A Highland Werewolf Wedding (5 page)

“So if you
didn’t
want him to marry her, why didn’t you object?” she asked.

“I
did
object. A number of times. Just not at the wedding. If I had wished to mate with
her, I would have. Actually, if I had wanted to mate with her, the wedding would never
have happened. Not between her and Baird.”

“Why even get married in a church? Is that something all wolves in Scotland do?”

“If we have a title, aye. We need to pass the title down to successive generations.
Society expects a public wedding. Though the good citizens don’t know we’re wolves.
Invitations are presented only to wolf kind, generally speaking.”

Elaine seemed to mull that over for a few minutes, then she said, “So why did you
go to the wedding? Did you think she would change her mind if she saw you there?”

“Maybe. I don’t know.” He kept telling himself it was because Calla had asked him
to come to the wedding. Maybe secretly he’d thought she might change her mind if she
saw him there and remembered all that he’d said to her. She hadn’t heeded his words.

Now
it was too late.

Elaine Hawthorn genuinely liked Cearnach MacNeill and the way the braw Highland warrior
wore his kilt, sporran, sword, and a dirk tucked in his stocking.
Hot
and
sexy
and
dangerous
came to mind. Not cute, like she’d said.

But rather than focus on that, she should be thinking about how she needed to contact
the cousin she was supposed to meet. She’d use Cearnach’s phone back at his car. Yet,
she wished she could delay the inevitable and spend more time in Cearnach’s company.
Like that was a good idea. Not after the way they’d kissed and not when she still
didn’t know why he’d wanted to protect her in St. Andrews so long ago.

He had to know how appealing he looked to her, so she’d tested him to see how he would
respond to being called “cute.” She had been amused by his look of surprise, thinking
that he’d be so conceited that he wouldn’t care what she said about his appearance.
Then he’d regained his cocky arrogance, probably figuring she had been teasing him.
Most likely no one had ever called him cute.

She noticed the sidelong glances Cearnach continued to give her, wolf that he was.
Her dress was way too revealing, plastered to her body as if it were a redder version
of her skin. The heater was going full blast, but the air still felt cold as it hit
her wet dress.

He reached down and took her cold hand in his and squeezed. “Why did you really come
between Vardon and me? Did you think you could stop that Neanderthal?”

“I suppose I did. Just like you might have believed you could change Calla’s mind
about marrying Baird McKinley if you showed up for the wedding. I didn’t give it much
thought. I just instinctively stepped into his path.”

“Do you often risk your neck for someone you barely know?”

She shrugged, not willing to tell him she’d always been that way—protective. She was
used to being an alpha, not someone who melted into the background. Not like when
her uncles had been hanged for pirating, making her fear for her life, and she had
had to find her way back to America alone. That had been the hardest for her—tucking
tail and running away.

“Have you ever risked getting hurt for someone who was well equipped to handle the
likes of Vardon McKinley?” Cearnach asked, still trying to get her to reveal the truth.

“No,” she finally said. Then she gave him an impish smile. “Not usually.”

“Which means it wasn’t just instinct that propelled you into action,” he said, sounding
smugly satisfied, as though he knew she had feelings for him and hadn’t wanted to
see him hurt.

She reached up to touch her throbbing face where the infuriated Highlander had struck
her, her fingers shying away at the last minute. She hadn’t expected to get a fist
in the face, having hoped to stop the man from throwing the punch in the first place.

“If I hadn’t confined you, and you had managed to grab Vardon’s dirk, would you have
known how to use it?”

She envisioned Vardon’s dagger poking out of the top of his hose. If she’d been able
to pull free, she would have grabbed that dagger and threatened Vardon with it—just
to get him to back off.

She had been serious about that. “
Or
I might have gone for yours.”

Silence.

She smiled.

Cearnach cleared his throat. “
My
dagger…”

“Aye,” she said, borrowing his brogue. The way she said the word still sounded American
to her ear.

He chuckled. “You would not have been successful.”

“We’ll never know, will we?” she asked in a tone meant to challenge. “But, yes, I
know how to use a dirk. A lightweight sword also.” Being from a family of pirates
ensured that.

Thankfully, Vardon had seemed to come to his senses somewhat once he’d struck her.
She had ignored him calling her a whore in Gaelic, figuring he was trying to make
himself feel that what he had done wasn’t wrong. Besides, he’d said it to infuriate
Cearnach, not to slander her. At least that’s the way she was going to view it.

She sighed, touching her lips. They were deliciously swollen from Cearnach’s kisses.
No wolf had ever taken charge of her to such an extent. She’d always remained detached,
unaffected by men’s kisses, knowing getting stuck on a human could only mean disaster.
And a wolf?

She barely refrained from snorting. A wolf was even worse. At least based on her experience.

Her whole body heated again as she recalled the force of his kiss, the passion behind
it, the raw need they’d both exhibited while sharing it. She sensed something unspoken
between them. That he had felt something more for her than he had felt for women in
the past.

She smothered another snort at the notion before she caught Cearnach’s curiosity.
The kiss had thoroughly shaken her, making her want much more than was safe. For Cearnach,
such a kiss was probably nothing more than what he was used to. Practiced, eliciting
the same kind of response in
any
woman.

Attempting to get her mind off the way he’d made her feel, Elaine continued to pull
the fabric of her dress away from her skin, trying to dry it in front of the heater.

If she had been alone, she would have slipped into the backseat, rummaged around in
her suitcase, and put something else on. Now she wished she hadn’t worn this particular
dress. Robert Kilpatrick had told her to wear a red dress if she had one so he’d be
able to pick her out of a crowd. Considering how rainy and cold it was, she would
have had to wear her raincoat while she was at the castle ruins, and Robert wouldn’t
have seen her red dress anyway.

“Have you been to Scotland before, lass? I was worried you might pull out a camera
and begin photographing the church before I escorted you inside.”

She didn’t want to answer him about being in Scotland before. She skipped instead
to the issue of the camera and pretended to be a nice little tourist. She patted her
purse. “Camera charged, new disk ready to fill up with pictures,” she said proudly.

“Except now it’s raining so hard that it won’t make for very nice pictures,” he said,
sounding regretful.

She took a deep breath, recalling the scent of the wolf she’d met so long ago, loving
the scent of him now and glad Cearnach didn’t seem to remember her from the past.
After receiving the note from her distant cousin, she’d felt that her family’s pirating
life had come back to haunt her. She had a comfortable savings from her parents’ inheritance,
yet, with cutbacks at the college and the lure of laying claim to the bounty her uncles
had hidden somewhere in Scotland, she had been enticed to return.

Of course her cousin wanted a share of the booty. He didn’t know all the details of
where the stash was hidden. Just as she didn’t have all the details, either—like two
halves of a treasure map. She just had to ensure that her cousin didn’t get the alpha
wolf’s share since
her
uncles had forfeited their lives for taking it from merchant vessels, and she’d been
the one to suffer for it once they died.

“Elaine,” Cearnach said as he continued to watch the road, the rain pounding the windshield.

She glanced at him. He was frowning at her—a concerned frown, not an angry one.

“Did you hear me?” he asked.

“Sorry, no. I was concentrating on drying out my dress.” And thinking about lots of
stuff she didn’t want
him
to know about.

“We’ve met before, lass,” Cearnach said softly, as if speaking in a strictly sweet
way might make her come clean.

If she had realized who he was when she first met him after the car accident, she
might have given him a different name. Still, she could tell he couldn’t recall who
she was. Easy to see why. The clothes she’d worn had covered her from head to toe.
Sure, he’d smelled her scent, touched her, looked deeply into her face, but that had
been so long ago, in a different place and time, and she had only been sixteen.

“Where have we met?” Cearnach persisted.

She shrugged. “You must have met someone who looks similar to me at some time or another.”
She thought of telling him she hadn’t been to Scotland before, but he would sense
she wasn’t telling the truth.

“I… attempted… to… rescue you,” he said, slowly, deliberately, as if he was trying
to recall the circumstances, or he already knew and was waiting for her to fess up.

His mouth curved up. He gave her another sly glance, a wolfish look that meant he
wasn’t going to give up. “I
will
remember,” he promised, his voice dark and seductive and intrigued.

He was determined, if nothing else. The game would soon be up.

She thought back to the way he had reacted to her when he first saw her get out of
the rental car, as he strode up to meet her in his kilt and sword, armed and dangerous
and hot and sexy. The way he’d perused her, moved into her space, indicating he was
determining that she was a wolf like him and also attempting to learn what her response
to his close proximity would be. Was she an alpha? Or beta? Was she skittish or had
she been as fascinated with him as he had been with her? Oh, yes, she had been. Enthralled.
Absolutely.

He’d seemed to like that she was an alpha. Not all wolves would.

She appreciated that he was a first-class alpha and unwilling to bend to pressure.
They’d been in a church full of hostiles, and he had held his head high, not in the
least bit intimidated. She had hoped to see someone wearing a kilt while she was here,
but she’d never expected to see a Highland wedding or a church full of Highlanders
in kilts.

Or all wearing dirks and swords. Or ready to do battle. Or stepping into the midst
of it herself and getting a bruised face because of it.

“You’re so quiet, lass,” Cearnach said. “What are you thinking about?”

Cearnach had stood out among the rest of the Highlanders. She wasn’t sure if that
was because of the way he took charge of her like a Highland warrior on the battlefield.
Or maybe she appreciated him more because she sensed he really was concerned for her
welfare, like he appeared to be about Calla. Why had he been that way the first time
he’d met her?

This time he probably felt responsible because he’d taken her to the church. The first
time they’d met, his protectiveness had been because of something else.

“Just tired,” she said. “From… the jet lag, you know.”

She hadn’t meant to look at him, because she knew if she did, he’d probably read the
truth in her expression. She glanced at him anyway.

He gave her a small smile, one that said he believed she was thinking about quite
a lot that she didn’t wish to share with him.

He would be right.

She raised her brows at him, smiled, and turned away.

He was tall and his hair was a little shaggy, dark brown with a reddish tint. His
square jaw was clean-shaven. The ferocious, dark look that he had given her when he
first approached her car had made her think of a thunderstorm approaching—like the
one that had finally caught up to them. His eyes were dark brown, just a shade lighter
than black.

“The way you are smiling, lass, has me believing that you’re thinking about something
pleasant. Will you not share with me? I’d love to hear your thoughts.”

She blushed. She couldn’t help the way her skin flushed so easily.

“I was thinking about how you seem… so… casual at times, as if you are trying to set
people at ease. That you would be kind of carefree, if it weren’t for the circumstances
we met under.”

“Aye, that I am. So you were thinking of me and that’s why you were smiling?”

Another volley of heat shot through her, and she tried not to squirm.

“Just for a moment. Are you certain I was smiling? The weather is so bad that I’m
sure I was frowning quite profoundly.”

“Nay, lass, you were smiling.”

About
him,
she was certain he wanted to tack on. She didn’t dare ask him what
he
had been thinking about, afraid he’d say he thought about her. She certainly didn’t
want to know what he was thinking of her—like, where he’d met her before.

His casual demeanor was appealing, but she thought deep down he was passionate, powerful,
and forceful when he needed to be. The kiss had showed just how powerful, passionate,
and sexy he could be.

Even though he wore a jacket, vest, shirt, and a plaid pinned over his shoulder and
wasn’t bare-chested, she could imagine him sword-fighting without the rest of his
clothes. Just a kilt and boots. She liked the way she could tease the gruffness from
him, and he’d parry with her in a lighthearted way. The way he was so protective of
her in front of the other wolves was endearing, too.

She did feel awful that he’d ruined two tires. Not because it was her fault. He’d
obviously been driving too fast, trying to make it to the church on time. Still, she
did feel bad about it.

“I’ll wait with you until you get someone to help replace the tires on your car,”
she offered, wiping rainwater from her face with some tissues from her purse.

“I can’t seem to place the time or circumstance, but I recall trying to help you and…
somehow you got away,” he said, as if he couldn’t believe anyone could escape him
if he didn’t wish it.

She shrugged, then drew closer to the heater again. She was trying to dry her dress,
but her wet hair kept dripping water all over it. She was irritated with herself for
being so off on her timing for her own appointment. Robert Kilpatrick would probably
be upset that she hadn’t arrived at the agreed-upon time. She was certain he had tried
to contact her and hoped he realized she had phone trouble.

“Where are you staying?” Cearnach asked.

The car slid on the wet pavement, and she grasped the leather seat to keep her balance.
She glanced at him. “Flora’s Bed and Breakfast.”

Frowning, Cearnach gripped the steering wheel as he maneuvered through another puddle
of water.