“Darn. This didn’t make it.”
“What is it?” Grey asked, coming to stand beside her, Baby cuddled contentedly in his arms. “Another computer?”
“It’s my PDA. And either the batteries are cold or it’s ruined.”
“PDA?”
She pulled it out of its leather case and opened the back. “It’s a personal data assistant,” she explained.
“It’s my calendar book, task list, and all my contacts. Without it, I’m screwed.”
“Wouldn’t it just be easier to keep this information in a book?” he asked, leaning over her shoulder as she replaced the batteries with spares she had bought yesterday at the store, having anticipated this possibility as well as the likelihood that they’d eventually lose the electricity.
“Maybe,” she said, shrugging. “But paper would be just as ruined, too.” She looked at her computer sitting on the counter, charging. She opened it and turned it on.
“Well, at least this works.”
Grace decided she needed a cup of cocoa. She grabbed the kettle, filled it with water, and put it on the burner. “I’m lucky the computer is okay and that only the battery got ruined.” She patted her computer affectionately. “I don’t blame the battery for dying,” she said. “Leaving my computer running in the snow cave finished it. Electronics don’t like the cold, and they don’t like getting wet. But it did a marvelous job keeping me alive.” She looked at Grey. “I hugged it to me, using its warmth.”
He gave her a strange look. “You were hugging the cookie tin when I found you, Grace. Not the computer.”
She shook her head at him. “No. That’s impossible. I distinctly remember feeling a great warmth against my chest and my hands. That’s the only reason my fingers didn’t get frostbite. It had to be the computer.
There’s no way a tin full of ashes could generate heat.”
“Maybe it was your sister’s spirit protecting you,” he suggested softly. “It’s possible that Mary was with you in that cave in more ways than just her ashes. You were hugging her tin, Grace. I know what I found.”
She looked at the table, at Mary.
Only she wasn’t there. Grace rushed to the table and moved the pile of clothes out of the way. Then she moved the suitcase. The table was empty. She looked around the kitchen but couldn’t find the tin. It was nowhere to be seen.
“He took it,” she whispered to herself, still scanning the kitchen counter and shelves.
“Who? Took what?” Grey asked, moving up behind her. “What are you looking for?”
She swung around to face him. “Mary. He took Mary.”
“Who took Mary?” Morgan asked, walking into the kitchen. He had a hammer and some nails in his hand. He pounded the broken door casing into place.
“MacBain took the tin holding Mary’s ashes,” Grey answered for her. He handed her Baby. “Come on,”
he said to Morgan.
“Wait! You are not going over there,” she said quickly, running to block his path. She looked Grey squarely in the eye. “This is between him and me. I don’t want you going there and starting a fight.”
“He’s got your sister, lass,” Morgan said, sounding appalled. “He stole her right out from under your roof.”
Grace looked at Morgan. “But it’s not Mary he stole. Not really. It’s just a tin full of carbon and minerals and potash. Mary left her body behind the moment she died.”
“You’ve been looking after those ashes for days now,” Grey reminded her. “I know what that tin means to you.”
“I was just being foolish.” She shook her head as she looked down at Baby in her arms. She looked up again. “It’s not worth causing a scene over. Mary’s death is new to Michael. In his mind, he just lost her last night. I know what he’s going through, and if he needs her ashes for a while, then I can understand that.”
“What about your plan for Summer Solstice?” Grey asked.
“That will still happen. He’ll give the tin back before then. I know he will.”
Neither man wanted to believe her. And they both looked frustrated that they couldn’t act. She quickly handed Baby back to Grey to ensure that he didn’t suddenly go after Michael despite her wishes.
“The kettle’s boiling. Do you gentlemen want cocoa?”
“No,” Grey said, laying Baby back in his chair. “The ice is building on our ski lift, and we need to keep an eye on it.” He turned from Baby to face her. “Don’t go out. The roads are treacherous, with broken trees blocking them in places.”
“You got here okay,” she reminded him, disgruntled by his order but relieved that the subject of Michael and Mary seemed laid to rest.
“We’re traveling in the snowcat.” He took her by the chin and lifted her face to his. “Call us if you need anything.”
Grace shot him an overbright smile. “I will,” she said so sweetly it was a wonder her teeth didn’t hurt.
“Lord, woman, you’re reckless with my good intentions,” he muttered, scooping her up in his arms and kissing her.
Her head was spinning by the time he let her go.
It took Grace a while to gather her wits. She barely made it to the door before Grey could climb into the snowcat.
“MacKeage!”
He stopped and looked back at her.
“I want your promise you’ll stay away from Michael.”
She could see his face darken with guilt. Dammit. He’d been planning to go there. “Your promise, Grey.
Or don’t bother coming back here again.”
She wasn’t sure if he would heed her words. He probably didn’t even care. She touched her lips.
Maybe…maybe he did.
She saw him standing in the icy rain, getting soaked, staring back at her. He finally nodded and climbed into the snowcat. It roared to life and growled down her driveway, spitting up chunks of ice in its wake.
Grace closed the door softly and leaned against it. Well, that was something to ponder. It appeared Greylen MacKeage wanted to see her again.
Chapter Ten
Grace stopped in the act of folding Baby’s clothes and turned up the volume on the television. Scenes of devastation in four states and the province of Quebec were being played out on the newscast. She couldn’t believe what she was seeing.
There was footage of an entire high-tension power corridor falling like stacked dominoes, the metal towers crumbling from the weight of the ice and the loss of support as the power lines snapped. Trees, completely covered in sleeves of ice, broke under the stress, blocking roads, taking down cables, and crushing cars and buildings. Everything was covered in white, frozen into place like marble statues. It looked like scenes from Antarctica or the top of Mount Washington.
And still the rain continued to fall, freezing on everything it touched. The weatherman was saying it had to end soon, but he couldn’t say when. Mother Nature was being stubborn.
Hundreds of thousands of people were without electricity now, and they were predicting the number would rise into the millions. Northern New England, northern New York, and Quebec were under a state of emergency.
Grace looked away from the television and out the living-room windows. It had been raining for four days, and the ice continued to build. She couldn’t see out the windows facing north or west, and out the south windows she saw only ice. Her childhood home was constantly settling, shifting to bear the weight it already carried, groaning occasionally, and snapping every so often.
It was time, she decided, for a trip into the attic to check on the roof supports. She looked in on Baby and saw that he was sleeping off his lunch like a contented cat. As a matter of fact, the three cats she’d inherited from Mary were also sleeping, curled up in front of the fireplace, dreaming cat dreams. She smiled at the picture of them, then picked up the baby monitor and clipped it to the waist of her jogging pants.