Charming The Highlander

“An accident,” he said, giving her a narrow-eyed look. “All the trucks will pile up behind the first truck and not be able to move anywhere.”

“That’s right. And that’s what we’re going to do with the lift cable. We’re going to cause an energy accident by creating a dead short.”

Grace bent the wire to make sure it didn’t touch anything, then she began stripping the casing off the other strand of wire that was its twin.

“The energy will be diverted into the ground, where it will hit a dead end,” she continued. “Only, instead of dented fenders, this accident will produce heat that will melt the ice.”

Furiously scratching his beard now, Ian looked over at the ski-lift cable where it entered and exited the shed. Still narrow-eyed, he looked back at her.

“That cable isn’t covered with plastic like this one is,” he said, nodding toward the wire in her hand.

“Does that mean if I touch it I’ll get burned?”

Grace shook her head. “No. We’re going to put low volts into the cable. We’ll create the heat by pushing high amps through it instead.”

Ian’s harsh frown should have hurt his face.

Grace patted his arm. “It’s complicated, Ian. Simply put, we’re going to move energy through the cable very slowly and eventually stop it dead, causing an accident that will create heat.”

Ian shook his head and shot her a crooked glare. “Ya said something earlier about causing a fire,” he said gruffly. Grace nodded. “We’re going to convert this line to two twenty in order to get the amps we need.

And that can be dangerous. The plastic casing could melt and start a fire.”

Or the generator could blow up, but Grace was not willing to voice that possibility aloud. “Jonathan should have been back by now,” she said instead, glancing out the shed door toward the end of the hotel where the generator was. “It doesn’t take that long to splice a couple of wires.”

Ian walked to the door and looked out. “Maybe the bastard’s gone to look for those disks by himself,”

he said, turning to smile at Grace, looking for all the world as if he hoped Jonathan had. “And I wouldn’t cry none if he gets lost and freezes to death.”

Grace ignored Ian’s gruesome hope and carried the wire she’d prepared over to the lift cable. She studied the entire system, trying to decide the best—and safest—way to create her dead short. She needed for this to work without involving herself in the accident.

Grace rubbed her throbbing forehead. Lord, she was starting to think in terms of trucks and accidents, not scientific equations. Either she’d been away from her lab too long, or her mind was not on her work because it was focused on Grey.

She was worried about him. Fighting a fire was dangerous. All sorts of complications could arise. Water heaters could blow up, glass could explode and come flying out, or the grange could collapse on top of them.

What a sheltered life she’d been leading these last fourteen years, locked away with her work, pushing numbers around until they fit into whatever puzzle she was building. How safe she had been. How self-consumed.

And how trivial compared with baby giggles and smiles, flint green eyes boring into her soul, kisses that made her heart melt, and waking up with a man of steel draped over her body. Now, that was danger.

Risk. And the very fabric of existence that she intended to experience every day for the rest of her life.

“Are ya thinking it’s going to blow up right now?” Ian asked from right beside her.

Grace looked over to find him also staring at the wire in her hand. She stood on tiptoe and quickly wrapped the naked wire around the cable.

“No. Nothing will happen yet,” she assured him, taking the other piece of wire and wrapping it around the frame of the huge wheel anchored in concrete that turned the cable back up the mountain.

She darted a quick glance at Ian. “Have you ever been electrocuted?” she asked. “Touched a bare wire or been close to a lightning strike?”

He eyed her suspiciously. “What does lightning have to do with this?” he asked, waving at the lift.

Grace shrugged. “Nothing. You just wanted to know if touching this cable would burn you. And lightning bolts are shafts of electricity without the protection of wire casing. Lightning can kill a man, or sometimes it just knocks him senseless.”

“I know that,” he said, taking a step back. “Is that what we’re doing?” he whispered, his face suddenly paling. “Are ya making lightning, lass?”

Grace turned away to hide her frown. “No,” she said. “The voltage will be too low. Lightning strikes are much more powerful and impossible to predict.”

He took another step back. “I…I’m thinking I should go have a look for that Jonathan fellow,” he said.

“To see if he needs my help.”

He was out the door before she could protest. Grace moved to watch Ian’s limping but sure-footed retreat toward the hotel. She absently looked down at her own feet, turning an ankle to see the spare set of creepers Ian had brought her and insisted she put on. What had she said to upset him? The man had all but run away, looking as if he had just seen a ghost.

Actually, Ian looked much the same way Michael had when he’d told her his story of traveling through time.

Grace turned back to her work, thinking about Ian’s reaction and why she had felt compelled to bring up the subject of lightning in the first place.

Perhaps it was because she was unable to get Michael’s story out of her head. He had been so sure of what had happened to him. So believable in the telling, the attention to detail, from the lack of buttons all the way to noticing the difference in calendars. Granted, she didn’t know much about ancient Scottish warriors, but Greylen MacKeage owned a sword, Ian acted as if electricity were more magic than science, and all of them lived in a castle.

Four years, Michael had said. If for some phenomenal reason time travel was indeed possible, was four years long enough for medieval men to be assimilated into modern society?

Grace started to tremble at the realization of what she was thinking. It wasn’t possible. She knew it wasn

’t possible. The scientist in her knew that no one had ever been able to prove that manipulation of the fourth dimension was possible.

But then again, neither had anyone been able to prove it wasn’t possible.

A desperate shout suddenly came from the direction of the hotel, and Grace quickly ran to the door. She peered through the rain, saw movement just inside the generator shed, and started ru

As she got closer, she could see more clearly that Ian was struggling with another man. Ian was holding the man’s wrist over their heads. Then she saw that the other guy was holding a gun. As she approached the shed, Grace frantically sca

But as she stepped into the shed, an arm came around her waist and lifted her off the ground. A hand covered her mouth at the same time, muffling her scream of surprise.

Chaos erupted as the small area filled with men, all of them scrambling in every direction. Grace flinched when a gunshot suddenly cracked through the shed, reverberating off the granite stones in deafening echoes. Grace screamed again into the hand over her mouth and lashed out with both feet as she watched Ian fall to the floor.

She was whirled around and slammed into the wall, the breath knocked out of her. Her assailant grabbed her hands, turned her to face him, and roughly wrapped duct tape around her wrists.

“Jesus Christ, Frank,” the man who’d fought Ian said, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. “You could have helped. The bastard is stronger than he looks,” he added, kicking Ian, who lay crumpled on the floor.