Instead, she was hiding out in her home like a coward. She was afraid of letting Michael be around Baby too much, afraid he would see the child’s twelve toes. But mostly Grace knew that she was afraid she might actually come to like Michael MacBain.

And that was her greatest act of cowardice to date.

It was time for her and Baby to go over to the Bigelow Christmas Tree Farm. Somehow she would pull Michael out of his room, and out of his profound sadness, even if only for a little while. He was not closing himself off from the rest of the world or locking himself away with Mary’s ashes.

Grace didn’t even get to knock on the door before it opened and Ellen Bigelow waved her out of the rain and into the kitchen of the old but recently remodeled house.

“Land sakes, Grace Sutter, what are you doing running about in this storm?” Ellen asked, her welcoming smile contradicting her scolding. “And with a child in tow to boot.”

“Ah, Ellen. It’s so good to see you,” Grace returned, leaning over Baby and giving Ellen a peck on the cheek. She had no problem recognizing Ellen, having worked for the Bigelows every Christmas season until she left for college. “You’re looking very chipper.”

The small, elderly, but still spry woman motioned for Grace to sit in one of the chairs at the kitchen table while she put the kettle on the stove to boil. “I’m not as chipper as I used to be,” she said, getting down two cups from the cupboard. She gave Grace a wink. “But I’ve got some years in me yet.”

“You haven’t aged a day since I last saw you,” Grace told her as she shed her jacket and let it fall over the back of her chair. She unzipped Baby from his carrier and pulled him into her lap.

Ellen immediately stopped what she was doing and came over to admire the infant.

“Ellen, I would like you to meet Baby Sutter, my son,” Grace said, setting his little butt on the table while she held him up to face her. “He’s four weeks old, and you are having the privilege of seeing him awake for a change. Mostly he eats and sleeps.”

“Baby Sutter?” the woman asked, raising her left brow. She patted Grace’s shoulder. “Having a problem with names, are you?”

“Finally, someone who understands,” Grace said gratefully. “I’ll name him eventually, when I find the right one.”

“Can I hold him?” Ellen asked. “It’s been ages since I’ve held anything this young,” she said, carefully taking Baby as Grace handed him to her.

Ellen made cooing noises and tickled his chin. She looked at Grace with sad longing showing in every wrinkle on her face. “I have four grandchildren, but they live halfway around the world. I haven’t even met two of them.”

And that was why the Bigelows had sold their farm to a stranger. They had raised three sons, but two of them were dead, and the other one lived in Hawaii.

“You should get a computer, Ellen, and get online. You could send E-mail and pictures to your grandchildren.”

Ellen’s eyes rounded, and she suddenly laughed. “Imagine, me an Internet granny,” she said. “I don’t know the first thing about computers.”

“It’s not as complicated as it seems,” Grace assured her. “Why, I could have you up and running in a day and teach you all you need to know about E-mail in an hour.”

Ellen thought about that, looking down at Baby. She looked back at Grace, a sudden, determined glint in her eyes lifting her expression. “I just might take you up on your offer. I’d love to find out what all the hoopla is about when it comes to this Internet thing. Everywhere you look today, it’s dot-com this and dot-com that. Would I be able to go to these dot-coms and buy things?”

“You could. They’ll deliver anything you want right to your door.”

“It’s a deal, then. I’ve been saving a nest egg for something special for myself, and I can’t think of a better use for it than getting in touch with my grandkids and the rest of the world.”

“Then as soon as this storm is over, I’ll get online with you, and we’ll pick out the equipment you need.

You can have it here in a week, and I’ll set you up.”

“Thank you,” she said. “I might even let John give it a try, after I learn it,” she added.

Grace looked around. “Where is John? And Michael? Is he still in his room?”

Ellen shook her head and sat down at the table across from her, still holding Baby. “No. John got him out of there an hour ago, thank God.” Her sadness returned. “He’s hurting, the poor man. I’m sorry for your loss, Grace.”

“Thank you. I’m going to miss her.”

“We all are. Mary was like a daughter to me this last year. But I understand now why she left all of a sudden,” she said, looking down at Baby. “She went to be with you during your pregnancy, didn’t she?

Michael said…well, he told us you don’t have a husband.”

It amazed Grace how modern-minded the women were here in Pine Creek. They were not judging her for showing up with a child and no husband. They were, however, feeling sorry for her, and Grace didn’t want that.

“Sometimes a woman is better off without one, instead of living a lifetime with her mistakes,” she said as way of explanation.

Ellen nodded. The kettle started to boil, and Grace welcomed the excuse to jump up and fix the tea.

“Where did John and Michael go?” she asked.

“They’re up in the twelve-acre field, checking on the new trees Michael set in last spring. This ice is raising havoc with them. The older, established trees can handle it, if it doesn’t get much worse, but the young ones aren’t strong enough yet. Michael could lose the entire crop.”

“What can they do about it? They can’t very well shake the ice off every tree on twelve acres.”

“John mentioned maybe setting up a system of smudge pots to keep the temperature just above freezing around them. Like they do with the orange trees in Florida when they get a freeze.”

Grace set the tea on the stove to steep and looked back at Ellen. “Will that work?”

The worried woman shrugged her shoulders. “I don’t know. And neither does John. And we don’t even know if we can scrape together enough equipment to try.”

Grace pictured the young trees in her mind and what it would take to save them. They needed support to carry them through the ice storm. She knew the twelve-acre field. The west winds often blew the snow right off it most winters.

She suddenly had an idea.

“How tall are the trees, Ellen? One foot? Two feet?”

“They’re about a foot and a half, I would say,” she told her, her eyes narrowed on Grace’s excited expression. “Why?”

“Instead of heating the air to protect them, what if we…”

Loud footsteps suddenly sounded on the porch, and the door opened. John Bigelow and Michael MacBain came into the kitchen, stamping their feet on the rug.

When they saw Grace, both men stopped and stared at her. John smiled, and Michael gave her first a surprised look and then a guilty frown. Grace smiled back at both of them.

“John,” Ellen said, obviously having caught some of Grace’s excitement. “Grace has an idea to save the trees.”

Both John and Michael looked from Ellen to Grace.

Grace flushed slightly. “I…it’s just an idea. And I’m not even sure it will work,” she admitted to them.

“What?” John asked, sighing deeply and rubbing his forehead. “At this point, I’ll entertain anything.”

“Well,” she said, still formulating her thoughts from before. “What if, instead of trying to thaw the trees, you bury them?”

“Bury them?” Michael asked. “With what?”

“Snow,” she said succinctly. “The snow would surround the young trees and support their weight, and if the snow was deep enough, it would protect them from being damaged by any more ice.”

Michael turned and looked out the window, frowning when he looked back at her. “It’s raining, not snowing.”

“But we can make snow. Maybe. It would be wet snow, but it still might be possible in these temperatures.”