“Hot. My feet feel warm as toast.”

And they did. Warm and tingly and wonderfully soothed. Sadie wanted to hug him, they felt so good. She smiled instead.

“Thank you, Father. You really did work magic.”

He narrowed one eye at her suspiciously. “You think I’m jesting about the magic, don’t you?” He lifted his cane and showed her the salve-covered burl of wood at the top. “I wish I could be here to see your face in the morning, when you wake up and find your feet completely healed.”

Sadie patted his shoulder. “Magic is the stuff of fairy tales, Father. I’ll put my faith in modern medicine. And your kindness, too, because I know it helps.”

Still kneeling in front of her, his eyes not quite level with hers, he gave her a fierce glare.

“The magic isn’t here,” he said, touching her forehead with his finger. “It’s here,” he continued, touching her just below her collar bone. “It’s deep inside, in your heart. It’s the belief that anything is possible, against any odds, as long as you’re open to the gift.”

“You’re very sweet.”

“Nay. Never call an old man sweet, child, unless you’re wanting to prick his temper.

Even priests have pride,” he finished, leaning on his cane to stand up. He walked around the table, sat back down, and took up his tea again.

Sadie ignored his scolding and sipped her own tea as she stared at the strange man sitting across the table. Where had he come from? And why was he here?

“Why do you call him Foul?” she asked, waving toward the wolf. “He doesn’t stink.”

“It’s spelledF-A-O-L, and it means ‘wolf.’”

“In what language?”

“Gaelic. I’m a Celt, girl, in case you haven’t noticed.”

The man did have a mean accent. Gaelic, huh? Maybe he would recognize the word the giant had used yesterday when he’d told her to take a care until they met again.

“Father? Do you know what ‘gray-agch’ means?”

He scrunched up his face. “What language would that be? You sound like you have a frog in your throat.”

“I don’t know what language it is.”

“Where did you hear it? That might help me decide.”

Well, now. What to tell him. She wasn’t saying spit about yesterday’s encounter. “It’s just something I heard someone say,” she prevaricated. She shrugged. “It’s not important. I was just curious.”

He finally put his brownie into his mouth, chewing and grinning and then taking a sip of his tea. He stood up suddenly.

“I’ve enjoyed our visit, Mercedes. And now I was thinking ya could give me a ride home in that comfortable-looking truck you’ve got parked out back.”

Sadie stared up at him. What had been the point of his visit? And now he wanted a ride?

“Did you walk all the way out here from town?”

He started for the door, waving his cane in the air. “Nay. I live on the west side of TarStone Mountain.”

“Good Lord. That’s nearly ten miles away, cross-country. And a good fifteen miles by road. You walked?”

He turned to her and thumped his chest with his cane. “Walking is good for the heart, not to mention the soul. But then you already know that, don’t you, Mercedes? You’ve covered every inch of this valley in the ten weeks you’ve been here, most of it on foot, I would guess.”

Now, how had he known that?

Dammit. Who was this strange man?

He suddenly turned and was out the door and already down the steps before she could respond. The wolf—Faol—stood up and watched as Father Daar quickly walked around the cabin and disappeared from sight. Sadie heard the door of her truck open and then slam shut.

She could only stand there, immobilized with confusion, finding herself with many more questions than answers for a visit that had lasted less than an hour.

Chapter Six

Sadie wasn’t waiting two daysto visit her mother, she was going home tonight. She was taking a long weekend, hoping that was enough time for the green-eyed stranger to move on, the wolf to move on, and the priest to forget where she lived.

Talk about weird. The old man had eaten her food and drunk her tea, doctored her feet, urged her to make a pet of a wolf, and scolded her for hiding her scars. It hadn’t been Sunday, but Sadie felt as if she had sat through a four-hour sermon.

So, with all her dirty laundry loaded in the truck and her empty cooler packed, all she had left to do was convince Ping that there was nothing ignoble about riding in a cat carrier.

Just as Sadie finally caught Ping and put her in the carrier in the front seat of the truck, another truck pulled up to the cabin. Sadie quickly closed the cage before the spitting-mad cat could escape and cursed her terrible timing. Heck. It wasworse than Grand Central Station out here.

At least she knew this visitor. Eric Hellman, her boss, jumped out of the truck before it had fully shut off, his hand full of papers and his expression saying he was a man on a mission.

“You’re still alive, I see,” he said by way of greeting as he strode toward her.

Sadie looked down at herself in mock surprise. “I guess I am,” she agreed, giving him a broad smile she hoped would disarm his obviously bad mood.

He stopped in front of her and glared at her answer. “I’ve been calling your cell phone since yesterday morning. Why haven’t you answered it?”

“Because it’s broken?” she offered, still forcing a smile but bracing herself for the outrage she knew was coming.

His face turned bright red. “That’s the third phone in two months! What are you doing, chopping wood with the damn things?”

Sadie wanted to tell him that this last one wasn’t her fault, but she remained mute. It was nobody’s business what had happened in the woods yesterday—not the priest’s and not Eric’s.

“This is the last one,” Eric told her angrily. “They said they would cancel the insurance the next time I brought them a smashed phone.” He held out his hand. “Give it to me so I can get it replaced. But the next one you break is coming out of your paycheck.”

Sadie looked at his hand, shifting her feet uncomfortably. Damn, she knew he needed the ruined phone to get the credit from the insurance.

“I don’t have it. It’s at the bottom of Prospect River, probably halfway to the Penobscot by now.” She steeled herself for the next explosion. “And so is the GPS. I lost my backpack overboard when I dumped at Portage Falls.”

Instead of the explosion, there was silence. Eric’s gaze shot to the kayak strapped to the roof of her truck. His face incredulous, he looked back at her.

“You’re a class four kayaker, Quill. You don’t dump your boat on class two rapids.”

She shrugged. “Hey, anyone can have a bad day.”

“Why wasn’t your pack in the dry hatch?” he asked, looking back at the nineteen-foot-long yellow kayak.

The boat was really an ocean or calm-water kayak, since Sadie usually traveled lakes and dead-water streams, but she did need to get down swift water on occasion, and she wasn’t lugging around two different boats to do the job. This poor kayak carried the scars of rough use, but it was still an excellent vessel, a gift from her dad on her sixteenth birthday.

“The hatch popped,” she said, straight-faced.

The bluster seemed suddenly to go out of Eric. He shook his head. “What were you doing at Portage Falls? Do you think Jedediah’s gold is that far north?”

“I was mapping the river, looking for possible campsites.”

“That kind of stuff can come later,” he said, dismissing her work with a wave of his hand. “You need to find that gold, Quill. It’s going to be the focal point of the park.”

“I’m looking, Eric. Honest to God, every day I’m out there, I’m looking for it.” She sighed and rubbed her forehead. “It was Dad’s obsession to find Plum’s gold, before the fire. You know that. I spent every school vacation and summer and every weekend looking for Jedediah’s claim.”

“And that’s why I suggested the consortium hire you, Quill. You have the best chance of finding it. You know this valley, and you know your father’s research. So why can’t you find it?”