A Mackenzie Family Christmas: The Perfect Gift

She wet her lips, making them all the more kissable. "Very soon, you'll have something else to remember me by. And to love." She leaned close, her voice dropping to a sweet whisper. "I'm going to have another baby."

That, Ian understood. He went still, and the world stopped with him. Then a wave of joy poured over him, sweeping away everything except Beth, her smile, and the words that she'd just spoken.

Ian picked her up off her feet and spun around with her. He felt his mouth stretching into a smile he couldn't stop, as he whirled his laughing wife around and around.

Ian at last set her down, Beth's face pink, her smile beautiful. The worried pucker between her brows was gone, Beth again in love with Ian.

Ian thought the gestures Daniel made when he was excited. One seemed appropriate now.

Ian threw his arms straight up, his fists balling, and roared: "Yes!"

Ruby scrambled to her feet, barking, and the half-open door banged into the wall. Hart was there, filling the space. "Damn it, Ian. What happened?"

Hart, the interfering pain in the backside, had brought the whole family. Even Eleanor was there, behind Hart, leaning heavily on Daniel's arm.

No matter. Ian wanted to shout it to the world. "I'm going to be a father!"

"Again," Beth added quietly.

The tense silence burst into noise and laughter. The family poured in, Ruby swarming among them with her large body, her tail waving.

The ladies rushed to hug Beth; the Mackenzie brothers, Daniel, the McBrides, and David Fleming to clap Ian on the shoulders and shake him hard. Why good news involved the man being pounded, Ian had never understood, but he knew that the gestures made Mac, Cam, and Hart happy. Ian stood quietly and took their hand clasps, arms around his shoulders, liking that he was part of them, brothers who had never deserted him.

The shouting wound down to excited talking and laughter, still as noisy as only Ian's family could be. Beth had disappeared into a cloud of ladies' skirts, bustles, and laughter, and he heard Daniel say, "The wagering will open as soon as I fetch my books. No side betting, please, gentlemen," and Cameron's warning, "Danny."

"I'll put you down for a hundred then, shall I, Dad? Boy or girl?"

"Ian." Eleanor had broken from the feminine circle to pull Ian aside for a kiss. She had to use his arm to steady herself, but she was smiling and pink. "Beth told me why you weren't upset about the broken bowl. You really are the most romantic man in the world, do you know that? You ought to give your brothers lessons."

"I can hear you, El," Hart said from her other side.

"Yes, I know. Does that mean, Ian, that I could break another bowl, and it wouldn't matter?"

She reached toward a glass case, and Ian caught her wrist in sudden panic. "No!"

Eleanor laughed. "I am teasing you."

Ian's heart thumped as he released her. He didn't mind so much Beth breaking the stupid bowl, but no one else could. He gave up trying to make sense of them all, returning his thoughts to Beth and the brother or sister he would get to show Jamie and Belle.

"You know I'd never touch your exquisite bowls, Ian," Eleanor said. "They are yours, and I can be a bit clumsy, and . . . Ah." Eleanor's gaze became fixed, her face draining of color.

Hart stepped forward and steadied her. "I knew this was a bad idea," he growled. "Back to bed with you."

"Yes, I think that would be best." Eleanor swayed, her hand going to the small of her back. "Perhaps we ought to hurry. I believe his little lordship is coming. Right now."

As the words left her lips, Eleanor sagged, and she collapsed so swiftly that Hart barely had time to catch her and lift her into his arms.

Chapter Fifteen

Dark night came on--these days, the sun hardly appeared at all. To Hart the darkness and the cold matched his fear, as he paced the sitting room down the hall from Eleanor's bedchamber.

Ian was with him. Hart's quiet brother stood looking out the window at the blackness as Hart walked the room behind him. Restlessness bothered Ian and made him want to emulate it, so he'd learned to turn away and block it out.

Eleanor had decorated this room, making it a place in which they could be private after supper, or sit with family and close friends. Other members of the family had made their contributions: Ainsley had embroidered cushions with her neat skill to strew about the sofa; drawings done by Mac's children--Aimee's quite skilled, the others barely discernible scrawls--decorated the walls. Beth and Ian had purchased the long, comfortable sofa to replace the old-fashioned, overly carved horsehair one from the old duke's day.

A homey room, a room for family. Hart had never known such a retreat before his marriage.

"Damn it." He halted his pacing, sank to the sofa, and buried his head in his hands.

Eleanor's presence filled every corner of this room. If she did not live through the night . . .

There, he'd thought it. If she did not live, Hart would never enter this room again.

He smelled the sharp bite of whiskey and lifted his head to find Ian holding a glass out to him, brimful of Mackenzie malt.

Hart took the glass and poured half the contents down his throat. He coughed, wet his lips, and gulped down the other half.

Ian took the glass away and returned with it full again. Hart drank half of that before he sighed and set the whiskey on a table. His head spun, his gut churned, and still he feared.

A clock ticked on the mantelpiece, another pretty gift, this one from David Fleming. The clock chimed eleven, the fire burned, and Hart waited.