”

Robbie chuckled and started out of the library. He stopped at the door and turned back to his father. “Didn’t we have this conversation twenty-two years ago, only wasn’t I the one trying to talkyou into getting married? If I remember correctly, you said a man can’t suddenly decide to get married and simply pick the first available female; that he must find a woman to love first.”

“Isn’t it amazing how our words come back and bite us on the ass?” Michael whispered with a smile.

Robbie nodded. “Aye, Papa. Both our asses are sore.” He lifted the sword from his shoulder and touched it to his forehead in salute. “If such a woman even exists, who can love me despite my calling, I can only hope our paths cross while I’m still man enough to enjoy her.”

Michael waved him away with a snort. “Go find your egg thief before she has to spend another night on the mountain. And don’t let Peter anywhere near that sword,” he added, following Robbie through the kitchen. “The boy will likely skewer your new clothes dryer.”

Robbie descended the porch stairs and stopped in the driveway to look back at his father. “How did you know I had to buy a new dryer?”

“Daar was here this morning, looking for breakfast.”

“What else did he say?”

Michael gestured at the ancient weapon in Robbie’s left hand. “Only that ya might be by to pick up Robert’s sword.”