Текст книги "Charming The Highlander"

Автор книги: Джанет Чапмен

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Текущая страница: 19 (всего у книги 21 страниц)

“I am the seventh son of a seventh son,” he told her, turning his cup around as he watched the steam waft into the air. “And it’s been written that there’s going to be a change of the guard in the next millennium.”

“Written where?”

He suddenly looked startled. And then he frowned and waved his hand in the air. “It’s just written. I don’

t know where they keep the damn book.”

“Who are they?”

“I don’t know that, either, girl. That’s not the point.”

“Then what’s the point?”

“Winter.”

She stared at him.

“Your seventh daughter, Grace. Her name will be Winter, and she’ll be my heir, the one I gift with the knowledge of life. She’s going to be born on the Winter Solstice.” He pointed toward her stomach. “All of them are, starting with this one.”

Grace covered her belly again, sitting back in her chair, trying to comprehend what he was saying. And the more she thought, the more confused she grew.

She was going to have seven daughters.

And they’d all be born on the Winter Solstice.

And she was supposed to name her seventh daughter Winter.

So that she could become a…a wizard?

“Why?” she snapped.

“Because it’s written,” he snapped back.

Grace rolled her eyes and stood up. “You’re drunk.”

“I am not,” he said, glaring at her. “If I am, then explain to me what happened at the pond last week.”

“I can’t,” she whispered, sitting back down, shaking her head. “I’ve tried, but I can’t.”

“I must say, you’re taking this a bit better than MacKeage did,” he said then, picking up his cocoa and taking another sip, watching her over the rim of the cup.

“You told Grey this?” she choked out, grabbing the table with both hands for balance.

“Of course not. Not all of it. I just told him that he’s here because of you.”

“What?”

“He didn’t act quite so surprised,” he said with a frown creasing his brow. “As a matter of fact, I think he already knew.” He suddenly smiled. “He’s a damn astute warrior.”

“Okay,” Grace said with waning patience. “Let’s start over. Are you saying that you brought Grey eight hundred years forward in time because of me? So we could give you a daughter, whom you can gift with your…your knowledge?” she whispered, trying to comprehend the magnitude of what he was implying.

“You’re pretty damn astute, too.”

She had the good grace not to point out the fact that Daar was a priest and he was swearing. “Why?”

she asked again, closing her eyes for fear of starting another round robin of foolish questions and even more foolish answers.

“I’m needing an heir, girl. And you and Grey are going to give her to me.”

“I will not.”

“That’s what Grey said,” he said, nodding his approval. He held up his hand to forestall her next question. “It’s not what you think, Grace. I’m not wanting your baby. I don’t know anything about the tiny creatures. Winter will come to me a grown woman in her seventies. Before that, she’ll be a good, dutiful daughter to the both of you.”

“No.”

“You won’t even be alive, Grace, when this happens.”

“What if I don’t have a seventh daughter? What if I have my tubes tied or take birth control?”

He looked horrified. “Ya can’t.”

“I can.”

“Why would you be wanting to deny your own flesh and blood this gift?”

“What if she doesn’t want this…this gift?”

“But she will.”

“How do you even know that?”

“Because she’s the product of the two of you.” He rubbed his forehead and closed his eyes with a sigh of frustration. He finally looked back at her with steady, solemn eyes.

“Grace. Winter will be a wonderful woman. She’ll be an inquisitive child, excited about the joys and mysteries of this world, much like yourself. Now, tell me truthfully,” he said, laying his hand on the table, palm up, toward her. “If you could know even one-millionth of those mysteries, wouldn’t you want to see them unlocked in your mind? Take my hand, Grace, and I’ll give you a peek at what powers lie ahead for your daughter.”

She stared at his long-fingered, age-bent hand. Oh, she wanted to touch it. She wanted a peek. Just one little peek.

Slowly, carefully, Grace laid her hand in his, palm down. A warm, tingling vibration traveled through her arm and into her head as Daar gently closed his fingers over hers.

Energy suddenly flashed in her mind’s eye, and she was traveling at the speed of light through space—

backward.

No. Wait. She wanted to go forward in time, not back. She wanted to see people living on Mars, flying to the moon and back again for vacation. And she wanted to see ion propulsion taking them there.

Instead, she saw emotions, not physical things. She could almost touch the pride of a mother when she held her new child for the very first time. She could see the excitement an infant felt when he discovered that smiling got him another smile in return, and maybe a kiss and a cuddle. She could see the sorrow of a mother not wanting to leave her new son in this world without the promise he’d be with his father. And she saw death as the beginning of something new.

She saw them as colors in her mind’s eye, rather than emotions—bright, vivid, detailed, and four-dimensional. They were energy turned into matter, traveling at a velocity that made them timeless.

Constant, without beginning or end—just always present, everywhere.

Grace opened her eyes when Daar released her hand and sat back in his chair, staring at her. “She’s still with you, Grace,” he told her. “Mary’s been your guardian since you were born, and she’ll walk in your heart for the rest of your life.”

She couldn’t speak. She looked at the tin on the table beside them, then back at Daar.

“Give this gift to Winter, Grace. Allow your daughter the chance to fulfill her destiny. Give her life, and then let her come to me when she’s ready.”

“Will she want to come to you?”

“Yes.”

Grace lowered her lashes, trying to decide if she believed him or not. The man was an ordained priest, for crying out loud. He might swear a bit, but surely he couldn’t lie to her.

“Ask me something,” he told her, as if he could read her thoughts. “Exercise that left brain of yours.”

Grace decided to take him up on his offer. Or call his bluff. She had a million questions she wanted answered—about what exactly had happened at the pond, how Grey and the others had been able to travel through time, and why the priest couldn’t have found her someone who wasn’t eight hundred years old.

She decided to take things one step at a time and asked about something that had been worrying her all week. “What happened to Jonathan? And the other men? Are they dead?”

“No,” he said, shaking his head. “But they are finding themselves in a bit of a mess.” He suddenly chuckled. “Don’t worry about them, girl. With their modern knowledge, they’re probably ruling some twelfth-century nation by now.”

“When you pointed your stick at them, what were you intending?”

“It’s a staff, girl, not a stick. And I was intending only to propel them into space for a quick little trip around the world, maybe drop them in the Sahara Desert for a vacation.” He suddenly scowled.

“MacKeage damn near did us all in.”

“Can you tell me if ion propulsion works?” she asked, getting them off the subject of Grey’s little indiscretion.

“No.”

“No, it doesn’t work, or no, you won’t tell me?”

He shot her a warm grin. “It works, Grace. Eventually. As a matter of fact,” he said, leaning toward her and whispering, “your fourth daughter will see that it does.”

Grace covered her mouth with her hands. “She will?”

“But don’t tell Grey,” he said, still leaning forward and still whispering.

“Why?” she whispered past her hands.

“Because he’s wanting a parcel of boys to rebuild his clan back to the greatness it once was. And it will go much easier on all of us if he doesn’t realize he’s not getting them until it’s too late.”

“You didn’t tell Grey he was having daughters?”

“I’m old, girl, not stupid,” he said, leaning back in his chair again, his voice overloud.

“So you had a talk with Grey? When?”

“The day after he threw my staff into the pond.”

“I’m sorry he did that, Father,” she said sincerely, wishing she could get her hands on it again herself.

“Not half as sorry as I am.” He suddenly stood up. “It’s getting late, and I’ve a long walk ahead of me.”

“You’re not walking all the way back to your cabin, are you?” she asked, standing also.

“Well, I can’t get there any other way. Your husband saw to that right enough.”

“He’s not my husband yet.”

He turned and looked at her. “Aye, Grace, he is. You just haven’t realized that fact yet. You think you’re needing a ceremony to make it legal. I do wish you’d stop with this foolishness, though, about not sleeping with the man. He’s a veritable bear to be around.”

Grace felt herself blush all the way down to her toes. She was standing in the middle of her kitchen with a priest, and he was all but telling her to have sex with Grey.

“It’s not a sin, you know,” he told her, looking somewhat perturbed. “You’re married in all eyes but your own. But it is a sin against nature for a woman not to lie with her husband.”

She wanted to melt into the floor from embarrassment. “You—you’re from a time much earlier than Grey, aren’t you?”

“Aye.” He straightened his shoulders and puffed out his chest. “I’ll be fourteen hundred and ninety-two come March.”

She blinked at him. Good lord, the man was ancient.

“Well, this is the twenty-first century,” she told him, just in case he hadn’t realized that fact. “And women are good for more than warming a man’s bed. And men are a bit more civilized about not demanding such things.”

“I suppose they did away with spanking, too,” he muttered just as he left, leaving Grace to stare at the open door of her kitchen that led out onto the porch. She walked over and slammed it shut behind the audacious old priest, and half a ton of ice came sliding down off the roof like thunder. Grace opened the door back up to see if she had just been condemned to hell for killing a priest.

He was standing in the middle of her driveway, glaring at her. She smiled and waved and closed the door again, softly this time. There were spots swimming in front of her eyes for a good two minutes from the brightness of the sunshine outside.

The ice storm had lasted nine days, and the ice was still melting off the trees. The electricity hadn’t come back on yet, but she had seen the line trucks working their way up her road just this morning.

“Well, Mare,” she said to the cookie tin as she went to clean up the cocoa cups. “I guess I should thank you for saving my life the other day up at the pond.” She stopped her chore and picked up the tin, turning it around to face her. “It felt like you,” she told her. “When I saw that warm blue light coming down from TarStone and into that stick, it was as if…as if I could feel you there. And suddenly I wasn’t afraid.”

She waited a bit longer this time before she put the tin back on the table, just in case Mary had something she wanted to say. The Oreo cookie tin suddenly hummed with warmth, and the air in the kitchen gently glowed with blue light. Grace stared around herself in awe, then clutched Mary’s tin to her chest. Grey hadn’t been lying. It was the tin she’d hugged in the snow cave. Mary had been saving her again.

Just as she had during the plane crash and after, while she’d waited for Grey to find out where they were.

And in the snow cave, keeping her warm, keeping her alive until Grey returned. All this time…Mary had been with her, watching over her and Baby.

Patiently waiting for Grace to keep her promise.

Grace thought back to their childhood and all the times Mary had pulled her out of messes she’d made from experiments her brothers kept bringing home to her. Like the time Mary had pulled her out of Pine Lake, when Grace had fallen in trying to reach her weather balloon, which had come crashing back to earth prematurely.

And all the nights Mary had climbed into bed with her because Grace had been overwrought. Like when the Challenger had blown up or whenever something had happened in the news that told her the world had lost another pioneering hero. Mary had been younger by three years, but she had been Grace’s rock to cling to whenever the world overwhelmed her.

And Grace knew that Grey was her new rock. He’d proven himself more than once already to be a fine guardian angel, worthy of the name Superman most of the time.

All she had to do now was coax that sword away from him, get electricity wired to his bedroom, and convince him that daughters could be the future of his clan. Basically, all she had to do was take a not so modern man, polish the roughened edges of his ancient soul, and cover him with a more modern, more civilized veneer.

Chapter Twenty-four

The grand opening of TarStone Mountain Resort was slated to begin tomorrow at noon at the base of the mountain in the ski lodge. Tonight’s gathering wasn’t part of that celebration, although Grey thought there were still a hell of a lot of people present for a party that was supposed to be private.

They were camped out on the floor of the new summit house, despite the fact that there were no walls or roof yet. There was just a huge deck that they’d used to set several tents on and a mantle of stars for a roof.

It was eleven o’clock on Summer Solstice Eve, and his woman showed no signs of wanting to turn in and get some rest for the big day tomorrow. He didn’t blame her, though. She was too busy laughing and crying and visiting with all six of her brothers.

Grey stood on the rocky summit of TarStone and leaned against the deck of the summit house, his arms crossed over his chest, Morgan and Callum and Ian beside him. They were watching Grace sitting next to the bonfire, catching up on the lives of her family.

“The woman’s going to wear out her tongue,” Ian said, smiling at the seven Sutters. “She hasn’t shut up since the first one arrived.”

“I haven’t seen her this happy since I met her,” Callum added, also grinning at the picture before them.

“She’s actually glowing.”

“She wasn’t glowing yesterday,” Morgan said. “Not when she found out her oldest brother’s plane was delayed. What’s his name?”

“I think she said Samuel was the oldest,” Ian told him, scratching his beard. “He’s the one with the crooked nose.”

“You suppose he got that in a fight?” Callum asked.

“Could be,” Morgan agreed, his esteem for the man obviously high. A broken nose was as good as a badge of honor in the warrior’s eyes.

“None of them looks like Grace,” Ian observed. “They’re bigger and much rougher around the edges.

And one of them, what was his name? Brian, I think she called him. He looks as if he eats babies for breakfast.”

Grey noted the inflection of praise in Ian’s voice for that possibility. “He lives in Alaska,” he told Ian.

“Brian works on an oil rig. It’s a demanding job.”

The four of them looked at the tall, boisterous, powerful-looking man Grace had introduced them to yesterday as Brian.

“Do ya think they noticed she’s with child?” Callum asked. “None of them has mentioned it.”

Grace was just starting to show. She had come to Grey frantic last week when her pants weren’t fitting, wailing that her brothers were going to kill her—right after they killed him for getting her pregnant without a wedding first. He had refrained from laughing at her and had taken her shopping instead. She had bought pants with elastic waists and oversized sweaters and shirts.

He didn’t know who she thought she was fooling. It wasn’t her belly that showed she was pregnant, it was her face. Grace Sutter positively glowed with the promise of new life.

Grey thought back to his heated talk with Daar after their adventure at the lake. Grey had told Daar that he didn’t care who he was or what he was doing messing with their lives, only that it stopped. There would be no more magical storms, no more interference, and no more talk of heirs not yet born.

Grey knew his decree had lasted all of six days, when the old priest had gone to Grace’s for a visit. But he hadn’t said anything to Daar because Grace’s spirit had lifted after her talk with the old man.

She had actually come to Gu Bràth for a visit the next day, unsure at first of the welcome she’d get from Ian and the others. Grey had had another little talk with his men, about a father’s right to have his son and a woman’s courage to see that he did.

Ian had been contrite, and when Grace arrived, the old warrior had nearly tripped over himself promising he held no ill will to her for being somewhat related to MacBain. Ian and Grace had actually become fast friends since then, working together on building the new ski lift and planning the grand opening.

“Don’t tell me you four big powerful men are afraid of my brothers,” Grace said, all but skipping over to them.

“We’re not wanting to intrude on your reunion,” Ian said.

She waved that away with a smile and walked up to Grey. “They’re asking about you,” she told him, a mischievous twinkle in her eye. “They want to know about the man who dared make me break a promise.”

“What promise?” he asked, thinking hard on what she could be talking about. Near as he knew, she’d kept every damn promise, even the heartbreaking ones.

“The promise we browbeat her into making when she was twelve,” Samuel Sutter said as he approached.

He wasn’t smiling.

And his brothers were following him over.

“It’s a known fact that Grace was saving herself for marriage,” Paul Sutter interjected, now standing beside Samuel and frowning at Grace.

“It’s cold over here,” Grace said, grabbing Grey’s hand and pulling him toward the fire. “Let’s make some cocoa.”

Grey let her lead him away, smiling at her glaring brothers as he walked past them. The six Sutter men turned in unison and followed, and the three MacKeages, not to be left out of what might possibly turn into a rousing fight, followed them.

As soon as they reached the fire, Grey sat down and pulled Grace onto his lap, ignoring her faint little gasp, wrapping his arms around her to trap her in place.

“Are you nuts?” she whispered to him, trying to wiggle free. “They’re already mad that I’m pregnant.

You’re going to upset them more.”

He tightened his hold on her and effectively stopped her struggles. “I’m Superman, remember?” he whispered back, pleased to feel her shiver sensuously against him when his breath teased her ear. “It’ll take a bit more than these six to intimidate me, lass.”

She turned a frown on him, and just because she looked so cute in the glow of firelight, he kissed her on the end of her nose.

“She actually told you she was saving herself for marriage?” Morgan asked, unable to comprehend a woman being so bold with her brothers.

“Well, she didn’t exactly tell us,” the youngest Sutter brother said. Grey thought his name was Timmy.

“We more or less wrung the promise from her.”

“Did you make Mary give this same promise?” Callum asked.

Grey guessed Callum’s esteem for the men had just gone up another notch. There wasn’t a big brother alive who would not wish the same thing for his sister.

“We did,” David Sutter said.

Morgan snorted. “Fat lot of good it did either of them. They both got pregnant.”

The woman on his lap was getting restless, and Grey felt an ultimatum coming on in hopes to get them to change the subject.

They were saved when Michael MacBain appeared out of the darkness, walking up the moonlit trail from the resort.

“Michael,” Grace said, jumping up to greet him.

Grey let her go. She ran to Michael and unzipped the pack he had on his chest, pulling little Robbie MacBain into her arms.

“Thank you so much for coming, Michael,” she said, reaching up and kissing his cheek. She turned to her brothers, who were now standing again.

“This is Robbie, your nephew,” she told them, walking over to the fire to show them the babe. “He’s five months old next week. And he can already sit up by himself.”

Five Sutter men crowded around to see Robbie, who was staring wide-eyed at all the faces staring at him. He clung to Grace’s shirt with his fist, then suddenly turned and buried his face in her hair.

Samuel Sutter was not watching him but was looking at Michael MacBain instead.

“So you’re the man who got our baby sister pregnant,” Samuel said in a low, guttural voice.

The five other Sutter men turned to join their brother. With a snort of disbelief at what he was about to do, Grey found himself going over and standing beside Michael MacBain. Even more unbelievable was that Morgan and Callum and even Ian joined him, until the five men formed a united front against the six Sutter men.

Grace had to blink several times to believe what she was seeing. She had just been about to step in front of Michael to defend her sister’s love for him to her brothers, but every one of the MacKeages was already doing it for her.

The fact that Ian was there warmed Grace’s heart the most. She and Ian had run into Michael and Robbie in town one day a month ago, and when Ian had turned to leave, Michael had stopped him.

Grace had held her breath, expecting a fight. But Michael had said, in a quiet, gentle voice, that he had something he wanted Ian to know. Stern-faced and rigid, the older man had waited with his hands balled into fists at his side.

“Maura didn’t kill herself,” Michael told him then. “We were running away to get married. She was coming to meet me when she wandered off the path and onto the rotten ice of the loc. It was an accident, Ian. And a tragedy that I have regretted all my life. I should have come to you and openly asked for her hand.”

Ian had only stared at him then, stone-still and silent.

“I loved your daughter, old man,” Michael had said, his hand lovingly supporting Robbie in the pack of his chest. “And I’m sorry for you. For both of us.”

Michael had turned and walked away then, not looking back. As apologies between men went, Grace had thought that was about as good as it got. She had seen Ian’s shoulders tremble slightly as Michael walked away. And so she had walked away, too, into the store to finish her shopping, leaving the still grieving father the privacy to come to terms with what he’d been told.

And now Ian was actually standing beside the man he had hated for seven long years, supporting him.

“If your question is did I love your sister,” Michael said calmly to Samuel, “then yes, we had a child together. However, Robbie would have been born in wedlock had Mary lived.”

That simple reminder that Mary was not here to defend herself seemed to take the anger right out of her oldest brother. Timmy, though, who was the youngest and had lived at home with Mary and Grace the longest, was still not willing to let Michael off so easily.

“The wedding usually comes before the pregnancy, not before the birth,” he said, taking a step closer to Michael.

Grace rolled her eyes. They were all such men.

“Oh, look!” she exclaimed as excitedly as she could. “A falling star. Quick everyone, make a wish.”

All eleven men turned and glared at her. “Watch,” she said, pointing up at the heavens. “There’ll be another one.”

“Go to bed, Grace,” Timmy said. “You’ve only got maybe five hours before sunrise.”

“I can’t sleep.”

Samuel, who knew her well enough to know she was lying, walked over and took Robbie from her arms and pulled his little cap over his ears.

“Pregnant women can always sleep,” he told her, having the experience of watching his wife bear five children to back up his words. He reached out and tapped the end of her nose. “We just want to have a little talk with your fiancé, sis. We’ll try and keep it quiet.”

“You leave Grey and Michael alone,” she told him in a whisper. “They both love both your sisters.”

“I know,” he agreed, looking at Robbie with a warming smile. “Mary did well, didn’t she? He’s a cute little tyke.”

Grace wasn’t about to point out that his hat was hiding the fact that Robbie had big ears and uncontrollable hair that made him look like a troll. Besides, he was the most beautiful troll she had ever laid eyes on.

“I’m not going to bed until the rest of you do. I don’t want you telling Grey about my childhood antics.”

Samuel laughed out loud, shaking Robbie to the point that he laughed aloud, too, and clapped his hands.

“That would take more than the rest of this night,” Samuel said.

He took her by the shoulder and physically turned her toward the tents pitched on the summit house floor. He gave her a gentle shove to get her moving and then a stern pat on the rear to make sure she kept going.

She turned around and glared at him, rubbing her bum. “The next person to swat my backside,” she said through clenched teeth, looking at Grey as she spoke, making sure he got her message, “had better learn to sleep with one eye open.”

“I wouldn’t dare do it any other way, lass,” Grey said with a chuckle. “Now, go to bed, Grace. We promise not to roll your brothers off the mountain.”

With one last skeptical look at the eleven of them, she finally gave into her fatigue and climbed into the small tent that Grey had set up for her.

He’d set up three more for her brothers, but that was all. She’d asked him where the other tents were, and Grey had laughed. He said they had never slept in a tent in their lives, not even in the rain. God provided all the shelter they needed, and why would they want to surround themselves with cloth on such a beautiful night?

She’d wanted a tent for Michael, at least, because of Robbie. Grey had looked appalled at that thought and asked if she wanted him to make peace with the man or insult him. Robbie was a Scot, and a warrior

’s son to boot. The babe would be fine wrapped up in the warmth of his father’s arms for the night.

Grace crawled into her sleeping bag, not even bothering to undress. They were all warriors, she’d discovered. Ian had been her greatest source of information. While they had worked together, she had gently plied him with questions about life eight hundred years ago, and Ian had opened up, telling her about the family he’d lost and about their duties as men in that hard yet wonderful age.

He explained Grey’s duties and what being a laird meant. He also explained that stealing a neighbor’s cattle—reeving, he had called it—was more a sport than an act of war. True wars rarely happened between clans, but disputes over land or resources or insults were more common.

He told her that women were chattel eight hundred years ago and needed guidance from men. He had quickly added, his face a dull red at the time, that he knew better now, that women were equal partners in life and able to think for themselves.

“Are you sleeping, lass?” came Grey’s voice through the side of her tent, sounding as if he was no more than ten inches away from her head.

“No.” She smiled up at the ridge pole. “Is everyone gone to bed?”

“Aye. Your brothers have had their fill of beer, and their beds seemed more appealing than a good fight.

They’ve turned in for the night.”

“Why haven’t you?”

“I have.”

“Outside my tent?”

“Less than a foot away, lass. Does that bother you?”

It did, but not in the way he was thinking. She rolled over so she was facing him through the cloth.

“Thank you for letting Michael come tonight.”

“Ah, Grace. Never give thanks for something that’s not needing it. MacBain’s not here as any favor to you on my part. He came because he and Robbie belong here. It’s his woman we’re all saying goodbye to in the morning. Not one of us can deny him that right.”

Grace unzipped the tent and wiggled her head out until she could look up at the stars.

“You’ll freeze,” he said, trying to push her back in.

“You haven’t enough heat for both of us?” She turned to look at him. “I remember when you did once before.”

He stopped pushing and pulled instead, until she was curled up beside him. Grace snuggled against him like a spoon and took his arm and wrapped it around her waist, sealing herself in his heat.

“About this spanking thing,” she said, deciding to set things straight between them. She was about to say

“I do” in just a few hours, and if this little discussion didn’t go the way she wanted, she might be saying “I don’t” instead.

He nuzzled her ear with his lips. “What about it, lass?” he asked, sending a shiver down the length of her spine, right into the pit of her stomach.

Grace lost her train of thought.

“What about it?” he repeated, sliding his hand between her breasts and pulling her against him.

“Have you ever actually spanked a woman?” she asked, trying to wiggle away from him so her brain would keep functioning.

He let go of her breasts and slid his hand over her slightly protruding belly, pulling her against him and thrusting his hips forward.

“No,” he said, his voice lazy, his lips brushing her ear.

She turned to see the glint in his dark, heavy-lidded eyes. “So it’s all been bluster?”

“No,” he repeated, kissing her lips.

She turned completely around until she was facing him and gave him a good scowl to let him know she wasn’t going to be distracted. “You can’t spank a woman today,” she told him. “You can’t even threaten to.”

He lifted his head to look down on her. “Not even if she’s needing it?”

Her throat tightened. But she was careful not to shout at him. Not with her brothers within earshot.

“Needing it?” she repeated.

“Aye,” he said, the slash of his grin showing his teeth. “Sometimes it’s the only way to end the argument.”

Grace forced herself to take a calming breath. He was teasing her. He had to be. “Did your father spank your mother?”

Her question surprised him, and his grin vanished. “No,” he said, shaking his head. He suddenly smiled again. “I remember he tried to once.”

He rolled onto his back and laced his fingers behind his head, staring up at the sky. Finding herself deprived of his heat, Grace cuddled against him, laid her head on his chest, and wrapped her arms around him.

“She hid his sword,” Grey told her, his chest rising with a chuckle. “She didn’t want him to go out reeving that night, saying she’d had a premonition that he might not come back.”

Grace lifted her head to look at him. “Did he go?”

“Honest to God,” he said, shaking his head at the memory. “Mama stood firm and wouldn’t give up her hiding place. And Da wasn’t about to leave without his sword.”