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.”