Grey, carrying Grace’s two bags from the plane, simply walked past him, chuckling. He strode onto the porch and suddenly stopped, staring at her kitchen door.
Grace used her foot to pull it open and greeted him with a smile. “My bags. You’ve brought my stuff.”
“What happened to your door?” he asked, not moving, still looking at the broken wood.
Grace walked away so he would come in. Morgan, rubbing his butt, followed him.
“It…ah, I had a visitor last night. He broke it.”
“Who?” Grey asked with anger in his voice, setting her bags down.
What could she tell him without adding fuel to the apparently old, ongoing battle between the MacKeages and Michael MacBain?
She almost wanted to shake her head at the absurdity of it. They were like modern-day Hatfields and McCoys, with only a name being mentioned to set them off. She had witnessed that firsthand last night, when she had innocently told Michael that Grey had saved her and Baby.
“I’m waiting,” he said, his stance telling her he might be waiting but his patience was waning.
“Michael MacBain was looking for Mary,” she told him, setting Baby down in the overstuffed chair and securing him with the pillow again. She really was going to have to come up with a more respectable crib.
Before Baby was three.
“MacBain,” Morgan snarled from behind Grey, turning to examine the door himself. “That bastard broke into your home?”
“Do you own a gun?” Grey asked, still unmoved, still looking at her.
“A gun?” Alarmed, she turned to face him. She shook her head. “No. And I wouldn’t use one if I did. I’
m not going to shoot anybody. That’s barbaric. And it’s not legal, either.”
“It is if you’re defending yourself,” he countered.
“From Michael? He was just looking for Mary.”
“And what was his reaction when he didn’t find her?” he asked, taking a step closer to her.
“What do you think it was?” she asked back, moving closer to him herself. Dammit, she didn’t like his posturing. He was acting as if she was an idiot for not being afraid of a grieving man. “He was devastated,” she told him. “Thank you for bringing my things,” she added.
Her change of subject did not deter him. He moved even closer, taking her by the shoulders with his huge, warm hands. “Stay away from him, Grace. Michael MacBain is trouble.”
She pulled away from him immediately. His simple touch sent shivers coursing up and down her spine.
And those shivers had nothing to do with fear.
It was lust. Pure, stupid lust.
She hadn’t seen him for nearly twenty-four hours, and here she was acting like a silly schoolgirl with a crush on the giant. Maybe she was the one experiencing separation withdrawal.
Grace walked to her bags, mentally telling herself—and her hormones—to give it a rest. Grey was acting as if he wanted to kill Michael MacBain, and she was busy fanta-sizing about his touching her again.
Morgan beat her to the suitcases, lifting them up and setting them on the table for her. She smiled her thank-you and busied herself opening one of them while she spoke.
“Michael was the man my sister was coming home to marry when she died,” she informed Grey, who now had his arms crossed over his chest and his eyes narrowed. “And that makes him almost family to me.” She turned and looked at Morgan, so he would know she was talking to him as well. “Michael’s hurting,” she said. “And I’m not going to ignore him or his pain just because you don’t like him.”
Grey didn’t like her very much right now, if his expression was any indication. Grace suddenly gave into her urge and laughed out loud.
“I wish you could see yourself. You’re like a pouting little boy whose mother won’t take him seriously.
This…this feud between you and Michael is childish.”
“You have no idea what you’re talking about,” he said through gritted teeth. His evergreen eyes drilled into her. “And you are not my mother.”
She held up her hands in supplication. “Fine. Feel the way you want. But I’m having no part of it.”
She walked up to him and looked him in the eye, staring at him just as fiercely as he was staring at her. “I owe you for saving my life, but I’m remaining neutral in this. Those are my terms. Take them or leave them.”
He stared down at her for so long Grace was afraid she had just lost her new friend. She didn’t want that. She liked Greylen MacKeage. Heck, who was she kidding? She was strongly attracted to the man and felt they shared a special understanding. They’d had quite an adventure together and had beaten the odds. The bond that had formed between them up on the mountain was sacred to her, and she was loath to let her principles destroy it.
But she would. Because if she backed down now, she was in danger of losing more than just the principles that had always guided her through the major decisions in her life.
She was in danger of losing her heart.
And she couldn’t do that, either. She was here for four months, until Summer Solstice, and then she and Baby were going back to Virginia to begin their new lives together.
“Very well,” he said finally. “You may speak with MacBain. But you’re to be careful around him. He’s not to be trusted.”
She wanted to ask him what had happened to make him hate Michael so much, but Grace kept her questions to herself. She doubted he’d tell her anyway. Michael hadn’t told Mary, and that little fact was revealing enough, considering what he had told her. Whatever it was between these men, it wasn’t pleasant.
Grace returned to the task of sorting out her things on the table. Grey walked over to Baby and picked him up.
“You shouldn’t bother him when he’s sleeping,” she admonished. “The poor kid needs the rest.”
Grey lifted a brow at her. “He’s resting. See, he hasn’t wakened,” he said, tilting Baby so she could see his face.
The infant sighed in his sleep and cuddled comfortably against Grey’s chest.
“He likes the heartbeat,” Grey told her, smiling at her frown. “Babies need to feel the closeness of another life.”
Grace wondered where the man got his information. He said he had younger siblings, but was that enough to explain his ease with Baby? She knew he wasn’t married, but he had to be older than thirty.
Maybe he had an ex-wife and six kids out there somewhere.
“We brought you some food,” Morgan said, coming back through the door with two bags of groceries in his hands.
She hadn’t even realized he’d left. “Thank you.” She indicated that he should set them on the counter.
“But that wasn’t necessary. I went out yesterday and got some.”
“You went out?” Grey asked. “In this storm? The driving’s abominable.”
Grace threw the suitcase she’d just emptied onto the floor. “I couldn’t very well feed Baby canned soup,” she informed him. “And my truck has four-wheel drive.”
“It’s not the going that’s dangerous,” Morgan added into the discussion. “It’s the stopping that’s impossible.”
“I discovered that,” she admitted. “I’m going to put the chains on the truck this afternoon.”
“You know how?” the younger man asked, looking not only surprised but skeptical.
“I grew up here,” she reminded him. “I know how to handle bad weather.”
Morgan looked at Grey. Grace saw Grey nod his head in the direction of the attached barn. She unzipped the next suitcase. If it made the men feel better to put the chains on for her, she wasn’t about to complain. She sorted through her things in the second suitcase, adding items to the pile of ruined clothes.
Her silk blouses had not weathered the freezing rain well at all. She found what she had been searching for and hit the switch on her PDA. Nothing happened.