Текст книги "Charming The Highlander"

Автор книги: Джанет Чапмен

сообщить о нарушении

Текущая страница: 9 (всего у книги 21 страниц)

But what really caught her eye was the baby furniture. There was a crib, a cradle, a changing table, and a high chair, all oak, all covered with years of dust.

She had hit pay dirt. Everything she needed for Baby was up there. There were probably even some of her and Mary’s old clothes in some of the boxes.

Grace decided to check the roof first, before hauling her find downstairs. She shone her flashlight onto the ridge pole that ran the length of the attic. Except for the hundred years’ accumulation of dust, it looked as solid and new as the day it had been positioned. She let the light beam trail down the rafters to where they ended at the eaves. They, too, looked fine and as straight as arrows.

A large snap suddenly sent a shiver throughout the house, the force of it powerful enough that articles in the attic rattled around her. Grace flinched but quickly shone her light back up at the rafters.

Nothing had changed.

It was the ice, she realized. The ice on the roof was cracking, not the roof itself. She recognized the sound, now that she thought about it. It was the same sound Pine Lake made on cold winter nights, as its frozen mantle shifted under the building pressure, the ice expanding and contracting as it thickened.

She breathed a sigh of relief. The house was certainly straining under the weight, but it was far from being in any danger of breaking. Satisfied that the roof wouldn’t fall in on her head, Grace grabbed the cradle and changing table and lowered them into the house. The rest could wait until either Grey or Michael returned to visit.

She carried the cradle into the kitchen and washed away the dirt. Then she used a dry cloth to polish it.

That done, she carried the now shining clean cradle into the living room and set it near the fireplace to warm up.

“There you go, Baby. You’re going to sleep in a real bed for a change,” she told the dreaming child. He was making sucking motions with his mouth against his fist, his long eyelashes resting on his warm, pink cheeks. His hair was still a wild mess, but the haphazard style was growing on Grace.

She pulled his blanket back up to his shoulders and looked at her watch to see that it was one in the afternoon. She heard a knock on her kitchen door. Her heart jumped into overdrive at the thought that Grey had returned. She rushed to the door and opened it, only to find two familiar faces that she couldn’t immediately place.

“Oh, Grace,” the woman said, reaching out and enveloping her in a gigantic hug. “We’re so sorry. We just heard about Mary.”

The man, his arms laden with dishes covered in foil, walked past them and set his load on the kitchen table. The woman wouldn’t let her go. She just kept hugging her, rocking Grace back and forth.

“I told Peter we weren’t going to let a little storm stop us from coming,” the woman continued. “We’re here for whatever you need.”

“Ah…thank you,” Grace murmured against a wet, woolly shoulder. She pulled herself out of the embrace and stared at the woman. “I know you,” she said.

The woman laughed. “Of course you do, Gracie. I’m Mavis. And that’s Peter. We’re the Pottses. I used to baby-sit you and your sister when you were just barely toddlers.”

“Oh, yes,” Grace said, taking the woman by both hands and squeezing them affectionately, ashamed of herself for not recognizing them both immediately. “I haven’t set eyes on you in years. It’s good to see you both again.”

Mavis Potts gave her an apologetic smile. “We were in California visiting our son when your parents died, and we couldn’t get back in time for the funeral.”

The woman hugged her again, quickly this time. “We just heard about Mary, honey. What can we do for you? I brought you something to eat,” she said, going over to the table and unwrapping the dishes. Mavis suddenly looked awed, if somewhat abashed, by all the food she found herself unwrapping. “I probably overdid it, but that’s what I do when I hear bad news. I cook.”

“How did you find out about Mary?” Grace asked, walking up to Peter Potts and giving him a warm hug.

“Ellen Bigelow phoned us this morning,” Peter said. “Told us Michael had been out all night and came home this morning with the news.”

“He’s devastated,” Mavis added, holding a heaping, still steaming apple pie in her hand. “He’s not handling it well. He’s locked himself in his room, and Ellen said he hasn’t eaten all day.”

“They were going to get married, you know,” Mavis added in a saddened whisper. She set the apple pie back on the table, pulled out a chair, and sat down.

Grace could see the seventyish woman’s eyes begin to water. “I just can’t believe it,” she said, shaking her head. “Mary’s dead. When did it happen?”

Grace blew out a tired breath, pulled out another chair, and sat down across from her. The lies were about to begin yet again.

“Six weeks ago,” Grace told her. “She was in an automobile accident.”

“She was down visiting you? Where? Virginia, isn’t it?”

“Yes. She came down because I asked her to. I was pregnant, and I wanted her company.”

Mavis’s eyes widened to saucers. “Pregnant?” she squeaked, looking toward Grace’s stomach.

Grace nodded in the direction of the living room. “I had a son four weeks ago,” she told her.

“Oh, you poor child,” Mavis lamented, getting up and pulling Grace out of her chair so she could hug her again. “Losing your sister now,” she commiserated. “At what should be the happiest time of your life.”

Grace hugged her back, her eyes watering with unshed tears. She was glad the woman had come calling today, even if she did make her cry. Mavis let her go and headed into the living room.

“Grace Sutter, you have this child in an apple crate,” she chided, appalled. “Why isn’t he in his cradle?”

“I just got it down from the attic,” she told her, walking into the living room with Peter trailing behind her.

“I forgot it even existed. The changing table and some clothes are still up there. I’m going to bring them down later. I just got this cleaned up, but I didn’t want to disturb him yet.”

“It’s a boy? What’s his name?” Mavis asked in a hushed tone as she peeked at the sleeping child.

Grace closed her stinging eyes. She liked these people, and she hated to lie to them.

“I’m calling him Baby for now,” she told Mavis. “I haven’t been able to decide on a name yet. What with Mary and everything, I’ve just wanted to wait. I want it to be the right name.”

Grace opened her eyes just in time to see Mavis descending on her again. She was hugged so tightly this time she squeaked.

“That’s okay, honey. Nothing says you have to name him right off the bat.” She pulled back and smiled at her. “I think you’re smart to consider the baby’s name carefully. Within two months of naming our first son, I was sorry. Preston Potts never did fit the boy.” She headed toward the stairs, still smiling. “He finally did grow into it, but it wasn’t a pleasant childhood for him. The kids kept calling him Prissy Potts.

Where’s your husband, Grace? I can’t wait to meet him.”

“I don’t have a husband,” she told her, her words nearly getting stuck in her throat.

Mavis flushed. “Oh. I…ah…I’m sorry.” She waved her hand in the air, as if brushing her words away.

“That’s fine, honey. Does this mean Baby’s father is no longer in the picture?”

“Yeah. Something like that,” Grace mumbled, turning to smooth out the wrinkles in Baby’s blanket. She turned back to Mavis and shot her a forced smile. “But I’m okay with it. Baby and I will be just fine.”

Mavis nodded. “Then if you’re okay, we’re okay, too. Come on, Peter. Let’s get the stuff downstairs for Grace.”

Grace ran after Mavis, who was surprisingly nimble for a woman her age. “That’s not necessary. I can do that.”

“Nonsense. You just had a baby. You shouldn’t be lifting anything heavier than your child,” Mavis said, disappearing up the stairs.

Peter walked to the stairs with an understanding smile on his face and stopped in front of her. “Better not argue with her,” he said. “Not once she decides on something. Don’t worry. We won’t be here long, Grace. We’ve got to go check on the Merricks and the Colburns, to make sure they’re weathering the storm okay.”

“You’re always welcome here, Peter,” she said, not wanting him to think she was ungrateful.

He set an aging but still strong hand on her shoulder. “I know, honey. When my mother died, we appreciated the concern of our friends, but we also wanted some time to ourselves to come to terms with our loss. We’re here if you need us, Grace, but we’ll be careful not to intrude.”

“Thank you,” she told him, giving him a big hug.

Mavis returned down the stairs with a box in her hand, and Peter went up and got the changing table and carried it into the kitchen.

It was another three hugs later before the Pottses left as quickly as they had arrived, with instructions that Grace call them immediately if she needed anything.

It was while she was cleaning the changing table that Grace realized what Mavis had said. Michael was home, and he had locked himself in his room. Ellen and John Bigelow were nearing eighty themselves, and they were probably worried about the new owner of their farm, who was also their boarder.

Grace also remembered that Michael MacBain was part of the reason she was here. Not only was she supposed to get to know him, but she was supposed to do for him what the Pottses had automatically done for her without waiting for an invitation.

Instead, she was hiding out in her home like a coward. She was afraid of letting Michael be around Baby too much, afraid he would see the child’s twelve toes. But mostly Grace knew that she was afraid she might actually come to like Michael MacBain.

And that was her greatest act of cowardice to date.

It was time for her and Baby to go over to the Bigelow Christmas Tree Farm. Somehow she would pull Michael out of his room, and out of his profound sadness, even if only for a little while. He was not closing himself off from the rest of the world or locking himself away with Mary’s ashes.

Grace didn’t even get to knock on the door before it opened and Ellen Bigelow waved her out of the rain and into the kitchen of the old but recently remodeled house.

“Land sakes, Grace Sutter, what are you doing running about in this storm?” Ellen asked, her welcoming smile contradicting her scolding. “And with a child in tow to boot.”

“Ah, Ellen. It’s so good to see you,” Grace returned, leaning over Baby and giving Ellen a peck on the cheek. She had no problem recognizing Ellen, having worked for the Bigelows every Christmas season until she left for college. “You’re looking very chipper.”

The small, elderly, but still spry woman motioned for Grace to sit in one of the chairs at the kitchen table while she put the kettle on the stove to boil. “I’m not as chipper as I used to be,” she said, getting down two cups from the cupboard. She gave Grace a wink. “But I’ve got some years in me yet.”

“You haven’t aged a day since I last saw you,” Grace told her as she shed her jacket and let it fall over the back of her chair. She unzipped Baby from his carrier and pulled him into her lap.

Ellen immediately stopped what she was doing and came over to admire the infant.

“Ellen, I would like you to meet Baby Sutter, my son,” Grace said, setting his little butt on the table while she held him up to face her. “He’s four weeks old, and you are having the privilege of seeing him awake for a change. Mostly he eats and sleeps.”

“Baby Sutter?” the woman asked, raising her left brow. She patted Grace’s shoulder. “Having a problem with names, are you?”

“Finally, someone who understands,” Grace said gratefully. “I’ll name him eventually, when I find the right one.”

“Can I hold him?” Ellen asked. “It’s been ages since I’ve held anything this young,” she said, carefully taking Baby as Grace handed him to her.

Ellen made cooing noises and tickled his chin. She looked at Grace with sad longing showing in every wrinkle on her face. “I have four grandchildren, but they live halfway around the world. I haven’t even met two of them.”

And that was why the Bigelows had sold their farm to a stranger. They had raised three sons, but two of them were dead, and the other one lived in Hawaii.

“You should get a computer, Ellen, and get online. You could send E-mail and pictures to your grandchildren.”

Ellen’s eyes rounded, and she suddenly laughed. “Imagine, me an Internet granny,” she said. “I don’t know the first thing about computers.”

“It’s not as complicated as it seems,” Grace assured her. “Why, I could have you up and running in a day and teach you all you need to know about E-mail in an hour.”

Ellen thought about that, looking down at Baby. She looked back at Grace, a sudden, determined glint in her eyes lifting her expression. “I just might take you up on your offer. I’d love to find out what all the hoopla is about when it comes to this Internet thing. Everywhere you look today, it’s dot-com this and dot-com that. Would I be able to go to these dot-coms and buy things?”

“You could. They’ll deliver anything you want right to your door.”

“It’s a deal, then. I’ve been saving a nest egg for something special for myself, and I can’t think of a better use for it than getting in touch with my grandkids and the rest of the world.”

“Then as soon as this storm is over, I’ll get online with you, and we’ll pick out the equipment you need.

You can have it here in a week, and I’ll set you up.”

“Thank you,” she said. “I might even let John give it a try, after I learn it,” she added.

Grace looked around. “Where is John? And Michael? Is he still in his room?”

Ellen shook her head and sat down at the table across from her, still holding Baby. “No. John got him out of there an hour ago, thank God.” Her sadness returned. “He’s hurting, the poor man. I’m sorry for your loss, Grace.”

“Thank you. I’m going to miss her.”

“We all are. Mary was like a daughter to me this last year. But I understand now why she left all of a sudden,” she said, looking down at Baby. “She went to be with you during your pregnancy, didn’t she?

Michael said…well, he told us you don’t have a husband.”

It amazed Grace how modern-minded the women were here in Pine Creek. They were not judging her for showing up with a child and no husband. They were, however, feeling sorry for her, and Grace didn’t want that.

“Sometimes a woman is better off without one, instead of living a lifetime with her mistakes,” she said as way of explanation.

Ellen nodded. The kettle started to boil, and Grace welcomed the excuse to jump up and fix the tea.

“Where did John and Michael go?” she asked.

“They’re up in the twelve-acre field, checking on the new trees Michael set in last spring. This ice is raising havoc with them. The older, established trees can handle it, if it doesn’t get much worse, but the young ones aren’t strong enough yet. Michael could lose the entire crop.”

“What can they do about it? They can’t very well shake the ice off every tree on twelve acres.”

“John mentioned maybe setting up a system of smudge pots to keep the temperature just above freezing around them. Like they do with the orange trees in Florida when they get a freeze.”

Grace set the tea on the stove to steep and looked back at Ellen. “Will that work?”

The worried woman shrugged her shoulders. “I don’t know. And neither does John. And we don’t even know if we can scrape together enough equipment to try.”

Grace pictured the young trees in her mind and what it would take to save them. They needed support to carry them through the ice storm. She knew the twelve-acre field. The west winds often blew the snow right off it most winters.

She suddenly had an idea.

“How tall are the trees, Ellen? One foot? Two feet?”

“They’re about a foot and a half, I would say,” she told her, her eyes narrowed on Grace’s excited expression. “Why?”

“Instead of heating the air to protect them, what if we…”

Loud footsteps suddenly sounded on the porch, and the door opened. John Bigelow and Michael MacBain came into the kitchen, stamping their feet on the rug.

When they saw Grace, both men stopped and stared at her. John smiled, and Michael gave her first a surprised look and then a guilty frown. Grace smiled back at both of them.

“John,” Ellen said, obviously having caught some of Grace’s excitement. “Grace has an idea to save the trees.”

Both John and Michael looked from Ellen to Grace.

Grace flushed slightly. “I…it’s just an idea. And I’m not even sure it will work,” she admitted to them.

“What?” John asked, sighing deeply and rubbing his forehead. “At this point, I’ll entertain anything.”

“Well,” she said, still formulating her thoughts from before. “What if, instead of trying to thaw the trees, you bury them?”

“Bury them?” Michael asked. “With what?”

“Snow,” she said succinctly. “The snow would surround the young trees and support their weight, and if the snow was deep enough, it would protect them from being damaged by any more ice.”

Michael turned and looked out the window, frowning when he looked back at her. “It’s raining, not snowing.”

“But we can make snow. Maybe. It would be wet snow, but it still might be possible in these temperatures.”

Michael was looking at her as if she’d lost her mind. John was shaking his head. “That takes specialized equipment, Grace,” John said. “And there’s nothing like that around here.”

“Yes, there is,” she countered. “On TarStone Mountain. I saw it two days ago, when I came down the mountain in the snowcat. There was enough piping and guns to do your twelve-acre field.”

A very colorful, very blue curse suddenly scorched the air in the kitchen. Grace looked at Michael and saw his entire face redden and his eyes narrow to pinpricks.

“We’re better off with the smudge pots,” he said through his teeth, his jaw clenched so tightly Grace thought he was in danger of hurting himself. “That equipment on TarStone will never lie in my fields.”

Grace set her hands on her hips. “And why not?”

“MacKeage will never agree, and if he does, I won’t allow it. I have no wish to be beholden to the bastard.”

Grace ignored Michael’s anger and spoke to John. “Will it work?” she asked. “If we can make snow and cover the trees, will it protect them?”

John was scratching his two-day growth of peppered white whiskers. “It might,” he said, nodding his head. “It really might work. The snow would support them.”

“Dammit. MacKeage won’t do it,” Michael said, pulling off his jacket and boots, stomping, sock-footed out of the kitchen, and disappearing up the stairs. All three of the adults and even Baby flinched when a door suddenly slammed shut over their heads with enough force to rattle the windows.

Grace looked at Ellen. “Can you keep Baby for me for a few hours?” she asked. “I want to go to TarStone.”

But it wasn’t until she was halfway to the ski resort that Grace remembered she’d just left a twelve-toed child in the same house as his father.

Chapter Eleven

Grace turned onto the well-marked road that led to TarStone Mountain Resort and drove down it a mile before she came to a stop at the far corner of the massive parking lot. She had seen a bit of the resort on her ride back to her home two days ago, but that was nothing compared with what was in front of her now.

The resort was huge. There was one massive structure just to the left that was obviously the ski lodge. Its three-story-high floor-to-ceiling windows faced the mountain. There were several more outbuildings and a long, two-story hotel on the right. And everything, right down to the ski-lift shed, was built from granite and black stone and large hand-hewn logs.

If she had to describe it, Grace would say that the lodge and hotel looked like a cross between a Scottish castle and a Swiss chalet. The roofs were bulged out like medieval barns and covered with cedar shingles that had been left to weather to a natural gray. Eaves overshot the buildings by a good three feet and swept into a graceful arch just at the ends, further amplifying the architecture of the roofline.

The MacKeages hadn’t skimped on the glass. Windows running from floor to ceiling marked every room of the hotel, and a large carport had been added to the front, held up by massive pillars that looked to be whole trees.

Black stone formed the foundations and lower walls of both the lodge and the hotel, topped by rows of rough-hewed horizontal logs. Only the trim had been painted a deep forest green, while the logs had been left to weather naturally.

It was beautiful. A fairy-tale world. And every square inch of it was covered with ice, which added to its magical aura.

She was very impressed. When the MacKeages did things, they obviously did them well.

She couldn’t see their home, though, which Grey had called Gu Bràth. She remembered he had mentioned that it was several hundred yards away, probably tucked up the mountain a bit, back in the woods. She looked around for a driveway leading out of the parking lot but saw none. She did see a light coming from the ski-lift shed. She drove her truck up to it and shut off the ignition.

Morgan popped his head out the door of the shed. Grace got out of her truck and slipped and slid her way toward him.

“Take a care, lass, before you break your beautiful neck,” Morgan said, holding the door open for her and grabbing her arm as she stumbled inside.

“Thank you. I’ve got to find Dad’s old ice creepers.”

“Grace,” Grey said, surprise in his voice. She looked up to see him smiling as he came toward her. His hair was soaked, with little icicles hanging from the ends of it.

“Didn’t you get enough weather two nights ago?” she asked, reaching up and brushing some of the melting ice off his shoulder.

“What are you doing here?” He looked out the door toward her truck, then took her by the shoulders.

“And where’s Baby? Is everything okay? Is he sick?”

“No,” she told him quickly. “He’s fine. I left him with Ellen Bigelow.”

Grey suddenly stiffened and took a step back from her, dropping his hands to his sides. “Why?” he asked curtly.

Grace shrugged. “It seemed like a good idea at the time.”

His expression said he didn’t like her answer. Grace wiped the dripping rain from her own hair and sighed. What was it with this man, his mood blowing back and forth like a wind-whipped sheet on the line? “Look, I left him there so that I could come check on you. I wanted to see how your ski lift is standing the strain of the ice. When you left yesterday, you said you were worried about it.”

“You’re here to check on us?” Morgan asked, sounding as if he couldn’t believe what he’d heard. “You’

ve got it backward, lass. We’re supposed to be looking after you.”

Grace couldn’t help but smile at the absurdity of his thinking. “I’m not the one with the imperiled ski lift. I live in a sturdy old house that will still be standing long after we’re dead.” She looked out the open mountain side of the shed, at the sagging cables that appeared to be stressed to their limits. She nodded in the lift’s direction. “That doesn’t look good.”

“And what would you know about it looking good or bad?” Ian asked, walking out from behind a gondola, rolling up sheets of paper.

Grace spun around to face him. She wasn’t insulted by the man’s skepticism. She’d run into his kind often enough.

“I know that if those cables break, the arms on every one of your towers will snap like matchsticks. Not to mention the damage it will do to both this shed and the one at the summit. Your last couple of towers will probably be compromised beyond redemption if they don’t break off completely, and whatever gondolas you have out there,” she added for good measure, “will be destroyed as well.”

Ian’s eyes widened in alarm as he looked up the mountain to where the towers disappeared into the rain.

He looked back at her, his expression darkened with suspicion.

“You’re a woman,” he said, only to scowl suddenly at his own words.

“Thank you for noticing,” she drawled. “Are those the schematics for the lift?” she asked, nodding at the roll of papers in his hands.

Ian looked at Grey, silently asking for help out of the hole he’d dug for himself.

With a chuckle, Grey walked over and took the papers from him. “You’re right, Ian,” he said. “She is a woman. And she’s a damn sight smarter than you. Try to remember that in the future, okay?”

Ian was now flushed to the roots of his graying red hair. He looked at her out of the corner of his eye, then nodded slightly. “Sorry,” he murmured. “That was uncalled for.”

Grace waved his apology away. “It’s okay. I get it all the time.”

“Ya do? From who?” Ian wanted to know, appearing ready to run out and defend her.

“From most males,” she told him truthfully, walking over to Grey and taking the drawings out of his hands. “But that’s the fun part. I always get the last laugh.”

Ian nodded. “Good,” he said. “Now, lass. Do you think you can read those damnable papers? I’ve been trying, but I can’t make heads or tails of what they mean.”

Grace took the papers—which looked as if they’d been rolled up and squeezed quite a bit lately—over to a bench under a light and laid them out to read.

“The specs on the ski lift,” she told Ian and Grey, moving aside so Morgan could also look, “give the stress loads for every square inch of the ski lift.”

“Where do they say that?” Ian asked, pushing against her to see better. “And what in hell are all those numbers written all over the damn thing?”

“They’re weight loads,” Grace told him. “Like here. This says this particular beam will withstand the pressure of one thousand pounds of weight sitting on it.”

“A thousand pounds?” Ian asked. “Hell, my horse weighs more than that. You’re saying this piece of steel wouldn’t even hold up my horse?”

“Not by itself, it wouldn’t,” she explained to him, smiling at his analogy. “But place it in a carefully planned structure, and you can multiply that weight several times. Like here,” she said, pointing to a drawing of one of the towers. “This is designed to bear the weight of a cable full of gondolas even if the tower above or below it fails or the arm snaps off one of them. The towers are not your worry; they won

’t break because of their design. The cable is what can cause the most damage.”

Ian looked up from the papers and squinted at her. “How do you know all this?” he asked.

“It’s what I do for a living. I work out mathematical equations that prove or disprove whether something like this ski lift system will work. It’s basic physics.”

“Are ya saying that you can read this and tell us how much weight the cable can bear? If we could find out how much the ice weighed, we could tell if it will break.”

He’d finished the last part of his question with a theory of his own. Grace smiled to let him know she liked his logic.

“That’s right. But I already know how much ice weighs.”

“Ya do? Why would ya know something like that?” he asked.

“When you shoot a rocket into space, Ian, ice sometimes builds up on it as it moves through the atmosphere. Any third-year physics major learns how to calculate lift loss for ice weight and what it will take to shatter it off.”

Ian lifted a brow and looked at Grey. “She’s pulling my leg, ain’t she?” he asked him. “This woman you hauled off the mountain has a daft sense of humor. Nobody can hold that much knowledge in their brain.”

Grey simply shook his head as he stared down at her, his evergreen eyes gleaming in the dim light of the shed. He was quite a handsome fellow when he wasn’t scowling at her, Grace thought.

“She has no sense of humor,” he told Ian, still staring at her. “She thinks flying is a good thing.”

“How long would it have taken you to drive from Bangor to TarStone the other day?” she asked him, matching his mischievous look with one of her own. “Ninety minutes? Two hours?”

“Two.”

“But you made it here in less than forty minutes because of the plane.”

That changed his expression. The man’s eyes suddenly narrowed to slits. “We landed ten miles short and one thousand feet high of our mark, woman. And it ended up taking me half the day and the whole night to get home.”

Grace reached up to tap his chest and gave him a huge grin. “Details, MacKeage. Minor details. It usually goes much more smoothly.”

He appeared to be one second short of throttling her, but Grace wasn’t worried. No sense of humor, indeed. She looked back at the papers.

“How thick’s the ice now, do you think?” she asked Ian.

He held up his plump and calloused little finger. “This thick,” he said. “And it’s growing all the time.”

“Your finger?”

“Nay, lass,” he said with a pained groan. “The ice!”

“We were just deciding to start up the ski lift,” Morgan interjected.

Grace turned to the younger man, who had been quiet up until now. “Don’t,” she said. She turned to Grey. “It might put too much stress on the system.”

“But we’re thinking to break up the ice so it will fall off,” Ian added. “To take off the weight.”

“It’s too late. You would have had to do that two days ago,” she told him.

“Too late? You mean we’re going to have to just stand here and watch it collapse?” Morgan asked.

Grace shook her head. “Maybe not. There’s always a great safety margin factored into these structures.

It may hold until the rain stops.”

“If it stops,” Ian muttered, turning away from the bench and staring out at the lift. He looked back at her over his shoulder, his brows knitted into a frown. “Is there nothing we can do?”

Grace thought about that. There was, but it was only a theory in her mind. One that could backfire on them with disastrous results. Either the ice would melt off the cable like a spring thaw, or TarStone’s ski lift would shatter like glass and probably take them with it.

“Good God,” Ian exclaimed. “I swear I can see her brain working,” he said, walking back to her and looking quizzically into her eyes. He waved a hand in front of her face. “What’s going on in there, lass?”

he asked. “Have ya an idea?”

Grace turned her gaze to each of the three men, one at a time. She might have an idea. But she also might just have a very powerful bargaining chip that could save the Bigelow Christmas Tree Farm as well.