Текст книги "Charming The Highlander"

Автор книги: Джанет Чапмен

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And this was a joyful thing? Grace wanted to ask. Being deformed was good?

“Pull his shirt and diaper off,” Mary said then. “I want to see him naked.”

Grace was afraid to. What other surprises was the clothing hiding? But she did as her sister asked, even though she feared the tiny baby would break from her handling. She didn’t know what she was doing.

Heck, she hadn’t even played with dolls when she was a kid. She had hiked and fished with her father until she was eight, until one of her older brothers had brought home a biography of Albert Einstein and she had discovered the world of science. From then on it was telescopes, science books, and mathematical formulas written on chalkboards.

Grace took off the baby’s nightshirt and peeled off the diaper. She gasped and quickly covered him back up.

Mary pulled the diaper completely off. “You’re a prude, Gracie,” Mary said, cupping her baby’s bottom.

“He’s supposed to look like that. He’ll grow into it.” Mary traced the outline of his face, then possessively rubbed her fingers over his entire body. “Get a new diaper before we get sprayed,” she said.

Grace quickly complied. And between the two of them and their three hands, they eventually got him changed and back into his nightshirt.

Grace was just retying the strings at his feet when she noticed a tear fall onto her hand. She stopped and looked up to find Mary silently crying as she stared down at her son.

“What’s the matter, Mare? Are you in pain?” she asked, holding the baby’s feet so they couldn’t kick out and hurt her.

Mary slowly shook her head, never taking her eyes off her son as she ran a finger over his cheek again.

“I want to see him grow up,” she whispered in a voice that was growing more fatigued, more faint, by the minute. She looked at Grace. “I want to be there for him when he falls and skins his knee, catches his first snake, kisses his first girl, and gets his heart broken every other day.”

Grace flinched as if she’d been struck. She closed her eyes against the pain that welled up in her throat, forcing herself not to cry.

Mary reached up and rubbed her trembling finger over Grace’s cheek, just as she had done to her son’s.

“So it’s up to you, Gracie. You have to be there for him, for me. Take him to his daddy, and be there for both of them. Promise me?”

“He’s not sane, Mary. He thinks he traveled through time.”

Mary looked back at her son. “Maybe he did.”

Grace wanted to scream. Were the drugs in her sister’s body clouding her judgment? Was she so fatigued, so mentally weakened, that she didn’t realize what she was asking?

“Mary,” she said, taking her sister by the chin and making her look at her. “People can’t travel through time.”

“I don’t care if he came from Mars, Gracie. I love him. And he will love our son more than anyone else can. They need each other, and I need your promise to bring them together.”

Grace walked away from the bed to look out the window. She was loath to grant such a promise. She didn’t know a thing about babies, but she was intelligent and financially stable. How hard could it be to raise one little boy? She could read books on child-rearing and promise him a good life with lots of love and attention.

She had never met this Michael the Scot, and she sure as heck didn’t like what she did know about him.

But then, she was even more reluctant to deny Mary her wish. This was the first time her sister had ever asked anything of her, and she was torn between her love for Mary and her worry for her nephew.

“Come get in bed with us, Gracie,” Mary said. “Just like we used to.”

Grace turned around to find Mary with her eyes closed and her child clutched tightly to her chest. The infant was sleeping. Grace returned to the bed and quickly lowered it. Without hesitation she kicked off her shoes, lowered the side bar, and climbed up beside her sister. Mary immediately snuggled against her.

“Ummm. This is nice,” Mary murmured, not opening her eyes. “When was the last time we shared a bed?”

“Mom and Dad’s funeral,” Grace reminded her. She laid her hand on the baby’s backside which was sticking up in the air. “Don’t you think we should give this guy a name?” she asked, rubbing his back.

“No. That’s Michael’s privilege,” Mary said. “Until then, just call him Baby.”

“Baby what? You didn’t tell me his father’s last name.”

“It’s MacBain. Michael MacBain. He bought the Bigelow Christmas Tree Farm.”

That was news to Grace. “What happened to John and Ellen Bigelow?”

“They still live there. Michael moved in with them,” Mary said, her voice growing distant. She turned and looked at Grace, her once beautiful, vibrant blue eyes now glazed with lackluster tears. “He’s a good man, Gracie. As solid as a rock,” she said, closing her eyes again.

Except he believes he’s eight hundred years old, Grace thought. She moved her hand from her nephew’s bottom to her sister’s hair, brushing it away from her forehead.

“I’m still waiting for your promise,” Mary said, turning her face into Grace’s palm.

Grace took a deep breath and finally spoke the words she had so stubbornly, and maybe selfishly, been avoiding.

“I promise, Mare. I’ll take your son to Michael MacBain.”

Mary kissed Grace’s palm and sighed deeply, settling comfortably closer. “And you’ll scatter my ashes on TarStone Mountain,” she said then, her voice trailing off to a whisper. “On Summer Solstice morning.”

“On…on Summer Solstice. I promise.”

Grace left one hand cupping Mary’s head and the other one cradling Baby as a patient, gentle peace returned to the room. Grace placed herself in the crook of her sister’s shoulder, feeling the weakening drum of life beneath her tear-dampened cheek.

In two hours it was over, without the pain of a struggle. Mary’s heart simply stopped beating. The only sound that remained was the soft, gentle breathing of a sleeping baby.

Chapter Two

If lies were raindrops, Grace would surely be in danger of drowning. She had told so many untruths and prevarications these last four weeks, she barely remembered half of them. And those she did remember were threatening to come back and bite her on the backside.

Grace closed the last of her suitcases and snapped the lock into place. Then she went hunting for her carry-on bag. Twice she had to push her way past Jonathan, and twice he ignored the fact that she wasn’

t interested in what he was saying.

Or, rather, what he was demanding.

Jonathan Stanhope III was the owner and CEO of StarShip Spaceline, a high-tech company intent on making space travel for private citizens a reality in the very near future. Employing nearly three hundred people, StarShip was on the cutting edge of scientific discovery, and Jonathan had been Grace’s boss for the last eighteen months.

He was also the man she hoped to marry.

Although at the moment she wished he would climb aboard one of their untested shuttles and shoot himself into space.

Jonathan was not pleased that she was leaving. He’d done his boss’s duty and given her four weeks to

“get over” her sister’s death, and he couldn’t believe that she’d had the audacity to expect even more time.

“But you’re talking about Maine, Grace,” he said for the fourteenth time, following her out of the bedroom and into the kitchen. “They don’t even have telephone lines modern enough for data links up there. It’s the middle of nowhere.”

“Then I’ll make a satellite connection,” she countered, opening cupboard doors and taking down bottles of formula and baby paraphernalia. She counted out a three-day supply and began packing it in her carry-on bag. She went to the refrigerator and took down the list she had made. Diapers. She was going to need another bag just for the diapers. She headed back into the bedroom.

Jonathan followed her.

“Will you stop,” he said, taking her by the shoulder and forcibly pulling her to a halt. He turned her around to face him.

Grace looked up into his usually affable, handsomely sculpted face. Only Jonathan wasn’t looking so very agreeable now. He was angry. Truly angry. His intelligent, hazel gray eyes were narrowed, and his jaw was clenched tightly enough to break his teeth.

Grace moved her gaze first to one of his hands on her arm and then to the other, noticing how his Rolex glistened beneath his perfectly pressed white cuff link shirt.

“You’re hurting me,” she said.

Ever a gentleman, even when angry, Jonathan immediately released her. He took a deep breath and stepped back, running his hand through his professionally styled sun-blond hair.

“Dammit, Grace. This is the worst possible time for you to leave. We’ll be receiving data from Podly by the end of the week.”

And that was Jonathan’s real worry. He wasn’t disgruntled because he would miss her in a romantic sense, but because his business might suffer in her absence. The satellite pod they had sent up six weeks ago—it had been Grace’s idea to name it Podly, because it reminded her of a long pea pod housing several delicate computers—was finally functioning to full capacity. And she was the only person at StarShip Spaceline who could decipher the data Podly sent back.

It was the race into space all over again, only this time it was not the Russians against the Americans. This new race involved private companies competing for the future market of civilian space travel. StarShip Spaceline was in a heated battle with two other private programs, one based in Europe, the other in Japan. And all three of them were on the verge of perfecting alternative forms of propulsion.

Solid rocket fuel, the propulsion used in the NASA space program, was inefficient. Simply put, it weighed too much. The shuttle had to be strapped to a rocket that was several times its size and weight just to get out of the Earth’s atmosphere.

Alternative forms, such as ion propulsion or microwaves or antimatter, however, could make space travel a moneymaking venture and even make possible the colonization of the moon and Mars.

Basically, it all boiled down to mathematical physics.

And that was where Grace fit into the picture. She was StarShip Spaceline’s resident mathematician. She crunched the numbers and was the troubleshooter for the theories. She could look at a schematic and tell, using mathematical formulas, if it was viable or not.

In just the eighteen months that she’d worked for StarShip, Grace had saved Jonathan Stanhope’s company millions of dollars by disproving theories before they were put into action.

Podly was orbiting Earth right now, and there was great hope that the data it sent back would end the race for a new form of fuel in StarShip’s favor.

“I can receive Podly’s data in Maine just as well as I can here, Jonathan,” she assured him. “I have the satellite link and my computer already packed.”

“But what about your other projects?”

“Carl and Simon have been working on them these past four weeks without any problems. I see no reason why they can’t continue.”

She walked over to her closet and pulled down another bag to fill with diapers. She turned to find Jonathan blocking her path again. His features had softened, and his eyes were once again the intelligent hazel gray she had been falling in love with these past eighteen months.

“Grace. About the baby,” he said softly.

“What about him?”

“Is he going to be with you when you return?”

Well now, that was the sixty-four-thousand-dollar question, wasn’t it? Grace tried to remember which half-truths she had told Jonathan, as well as which lies she had told the social workers and her brothers.

And what about the half-truths she had told Emma, the kindly nurse from the hospital who had been sympathetic enough to give up her vacation and help Grace with Baby these last four weeks?

“That’s what I’m going to Maine to find out,” she told Jonathan.

“The boy belongs with his father.”

“He belongs with the person who can best care for him,” she countered.

“You promised your sister,” he reminded her. He took her by the shoulders again, but this time his touch was gentle. His expression, however, was not. “You’re not dealing with Mary’s death, Grace,” he said,

“because as long as you continue to hold on to her, you won’t have to keep your promise.”

“That’s not true.”

He reached up and pushed an unruly strand of hair from her face, tucking it behind her ear. “She’s sitting in the middle of your kitchen table right now. You’ve put your sister in an Oreo cookie tin, and you talk to her.”

Grace stood her ground, refusing to let him see her pain. “She’s my baby sister, Jonathan. You want me sticking her in a closet? Or maybe I should just FedEx her to Pine Creek? Mary loved Oreo cookies. I can’t think of any place she’d rather be right now, until the Summer Solstice, when I’m supposed to put her to rest on TarStone Mountain.”

“The Summer Solstice is four months away,” he said, looking angry again. “I told you last week when you asked for this leave of absence that four months is too long. You’ve had one month already, and that

’s all I can spare right now.”

“I’m taking four more months, Jonathan,” she told him succinctly, bracing herself for a fight. “I owe that much to Mary and to Baby.”

“You need to let go of her, Grace,” he repeated, suddenly pulling her into his arms and hugging her tightly.

Grace sighed into his shoulder. She liked being in Jonathan’s arms—usually. Heck, the few dates they’d been on had been showing great promise for a future together. Why, then, was she feeling disappointed?

Could it be that this thoroughly modern, success-driven man she so admired didn’t have a sensitive bone in his body? Could he really be this selfish, not to understand why she had to make things right with her sister?

“You need to go to Maine, find the kid’s father, and move on with your life,” he continued over her head.

“Your sister has all but pulled you into the grave with her.” He leaned back to see her. “Have you looked in the mirror lately? You’re in jogging pants and a sweatshirt, for Christ’s sake. The same ones you were wearing yesterday.”

“They clean easier,” she said, pulling away and stuffing the bag full of diapers. “Baby spit and formula do not go well with silk.”

“And that’s another thing,” he continued to her back. “You’re a scientist, not a mother. You don’t know the first thing about raising a child. Hell, you can’t even get the snaps on his suits right. The kid looks as disheveled as you do lately.”

He took her by the shoulders again as soon as she turned to face him, making her drop the bag of diapers on the floor. “Grace,” he whispered, his expression more desperate than angry. “Don’t go. Not now. Wait until Podly lands in August, then go to Maine. It will be safer then.”

“Safer?”

“It will be better,” he amended. “Once the pod is safely landed and back in our hands, then you can leave.”

“That’s two months too late, Jonathan. I’ll miss the Solstice. And I have to deal with Mary’s estate. I can

’t just leave everything hanging for another six months. People in Pine Creek will wonder what happened to her.”

“Call them,” he said, squeezing her shoulders. “And call the kid’s father and have him come get his son. It

’s the practical thing to do.”

“For you,” Grace hissed, pulling out of his grip and picking up the diaper bag. She straightened and glared at him. “You don’t announce a person’s death over the phone, and you sure as heck don’t call a man and tell him the woman he loves is dead and ‘oh, by the way, she left you a son.’”

Grace left the room before she brained her boss with the bag of diapers. She all but ran into the living room, only to stop at the sight of Emma feeding Baby.

Emma looked up and glared at a spot behind Grace, and Grace knew that Jonathan was standing behind her.

“I’ll put your suitcase in my car,” he said through gritted teeth. “Place whatever else you want to take by the door, and I’ll get it.”

“I’ll put them in my car,” she said, turning to face him. “Emma is driving Baby and me to the airport.”

He ran a hand through his hair. “I guess I have no say in the matter,” he said, his eyes still sharp with anger. “You know how much StarShip needs your expertise.” His jaw tightened, and he pointed a finger at her. “I’ll expect daily reports on Podly from you while you’re gone—and it better not be for four months,” he finished with a growl, just before he turned and silently walked out the door and headed for his car parked on the street.

“Now, don’t you take anything he said to heart,” Emma told her, admitting she had overheard their entire fight. “You’re going to do just fine with this child, Grace. And as for your sister, I know what it’s like to lose a loved one. You don’t get over it in four weeks.”

“Thank you, Emma. Ah, do you mind that I volunteered you to drive us to the airport? I just couldn’t stand the thought of twenty more minutes of lectures from Jonathan.”

“No, sweetie. It will be my pleasure. Here, he’s ready for burping,” she said, holding up Baby for Grace to take.

Gingerly, careful of the way she had been taught to support his head, Grace took Baby and turned him onto her shoulder. She patted his back with gentle, rhythmic strokes.

“Have you been thinking of a name?” Emma asked, packing Baby’s clothes into yet another bag.

“I’ve thought of hundreds,” Grace admitted, now pacing and patting and softly jouncing him up and down. “But none of them seems right,” she said with averted eyes.

Lord, she hated lying to this nice lady. But she couldn’t tell her she hadn’t the right to christen Baby, that it was his father’s privilege.

She had told the hospital staff and the social workers that she did not know who Baby’s father was. It was the hardest lie she had ever told, but it was the most expedient—although it had been touch and go for a while. The hospital had been loath to release him without a Christian name to put on the birth certificate. As it stood, he was officially, temporarily, known as Baby Boy Sutter.

With only a bit of paperwork, and not liking the no-name situation any more than the hospital had, the courts had awarded Grace temporary custody of Baby until they could ask their counterparts in Maine to look into the matter. Upon hearing that news, Grace had even gone so far as to make up a tale that Mary had admitted having a one-night stand with a man who had been passing through Pine Creek. It was a wonder the cookie tin hadn’t exploded all over her kitchen for that damning lie, but Grace had not wanted anyone investigating anything.

Her brothers were another matter altogether. Every one of them had promised to book a flight when Grace had called with the terrible news. But she convinced them there was nothing they could do here and that if they wished to express their love for Mary, they would show up at TarStone Mountain on the Summer Solstice.

Her lie to them had been one of omission. She had not told them about Baby.

Although Grace loved each of them dearly, she did not want them coming here and taking charge of a situation they knew nothing about. Not that she knew much more. But how could she explain she knew who the father was but that he thought he was a traveler through time? And how could she omit that little detail without first meeting Michael MacBain and deciding for herself if he was sane or not?

No, it was better this way. She didn’t want or need six strong-minded men messing up the promise she had made to her sister.

Grace walked to the living-room window and saw Jonathan’s Mercedes pull away from the stop sign at the end of her street. She buried her nose in Baby’s hair, drawing in a long, satisfying whiff of shampoo and powder.

She had just had her first fight with Jonathan, and it had been an illuminating event.

He was worried about his company, the competition that was rapidly closing in on them, and Podly’s performance. Well, she couldn’t do anything about their competitors, but she could take care of Podly, even from Maine. Jonathan would calm down once he realized that he hadn’t lost her expertise, only her physical presence. She would do a good job for StarShip these next four months and maybe set a precedent for an annual sabbatical in Maine.

But there had been something else in Jonathan’s voice and actions lately that simply didn’t add up. If she had to put a name on it, Grace would call it fear. Jonathan had seemed scared just now that he couldn’t talk her out of leaving.

Was he afraid she might not come back?

Or was the satellite his only concern?

Just before Podly had been launched six weeks ago, Jonathan had become quiet and withdrawn. He’d canceled a date with her at the last minute and had sequestered himself in the lab with Podly for nearly four days after that, placing the last bolt on the satellite himself, sealing it for its eight-month orbit around Earth.

And since it had been launched, Jonathan had been acting strangely with everyone at work. The first two weeks Podly had been up, before Mary’s accident, Jonathan had spent every possible minute looking over Grace’s shoulder at the computer bank that was the mission control for the small satellite—when, that is, he wasn’t locked in his office with the blinds drawn. More than once Grace had come to work only to realize that Jonathan had never left.

He’d doubled security at the lab and threatened everyone to be on the alert for corporate espionage.

Probably the only reason Grace wasn’t as paranoid as Jonathan was because she had spent the last four weeks wrapped up in her own grief and Baby’s care.

And that was another thing.

Jonathan didn’t want Baby. He expected her to make a phone call, hand Baby over to a stranger, then get on with business as usual.

The subject of children had come up once on a date, and Jonathan had casually alluded to the fact that they would make quite a baby together, that their child would have a genetic makeup that could not help but ensure great intelligence.

At the time Grace had been thrilled that Jonathan was even thinking such thoughts about their future together. Now, though, she was beginning to wonder if the man was dating her for who she was or for the genes she was carrying. He might be open to the idea of having his own carefully engineered baby, but he definitely wanted nothing to do with another man’s child.

That was something else she would have to think about these next four months.

“He’s spit up on you again,” Emma said, breaking into Grace’s thoughts. “It’s running down the back of your shoulder.”

Emma tossed a towel over Grace’s shoulder and took Baby away from her. “You’ve got to be more gentle with the tyke, Grace,” she said, smiling as she gave her critique. “Handle him the way you handle your laptop computer. Hold him firmly, but don’t jostle him too much.”

Grace wiped the spit from her shirt and flopped down into a chair. She threw the towel across the room, aiming for the dirty clothes basket. She missed. “I’m never going to make it as a mother, Emma. I can’t seem to get the hang of it.”

Grace blew the hair from her cheek and reached up and tucked it behind her ear. “I have all the confidence a person could want when it comes to splitting atoms or launching rockets into space.” She waved at Baby. “But I can’t even dress him without having snaps left over when I get to his neck. And the sticky tape on his diapers defeats me. He comes away naked when I pull off his jumpsuits.”

Emma was truly laughing now as she set Baby down and started changing him into his traveling clothes.

Grace got up from her chair and moved closer to watch.

“You’re sure he’s not too young to travel?” she asked over Emma’s shoulder, fascinated by the woman’s effortless skill.

“Naw. He’s as strong as an ox, this one. And the doctor gave you permission.” She looked up at Grace.

“Believe me, Dr. Brown would not have let him go if he had any doubts. Here. You rock him to sleep, and I’ll finish packing his things.” She walked to where she’d set down her purse and pulled out a book.

“Where’s your carry-on?” she asked. “I brought you some reading for the flight.”

“What is it?” Grace asked.

“It’s a book on babies,” Emma said, holding it up for Grace to see. “Written by two women who know what they’re doing. Between them, they’ve got eight children.” She tucked the book into the bag by the hall doorway.

“You’re sending me off with an owner’s manual?” Grace asked, her laugh getting stuck on the lump in her throat.

Emma straightened and looked Grace in the eye. “You go with your instincts first, Grace. If you think something’s wrong, get Baby to a doctor. But usually just common sense will see you through each day.

And if in doubt, check this book or call me.” She pulled a piece of paper from her pocket and tucked it into the bag beside the book. “These are my numbers, for home and work. You call.”

Grace tamped down the tears threatening to blur her vision. She had known Emma only four weeks, and already the woman was as much a mother as she’d had in more than nine years.

“Thank you, Emma. For everything,” Grace whispered hoarsely.

Emma looked at her watch, ducking her head. But not before Grace saw a flush creep into the woman’s face.

“I’ll take this out to your car and check the car seat,” Emma said, her voice gruff as she picked up the bag. “You’ll miss your flight if we don’t get going.”

Grace rocked her nephew, tempted to close her eyes and fall asleep with him. What was she doing, taking him on such a journey at such a young age? Three flights, each plane decidedly smaller than the previous one. A jet from Virginia to Boston, a turbo-prop from Boston to Bangor, Maine, and then a six-seat bush plane that probably had skis instead of wheels for the last leg from Bangor to home.

What was she hoping to find in Pine Creek?

And just how many more lies would she have to tell before Mary’s ghost rose up from her ashes and bit her on the backside?

Chapter Three

The first thing he noticed was the baby strapped to her chest. The second thing was the fact that she wasn’t wearing a wedding band.

That first little detail should have made the second one moot, but Greylen MacKeage had never been one to run from a fight or from babies. Nor was he prone to second-guessing his gut. Not when his reaction to a woman was this strong.

The hair on the back of his neck stirred when she walked toward him in the Bangor airport terminal looking lost and tired and in desperate need of assistance. But it wasn’t until she walked up to the pilot holding the “Sutter” sign that his senses sharpened acutely.

They would be sharing the plane to Pine Creek.

Which was a blessing for Grey. He needed the distraction of a beautiful woman to take his mind off the fact that he would soon be three thousand feet up in the sky with nothing but air between him and the ground. He couldn’t decide which was worse, the three thousand feet for the next leg of his ride from Bangor to Pine Creek or the thirty thousand feet he had flown at coming from Chicago. Not that it mattered. From either height, the ground was just as hard when you fell.

“You’re Grace Sutter?” the impatient pilot asked when she stopped in front of him and carefully set down her bags.

She nodded.

“You related to Mary Sutter?”

She nodded again.

Just as impatient to get this flight over with as the pilot seemed to be, Grey silently folded the newspaper he’d been reading and studied Grace Sutter. He knew Mary, too.

“You don’t look like your sister,” the pilot said, giving her a skeptical once-over, as if he didn’t believe her.

Grey did. This woman looked a bit older than Mary, but then that might just be the state of exhaustion she was obviously in. Her soft-looking, tousled blond hair was longer, lighter, and a tad more wild. The cherub shape of her face and the cant of her chin were identical to her sister’s, and she was shorter than Mary by a good three inches. And her eyes? Well, they were a deeper, more liquid blue, set off by flawless skin the color of newly fallen snow. But stand the sisters side by side, and a blind man could see the resemblance.

He hoped like hell their pilot wasn’t blind.

Grey knew Mary Sutter as a neighbor. She owned a small herb farm on the west side of his mountain.

The same farm he had unsuccessfully been trying to buy for the last two years. The MacKeages owned nearly four hundred thousand acres of prime Maine forest, and the Sutter land sat right in the corner of a very nice piece of it.

For two years Mary had sold him eggs, herbs, even goat cheese, but she would not sell him her home.

Grey hadn’t pushed the issue. He didn’t really need her sixty-one acres, he just wanted to neaten up his western boundary. But all he had been able to get from Mary, other than food, was the promise that if she ever decided to sell, she’d sell to him.

And so Grey had remained content to be good neighbors. When Mary’s roof had needed repair, he’d sent Morgan and Callum over to fix it. Not that she had asked for his help.

Mary Sutter was an independent woman. And that had been fine with Grey, until he had caught her thirty feet up on the roof one day, with one end of a rope tied around her waist and the other end tied to the chimney. He had decided then that independence in a woman was a dangerous thing.

He had made the foolish mistake of telling her so.

Mary had laughed in his face.

But she had accepted his offer to help. Mary Sutter may be independent, but she wasn’t stupid. She didn

’t like heights any more than he did.

Grey had asked her out once. So had Morgan and Callum and even too-old-for-her Ian. She had kindly, gracefully, refused them all. And then the crazy woman had been seen all over town with the bastard MacBain.

Go figure.

“I know Mary,” the pilot said. He looked around the terminal and then at a piece of paper he held with his sign. “I don’t have her listed for this trip.” He looked at Grace Sutter. “She’s not home, you know.

Been gone about five months.”

“I know,” Grace Sutter said softly.

The baby that was snuggled deeply in the sack on her chest suddenly stirred. The pilot took a step back, not having realized the woman had a child with her.

Dammit. He was blind.

Grey was seriously thinking of renting a car for the last ninety miles of his journey. But the rental company insisted he return the damn thing back here; they had no outlets in the middle of the woods. So that wasn’