He nodded.
She pressed her own heart. “Then you know how I am here. But God gives me strength.”
“And Quillan?”
She sank back with a soft laugh. “Quillan is healing, too.” She suddenly sprang up. “Father, you must see something!”
“What?”
Carina glanced at èmie.
èmie said, “Do you want me to leave?”
Carina searched her friend’s face, such a dear face, so trusted. “No. But I don’t want anyone else to know.” She turned to the priest. “For Wolf ’s sake.” If anyone cared about safeguarding Wolf ’s memory, it was Father Antoine.
He wrinkled his brow. “What is it, Carina?”
“A cave. Under the shaft in the Rose Legacy. Wolf painted it all, Father. His whole life. It’s very sad, but also . . . triumphant. I don’t know. I think seeing it helped Quillan, though it must have been terrible, too. I want you to see it, Father. You cared so.”
The priest fingered the heavy cross that hung at his waist. “A painted cave.” He smiled slowly. “That would be Wolf.”
“But you understand why no one else can know? It’s very ugly, some of it. It could easily be mistaken.”
“No one will know from me.”
“Nor me,” èmie murmured. “Though I wondered what you and Alex Makepeace had found up there.”
“Alex Makepeace?” The priest looked from one to the other.
Realizing Father Antoine had been gone most of the time since her marriage, Carina said, “He is Quillan’s mine engineer. And my friend.” She chose her words carefully. “We found the cave together.”
“That explains your grim faces.” èmie folded her hands. “I did wonder.”
“Do you think others did as well?”
èmie shrugged.
Carina turned to the priest. “I think it should be sealed off after Quillan and I leave.”
“And where are you going?”
“He’s taking me home, Father.” She couldn’t hide the emotion in that thought.
“To your family.”
“Yes.” Her voice lost some of its strength.
“And they know? About your marriage?”
She opened her mouth to answer, then closed it and shook her head. “I tried so many times to write, to tell them everything. Now I think it best I just go to them.”
He cocked his head. “I’ve never taken you for a coward, Carina.”
“You don’t know Mamma.”
“I’ll pray for you and Quillan both.” He smoothed his cassock. “And now I must let you sleep.”
“Will you see the cave?”
The priest nodded. “I’ll see it.” He stopped at the door and moved his hand in blessing. “Good night, Carina.”
èmie stood, too, but Carina called her back. “Will you stay a moment?”
èmie took her uncle’s chair beside the bed. “So you really are leaving?”
“I have to, èmie.”
èmie sighed. “I thought you and Quillan could be happy here. I guess this was too much for you.” She reached out and touched the paling bruise on Carina’s wrist.
“Even without this, èmie, I need to see my family. I need to be near them. I was crazy to think otherwise. I love you and Mae, but . . .”
èmie squeezed her hand. “I understand.”
Covering èmie’s hand with her own, Carina drew her closer. “I want you to have the restaurant.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean this, all of this.” Carina waved her hand to indicate the extent of her property.
“But, Carina . . .” èmie shook her head, overwhelmed.
Carina shook her. “You don’t want it? After all you’ve learned and mastered?”
“I . . . of course, but . . .”
“Is it Robert? Won’t he want you to continue? At least until he’s successful?”
“It won’t be the same without you, Carina. I can’t be you.”
Carina spread her hands. “It will be yours. Whatever you make it.”
èmie sat very still. Then, “You’re kind, Carina. I know what this restaurant means to you, the good you’ve done with it. I’d be honored to carry on. I’ll speak to Robert.”
Carina squeezed her hand. “There’s room to add a clinic on the other side by Fletchers.”
èmie grinned. “So there is.”
Carina folded her hands together. “Signore, you know my friend èmie of whom I’ve spoken many times before. I want her to have this restaurant, so would you kindly arrange it with her husband who’s not too sure yet what he is or should be doing?”
èmie laughed. “That’s not fair, Carina. Even a doctor can be bitten with the mining bug.”
“Oh, sì.” Carina waved her hand. “And maybe he’ll think twice about risking his life when he has the skills to save others.”
“He already is.”
“Then take this gift; add a clinic. If your cooking is bad, he’ll have the treatment.”
They laughed until èmie suddenly threw her arms around Carina’s neck. “You’ve changed my life.”
Carina squeezed her back, too emotional to answer. It would not be easy to let go. As much as she wanted to go home, needed to, it would not be easy to let go.
SIX
Take heed before you give your heart, for given once, ’tis ere more lost.
And though it beats within your breast, each steadfast beat now bears a cost.
—Quillan
QUILLAN ENTERED THE SHOP for the third time. Since there was still no reply from D.C., he would mark the day with another gift. This shop was down the street from the Italian market where he’d purchased Carina’s supplies, but it was full of feminine fripperies. He vaguely recalled her pausing outside its window the one time they went to Fairplay together.
The first day of this trip he’d purchased a lace collar, the next a parasol, though it was definitely not parasol weather. He finagled a good price because of that. The third day he chose a different shop and bought a box of hand-decorated velum stationery. But today he was back to the first shop. He went straight to the glass case and eyed what he already knew he would purchase even though it was priced at a usurer’s cost.
The clerk noticed him immediately. “So you’ve decided on it?”
Quillan frowned. Not even an offer to budge on the extravagant price. “Thought maybe you’d come to your senses and were ready to charge a realistic fee for a nice but certainly not irreplaceable item.”
The man smiled. “Don’t you think she’s worth it?”
Quillan glared. “She’s worth it, but the pin’s not.”
The clerk shrugged his beefy shoulders. “It’s what it is.” He knew he had Quillan trapped, and Quillan resented it. He’d looked in the other shops. There were trinkets plenty, but none so perfect for Carina as the amethyst stickpin in the case before him.
“All right, package it.” Quillan pulled out his money, wishing he could wipe the grin off the storekeeper’s face.
The man leaned close with a conspiratorial whisper. “Bitten bad, are you?”
Quillan didn’t answer.
“Hoping to get somewhere with this one, I’d wager.” He showed yellowed teeth the shape of stalactites.
Quillan said, “It’s for my wife.”
“Oh.” The clerk tapped his nose. “Never hurts to lay it on thick.”