Текст книги "Charming The Highlander"

Автор книги: Джанет Чапмен

сообщить о нарушении

Текущая страница: 6 (всего у книги 21 страниц)

It broke into the clearing with all the racket of cannons going off. Footsteps, pounding through the crust with powerful blasts, thundered over the sound of crackling branches. Without slowing down, Greylen MacKeage took the porch steps two at a time and rushed right past the priest without seeing him.

“Daar!” he hollered into the empty cabin, stepping inside and throwing off his jacket before Daar could even make his way through the door.

“I’m here,” he said calmly, stepping into the warmth behind Grey. “What’s happened? What do you need?”

Grey swung around to face him, and Daar took a step back. Something unfathomable was in the warrior’

s eyes.

Something frightening.

Grey unzipped the pack he had strapped to his heaving, sweating chest and pulled out a squirming, mewling infant no larger than a mite.

“He’s soaked,” he said between labored breaths. “You’ve got to get him dry before he chills.”

“I have to?” Daar asked, alarmed, as he looked at the tiny babe Grey had set on the table. “I don’t know anything of infants.”

Grey ignored his argument and began stripping the child bare. “Get me a towel then,” he ordered. “And a washcloth. He’s covered with my sweat.”

Daar hurried around to the kitchen area of the one-room cabin, found a towel and cloth, and brought them back to Grey, then watched as the young warrior worked.

“Who is he?” he asked, able to see it was a boy-child.

“He belongs to Grace Sutter,” Grey said, working quickly and efficiently to wipe down and dry off the child. He pulled a diaper out of his pack, only to realize it was as wet as the infant had been. He tossed it on the floor and used the towel as a makeshift diaper. He looked up at Daar then.

“She’s back on the mountain, about two miles up. I’ve got her tucked into a snow cave, but she’s wet, too.”

The desperation Daar saw in Grey’s eyes was chilling.

“She’s not going to last much longer,” Grey continued. “I’m leaving Baby here and going on to Gu Bràth for the snowcat.”

“Not until you catch your breath, you’re not,” Daar said, going to the bucket on the counter and filling a glass with water. “And you need to replenish the water you’ve lost and get some stew into you. You won

’t even make it to the natural bridge if you don’t.”

He set the glass of water on the now empty table. Grey was pacing the floor with the infant in his arms.

He’d taken the pack off his chest, and the child was snuggled under the crook of Grey’s chin, sucking his fist.

“I don’t have time. Do ya not understand?” Grey said, glaring at him. “She’s dying.”

“And if you collapse before you reach help? What are her chances then?” Daar countered, pulling out a chair and physically guiding Grey to it.

It was not an easy task. The angered, desperate warrior was a solid mass of tension. The muscles of his back were bunched with coiled, waiting power he would not release. Grey still needed something from them, and he wasn’t dropping his guard until he was finished.

“Get his bottle from the pack,” Grey ordered, sitting finally but looking ready to spring back up at any moment. He did, just as soon as Daar had the bottle in his hand.

“Here. You sit down and feed him,” Grey said, moving to hand him the babe. “I’ll drink your water, but I

’m not eating. That will only make me sick.”

Daar didn’t want to hold the babe, but then he wasn’t up to taking on Greylen MacKeage. He sat down and let him set the bairn in his arms. Grey screwed open the bottle, put a nipple on it, and handed it to him.

“Aren’t you supposed to warm it up or something?” Daar asked, carefully holding the fussing bairn.

“It’s probably boiling,” Grey said. “From the heat of my body.”

Daar placed the nipple in the tiny mouth and smiled suddenly at the sight of the babe eagerly, greedily sucking. Satisfied that he could handle the chore, he looked up at Grey.

“What happened?”

“I was in a goddamned plane when it decided not to fly anymore. We crashed on North Finger Ridge.”

He drank down the entire glass of water and went to the counter to refill it. “Grace and the babe were with me. The pilot’s dead.”

Daar looked out the window beside the door, in the direction of TarStone. “You said Grace Sutter? Is she our Mary’s sister?”

Another wave of pain rolled over Grey’s face as he stared at Daar. He nodded. “Yes. She’s Mary’s sister.”

The old priest stared at the warrior he’d befriended four years ago, when Grey and nine other men had burst into his church. They had formed a pact of necessary means. The men needed him to show them the way, and he needed Greylen MacKeage to father his heir.

Not that Daar had ever mentioned that little detail to the warrior. He was wise enough to have a care for his own welfare. Laird MacKeage had been dangerously mad four years ago, to find himself in a situation he could not control. And if he could have found a target for his anger, well, Daar knew for a fact he would not be here today. The man had a temper that no sane person—semi-immortal or not – would want directed at him.

The old wizard watched the agitated warrior as he downed another full glass of water. This woman, this Grace Sutter, meant something to Grey.

Daar suddenly became excited. Could it be that he was finally going to meet the mother of his heir?

He looked down at the bairn in his arms and frowned. The babe presented a problem. The woman Grey had traveled so far to claim was not supposed to be a mother already.

“I’m leaving,” Grey suddenly said, heading for the door.

“Once I have Grace, I’m bringing her here to warm her up. Take care of the babe, and have the fire burning strong. And keep your stew warm.”

“Wait. You forgot your jacket.”

“I donna need it. It only makes me sweat. I only wore it for the bairn.”

Daar stared at him. “You’re relishing this challenge,” he said.

“I’m not,” Grey snapped, swinging toward him. “My woman is dying on the mountain.”

Daar held up his hand. “And you’ll save her. But you’ve regressed to your old warrior ways, running through a frozen forest half naked, pushing yourself beyond reasonable endurance. All you’re lacking is the war paint.”

Grey stared at him.

Daar pointed his age-bent finger directly at Grey. “You’re more alive than you’ve been in four years.”

The warrior suddenly let out a Gaelic curse that should have set the cabin on fire.

Daar laughed out loud until his eyes watered. “You’re going to hell for cursing a priest, MacKeage!” he shouted at Grey’s disappearing back. “Go save your woman. And bring her back here for me to meet.”

He was talking to an empty room. Grey was already off the porch and running to Gu Bràth. Daar wiped the moisture from his eyes and looked down at the now sleeping infant. He gently pulled the no longer wanted nipple out of its mouth.

He was a pretty bairn. And young. He weighed less than Daar’s cherrywood cane. The old priest smiled at the picture the child presented. Grey had taken the oversized towel and wrapped it around the babe’s bottom and then over its chest like a plaid. Only his arms and legs and one shoulder remained uncovered.

And that was when Daar discovered another unsettling fact that disturbed him greatly.

Grace Sutter’s babe had twelve toes.

They almost missed her, the visibility was so poor. Grey had the door to the snowcat opened before the track-driven machine came to a stop. He ran to the giant spruce and pulled the stiff, frozen jacket and shirts down as he looked around, getting his bearings. The crust was now thick enough to hold even his considerable weight, and he paced to the north another ten feet.

He looked down and saw nothing but smooth white ice.

“You said you left her in a snow cave?” Morgan asked, coming up behind Grey. “Where?”

“Here,” he told him, pointing at where the entrance should have been. “Right in this drift.”

“It was dark,” Callum reminded him, coming up beside both men. He was carrying an axe.

Grey was glad at least one of them was thinking clearly. He took the axe from Callum and started banging the crust along the drift. Now that it was daylight, but still raining, he could see that the drift was nearly twenty feet wide, running along and below an outcropping of ledge. He ordered his men to be silent and listened to the thump of the axe.

He had never in his life been as scared as he was now. Not even four years ago when the storm had carried them all through hell. Then his only focus had been survival, but if he had died, so be it. This time, however, he feared for the life of another.

And that fear was beginning to turn to panic.

Ian joined the party of three, moving awkwardly as he approached on legs riddled with arthritis. “It’s been hours. The lass might not be alive,” he suggested softly.

“She damn well better be alive,” Grey said, not looking up from his task. And that’s when he saw it, a faint, barely visible glow of blue light just beneath the surface of ice. “Here,” he said, tossing the axe away and getting down on his knees. “Start digging, but use your fists, not tools.”

Morgan and Callum got down on their knees with Grey and began beating the crust with their bare, calloused hands. Ian picked up the axe and used it to pull away the broken pieces they produced.

In less than a minute they broke through the barrier he had used to seal Grace up, and Grey closed his eyes at what he found.

She was dead. There was no color left in her face, save for her blue lips. She was clutching the tin that held Mary’s ashes, and when he tried to remove it he couldn’t. Her arms were locked in their embrace.

Grey pulled himself back out of the hole. He closed his eyes, raised his face to the unending rain, and roared with the anger of a wounded beast.

“By God, that woke the dead,” Ian said, pushing Callum aside to move closer. “She flinched. I tell you, the lass just moved.”

Grey jerked as if he’d been punched. He dove back into the cave and took Grace by the shoulders, gently prying her out. He had her in his arms and was already started for the snowcat before the others could scramble out of the way.

“Morgan. Get her things from the cave,” he said. “Callum, open this door. Ian, get this goddamned cat started again. You shouldn’t have shut it off.”

“Ya wanted silence,” Ian reminded him as he headed around the snowcat to climb into the driver’s seat.

Callum, wisely silent, held the door while Grey climbed inside without loosening his hold on the frighteningly stiff woman curled up in his arms like an unborn baby.

Though Callum and Ian were several years Grey’s senior, all of the men had grown up in a time when a laird’s words, orders, and temper were to be taken seriously.

Grey was glad that some old habits died hard.

He knew he was being unreasonable, but he couldn’t help it. The woman in his arms was lifeless. She had given him the gift of her trust last night, and he’d very nearly broken it.

Grey took up the entire backseat of the cat, which meant that Morgan had to ride in the back cargo area in the open rain. The young warrior didn’t complain. He simply tossed Grace’s bag in with Grey and slammed the door shut. Two seconds later he pounded on the roof, signaling Ian to go.

The large, surprisingly nimble snowcat roared into action, turning around and starting its careful descent back down the mountain, its sure-footed tracks following the same path it had used to ascend. Tree limbs slapped at the windows and roof, raining ice and broken branches over the loudly protesting forest they were leaving behind. Morgan was scrunched up against the back window, his arms covering his head.

Grey knew nothing of what was happening around him. He wasn’t even aware they were moving. He was focused on Grace, his hand over her heart, searching for a heartbeat.

“Good Lord,” Callum said, turning around in the front seat to face Grey. “Her hair is frozen solid.”

Grey touched it, covering her head with his hand and using his fingers to break the ice free to rain onto the floor like beads of crystal.

“You should thaw her brain out first,” Ian offered from the driver’s seat, not taking his eyes off their path.

“People think it’s the heart you want to warm up first, but it’s the brain.”

Grey wanted to warm up every inch of her, all at the same time. He gently pried the tin from her arms and carefully set it in the bag at his feet. He then fought with the button and zipper of her once soaked, now frozen pants. It was difficult because she was still curled up into a ball.

“Straighten her out,” Callum suggested. “Is she stuck that way?”

“You’re going to be riding in back with Morgan, Callum, if you don’t shut up and turn around,” Grey said, his threat evident in his tone.

Dammit. She was breathing, but barely. And he could feel her heartbeat, but it was as faint as her breath.

“Face front,” he warned Callum again.

Satisfied the man was obeying, Grey pulled his still dry but cold sweater off Grace. He cut the bindings of Mark’s boots to remove them, then he forced the zipper on her pants down and pulled them off with all the difficulty of stripping a snake of its skin.

Her flawless body was stone cold and white all over.

“Toss me the blankets that are by the heater,” he told Callum. “Without looking,” he added, reaching up to catch them. He covered Grace and then took off his own flannel shirt. He pulled her against him and wrapped them both up in one blanket, tenting the other over her head.

He started running his hand over her entire body, careful not to knead her so strongly as to bruise her delicate skin. He splayed his palms over her back and lifted her against his chest, closing his eyes at the feel of her frozen, unresponsive body touching his. And again, Grey wanted to crawl inside Grace’s skin and use the strength of his frantically beating heart to stir her blood.

He kissed her instead.

With a quick look to make sure Callum was still turned facing front, Grey carefully brushed the hair from Grace’s face and touched his lips to her cold cheek. He sent his hands roaming over her back again, pressing her breasts against his chest as he continued to kiss her eyes, her nose, her forehead, before finally covering her mouth with his own.

And still she didn’t respond.

Grey wanted to shout. He didn’t know what else to do, other than hug her tightly and give her his warmth. It was like hugging a granite statue. They rode the two miles to Daar’s cabin in silence, the drone of the engine and shattering ice serving as warning to anything in their path.

Daar had heard them coming and was standing on the porch in the same place he had been when they had driven by earlier. Grey stepped out of the snowcat with Grace in his arms, and Daar opened the door and led the way inside the cabin. The blast of hot, dry heat nearly overwhelmed him.

“Put her on the bed,” Daar instructed.

Grey did as he was told, then pulled off his boots, stripped off the rest of his clothes, and crawled in beside Grace. The old priest stood on the opposite side of the bed and frowned at him.

“What are you doing?” he asked.

“I’m warming her,” Grey snapped. “Did you make some coffee?”

Daar didn’t move. He simply raised a brow at Grey. “I’m not a MacKeage,” he said. “So stop growling at me.”

Grey closed his eyes and willed himself patience. “You’re our priest, under my protection, therefore you’

re under my rule.”

The old man walked away, muttering to himself. Grey rearranged the blankets around Grace and drew up the ones on the bed to add to them.

Three hours later he was sweating, and the woman beside him was slowly limbering up. But she still hadn

’t stirred or even fluttered an eyelash. Oh, he was going to lecture her for falling asleep instead of concentrating on the chore he had given her. She was supposed to have been thinking of names for her son, not dying.

Grey looked over at the wall opposite the bed. Baby was sleeping as soundly as his mother, tucked into a wooden box the old priest had padded with clothes. He heard the baby sigh every so often, and Grey wondered what one so young could dream about.

“Now what in hell are you doing?” he asked when Daar returned to sit beside the bed, beads in hand and murmuring under his breath.

“I’m praying, you pagan fool. That’s what priests do.”

Grey turned at the sound of the cabin door opening. His three men walked in, soaked to the skin and looking mad as hell.

“We’ve been to the crash site,” Callum said, shaking his head. “I’m never flying again, by God.”

“We brought the pilot down,” Ian added. “The fool was flying barefoot.”

Morgan came to stand beside the bed and peer down at Grace. “She appears to be melting okay,” he said, grinning. He looked at Grey. “So are you. You’re soaked.” He unbuttoned his coat and threw it off.

“It’s damn hot in here.”

“Maybe a walk home would cool you off,” Grey told him, his eyes warning his brother to back away.

Morgan stood his ground, broadened his grin, and looked back at Grace. “She’s pretty.” He lifted one brow at Grey. “Need me to spell you a bit?”

“Out!” he said through gritted teeth, pretending to get up and go after Morgan. Unimpressed, Morgan turned around and sauntered over to the stove to pour himself a cup of coffee.

“We couldn’t bring all your stuff down,” Ian said, settling himself into a chair with a tired groan. He unbut-toned his coat and threw his soggy hat on the table. “We’ll make another trip later today. Once we have your woman off this mountain.”

“Do you think we should take her to a hospital or something?” Callum asked. “She’s not waking up.”

“It’s forty miles away,” Ian reminded him before Grey could answer.

“There’s Doc Betters,” Morgan suggested.

“He’s a horse doctor, you fool,” Ian lamented, rolling his eyes at Morgan.

“Did she sustain any injuries in the crash?” the still praying priest asked Grey.

Grey shook his head. “Nothing serious that I know of. She said she was only bruised. And she walked a good three hours before she fell hard enough that she couldn’t go on.”

“Maybe she hit her head,” Callum suggested, walking over to the bed to examine her himself. He suddenly smiled. “Morgan’s right. She is a bonny lass.” He looked at Grey. “You’re acting very possessive. You intend to keep her?”

Grey looked down at the woman in his arms. “I might,” he said softly, as if he were speaking to her. He looked back at his man. “Is it still raining?”

“Yes. And it shows no signs of letting up.”

“The weatherman is saying this could last for days,” Morgan interjected from the counter he was leaning on, sipping his coffee. “Strange conditions have trapped a lot of cold air near the ground and warm air above it.”

“The trees are taking a beating,” Ian said. “The birch are already bending under the strain. And weaker limbs are breaking clean off.”

“It’s nature’s way of cleaning out the rotten and the weak,” Callum said. “We had ice storms in the Highlands.”

“Trees can break and regrow,” Ian said with a growl, awkwardly getting up from his chair and pouring his own cup of coffee. “But our ski lift won’t grow itself back if it breaks. This ice is adding a lot of weight to it.”

Careful to keep Grace covered, Grey sat up in the bed and leaned on the headboard, keeping her tucked protectively against his side. The air was still warm in the cabin, but it was a hell of a lot easier to breathe now, with his chest free of the stifling blankets.

“The lift and cables are made of steel,” he told Ian, dismissing his concern. “They’re much stronger than any tree. They won’t break.”

“I still say we should have become loggers instead of pursuing this insane notion to cater to a bunch of spoiled vacationers who have nothing better to do,” Ian grumbled.

“We voted,” Grey told him for the hundredth time, getting tired of Ian’s predictions of doom. But Grey and the others usually forgave the old warrior his flaw. It couldn’t be easy suddenly, at fifty-eight years of age, to be uprooted from family the way Ian had been.

Ian was the only one of them who had lost a wife, two daughters, and two fine sons four years ago.

Callum had been a widower, Morgan had still not decided to settle down, and Grey had not been in any hurry to find a wife back then, either.

One unfaithful fiancée had been enough.

Still, Ian’s black view of everything was wearing thin. If they had become loggers as he often suggested, the man would be worried about forest fires instead.

“You may thank me now, Grey,” Daar suddenly interjected into the quiet. “My prayers have worked.

Your woman is awake.”

Grace was dreaming she was in the sauna at her gym. Only something was wrong. She must have fallen asleep and cooked herself, because she was so hot she couldn’t move a muscle in her body.

“Open your eyes, Grace,” a deep, demanding voice suddenly whispered.

There was a man in the sauna with her? More out of curiosity than obedience, Grace slowly opened her eyes to see who had dared enter the sauna while she was in it. She was going to give him hell for intruding on her privacy.

She screamed instead.

There were four male giants staring down at her.

“Easy, Grace. You’re safe now,” the same voice said.

Safe? There were men in the sauna with her. She turned in the direction the voice had come from, keeping a watch with the corner of her eye on the other four men. But she suddenly gave her full attention to the one leaning over her. It was Greylen MacKeage, the man from the airplane. And he looked as warm as she was. Sweat glistened off his broad, impressively naked, hairy chest.

“How did you get in here? This is the women’s sauna.”

“Sauna?” he repeated, looking confused.

“I told you we should have warmed her brain up first,” another voice said from above her. “Now she’s daft.”

Frowning, Grace turned to see who had spoken. “Do you work here?” she asked, trying to sound authoritative, wanting to scare him half as much as all of them were scaring her. By heaven, she would bluster her way out of this.

“Grace. You’re not in a sauna,” Grey said from beside her.

She turned back to him. “It’s hot.”

“You’re at the cabin I told you about. Do you remember the plane crash?”

She thought about that. Yes, she remembered the plane crash. And she remembered the snow cave. She gasped, looking up into Grey’s eyes. “I waited for you,” she told him. “But you didn’t come.”

“I did,” he said fiercely. “You went to sleep, Grace.”

“I did not.”

“Your eyes were shut tight when we found you, lass. We thought you were dead.”

She turned to glare at the man making that claim; it was the same man who had said she was daft. His fierce face was smiling, though, as he nodded his head at her. “So if you weren’t dead, you must have been sleeping,” he added.

“You were supposed to be thinking of a name for Baby,” Grey told her, drawing her attention again.

“I’m calling him Baby,” she said, lifting her chin. By God, he had taken his good old time returning for her.

Oh, she remembered everything now. The cold. The dark when the battery on her computer died. And the terrible sense of loneliness.

“Who are these people?” she whispered to Grey, her gaze moving to the four men who rudely kept staring at her.

“The old man with the wild white hair and the prayer beads is Father Daar. This is his cabin,” he told her, nodding toward a man who looked older than time. Except for his eyes. Father Daar had the brightest, clearest blue eyes she had ever seen. He smiled at her when Grey introduced him.

“And this is Callum,” he continued, nodding at the man beside Father Daar.

Grace looked at him. Callum grinned past a bushy beard, his hazel-green eyes echoing his smile, his shaggy, dark auburn hair wet and dripping on his shoulders. He looked to be fortyish, and, like all of them, he was well over six feet tall.

“And Morgan,” Grey said, moving along to the next man.

Grace turned her attention to Morgan. He was young and clean-shaven, his wet, blond-red hair sticking out as if he’d been running a hand through it. He shot her a crooked grin and winked at her.

Grace quickly looked at the next man.

“And Ian,” Grey finished.

Ian was the one who had told Grace she’d fallen asleep. His hair was a brighter red than the others’ with gray highlights beginning to show near his ears. He had a beard, too, peppered with white and in dire need of a set of clippers. He wasn’t smiling anymore. He was looking at her as if she were a bug under a microscope. So Grace smiled at him instead.

She knew all of them. At least she knew of them. Mary had told her about the MacKeages and Father Daar, five men who had moved here a little over three years ago when they had bought TarStone Mountain as well as most of the forested land for miles around. They kept to themselves for the most part, Mary had said, and nobody in town could find out much about them.

Grace stared at them, unblinking. They didn’t look related, although four of them had the same last name.

Except for the youngest one, Morgan. There was something familiar about him, the way he carried himself, maybe. A mannerism. An expression. The way the corner of his mouth lifted in amusement.

Actually, he reminded her of Grey. Yes. Morgan had the same dark, penetrating, evergreen eyes.

Grace turned her head enough to see Father Daar. Her sister had also told her about the priest who lived like a hermit halfway up the mountain. Mary had said he was positively ancient, and she had often worried that he was too old to be living alone.

All of them were strangers to her, and although some of them were larger than her half brothers, they seemed harmless enough and sincerely concerned for her welfare. Grace relaxed back into the softness of the bed—until she discovered a rather alarming fact, given the company she was in.

“I’m naked,” she accused, turning to glare at Grey. “How did that happen?”

“Is your modesty worth dying over?” he asked.

She closed her eyes and wondered if she could turn any redder than the lobster she must look like already. She also wondered if she might possibly die after all, but from embarrassment, not cold.

“Are you not wondering about your son?” the man named Ian asked.

“Oh my God! Baby. I forgot all about him. Where is he?” she asked, suddenly frantic as she craned her neck to look around the room.

“He’s here,” Father Daar said, moving aside for her to see Baby. “He’s sleeping. He’s fine.”

Grace closed her eyes and thanked God for that miracle. She also asked him to get her out of the mess she had just made. These men would all think she was an unfit mother for forgetting her son.

Well, she was. Those should have been the first words out of her mouth when she woke up. Instead, she had been too focused on finding herself naked while sharing a bed with a man, her hormones zinging around like crazy, and an audience—part of which was a priest, no less—watching her.

Grace burst into tears. Huge, gut-wrenching sobs shook her body with painful results. Every square inch of her hurt like the devil. But it was nothing compared with the pain she felt in her heart.

She had forgotten Baby.

“Now look what you’ve done, Ian,” Callum accused. “You’ve made the lass cry.”

“Grace. He’s okay,” Grey told her, brushing the hair away from her face.

She couldn’t even look at him. She couldn’t look at any of them. She was scum. Just scum. She didn’t deserve the child.

“You do,” Grey said, his voice sounding harsh. “Anyone who has been through what you have these last few hours would be disoriented. And you’ve not been a mother very long.”

She must have said her thoughts out loud, and Grey was scolding her for them. She tried to roll over to bury her face in the pillow so she could bawl in private, but she couldn’t turn over. Her muscles wouldn’t work. The attempt did tell her one thing, though. Greylen MacKeage was as naked as she was.

“Could you…could you maybe let me have the bed to myself?” she asked in a strained whisper, hoping her shock didn’t show in her voice. “I, ah, would be more comfortable.”

He laughed out loud, shaking the bed as he did. Grace stifled a groan. Even that movement hurt.

“I will. Just as soon as you tell me where you hurt.”

“I’ll tell you just as soon as you leave the bed,” she countered, still keeping her eyes closed to the pounding in her head.

Silence was all the answer she got. Finally, she felt the bed dip and heard him scramble up and away.

She let out a breath she hadn’t known she was holding, and the ache in her head suddenly dulled.

“Ho-oh. It’s started now,” Ian said. “The MacKeage is already backing down from an argument with her.”

Grace heard something hit the wall across the room with a plop, followed by good-natured laughter.

Gingerly, and in great pain, she pulled the blankets tight to her neck and concentrated on each inch of her body, taking stock of just where she ached.

She concluded that she was one massive bruise. The muscles in her legs and back were cramping with a will of their own, and the tips of her toes and fingers tingled with needle-pricking intensity.

She had come very close to getting frostbite. If not for the protection of the cave Grey had made her and the pilot’s waterproof boots, they would probably be cutting her toes off in less than a week. She had kept her hands warm with the heat from the battery on her computer. But if Grey hadn’t arrived when he had, she would be dead now.

He’d saved her life. And he had saved Baby.

How was she ever supposed to repay that kind of debt?

“Are you hungry?” Father Daar asked her in a whisper, leaning close to the bed. “I have some stew ready.”

“No, thank you, Father. I’m just sleepy.”

“I wouldn’t be going back to sleep if I were you,” he said in a co-conspirator’s tone. “Grey would have a worried fit. You scared ten years off his pagan life this morning.”

She gave the priest a huge smile. “If he’s a pagan, Father, then he’s redeemed himself. He saved me and Baby.”

Father Daar gave her a warm smile back. “That was never a question, girl. Greylen MacKeage is a man who succeeds at whatever he sets his mind to. You were never in any real danger.”

“I’m still waiting for your answer,” the object of their conversation said from right above her.

Grace turned her head and looked up at Grey. “Nothing’s broken or frostbit. My muscles are just so sore and stiff that I don’t want to move.”