Grace was just retying the strings at his feet when she noticed a tear fall onto her hand. She stopped and looked up to find Mary silently crying as she stared down at her son.

“What’s the matter, Mare? Are you in pain?” she asked, holding the baby’s feet so they couldn’t kick out and hurt her.

Mary slowly shook her head, never taking her eyes off her son as she ran a finger over his cheek again.

“I want to see him grow up,” she whispered in a voice that was growing more fatigued, more faint, by the minute. She looked at Grace. “I want to be there for him when he falls and skins his knee, catches his first snake, kisses his first girl, and gets his heart broken every other day.”

Grace flinched as if she’d been struck. She closed her eyes against the pain that welled up in her throat, forcing herself not to cry.

Mary reached up and rubbed her trembling finger over Grace’s cheek, just as she had done to her son’s.

“So it’s up to you, Gracie. You have to be there for him, for me. Take him to his daddy, and be there for both of them. Promise me?”

“He’s not sane, Mary. He thinks he traveled through time.”

Mary looked back at her son. “Maybe he did.”

Grace wanted to scream. Were the drugs in her sister’s body clouding her judgment? Was she so fatigued, so mentally weakened, that she didn’t realize what she was asking?

“Mary,” she said, taking her sister by the chin and making her look at her. “People can’t travel through time.”

“I don’t care if he came from Mars, Gracie. I love him. And he will love our son more than anyone else can. They need each other, and I need your promise to bring them together.”

Grace walked away from the bed to look out the window. She was loath to grant such a promise. She didn’t know a thing about babies, but she was intelligent and financially stable. How hard could it be to raise one little boy? She could read books on child-rearing and promise him a good life with lots of love and attention.

She had never met this Michael the Scot, and she sure as heck didn’t like what she did know about him.

But then, she was even more reluctant to deny Mary her wish. This was the first time her sister had ever asked anything of her, and she was torn between her love for Mary and her worry for her nephew.

“Come get in bed with us, Gracie,” Mary said. “Just like we used to.”

Grace turned around to find Mary with her eyes closed and her child clutched tightly to her chest. The infant was sleeping. Grace returned to the bed and quickly lowered it. Without hesitation she kicked off her shoes, lowered the side bar, and climbed up beside her sister. Mary immediately snuggled against her.

“Ummm. This is nice,” Mary murmured, not opening her eyes. “When was the last time we shared a bed?”

“Mom and Dad’s funeral,” Grace reminded her. She laid her hand on the baby’s backside which was sticking up in the air. “Don’t you think we should give this guy a name?” she asked, rubbing his back.

“No. That’s Michael’s privilege,” Mary said. “Until then, just call him Baby.”

“Baby what? You didn’t tell me his father’s last name.”

“It’s MacBain. Michael MacBain. He bought the Bigelow Christmas Tree Farm.”

That was news to Grace. “What happened to John and Ellen Bigelow?”

“They still live there. Michael moved in with them,” Mary said, her voice growing distant. She turned and looked at Grace, her once beautiful, vibrant blue eyes now glazed with lackluster tears. “He’s a good man, Gracie. As solid as a rock,” she said, closing her eyes again.

Except he believes he’s eight hundred years old, Grace thought. She moved her hand from her nephew’s bottom to her sister’s hair, brushing it away from her forehead.

“I’m still waiting for your promise,” Mary said, turning her face into Grace’s palm.

Grace took a deep breath and finally spoke the words she had so stubbornly, and maybe selfishly, been avoiding.

“I promise, Mare. I’ll take your son to Michael MacBain.”

Mary kissed Grace’s palm and sighed deeply, settling comfortably closer. “And you’ll scatter my ashes on TarStone Mountain,” she said then, her voice trailing off to a whisper. “On Summer Solstice morning.”

“On…on Summer Solstice. I promise.”

Grace left one hand cupping Mary’s head and the other one cradling Baby as a patient, gentle peace returned to the room. Grace placed herself in the crook of her sister’s shoulder, feeling the weakening drum of life beneath her tear-dampened cheek.

In two hours it was over, without the pain of a struggle. Mary’s heart simply stopped beating. The only sound that remained was the soft, gentle breathing of a sleeping baby.

Chapter Two

If lies were raindrops, Grace would surely be in danger of drowning. She had told so many untruths and prevarications these last four weeks, she barely remembered half of them. And those she did remember were threatening to come back and bite her on the backside.

Grace closed the last of her suitcases and snapped the lock into place. Then she went hunting for her carry-on bag. Twice she had to push her way past Jonathan, and twice he ignored the fact that she wasn’

t interested in what he was saying.

Or, rather, what he was demanding.

Jonathan Stanhope III was the owner and CEO of StarShip Spaceline, a high-tech company intent on making space travel for private citizens a reality in the very near future. Employing nearly three hundred people, StarShip was on the cutting edge of scientific discovery, and Jonathan had been Grace’s boss for the last eighteen months.

He was also the man she hoped to marry.

Although at the moment she wished he would climb aboard one of their untested shuttles and shoot himself into space.

Jonathan was not pleased that she was leaving. He’d done his boss’s duty and given her four weeks to

“get over” her sister’s death, and he couldn’t believe that she’d had the audacity to expect even more time.

“But you’re talking about Maine, Grace,” he said for the fourteenth time, following her out of the bedroom and into the kitchen. “They don’t even have telephone lines modern enough for data links up there. It’s the middle of nowhere.”

“Then I’ll make a satellite connection,” she countered, opening cupboard doors and taking down bottles of formula and baby paraphernalia. She counted out a three-day supply and began packing it in her carry-on bag. She went to the refrigerator and took down the list she had made. Diapers. She was going to need another bag just for the diapers. She headed back into the bedroom.

Jonathan followed her.

“Will you stop,” he said, taking her by the shoulder and forcibly pulling her to a halt. He turned her around to face him.

Grace looked up into his usually affable, handsomely sculpted face. Only Jonathan wasn’t looking so very agreeable now. He was angry. Truly angry. His intelligent, hazel gray eyes were narrowed, and his jaw was clenched tightly enough to break his teeth.

Grace moved her gaze first to one of his hands on her arm and then to the other, noticing how his Rolex glistened beneath his perfectly pressed white cuff link shirt.

“You’re hurting me,” she said.

Ever a gentleman, even when angry, Jonathan immediately released her. He took a deep breath and stepped back, running his hand through his professionally styled sun-blond hair.

“Dammit, Grace. This is the worst possible time for you to leave. We’ll be receiving data from Podly by the end of the week.”

And that was Jonathan’s real worry. He wasn’t disgruntled because he would miss her in a romantic sense, but because his business might suffer in her absence. The satellite pod they had sent up six weeks ago—it had been Grace’s idea to name it Podly, because it reminded her of a long pea pod housing several delicate computers—was finally functioning to full capacity. And she was the only person at StarShip Spaceline who could decipher the data Podly sent back.