Текст книги "Loving The Highlander"
Автор книги: Джанет Чапмен
сообщить о нарушении
Текущая страница: 16 (всего у книги 17 страниц)
Greylen and Callum went back to work. They were suddenly joined by another pair of large, strong-looking hands, and Sadie looked up to see an older man, with red hair and graying beard, putting his weight into the boulder.
“Ian,” Greylen said. “Be ready to pull him out the moment there’s room. Woman,” he snapped, looking at her. “Help him.”
Sadie quickly moved more debris out of Ian’s way, making room for Morgan to be pulled free. With a lot of grunting and another fair amount of cursing, Callum and Greylen put their backs into the task. The boulder moved mere inches, and Ian roughly pulled Morgan free of his prison, continuing to drag him until his feet were clear of the boulder.
Sadie immediately crawled to Morgan and ripped open his shirt. Blood gushed into her hands.
Greylen grabbed her by the shoulders again and roughly set her to the side. “You’ve done enough to him. Get her out of here, Daar.”
There was such anger emanating from Morgan’s older brother that Sadie backed away on her own. She wiped her husband’s blood on her pants and turned to Father Daar.
“There has to be something we can do. What about the magical water? Th-that puddle’s still shimmering.”
The priest slowly made his way to the puddle, bent down, and stuck his finger in the water. He looked up to where he’d been standing when she and Eric had arrived. Sadie followed his gaze. The cherry tree he’d been trying to break was splintered into a thousand pieces. He looked back at her.
“You can get there better than me, girl,” he whispered. “Go look for a cherry burl in that mess. The tree’s been growing in blessed water for more than two years now. Maybe some of the magic is hiding there.”
Sadie crawled over the rocks to the far edge of what had once been the pool.
“Find a big burl!” the priest shouted. “From the root if ya can.”
It took all of her strength, but Sadie was able to dig a knot free from the roots of the cherry tree. She hurried back to Father Daar and handed him the small piece of wood.
“This is all I could find,” she whispered, anxiously glancing toward Morgan.
Greylen had taken off his shirt and wrapped it around Morgan’s wound. He was now checking Morgan’s legs for broken bones. Sadie looked back at the priest.
He was frowning. “I don’t think it’s enough,” he said, sadly shaking his head. “It’s wanting the strength of the water and my old staff. Already I can feel it losing its vitality.”
Sadie reached out and touched his arm. “Please. We have to do something. We’ll never get Morgan to town in time.”
The moment she touched him, Daar’s eyes widened in surprise. He covered her hand with his own, his mouth suddenly lifting into a smile.
“It’s in you, girl,” he said in a voice filled with awe. He turned to face her and touched her with both hands, holding the knot of cherrywood against her skin. “There’s magic left. It’s here,” he said, turning her right hand palm up. “In you.”
“What do you mean?”
“When ya were healed,” he told her, rubbing her unscarred palm with his finger. “The burl dissolved because its energy went into you.”
“And—and I can give it back?”
“Aye,” he said, looking into her eyes. “Ya can.”
“And I can heal Morgan?”
“Aye. I’m thinking it should be possible.”
That was all she needed to know. Sadie jumped up and ran to her husband, pushing her way past his lethal-looking brother. Greylen stood up, took hold of her shoulders, and shook her.
“Ya’ve done enough,” he snapped.
“I can do more!” she shouted, giving him a direct glare. “I have the wizard’s magic in me.”
He released her as if burned, stepping away and looking at the priest who had walked up beside them. Father Daar nodded.
“She has, MacKeage,” Daar confirmed. “Your brother healed her with my own magic.
She’s carrying the energy of my staff in her body.”
Greylen looked torn between wanting to believe it was possible and not wanting to let her anywhere near his brother.
“Please. Bring him over to the water,” she entreated, taking the small cherry knot from Father Daar and walking to the water herself. “At least let me try,” she added, holding out her hand. “He—he’s my husband.”
Again, Father Daar nodded confirmation to Greylen. “Aye, MacKeage. I married them myself just yesterday.”
Greylen scanned the destruction around them, then looked down at his dying brother.
He bent and picked Morgan up and carried him to the small puddle of water. Callum and Ian quietly followed. Faol trotted past her and around the puddle and lay down with a whine, his nose touching the water.
Sadie stepped into the puddle and sat down, holding open her arms to receive Morgan.
Greylen gently settled him on her lap.
Father Daar came over and crouched beside her. “There’s just one wee little problem, Mercedes,” he whispered.
Greylen and Callum and Ian leaned closer to hear what the priest was saying.
“What’s that, Father?” Sadie asked, not caring if they did hear.
“The magic… well… I don’t know what will happen to ya, when ya give it up to your husband.”
Sadie snapped her gaze to his. “Will I go back to when I was shot?”
Father Daar nodded hesitantly. “Aye, that is possible. But I don’t really know.” He shrugged. “I can’t predict what the energy will do when passed through a mortal.”
Sadie realized all three men standing over her were collectively holding their breath, waiting for her decision. They couldn’t know that there simply was no decision to make.
She didn’t care if she bled to death right here in this puddle. She was not letting Morgan die.
She took the cherry knot and held it against Morgan’s chest, brushing the hair back from his face with her other hand.
“No, girl. Hold the burl with your right hand,” Father Daar instructed. “That will have the most powerful energy.”
Sadie switched hands but hesitated, holding the knot just off Morgan.
“Wh-what will happen?” she whispered. “How do I know I won’t kill him? Look what happened to this beautiful place when Morgan had your cane. What if all I create is just more destruction?”
Father Daar was shaking his head before she finished her question. “The wood is only a conductor of energy, Mercedes. Morgan was desperate and angry when he held the cane, and it was his wrath the magic brought down on us. But you’re yearning for something good. Ya won’t kill him.”
Sadie set the knot of cherrywood over Morgan’s wound, closed her eyes, and wished with all her heart for him to be healed.
The palm of her right hand suddenly started to warm. Light arced around her, filling her head with colors. She started to tremble as her whole body tightened with prickly heat.
She could hear the blood rushing through her veins, feel it pulsing down her arm and into her hand, smell the halo of ozone that suddenly wafted around her.
Her belly churned. Her back felt on fire, the intense heat shooting through her middle. A sharp pain stabbed down the length of her left arm. Her lungs and ribs felt crushed.
She could feel her flesh burning, almost smell it.
A hand touched her shoulder, and a voice whispered beside her ear. “Send it into him, Mercedes,” Father Daar instructed from a great distance. “Push, girl. Send the energy to Morgan.”
Sadie concentrated on moving the heat. She held her palm fiercely against Morgan’s side, pushing the knot of wood into his wound. Fire shot through her body. Her muscles trembled. Sadie fought not to lose consciousness, to keep the energy flowing to Morgan.
And slowly, ever so slowly, his heartbeat grew stronger.
And that madeher stronger.
Sadie focused her thoughts. She pictured Morgan being healthy in her mind’s eye, saw him laughing, glowing with the fire of passion as he made love to her. She saw him swimming naked in the lake, felt his patience even when he was angry with her. And she heard him calling hergràineag in a tone that was anything but endearing.
And Sadie sent him her love.
The green light that had faded in the destructive storm suddenly flashed and throbbed around her, sparking to a brilliant white before settling back into the gentle and steady glow of winter spruce.
“I had a dream,” came Morgan’s whispered voice.
Sadie pulled the sleeve of her shirt over her right hand and brushed the hair from his face as she smiled down at him.
“Did you see your mother and father?” she asked softly.
“My mum,” he answered. “Da wasn’t there.”
Because he’s here,Sadie thought to herself, peeking at the wolf who now had his nose tucked firmly against Morgan’s arm.
“I’m so sleepy, wife,” Morgan muttered, closing his eyes.
“Then sleep, husband,” she whispered, stroking his chest in comforting circles. “And know that I love you.”
Chapter Twenty-three
Daar sat on a rock in the middleof the destroyed and deserted grotto and glared at the rubble created by Morgan’s desperate attempt to save his wife’s life.
It seemed all the magic was not gone. He could still feel something quietly humming, energizing the air. The wizard kicked the splinters of cherrywood at his feet. A small branch from one of the trees that had grown here must have escaped the destruction. He just couldn’t find the damned source of the hum.
With a weary sigh, Daar sat down on one of the smaller rocks and stared at the dig marks Morgan had made. When the warrior had awakened from his sleep and had been told that Mercedes had run away, Morgan hadn’t flown into a rage as they’d all been expecting. No, he’d simply gotten up, stared at the destruction he’d wrought, and asked what had happened to Eric Hellman.
Greylen had silently pointed to the pile of rubble that had once been the cliff at the far end of what had once been the pool. Morgan had walked over, pushed a few rocks out of the way, and started digging until he had amassed a small pile of gold nuggets. He’d tied the nuggets up in his shirt and then climbed the rubble, using his considerable strength to finish the destruction. Morgan had rained a final avalanche of boulders down over Hellman’s grave, then dusted off his hands and walked away.
Daar continued to search for that small hint of magic that seemed to have survived. He needed a new staff, and it would be nice if he could find a branch from this place. The cherrywood growing here had soaked up the magical energy from the waters that had flowed from the high mountain lake. This was blessed wood, and a cane from here would be much easier to train.
Daar wanted one now more than ever. He didn’t care to be powerless when it came to dealing with the MacKeages. For mere mortals, they were proving themselves powerful enough in their own right.
Faol suddenly stepped into sight, trotting over to one of the small remaining puddles.
He took a drink, lazily lapping at the water for several minutes, before he lifted his head and stared at Daar.
“Duncan, ya old warmonger,” Daar said, not unkindly. “Your sons have found themselves good lives here. There’s no need for ya still to be hanging around.”
Faol rumbled a growl from his chest and turned and started climbing over the rubble.
The wolf briefly disappeared from sight. He reappeared just off to Daar’s right, holding a two-foot-long stick in his mouth.
With a shout of surprise, Daar jumped to his feet. “That’s my old staff!” he yelped, quickly scrambling over the rubble to reach the wolf. “The half Grey threw away two years ago. Give that to me!”
Faol trotted toward the valley.
“Hey! Get back here, you damn dog!” Daar shouted, awkwardly following him. “That’s my staff!”
His tail wagging like a banner of victory, Faol picked up his pace and continued down the winding and now dry streambed, Daar’s staff held in his mouth like a prize of war.
The aging wizard ran until he was out of breath and couldn’t go on, bending over with his hands on his knees, tiredly panting, overjoyed to know his old staff had shot free of the waterfall before it had closed, and frustrated that it was still out of his reach.
A howl came to Daar then, climbing up the side of the valley toward him in maddening echoes of triumph.
Daar sat down on a nearby log, pulling his white collar from his frock and undoing three buttons. God’s teeth, but he was reaching the end of his patience. He kept losing his magic.
He shook his weary head in dismay. He’d had that old staff with him for more than fourteen hundred years, a gift from his mentor when Daar had been a young man of seventy-nine. And in only two years the MacKeages had managed to destroy not only it but the new staff he’d been training for Greylen and Grace’s unborn daughter, Winter.
All that remained of his magic was now being carried away by a mean-spirited wolf.
And just what was Daar going to tell Grey’s seventh daughter, Winter, when she came to him a grown woman ready to become a wizard?
Daar stood up finally, having caught most of his breath back. He needed that two-foot piece of his old staff. Faol couldn’t actually take it with him when he went back to wherever he came from. Spirits crossed over; material things did not.
With a disheartened sigh filled with self-pity, Daar stopped chasing the wolf and started walking instead in the direction of Michael MacBain’s home. Perhaps it was time he got better acquainted with MacBain and his young son while he searched for his old staff, which he was determined to find. Until then, he was staying the hell away from the MacKeages.
It took Sadie two hours to make itto the logging camp, and for every step of the way, she wished she had the old priest’s cane. Not for its magic but for the help it would give her to walk.
She had sneaked away from the MacKeages and Father Daar like a thief, not wanting to face Greylen’s wrath any longer—and definitely too cowardly to face Morgan when he woke up.
The beautiful gorge he’d tried so hard to protect was completely destroyed, thanks to her. He’d revealed its location and its magic in order to save her life and then had destroyed it saving her life a second time.
And she had nothing to give him in return. She didn’t even have her beauty anymore, which he had so greatly enjoyed yesterday when they’d spent the afternoon making love.
Even the gold was out of reach now.
But for that she was glad.
Morgan was right. Gold made people do terrible things. It turned them into murderers.
Sadie unzipped the fly on the tent to pulled out her sleeping bag, which she tied to the pack Eric had left discarded on the ground. The pack, the sleeping bag, and the food would allow Sadie to survive for the next few days, until she could decide what to do.
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.
“Did Morgan tell you why he—I mean, why we gave you the gold?” Sadie asked, waving her hand at the jar Dwayne was still clutching.
“Because you don’t need it none,” he repeated, crawling on his knees to the honeysuckle bush. He put the jar back in the ground, carefully covered it up with sand, and set the boxes back over it.
“Did he tell you where we found the gold?” Sadie asked.
Dwayne looked at her and frowned. “No. We asked, but he wouldn’t tell us nothing. He just said this was all of it, that there weren’t no more.”
He stood up and brushed off his hands, suddenly narrowing his eyes in suspicion. “Was he telling the truth, Sadie? Is this all of it?”
She nodded. “Best as we can tell, Dwayne. There wasn’t really a mine. Jedediah had only found a large deposit of placer gold, not the source.”
“Where?” he asked, cocking his head and squinting one eye. “Was it close to a logging camp? Say, about a mile or so north of the camp?”
Sadie shook her head. “Nope,” she lied, smiling while she did, having already decided it would be best to guide the Dolans to look elsewhere. “It isn’t even in this valley, Dwayne.” She pointed toward the mountains. “It’s in the next valley over, almost in Canada.”
“The next valley!” Dwayne shouted, only to look quickly around himself again. He stepped closer, lowering his voice. “You mean, we’ve been searching the wrong valley all these years? Even Frank?” He narrowed his eyes again. “Your daddy thought it was near the Prospect. And Harry and me even found flakes of placer gold here.”
Sadie shrugged. “We all thought it was here, Dwayne. But if you were to look in the valley to the west, you’d probably find several old logging camps.”
“Where?” he whispered, taking another step closer. He set his face into a puppy-dog look of pleading. “Can you at least give me a hint, Sadie?”
“Why? It’s all gone, Dwayne.”
“But there might be more.”
“Why do you need more?” she asked, waving toward the honeysuckle bush. “There’s enough there to go to Russia and bring back a dozen wives if you want.”
Dwayne was startled by the idea. “We don’t want a dozen,” he said, looking horrified again. “We only need two.” He suddenly grinned. “Morgan helped us pick them out.”
“He what?”
Dwayne strode over to his tent, picked up a magazine, and came running back to her, leafing through the pages as he ran.
“Here,” he said, slapping the page with his dirty, callused finger. “Morgan said I should pick this one.”
Sadie leaned away to focus on the page that was now being held in front of her face. A fortyish woman was smiling back at her, looking shy and a whole lot scared.
Dwayne suddenly pulled the magazine back and turned to another page. He held it up to her again. “He said Harry should pick this lady,” Dwayne said, pointing to another woman.
This one was a bit older, a bit more worn-looking, also smiling with what appeared to be… hope.
Sadie smiled at her old friend. “They’re pretty, Dwayne,” she said. “They look like they’
ll make you and Harry fine wives.”
Dwayne moved beside her, held out the magazine, and leafed through it again. “I liked this one,” he said, showing her the picture of a twenty-something woman. “I think she’s beautiful.”
“She is.”
Dwayne looked over at Sadie, his mouth lifted at one corner, his dusty gray-hazel eyes shining with wisdom. He was shaking his head at her.
“Morgan said she wasn’t beautiful,” Dwayne told her with authority, nodding his head in agreement with her husband. “Morgan said beauty isn’t here,” Dwayne elaborated, tapping the young woman’s face. “That’s it’s here,” he explained, quickly turning the page to the woman Morgan had chosen for him. Dwayne touched his finger to the older woman’s eyes, then let it trail down to stop just below the photo, where her heart would be.
“Morgan said me and Harry have to look really deep below the surface to find beauty in a woman. That if we’re wanting good wives, we won’t be tricked by a pretty face.”
Dwayne squinted one eye at her, letting the magazine drop to his side. “Like you, Sadie,” he said.
“Like me? Morgan said like me?”
“Naw,” Dwayne said, shaking his head again. “I’m saying it. Look at your hand,” he told her, waving toward her gloved right hand. “And I know you got other scars. But that didn’t stop Morgan none from picking you.” He smiled and touched her hair.
“Because you got yourself a wise husband, Sadie. He looked real deep and saw your beauty.”
A lump the size of a boulder got stuck in Sadie’s throat.
Dwayne let his finger slide down her hair until he could tug on the end of it, his grin warm and his voice tender. “You’re a beautiful lady, Sadie,” he said in a whisper. “I only hope my new wife is half as pretty as you are.”
Sadie threw herself into Dwayne’s arms and struggled to hold back tears born of the fear and uncertainty of the last three days. Her old friend wrapped his arms around her, squeezing her tightly, and frantically apologized.
“Hell’s bells, Sadie,” he growled. “I didn’t mean to make you cry!”
“You didn’t,” she said. “Morgan did.”
Dwayne quickly set her away from him and scanned the bushes surrounding the campsite.
“I—I wasn’t saying you’re pretty because I want to steal you!” he shouted, backing away from Sadie as he spoke. “I was only trying to explain myself.”
Sadie couldn’t keep from smiling. “Oh, Dwayne. I didn’t mean Morgan was here,” she said. “What you said made me think of him, and that made me cry.”
Dwayne relaxed slightly and lifted his brows at her. “Just thinking about your husband makes you cry?” he asked incredulously. He took a step closer. “What happens when you actually see him in person?”
“I smile.”
Her answer confounded him. He scratched his dirty hair and squinted one eye at her.
“Does Morgan tell you you’re beautiful?” Dwayne suddenly asked.
“Every day,” she told him truthfully. “Without words.”
“How’s he do that?” Dwayne wanted to know, stepping closer.
“By his actions,” Sadie explained. “By caring and worrying about me. By scolding and lecturing and bossing me around. By making me so mad sometimes I want to spit. He also teases me every chance he gets. He carries all the heavy supplies in his pack, lightening my load when we hike. He also makes sure I’m warm at night. And safe. And by doing all that, Dwayne, Morgan is telling me every minute of every day that I’m beautiful.”
“Hell’s bells, Sadie. Am I going to have to do that kind of stuff for my wife?”
Sadie wiped another threatening tear away and nodded. “You are. And you’re going to love doing it, Dwayne. Because your wife will understand by your actions how much she means to you. Each small deed will tell her you think she’s beautiful and that you cherish her and are glad she’s agreed to share your life.”
Dwayne suddenly frowned at the ground. “I probably will have to show her instead of tell her, like your Morgan does.” He looked up, his expression confounded again.
“Because I don’t know Russian, Sadie. Me and Harry got us some tapes to listen to, but we just can’t get the hang of the language. And, according to the book that came with the tapes, their alphabet is missing some letters and has some other ones that look mighty weird.”
“The language of love is universal, Dwayne,” Sadie assured him, walking to her pack and slinging it onto her shoulders. She walked back to Dwayne and touched his arm. “It’
s also timeless, I’ve discovered. Don’t worry. You and Harry are going to do all right.
Because,” Sadie whispered, leaning over to kiss his blush-heated cheek,“you are beautiful, my good friend, deep down inside where it counts.”
Sadie walked out of Dwayne’s camp then and decided it was time she found her husband.
Chapter Twenty-four
Sadie knew the first rule of searchingfor someone was that the searchee had to stay put in order for the searcher to find him. If both parties wandered around in the same hundreds of square miles of forest, they likely would pass within yards of each other and not even know it.
But that theory only worked if the searchee really wished to be found, and it depended on how determined and tenacious the searcher was.
