Grace thought about that. There was, but it was only a theory in her mind. One that could backfire on them with disastrous results. Either the ice would melt off the cable like a spring thaw, or TarStone’s ski lift would shatter like glass and probably take them with it.
“Good God,” Ian exclaimed. “I swear I can see her brain working,” he said, walking back to her and looking quizzically into her eyes. He waved a hand in front of her face. “What’s going on in there, lass?”
he asked. “Have ya an idea?”
Grace turned her gaze to each of the three men, one at a time. She might have an idea. But she also might just have a very powerful bargaining chip that could save the Bigelow Christmas Tree Farm as well.
“That depends,” she started carefully, still undecided about how she wanted to approach this subject.
“On what?” Morgan asked, walking up beside Ian so he could stare into her face as well.
She needed to buy herself some time. She couldn’t very well bargain for them to give her their snow-making equipment and not be able to deliver on her promise to save their lift. And truth be told, she preferred to present her offer to Grey, not all three of them, to better her odds of succeeding. It was much easier to sway just one person than it was to convince a united front that helping Michael MacBain would be the decent, neighborly thing for them to do. These men all seemed to respect Grey’s opinion, and that made him the person she needed to talk to.
And she needed to talk to him alone.
Ian was waving his hand in front of her face again. “Has your brain cramped, lass?” he asked. “Have ya overworked it?”
Grace blinked, then shot him a smile. “No. But before I get your hopes up, I need to see the top part of the lift.” She looked at Grey. “Will you take me up there in the snowcat?”
Grey, who had remained unusually silent except to tell her she had no sense of humor, suddenly lifted the corner of his mouth in a wry grin. “You’re actually wanting to go back up that mountain? Didn’t you get enough of it the other day?” he asked, repeating her earlier question to him.
“Where’s your phone?” she demanded, not taking her eyes off his as she held out her hand. “I’m going to call and ask Ellen if she can watch Baby for a few more hours.”
“It’s over on the wall,” Morgan said.
Already lost in the depths of Grey’s unfathomable green eyes, it took Grace a moment to realize that someone had spoken. She forced herself to break eye contact with Grey and look where Morgan was pointing.
There was the phone, right by the door. She made her legs move next, willing them to carry her over to it. It was a nearly impossible task, what with her knees being so weak and her heart pounding so erratically. It really wasn’t fair that Grey was so handsome. Or that not seeing him for twenty-four hours could affect her this way.
Silence, and the feel of evergreen eyes piercing her back, followed Grace across the room as she walked over to the phone.
She didn’t make it to the wall before Grey spoke.
“Morgan, go to the house and have Callum make a thermos of hot chocolate,” she heard him instruct.
“Ian, warm up the snowcat.”
“I’m going with you,” Ian said, heading for the door.
“No,” Grey said, his voice sounding as if he was still looking at her, not at the man he was speaking to.
“Grace and I will go alone.”
She let out the breath she’d been unconsciously holding and picked up the phone, only to realize she didn
’t know Ellen Bigelow’s number.
“The phone book is right beneath it,” Grey said suddenly from right behind her.
Grace knew she just had to sway back on her heels and she would be leaning against him. She suddenly had second thoughts about her plan to travel up TarStone Mountain with Greylen MacKeage. Something deep in the pit of her stomach said this was going to be either the most promising thing she’d ever done or the dumbest.
She didn’t need to be a rocket scientist to know that the energy filling this shed now had nothing to do with mere friendship. Feminine instinct was all but screaming at Grace that if she didn’t run out the door and head for the safety of home, the consequences might be more than she bargained for.
“Change your mind?” came his deep voice from behind her.
She stared at the phone receiver in her hand. “No,” she said, closing her eyes, feeling the heat of him wrapping around her senses until it feathered itself over her cheeks, making her flush with warmth.
“Good,” he said softly, his breath gently wafting past her right ear. “You won’t be sorry.”
She was sorry already.
Grace stared past the hypnotic wipers, not really seeing the ski slope passing slowly under the tracks of the snowcat. Her mind’s eye was focused on the man sitting silently beside her, who was confidently steering the machine up the winding trails, taking her ever closer to…
“Do you remember my promise to you up on the mountain three days ago, Grace?” he asked, his voice soft but still reaching her over the drone of the working engine. “Right after I had found the pilot, and you were afraid of me?”
She turned her head to look at him. “You said you would never hurt me.”
He nodded, his attention still on his driving. “That’s right. But you still don’t believe me, do you?”
“That depends,” she said, scooting around in her seat to face him. “I didn’t know you then, and I admit you did frighten me. I was alone with a man who wanted to lash out at something.”
She smiled at him when he looked at her from the corner of his eye. “But now that I know you, I know you would never hurt me physically.”
“Ahh,” he said, nodding his head again as he watched the trail in front of them. “What is it, then, that you’
re guarding from me? Are you afraid I’ll hurt your heart maybe?”
“That worry did cross my mind,” she admitted.
“Then that tells me you feel the attraction, too.” He turned his head and gave her his full attention. “And that’s what really scares you. Your own awareness of what is happening between us. That, and the fact that you don’t want to be attracted to someone like me, do you, Grace?”
“Someone like what?” she asked, taken aback not only by the realization that he could read her feelings so well but also by his belief that she thought he was somehow lacking.
He seemed to think about her question as he watched the trail again, guiding the snowcat over a particularly rough stretch and up the final climb to the top. She could just make out the shape of the summit house up ahead.
“By my primitiveness, I guess we could call it for lack of a better word,” he finally said. He looked back at her, his green eyes unreadable. “You work with modern, civilized males whose minds look into space and see the future, don’t you? That’s the world you’ve lived in since you left Pine Creek. The men you know dress in suits and dine in restaurants that serve thousand-dollar bottles of wine.”
“The point being?” she asked, getting defensive. He was making her world sound as if it was nothing more than a pretense of life, not the real thing.
“You go out on dates with these men,” he continued as if she hadn’t spoken. “Probably wearing a silk dress, pearls, and sensible two-inch heels. And at the end of the evening, they walk you to your door and give you a very civilized kiss good night.” He darted a glance at her, then looked back at the trail. “They send flowers the next day, don’t they, Grace? And ask you out again the next week.”
“The point being?” she repeated through clenched teeth.
“Except Baby’s father,” he said, looking back at her, his eyes now two distinct pools of unreflected light.
“He got past your defenses and into your bed. And then he left you with a child to bring up by yourself.