It was lust. Pure, stupid lust.

She hadn’t seen him for nearly twenty-four hours, and here she was acting like a silly schoolgirl with a crush on the giant. Maybe she was the one experiencing separation withdrawal.

Grace walked to her bags, mentally telling herself—and her hormones—to give it a rest. Grey was acting as if he wanted to kill Michael MacBain, and she was busy fanta-sizing about his touching her again.

Morgan beat her to the suitcases, lifting them up and setting them on the table for her. She smiled her thank-you and busied herself opening one of them while she spoke.

“Michael was the man my sister was coming home to marry when she died,” she informed Grey, who now had his arms crossed over his chest and his eyes narrowed. “And that makes him almost family to me.” She turned and looked at Morgan, so he would know she was talking to him as well. “Michael’s hurting,” she said. “And I’m not going to ignore him or his pain just because you don’t like him.”

Grey didn’t like her very much right now, if his expression was any indication. Grace suddenly gave into her urge and laughed out loud.

“I wish you could see yourself. You’re like a pouting little boy whose mother won’t take him seriously.

This…this feud between you and Michael is childish.”

“You have no idea what you’re talking about,” he said through gritted teeth. His evergreen eyes drilled into her. “And you are not my mother.”

She held up her hands in supplication. “Fine. Feel the way you want. But I’m having no part of it.”

She walked up to him and looked him in the eye, staring at him just as fiercely as he was staring at her. “I owe you for saving my life, but I’m remaining neutral in this. Those are my terms. Take them or leave them.”

He stared down at her for so long Grace was afraid she had just lost her new friend. She didn’t want that. She liked Greylen MacKeage. Heck, who was she kidding? She was strongly attracted to the man and felt they shared a special understanding. They’d had quite an adventure together and had beaten the odds. The bond that had formed between them up on the mountain was sacred to her, and she was loath to let her principles destroy it.

But she would. Because if she backed down now, she was in danger of losing more than just the principles that had always guided her through the major decisions in her life.

She was in danger of losing her heart.

And she couldn’t do that, either. She was here for four months, until Summer Solstice, and then she and Baby were going back to Virginia to begin their new lives together.

“Very well,” he said finally. “You may speak with MacBain. But you’re to be careful around him. He’s not to be trusted.”

She wanted to ask him what had happened to make him hate Michael so much, but Grace kept her questions to herself. She doubted he’d tell her anyway. Michael hadn’t told Mary, and that little fact was revealing enough, considering what he had told her. Whatever it was between these men, it wasn’t pleasant.

Grace returned to the task of sorting out her things on the table. Grey walked over to Baby and picked him up.

“You shouldn’t bother him when he’s sleeping,” she admonished. “The poor kid needs the rest.”

Grey lifted a brow at her. “He’s resting. See, he hasn’t wakened,” he said, tilting Baby so she could see his face.

The infant sighed in his sleep and cuddled comfortably against Grey’s chest.

“He likes the heartbeat,” Grey told her, smiling at her frown. “Babies need to feel the closeness of another life.”

Grace wondered where the man got his information. He said he had younger siblings, but was that enough to explain his ease with Baby? She knew he wasn’t married, but he had to be older than thirty.

Maybe he had an ex-wife and six kids out there somewhere.

“We brought you some food,” Morgan said, coming back through the door with two bags of groceries in his hands.

She hadn’t even realized he’d left. “Thank you.” She indicated that he should set them on the counter.

“But that wasn’t necessary. I went out yesterday and got some.”

“You went out?” Grey asked. “In this storm? The driving’s abominable.”

Grace threw the suitcase she’d just emptied onto the floor. “I couldn’t very well feed Baby canned soup,” she informed him. “And my truck has four-wheel drive.”

“It’s not the going that’s dangerous,” Morgan added into the discussion. “It’s the stopping that’s impossible.”

“I discovered that,” she admitted. “I’m going to put the chains on the truck this afternoon.”

“You know how?” the younger man asked, looking not only surprised but skeptical.

“I grew up here,” she reminded him. “I know how to handle bad weather.”

Morgan looked at Grey. Grace saw Grey nod his head in the direction of the attached barn. She unzipped the next suitcase. If it made the men feel better to put the chains on for her, she wasn’t about to complain. She sorted through her things in the second suitcase, adding items to the pile of ruined clothes.

Her silk blouses had not weathered the freezing rain well at all. She found what she had been searching for and hit the switch on her PDA. Nothing happened.

“Darn. This didn’t make it.”

“What is it?” Grey asked, coming to stand beside her, Baby cuddled contentedly in his arms. “Another computer?”

“It’s my PDA. And either the batteries are cold or it’s ruined.”

“PDA?”

She pulled it out of its leather case and opened the back. “It’s a personal data assistant,” she explained.

“It’s my calendar book, task list, and all my contacts. Without it, I’m screwed.”

“Wouldn’t it just be easier to keep this information in a book?” he asked, leaning over her shoulder as she replaced the batteries with spares she had bought yesterday at the store, having anticipated this possibility as well as the likelihood that they’d eventually lose the electricity.

“Maybe,” she said, shrugging. “But paper would be just as ruined, too.” She looked at her computer sitting on the counter, charging. She opened it and turned it on.

“Well, at least this works.”

Grace decided she needed a cup of cocoa. She grabbed the kettle, filled it with water, and put it on the burner. “I’m lucky the computer is okay and that only the battery got ruined.” She patted her computer affectionately. “I don’t blame the battery for dying,” she said. “Leaving my computer running in the snow cave finished it. Electronics don’t like the cold, and they don’t like getting wet. But it did a marvelous job keeping me alive.” She looked at Grey. “I hugged it to me, using its warmth.”

He gave her a strange look. “You were hugging the cookie tin when I found you, Grace. Not the computer.”

She shook her head at him. “No. That’s impossible. I distinctly remember feeling a great warmth against my chest and my hands. That’s the only reason my fingers didn’t get frostbite. It had to be the computer.

There’s no way a tin full of ashes could generate heat.”

“Maybe it was your sister’s spirit protecting you,” he suggested softly. “It’s possible that Mary was with you in that cave in more ways than just her ashes. You were hugging her tin, Grace. I know what I found.”

She looked at the table, at Mary.

Only she wasn’t there. Grace rushed to the table and moved the pile of clothes out of the way. Then she moved the suitcase. The table was empty. She looked around the kitchen but couldn’t find the tin. It was nowhere to be seen.

“He took it,” she whispered to herself, still scanning the kitchen counter and shelves.

“Who? Took what?” Grey asked, moving up behind her. “What are you looking for?”

She swung around to face him. “Mary. He took Mary.”

“Who took Mary?” Morgan asked, walking into the kitchen. He had a hammer and some nails in his hand. He pounded the broken door casing into place.