Which was fine with Grey, although it was ironic that they were trying to save MacBain’s future and the man wasn’t even present. But Grey had found himself looking up toward the mountains, wondering how he would feel, how he would react, if something happened to Grace. He, too, would probably head into the wilderness. He just wasn’t sure he would return. Not without Grace to come back to.

“I never imagined I’d ever see the inside of this place,” the woman he was helping said, gawking around at the two-story lobby. “And now I’m staying here.”

“We’ve been planning an open house for the people of Pine Creek,” Grey lied, suddenly deciding he’d make it a truth.

“A real party, with dancing?” she asked, looking up at him with sparkling, excited brown eyes.

“And gondola rides to the top,” he added, smiling at her, hoping they still had a gondola lift come spring.

The woman stopped and grabbed her chest with a gasp that nearly knocked her over, her eyes widening to the size of dinner plates. “I’ve always wanted to ride on one of those lifts. But I don’t ski,” the eightyish woman said. “You’re going to run it in the summer?”

“Yes. You can see the whole of Pine Lake from the top,” he told her. “And there will be a restaurant at the summit.”

“How do you get the food up there?” she wanted to know, eyeing him suspiciously.

“We use the snowcat you just rode in.”

“Oh, of course. Thank you, young man,” she said, patting his arm. “I see Mavis over there. I want to tell her I’m here. She’s probably worried sick about me.” She attempted to straighten her time-bent frame as she smoothed the front of her coat. “Mavis thinks I need looking after like a child, just because I’m old,”

she told Grey in a co-conspirator’s voice. “I don’t, but I haven’t the heart tell her. She needs to be helpful.”

And you do need looking after, Grey said to himself. He didn’t even know her name, but he did know about pride and independence.

He was in love with a woman who had buckets of both.

He watched as the old lady made her way over to the woman who must be Mavis and smiled when Mavis immediately began mothering her.

Grey headed back out into the sleet, pulling up the collar of his coat as he let his tired feet carry him up the path to Gu Bràth. He was nearly finished. All that was left to do before he found his bed was ensure that he had a gondola come spring.

Grey let himself in quietly and stood in the doorway to the living room, watching Grace and Baby sleeping together in the chair by the fire. Baby was snuggled under her chin, and Grace had her arms wrapped securely around him as they both slept. An empty bottle of formula lay on the floor beside the chair, and a discarded diaper was rolled up beside it.

Grey took a deep, almost painful breath. This is what he wanted, to come home to a woman and child and to know that he was needed by them.

He wasn’t sure when he had fallen in love with both of them. It was possible it had happened on the mountain, on their desperate descent to safety. Or when he had used his body to warm Grace. His heart may have warmed up with her then. But if he had to choose one single moment, Grey would guess it was when they had been standing outside the summit house, when Grace was bargaining to save his lift for the use of his equipment to save his enemy.

That was when he knew he’d found the woman of his heart. He’d pricked her temper, and she had given him an ultimatum. He knew she hadn’t intended to ask him that way, but when Grace Sutter got mad and she felt she had the power of right on her side, she was a force to be reckoned with.

Yes, it was then, as she’d stood facing him, the rain driving her long, curly hair against her face and the fire of anger driving her words, that Grey had felt the sledgehammer blow to his chest.

That was when he decided he wasn’t letting her back off that mountain without claiming her first. Finding out he was her first had only strengthened the bond that was now sealed. The marriage was only a matter of legalities now, as far as he was concerned. She was his, and though she probably didn’t realize it yet, he was hers for the rest of their lives.

And Baby, too, he hoped.

He had fallen in love with the bairn long before he’d known Baby’s heritage. Not that it would have mattered. There was something about the innocent and unquestioning trust Baby had given him that had tugged at Grey’s heart strings.

He didn’t want Grace to give Baby to MacBain.

And that ate at his insides. He couldn’t imagine having fathered a child and not even knowing it existed.

There would be hell to pay for anyone who dared keep such a secret from him. Yet that was the very sin he was willing to commit against Michael MacBain if it kept Grace’s heart from breaking.

Only time would tell. It was Grace’s decision, not his and not anyone else’s. She would have to come to terms with her sister’s wish and with her own desire to keep the child.

Grey finally entered the living room and gently picked Baby up from Grace’s arms, careful not to wake either one of them. He settled the child into his cradle. The boy was growing like a weed on fertile ground. He looked as if he had gained at least a pound this week. His baby cheeks were plumper, his features seemed less wrinkled, and even his terrible mess of hair looked longer.

Grey covered Baby with a blanket, smiling at the sucking motions he made with his mouth in his sleep.

Such an adventurous beginning in such a short life, and still Baby prospered. That, Grey decided, was a miracle. He was grateful the child was young. An older babe might not have fared as well, considering what he’d been through. He leaned down and kissed the relaxed, tiny fist on the blanket and slowly straightened.

He wanted a dozen more just like him. Strong, healthy sons that would be the foundation of the future.

And the woman who would give him that future was in desperate need of some rest herself. Grey checked the baby monitor sitting on the table beside the cradle and picked up the small receiver that Grace had explained to him earlier would allow them to hear Baby from another room. He tucked the small box into his belt, then turned and carefully picked Grace up, holding her against his chest. She instinctively settled her head in the crook of his neck, and a shiver of warmth ran through Grey at the feel of her breath on his skin.

Damn the ski lift, he decided. It had waited this long, it could wait until daybreak. He was taking his woman upstairs and lying beside her while they both caught up on their sleep.

He carried her through the foyer and started up the stairs, smiling at the thought of Grace’s reaction when she woke up and found herself in his bed.

“Are we leaving now?” Jonathan Stanhope asked from the foyer below, looking as if he had just woken up. He yawned and ran a hand through his hair. His other hand held a map.

Grey stopped and turned. “No,” he said softly, not wanting to disturb Grace. “We’ll leave at noon.”

Jonathan came fully awake and rushed to the bottom step, grabbing the newel post. “But that will be too late!” he said. He stared at the woman in Grey’s arms, and his eyes widened with surprise. “Where are you going with Grace?”

“To bed,” Grey told him, turning and heading back up the stairs.

“Wait! Grace!” Jonathan shouted.

Grey felt the warm, pliant woman in his arms stir against him, and he stopped again and turned to look at Jonathan. “You’re beginning to annoy me, Stanhope,” he growled. “Now, get the hell out of my house.”

Chapter Seventeen

Grace didn’t know what to think. She was somewhat disconcerted to find herself waking up in bed with a man beside her. Or, rather, with a man sprawled on top of her.

She couldn’t move. Grey had thrown his leg over her thighs and his arm across her chest, pinning her down as if he were afraid she might disappear while he slept.