Grace waited until she was sure he was gone before she broke into loud, gut-wrenching sobs. She had survived the terrifying crash with Grey, argued with him, and helped him. He had listened to her opinions, discussed their choices, and allowed her the dignity to go down fighting. Not once had he tried to brush her aside and take complete control of the situation. And she knew, without compunction, that if she had fought him about staying here now, he would have died trying to take her with him.
Today they had forged a bond that she hadn’t known could exist between two people. Together they had struggled for their very survival, and they were winning.
She was burrowed into a snow cave like a hibernating bear, but Grey would return for her. She knew he would.
But she wasn’t stupid, either. She also knew that anything could happen on his trip down the mountain, and there was no guarantee he would make it back in time. So she was going to pull up her word-processing program and write her last will and testament.
And she was going to write a letter to Michael MacBain.
She was the only living person in the world who knew who Baby’s father was. She could not go to her grave without revealing the truth.
Chapter Six
The old wizard opened the door and stepped out onto the cabin porch, ignoring the sting of sleet on his face as he looked up toward where TarStone Mountain stood in dark, stoic indifference. He couldn’t see past the end of the clearing that surrounded his home, but he still felt the mountain’s substantial presence.
He also knew all was not right with it.
The storm had arrived on unusually silent feet, creeping down over the east ridge like a predatory beast.
The rain had started yesterday morning, beginning as a mist that had clung like hoarfrost to everything it touched. By afternoon it had become steady, relentlessly encasing the world under a sheet of glistening ice. And now, deep into the wee hours of the morning, the heavy, entombing ice was half an inch thick.
Daar pulled the collar of his red plaid wool Mackinaw coat up to meet his trimmed white beard. The kerosene porch lamp he had lit at dusk last night, and had filled three times already, dimmed from lack of fuel yet again. He reached up, took it down from the nail, and carried it inside to refill it, his sense of urgency stronger than ever.
All was not right on the mountain.
He hadn’t been able to shake the feeling of gathering menace since the storm had descended. He had not slept or eaten since last night. Instead he had kept vigil, refilling his lamps and pacing the length of his porch until the cold seeping into his tired old bones sent him back to the fire. He was in the seventh hour of the incessant ritual.
He poured the last of his kerosene into the lamp, mentally reminding himself to ask Grey to bring him some more. He still had candles, and the old river-stone hearth produced some light, but he liked the brightness the kerosene lamps offered.
Daar suddenly stilled in the act of replacing the chimney on the lamp, and turned to the front door. The sense of urgency was stronger now. Whatever was out there, on the mountain, was coming closer.
He picked up the lamp and carried it back out to the porch, replacing it on the nail pounded into the side of the cabin. Using his stout, burl-ridden cane to steady himself, he walked to the end of the sturdy-planked deck and looked out in the direction of TarStone. The hair on the back of his neck stirred in apprenhension. Urgency, desperation, and fear were moving toward him at a relentless pace, the energy pushing ahead of it strong enough to make Daar step back.
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.”