“Then I suggest ya enjoy what little time ya have left with your papa and uncles,” Daar said, turning away and walking into the woods.

Chapter Two

Robbie loosened his tiethe moment he slid behind the steering wheel of his truck and finally released the breath he’d been holding for what seemed like the entire meeting with Judge Bailey. He started the engine, pulled out of the courthouse parking lot, and headed toward Pine Creek.

The meeting had gone well, for the most part. Martha Bailey had agreed to let Gunter stay with Robbie, as long as the young man didn’t get into any trouble more serious than detention at school. But one brawl, one incident that required the sheriff to be called, and Gunter was headed to jail—only this time, it would be the adult county lock-up for the eighteen-year-old.

That had been the better part of their meeting.

On the flip side, if Gunter involved any of the other boys in his indiscretion, then Rick and Peter and Cody might also be placed back into the system—which for them could well be the youth detention center, since all three boys had a history of running away from foster homes.

Robbie put on his sunglasses and sighed. At the urging of his father, he’d left a career in military special ops five years ago and come home to Pine Creek determined to make a difference on a more local level. It had taken him two years to buy up enough land to build a profitable logging operation and another two years to convince Maine’s juvenile courts that he could help hard-case kids.

Judge Bailey had been his greatest obstacle at first, only to become an even greater ally once she realized that Robbie had a gift for working with delinquents. Martha was good at her job because she liked kids, and she was determined that Robbie succeed where the system had failed.

She was also a self-admitted sucker for tall, handsome men in suits who weren’t afraid to stand up to her. She was happily married and nearly old enough to be his mother, but she flirted like a schoolgirl.

Robbie was not above flirting back if it helped achieve his goal. Which was why he had brought lunch from the local diner for their meeting, that they’d shared across Martha’s massive desk in her tiny office. Hell, he’d even buttered her roll for her in an attempt to butter her up, hoping she’d turn a blind eye to the fact that Gunter was still living under his roof.

So far, so good. Gunter could stay, and Robbie could continue to ease the young man into adulthood.

The two brothers, Rick and Peter, were slowly settling in, and Rick’s comment this morning that he didn’t want to leave was encouraging. Eventually Peter would get over his fear of all things mechanical and with the help of a tutor make it through high school.

Cody, however, required a firm nudge toward the sober side of life. Robbie just had to figure out how to make the kid care enough about himself to stop getting into trouble.

Four juvenile delinquents was his limit. There was room for more boys in his mother’s old home, but if he couldn’t keep a housekeeper more than a month, he was in danger of losing the ones he did have to food poisoning.

Libby, his stepmother since he was eight, and Gram Katie and his MacKeage aunts helped out by bringing over evening meals occasionally, which was about the only time he could count on all four boys to be on their best behavior. Food seemed important to the teenagers.

Well, second only to sex.

Robbie had dealt with more than a few giggling teenage girls since the boys had come to live with him, and he had quickly learned that keeping the two sexes apart was an exercise in futility.

He smiled as his truck crested the knoll above the sleepy town of Pine Creek.

Snowmobile season was just about over, and the ice was beginning to rot on Pine Lake, effectively shedding itself of ice fishermen.

Spring was the do-nothing time of year in the northern Maine woods. Mud season was fast approaching and would bring the logging industry to an abrupt halt in a few weeks.

His crew of twelve men—and a fortune in machinery—would sit idle until the forest thawed and then dried enough to be worked again. Most of his men already had vacations planned, and Robbie wanted to take his boys to Boston over the April school break.

Or he had hoped to, until Daar’s visit this morning.

Robbie passed Dolan’s Outfitter Store and turned onto the road leading to his parents’

Christmas tree farm. He scowled, thinking that of all the outrageous schemes Daar had come up with, this was the scariest. The priest was playing on Robbie’s only real fear—

which Robbie had grown up knowing was his father’s greatest fear, as well as that of his Uncle Grey and the other MacKeage men.

Thedrùidh had brought ten Highland warriors forward in time thirty-five years ago, but only five of them remained. The other five, all MacBains, had perished in the first two years. Most had died chasing lightning storms in an attempt to get back to their original time.

Robbie was named after his great-uncle Robert MacBain, and it was the old warrior’s sword that he had learned to wield once he’d grown big enough to lift it. His father had taught Robbie the skills of a warrior from the time Robbie could sit a pony, while himself attempting to straddle the chasm between two very different worlds.

Robbie worshiped his father and was awed by his ability not only to survive such an unimaginable journey but to thrive and eventually find happiness. And Robbie adored his stepmother, Libby. She’d married his papa just before Robbie’s ninth birthday and had thoughtfully given him two sisters and a brother to torment.

His younger sister, Maggie MacBain—now Maggie Dyer—had just given birth to a baby girl, making Robbie an uncle and giving him one more soul to worry about. Not that he minded. Protecting his rapidly expanding family of MacBains and MacKeages, and now wayward boys, seemed to be a calling Robbie could neither dismiss nor resist.

Keeping Daar in line, however, was proving a challenge.

Robbie pulled into the driveway of his father’s farm, stopped the truck between the machine shed and the Christmas shop, and shut off the engine. He stared through the windshield at the endless rows of Christmas trees marching through patches of melting snow, then let his gaze travel across the gravel yard to the large, white clapboard house where he’d grown up.

What was he going to do about Daar? He could not, in good conscience, dismiss the olddrùidh’s claim. Not at the risk of his family. But could he confide in his father? Ask his advice? Maybe even take him back in time to help get the book?

Nay. He could not put his father through such an ordeal again. And Libby would die from worry. And Greylen MacKeage would likely unleash his own fury on Daar, and just where would that leave Winter MacKeage?

The five Highland warriors ranged in age from fifty-eight to eighty-five years old. They deserved, and had earned, the right to a peaceful old age. It was up to him to keep them safe from Daar’s magic.

The passenger door opened, and his father slid into the seat beside him, filling the remaining space in the cab of the truck. “Ya’re wearing a suit and look like ya’re carrying the weight of the world on your shoulders,” he said softly. “Does this mean Gunter has to move out?”

Robbie smiled and shook his head. “No. He can stay as long as he behaves.” He turned to face his father more fully and stared into the mirror image of his own gray eyes.

“Have you seen a strange woman around town, about five-six or five-seven, with shoulder-length brown hair and a soft white complexion?”

“You lose another housekeeper?” Michael asked, raising an inquiring brow.

Robbie’s smile widened. “No. Only some eggs. I found her raiding my henhouse this morning and chased her halfway up TarStone before I lost her.”