“Your daughter had no desire to marry your laird, Ian,” he began, picking his words carefully but putting the power of his title behind them. “I was twelve years older than she, and I scared her to death. Maura had been in love with MacBain since the summer festival the year before.”

“That’s not true,” Ian protested. “I would have known of such a thing.”

Grey shook his head at the suddenly desperate-looking man. “She was too afraid to tell you or her mother because she didn’t want to disappoint you. She knew how proud you were that your daughter was chosen to marry your laird,” he told him gently.

“That still doesn’t justify what he done, going behind my back like a jackal and seeing Maura without her father’s permission,” Ian said, his expression pained. “She killed herself because she was pregnant and MacBain tossed her away like rubbish.”

“Did he?” Grey asked. “Do we know that as fact, or has that been a convenient excuse all these years, to justify our own arrogance and neglect? Were we all not guilty back then, as men, for forgetting to ask our daughters what they wanted? How many marriages were arranged without their consent?”

“Dammit. That was how it was done then,” Callum said. “It was our duty to guide them and to protect them from their own soft hearts.”

“Why?” Grey asked all three of them. “When you see women like Mary and Grace Sutter, do you consider them inferior? Unable to think for themselves? Can you see any man today arranging a marriage for either one of them that she had no say in?”

“Of course not,” Callum said, frowning. “But that’s different. This is now, not eight hundred years ago.”

“Were our mothers and wives and daughters any less intelligent than Mary and Grace Sutter? Less capable? Less strong?” Grey asked.

“Dammit. MacBain ruined my little girl, and now she’s dead!” Ian shouted hoarsely, wiping at his eyes with the palms of his hands. He wasn’t liking what he was hearing, and Grey hated to see the old warrior in such a state. But this had needed saying for seven years now.

Grey wished he could go back, now that he saw things differently. The MacKeage clan would have been the most powerful in all the Highlands, because they would have had the strength of hundreds of strong, intelligent women behind them.

Ian looked up and glared at Grey. “I’ve kept from killing MacBain myself because that was your duty,”

he said, pointing at Grey, obviously still not willing to let go of his old beliefs. “One you refused to honor.”

“Ian’s right,” Callum interjected. “It doesn’t matter who is to blame, MacBain is still the most responsible for Maura’s death. It was his seed she was carrying that caused her to walk onto the rotten ice of Loc Firth. And now you’re asking us to help the man.”

“I’m not asking,” Grey told them softly. “I’m telling you that I am setting up that equipment tonight, and the choice is yours to help me or not.”

“Ya cannot mean to do it,” Morgan said.

Grey looked around the room. “I don’t see anyone with the authority to stop me. I’m still the laird of what’s left of this clan, and my word still carries the weight it used to.”

“But it’s wrong, what you’re asking of us. No warrior worth his salt aids his enemy,” Ian insisted.

“No, it’s you who are wrong. You’re wanting to continue a war that’s eight hundred years dead. None of it matters anymore. We live here now, the four of us and MacBain. We live in a world where disputes are settled by courts of law. We must adapt to this change in our circumstances and live like the Americans we’ve become. And that means helping out a neighbor, no matter who he is, when we can.”

“It’s Grace Sutter putting these thoughts in your head,” Ian complained, still refusing to let go of his anger.

“Ya want her, and she’s twisted your thinking into a knot.”

Grey shook his head at his disheartened warrior. “Have you not wondered why I never retaliated for MacBain’s role in this?” he asked him. “Not the three years we were still living at home?”

“I thought ya were waiting for a better means of revenge than merely killing him,” Ian said. “I thought ya were waiting for him to take a wife.”

Grey took a step back, appalled at the insult just given him. “You thought I would use a woman for revenge?” he asked in a hushed tone. “Some innocent like Mary Sutter, maybe? Should I have caused her such terror to get even with MacBain? Taken her by force? Or should I have killed her with my bare hands to rob MacBain of her love?” he ended harshly.

Ian actually flinched.

“Dammit, Grey,” Callum interjected. “None of us would have allowed any harm to come to Mary.”

Grey looked at each of his men in turn, letting them see his anger. “Four years ago none of you would have given a thought to the woman, whoever she was. So tell me, what’s changed?”

“Dammit to hell, we have!” Ian shouted. “We’ve softened like porridge.”

“No,” Grey told him softly. “We haven’t softened. We’ve had our eyes opened. Society has changed in eight hundred years, and if we don’t adapt to it now, we will perish.”

“We have adapted,” Morgan said. “Hell, we fly in planes, drive automobiles, and are running a ski resort.”

Grey shook his head. “It’s not enough simply to embrace the material things. It’s here,” he said, thumping his chest, “that we have to change. And I intend to begin tonight, for Grace.”

The three men simply stared at him, unmoving, not believing what they were hearing.

“You’ll be helping MacBain,” Ian insisted. “You’re forgetting that he stole your woman and caused her death.”

“I’m not,” Grey growled with waning patience.

“Michael MacBain has nothing to do with this.” He ran his hands over his face, hoping to wipe away his frustration with his clansmen—and with himself. He hadn’t softened. He was simply looking at things through Grace’s eyes this once.

“I hate the bastard as much as any of you,” he assured them. “But are you willing to let that hatred stand in the way of saving your ski lift?”

“You said it yourself, man,” Ian said. “She’ll not let it come to that. Her heart’s too soft. She’ll help us.”

“And just where does that leave us with Grace, when this is over and MacBain’s future is ruined and ours is not?” Grey asked.

Three sets of frowns faced the floor as the men pictured that problem. “She’ll come around once she realizes what a bastard MacBain truly is,” Callum said. “She’ll eventually see things our way. If not, do ya truly want the woman if she’s determined to be nice to our enemies?”

“She’s mine,” Grey told them, a growl in his voice. “It’s already done,” he said, walking away, having decided he’d had enough of the company of his men.

He made his way up to his room on tired feet, thinking they could all give lessons in stubbornness to Grace. They’d been through a lot these last four years, and Grey admired his men’s stamina and their spirit to survive. But they still had some changing to do. Himself included.

He undressed slowly, thinking about Grace and the horrified look on her face when she had learned he had planned to marry a girl almost twelve years his junior. Or maybe it was the fact that the tug-of-war between him and MacBain, with her and Baby in the middle, had simply been too much.

Whatever had been in her head, he would have to fix it somehow—and quickly.

Naked now, he walked into the bathroom and turned on the shower. He stopped at the sight of himself in the mirror. His gaze was drawn to the blood on his thigh.

Grace’s blood. The gift of her virginity that she had been saving for her husband but had given to him instead.

Why? Why had she asked him to make love to her?

From the moment he saw her in the airport, Grey had known he would have Grace Sutter. He just hadn’t realized at the time exactly what having her meant.

He had thought it was lust; only it wasn’t, and it never had been. He thought he’d at least be dealing with an experienced woman, but Grace had been a virgin. And he had always thought he could take a wife to build back his clan yet not touch his heart when he did. He knew now that was impossible.