“I swear I’d give all my teeth to have my sword back,” Callum said. “I’ve felt naked for six years.” He suddenly grinned. “Although there is something to be said for a good rifle. You needn’t get close to an enemy to dispatch him.”

Morgan let his gaze scan the landscape again. “That works both ways,” he said, looking back at Callum. “Neither does your enemy need to be close.” He rubbed his neck again, the tension having suddenly doubled. “Hell. Someone could be watching us right now, with his gun trained on Mercedes.”

“Do you honestly believe there is that kind of danger?”

“Thedrùidh warned me there was a presence roaming this valley. Something dark,”

Morgan carefully explained without coming right out and telling Callum about the vision he had seen. “Mercedes might be in danger. This is why I’m with her now. I want that damn gold found, and then I want to settle this park thing between us.”

“In a way that won’t expose your gorge?” Callum surmised.

Morgan nodded. “She’s going to have to be content with just owning the land and not opening it up to people.”

Callum gave Morgan a staggering pat on the shoulder. “For an ancient man, you can be foolishly young sometimes, cousin. Living with a woman who’s had her dream taken away does not bode well for a peaceful union. Hell, it can be downright dangerous.”

“Yeah, well,” Morgan said, pivoting on his heel and heading back to Charlotte and Sadie. He hoped Charlotte was a better cook than her daughter. There had to be breakfast fixings someplace in all that gear she’d brought. “You’d better start putting some of your own long-lived wisdom to work,” Morgan said quietly over his shoulder as he walked off. “You’ve got your own female problems to deal with, and I’m thinking they might turn out to be just as troubling as mine.”

Chapter Eighteen

There was another advantage to havinga husband, Sadie decided later that morning. He carried the bulk of their gear.

Sadie slid her unusually light backpack off her shoulders, absently letting it drop to the ground as she studied the old logging camp that lay before her like a slumbering beast forgotten by time. This was it. Camp number three.

The last place Jedediah Plum had been seen alive.

Sadie could easily make out the remains of what must be the cookhouse. The roof was gone except for the rafters, the door and several of the windows were broken, and good-sized poplar trees were growing inside, spilling the last of their leaves like yellow flakes of unmelted snow. Rotting into the forest floor just to the right of the cookhouse, not twenty feet away, were two bunkhouses running perpendicular to the cookhouse.

Both were long and narrow and set low to the ground with the rusted remains of a stove pipe jutting crookedly against the middle rafter of one of them. Several of the giant logs that made up the walls had come free of their moorings, the ravages of time and nature working them into peat dust to litter the ground around the cabins. Young spruce grew in the acrid peat, reaching for the sunlight filtering through the few towering trees that had escaped the woodcutter’s blades.

The building that housed the saw was far off to the left, set away from the living and eating area. Probably so that one group of men would be able to sleep in relative peace while another group worked.

Sadie knew from her years of studying journals and history books that the sawmill usually ran around the clock in ten-hour shifts. Maintenance was done during two-hour breaks; the saws were changed and sharpened, the machinery oiled, and the bark and debris from the previous shift cleared away to make room for the next round of sawing.

Sometimes the trees were sawn on sight and the lumber hauled to town over the frozen ground, and sometimes the whole logs were simply driven downriver in the spring.

This site, apparently, had been a portable mill. Which meant it would have been a small, self-sufficient town unto itself.

Sadie slowly turned in a circle, studying the site, unable to believe what she was seeing, shaking her head in wonder.

“I bet my daddy’s mill processed some of this timber,” Sadie said, finally looking at Morgan. “Only it would have been Grampy Quill who ran it then.”

Morgan was shaking her head. “It was more likely your great-grandfather,” he corrected with a smile. “This site is at least eighty years old.”

Sadie looked around again. “I can’t believe this has been sitting here like a ghost town all these years, its location never documented.”

Morgan shrugged. “Why would anyone bother? They moved in, harvested the trees, then got out. There was nothing here to lure people to settle, other than the timber. And once that disappeared, so did the camps.”

He turned her to face him. “You can properly thank me now, wife, for finding this camp for you,” he said, an arrogant smile lighting his eyes.

Not one to deny a person his due, Sadie leaned up on her toes and kissed Morgan the way she had wanted to since morning. His tongue swept inside her mouth, his body hardened against her, and that shivering tingle returned to her chest as Sadie melted against him.

Yeah, husbands definitely had their advantages.

She was trembling like a poplar leaf when she finally pulled back, still making sure that she stayed within his embrace. Her heart was threatening to fly out of her chest, and she was quite pleased to see that Morgan was equally affected.

“Thank you for bringing me here,” she said, toying with a button on his shirt. She looked up. “And thank you for getting rid of mom so diplomatically. She’s pregnant and doesn’t need to be in the middle of this. Having her and Callum take the moose back for you was a brilliant idea.”

“Ah. So you do believe you’re in danger.”

“I believe that someone besides us and the Dolans might be out here and that they might be looking for the gold.”

“So, if I were to ask you to stay here with Faol today and explore only this camp, you just might obey me?”

Sadie thought it was past time Morgan’s vocabulary got an adjustment.“Obey is one of those words women don’t really care for, Morgan. But I might be inclined to go along with yoursuggestion,” she offered instead.

He pulled her back against him, tucking her head under his chin and rocking her gently.

His laughter made her chest tingle, and Sadie closed her eyes and leaned into his strength. Yeah. She really liked being married.

“Ah, Mercedes. I’m starting to have hope for us,” Morgan whispered, kissing the top of her head and squeezing her tightly. “You can spend the rest of your life making me into a modern husband, if that is your wish.” He lifted her chin. “While I work just as hard to make you into a suitable wife.”

His eyes darkened, sending her heart racing again, this time with anticipation. Now that she knew what making love could be like, she wanted to experience it again. Tonight.

Just as soon as the sun set, she was going to attack this man like a woman possessed.

“You enjoyed yourself last night, wife?”

Sadie had to look away from his intense gaze, so she turned her attention to fingering the cherrywood knot hanging around his neck. “That depends,” she whispered to his chest. “Did you?”

All she got for an answer was silence.

Sadie felt heat climb to her face. Dammit. He’d better give her the right words. She tugged on the cord that held the cherrywood knot. “Did you?” she repeated.

“Almost,” he said quietly.

Sadie snapped her head up. “Almost? What does that mean?”

He tapped the end of her nose, dropped his arms to his sides, and stepped away. “I’ll tell you what it means in six days,” was all he said before he pivoted on his heel and strode off through the woods.

Sadie stared at his back until he disappeared around the cookhouse. Almost? How can someone almost enjoy something? Either he did or he didn’t.