Charming The Highlander

“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.

Tell me, does he intend to send a check in the mail once a month to compensate for his cowardice?”

“That’s enough,” she said, turning back in her seat to face forward, her arms crossed under her chest.

Oh, she’d made a mistake, all right, coming up here with him today.

He was primitive.

“It’s none of your business,” she told him. “Who and where Baby’s father is, it’s none of your damn business.”

The snowcat came to such a sudden halt Grace had to brace her hands against the dash. She didn’t even wait to see where they were, she just opened her door and jumped out. She started plodding over the crusted snow, driving her feet into it until it broke.

Damn him. He was a jerk. And to imagine she thought she liked him.

He was suddenly right beside her, walking on top of the crust, exerting one-tenth the energy she was.

Grace stopped and turned, cupping her hand to her forehead to block out the rain so she could glare at him better.

“I’m going to save your damn ski lift, MacKeage, but only under one condition.”

“And that would be?” he asked calmly, in stark contradiction to her anger.

It only made her angrier. “That you give me your snow-making equipment and help me set it up at the Bigelow Christmas Tree Farm tonight.”

The taunting calmness left his face so suddenly Grace took a step back.

“Not in your lifetime, lady. MacBain’s trees can rot in the ground for all I care.”

“Fine. Then the same thing can happen to your damn ski lift,” she countered, turning around and walking away.

She started walking back down the ski trail, only not breaking through the crust this time and being careful of her footing. She found the tracks the cat had made and began following them—until she was suddenly grabbed from behind and spun around so quickly she screamed.

“You can’t walk down this mountain,” he said, his evergreen eyes glaring at her.

“I didn’t just fall three thousand feet, MacKeage, like the last time.”

Although her heart certainly felt as if it had—and that it had broken on impact. She was so disappointed she wanted to sit down and cry. Why was this truly gorgeous, rugged, capable man such a jerk? And worst of all, why was she so attracted to him in the first place?

That was the saddest part. He couldn’t see past his hatred for Michael MacBain, and he couldn’t see how much, or guess why, that hurt her. The man she had formed a remarkable bond with on the mountain three days ago hated her nephew’s father. He didn’t know it, but she and Baby would become a link between him and Michael if she let herself get involved with Grey.

She was astute enough to realize that she had already let herself become much too involved with him emotionally. It had started when he had taken Baby to safety and then come back for her. And this afternoon, in the lift shed, she had felt it—the strength of their bond—enveloping her in the warmth of sharing something special with a special man.

But that bond was being smothered by a soulless sleeve of ice, just as surely as the trees around her were being entombed at this very moment.

“Grace,” he said, shaking her slightly.

“I don’t like you anymore, Grey. I can’t.”

“You damn well will,” he growled, wrapping her up in a fierce embrace that took the wind right out of her. And she never did catch her breath before his mouth descended on hers with demanding possession.