Текст книги "Charming The Highlander"

Автор книги: Джанет Чапмен

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Текущая страница: 14 (всего у книги 21 страниц)

And then there was Grey. He had taught her that there was something much more important than living on the cutting edge of exploration, technology, and modern-minded men. Grey had made her realize that for all of society’s evolution, mankind still needed the ancient values to survive. Men and women still needed to belong to each other. A commitment, a bond, and trust of another were still more important than mere coexistence.

Grace had always known these truths, but she had forgotten them sometime in the last fourteen years, living with people who looked only up and outward, not inside themselves.

“This MacKeage guy,” Jonathan said, walking into the great room of Gu Bràth. “Do you trust him to do as he said? Will he take us to the crash site tomorrow?” He looked at his watch and frowned. “I mean today. Dammit. It’s after midnight. We’ve wasted thirty-six hours already.”

“He will,” she assured him.

He walked to the hearth and held his hands to the warmth of the fire while he looked around the room.

“This is a hell of a place MacKeage owns.” He looked back at her. “I think my last offer of forty thousand was an insult. Where’d he make this kind of money? I’ve never heard the MacKeage name mentioned in the business world. He sure as hell didn’t make this kind of cash living in Pine Creek.”

Grace shrugged and closed the old book she had been looking through. She hadn’t been able to read it; it was written in a language she didn’t recognize.

“You don’t seem very worried about our satellite,” he observed, taking a chair across from her. He leaned forward, his elbows on his knees as he stared at her. “What’s gotten into you? The Grace Sutter I know would be pounding the computer keys now, not reading some ancient tome.”

“Why are we doing it, Jonathan? Why are we trying so hard to travel into space? We haven’t even finished exploring Earth yet. Why aren’t we focused on that?”

Her questions seemed to surprise him. “Because it’s where the future is,” he told her. “A hundred years from now, Earth will be a wasteland. If we don’t travel up and out and explore new worlds, we won’t survive.”

“But it wouldn’t become a wasteland if we put all of our energies into saving it.”

He leaned back in his chair, waving that concept away. “That’s environmental bunk,” he scoffed. “And there’s no money in it. The profit is in space, because that’s where people want to go.” He leaned forward again. “And that’s where you and I can take them, Grace. Don’t get all introspective on me just because you’re visiting your childhood home.”

He got down on his knees in front of her and gripped the arms of her chair. “You’re just feeling something every scientist feels when he’s on the brink of a new discovery that could alter the future of the world. You’re worried about the ramifications.”

He brushed a strand of hair behind her ear. “Don’t be. What we’re doing is a good thing, Grace. Future generations will thank us the same way we now thank Galileo, Newton, Einstein, and the Wright brothers.”

He cupped her cheek and lifted her face up to his. “You’re one of them, Grace,” he whispered.

And then he kissed her.

She didn’t kiss him back. She couldn’t.

He didn’t smell right.

And he tasted like bitter coffee.

Her toes didn’t tingle, and her breath didn’t catch.

It wasn’t the same. Heck, it wasn’t even close.

“I wouldn’t be doing that, girl, if I were you,” Father Daar suddenly said from the doorway of the living room.

Grace pulled back and flushed crimson. Great. She’d just been caught kissing—by an old-fashioned priest, of all people.

Jonathan stood up and faced Daar. “It’s okay, Father,” he said. “Grace and I…well, we have a history together.”

“You’ll not have a future if the MacKeage realizes this,” Daar said, walking into the room and settling into Jonathan’s seat. He dismissed Jonathan in much the same way Grey had dismissed him at her home earlier that afternoon. And, like before, Jonathan didn’t seem to realize the insult or even the threat the priest had alluded to. He simply walked out of the room, back to his computer.

Daar lifted a brow at her, looking at the book in her lap. “Been doing some reading?”

Grace laid the book on the floor by her chair. “No. I thought it might be Scottish, though, and I was looking for the meaning of Gu Bràth.”

“It’s Gaelic, girl,” he said, leaning back in his chair as he grinned at her. “And Gu Bràth means “forever.”

Until eternity.” He leaned closer and said, his crystal-clear blue eyes sparkling, “Or until Judgment Day.

The old Gaelic language is hard to pin down exactly,” he continued, settling back in his chair again.

“Words can have many meanings.”

“What do the words mean for Grey and the others?”

He looked back at the fire, absently watching the flames. “The MacKeage gave this place the name Gu Bràth and said this mountain was their home now, forever, and that nothing short of God himself would ever uproot them again.”

Grace wondered what had happened back in Scotland that had forced the four men to build a new life here. Whatever it was, it had been a painful experience for the priest to use words like uproot and for Grey to declare to God that it would never happen again.

“Why do people refer to him as ‘the MacKeage’?” she asked, drawing Father Daar’s attention again.

“What does that mean?”

“The laird of a clan is always referred to by the clan’s name. The laird of the Campbells would be the Campbell,” he said as example.

“Grey’s a laird? A real one?”

“It’s an old title.” Daar set his cane across his knees and fingered the wood. “It’s not used much anymore today. But the title still exists.”

Grace was fascinated. So that was why the others listened to Grey, even though Ian and Callum were older. But she hadn’t thought people still put stock in rank. Not the way the three men seemed to do, anyway.

She wanted to ask the priest more about it, but he suddenly nodded at the cookie tin sitting on top of the mantel. “She’s not in there, you know,” he told her softly. “She’s here,” he said, pointing at her and then tapping his own chest. He waved a hand in the air. “Mary has moved into the energies of our life forces now and is part of the people whose lives she touched.”

“I know,” Grace admitted rather sheepishly, feeling a bit silly for carrying her sister’s ashes everywhere.

“But they’re all I have left of her. And in less than four months, I won’t even have that.”

“Ah, the Summer Solstice,” he said, nodding. “Your birthdays.”

“How do you know that?”

“Mary would walk up the mountain to visit me at least once a week. She told me that you both had the same birthday. Summer Solstice.”

Grace felt her insides get all mushy, and she smiled. “It doesn’t always fall on the same date every year, you know. Mary was born on June twentieth, and I was born on the twenty-first. But both days were the Summer Solstice on those years, and so Mom decided that we should celebrate that event instead.”

“Mary told me you were each born at the exact moment of the Solstice,” Daar said. “Is that true, or was she pulling an old man’s leg? She had that kind of sense of humor.”

“She wasn’t lying. It’s the weirdest thing. All of my half brothers were born on the same day, too. Mom always made a huge celebration of it, and even after they’d left home, my brothers always came back for our birthdays on Summer Solstice. What are the odds of that happening in one family?”

“You consider it a mere coincidence? Maybe not something a bit more magical?” he asked, his clear, steady blue eyes watching her with an intensity that grew unsettling.

Grace laughed to break the tension she was suddenly feeling. “Of course not, Father. There is no such thing as magic.”

He looked aghast. “You don’t believe in magic, girl?”

“I’m a scientist. I believe what is based in fact.”

“Then explain eight children being born to one father, all on the day of the same celestial event,” he demanded gently.

“It’s a simple mathematical occurrence. It’s no different from what the odds might be that a comet will hit Earth or that a tornado will drive a piece of hay straight through a tree trunk. The probability is not likely, but it still happens occasionally.”

“So math explains what magic can’t.”

“Yes. I’m sure we aren’t the first family to have each child born on the same date,” she said. “Not when you consider the number of births since the beginning of mankind.”

The priest turned and frowned at the fire. Grace hoped she hadn’t insulted him. She was enjoying this philosophical discussion.

“Do you believe in time travel, Father?” she asked, deciding to continue with it and maybe bridge the subject of Michael.

He looked back at her, his eyes narrowed. “I doubt you do. Am I right?”

“In theory, it is possible. Einstein may have already proved that for us. But nobody knows. So my answer is no, I don’t believe in time travel.”

“Then why would you be asking me such a question?”

“Because you and I know somebody who says he’s traveled eight hundred years from the past. And I’m wondering if he’s insane, or if there’s a good explanation for his…confusion.”

As she spoke, the old priest’s eyes grew wide, and his complexion grew paler and paler.

“Who told you this?” he asked in a whisper-soft voice. “Who said he’s traveled through time?”

“Michael MacBain,” she told him in her own whisper, leaning closer so that only he could hear her. “He told Mary he was born in the year A.D. 1171.”

She saw the priest take a deep, almost painful breath as he leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes.

Grace waited a good two minutes for him to answer her, but he just sat there, his eyes closed as he fingered the polished burls of his cane.

Grace decided to try another tack.

“Can you keep a secret, Father?” she asked, leaning closer again. “Baby’s not my son. He’s Mary’s.

And Michael’s.”

He snapped his eyes open and looked at her. You would have thought she had baked him a cake, he looked so suddenly pleased with her. “The bairn’s not yours?”

“No,” she confirmed for him, nodding her head. “But I’m not sure I should tell Michael he has a son. I don’t know if the man is sane or not.”

“Of course he’s sane, girl. Your sister loved him, didn’t she? He’s as right in the head as you and I.”

“But he thinks he traveled through time.”

A look of consternation crossed the old priest’s expression. He opened his mouth, then suddenly snapped it shut and glared at her. Grace was getting a little frustrated herself.

“Well? Did you know Michael seven years ago?” she finally asked. “When the incident with Maura happened?”

“Why?” he asked back, sounding defensive.

She wanted to strangle him. Wasn’t he listening to her? “Because,” she said with as much patience as she could muster, “if you’ve known Michael that long, you can tell me if anything happened to him that would explain why he believes what he does?”

“I have to finish my Novena,” he suddenly said, standing up.

Grace stood up also. “Why won’t you tell me?”

“I’m a priest,” he said, walking away from her. He stopped and looked back. “I’ve taken a vow not to repeat what I hear. If you’re wanting to know anything about MacBain, you’d best be asking the MacKeage. He’s not under any such restriction.”

That said, Father Daar left as silently as he had arrived, the thump of his cane swallowed up by the rug.

Grace stared at the door where he disappeared. Well, that had been productive. She was no closer to finding the answers she needed about Michael than when she had arrived in Pine Creek.

She didn’t want to ask Grey. Or the others, either. But what other choice was there? She had to justify her actions if she intended to keep Baby. Grace walked over to his cradle and watched him sleep.

What was she going to do?

Grey helped the last of the older women out of the snowcat and took her arm as they walked into the resort hotel. That meant sixteen of the twenty rooms that were finished were already full. And people from town were still coming in, now that the word seemed to be out.

It had been Morgan’s idea that they offer up their hotel to anyone needing a warm, comfortable place to weather the storm now that the power had failed. Morgan had gone into the Bigelow house for a drink of water and discovered an aging Ellen Bigelow dressed in layers of clothes, filling pots with ice to melt on the woodstove in her living room.

Morgan had approached Grey with his idea to fire up their hotel generator and make the older people and women with young children in town more comfortable at TarStone Mountain Resort.

It had been a good idea, but implementing it was easier said than done. The people of Pine Creek were an independent lot, especially the older ones. They didn’t want to leave their homes. Grey was blue in the face from talking before he was able to convince John and Ellen Bigelow that it was the practical thing to do. And that was all it took, it seemed, for someone to make the first move. If the Bigelows thought it was a smart decision, the others quickly followed suit.

It had taken both snowcats to transport everyone. As soon as Grey or Morgan brought someone to the hotel, someone else thought of others who needed rescuing. Callum and Morgan and Grey had spent all evening shuttling women, children, and old people from all over town.

The storm had taken a turn for the worse, and it was now sleeting at a rate of an inch an hour. If it kept up, Grey wouldn’t even need the snow-making equipment to cover MacBain’s trees.

Grey might not care for the man they had helped tonight, but he had to admire Grace’s ingenious yet very simple plan to save MacBain from ruin. Instead of trying to fight Mother Nature, they were using snow to protect the young trees by burying them. It was working beautifully.

But what surprised him even more was the fact that Morgan and eventually Callum had helped. He didn’t fault Ian for wanting to remain stubborn; given a choice, he would have also.

Grey was not about to face Grace Sutter, however, when this was over and MacBain was ruined and he was not. Giving into her ultimatum may not be the wisest way to begin their relationship, with Grace thinking she had that kind of control over him, but it was better than having no relationship at all.

Besides, something good was coming from their efforts. The townspeople were responding to their offer of help. For the last four years, the four men and the priest, Daar, had kept to themselves, isolated from the rest of the world, seeking the sanctuary of their mountain forest while they came to terms with the new life they had been so violently thrown into.

The isolation was over now, and it seemed they had inherited themselves a community. The fact that half the town was suddenly living in their resort now was probably the best example of just how far Grey and his men had come. Community was still the best means of survival.

They had simply forgotten that truth—until today.

Word had gotten out within an hour of their starting to set up their equipment at the Christmas tree farm.

Eight able-bodied men had arrived to work beside them, and they had completed the job in half the time.

All without the help of the bastard MacBain. He had disappeared before Grey and Morgan had arrived.

According to John Bigelow, MacBain was in the habit of heading off into the mountains every so often, whenever he took to brooding and wanted to be alone. John felt that MacBain was probably trying to come to terms with Mary’s death.

Which was fine with Grey, although it was ironic that they were trying to save MacBain’s future and the man wasn’t even present. But Grey had found himself looking up toward the mountains, wondering how he would feel, how he would react, if something happened to Grace. He, too, would probably head into the wilderness. He just wasn’t sure he would return. Not without Grace to come back to.

“I never imagined I’d ever see the inside of this place,” the woman he was helping said, gawking around at the two-story lobby. “And now I’m staying here.”

“We’ve been planning an open house for the people of Pine Creek,” Grey lied, suddenly deciding he’d make it a truth.

“A real party, with dancing?” she asked, looking up at him with sparkling, excited brown eyes.

“And gondola rides to the top,” he added, smiling at her, hoping they still had a gondola lift come spring.

The woman stopped and grabbed her chest with a gasp that nearly knocked her over, her eyes widening to the size of dinner plates. “I’ve always wanted to ride on one of those lifts. But I don’t ski,” the eightyish woman said. “You’re going to run it in the summer?”

“Yes. You can see the whole of Pine Lake from the top,” he told her. “And there will be a restaurant at the summit.”

“How do you get the food up there?” she wanted to know, eyeing him suspiciously.

“We use the snowcat you just rode in.”

“Oh, of course. Thank you, young man,” she said, patting his arm. “I see Mavis over there. I want to tell her I’m here. She’s probably worried sick about me.” She attempted to straighten her time-bent frame as she smoothed the front of her coat. “Mavis thinks I need looking after like a child, just because I’m old,”

she told Grey in a co-conspirator’s voice. “I don’t, but I haven’t the heart tell her. She needs to be helpful.”

And you do need looking after, Grey said to himself. He didn’t even know her name, but he did know about pride and independence.

He was in love with a woman who had buckets of both.

He watched as the old lady made her way over to the woman who must be Mavis and smiled when Mavis immediately began mothering her.

Grey headed back out into the sleet, pulling up the collar of his coat as he let his tired feet carry him up the path to Gu Bràth. He was nearly finished. All that was left to do before he found his bed was ensure that he had a gondola come spring.

Grey let himself in quietly and stood in the doorway to the living room, watching Grace and Baby sleeping together in the chair by the fire. Baby was snuggled under her chin, and Grace had her arms wrapped securely around him as they both slept. An empty bottle of formula lay on the floor beside the chair, and a discarded diaper was rolled up beside it.

Grey took a deep, almost painful breath. This is what he wanted, to come home to a woman and child and to know that he was needed by them.

He wasn’t sure when he had fallen in love with both of them. It was possible it had happened on the mountain, on their desperate descent to safety. Or when he had used his body to warm Grace. His heart may have warmed up with her then. But if he had to choose one single moment, Grey would guess it was when they had been standing outside the summit house, when Grace was bargaining to save his lift for the use of his equipment to save his enemy.

That was when he knew he’d found the woman of his heart. He’d pricked her temper, and she had given him an ultimatum. He knew she hadn’t intended to ask him that way, but when Grace Sutter got mad and she felt she had the power of right on her side, she was a force to be reckoned with.

Yes, it was then, as she’d stood facing him, the rain driving her long, curly hair against her face and the fire of anger driving her words, that Grey had felt the sledgehammer blow to his chest.

That was when he decided he wasn’t letting her back off that mountain without claiming her first. Finding out he was her first had only strengthened the bond that was now sealed. The marriage was only a matter of legalities now, as far as he was concerned. She was his, and though she probably didn’t realize it yet, he was hers for the rest of their lives.

And Baby, too, he hoped.

He had fallen in love with the bairn long before he’d known Baby’s heritage. Not that it would have mattered. There was something about the innocent and unquestioning trust Baby had given him that had tugged at Grey’s heart strings.

He didn’t want Grace to give Baby to MacBain.

And that ate at his insides. He couldn’t imagine having fathered a child and not even knowing it existed.

There would be hell to pay for anyone who dared keep such a secret from him. Yet that was the very sin he was willing to commit against Michael MacBain if it kept Grace’s heart from breaking.

Only time would tell. It was Grace’s decision, not his and not anyone else’s. She would have to come to terms with her sister’s wish and with her own desire to keep the child.

Grey finally entered the living room and gently picked Baby up from Grace’s arms, careful not to wake either one of them. He settled the child into his cradle. The boy was growing like a weed on fertile ground. He looked as if he had gained at least a pound this week. His baby cheeks were plumper, his features seemed less wrinkled, and even his terrible mess of hair looked longer.

Grey covered Baby with a blanket, smiling at the sucking motions he made with his mouth in his sleep.

Such an adventurous beginning in such a short life, and still Baby prospered. That, Grey decided, was a miracle. He was grateful the child was young. An older babe might not have fared as well, considering what he’d been through. He leaned down and kissed the relaxed, tiny fist on the blanket and slowly straightened.

He wanted a dozen more just like him. Strong, healthy sons that would be the foundation of the future.

And the woman who would give him that future was in desperate need of some rest herself. Grey checked the baby monitor sitting on the table beside the cradle and picked up the small receiver that Grace had explained to him earlier would allow them to hear Baby from another room. He tucked the small box into his belt, then turned and carefully picked Grace up, holding her against his chest. She instinctively settled her head in the crook of his neck, and a shiver of warmth ran through Grey at the feel of her breath on his skin.

Damn the ski lift, he decided. It had waited this long, it could wait until daybreak. He was taking his woman upstairs and lying beside her while they both caught up on their sleep.

He carried her through the foyer and started up the stairs, smiling at the thought of Grace’s reaction when she woke up and found herself in his bed.

“Are we leaving now?” Jonathan Stanhope asked from the foyer below, looking as if he had just woken up. He yawned and ran a hand through his hair. His other hand held a map.

Grey stopped and turned. “No,” he said softly, not wanting to disturb Grace. “We’ll leave at noon.”

Jonathan came fully awake and rushed to the bottom step, grabbing the newel post. “But that will be too late!” he said. He stared at the woman in Grey’s arms, and his eyes widened with surprise. “Where are you going with Grace?”

“To bed,” Grey told him, turning and heading back up the stairs.

“Wait! Grace!” Jonathan shouted.

Grey felt the warm, pliant woman in his arms stir against him, and he stopped again and turned to look at Jonathan. “You’re beginning to annoy me, Stanhope,” he growled. “Now, get the hell out of my house.”

Chapter Seventeen

Grace didn’t know what to think. She was somewhat disconcerted to find herself waking up in bed with a man beside her. Or, rather, with a man sprawled on top of her.

She couldn’t move. Grey had thrown his leg over her thighs and his arm across her chest, pinning her down as if he were afraid she might disappear while he slept.

So while Grace lay there contented and in no hurry to move, she studied Grey’s bedroom.

She was back in a castle.

And she was the most modern thing in the room. The ceiling above her was at least twelve feet high and made of darkened wood. Two of the walls were of black stone like below, polished to brilliance. The other two walls were of honey oak paneling. And nowhere did she see an electrical fixture or switch.

There were candles in wall sconces, and on a table beside the bed was an entire candelabra of half-burned tapers and a box of matches.

There was a giant hearth on the far wall, flanked on both sides by narrow windows high enough up the wall that she wouldn’t be able to see out them if she were standing on her tiptoes. The bed beneath her was the size of her kitchen at home, and it was a good three feet above the floor.

And those were the more normal things she could see. The rest of the room looked as if it had come directly out of a picture book of medieval castles. A long, narrow length of cloth was draped over the mantel, its colors the same as the shirt she had stolen from Grey. There was an odd-looking saddle with a thick leather bridle hanging down the front of it on a wooden rack standing in the corner of the room.

And then there was a sword lying across the arms of a chair, as if it had been absentmindedly placed there after slaying a dragon.

A sword. She didn’t know much about antiques, but Grace would bet a penny it was worth a fortune. It looked just as tall and heavy as she was. The blade wasn’t shined to a mirror finish like other swords she

’d seen in museums but had the patina of age and use. The handle was not ornate by any means. It had a worn, comfortable look, perfectly designed for a large, masculine hand. The sword was obviously a service weapon, not a ceremonial decoration.

A sword. An antique saddle. Candles. And a castle.

Grace frowned at the hearth as she tried to assimilate what she was seeing, remembering Michael’s story of his supposed journey through time. Ten men, he had said, were caught in the storm. Six MacBains and four others he had refused to talk about, much less name.

A battle. Enemies. And seven years of hatred.

Naw. It couldn’t be. Not one of the four MacKeages had shown even the smallest sign of being delusional.

They were Scots, so why shouldn’t they want to live in a castle? It probably reminded them of home.

Castles were part of their culture, after all.

And besides, would Michael have moved here a year ago if Grey and the others were the enemies he’d been fighting during that storm?

But it was the MacKeages themselves who had told her about Maura. Seven years ago. Before Michael’

s…mishap.

Grace turned her head and looked at the man beside her. His eyes were open, watching her.

“You live in a castle, Greylen MacKeage.”

“Aye. I do.”

“Why?”

“I like castles.”

She waited for him to elaborate, but apparently that was all he had to say on the subject. Grace wiggled to see if he was ready to let her up. He wasn’t.

“This is your bedroom,” she said lamely.

“It is.”

“And this is your bed I’m in.”

“I so admire your mind,” he drawled, the corners of his eyes crinkling with amusement.

Dammit. She couldn’t seem to find the willpower to move.

“How did I get in your bed?”

“I brought you here.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s where you belong.”

She had to look away from him then, so she could remember to breathe. She stared up at the ceiling.

“You don’t have a shirt on,” she thought to tell him, moving her free hand to the top button on her blouse.

At least she was still dressed. Why did that disappoint her?

“I was hot.”

She was getting a little hot herself. Why was he just lying there staring at her? She didn’t have to look at him to know those evergreen eyes were watching her with the intensity and the patience of a cat preparing to pounce.

She should probably pounce first.

Grace suddenly pulled herself out from beneath his leg and rolled on top of him, bracing her hands on his chest as she straddled his waist. That got his attention.

“I want to register a complaint about your resort,” she told him, swatting his hands away when he tried to take hold of her hips. “It seems your guests go to sleep in one place and wake up in another. Are you in the habit of carrying women up to your bed, Mr. MacKeage?”

Realizing she was going to keep swatting him if he kept trying to grab her, Grey conceded and folded his hands behind his head, giving her a negligent shrug.

“Not usually,” he returned. “Only the beautiful ones.”

Grace dug her fingers into his bare chest, determined not to be swayed by his compliment.

Or by that gleam of pure male lust sparking in his eyes.

Nor would she let herself be distracted by the growing evidence of his arousal she felt beneath her.

Dammit. She’d known that if she came to Gu Bràth she’d end up in his bed. But that didn’t mean she had to fall all over him like a love-sick schoolgirl.

But she did fall, when Grey moved so quickly that Grace only had time to squeak before she found herself flat on her back again, once more pinned down by a half-naked body of forged steel. And those evergreen eyes she’d been getting lost in? They were now fire-laced spruce, full of intent.

Grey brushed the hair from her face and smiled at her with all the warmth of a preying cat who’d just caught supper. “I’ll consider your complaint registered, lass. And I’ll give ya one of my own. You’re taking way too long to kiss me.”

“I’m not in the habit of rewarding arrogance.”

He leaned back. “Arrogance? For giving you a comfortable bed to sleep in?”

“For it being your bed,” she countered. “And for being in it with me.”

He lowered his mouth to within inches of hers, smiled, and whispered, “Ah, lass. That’s not arrogance.

That’s belonging.” He lowered his head and covered her mouth with his.

Grace stopped blustering and kissed him back, cupping his face with her hands, splaying her fingers through his silky hair. She liked the way its wavy auburn length made her fingertips tingle. He had the softest hair.

And the hardest body. He was like hot steel, rigid with an escalating tension brought on by her teasing.

A tension that started to echo inside her own body.

“We…we should stop,” she whispered in blatant contradiction to her action, sliding her mouth over his jaw and tightening her arms around him.

“The hell we will,” he said through gritted teeth, pulling her lips back to his. Grace almost laughed at his anything but subtle desire for her. Loving Greylen MacKeage was such a natural thing, warm and fun and so very thrilling.

She opened her mouth and eagerly took his tongue inside. Her senses reeled as his scent assaulted her.

He smelled of nature, of the weather, and of himself. His chest radiated heat, and her breasts ached with longing to be naked against him. She wanted to feel the hair on his chest tickle her bare skin.