“That damn equipment will get set up,” he said.
She darted a look at Morgan, then back at Grey. “By whom?”
“I’ll do it myself if I have to,” he told her. “Now, are you content to live in what you’re wearing, or do you want to pack some things?
“But…”
“Believe me, lass,” Morgan interjected. “You’re going to Gu Bràth, and it’s a lot easier if you just come along peacefully.”
“Now, wait a minute,” Jonathan suddenly said. “You can’t force Grace out of her home.”
Grey gave her boss a look that clearly said Jonathan was welcome to try and stop him. Jonathan, being the intelligent man that he was, turned to Grace for help.
“My boss comes with me,” Grace said, conceding defeat. Besides, Father Daar was at Gu Bràth, and she wanted to talk to him.
“He can stay in the resort hotel,” Grey said.
“I need to be with Grace,” Jonathan foolishly said, pushing the issue. “If you’ve got electricity, then we can use our computers. But we need to find those disks before they’re ruined.”
“I’ll get your damn disks,” Grey told him. “Just as soon as I’m free to.”
“But it can’t wait. There might be other people already here, trying to steal them from us. We need to go now.”
Grace tensed when she saw Grey’s eyes suddenly narrow to sharp slits of green ice. “Are you saying there are men here wanting something from Grace?” Grey asked in a whisper-soft voice.
Apparently reading the threat in Grey’s eyes, Jonathan nodded hesitantly. “There’s a problem with the satellite we sent up, and Grace is the only one here who can retrieve the data without destroying them.”
“Then those disks will be no good to these other men.”
Grace saw Jonathan swallow hard, obviously hoping to push his heart back down in his chest. She was getting a bit alarmed herself, seeing Grey standing so still, hearing the steel in his voice.
“They’ll…ah, they want the disks, but they also want Grace,” Jonathan whispered, swallowing again, just before taking a quick step back from the look that came into Grey’s eyes.
Grey turned that look on her. It was all Grace could do to keep from backing up herself. But then, she had the counter to hold her up. Never in her life had she witnessed such fierce foreboding.
And it dawned on her then that the raging scene at Gu Bràth had been nothing close to what Greylen MacKeage was capable of. Even his anger after the plane crash was nothing compared with the lethal rage she could feel radiating out of every pore of his body, filling the room with enough tension that even the air seemed to withdraw.
And then Grace remembered to breathe.
“Pack up,” Grey snapped. “I’m putting you in that snowcat in five minutes.”
Baby stirred in his arms, and Grey looked down at the child. Grace watched with fascination as Grey forced himself back under control. When he looked at her his eyes were still hard as flint, and his complexion had dulled only slightly, but his voice, when he spoke, was clearly controlled.
“This is important to you?” he asked, again running his finger possessively over her cheek. “These data?”
She nodded. “It could alter the future for mankind. Those data could mean putting people on the moon or on Mars to live,” she said, deciding she didn’t quite dare mention the possibility if it being used as a weapon. Grey was mad enough as it was.
“Really, lass?” Morgan asked. “You’re thinking men can travel to the moon?”
“And women,” she said, just to tease him.
His face reddened with embarrassment. “I meant that.”
“I know,” Grace said, patting his arm on the way to her bedroom. “I’ll just be a minute. I need to get some things together.” She stopped and looked around the kitchen.
“Will you put Mary in Baby’s crib, Morgan?” she asked, again enjoying first his surprise at seeing the tin, then his obvious reluctance to touch it. But bless the man, he gingerly picked up Mary and carefully set her in the crib. Now it was the crib he didn’t want to pick up.
Grace looked around the silent house. “I hate to leave this place unattended during this storm.”
“We’ll keep an eye on it for you,” Grey assured her, his voice nearly back to normal, his smile tight.
“Oh, the animals. I can’t leave them.”
“Ya can leave that damn goat,” Morgan said, rubbing his backside.
“I’ll have Callum fetch them,” Grey told her. “We can put them in our barn with the horses.”
“You have horses?” Grace asked, getting excited, remembering Ian’s claim that his horse weighed more than a thousand pounds. They must be draft animals. “For sleigh rides?”
“They are not plow horses!” Morgan all but shouted, getting red in the face again. “What is it with you people around here? You think just because they’re big, they must pull?”
“Well, what else would a ski lodge want with horses?” she asked, wondering at his reaction.
“They’re noble beasts, and they’re pets now,” he told her, picking up the cradle and walking out the door.
Morgan was like the Maine weather; wait five minutes, and he changed. He was either scolding her or winking at her, and she still didn’t know which one amused her more. Grace chuckled out loud as she walked into her room but sobered the second she was out of sight of the men.
Whew. Her insides were still shaking from Grey’s not-so-subtle display of alpha-male possession. And the sad part was, Jonathan didn’t seem to realize just how close he’d come to being flattened. It was as if all of Jonathan’s manly instincts had gotten swallowed up by the sophisticated civilization he’d been living in all his life.
Somewhere along the line, Jonathan’s male traits had been tamed, if not completely repressed, by society. How else could two men—Jonathan and Grey—be so different, being about the same age, living on the same planet, but becoming such contradictions to each other?
Jonathan had been only worried about her safety.
Grey had turned lethally dangerous at the thought of men wanting to kidnap her.
Which was why Grace’s own instincts told her that Gu Bràth was a much better choice than Virginia right now. Grey would protect her and Baby with his life if need be. And what woman wouldn’t want that kind of commitment from the man she loved?
It was exactly how things should be when two people intended to spend the rest of their lives together.
Chapter Sixteen
Daar paced the length of the north tower of Gu Bràth, stopping to look toward where TarStone Mountain stood behind low-cast, drizzle-soaked clouds. The rain would start again soon; he could all but smell it coming. This storm, it seemed, was not through raising its havoc yet.
He was on vigil again, trying to read the energy coming from the mountain tonight in waves, first with white potent authority, then with black, menacing acrimony. He could not figure out what it meant. He knew only that the two souls now loving and arguing and feeling their way cautiously toward each other were in the path of what was humming through the forest.
Daar sighed and returned to his pacing, the thump of his cane adding to the sounds of a forest straining under the weight of building ice. He had been wracking his tired old brain since he’d met her, trying to discover who Grace’s guardian had been for the first thirty years of her life. Grey would be taking over that task now, but somebody had had that charge before him.
Daar suspected it was Mary. And he also suspected that even though dead, she had not yet relinquished her duty to Grey.
Grey had already appointed himself Grace’s guardian. After he’d dropped Grace and Baby and that Stanhope guy off at Gu Bràth, the warrior had pulled Daar aside for a few words, just before he’d left for MacBain’s Christmas tree farm. Grey had quietly but firmly warned Daar to stay away from Grace Sutter.