Текст книги "Charming The Highlander"
Автор книги: Джанет Чапмен
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Текущая страница: 7 (всего у книги 21 страниц)
He seemed to think about that, staring down at her with assessing evergreen eyes. Finally, he nodded.
“You may sleep, then, if you need to,” he arrogantly told her. “When you wake you’ll eat, and then we’ll take you down the mountain.”
“Where’s my bag?” she asked. “Is it still in the cave?”
He walked over to the table and brought it back to her. “Here. Do you want the tin?”
“Yes, please,” she said. “Thank you.”
He took the tin out of the bag and tucked it under the blankets beside her.
“Thank you,” she repeated.
“Are ya hungry now, lass?” Callum asked, eyeing the lump in the bed where the tin sat. “Cookies aren’t what you should be having. You need real food.”
“The tin’s not carrying cookies,” Grey answered before she could, his gaze not leaving hers. “It’s carrying Mary Sutter.”
A silence so loud it was nearly deafening suddenly settled over the one-room cabin.
Chapter Seven
No matter that they were all safe now, it seemed that Greylen MacKeage was still in charge of this adventure. Grace could only watch helplessly from the bed as the man issued orders like a general.
Within ten minutes the tiny cabin was cleared of Scots except for Grey.
Even the priest was gone. Grace had protested sending the frail-looking man out in this weather, but Grey had been too focused on his plan to hear her opinion. Father Daar was to accompany the pilot’s body back down the mountain and stay with him while Callum and Morgan went into town to notify the authorities and lead them back to the crash site. Ian would return with the snowcat to take Grace and Baby back to Gu Bràth.
And so Grace patiently waited until she had Grey’s undivided attention before she explained her own plan to him.
Only it wasn’t that easy. It’s hard to project authority when you’re lying naked in bed with the covers pulled up to your chin. It’s even harder when the man you’re trying to impress is impressively naked himself from the waist up.
“Do you have some clothes I can put on?” she asked Grey.
He turned from the woodstove to face her, a steaming bowl of stew in his hand and a crooked grin lifting one corner of his mouth. “What’s wrong with what you’re wearing?” he asked, walking toward her.
Grace tightened the covers at her neck. “I’m not wearing anything.”
He sat on the bed beside her, the heat from his thigh sending another round of needles shooting through her quickly overheating body. “You don’t need clothes,” he said. “You need food and rest, in that order.”
“I have to get up,” she countered. “I need to get my muscles working again so I can take Baby home.”
He was shaking his head. “You just survived a great ordeal, Grace. You’re still too weak to look after yourself.” He lifted the spoon from the bowl and held it up to her lips. “Eat and rest, and leave everything to me. In a day or two I’ll take you home.”
Grace refused to open her mouth for the stew. She didn’t glare or pout but simply stared at Grey with the patience of a woman determined to regain control of her life. She wasn’t angry. Not yet. Grace understood that it was hard to relinquish authority once it was given.
Grey slowly set the spoon back in the bowl and lifted one brow at her in question. “What happened to our partnership?”
“I’m dissolving it,” she said, tempering her words with a smile. “I owe you my life, Greylen MacKeage, but I want it back now. You don’t have to keep taking care of me.”
He looked as if he wanted to protest but seemed to think better of it. He stood up and set the stew on the table, grabbed his shirt from the floor, and shrugged into it. He then picked up a bundle of clothes sitting by the door and set it down on the bed beside her.
“I thought to grab these this morning when I reached Gu Bràth, just before coming back for you. They’ll be too big, but they’ll be warm.” He reached down and took her by the chin, lifting her face to his. “If you can dress yourself without passing out and prove to me that you can care for your son, then maybe I’
ll think about taking you home.”
That said, he turned on his heel, grabbed his jacket, and headed out onto the porch.
Grace blinked at the door softly closing behind him. That had been way too easy. She looked at the bundle of clothes and immediately felt bad. Only a caring man would have thought to grab her something to wear while trying to save her life.
And to thank him, she had hurt his feelings.
Baby stirred in the crate beside her, and Grace quickly shook out the bundle of clothes. Her arms felt heavy, and her muscles protested, but she forced herself to sit up and slide into the flannel shirt Grey had brought her. She had to roll up the sleeves several turns just to find her hands. Then she took the large wool socks and slipped them onto her feet.
She swung her legs over the side of the bed, pulled on the soft jogging pants he had brought her, and stood up to pull them up to her waist. She nearly fell down instead.
Her forehead throbbed, and her knees threatened to buckle. Grace immediately sat down and grabbed her head to make the room stop spinning.
Well, this wasn’t working. She needed to move more slowly.
She was on her third attempt to stand without throwing up when the cabin door opened and Grey walked in with an armful of firewood. Grace slowly shuffled her way to Baby. She was smart enough not to pick him up, but maybe she could rub his back and he would stay asleep, giving her brain more time to get her muscles under control. Her head was still throbbing, but at least the room had stopped spinning.
“Are ya truly this stubborn, lass, or has the cold affected your thinking?” Grey asked from right beside her.
Grace swung around and would have fallen if Grey hadn’t caught her. She swayed against him, clutching his jacket, and looked up into steeled green eyes. But her rebuke turned into a squeak of surprise when he swept her up in his arms and carried her over to the table. He sat her in a chair and slid the bowl of stew in front of her, then shed his jacket and returned to Baby.
Grace stared at her lunch. This was not going well. The bond they had formed on the mountain last night was fading. Stubbornness—on both sides—had replaced cooperation.
Grace looked up to see Grey holding a now wide-awake Baby in the crook of his arm as he rummaged around in her bag for another bottle. She took a spoonful of stew and all but moaned at the feel of it sliding down her throat, realizing just how hungry she was. Grey settled across the table from her with Baby, who was also happily eating, and Grace decided it was time to try another tack with the man.
“Reverse our positions,” she suggested to Grey, who lifted his gaze to her in question. “How adamant would you be right now to get back on your feet and regain control of your life?”
He shook his head. “It’s not the same, Grace. You’re a woman.”
Grace looked down at herself in mock surprise. “I am?” She smoothed down the front of her shirt.
“Imagine that. What has being a woman got to do with wanting control?”
He set Baby on his shoulder and began rubbing the infant’s back as he shook his head at her again. “It’s a fact of nature, Grace. Women are simply weaker. Physically,” he quickly added when she opened her mouth to protest.
Grace snapped her mouth shut and leaned back in her chair, crossing her arms under her breasts. She didn’t know if it was the full belly she had now, or the anger growing inside her, but she was feeling much stronger all of a sudden.
“Which is why our positions are exactly as they are now,” he continued. “I had the endurance to get us off that mountain.” He leaned forward, his brows dropping and his eyes darkening. “And I still have enough strength left to put you in that snowcat, take you to Gu Bràth, and keep you there until you can take care of yourself and your son,” he finished in an even-toned whisper.
Grace stood up, either to prove to herself that she could or to get away from his veiled threat, she didn’t know which.
“That’s archaic!” she sputtered, refusing to be intimidated. “Brute strength is not how you solve a problem.”
He leaned back in his chair, rubbing Baby’s back again, and shrugged. “It usually works for me,” he said softly.
Grace picked up her empty bowl and carried it to the counter on the far wall of the cabin. It amazed her how well her muscles were working now; nothing like a little outrage to get the blood flowing.
She shouldn’t be surprised by his attitude. The moment she’d sat beside Greylen MacKeage on the plane, she had guessed the man was a bit of a throwback. What had she thought? That he looked as if he made his own rules and that he pounded problems into place when he couldn’t solve them any other way?
Yeah. That was the man she owed her life to.
And his arms suddenly moved gently around her, pulling her back against his warm and very solid chest.
Grace turned within his embrace, looked to see Baby sleeping in his crate again, and closed her eyes, setting her hands on Grey’s chest in an attempt to hold him away.
Or was it her own urges she was trying to hold at bay?
She knew what he was doing and didn’t like it. His threat hadn’t worked, so he’d ply her with kisses instead.
Which is exactly why she couldn’t go home with him.
Her emotions were too fragile right now; she was in no condition to spend the night in Greylen MacKeage’s bed. And if she went to Gu Bràth, that is exactly where she’d end up.
She lifted her face and gave him a smile. “I can’t get involved with you right now, Grey.”
His arms tightened around her, his head lowered, and his lips covered hers in a searing kiss. The room started spinning again; it was not caused by her head this time but by her heart. And it was all she could do not to rise on her tiptoes and kiss him back.
His tongue sought hers, sending a shiver through her body. Like up on the mountain yesterday, Grace’s body yearned to respond; passion ignited, radiating from her soul into her senses. She kneaded his shoulders with her fingers and tried to push him away.
She might as well be pushing a mountain. She was suddenly floating on air, and it wasn’t until she felt a hard surface against her bottom that Grace realized Grey had set her on the counter. He moved her knees apart with his legs and nestled himself firmly against her.
“It’s too late, Grace,” he said, staring down at her with eyes the color of winter spruce. “It’s already begun, and there’s no going back. Forget what your mind says, and listen to what your body is telling you.”
She stared into his bottomless, deep green eyes, and it took Grace a moment to remember that she must fight her attraction to Grey, not feed it. “But I can’t. I have…there are issues I need to deal with.”
His right brow lifted. “Baby’s father?”
Grace’s forehead started to throb again. “Yes. Baby’s father,” she admitted. It was true, just not in the way Grey thought.
“Do you love him?”
“No.” Which was also true.
“Are you running from him? Are you in danger?”
“No.”
He blew a sigh over her face that moved her hair. “Then what’s the problem?” he asked, his patience obviously wearing thin.
“The problem is I have a four-week-old baby, I just lost my sister, and I’m coming home for the first time in nine years. I need this time to get my life back in order.”
“I can help.”
“No, you can only complicate things. I have decisions to make about Baby, my job, and Baby’s father.”
He kissed her again, probably because he didn’t care for what she was saying.
And she kissed him back, probably because it was easier than arguing with him. Grace wiggled forward on the counter, pressing herself against Grey like a cat curling up to a stove. He trailed his mouth down over her throat and nuzzled the side of her neck. Grace arched against him, wrapping her legs around his waist, only to moan at the feel of him pushing so intimately against her.
She wondered why they both didn’t simply burst into flames.
How could something so not right feel so wonderful? Grace had the overwhelming urge to rip off both their shirts and rub her body all over his. She grabbed his hair and pulled his mouth back to hers, driving her tongue inside and pulling the taste of him back into herself. She decided to start with his shirt and reached for the buttons, popping the top two in an effort to feel his skin under her fingers.
At that moment of contact she did burst into flame; the air around them glowed with white light, time suspended, and Grace’s heart pounded with an excitement she’d never experienced before.
Ian came slipping and sliding through the door of the cabin with all the noise and dignity of a moose on ice skates.
And that was when Grace made her escape, her body on fire, her resolve shattered, and Grey’s mouth just one second away from changing her mind.
Although she had won several of the salvos and probably the battle by default, Grace still couldn’t shake the feeling that she was going to lose the war.
With Baby in her arms, she walked into the living room of the house she’d grown up in and set the thermostat on seventy-five degrees. As she walked back to the kitchen, she wondered how she had become engaged in a war in the first place.
Grey had continued to argue all the way down TarStone Mountain for her and Baby to go to Gu Bràth, where he could keep an eye on them at least overnight. But she had remained adamant.
And Grey had not been a graceful loser.
Not if that last, departing kiss was any indication of his mood. Grace raised her fingers to her lips and grinned. Her mouth still tingled with the awareness of being thoroughly possessed. In fact, even her toes still tingled.
This had to stop. She had to break Grey of the habit of just pulling her into his arms and kissing her senseless whenever he felt like it. It was the wrong time, Greylen MacKeage was the wrong man, and she didn’t know how much longer she could resist him.
And she had to, for Baby’s sake as well as her own.
It was just the circumstances, that’s all. She’d found herself in the arms of a guardian angel who kissed like the devil. Nothing more than mere infatuation. A strong, manly man with eyes the color of winter spruce and the body of Superman. A romantic notion of being in a hero’s arms, being swept into a fantasy world.
Grace was sure there was a scientific explanation for what she had felt on TarStone Mountain and the lingering effects she was still experiencing now. Lord, just the memory of the feel of him surrounding her made her knees weak and her heart beat wildly.
This had to stop. Tomorrow. She would dwell on this phenomenon tomorrow, once she was rested and back in charge of her faculties.
Grace set Baby on the overstuffed chair in the kitchen, padding him with a throw pillow so he wouldn’t roll off in his sleep. She took off her jacket as she looked out the window at the retreating snowcat.
She had given Grey her trust up on the mountain because it had been the wisest thing to do at the time. If he had been anyone less competent—or even less arrogant about being Superman—she would have looked for another means of survival.
Now that she was home in a warm, secure, nonthreatening environment, she could think of a hundred things they could have done instead of trying to walk off the mountain on their own.
But that was water under the bridge.
It was now time to move on. She needed a bath, and so did Baby. Then she would have to see if Mary’s old pickup parked in the barn would start, so she could go to town and get baby formula, more diapers, and food for herself.
She picked up the bag Grey had set on the floor by the door and carried it over to the table. She pulled out her computer and plugged it into the outlet on the counter to recharge the battery. She hoped the cold and the freezing rain had not ruined it. All of her work was on that machine, and her backup disks were still on the mountain.
She hoped her disks survived, too, until the MacKeages could go and fetch them. They were in her satellite link suitcase, in a waterproof case of their own. They should be okay.
She took the cookie tin out next and set it in the middle of the table. She smiled at her sister.
“Honest to God, you could have heard a mouse sneeze in that cabin, Mare, when Grey told them you were in the tin,” Grace said. “Ian almost fell out of his chair. He kept looking at the bed as if you were going to jump out and bite him.”
She turned the tin to face her. “They said they were sorry you died and that they would miss you. I thanked them for both of us for their friendship to you and told them how much you appreciated their helping you with the roof.”
She dumped the contents of the bag on the table as she continued to talk. “I like your neighbors.
Especially Ian. He’s such a grumbling sourpuss he’s actually cute.”
Grace sat down at the table with a groan, cradling her aching back as she did. “They’re all a bit weird, don’t you think? And I can barely understand them for their accents. Except Grey. His is mild most of the time.” She cocked her head. “And that’s the weirdest thing. Why would a person deliberately change his accent?”
Grace closed her eyes and laid her head on the table. If she didn’t get up and get into the shower, she and Baby would be sleeping in the kitchen.
Her nose twitched as the familiar, subtle scents of lavender and spice wafted around her, awakening some long-dormant memory from childhood. Grace lifted her head and slowly looked around the silent kitchen.
Home. She smelled home—years of her mother’s cooking, her sister’s herbs drying on racks hung from the ceiling, the lingering odor of countless winters of wood burning. All the smells, the scarred table, the grandfather clock standing silent in the corner waiting to be rewound, the huge propane range that had fed a family of ten; all of it made this the loving kitchen she’d grown up in.
Home. It settled over Grace like a bulky wool sweater of warm security.
It was so silently empty, except for the memories that swirled like flames on candles lighting individual moments in time. Timmy holding a six-week-old Mary as he carefully fed her a bottle, Brian convincing Mom he needed her car for a special date that night, Paul and David wrestling on the floor until they cracked the glass in the china hutch, and her dad holding Grace on his knee while he dunked her banana in the sugar bowl to reward her for eating her turnip.
Home. She had waited too long to return. Everyone was gone. Even the memories, the scents, the sounds had begun to fade, becoming ghosts of a past life she could never revisit.
Grace laid her head on her arms on the table again, closing her eyes to keep the tears from escaping. She missed her family, her mom and dad’s unconditional love, her brothers’ combined strengths, and Mary’s no-nonsense command of life. All of them the foundation of her existence today.
And all of them out of her reach now.
All except for Baby.
She had brought her sister’s child to this wonderful, sometimes magical, always sheltering home. She could live here with Baby and watch him prosper and grow from the roots her family had already laid down in these densely wooded mountains. It could be that simple; she could walk away from her life in Virginia and devote herself to Baby without question or regret. She already loved him more than life itself.
She already wanted to break her promise to Mary.
The shower helped immensely to revive Grace’s spirit, recenter her thinking, and soothe her bruised and aching muscles. Baby liked his bath as well. It was fun bathing him in a sink half full of warm water. She was glad his little belly button had finally healed; she had always been afraid of hurting him there. The house had warmed up nicely, and she allowed him to splash about wildly until he was tired again.
She was finally getting the hang of this mothering thing. Now that she was on her own, with only herself to rely on, it was just as Emma said. Her instincts were kicking in and giving her confidence. That was all she had needed, time alone with Baby to find her own path in dealing with him.
Still, she hoped the book Emma had given her was not lost on the mountain. She wasn’t quite ready to go it completely alone.
“Only one more bottle after this one,” she told Baby as she fed him. She looked out the window and sighed. “I hate to go back out in that weather, but it doesn’t look like we have a choice.”
The incessant rain wouldn’t let up. The windows on the north side of the kitchen were glazed with ice, making it impossible to see out. She fed Baby the whole bottle and burped him with the skill of a mother of nine, then laid him back in his overstuffed chair while she tried to decide what to put on him to go out.
She found his pack on the table with the other stuff from her bag. It was still damp. She held it up to her face and breathed deeply, pulling in the familiar scent she had been surrounded by since yesterday afternoon. It smelled like Grey; she remembered the scent from when he had held her under the spruce tree, from the sweater he had put on her just before he tucked her in the cave, from the bed she’d shared with him in Daar’s cabin, and from the flannel shirt she had worn home this morning and now had safely folded on the pillow in the downstairs bedroom.
It was a smell that soothed her senses, silently speaking of friendship, security, trust, and even adventure.
She was keeping the shirt. She had washed her body, and she had to wash this pack, but she wasn’t washing Grey’s shirt, and she wasn’t returning it. It was a pretty plaid made up of gray and red, dark green and lavender stripes. She had never seen that combination of colors before, but she’d been immediately drawn to it the moment she had put it on. Yes, she was keeping it, and if he asked for it back, she would say she couldn’t find it.
She was going to hell for the lies she’d been telling. But here in Pine Creek, at least, she should be able to keep them straight. After all, there was only one that was important—that Baby was hers.
She washed the pack in the kitchen sink and set it near the furnace register to dry. She bundled Baby up in one of Mary’s old T-shirts, used a flannel pillowcase for a blanket, and carried him out to the attached barn.
That was when she discovered yet another problem. Baby’s car seat was still on top of North Finger Ridge. She looked around the old barn at the eclectic assortment of junk until she found an apple crate large enough for the four-week-old child. She laid Baby inside it, then strapped it into the passenger seat of the pickup. It probably wouldn’t pass Consumer Reports’ standard safety test, but it passed hers.
Baby wasn’t going anywhere by the time she was done using the seat belts to secure him.
And Baby, good little uncomplaining infant that he was, was simply watching her as she worked.
“Oh, sweetie. I promise the chaos will stop now that we’re home. Just this one trip to the store, and we’ll both settle down for a well-deserved rest,” she whispered to him, running a finger over his cheek and kissing his forehead.
She softly closed the door and walked around to open the two huge barn doors, rolling each of them back, one at a time. Grace thought about Michael MacBain and her promise to Mary. Mary had said that Michael was all alone and new to the area. Which in Mary’s book would make the man somewhat of an exile. Could that have attracted her to him initially?
Grace climbed into the truck, chastising herself for being fanciful. Mary had simply found the man she loved. And Grace was sure Michael MacBain was a nice, normal, lovable man who just happened to suffer from the delusion that he’d traveled through time.
Chapter Eight
He was a brute.
And he was standing in the middle of her kitchen. Grace shot a look at the clock on the living-room wall, realized it was nearly midnight, and quickly turned her attention back to the stranger dripping water on her kitchen floor. The freezing rain only added to his frightening appearance as it beat against the broken door behind him. His hands were balled into fists at his side, and his silhouette from the porch light said he was huge, menacing, and mad.
“Mary!” he hollered again, looking around the vacant room. “Dammit, woman. Show yourself.”
It took every ounce of courage she possessed, and the security of the baseball bat in her hand, for Grace to step out from behind the living-room door and face him.
“Mary’s not here,” she told him softly.
The man was a giant. His dripping hair was black, falling below his turned-up collar. His eyes, narrowed dangerously, were a dark, piercing gray. His mouth was thinned by the defensive set of his jaw that was shadowed by a two-day growth of beard. Grounded to her kitchen floor like a statue of granite, he looked formidable. Predatory.
And unmovable.
Grace raised her bat threateningly.
“May I ask who is calling?” she asked, damning her voice for shaking.
Her question momentarily disarmed him, but he quickly recovered. “Michael MacBain is doing the asking. And I’m only asking one more time. Where’s Mary?”
Oh, God. She wasn’t ready for this. She thought she had more time to prepare. Grace darted a look at the tin on the table. What could she tell him?
“She’s…ah…she’s not here, Michael,” she whispered. “I’m her sister, Grace.” She took a step closer, lowering her weapon. “She may have mentioned me to you?”
He didn’t believe her. He strode right past her into the living room. When he didn’t find Mary there, he continued going from one room to the other, even upstairs.
Grace let him search. Her baseball bat wouldn’t stop him, even if she dared to use it against him. The man looked as solid and indestructible as a mountain.
He found Baby on his second pass through the living room. He stopped suddenly and stared down at the child. He looked at her, then back at Baby, his eyes narrowed and his stance stiff.
There was no way around it. She was going to have to just come out and say the words.
“I’m sorry, Michael,” she said, drawing his attention again. “Mary was in an automobile accident six weeks ago,” Grace said, lying about the date of Mary’s death. She didn’t want Michael even to remotely suspect that four-week-old Baby was his son. Grace looked down at the floor, gathering her courage, then looked back at him. “She died. I’m sorry. There was nothing anyone could do.”
He simply stared at her, his face growing deathly pale as he listened silently.
“She was on her way back,” she told him, walking fully into the living room. “She was returning to you.”
He looked back at Baby. “The child?” he asked, his voice dead-toned.
“He’s…he’s mine.”
He was silent so long Grace was afraid he didn’t believe her. Suddenly, he walked away from the makeshift crib she’d made out of the apple crate and strode past her, back into the kitchen. He walked to the broken door and shut it as best he could, then quietly walked back to the kitchen table and sat down.
He bent at the waist, his hands clasped hanging over his knees, staring at the floor. He stayed that way for a good five minutes.
Grace leaned the baseball bat against the wall and walked to the stove, putting the teakettle on the burner. She took down two cups from the cupboard and measured out hot cocoa mix in each of them.
“Did she suffer?” he asked, his voice echoing softly throughout the kitchen. “Did she die instantly, or was she alive in a hospital?”
Grace turned to face him. The dangerous mountain of a man was no longer looking quite so dangerous.
His hands were still hanging over his knees, and he was upright now, but he remained staring at the floor, all the fight suddenly gone from him.
“She lived a day and a half,” she told him truthfully. “And she was conscious. We talked about many things, but Mary talked mostly of you.”
She walked over to him and gently, hesitantly, set her hand on his shoulder. He didn’t move but still stared at a spot between his feet. His muscles, though, were bunched so tightly his back felt like forged steel.
“She asked me to tell you she loved you, Michael. And that she hopes you’ll forgive her for running away in the first place. She said…she said she just needed some time to herself, to think about your marriage proposal.”
She moved around in front of him and knelt down, wanting him to look at her. “She told me your story, Michael, and said that she didn’t care. She was coming home when she had the accident. She was coming to marry you and love you for the rest of your lives.”
His eyes widened suddenly, and his face paled even more. He pulled himself upright, leaning against the back of the chair and away from her. “She told you about me?” he whispered.
“On her deathbed, Michael,” she hurried to assure him, standing up and going to shut off the whistling kettle. “The whole time she was with me, she never said a thing. But when she was dying, she wanted me to know. She asked me to come tell you that she loved you and to…to help you through this time.”
“You said six weeks ago. What took you so long?”
She waved a spoon at the living room. “I was a bit tied up with my son.”
He followed her gaze to the living room, then looked back at her with narrowed eyes. “Where’s your man?” he asked.
“My man?”
“Your son’s father.”
“Oh. I…I don’t have a man.”
He stood up so suddenly that Grace poured boiling water all over the counter. He walked into the living room and returned with Baby.
Grace nearly fell to her knees. Michael MacBain was cradling his son in his arms as if he were the most precious jewel on Earth.
“He’s acting hungry,” he said. “He’s chewing his fist.” He looked at her strangely. “You didn’t hear him fussing?”
Grace tapped the side of her head with the palm of her hand, as if something was bothering her. “My ears seem to be plugged,” she quickly prevaricated. “I think I’m coming down with a cold.”
She turned back to the cupboard and took down a bottle of baby formula before he could see the lie in her eyes. But when she turned to take Baby and feed him, Michael was sitting with Baby on his lap and his hand held out for the bottle.
