“Holy Mother of God,” Ian whispered, his eyes huge and his face pale.
And that, Grace thought as she looked down to check on Baby, was about all that needed saying.
She noticed a drop of water on Baby’s hat and wiped it away. Another one immediately replaced it. She wiped it away also. A large finger suddenly lifted her chin, and a warm thumb brushed across her damp cheek. She looked up through blurry eyes at Grey.
“It’s only metal and cable, Grace. Don’t weep for the loss of something as unimportant as a ski lift.”
“I promised to save it for you.”
“Nay, lass. You promised only to try. And you were going to win. The destruction is on my shoulders, Grace, not yours.”
The people of Pine Creek came pouring out of the hotel then, milling around and staring at the destroyed ski lift. Michael stood with Ellen and John, one of his big hands on each of their shoulders. Grace didn’t know if he was steadying them or holding himself up.
She wiped her eyes clean of tears and stared up at Grey. She took a deep, painful breath, steeling herself for what she was about to do. She cupped Baby’s head with her hand, then stood on her tiptoes and kissed Grey on the chin. “I love you,” she whispered just before she turned and walked away from him.
Every step she took hurt. Her breathing became labored. The blood rushing through her body pumped with the violence of an erupting volcano, and her vision narrowed until everything—the resort, the people standing in stunned silence, the stark remains of the chair lift—all of it faded into the background and ceased to exist.
Clutching Baby against her chest, Grace fought to keep herself focused on the man in front of her now, fought to keep herself from giving into the voice screaming in her head, telling her to run as fast and as far as she could before she opened her mouth and broke her own heart.
She stood there in front of Michael MacBain and fought back the tidal wave of emotion that threatened her courage as nothing else ever had.
“Michael,” she said in a shuddering whisper, drawing his attention. He turned away from Ellen and John, his face showing concern for what he must have seen in her eyes.
“I’d…I’d like to introduce you to your son.” She turned Baby to face him. “Mary gave birth to him just a day before she died. He’s yours and Mary’s, Michael,” she told him, holding Baby out for him to take.
A myriad of emotions crossed Michael’s face in rapid succession—confusion, disbelief, pain, and finally wonder—as he turned his gaze from her to the child she was handing to him.
He slowly, carefully, took Baby and held him up until they were face to face, staring into young eyes the mirror image of his own. Baby shot him a sudden, spontaneous smile.
Michael looked stunned. He brought Baby to his chest and pulled off his cap and covered his head with his large hand, smoothing down the length of spiky, dark auburn hair. He looked back at Grace in silent question.
“He—he doesn’t have a real name yet,” she told him, wiping another tear from her cheek. “Mary said that was your duty.”
Pain clouded his expression, and his hand trembled as he looked back at his son and ran one large finger over his face, much the same way Mary had done on her deathbed.
Both of Grace’s eyes flooded then, and there was no stopping the flow of tears she finally allowed to run freely down her cheeks. She was shaking with the force of her mixed emotions.
“Sh-she said you would love him as no one else on this earth can,” she continued hoarsely, determined to say her piece before she broke down completely. “I promised Mary I would bring him to you, and I have. Now I want your promise that you’ll love him and raise him to manhood in a way Mary would want for her son.”
“Aye,” he said fiercely, nodding at her, then looking back at his child with a new glint of passion lighting his eyes. Baby shot him another smile, and Michael MacBain held the infant’s cheek against his.
“Good,” Grace said, a sob catching in her throat. She turned in the direction of the driveway and began walking home.
“Grace.”
She stopped at the sound of Grey’s voice and turned and lifted her chin, more to keep her tears from spilling down her face than to challenge him.
“Home is that way,” Grey said, pointing toward Gu Bràth.
“Not today it isn’t,” she whispered. “Not yet.”
She turned again, holding her breath as she once more began walking home. No one stopped her this time. No one said another word. Grace concentrated on setting one creeper-covered boot in front of the other, careful not to trip over her broken heart.
Chapter Twenty-two
Daar sat in front of the fire of his cozy little cabin and whittled on the new cherrywood cane. He carefully stripped the bark off it in long pieces of curling string, the aroma of cherry oil wafting pleasantly through the air. The young sapling felt awkward in his age-bent hands, its smooth, straight, unflawed surface hard to hold on to. It was much more delicate than his old cane and smaller. But then, it was meant for a much smaller hand.
This new staff would belong to a woman.
To Winter, Grey and Grace’s seventh daughter.
He’d been dragging out this chore for too long, and now that his own staff was sitting in pieces at the bottom of the mountain pond, it was necessary that he begin carving and training this new one immediately.
It would have only one or two burls on it by the time he presented it to Winter, and she and it would grow old together once he placed it in her hands. He would train them both, and as Winter’s power increased with knowledge, the staff would twist with burls and strengthen. It was the way things worked in his wizard’s world.
Daar ran his hand along the smooth surface of newly exposed wood. He couldn’t believe his warrior had had the audacity, or the foresight, to throw his staff into the pond. Grey knew the danger Daar’s cane presented. He had seen its energy firsthand. Yes, Greylen MacKeage had known, when he’d held the remaining piece of that still humming wood in his hand, that he was holding the power to send him and his men back to their natural time.
And when he had banished it to the depths of that high mountain pond, Greylen had quite deliberately given up any chance that such a thing would ever happen.
Grey didn’t bother to knock. He silently let himself into Grace’s kitchen, kicking off his boots and setting his jacket and Mary’s tin of ashes on the kitchen table. The house was eerily silent except for the occasional snap of a log on the fire in the living room and the faint sound of a sniffle every so often coming from the same room.
He walked sock-footed into the living room, and his heart fell down to his knees.
Grace was sitting cross-legged on the couch, a box of tissues beside her, another box’s worth of used tissues balled up and thrown on the floor in front of the hearth. He watched as she sniffled, blew her nose, and threw another tissue at the fire. She was in so much pain, and for the life of him he didn’t know how to help her.
She’d given up the child of her heart today. She had united a son with his father because it had been the right thing to do, and now she was paying the price.
Grey admired her strength. And he hurt for her now.
“Grace,” he said softly, moving to stand in front of her.
She turned wide eyes to him, a gasp catching in her throat. Her face was freckled with pink blotches, and her swollen, red-rimmed eyes were devoid of life. He wanted to hold her in his arms and squeeze the pain right out of her.
She got down on her knees and started gathering the evidence of her grief, tossing all the balls of wet tissue into the fire.