Charming The Highlander

“The fire’s going out,” Jonathan said, walking into the kitchen. He stopped suddenly, a look of a

“You’re still talking to her, I see,” he said, nodding at the tin in her arms. He took a step closer. “Are you crying?”

She set the tin back on the table and wiped her tears completely away with the palms of her hands. “I do that sometimes, Jonathan. When people lose someone they love, they grieve.”

His face flushed to a dull red, and he seemed at a loss for words. He walked out of the kitchen, then turned around and came back. “The fire. It’s going out, and I don’t see any more wood in the box. Do you have some?”

“It’s in the attached barn, just outside the door.”

He stood there looking at her. “Should I get it?” he asked, finally realizing that she had no intention of doing it herself.

“You’ll probably want to fill the woodbox,” she told him, returning to her chores. “It burns better if it’s warm.”

She began going through the refrigerator to make room for a pot of icicles to keep cold all of the food that had magically multiplied while she was gone. The modern machine was being demoted to an old-fashioned icebox.

While she worked, she thought about her promise to Mary, Michael’s remarkable story, Grey’s offer to raise Baby, and the monumental step she had taken this afternoon in the summit house. She didn’t know if it had been a step backward or forward, but it had certainly changed the direction of her life.

No matter how mad she was at him now, Grace knew in her heart that she would never leave Greylen MacKeage. Not after what had happened this afternoon on the top of TarStone Mountain. Pine Creek was her home now, and she was standing firmly in the center between two warring men. Possibly three, if she counted Jonathan, who would keep pulling with all his might to get her back to Virginia.

Grace felt a twinge between her legs when she knelt down to move the food on the bottom shelf of the fridge. She was still tender from their lovemaking, but it was a warm, welcome kind of tenderness. It reminded her of their time together. The nice time, anyway.

The only thing that nagged at her conscience was the fact that they hadn’t used protection. A sixteen-year-old knew enough to carry a condom in her purse, but Grace had never even purchased such a thing. She hadn’t needed to. She was waiting for marriage.

So why hadn’t she waited?

It was simple, really, once she thought about it. She hadn’t been saving herself for marriage; she’d been waiting to meet a man she could love for the rest of her life.

And she had, if he ever crawled out of his cave—or, rather, his castle—long enough to see the problem from her point of view.

She couldn’t commit herself to a man who wanted her to live a lie by the next twenty years. Grey had sorely disappointed her by even suggesting such a thing.

Grace conveniently dismissed the fact that she had been seriously considering that very same lie herself.

Because, in all fairness to her principles, even though it would be so easy simply to run away with Baby and never see any of them again, her promise to Mary was still firmly in place in her heart.

It was such a mess. She was damned if she did and damned if she didn’t. How would she feel if, say in three years from now, Michael MacBain took a wife and began a new life for himself? And they had children? Where would that leave Baby? How could she walk up to Michael ten or fifteen years from now and say, “Oh, by the way, I’d like to introduce you to your son”?

And how could she give Baby up now, after what Michael had told her today? Although Grace was starting to suspect that a lightning strike was more the culprit than insanity. Michael seemed perfectly normal to her in every other way, if she overlooked this little war he was waging with the MacKeages.

Grace stopped what she was doing and stared at the inside of the fridge. There was something nagging at her. Something she should realize. Something about the story Callum had told her concerning Maura.

Grace sat down on the floor with a large plate of brownies in her lap. That was it. The story. His engagement to Maura had taken place when Grey was only twenty-eight years old. That had to be at least six or seven years ago. And Michael claimed he had been living in this time only four years.

Which meant the MacKeages had known Michael before his supposed journey.

And that meant that the key to this whole problem lay with them. They could tell her about Michael’s past and would know if he was sane or not. If Michael had been fine seven years ago, the MacKeages would be able to tell her that.

Did she want to know? If there was a perfectly logical explanation for why Michael thought he had traveled through time, a near-death experience or something, did she really want to know he was sane?

Because then she would have to keep her promise to Mary.

She would have to give up Baby.

Grace unwrapped the brownies and stuffed one into her mouth. Her damn principles suddenly reared their ugly heads again. She would have to ask the MacKeages. Or the priest. Father Daar wouldn’t dare lie to her about something so important. And because he was a priest, if she told him Baby belonged to Michael MacBain, he’d have to keep her confidence, wouldn’t he? If it turned out there had never been a terrible storm, Father Daar still couldn’t tell her secret.

Grace stuffed the second brownie into her mouth and took another one before she stood and set the plate on the table. It was decided, then. She would speak to Father Daar the first chance she got him alone.

“Grace,” Jonathan said, walking through the door with an armful of wood.

“What?” she asked around a mouth full of brownie.

He frowned at her. She wiped her mouth, realized she was covered in crumbs, and wiped the front of her sweatshirt. “What?” she repeated.

“Someone’s here.” He walked to the porch door and looked out. “There are lights coming up your driveway.”

She looked out the window over the sink and groaned. Speak of the devil. The snowcat was slowly growling its way over the ice, grinding it up like Parmesan cheese. It stopped right behind her truck, and Grey and Morgan climbed out.

Jonathan’s eyes widened in surprise. “Well, hell. That’s a snowcat. That can easily take us into the mountains.”

“Now, Jonathan,” she said, walking over to him.

She didn’t get a chance to finish. Firewood still in his arms, he was out the door and standing on the porch. And before she could warn him not to even try, he had stuck out his hand to introduce himself.

“Jonathan Stanhope,” he said. “That your snowcat?”

“It is,” Grey answered, looking first at Jonathan’s outstretched hand and then over to her.

Grace decided to use Grey’s trick and attempted to give him an unreadable look. He merely lifted a brow at her, took Jonathan’s hand, and shook it.

“Greylen MacKeage,” he said.

“MacKeage.” Jonathan shifted the wood in his arms. “I want to rent you and your snowcat for a job I need done.”

“It’s not for hire. And neither am I,” Grey said, dismissing the request. He walked past Jonathan and into the house. Grace stepped out of the way so she wouldn’t be run over. She moved again when Morgan followed. She looked back out to the porch and saw Jonathan just standing there, stu

She moved once more when Jonathan suddenly dropped the wood on the porch and went ru

“I don’t think you understand,” Jonathan said. “I’m willing to pay you whatever you want. I need that machine.”

“Who the hell are you?” Grey asked.

Jonathan stopped his approach and straightened himself to his full height. “I’m Jonathan Stanhope,” he repeated. He nodded at Grace. “I’m Grace’s boss.”

Grey looked at her. And damn, he was playing that trick with his eyes again. For the life of her, she could not tell what he was thinking.