Текст книги "Charming The Highlander"

Автор книги: Джанет Чапмен

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Текущая страница: 18 (всего у книги 21 страниц)

“And so you gave MacBain his son so he wouldn’t be alone anymore,” he said.

“Yes,” she said softly. “I kept my promise to Mary because my own selfishness was not an excuse to keep Baby.” She ran her thumbs along the rim of the cookie tin as she stared sightlessly at it. “It wasn’t my decision to make. It never was. Baby’s mother wanted him with his father, and I have to respect that.”

“Tell me how to fix it, Grace,” he said, coming to crouch beside her. “Tell me how to help you now.”

“Tell me you love me,” Grace answered softly.

“Dammit, woman. I love you!” Grey stood and swept her into his arms, clutching her to his chest as he walked back to the living room. He sat down on the couch in front of the fire, settling Grace on his lap.

She looked at him while she thought about that, then laughed out loud as she swiped away more tears.

“Of course I knew that,” she said, waving his declaration away with her hand. She rolled her eyes. “I’d have to be an idiot not to. You’ve all but shouted it at me all week.”

“When?” he snapped, disgruntled that she was so highly amused.

“Oh, let’s see,” she said, her tear-swollen face awash with a disarming smile. She held up one finger. “I believe your actions said so when you came back and pulled me out of the snow cave after the plane crash.”

“I didn’t love you then. I didn’t even know you.”

“Two,” she said, ignoring his protest and holding up a second finger. “You stripped me naked and crawled into bed with me at Daar’s cabin.” She gave him a mischievous grin. “You had to love me then.”

“That was lust.”

“Three,” she said, holding up another finger. “You had no intention of leaving the summit house until we made love the other day.”

“That was lust, too.”

She gave him a narrow-eyed glare.

“Continue,” he said, squeezing her again. “When else did I say I loved you?”

She had to think for a minute, and that irked. He was just about to shake an answer out of her when she held up her fourth and fifth fingers and smiled sadly.

“Today. Twice. When you attacked Father Daar, worried that he was the real threat. Although I think he was trying to save me, not get me blown…blown someplace.”

Grey wasn’t ready to go there yet. “And when else?” he asked, giving her a more gentle squeeze.

She looked at him, her deep blue eyes rimmed with unshed tears again. “When you stood silently behind me and let me give Baby to Michael.”

He smothered her against his chest so she couldn’t see the moisture threatening to cloud his own vision.

“I’m sorry for your hurt,” he whispered into her hair. “I’d take it away if I could.”

“I know,” she said into his shirt, hugging him back.

He held her in silence for almost an hour, watching the fire consume the logs in the hearth. If he could only hold her long enough, he could lift some of the pain from her shoulders. He wanted to share it with her. He wanted to share everything with her for the rest of their lives.

The fire finally waned to a glowing bed of red coals. Grey tilted Grace’s chin so he could see her face. A warm, sleepy-eyed, endearing smile greeted his gaze. She stretched against him and lifted her mouth to his, giving him a gentle kiss on the lips.

The fire that had been banked inside his own body suddenly roared to life. Lord, he wanted her madly.

And Grey knew that when he was ninety, he would still want her with a fierceness that would astound him. He resettled her in his arms to kiss her back more easily—just as gently, just as endearingly—

brushing his fingers through her hair as he stroked his hand over her hip.

“I want to feel you inside me again,” she said as she looked up at him with eyes bright with desire. “Now.

Here. Make love to me, Grey.”

She ran her fingers under the hair at the back of his neck, fisted her hand in it, and forcibly pulled his mouth back down to hers. She made a sound at the moment of contact, a rich, husky purr of pure pleasure.

With a surge of molten energy humming through every muscle in his body, he stretched full length on the couch and settled Grace on top of him. She didn’t let go of her grip throughout the entire process. She used her tongue to tease his mouth, slipping it inside with another mew of pleasure. She used her hands, awkwardly, creatively, and desperately, to drive him insane. And then she wiggled her hips more fully over his until he was shaking with need.

He had to slow her down. This was getting explosive. He was getting explosive. He wanted her beneath him now, to drive into her with the force of his passion.

Grace moved from his mouth to trail kisses over his chin, down his neck, to the base of his throat. Grey closed his eyes and locked his jaw. Two of the buttons on his shirt popped off and clattered against the walls in opposite directions.

She licked his nipple. He shouted then, nearly throwing them both off the couch. It was definitely time he took the lead, before he lost his control.

In one fluid motion he reversed their positions, tucking her beneath him, trapping her fevered hands over her head. She stilled, blinking up at him.

Her face, puffed from hours of crying, was flushed with passion now and framed dark blue eyes swimming with lust. Her breathing was irregular. Her scent was alluring. He could still taste her, warm and delicious, on his mouth.

“Oh, God, Grey. Please don’t stop,” she pleaded, moving restlessly beneath him.

Trying to steady his own irregular breathing, Grey lowered his forehead to hers. “I’m not. I’m not stopping, lass. But you’ve got to slow down. You’re burning me up, and I won’t last long enough to get inside you.”

She tilted her head back and lifted her lips, kissing him again, completely ignoring his petition for patience.

He growled into her mouth and captured her lower lip in his teeth, relishing her indrawn breath of surprise.

The surprise didn’t last long. She darted her tongue over his teeth and dug her nails into his back, pulling him even closer, firing his lust back into a bonfire.

He could see he was going to have to get sneaky if he wanted to survive this day. She wasn’t listening to him; she was too far gone with passion. He untangled himself from her arms and lifted them over her head again so that he could lean back and give her his warmest smile.

“Hold your hands there a minute, lass,” he told her, slowly releasing them to see if she obeyed.

Frustration and curiosity warred in her expression, but she did as he asked. “Good girl,” he said, quickly undoing what buttons remained on his shirt. He pulled it off and tossed it on the floor, relishing the waft of air that ran over the sweat on his back, cooling him off enough to let him think straight again.

Grace’s gaze widened, and her curiosity quickly turned to admiration as she stared at him with eyes as dark and as deep as Pine Lake in the midst of a storm. She stretched, purring like a cat about to devour a mouse, and folded her hands behind her head in contentment.

Well, this mouse intended to get in a few good licks of his own before he was eaten.

Grey made short work of his socks and his heavy belt, his hands automatically going next to the snap on his pants. He stopped suddenly, thinking better of it. Not yet. Not until he could trust himself.

Her lower lip came out when she realized he wasn’t taking off any more clothes. Her hands came from behind her head, reaching for his chest.

“Oh, no,” he said, grabbing her wrists again just as her nails lightly raked over his skin. He closed his eyes, clenched his teeth, and prayed for strength.

He was a ball of sweat now, actually shaking with the need to possess her. Lord, but he wanted to sink into the softness she was offering.

“You’re next,” he said, letting her go and quickly grabbing the hem of her sweater. He didn’t know if she was squirming to help him or if she just couldn’t lie still. He pulled the sweater over her head, at the same time lying over her again, bringing their chests together.

As soon as her face was exposed, he kissed her, capturing her gasp of pleasure. He continued to work the sweater up her arms—but not all the way off. Grace continued to kiss him demandingly, rubbing her pebble-hard nipples against his chest, wrapping her legs around him, and digging her heels into his thighs, using her tongue to lay a scent of her taste all through his mouth.

Sweat broke out on his forehead.

Blindly, and quite desperately now, Grey moved the body of her sweater over the arm of the couch, pushing until it locked firmly into place.

He lifted himself up on his elbows and brushed the hair from her face. “Do you remember what happened yesterday at the summit house?” he asked, his voice heavy with need.

Her eyes clouded with confusion and a bit of impatience. “We made love,” she said in a husky voice, lifting her face to kiss him again.

He leaned further back and shook his head. “Nay, lass, we didn’t. That was not lovemaking we shared.

That was a claiming.”

Her confusion grew, her face darkened.

“It wasn’t even sex, Grace,” he continued, after giving her a quick kiss on her nose. “When I broke through your maidenhead and then gave you my seed, I was claiming you as mine.” And, he continued quickly when she started to speak, “when you gave yourself up to me and placed that red badge of your innocence on my thigh, you claimed me as yours.”

She suddenly had nothing to say to him. He kissed her again, on the cheek this time, letting his mouth linger as he felt a shudder go through her.

“Tonight we make love, Grace,” he said into her ear, keeping his cheek on hers. “This time you’ll find your woman’s pleasure.”

Her entire body shivered beneath him, sending a ripple of electricity firing through his muscles, making the blood rush to his groin.

He began by kissing her forehead, her eyebrows, then her eyes as she closed them on a moan of pleasure. He worked his mouth in a path down her face, stopping at her lips for a deeper taste of her sweetness. He moved on to her chin, her throat, the base of her neck.

“Wait. My hands are caught,” she said, tugging to lower her arms. “I can’t get them out of my sleeves.”

He looked up and gave her a feral grin. “Aye. You are caught, Grace. And you’ll be staying caught,” he said, grinning at her dumbfounded expression.

She tugged harder, her face getting red with outrage. “You did this on purpose?”

He nodded again. “Aye.”

“Untie me.”

He shook his head. “I’m sorry if you’re offended, Grace. But honest to God, woman, I won’t even get inside you if I feel your hands on me right now. Stop fighting,” he said, continuing his mouth’s journey down her body. “Stop thinking. Just feel what our bodies do to each other.”

Her reply turned into a moan of surprise when his hands unclasped the front of her bra and he kissed the exposed skin between her breasts. He assaulted much more than her body then; he battered her senses with his lips, his hands, with words meant to inflame her heart. She forgot her fight for freedom, giving herself over to the passion he awakened on every inch of her body. He stripped off her pants, socks, and panties, slowly exposing her beauty, telling her just what he thought of her, what he wanted to do to her.

And then he backed up his words with action. Grey started where he’d left off, kissing her breasts again before moving further down her body, dipping his tongue into her feminine, dimpled belly button, raking his teeth lightly over her hipbone. She nearly bucked them both off the couch when he settled a kiss on the inside of her thigh, her gasp of excited wonder echoing through the silent house.

With his head lifted only enough to see the expression on her face, Grey kissed her more intimately then, his tongue darting out to caress her womanhood. She keened from deep in her throat, throwing her head back and arching her hips to meet his mouth, a shudder of pleasure raking her body, sending a hum of energy coursing through his own body.

Her thighs fiercely hugged his shoulders, her muscles slowly coiled, straining for release. He felt it then, her woman’s pleasure, arching through her body in waves of rippling awareness.

She screamed his name.

Grey was shaking with impatient desire when he settled himself between her thighs and finally gave into his need to feel her wrapped around him.

“Now, Grace,” he said, freeing her arms from her sweater. “Put your hands on me now. Touch me.”

He needn’t have asked. She was reaching up to him, pulling him down to her, lifting her hips to his. The wild-fire in her eyes was burning out of control, every inch of her skin flushed with excitement. Now free, she touched him everywhere she could reach.

Grey moved into her until he filled her completely. She shouted again, bucking against him as she stared into his eyes and continued to repeat his name in husky whispers.

He felt her tighten around him, and then suddenly Grace convulsed in a second pattern of resonating pleasure. She triggered his own tidal wave, and with his gaze locked with hers, her name caught in his throat, Grey held Grace by the hips as he traveled over the edge with her into the world of passion fulfilled.

And he stayed there with her, suspended until he was empty of everything—except for one lingering thought.

He hadn’t moved once he was inside her.

Grey collapsed on top of Grace with all the elegance of a beaten dog. He hadn’t moved. Not even so much as one gentle stroke, one lengthy caress, one simple push of his hips. He had felt her heat, the ripple of her woman’s pleasure, and he’d lost his grip on reality.

Like a lad on his first time out.

Grey lifted himself to his elbows and watched, fascinated, as Grace took in a sudden gasp of air and started coughing. Her movements nearly sent him sliding off her sweat-drenched body. He adjusted their positions so that Grace lay on top of him, so she could continue to breathe and he could continue to hold her.

“Don’t ever do that again, MacKeage,” she told him raggedly, her eyes closed and her head tucked up against his throat.

“Don’t do what? Nearly crush you to death? Spill myself the moment I enter you? Or tie you down?”

“Yeah,” she drowsily muttered into his chest. “Don’t do that.”

He lifted her head away from his shoulder to look at her, fearing she might fall asleep. “So are you ready to come home now?” he asked, brushing her hair back.

She suddenly scrambled off the couch as if he had pinched her. She blinked at him like an owl, until she realized she was beautifully naked. With a gasp she turned and bolted into the bedroom. Grey was left staring at the dying fire.

Now, what had he said? They’d established the fact that she loved him and that he loved her. What more was there? She belonged at Gu Bràth. In his bed. Preferably tonight.

He rubbed his forehead and blew out a tired sigh. He was never going to understand Grace Sutter. He looked back at the fire and suddenly smiled. He hoped not. That was half the fun of loving her.

Grey finally got up and found his own clothes. As he slowly dressed, he tried to think of an argument that would convince Grace she belonged at Gu Bràth. He added some kindling and a few logs to the nearly dead fire, then walked into the kitchen.

He found a now fully dressed Grace glaring at the cold kettle on the stove. She twisted the switch as if she were expecting a fight and looked surprised when the flame suddenly came on with a gentle whoosh.

“We’re back to where we started yesterday,” he said, leaning against the door frame. “You still don’t have any electricity, running water, or sufficient heat. You’ll be more comfortable at Gu Bràth.”

“It’s not decent. We’re not married. I can’t just move in with you.” She looked at him from the corner of her eye.

“I’d keep waking up in your bed, wouldn’t I? And Father Daar would make me kneel in a corner someplace and say a novena for nine days straight.”

“Then we’ll get married tonight. The old priest can perform the ceremony.” He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “And you can invite MacBain and Baby, if it pleases you.”

She straightened from watching the burner and gaped at him, so she didn’t see the flame under the kettle go out. “You want us to get married tonight?”

He nodded. At Grace’s horrified look, a thought suddenly struck him, and he pulled away from the door.

“You’re not afraid, are you, Grace? Of us. Of Callum and Morgan and Ian and me?”

She continued to gape. “Afraid of what?”

“That we…” Damn. What to say? He didn’t want to go where this conversation was heading. But it needed to be said. “That we came from another time,” he said in a near shout, more because of his own anxiety than anger.

“You were never going to tell me, were you?”

He knew as soon as he said the words another time that he was bringing up a subject he wasn’t ready to discuss.

“No,” he told her truthfully, crossing his arms over his chest and glaring back. He was standing firm on this.

His honesty startled her. “Why not?”

“Because none of it matters. If I was born thirty-five or eight hundred and thirty-five years ago, it doesn’t change who I am.”

“You live in a castle, MacKeage. And you carry a sword.”

“There are plenty of eccentrics running around in this world today. I could just be one of them for all anyone knows.”

“But you’re not.”

He closed his eyes and wiped his face with his hands, then rubbed the back of his neck as he looked at her. Damn. Her lower lip was quivering again, and she was blinking her eyes as if to hold back tears.

He sighed and walked over to take hold of her shoulders. “Grace. I want you to use that intelligent brain of yours. Think, lass. Think hard about this from my perspective. If you were the one to have such a secret, would you be willing to chance losing what we’ve found together?”

She stared up into his eyes for the longest time. “You thought I would leave you if I knew.”

“Mary ran from MacBain.”

She stared at him again, her expression thoughtful. “You don’t think much of me, do you?” she whispered.

He pulled her to his chest so forcefully he heard the wind rush out of her. He didn’t care that he was probably squeezing her so hard she couldn’t breathe. By God, he had to make her understand.

“I will not allow this to come between us,” he growled into her hair. “You will not run away.”

She muttered something against his chest just as her little fist suddenly poked him in the ribs with surprising force. He let her go and stepped back. He was expecting another scorching glare for manhandling her, but what he got was another thoughtful look instead.

“How many times have I given you my blind trust this last week?” she asked, resting her hands on his chest. “How often did I do as you asked, without question, and put my welfare in your hands?”

He closed his fingers over hers to stop her from drawing distracting circles on his chest. “That’s different,” he snapped, knowing where this was leading and not liking it. He could feel his hard-won resistance beginning to crumble, and he didn’t like that, either.

“Blind trust, MacKeage,” she said, her mouth curling into a grin. “I think I’ve earned it.”

“It’s a moot point. You already know.”

“And I’m still here.”

Aye. She was still here. And she had said that she loved him after the incident at the pond. And she had also just made love to him like a woman possessed. He smoothed down her hair with an unsteady hand, taking a calming breath as he pulled her, very gently this time, against him. She cuddled into his embrace and wrapped her arms around his waist.

“I don’t suppose you’ve ever given anyone your trust before, have you?” she asked with a sigh against his chest. “It probably would have gotten you killed eight hundred years ago.”

He was silent to that, surprised that she could even comprehend such a thing, much less be willing to accept it. He rubbed her back in slow, gentle circles, savoring the feel of her in his arms, her warmth, her smell, her softness.

“I trust you,” he said, and realized that he did. It was a very liberating truth.

He especially trusted her to trust him, and that was probably the greatest gift two people could give each other. He set her away enough to look her in the eye. She was grinning like the village idiot.

“You’re going to have to be patient with me, lass. I might forget sometimes that I trust you.”

She patted his chest and left her hands there, drawing those distracting circles again. “I’ll try and remember that the next time I’m tempted to brain you with your sword.”

Grey decided it was time to get back to his original question. “So you don’t have a problem with marrying an eight-hundred-year-old man?” he asked.

“I don’t understand any of this,” she said, digging her nails playfully into his chest. “But I will by the time we get married.”

“And when will that be?” he asked, releasing the breath he’d unconsciously been holding.

“Summer Solstice.”

He stepped back so fast he bumped into a chair. “That’s four months away!”

“Do you know I have six brothers?” she asked softly, not even flinching at his shout.

“Six? I knew you and Mary had half brothers. Six?” he repeated. He wondered what kind of gauntlet he’

d have to run to get their approvals. And where her questions were leading now.

She nodded. “Do you have any brothers or sisters?”

His gut tightened. “Just Morgan now,” he told her.

Her mouth fell open. “Morgan is your brother?” she asked in a squeaky voice.

“My half brother. Different mothers.”

Her mouth still hanging open, she shook her head at him. “You two don’t act like brothers.”

“That’s because I’m his laird first, his brother last.”

“I can’t believe you’re brothers,” she kept repeating.

The woman was beginning to sound like a parrot, and he was not getting any closer to getting her out of this house.

“Well, now you know. Let’s go home, and you can scold Morgan for not telling you.”

She snapped her mouth shut and crossed her arms under her breasts, pushing them up in a way that made Grey even more eager to get her into his bed tonight.

“We’ve known each other for six days,” she said then, looking as if she was planted in place. “And all we’ve learned in that time is that we love each other. And also that we trust each other. But there’s more.

We need these next four months to learn the little things, the details, the simple things.”

“And if you learn you don’t like me?”

“That won’t happen.”

“I don’t want to wait. We can spend the rest of our lives learning these details.”

“I won’t stop loving you, Greylen MacKeage. I promise, on the twentieth of June, at sunrise, I’ll marry you.”

He looked at the tin on the table, then back at her. “Grace,” he said softly. “Your sister’s funeral and your wedding day will be the same. That’s not a memory you want to live with the rest of your life.”

“It’s not a funeral. It’s a celebration of our love for Mary. There’s nothing sad about it. It’s a release of our sorrow,” she told him, walking up and touching his arm again.

“It will be like having my sister at my wedding. You have no idea the great memories my family share of TarStone Mountain at sunrise on Summer Solstice. Every year that Mom and Dad were alive, we all went up there. All my brothers came home, and we had a huge birthday party on West Shoulder. We spent the entire day picnicking and playing and laughing. And that’s what I want my wedding to be.”

Grey covered her hand on his arm with his own hand. “It’s a woman thing, isn’t it, this wanting a nice wedding with everyone there?” he said, resigned to being a bachelor for four more months.

That sure as hell didn’t mean he had to be celibate.

She nodded and leaned up and kissed his chin. “I’m not getting married without my brothers. They’ll be here then. They already promised to come for Mary. You can fix your ski lift for the wedding, and we can all ride up to the top on it.”

That reminded him. “Ah, about that,” he said, taking her by the shoulders so she couldn’t run away. “I think I promised the people of Pine Creek a little party.” He shifted his weight to his other foot. “And I sort of had you in mind to plan the thing.”

“Well,” she said, thinking about that. “We could combine the two if you want. I was going to have to invite half the town anyway.”

He closed his eyes and hugged her. “Thank you. I don’t know what I was thinking when I mentioned having a grand opening.”

“I do. You’ve discovered that you don’t live in this town all alone, haven’t you?”

“Aye. With the ice storm throwing us all together the way it has, it was like back in the old…well, it’s nice.”

She squeezed him hard. “Please don’t let go of the ‘old days.’ I’m curious about what your life was like.”

She pulled away and smiled up at him. “And now we’ve got something to do for the next four months. I can ask you a million questions, and you can tell me everything. The time will go by before you know it.”

She smoothed down the front of his shirt. “We’ll have a real old-fashioned courtship, with us getting to know each other and going on dates.” She gave him a mischievous, nasty grin, patting his chest. “And I might let you kiss me good night at my door and send me flowers the next day,” she added, just to get even for his snide remark about the modern men she had dated.

“I’m not keeping my hands off you for four months,” he told her, deciding he’d better set her straight right now.

And that he’d better get out of there before she came up with another hare-brained idea. He kissed her quickly on her lips and headed for the door.

She ran up and grabbed him by the back of the shirt, and he obligingly let her pull him around to face her.

She gave him a stern look and actually pointed her finger at him.

“You will,” she said to his declaration. “It’s bad enough I won’t be a virgin on my wedding night, as I always intended. I don’t want to be pregnant as well.”

“There are things we can do, lass, so that doesn’t happen.”

She waved that away. “Like we did just now?” she hissed through her teeth. “Three times we haven’t used anything, because whenever our lips make contact, there isn’t one single functioning brain cell between us. So it’s pecks on the cheek when we say good night at the door,” she said, poking him in the chest with her finger, “or I’ll see you on Summer Solstice. I will not be pregnant when I get married.”

Chapter Twenty-three

She was going to be four months pregnant when she got married, Father Daar told her. Grace hadn’t been able to work up the nerve to visit the priest, so instead the old man had decided to come see her just seven days after their little adventure on the mountain. And the first things he’d asked when he walked through her door were how was she feeling and how was that babe in her belly coming along.

Grace had burst into tears.

Now she was sitting at the kitchen table across from him, going through her last box of tissues.

“Now, now, girl. It’s not as bad as all that,” he said, looking at her uncomfortably, the way most men did when they were around a crying woman. “Having the MacKeage’s bairn is a wondrous thing.”

“I don’t want a baby. I haven’t gotten over the last one yet.”

And she hadn’t. For two days she’d forced herself to stay away from Michael’s home, giving him time to bond with his son. They had been the longest two days of her life, and she had spent both of them crying her eyes out. By the third day she couldn’t stand it any longer and had knocked on the Bigelows’ door at six in the morning.

Michael must have seen her from his upstairs window, because he came down with Baby in his arms and handed him to her without saying a word. He’d gone back to bed and left her alone to feed and change Baby and coax a few smiles out of him.

She’d been back another six times in the four days since. At each visit she’d used the excuse of bringing some of Baby’s things over for him. She was down to only one pair of socks and a hat now, though, and she was thinking she’d have to bring the socks over one at a time, saying she’d found each in the crack of the couch or stuck in the hamper.

“I’m surprised you haven’t been up to see me,” Daar said, stirring his marshmallows around in his cup of hot cocoa.

Grace blew her nose and tossed the tissue at the wastepaper basket, missing it yet again. “You were waiting for me to visit you?” she asked, wrapping her hands around her own cup of cocoa, watching the marshmallows melt.

“I expected a person with your mind wouldn’t have been able to stay away.”

She looked up at him. “My mind?”

“You’re a scientist, girl. Or have you forgotten that fact?”

“I haven’t felt very scientific lately,” she said with a sigh.

“I’ve been running on the right side of my brain since I arrived in Pine Creek.”

“It was a good and proper thing you did, Grace,” he said tenderly, giving her a warm, sincere smile.

“Mary’s child belongs with his da.”

“It doesn’t feel very good.”

“Time will help. And so will your new daughter.”

Grace sat up a little straighter and fixed her gaze on Daar’s twinkling eyes. Her hand went to her belly.

“My daughter?” she repeated.

“Aye,” he said, nodding. “The first of many.”

She eyed him with skeptical regard. “Exactly how many?”

“At least seven. After that, it’s up to you,” he said, shrugging his shoulders and taking a sip of his cocoa.

“Seven,” she repeated, not caring that she sounded like a parrot. “Why seven?”

He lifted a brow at her as he set down his cup, a satisfied smile wrinkling his face even more. “Ahh. Your left brain emerges,” he said.

The old priest pierced her with a crystal-clear blue gaze that looked as patient as the earth and far too perceptive for her liking. “Have you heard the tale, Grace, of the seventh son of the seventh son being gifted?”

She sat back in her chair, crossed her arms under her breasts, and stared at him. “Yes,” she said, wondering where this conversation was headed. “I’ve heard it all my life. My dad was a seventh son, and I was supposed to be his seventh son. But I came out a girl. And so did Mary, which smartly put an end to that little fantasy for this family.”

“No, it didn’t. Your birth simply began the change in ownership of that gift.”

She leaned forward, intrigued despite herself. “What are you saying?”