For the entire next day,Morgan quietly followed his wife, patiently waiting for Mercedes to get over her bout of self-pity. He was anxious to bring her home and finally start their peaceful union, but he was keeping his distance for now, for her sake. It appeared she needed this time to think about everything that had happened over the last couple of days.

And so he sat in the shadows of the night, watching her sleep. He’d seen her bathe this morning, and his worry had lessened that the magic she had given him to save his life would take hers. He had seen the scars from the house fire covering her body again and the place where Eric Hellman’s bullet had pierced her skin. And Morgan had silently thanked God that not all the magic had been pulled from Mercedes’ body. Enough had been left to make healing only a matter of time. Already she had gained back most of her strength.

But the scars that had killed half of her family would always remain. Morgan didn’t care as long as she was well.

She cared, though, he feared. She’d been so open with him that day in the pool after the magic had healed her body. Morgan sighed, wondering if Mercedes would ever be that free with him again.

He would demand that she be.

No. He would beg.

He loved her more than he loved life and was growing tired of this directionless pilgrimage his strong-minded wife insisted on traveling. How the hell long did it take to realize her heart belonged to him?

Morgan settled himself more comfortably against the tree, pulled his plaid more warmly around him, and closed his eyes with another sigh. If she didn’t soon come around, he’d have to give Mercedes a bit of a push and see what sort of results he got. Hisgràineag would either run deeper into the valley or come up spitting and swinging and cursing.

He hoped with all his heart it would be the latter.

Sadie rolled out of her sleeping bagand quickly danced to the fire and stirred it up, adding first kindling and then large branches to coax it back into flames. She set her battered pot full of water on the grate, willing it to hurry up and boil as she rubbed her hands together and held them over the stingy fire.

It was time that she quit sulking. She would go to Morgan today and explain to him that no matter what had happened, they belonged together.

But first she had to find the Dolan brothers. She still had a bit of gold left in her pocket, and she’d give them the nuggets and let them know there was nothing left.

Sadie drank her coffee, broke camp, and headed south along the bank of the Prospect.

Her resolve to set Morgan straight on how things would be between them added momentum to her pace.

But within ten minutes, Sadie realized she was being followed. And within another three minutes, she recognized her stalker.

“Come out here, big boy,” Sadie cajoled with an eager laugh, clapping her hands to call him.

Faol stepped into her path not five paces in front of her, his big green eyes looking sappy, his tongue hanging out of his mouth, his ears perked forward, and his tail wagging a mile a minute.

“I’m so glad you’re okay,” Sadie said, walking forward and patting his broad head.

Sadie continued along the bank of the Prospect with her silent traveling companion, until she finally came to a large green canoe pulled up onshore. She stopped to signal Faol to stay back, only to realize the wolf had disappeared. Sadie turned from the river and traveled inland about a hundred yards.

“Hello the camp!” she called out. “Don’t shoot. It’s me.”

“Missy Sadie Quill—oh, I mean Mrs. Sadie MacKeage,” Dwayne said excitedly, bolting to his feet and running to greet her, waving like crazy. “What brings you out here today?

I thought you’d be home cooking dinner for your new husband.” He waggled his finger at her. “Feeding Morgan is going to be a full-time job.”

Sadie narrowed her eyes at Dwayne. “It’s Morgan now? What happened to ‘that MacKeage guy’?”

Dwayne reddened in the face slightly. “He said we could call him Morgan, Sadie.” He suddenly grinned. “I like your new husband. He ate my stew and belched loud enough to wake the bears.”

It was Sadie who got red in the face all of a sudden, and it wasn’t embarrassment.

“Morgan was here? When?”

“Yesterday,” Dwayne told her, frowning. “Didn’t he tell you he was coming to see us?

And what he was doing?”

“Ah, yeah. He did mention it,” she quickly prevaricated.

Dwayne suddenly snapped his mouth shut, his frown turning into a glare as he waggled a finger at her again, this time scolding. “You just never mind, missy. I don’t know nothing.”

“Where’s Harry?” Sadie asked, looking over Dwayne’s shoulder at the camp behind him.

Dwayne stepped to the left to block her view. “Harry’s in town buying us some supplies.”

Sadie sighed and rubbed her forehead. “It’s okay, Dwayne. The reason I’m not home cooking for my husband is that I’m checking to see if Morgan really did come visit you and that he did what he said he was going to do.”

Her convoluted words nicely confusing him, Dwayne frowned again. He thought for a minute, shook his head, and suddenly smiled at her.

“I guess I can show you. Since the gift’s really from you and all,” he whispered, as if afraid even the trees might hear what he was saying.

He shot a suspicious look around the rim of his campsite, then excitedly waved Sadie over to some boxes stacked by a honeysuckle bush. He put his finger to his lips for her to be quiet and looked around again just before he crouched down on his knees.

Sadie took a look around herself and then bent to see what he was doing. Dwayne pushed several of the boxes out of the way and started digging in the dirt.

“We hid it good, didn’t we?” he whispered, pawing the sand away like a groundhog.

“You surely did,” Sadie quietly agreed, shrugging her pack off her back and kneeling beside him.

Sadie gasped when Dwayne pulled a quart-sized Mason jar out of the ground and brushed the sand off it. “You hid it real good,” she whispered in awe, blinking at the jar full of gold nuggets.

Dwayne continued to pet the jar, reverently cleaning every speck of sand off it with a slightly trembling hand.

“Morgan told me and Harry this was all the gold,” he said, his voice still quiet and reverent. He looked at her, clutching the jar to his chest and grinning like a child at the circus. “That you and him found Jedediah’s gold, Sadie, and that you want us to have it.

That you don’t need it none, being you have a rich husband now.”

Unable to speak, Sadie nodded, feeling her face heat again. Dwayne suddenly grabbed her around the neck and noisily and very wetly kissed her shocked mouth.

And then he scrambled back, the gold still clutched to his chest, his own face as red as a sunset. He shot a look around his campsite with wide, horrified eyes.

“I—I didn’t mean to do that!” he yelped, his entire neck and face now blistering red. “I mean, I… but… ” He looked around the campsite again. “I don’t want your husband to think I was… that I was… ”

Sadie patted his arm and stood up, finally gathering her wits enough to smile at him. “It’

s okay, Dwayne. Morgan understands that you and Harry are my friends. He wouldn’t take offense even if he were here. Which he isn’t,” she assured the still worried man.

Sadie reached a hand into her pocket and curled her fingers over the two gold nuggets she still possessed. She had planned to give them to Harry and Dwayne, but now the gesture seemed lame, considering she had apparently already given them a fortune.

Why had Morgan brought this gold to them?

And just where had he gotten it? Everything had been destroyed. The gold had been buried under thousands of tons of granite.