“What have you got there, big boy?” she asked. “Where did you find that?”

He took a step closer to her, giving a soft whine.

Sadie took a step back.

Faol immediately sat down and gently laid the pack on the ground at his feet. He lifted his head, and this time his bark was stronger, almost demanding.

Not for all of Plum’s gold would Sadie move an inch closer to the huge, powerful-looking animal. She was not bending down to take her pack, putting her face mere inches from Faol’s teeth.

He wagged his tail as he sat there staring at her, sending a cloud of dust wafting into the air. He whined again, stood up, and took several steps back.

Keeping ten paces between them, Sadie moved forward, matching his retreat. But he stopped suddenly, only a few feet from the pack.

She darted a look at her pack and almost cried with relief when she saw the camera lens peeking past the zipper. Sadie looked back at the wolf. His tongue was lolling out the side of his mouth, his eyes—a crisp, iridescent green—round and sharply focused as he softly whined again, darting his own look from her to the pack, then back at her.

Sadie took another cautious step forward, then waited, watching him. He lifted a paw and started to lick it clean.

She took another step forward.

He yawned, then walked his front legs forward until he was lying down, for all the world looking as if he couldn’t care less that she was there.

Two more cautious steps, then Sadie used her toe to hook the strap on her pack and slowly pull it toward her.

Faol laid his head on his paws.

The pack now on the ground at her own feet, Sadie bent her knees and blindly felt for the strap, grabbing it and then slowly straightening. With her back to the cabin and her eyes trained on the still reclined wolf, Sadie retreated until she felt the porch touch her thighs. Then, keeping one guarded eye on her visitor, she sat down, opened the zipper, and looked inside.

The wolf completely forgotten, Sadie stared at the contents of the pack. She lifted her father’s camera out, then dumped the rest onto the porch.

It was all there: GPS, cell phone, surveyor’s ribbon, knife, water bottle, even the shredded duct tape she’d been bound with.

Everything. All there.

And all dry.

Sadie looked over at Faol. He was sitting up now, staring at her, his tongue lolling out again, his eyes unblinking, and his head cocked as if he were expecting her to speak to him.

And say what?Thank you for returning my things, wolf?

Sadie hugged her father’s camera to her chest and laughed out loud. She was going nuts, and she didn’t care.

“Thank you, big boy,” she said, waving the camera at him. “I don’t know where you found this stuff or how you knew to bring it here, but thank you from the bottom of my heart.”

She wiped at the unexpected tears that suddenly welled up in her eyes. Her daddy’s camera. She had it back.

Sadie went into the cabin and rummaged around in her supplies on the table. She found the bag of beef jerky she’d bought from Eric this morning, tore it open, and grabbed a handful of the dried meat. She headed back outdoors and down the steps toward the wolf.

“This might go against everything I believe about feeding wild animals, you big, beautiful wolf, but I’ve never met anyone who deserves a reward as much as you do.

Here,” she said, tossing the beef onto the ground in front of him. “I promise there’ll be more where that came from. Next trip into town, I’m buying you the biggest bag on the shelf.”

Faol sniffed the food at his feet but didn’t actually touch it. He lifted his head and looked at her.

“Hey. That’s not the cheap stuff,” Sadie told him. “That’s prime beef.”

He suddenly raised his nose into the air and gave a long, plaintive howl before he turned and trotted away, disappearing into the forest.

Shivers ran down Sadie’s spine as the last echo of the haunting cry faded into the air around her. She stared at the spot where Faol had disappeared. He couldn’t have known the pack belonged to her. He was just an animal who had found something in the woods and brought it here, the same way Ping brought hunting trophies to Sadie to show off.

That must be it. Faol didn’t like the food because it carried a human scent. And he had just found the pack, and because it hadher scent on it, he had brought it here.

Yeah. That was a perfectly logical explanation.

Morgan forced more power to histired muscles and pushed his overheated body through the calm waters of the cold lake. He was on his second trip across the lake, and still he couldn’t seem to outswim the emotions driving his thoughts.

Mercedes Quill. She was responsible for his mood this evening. He’d spent the entire day thinking about her. It didn’t seem to matter that she was independent, prickly sometimes to the point of rudeness, and determined to open this valley to hordes of people who needed wilderness parks in order to play at primitive living.

Mercedes was beautiful.

Intelligent in a most challenging way.

He’d walked off her porch last night frustrated to the point of pain and decided on the point that he would have her—on whatever terms it took, by whatever means he could find.

Mercedes Quill was his. Morgan had declared that she belonged to him in the late hours of last night as he’d stood in the mist-shrouded moonlight overlooking the waterfall. He’

d told God, the forest, and anyone who could hear him that the blue-eyed woman who walked this valley was his.

Morgan pulled himself onto the boulder in the middle of the cove and let the setting sun wash over his body. He wrapped his fist around the cherrywood burl hanging from his neck and watched the sky dance in a brilliant display of colors that arced from soft blue to a warm, vibrant red.

And somewhere in the middle he saw Mercedes.

Aye. After last night on the porch, aroused by his kisses, her eyes had been the same deep blue of tonight’s sky. And Morgan made another vow then, that he would see that same color again, fired by the passion of their lovemaking.

But first he must find a way to explain to Mercedes that when she had walked into his valley and planted her first ribbon, she’d entered the world of an ancient and possessive man.

A world she would never be leaving again.

A gentle bark carried over the water toward him. Morgan turned in the direction of the sound and saw Faol standing on the shore of the lake, staring at him.

“Go away, you accursed beast,” Morgan said, turning his back on the wolf. “I’m not in the mood for your company.”

Faol barked again, louder this time, more urgently.

Morgan dove into the water, swimming back across the lake, away from the wolf. His stroke less rushed, his breathing barely labored, he thought again of thedrùidh’s vision and the blackness that had swarmed through the valley, chasing the yellow light.

He couldn’t tell Mercedes that she was in danger, because he couldn’t explain to her how he knew such a thing. Nor could he let her discover his gorge. The woman was too intelligent, too curious, and too knowledgeable about this forest not to realize that something more than just the fickleness of nature was at work here. And she was too modern to comprehend that the magic of an agingdrùidh was responsible.

His kicking feet suddenly touched bottom, and Morgan stood up, brushing the water from his face and wringing it out of his hair. He walked onto the gravel beach but stopped at the sight of Faol standing at the edge of the forest, staring at him.

“Dammit. Go away,” he said, turning to walk down the beach towards Gràdhag. His horse took several steps back as he approached and began to prance nervously in place.

Morgan stopped and looked behind him.

Faol was matching his steps, ten paces back.