Текст книги "Charming The Highlander"

Автор книги: Джанет Чапмен

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“That depends,” she started carefully, still undecided about how she wanted to approach this subject.

“On what?” Morgan asked, walking up beside Ian so he could stare into her face as well.

She needed to buy herself some time. She couldn’t very well bargain for them to give her their snow-making equipment and not be able to deliver on her promise to save their lift. And truth be told, she preferred to present her offer to Grey, not all three of them, to better her odds of succeeding. It was much easier to sway just one person than it was to convince a united front that helping Michael MacBain would be the decent, neighborly thing for them to do. These men all seemed to respect Grey’s opinion, and that made him the person she needed to talk to.

And she needed to talk to him alone.

Ian was waving his hand in front of her face again. “Has your brain cramped, lass?” he asked. “Have ya overworked it?”

Grace blinked, then shot him a smile. “No. But before I get your hopes up, I need to see the top part of the lift.” She looked at Grey. “Will you take me up there in the snowcat?”

Grey, who had remained unusually silent except to tell her she had no sense of humor, suddenly lifted the corner of his mouth in a wry grin. “You’re actually wanting to go back up that mountain? Didn’t you get enough of it the other day?” he asked, repeating her earlier question to him.

“Where’s your phone?” she demanded, not taking her eyes off his as she held out her hand. “I’m going to call and ask Ellen if she can watch Baby for a few more hours.”

“It’s over on the wall,” Morgan said.

Already lost in the depths of Grey’s unfathomable green eyes, it took Grace a moment to realize that someone had spoken. She forced herself to break eye contact with Grey and look where Morgan was pointing.

There was the phone, right by the door. She made her legs move next, willing them to carry her over to it. It was a nearly impossible task, what with her knees being so weak and her heart pounding so erratically. It really wasn’t fair that Grey was so handsome. Or that not seeing him for twenty-four hours could affect her this way.

Silence, and the feel of evergreen eyes piercing her back, followed Grace across the room as she walked over to the phone.

She didn’t make it to the wall before Grey spoke.

“Morgan, go to the house and have Callum make a thermos of hot chocolate,” she heard him instruct.

“Ian, warm up the snowcat.”

“I’m going with you,” Ian said, heading for the door.

“No,” Grey said, his voice sounding as if he was still looking at her, not at the man he was speaking to.

“Grace and I will go alone.”

She let out the breath she’d been unconsciously holding and picked up the phone, only to realize she didn

’t know Ellen Bigelow’s number.

“The phone book is right beneath it,” Grey said suddenly from right behind her.

Grace knew she just had to sway back on her heels and she would be leaning against him. She suddenly had second thoughts about her plan to travel up TarStone Mountain with Greylen MacKeage. Something deep in the pit of her stomach said this was going to be either the most promising thing she’d ever done or the dumbest.

She didn’t need to be a rocket scientist to know that the energy filling this shed now had nothing to do with mere friendship. Feminine instinct was all but screaming at Grace that if she didn’t run out the door and head for the safety of home, the consequences might be more than she bargained for.

“Change your mind?” came his deep voice from behind her.

She stared at the phone receiver in her hand. “No,” she said, closing her eyes, feeling the heat of him wrapping around her senses until it feathered itself over her cheeks, making her flush with warmth.

“Good,” he said softly, his breath gently wafting past her right ear. “You won’t be sorry.”

She was sorry already.

Grace stared past the hypnotic wipers, not really seeing the ski slope passing slowly under the tracks of the snowcat. Her mind’s eye was focused on the man sitting silently beside her, who was confidently steering the machine up the winding trails, taking her ever closer to…

“Do you remember my promise to you up on the mountain three days ago, Grace?” he asked, his voice soft but still reaching her over the drone of the working engine. “Right after I had found the pilot, and you were afraid of me?”

She turned her head to look at him. “You said you would never hurt me.”

He nodded, his attention still on his driving. “That’s right. But you still don’t believe me, do you?”

“That depends,” she said, scooting around in her seat to face him. “I didn’t know you then, and I admit you did frighten me. I was alone with a man who wanted to lash out at something.”

She smiled at him when he looked at her from the corner of his eye. “But now that I know you, I know you would never hurt me physically.”

“Ahh,” he said, nodding his head again as he watched the trail in front of them. “What is it, then, that you’

re guarding from me? Are you afraid I’ll hurt your heart maybe?”

“That worry did cross my mind,” she admitted.

“Then that tells me you feel the attraction, too.” He turned his head and gave her his full attention. “And that’s what really scares you. Your own awareness of what is happening between us. That, and the fact that you don’t want to be attracted to someone like me, do you, Grace?”

“Someone like what?” she asked, taken aback not only by the realization that he could read her feelings so well but also by his belief that she thought he was somehow lacking.

He seemed to think about her question as he watched the trail again, guiding the snowcat over a particularly rough stretch and up the final climb to the top. She could just make out the shape of the summit house up ahead.

“By my primitiveness, I guess we could call it for lack of a better word,” he finally said. He looked back at her, his green eyes unreadable. “You work with modern, civilized males whose minds look into space and see the future, don’t you? That’s the world you’ve lived in since you left Pine Creek. The men you know dress in suits and dine in restaurants that serve thousand-dollar bottles of wine.”

“The point being?” she asked, getting defensive. He was making her world sound as if it was nothing more than a pretense of life, not the real thing.

“You go out on dates with these men,” he continued as if she hadn’t spoken. “Probably wearing a silk dress, pearls, and sensible two-inch heels. And at the end of the evening, they walk you to your door and give you a very civilized kiss good night.” He darted a glance at her, then looked back at the trail. “They send flowers the next day, don’t they, Grace? And ask you out again the next week.”

“The point being?” she repeated through clenched teeth.

“Except Baby’s father,” he said, looking back at her, his eyes now two distinct pools of unreflected light.

“He got past your defenses and into your bed. And then he left you with a child to bring up by yourself.

Tell me, does he intend to send a check in the mail once a month to compensate for his cowardice?”

“That’s enough,” she said, turning back in her seat to face forward, her arms crossed under her chest.

Oh, she’d made a mistake, all right, coming up here with him today.

He was primitive.

“It’s none of your business,” she told him. “Who and where Baby’s father is, it’s none of your damn business.”

The snowcat came to such a sudden halt Grace had to brace her hands against the dash. She didn’t even wait to see where they were, she just opened her door and jumped out. She started plodding over the crusted snow, driving her feet into it until it broke.

Damn him. He was a jerk. And to imagine she thought she liked him.

He was suddenly right beside her, walking on top of the crust, exerting one-tenth the energy she was.

Grace stopped and turned, cupping her hand to her forehead to block out the rain so she could glare at him better.

“I’m going to save your damn ski lift, MacKeage, but only under one condition.”

“And that would be?” he asked calmly, in stark contradiction to her anger.

It only made her angrier. “That you give me your snow-making equipment and help me set it up at the Bigelow Christmas Tree Farm tonight.”

The taunting calmness left his face so suddenly Grace took a step back.

“Not in your lifetime, lady. MacBain’s trees can rot in the ground for all I care.”

“Fine. Then the same thing can happen to your damn ski lift,” she countered, turning around and walking away.

She started walking back down the ski trail, only not breaking through the crust this time and being careful of her footing. She found the tracks the cat had made and began following them—until she was suddenly grabbed from behind and spun around so quickly she screamed.

“You can’t walk down this mountain,” he said, his evergreen eyes glaring at her.

“I didn’t just fall three thousand feet, MacKeage, like the last time.”

Although her heart certainly felt as if it had—and that it had broken on impact. She was so disappointed she wanted to sit down and cry. Why was this truly gorgeous, rugged, capable man such a jerk? And worst of all, why was she so attracted to him in the first place?

That was the saddest part. He couldn’t see past his hatred for Michael MacBain, and he couldn’t see how much, or guess why, that hurt her. The man she had formed a remarkable bond with on the mountain three days ago hated her nephew’s father. He didn’t know it, but she and Baby would become a link between him and Michael if she let herself get involved with Grey.

She was astute enough to realize that she had already let herself become much too involved with him emotionally. It had started when he had taken Baby to safety and then come back for her. And this afternoon, in the lift shed, she had felt it—the strength of their bond—enveloping her in the warmth of sharing something special with a special man.

But that bond was being smothered by a soulless sleeve of ice, just as surely as the trees around her were being entombed at this very moment.

“Grace,” he said, shaking her slightly.

“I don’t like you anymore, Grey. I can’t.”

“You damn well will,” he growled, wrapping her up in a fierce embrace that took the wind right out of her. And she never did catch her breath before his mouth descended on hers with demanding possession.

Her head swam with mixed emotions. Being in his arms, feeling his lips on hers, tasting him; it all felt so wonderfully right, no matter how wrong it was. This was the energy, the passion of life, the very soul of her existence that she hadn’t even realized she’d been searching for.

This, Grace decided as he ruthlessly awakened her emotions, was about as real as it got. She was in the arms of the man she wanted to belong to for the rest of her life.

Passion rose inside her. She had fallen in lust with Greylen MacKeage the moment she’d met him. She’d fallen in love when she had trusted him enough to let him seal her into an ice cave.

“I love you,” she whispered into his mouth. “I love you.”

Grace’s world tilted on its axis before she had finished her declaration. She found herself being carried up the mountain, the summit house suddenly appearing out of the mist. Grey turned with her still in his arms and tried the knob. When it wouldn’t open, he simply used his foot and kicked in the door.

He carried her inside and suddenly stopped, looking around and frowning. He finally lowered her feet to the floor and left her standing in the middle of the large summit house. He walked to the huge granite fireplace and struck a match to the already prepared kindling and logs. He then walked around the room, pulled cushions off several of the chairs, and threw them on the floor in front of the hearth.

He looked back at her once, as if checking to see if she was still there, then continued his work, pulling a blanket from a shelf near the hearth and tossing it down on the pillows. Grace took off her jacket and silently, albeit shakily, walked over and began arranging the pillows into a bed.

No regrets. No second thoughts. Grey obviously wanted this to happen, but Grace decided she wanted it more. She had known it was inevitable the moment she’d felt him behind her in the lift shed, waiting for her to place the call that would give them this time alone together.

She sat in the middle of her newly made bed and watched him prop the broken door closed to keep out the weather. The dry kindling in the hearth suddenly popped with exploding sap, and Grace jumped.

She didn’t have any more clue about what she was doing than Grey had a clue about her history with men. All she knew was that Greylen MacKeage was about to discover she couldn’t possibly be Baby’s mother.

Chapter Twelve

The poor woman was sitting in the middle of the cozy nest of pillows she’d put together, not a drop of color in her face. Her blue eyes were as wide as saucers, and she looked as if the touch of a feather might shatter her composure.

If he were a gentleman, he would sit beside her and talk to her a bit, gentling her fears and giving her time to come to terms with what was about to happen. Yes, if he were even a little bit civilized, he would at least explain that once they made love there was no going back. That she would be his, and no one, not even God himself, could alter that truth.

Grey took off his jacket as he silently walked toward her. He would undress Grace with all the care a queen deserved, and then he would make love to her until she understood what he couldn’t put into words.

And then he’d make love to her again.

Grey took a seat beside her on the cushions, ignoring the fact that she flinched when he did. He wrapped an arm around her stiff shoulders and placed his other hand under her chin to lift her mouth to his.

She was warm and sweet and tasted like the cocoa she had drunk from the thermos before they had climbed into the snowcat. Grey had been amused when she had swilled the hot drink down as if it was Scotch, as if it would settle her nerves.

It hadn’t helped her then and it wasn’t helping her now, if her trembling was any indication. Grey lay back on the pillows and turned to settle Grace beneath him.

God, she was precious. Warm, vibrant, filled with a passion he knew was churning just below the surface. He never stopped kissing her as he untucked her shirt and pushed it up to her chest. She was gripping his hair now and finally kissing him back. Grey found the clasp at the front of her bra and opened it, pushing it aside and covering her breast with his hand.

She moaned deep in her throat, arching her breast into his palm. Her nipple sprang to life as he teased it gently, and the woman beneath him squirmed until her hips were directly against his erection.

She let go of his hair and began caressing his shoulders, then ran her fingers down the length of his arms.

A surge of energy spiked through his body. She pulled her mouth free and started kissing his jaw as she tugged at his shirt, trying to pull it out of his pants. Grey brushed the hair from her face and began kissing her cheeks, her nose, her closed eyes.

She wasn’t having much luck undressing him, probably because his shirttail was caught on the bulge in his trousers. Grey leaned away and quickly pulled off his sweater and undershirt. He took her back in his arms and began kissing her again. Her hands immediately went to his chest, and she moaned into his neck.

“Yes,” she said on an excited, breathless whisper. “Take off your pants.”

He pulled back and looked at her. He couldn’t have spoken if he wanted to. This beautiful, precious woman wanted him with a fierceness that was nearly overwhelming. She was no longer pale but flushed all the way to her hairline. Her eyes were open, staring at him with such intensity that Grey had to close his own eyes and take a deep breath before he stripped them both naked and drove himself into her.

So he left his pants on for now. He unfastened her belt instead, teasing the tender skin of her belly as he did, fighting his urgency as she continued to run her hands through the hair on his chest. Then her tongue darted out and licked one of his nipples.

His groan echoed off the high ceiling. He throbbed with a heaviness that was almost impossible to hold in check. Grey clenched his jaw as he felt himself break into a sweat.

With dogged determination, and a few prayers for control, Grey slid her pants down to her boots. The flush of her skin traveled the length of her. Her beautiful body slowly emerged, glistening with life in the glow of the firelight.

She was flawless. Her skin felt like silk under his fingers. Her own fingers continued to explore the parts of his body she could reach, tugging to pull him closer.

He couldn’t untie her wet boots. Grey cursed under his breath. With a violent tug, he finally got them off and threw them away, hearing them land someplace across the room. He stripped her pants completely off, and she immediately wrapped one silky leg around him.

That simple action was his undoing. Grey unfastened his own pants and pushed them down to his knees.

He settled between her thighs and held himself over her.

“Grace. Look at me, lass.”

She did, and Grey was stunned by the fire he saw in her eyes. “N-now,” she said with trembling urgency, lifting her hips as she wrapped both her legs around his waist. “Please, Grey. I want you.”

He bent down and took one of her nipples in his mouth. Grace arched against him with a shout of pleasure. His whole body shook with barely leashed power. He touched her between the womanly folds that guarded her from him now, his fingers moving through her wetness as he made her ready to take him.

He had been ready for more than eight centuries to claim Grace, the one woman in the world meant for him.

Grey centered himself over her and gently pushed against the wet, hot core of her womanhood. She offered only minor resistance as he moved deeper within her.

Until he suddenly came to her maidenhead.

“Grace,” he repeated, his voice a whisper as he strained to hold himself still. It was not an easy task.

Grace Sutter was a virgin, and every instinct, every primitive male cell in his body, was screaming to claim her.

“Don’t stop,” she said, pushing herself lower and lifting her hips higher as her nails dug into his skin. “I want this, Grey. I want to feel all of you inside me.”

Their eyes locked together, Grey thrust himself through her virgin’s barrier and captured her scream in his mouth. He didn’t stop until he was deeply, completely inside her. Only then did he give her a chance to adjust to him.

He waited until she moved first.

And then Grey began a gentle rhythm that only served to harden him more, as he sank deeper into her welcoming softness. Light slowly filled the summit house, blinding him to everything but this act of possession. Time was suspended. Energy sparked around them. Wave after wave of emotion coursed through his body as they rocked together, igniting a fire that touched the very center of his soul. Grey threw back his head with the force of his pleasure as he finally released his seed deep inside her.

He relaxed on top of her with a sigh, grateful that his brain still functioned enough to remember not to crush her completely. He gently kissed her forehead, then slowly rolled off their comfortable nest of pillows, onto the cold, hard surface of the concrete floor.

He closed his eyes while he caught his breath, one arm slung over his face to shield the light of the hearth, the cold floor cooling his trembling, overheated body.

Grace Sutter now belonged to him.

And Baby, he knew for a fact, did not belong to her.

She wasn’t regretful. A bit disappointed, maybe, that what had started out so nicely had ended so painfully. But Grace had no regrets.

She had always expected they’d both find satisfaction the first time, making it a romantic, magical experience. Now, though, she was only sore and mightily worried because Grey was unnaturally silent.

He was lying beside her, breathing hard, his eyes closed and an arm thrown over his face. The set of his jaw didn’t bode well, either. It was clenched so tighly that the cords bulged in his neck.

Grace became embarrassingly aware of her nakedness as a draft of air seeped down from the balcony of the summit house. As quietly as she could, she pulled her jacket out from under her and covered her body from her chin to her thighs. She lay on her back on the blanket, unmoving, and watched the intricate play of the firelight reflecting on the log beams two stories up.

What in hell was he thinking?

She stole a peek at him, then quickly looked back at the ceiling. He hadn’t moved. His pants were still down around his ankles, his boots were still on, and sweat glistened off every inch of exposed skin. She had noticed also, in that fraction of a second, that there was a smudge of her blood on his thigh.

Grace took stock of her situation.

She hurt like the devil between her legs. That was what she got for keeping her hymen intact for so many years. She knew how unnatural it was to be thirty years old and still a virgin.

And then there was the problem of the silent man beside her. How was she going to get up gracefully, get dressed, and get back down the mountain without making an absolute fool of herself? She had no experience with the aftermath of lovemaking. She didn’t know the protocol.

Grey should. He hadn’t been a virgin. Heck. He’d probably found himself in this situation hundreds of times. Possibly thousands.

That thought made her mad. Why was he lying there like a half-naked mountain of granite? And what was he thinking?

“I saved MacBain’s son three days ago, didn’t I?” he suddenly said without moving, his arm still covering his face and his body still rigid.

“Yes, you did. Three times, as a matter of fact.” Grace spoke to the ceiling above them. “Once inside your jacket as the plane was going down, once when you covered his mouth with yours and breathed life back into him, and again when you carried him down the mountain.”

“Damn.”

“You weren’t damning him then.” She turned to look at him. “You didn’t even give a thought to his heritage. You simply saw an innocent child who needed your strength to live.”

“Damn.”

Grace finally got up, holding her jacket in front of her, and reached down to pick up her clothes. She walked behind one of the couches and started dressing, watching Grey out of the corner of her eye. He still hadn’t moved.

“He’s still that same innocent baby,” she said into the silence. “And he is also my nephew. I will protect him with my dying breath.”

He stood up so suddenly Grace nearly tripped trying to pull up her pants and take a step back at the same time. Grey pulled up his own pants but stilled, seeing the blood on his thigh.

Grace hid her blush in the folds of her turtleneck as she pulled it over her head.

He finished his task as he looked at her, fastening his belt around his waist. His evergreen stare bored into her soul.

“You belong to me now, Grace Sutter. Your allegiance is to me,” he said with a fierceness she felt all the way down to her bare toes.

Grace looked away and pulled her sweater over her head. Holy Mother Mary. He was even more primitive than she had imagined. He was suddenly acting as if he owned her.

“That’s old-fashioned,” she told him, waving her socks in the air as she looked for her boots. “Women don’t belong to men anymore. That practice stopped nearly two hundred years ago.” She pointed her socks at him. “I belong to myself, Greylen MacKeage. And my only allegiance is to my nephew and my dead sister.”

He picked up his shirt and put it on, appearing not the least bit put off by her declaration. “Why were you still a virgin?” he asked.

She stopped hunting for her boots and looked at him, feeling a flush climb into her cheeks again. Damn.

She lifted her chin. “I was saving myself for marriage.”

The left corner of his mouth kicked up. “That’s a bit old-fashioned, don’t you think, for a lass as modern as you consider yourself to be?” he asked, throwing her words back at her.

“It is not. A woman keeping herself intact until she marries is a very hip, very modern concept.”

He looked down at the pillows on the floor and then back at her. “Then I guess this means I’m the man you intend to marry,” he said, his voice washing over Grace with a resonance that made her skin prickle with shivers.

“Marriage means one of us would have to move, and I doubt you’d last a month in Virginia,” she told him, walking to a chair to put on her socks, careful to keep the couch between them.

“The question is, Grace, how long will you last here?”

She looked up, alarmed. “My life is in Virginia. I have work to do there.”

He stared at her another long minute and then turned and walked over to the opposite wall. He picked up both her boots and carried them to her, holding them out for her to take.

She couldn’t move. He had her pinned into place with his gaze again.

“You aren’t going back to Virginia, Grace. The moment you decided to bring Baby back here, the decision was also made that you would be staying with him.”

How could he possibly know such a thing? She hadn’t even come to terms with her own reasoning yet.

She had taken four months from work to come here and sort out her feelings. And now he was telling her just what those feelings were?

She took her boots from him, put them on her feet, and stood up. “I’m ready to go home now,” she said, walking to the door.

He walked over to the hearth and poked the fire down until it was safely banked, then he moved to the door and pulled the heavy prop away and opened it. Grace stepped out into the late-morning light and tilted her head back, letting the mist wash over her face. Grey stood beside her, looking around at the gently crackling, frozen landscape.

“I will grant you permission to ask my men to use our equipment at the tree farm,” he said, drawing her attention. “But I am only allowing this for Baby, not for MacBain. Eventually the farm will belong to your nephew, if you ever tell MacBain that Baby is his son.”

He took her by the shoulders and turned her to face him. “I’m thinking you won’t do it until the boy reaches his late teens or thereabouts. That’s fine with me. I’m willing to raise him as my own son.”

He was assuming she was going to marry him. And that they would live happily ever after as a family, with Baby believing she was his mom and Grey was his dad.

And Michael MacBain none the wiser for their deception.

Well, that was far more than Jonathan Stanhope had offered her. He wanted her to dump Baby in his father’s lap and come running back to Virginia, maybe bear him his own carefully engineered child, and help him win his space race.

“I made a promise to my sister on her deathbed,” she told the man in front of her. “She wants Baby to be with his father.”

“Then you made a promise you never intended to keep, Grace. Otherwise MacBain would have him now.”

“He still might get him. I haven’t decided yet. Mary’s wishes are still stronger than my own selfishness.”

He was shaking his head. “You don’t hold on to a child for just a little while and then give him up. It isn’t possible. You already love him like a son.”

“Sometimes love can be painful,” she said, knowing personally just how truthful her words were.

Her heart was feeling so wounded at the moment she wasn’t sure it would ever mend properly. How could she love a man who was asking her to keep a secret that affected so many people? What would Baby think of them both then, when he reached an age where they could tell him he’d been living a lie?

How could you explain that his real father was just a mile down the road and had been there his entire life? How do you rob a child of his true heritage and his right to know who he really is?

“Justify your actions by thinking you’re doing it for Baby if you want,” she told Grey. “And I’ll say I’m saving your ski lift because my own conscience won’t allow me to walk away from a neighbor in trouble.

And let’s just leave it at that.”

“You’re a damn difficult woman to deal with, Grace Sutter. You’re far too independent for my liking.”

She gave him a sad smile and shrugged her shoulders, which broke her free of his touch.

“That’s probably the greatest thing Mary and I had in common. Welcome to the Sutter family, Mr.

MacKeage.”

Daar paced the length of his porch and stopped to look up at TarStone Mountain. The clouds had lifted just enough that he could see the summit.

He was feeling the energy again. Only this time it was not menacing. The air enveloping TarStone was charged with the white light of life.

This was good. He had heard the snowcat laboring up the mountain on a distant trail two hours ago, and that was when the first wave of energy had assaulted his senses. He had seen a halo of pure white light wreath the summit within minutes of the snowcat’s ascent, and he hadn’t needed a crystal ball to know that Greylen and Grace were up there.

Daar rubbed his hands together and cackled in glee. It was about time those two stubborn people got down to the business of making babies. He had maybe one or two centuries left in his tired old bones, and that was barely enough time to train a new wizard properly.

Daar counted forward on his fingers nine months from now, and his glee disappeared. The first of December. Close, but not near enough to the Winter Solstice. He suddenly smiled again. MacKeage had been late, content to stay in his mother’s womb an extra two weeks. The child conceived today would probably wish to do the same.

Yes, the MacKeage baby would be born on the Winter Solstice, and her birth would begin the quiet shift of power. It was a human misconception that winter was associated with males and summer with females. The strength, the patient power of life, was in the Winter Solstice.

All seven MacKeage girls would be born on that day, over the next eight years.

And the seventh child would be named Winter.

She was the one Daar intended to gift with the new cherrywood cane he was carving.

He buttoned up his Mackinaw coat and picked up his satchel of clothes, stepping off the porch and using his cane for support as he walked over the frozen crust toward the ski trail.