“I set up yar lamps over the mantel, and put the rug in front of the couch. And I hung that picture of the moose over the hearth.”

Libby walked into the living room, stood behind the couch, and stared. There was the print of the moose, hanging over the fireplace, with her chickadee lamps on either side of it. The bird rug was on the floor, right where Michael said it would be, and the quilt she’d intended for her bed was lying folded across the back of the couch.

She looked up. The ceiling was covered with stars.

Libby didn’t know whether to weep or laugh. She’d planned to use two packages of stars in her bedroom, and the rest were Christmas gifts for Robbie and the MacKeage girls. The tablecloth was another Christmas gift, for John Bigelow. And the candles that Michael had thoughtfully placed on the end tables—helping her nest—were for Grace.

“Ya bought some beautiful things, lass,” Michael said, moving up behind her, wrapping his arms around her, and pulling her against his chest. “And now you’ve turned this house into your nest.”

“Y-yes, it seems I have. With your help,” she quickly tacked on, relaxing into him and covering his arms with her hands. “Thank you.”

There was nothing else she could say. He must have worked all night putting up, what?

More than a thousand stars. She didn’t have the heart to tell him the difference. So she turned in his embrace, wrapped her arms around his neck, and kissed his throat—since that was all she could reach.

“The toast is burning out here,” Father Daar hollered.

“And the frying pan is smoking.”

“Wasn’t there something ya wanted to ask me this morning?” Michael said, ignoring Father Daar, not letting her go. “Ya mentioned dinner last night.”

“Oh, yeah. I thought we could go to dinner and maybe dancing or a movie or something,” she whispered, looking at his third shirt button. “If—if you’d like.”

“Are ya asking me out on a date, Miss Hart?” he asked, lifting her chin.

His eyes were a deep, warm pewter, filled with a laughing tenderness that bolstered Libby’s courage. Why was it so hard to ask the man out, especially considering how intimate they’d been less than an hour ago? She moved out of his embrace and headed into the kitchen, giving him a sassy smile over her shoulder.

“I’ll pick you up at six,” she told him. “Dress casual.”

Father Daar was standing by the door, putting on his coat and glaring at her. “I’m not hungry anymore,” he grumbled. “I hate burnt toast.”

“Oh, come sit down,” Libby said, moving the smoking frying pan off the burner. “I’ll make you some new toast.”

“I don’t know,” he said petulantly, running his hand over the top burl on his cherrywood cane, his old, weathered face set in the pout of a recalcitrant child.

“I’ll show you a wonderful surprise if you do,” Libby offered next. “Something I think you’ll find interesting.”

That piqued his curiosity, as she knew it would. He might be old, and he might be a wizard, but he was still human—wasn’t he?

“What is it?” he asked, taking off his jacket and hanging it back on the peg. He walked over to the table, got his coffee cup, went to the counter, and refilled it. He suddenly stopped on his way to the table and eyed her suspiciously. “It’s not one of them blasphemous books on magic, is it, that ya found in a bookstore?” He shook his head.

“There’s only one book that’s worth anything, and I already got it.”

Libby moved out of the way so Michael could wipe out the frying pan and start the eggs. “You have a book?” she asked, intrigued. “Of spells?” She ignored Michael’s snort and sat down at the table beside Daar. “Will you show it to me?”

“I might,” Daar said, his chin lifted in challenge. “If yar surprise really is interesting.”

Libby looked down at the cane he’d hooked over the edge of the table. “Did you make that?” she asked.

He frowned at her, his expression guarded. “Aye. From a sapling that grew on Fraser Mountain. Why?”

“Do you suppose that’s where my cherrywood stick came from?” she asked Michael, turning to look at him.

“The one Mary brought me?”

She quickly turned back when Daar gasped. “What stick?” he all but shouted, standing up. “Robbie’s pet brought ya a cherrywood stick?” he asked, looking around the kitchen. “Where is it? What does it look like?”

Libby was confused by his reaction. “It’s on the mantel,” she said, heading into the living room. “It’s about two feet long, it’s thick, and it looks very old.”

Daar all but ran over her trying to get to the mantel first.

Libby jumped up onto the bottom hearth to get the stick, but it wasn’t there. She looked down at Daar, who was wringing his hands and dancing from foot to foot.

“Well?” he said, excitedly. “Where is it?”

“I—er—it was right here. Michael,” she shouted to the kitchen. “Did you move the stick when you decorated last night? Where did you put it?”

Michael stepped back from the stove to look into the living room. “It wasn’t on the mantel last night,” he said softly.

“Where is it?” Daar repeated, going through the living room and looking in every nook and cranny. He stopped and glared at Libby. “Tell me again exactly what it looked like.

Was it this long?” he asked, holding his hands two feet apart. “And thick, ya say? Did it have burls all through it?”

Libby jumped down from the hearth. “Yes. It was riddled with knots. But I don’t know where it is, Father. The last time I saw it, it was sitting on the mantel.”

“And MacBain knew it was there?” he asked harshly, coming to stand in front of her.

“He saw it when Mary brought it to ya?”

“Y-yes. He’s the one who put it on the mantel.”

Libby followed Daar’s gaze as he stared into the kitchen. Michael was stirring the eggs in the fryimg pan, not paying them the least bit of attention.

“Why are you so frantic about that stick, Father? It’s only an old piece of cherrywood.”

“It’s my staff,” he said softly, his eyes misting and his expression pained. “I lost it more than eight years ago and only realized it still existed five years ago. I’ve been searching for it since then.”

“Your staff?” Libby whispered in awe. “Can it do what your cane can? Like when I held it?”

He shook his head. “Nay, it’s far more powerful than that,” he said in a reverent whisper. “It’s more than fifteen hundred years old. And MacBain knows where it is,” he said, darting a glare toward Michael, then looking back at her, shaking his head. “He’s hidden it from me. He knows the power it holds.”

Libby was growing more intrigued by the minute.

And a mite scared.

“Michael knows you’re a wizard?”

“Of course he does,” Daar said. “Why do ya think he’s hidden my staff?”

“Why?”

“Because, like the MacKeage, he doesn’t want me to have the power.”

“What power?” Libby asked, getting more annoyed and even more confused. “What is he afraid of? And what MacKeage? Do you mean Greylen? What’s he got to do with this?”

Daar snapped his mouth shut and stomped into the kitchen. He picked up his thin cherrywood cane and strode over to the coat pegs. He put on his coat, walked to the door, but stopped and pointed his cane at Michael.

“Ya destroy that piece of wood, MacBain, and I won’t rest until ya’re burning in hell.

Robbie won’t stay a child forever, and then I’ll be free to plague ya.”

He turned and pointed at Libby.

Michael silently stepped between them.

But Daar spoke anyway. “Ya talk him into giving me back my staff, girl, or ya just might be joining him.”

That said, Daar turned and walked out the door, slamming it shut with enough force to rattle the windows.

Silence settled over the kitchen.

“W-were we just cursed?” Libby whispered, rubbing her arms as she hugged herself against the sudden chill of the room.

Michael turned to her. “Nay. He’s a priest. He’s unable to condemn anyone. People can only do that to themselves.”