Текст книги "Charming The Highlander"

Автор книги: Джанет Чапмен

сообщить о нарушении

Текущая страница: 1 (всего у книги 21 страниц)

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

POCKET BOOKS, a division of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020

Copyright © 2003 by Janet Chapman

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever.

For information address Pocket Books, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020

ISBN: 0-7434-6696-9

POCKET and colophon are registered trademarks of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

Book design by Alyssa Taragano

Visit us on the World Wide Web:

www.SimonSays.com

This one is for Robbie,

who stood guard at the gate all these years,

refusing to let the world intrude on my dream.

For your patience, support, and strength to

shoulder the load, for being a rock through the

currents of life—quite simply put, thank you.

It’s been twenty-five years, husband, and the

journey only gets better.

Prologue

The Highlands of Scotland, A.D. 1200

It was a hellish day to be casting a spell. The relentless glare of the sun nearing its zenith reflected off the parched landscape in waves of stifling heat. Occasional dust devils, pushed into action by an arid breeze, were the only movement in the gleann below. Even the birds refused to stir from the protective shade of the thirsty oak forest.

Leaning heavily on his ancient cherrywood staff for support, Pendaär slowly picked his way to the top of the bluff, silently scolding himself for making the climb in full ceremonial dress. More than once the aging wizard had to stop and free his robe when it snagged on a bush.

God’s teeth, but he was tired.

Pendaär stopped and leaned against a boulder to catch his breath, pushing his now damp, long white hair from his face as he searched the road below for any sign of the MacKeages. Thank the stars, he’d soon be leaving this god-forsaken place. He’d had his fill of this harsh time, of the constant struggle for survival, and of the incessant, senseless wars between arrogant men fighting for power and position.

Yes, he was more than ready to discover the comforts of a much more modern world.

Pendaär shook his robes and brushed at the dust gathering near the hem, once again cursing the heavenly bodies for marching into perfect alignment on such a god-awful day. But Laird Greylen MacKeage was about to begin a most remarkable journey, and Pendaär was determined to have a good seat for the send-off. Anxious to get into position, the tired wizard pushed away from his resting place and continued up the hill.

Once he finally reached the summit, he settled himself on an outcropping of granite and lifted his face to the sun, letting the warm breeze rustle his hair and cool his neck. When he was finally able to breathe without panting, Pendaär brought his gnarled cherrywood staff to his lap and fingered the burls in the wood, slowly repeating the words of his spell, concentrating on reciting them correctly.

Thirty-one years of painstaking work was culminating today. Thirty-one years of watching over and worrying about the powerful, oftentimes hell-raising laird of the clan MacKeage was finally coming to fruition. The sun had nearly reached its zenith. The celestial bodies were falling into alignment.

And Greylen MacKeage was late.

Pendaär wasn’t surprised. The boy had been late for his own birth by a good two weeks. And now he was in danger of missing the very destiny the stars had promised thirty-two years ago, on the night of the young laird’s conception.

Greylen MacKeage carried the seed of Pendaär’s successor.

Greylen’s match, however, had been born in twentieth century America. And getting the two of them together was causing the aging wizard untold fits of frustration.

It would help, of course, if he knew who the woman was.

And that was the problem. The powers-that-be had a heartless and sometimes warped sense of humor, giving Pendaär the choice of knowing only the man or the woman who would beget his heir, but not both.

Pendaär had chosen the spell that would show him Greylen MacKeage. Then he had spent the first thirty-one years of Greylen’s life trying to keep him alive. It had not been an easy task. The MacKeages were a small but mighty clan who seemed to have more enemies than most. They were constantly at war with one tribe or another, and their brash young laird insisted on riding up front into battle.

But it was the woman Pendaär wished to know more about now. Was she beautiful? Intelligent? Did she have the spunk and the courage necessary to match up with a man like Greylen MacKeage? Surely the other half of this magical couple would have what it takes to give birth to a wizard. Wouldn’t she?

Pendaär had spent many sleepless nights with such worries. He had even gone so far as to visit the northwestern mountains of Maine, eight hundred years into the future, in hopes of recognizing the woman.

But the spell that protected her was sealed, and no magic he possessed would unlock it.

Only the man destined to have her could find her. In his own way and on his own terms, only Greylen MacKeage could claim the woman the ancients had chosen as his mate.

If, that is, he ever showed up.

Nearly an hour passed before Greylen and three of his warriors rounded the bend in the rutted path and finally came into sight. And what a sight they were. The MacKeages rode in silence, single file, on powerful warhorses they controlled with seemingly little effort. The men were dirty, and maybe a bit tired from their long journey, but they appeared to have made the trip without mishap.

Pendaär scrambled to his feet. It was time. He pushed back the sleeves of his gown and pointed his staff at the sky, closing his eyes as he began to chant the spell that would call forth the powers of nature.

A battle cry suddenly pierced the air.

Greylen MacKeage brought his warhorse to a halt and pulled his sword free of its sheath at the sound, seeing the mounted warriors rushing toward him from the cover of the trees. They were masked in war paint, in full battle dress, their swords held high as they descended upon Greylen and his small band of travelers.

It was the MacBains, the ambushing bastards.

Greylen’s brother, Morgan, immediately moved to his side, and Grey’s other two men quickly flanked them to form an imposing wall of might. Greylen looked first to his right and then to his left before returning his attention to his enemy and, with a grin of anticipation, raised his sword and answered the call to battle with a shout of his own. Spurring their horses forward, the four MacKeage warriors charged the MacBains, their laughter quickly lost in the sounds of battle.

Greylen had not sought out this fight, but, by God, if Michael MacBain wanted to die today, Grey would be kind enough to help the blackheart to hell.

If, that is, he could keep Ian from dispatching the bastard first. A good five years past his prime, Ian MacKeage was fighting like a man possessed, and it was all Greylen could do to guard his old friend’s back while protecting his own. The smell of horse sweat rose with the dust kicked up by the battle; the taste of blood, bile, and anger burned at the back of Greylen’s throat.

His horse stumbled from the charge of MacBain’s horse, and Grey ducked to the right and swung his arm in an arc, striking Michael MacBain square on the back with the flat of his sword. The blow would have unseated a lesser man, but MacBain merely laughed out loud and turned his horse away.

This battle was an exercise in futility, and both men knew it. Six MacBains to four MacKeages was hardly fair. It would take another half dozen MacBains to even the fight, and Greylen wondered again at Michael’s intent today.

Was the young man only looking for sport? Maybe pricking Greylen’s anger? Or had he grown tired of waiting for Grey’s retaliation?

Aye. Michael was weary of watching his back these last three years and was now trying to force a war that Greylen had no intention of declaring. No one woman, no matter how innocent and long dead, was worth an entire clan rising in arms against another. Michael need not die today to feel damnation’s fires.

Greylen would bet his sword arm that MacBain was already well acquainted with Hades.

A brilliant flash of light high on the hill caught Greylen’s attention, and he pivoted his warhorse to get a better view. A lone figure stood on the bluff, full robes billowing in the rising wind, tangled white hair obscuring his face. His arms were outstretched, raised against a darkening sky, one hand holding a stick that glowed like the coals of a long-burning fire.

Grey darted a quick look back at the battle and saw Michael MacBain suddenly pull his own horse to a stop and look toward the bluff. But before Grey could dwell on what he was seeing, he and MacBain were both pulled back into the battle that Grey suddenly had no desire to fight.

Pendaär closed his eyes and loudly chanted the spell of his ancestors. Lightning crackled around him, lifting his hair from his neck as the wind molded his robes to his legs. Light burned from beneath his eyelids, and the old wizard staggered under the assault.

The sounds of the battle below rose louder.

Pendaär slowly opened his eyes and glared at the weathered, burl-knotted staff in his hand. Nothing had happened. He looked back at the gleann. Those lawless MacBains were still plaguing the MacKeages.

He raised his staff again and commanded the clouds to boil, the winds to howl, and the rains to fall. He reached deep within his soul and summoned the power of the ancients, adding their strength to his own fourteen hundred years of wizardry. Greylen MacKeage must not be harmed this day. He had a much more noble destiny, one that would take him on a journey the likes of which few mortal men had known.

With his legs spread wide and his feet planted firmly on the bluff, Pendaär braced himself for the familiar jolt of energy he was about to release. His head raised and his arms outstretched, he spoke his wizard’s language more slowly to cast his spell of time over matter. His long white hair became charged with electricity once again, and every muscle in his body trembled with power.

And still nothing happened.

With a mighty roar of frustration, Pendaär hurled the cherrywood rod at the boulder he had been sitting on. The staff bounced once and crackled to life before it was suddenly grabbed by a bolt of lightning. It floated high over the gleann, arcs of energy shooting from it in every direction.

A great darkness descended over the land. The clash of steel, shouts of men, and pounding of giant hooves gave way to deafening booms of thunder. A torrential rain poured down, casting a sheet of confusion over the chaos. Trees bent until they snapped. Boulders split, and rocks tumbled free from the bluff where Pendaär stood.

And Pendaär fell with them, rolling head over feet, his now soaked robes tangling around him as he struggled to find purchase on the rockslide. Rain and mud and rocks and shrubs crashed down the side of the bluff, pulling the wizard with them.

And when the turmoil finally ceased, Pendaär landed with a jarring thud, faceup in a puddle of mud. The sun returned, beating down on his face with enough strength to make him squint.

But it was the silence that finally made him stir. The old wizard slowly sat up and pushed the hair from his face, looking around. Then he rubbed his eyes with his fists and looked again, before burying his head in his hands with a groan of dismay.

What had he done?

Yes, Greylen MacKeage had certainly begun his journey this day, but it seemed the warrior did not travel alone.

Because not one MacKeage remained to continue the fight. Not one of the ambushing MacBains could be seen. Even their horses had disappeared with the storm. Naught was left of the battle but trodden mud, churned grass, and the fading rumble of distant thunder.

Pendaär gaped at the empty gleann.

He hadn’t gone with them.

Greylen MacKeage, his men, and those damned MacBains had traveled through time without him. God’s teeth! They were in the twenty-first century without direction or purpose, and he was sitting here like a wart on a toad, having no idea where his contrary staff had run off to.

Pendaär scrambled to his feet and began to search for it, wringing his hands and muttering curses as he ran frantically in circles. He needed to be with the warriors. He needed to see that they didn’t kill each other, or kill some innocent twenty-first-century person who might unwittingly stumble upon them.

Pendaär searched for half an hour before finding his staff. It was standing upright in a puddle of mud, still quivering with volatile energy. The wizard lifted his robes and stepped into the puddle, grasping the humming staff and tugging, trying to free it. The cherrywood hissed and violently twisted, apparently still angry at being thrown away.

Pendaär ignored its grumbling, giving it a mighty tug that sent him sprawling backward onto the wet ground. He clutched the staff to his chest and muttered a prayer for patience.

It took the wizard another twenty minutes to soothe the disgruntled cherrywood, running his hands gently over the burls as he whispered his apologies.

The staff slowly calmed, and Pendaär finally stood up. He urged the cherrywood to grow again, to draw the powers of the universe back to his hand. The staff lengthened and warmed and hummed, this time with cooperation.

Pendaär closed his eyes and began to chant a new spell as he waved the staff in a reaching arc. A satchel suddenly appeared at his feet, and Pendaär’s wet and muddy robe magically disappeared from his body.

He opened his eyes, smoothed down the crisp, black wool cassock he was now wearing, and fingered the white collar at his throat.

Pendaär smiled. Aye. That was better. He was once again in command of his magic.

He quickly knelt and opened the satchel to make sure everything he needed for his own journey was there. He pushed aside the rosary beads, toothbrush, and electric clippers he was anxious to try, feeling instead for the bundles of paper money he had asked for. They were sitting just beneath another wool cassock, five pairs of socks, and a heavy red plaid Mackinaw coat.

Everything seemed to be in place.

Pendaär straightened and lifted his staff to the sky, chanting again his spell to move matter through time.

Darkness returned to the gleann, lightning flashed through the heavens, and Pendaär clutched his satchel, closed his eyes, and hunched his shoulders against the chaos about to consume him.

Dancing sparks swirled around him with ever increasing speed, charged by electricity that made the air crackle with blinding white light. The old wizard took one last peek at the twelfth-century landscape before it disappeared, his laughter trailing to echoes as he excitedly set out on his own remarkable journey to help Greylen MacKeage find the woman he was destined to claim.

Chapter One

Early winter in modern-day America

It was sheer stubbornness keeping Mary Sutter alive now. She still had something she needed to say, and she refused to give in to the lure of death until she was done giving her instructions to her sister, Grace.

Grace sat by the hospital bed, her eyes swollen with unshed tears and her heart breaking as she watched Mary struggle to speak. The gentle beeps and soft hums were gone; the countless medical machines monitoring her decline had been removed just an hour ago. A pregnant stillness had settled over the room in their stead. Grace sat in painful silence, willing her sister to live.

The phone call telling Grace of the automobile accident had come at noon yesterday. By the time she had arrived at the hospital, Mary’s child had already been born, taken from his mother by emergency surgery.

And by six this morning, the doctors had finally conceded that her sister was dying.

Younger by three years, Mary had always been the more practical of the two sisters, the down-to-earth one. She’d also been the bossier of the two girls. By the time she was five, Mary had been ruling the Sutter household by imposing her will on their aging parents, her older half brothers still living at home, and Grace. And when their parents had died nine years ago in a boating accident, it had been eighteen-year-old Mary who had handled the tragedy. Their six half brothers had come home from all four corners of the world, only to be told their only chore was that of pallbearers to their father and stepmother.

After the beautiful but painful ceremony, the six brothers had returned to their families and jobs, Grace had gone back to Boston to finish her doctorate in mathematical physics, and Mary had stayed in Pine Creek, Maine, claiming the aged Sutter homestead as her own.

Which was why, when Mary had shown up on her doorstep in Norfolk, Virginia, four months ago, Grace had been truly surprised. It would take something mighty powerful to roust her sister out of the woods she loved so much. But Mary only had to take off her jacket for Grace to understand.

Her sister was pregnant. Mary was just beginning to show when she had arrived, and it was immediately obvious to Grace that her sister didn’t know what to do about the situation.

They’d had several discussions over the last four months, some of them heated. But Mary, being the stubborn woman she was, refused to talk about the problem with Grace. She was there to gather her thoughts and her courage and decide what to do. Yes, she loved the baby’s father more than life itself, but no, she wasn’t sure she could marry him.

Was he married to someone else? Grace had wanted to know.

No.

Did he live in the city, then? She’d have to move?

No.

Was he a convicted felon?

Of course not.

For the life of her, Grace could not get her sister to tell her why she couldn’t go home and set a wedding date—hopefully before the birth date.

Mary wouldn’t even tell her the man’s name. She was closed-mouthed about everything except for the fact that he was a Scot and that he had arrived in Pine Creek just last year. They had met at a grange supper and had fallen madly in love over the next three months. She’d gotten pregnant the first time they made love.

It was another four months of bliss, and then Mary’s world had suddenly careened out of control. In the quiet evening hours during a walk one day, the Scot had told her a fantastical tale (Mary’s words), and then he had asked her to marry him.

Two days later Mary had arrived at Grace’s home in Virginia.

And for the last four months, Grace had asked Mary to reveal what the Scot had told her, but her sister had remained silent and brooding. Until she had announced yesterday, out of the blue and with a promise to explain everything later, that she was returning to Pine Creek. Only she hadn’t been gone an hour when the phone call came. Mary had not even made it out of the city when her car had been pushed into the opposite lane of a six-lane highway by a drunk driver. It had taken the rescue team three hours to free Mary from what was left of her rental car.

And now she was dying.

And her new baby son was just down the hall, surprisingly healthy for having been pulled from the sanctuary of his mother’s womb a whole month early.

A nurse entered the room and checked the IV hooked up to Mary, then left just as silently, leaving Grace with only a sympathetic smile and a whisper that Grace should let her know if she needed anything.

Grace rushed to follow her out the door.

“Can she see the baby?” Grace asked the nurse. “Can she hold him?”

The nurse contemplated the request for only a second. Her motherly face suddenly brightened. “I think I can arrange it,” she said, nodding her approval. “Yes, I think we should get that baby in his mother’s arms as soon as possible.”

She laid a gentle hand on Grace’s shoulder. “I’m sorry, Miss Sutter, for what’s happening here. But the accident did a lot of damage to your sister, and the emergency cesarean complicated things. Your sister’s spleen was severely ruptured, and now her organs are shutting down one at a time. She just isn’t responding to anything we try. It’s a wonder she’s even conscious.”

The nurse leaned in and said in a whisper, as if they were in church, “They’re calling him the miracle baby, you know. Not one scratch on his beautiful little body. And he’s not even needing an incubator, although they have him in one as a precaution.”

Grace smiled back, but it was forced. “Please bring Mary her son,” she said. “It’s important she sees that he’s okay. She’s been asking about him.”

With that said, Grace returned to the room to find Mary awake. Her sister’s sunken blue gaze followed her as she rounded the bed and sat down beside her again.

“I want a promise,” Mary said in a labored whisper.

Grace carefully picked up Mary’s IV-entangled hand and held it. “Anything,” she told her, giving her fingers a gentle squeeze. “Just name it.”

Mary smiled weakly. “Now I know I’m dying,” she said, trying to squeeze back. “You were eight the last time you promised me anything without knowing the facts first.”

Grace made a production of rolling her eyes at her sister, not letting her see how much that one simple word, dying, wounded her heart. She didn’t want her sister to die. She wanted to go back just two days, to when they were arguing the way sisters did when they loved each other. “And I’ll probably regret this promise just as much,” Grace told her with false cheerfulness.

Mary’s eyes darkened. “Yes, you probably will.”

“Tell me,” she told her sister.

“I want you to promise to take my baby home to his father.”

Grace was stunned. She was expecting Mary to ask her to raise her son, not give him away.

“Take him to his father?” Grace repeated, slowly shaking her head. “The same man you ran away from four months ago?”

Mary weakly tightened her grip on Grace’s hand. “I was running back to him yesterday,” she reminded her.

“I’m not making any promises until you tell me why you left Pine Creek in the first place. And what made you decide to return,” Grace told her. “Tell me what scared you badly enough to leave.”

Mary stared blankly at nothing, and for a moment Grace was afraid she had lost consciousness. Mary’s breathing came in short, shallow breaths that were slowly growing more labored. Her eyelids were heavy, her pupils glazed and distant. Grace feared her question had fallen on deaf ears. But then Mary quietly began to speak.

“He scared me,” she said. “When he told me his story, he scared the daylights out of me.”

“What story?” Grace asked, reaching for Mary’s hand again. “What did he tell you?”

Mary’s eyes suddenly brightened with a spark of mischief. “Lift my bed,” she instructed. “I want to see the look on your face, my scientist sister, when you hear what he told me.”

Grace pushed the bed’s lift button and watched her sister sit up. Mary never called her a scientist unless she had some outrageous idea she wanted to convince her was possible. Grace was the rocket scientist, Mary was the dreamer.

“Okay. Out with it,” she demanded, seizing on that one little spark like a lifeline. She settled a pillow behind Mary’s head. “What did lover boy tell you that made you run away?”

“His name is Michael.”

“Finally. The man has a name. Michael what?”

Mary didn’t answer. She was already focused on gathering her words as she stared off into space over Grace’s right shoulder.

“He moved to Pine Creek from Nova Scotia,” Mary said.

“And before that he lived in Scotland.” She turned her gaze to Grace, her drug-dilated, blue eyes suddenly looking apprehensive. “He told me he was born in Scotland.” And then, in a near whisper, she added, “In the year 1171.”

Grace straightened in her chair and stared at Mary. “What?” she whispered back, convinced she had heard wrong. “When?”

“In 1171.”

“You’re meaning in November of 1971, right?”

Mary slowly shook her head. “No. The year eleven hundred seventy-one. Eight hundred years ago.”

Grace thought about that. Fantastical was putting it mildly. But then she suddenly laughed softly. “Mary.

You ran away from the man because he believes in reincarnation?” She waved her hand in the air.

“Heck, half the population of the world believes they’ve led past lives. There are whole religions based on reincarnation.”

“No,” Mary insisted, shaking her head. “That’s not what Michael meant. He says he spent the first twenty-five years of his life in twelfth-century Scotland and the last four years here in modern-day North America. That a storm carried him through time.”

Grace was at a loss for words.

“Actually,” Mary continued, “five of his clan and their warhorses came with him.”

Grace sucked in her breath at the sorrow in her sister’s eyes. “And where are these men now? And their…their…horses?”

“They’re dead,” Mary said. “All of them. Michael’s the last of his clan.” Her features suddenly relaxed.

“Except for his son now.”

She reached for Grace’s hand and gripped it with surprising strength. “That’s why I was going back.

Family is important to Michael. He’s all alone in this world, except for our baby. And that’s why you have to take his son to him.”

Mary let out a tired breath. “I’m dying.” She looked at Grace with sadly resigned eyes. “You have to do this for me, Gracie. And you have to tell Michael I love him.” Tears were spilling over her cheeks.

Grace stared down at her sister through tears of her own.

“Will you listen to yourself, Mare? You’re asking me to take your son to a madman. If he really believes he’s traveled through time, then he’s touched in the head. You want him bringing up your child?”

Mary released a shuddering breath and closed her eyes again. A stillness settled over the room once more.

Mary was asking her to take a child—her nephew—to a man who was not sane. Grace covered her face with her hands. How could Mary ask such a thing of her?

And how could she not grant her sister’s dying wish?

The door opened again with a muted whoosh, and Grace looked up to see a clear plastic basinet being wheeled into the room. White cotton-covered little arms waved in the air, the sleeves so long there was no sign of the tiny hands that should be sticking out of the ends.

Grace had to wipe the tears from her eyes to see that Mary was awake again, straining to see her baby.

“Oh, God. Look at him, Gracie,” Mary whispered, reaching toward him with a shaking hand. “He’s so tiny.”

The nurse placed the basinet next to the bed. She put a pillow on Mary’s lap and carefully placed Mary’s cast-covered right arm on top of it. Then she picked up the tiny, squeaking bundle from the basinet and gently settled him on the pillow in Mary’s lap.

“He’s so pink,” Mary said, gently cupping his head. “And so beautiful.”

“He’s thinking it’s dinnertime,” the nurse said. “You might as well feed him a bit of sugar water if you feel up to it.”

“Oh, yes,” Mary said, already tugging at his blanket.

The nurse repositioned him in the crook of Mary’s broken arm and handed her a tiny bottle of clear liquid with a nipple on it. The tubes sticking in Mary’s left hand tangled in her child’s kicking feet. The nurse moved around the bed, handed the bottle to Grace, and carefully removed the IV from Mary’s hand, covering it with a bandage she pulled from her smock.

“There. You don’t really need this,” she said, hanging the tubes on the IV stand. She took the bottle of sugar water back and stuck it in the fretting baby’s mouth. Free now, Mary awkwardly but eagerly took over.

The nurse watched for a minute, making sure Mary could handle the chore, then turned to Grace.

“I’m going to leave you in privacy,” the nurse said, her eyes betraying her sadness as she smiled at Mary and her son. She looked back at Grace. “Just ring for me if you need anything. I’ll come immediately.”

Panic immobilized Grace. The nurse was leaving them alone? Neither one of them knew a thing about babies.

“Look, Gracie. Isn’t he beautiful?” Mary asked.

Grace stood up and examined her nephew. Beautiful? He was unquestionably the homeliest baby she had ever seen. His puffy cheeks were red with exertion, his eyes were scrunched closed, his chin and neck blended into a series of overlapping wrinkles, and gobs of dark straight hair shot out from under a bright blue knit cap.

“He’s gorgeous,” she told Mary.

“Pull off his cap,” her sister asked. “I want to see his hair.”

Grace gently eased off her nephew’s cap but was immediately tempted to slip it back on. Two rather large, perfectly formed ears popped out a good inch from his head, pushing his now freed hair into frenzied spikes.

He looked like a troll.

“Isn’t he beautiful?” Mary repeated.

“He’s gorgeous,” Grace reconfirmed, trying with all her might to see her nephew the way her sister did.

Mary was the animal lover in the Sutter household and was forever dragging home scruffy kittens, wounded birds and chipmunks, and mangy dogs. It was no wonder Mary thought her little son was precious.

He was. Homely, but precious.

“Let’s undress him,” Mary said. “Help me count his fingers and toes.”

Startled, Grace looked at her sister. “Count them? Why? Do you think he’s missing some?”

Mary gave a weak laugh as she wiped her son’s mouth with the edge of his blanket. “Of course not. That

’s just what new mothers do.”

Grace decided to humor her sister. Gingerly, she attempted to undo the strings at the bottom of the tiny nightshirt. It was a difficult task as the baby, now happy with a full belly, kept kicking his legs as he mouthed giant bubbles from his pursed lips.

Finally, with her two good hands and Mary’s unsteady uninjured one, they freed his legs. Grace held up first one foot and then the other and counted his toes out loud.

She counted them again.

Twelve.

Six on each tiny foot.

Mary gave a weak shriek of joy. At least, it sounded joyful. Grace stared at her numbly.

“Gifts from his daddy,” Mary said in a winded whisper. “Michael has six toes on each foot.”