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.