Charming The Highlander

And wives? Why would they want to go and add to their troubles? Wives would mean separate households, regular haircuts, and going to church.

Getting married would also mean having to mingle with the moderns to find those wives in the first place.

Courting meant dating now, going to restaurants, dances, and movie theaters where a bunch of people sat in the dark and were nearly bowled over by noisy stories acted out on a screen.

Courting also meant getting involved with the women’s families, and it was the consensus of the men that most families today were downright odd. Half the people in this world were divorced, and the rest were on their second, third, and sometimes fourth marriages. People swapped spouses today more often than they had swapped horses eight hundred years ago.

No. None of his men was in any hurry to get married.

But Grey was adamant. They had the financial power base now, and they needed sons to ensure its continuance. The next generation would be businessmen, utilizing the land, the timber, and the political power that came with both. The future of clan MacKeage lay in their children.

Several pellets of ice struck his face, mixed with the cold, heavily misting rain. Grey shrugged his collar closer to his neck and began walking toward the plane.

It was a six-seat DeHaviland Beaver. He had flown in one like it before. Nine cylinders, all of them exposed to the weather, and an oil filler pipe in the cockpit.

Not a reassuring picture.

Damn, he hated small planes. Flying was an u

But more than he hated small planes, Grey really hated overconfident pilots. While waiting for Grace Sutter to arrive, the pilot—who had introduced himself as Mark—had bragged about his many near misses as a bush pilot up in Alaska. That a little winter rain was nothing to worry about, compared with the blizzards he’d flown through in that great unending land of snow and ice.

Grey had not been impressed. He opened the door of the Beaver and stowed his bag and Grace Sutter’s heavy suitcase in the back. He looked around the cramped quarters, and his stomach churned. Mark had offered him a seat up front, but Grey had declined. He’d take the back, thank you, where he wouldn’t feel compelled to watch every gauge on the dash for signs of trouble.

“Ah, Mark?” Grace Sutter said from behind him. “The rain is starting to freeze. You’re not worried about icing?”

Well, the lady seemed to know a bit about flying. Grey’s spirits rose.

“Nope,” Mark said, giving her a look that made it clear he hadn’t liked the question. “It’s warmer aloft.

The cold air’s locked in under two thousand feet.”

“But the landing strip near Pine Creek is at eight hundred,” she said then. “And that two-thousand-foot ceiling is probably at three thousand feet in the mountains. We’re going to be descending through twenty-two hundred feet of freezing rain.”

“You a pilot?” Mark asked, sounding a

“No.”

“Well, lady, I am. And I’ve flown in every type of weather on this planet. I’m telling you, it’s safe to take off. I’ve checked the radar, and the rain stops twenty miles short of Pine Creek. It won’t be a problem.”

He cocked his head and shifted his stance, letting them know his patience was drawing to an end. “They’

re predicting this storm to settle in for several days. So it’s either fly out now or be stuck here. It’s your call, lady.”

Grey watched Grace Sutter look down at the sleeping child on her chest. She looked around the tarmac and held up her hand, letting the freezing rain fall into her palm. She lifted it, watching it melt, and then she looked at Grey.

“Which seat do you want?” she asked then. “Or are you sitting up front in the copilot seat?”

“I’ll take the middle,” he told her, thankful that whatever had struck him inside the terminal was over. He still wanted the woman to the very soles of his feet, but his mind was once again in control of his body.

“Why don’t you sit beside me, and we’ll make a bed in the backseat for your child?”

Her eyes widened, and Grey didn’t know if he’d just scared her spitless or made her own toes tingle. He hoped it was the latter. And he hoped she would be staying in Pine Creek long enough for him to find out what she was doing ru

“Unless you want to sit up front,” he said.

“Ah…no. The middle is fine.”

Mark looked relieved. He opened the baggage door in the rear and stowed her three other suitcases and a child-carrier seat. Grey reached to take the bag she was holding. She clutched it to her side for a moment, then reluctantly let it go.

“Please be careful with that. And could you set it on the floor by my seat?” she asked.

“Let’s load up, people,” Mark said, climbing into the front of the plane.

Grey helped Grace Sutter aboard, then took the seat beside her. He handed her the side of her seat belt closer to him. She snapped it closed over her lap and under her child. Then she carefully pulled off her baby’s cap.

A full head of dark, spike-straight hair appeared, with two little ears sticking through it. Grey watched as Grace leaned down and kissed the sleeping baby on the top of his head.

“Is it a boy or a girl?” he asked, only to flinch at the sound of the engine sputtering to life.

“A boy.”

“How old is he?”

“Four weeks.”

Grey’s gaze went from the child to her face. Four weeks? He was lusting after a woman barely out of childbed?

He studied her face. She might be tired and a bit frayed around the edges, but Grace Sutter didn’t look like a woman who had spent the last nine months being pregnant. There was a special…presence new mothers possessed, and he was not seeing it now as he studied her.

“Is he yours?” he asked without thinking.

She turned and gave him an icy glare.

“I’m sorry. That was rude of me,” he quickly amended. “It’s just that you look too good to have a four-week-old son.”

He watched a flush creep into her cheeks. Great. Maybe his brain really wasn’t in charge of his mouth at the moment.

“Look,” he said with a sigh. “Can we start over? I’m Greylen MacKeage,” he said, holding out his hand for her to take. “And I know your sister. We’re neighbors.”

“MacKeage,” she repeated, staring at his hand, looking as if she was afraid it would bite her.

After a moment she accepted his peace offering and put her small hand into his. He just as carefully closed his fingers around hers and shook it, instantly aware of a warm, unsettling tingle that traveled up his arm.

“I’m Grace Sutter,” she said, pulling back her hand. Grey noticed that she clenched that hand into a fist just before she tucked it under her thigh.

“Mary mentioned the MacKeages,” she said then. “Don’t you own TarStone Mountain?”

“That’s right.”

“You’re building a ski resort and summer spa,” she said, not as a question but as a statement of fact.

“Mary mentioned that it’s due to open soon.”

“In about a month,” he told her. Maybe they weren’t off to such a bad start.

Her face lit up with a smile. “That should help out the economy of Pine Creek.”

“Not everyone thinks we’re doing a good thing,” he admitted with a sheepish grin. “People are afraid the town will lose its identity.”

She thought about that. “Maybe,” she said, her hand absently petting down her son’s hair. “But it survived the boom and then the decline of the logging era. I think it can survive your resort. I bet you a pe

“You’d probably double your money,” he agreed.