A Highland Werewolf Wedding (6 page)

“What’s wrong?”

“How did you learn of
that
place? It’s not listed anywhere as a rental. The bed and breakfast is for family
and friends who need to stay in the area for the night.”

“The man I’m meeting said it was close to the castle ruins.”

Cearnach wore that dark warrior expression again. “What is his name?”

“Kilpatrick.”

Cearnach stared at her, then shook his head.

“What?”

“
Which
Kilpatrick?”

She didn’t like the sound of this. “Robert.”

Cearnach snorted.

“I take it you don’t like
him,
either
.”

“He’s a lecher.” Cearnach glanced at her. “He’s the man who was practically sitting
in your lap at the church. You must have noticed.”

She gaped at Cearnach, then frowned as he continued to watch the road. “Which one
was he?”

“Both are Kilpatricks. The one sitting on your right was Robert. What does he want
with you?”

She hesitated to say. It really was none of his business. But what difference did
it make at this point? The whole situation was odd. If Robert had the wedding to get
to, he hadn’t allotted much time for their meeting. She wondered why not. What was
Robert planning? Clearly he had chosen their meeting place to keep her far away from
the rest of his family. The truth was bound to come out—to an extent. “He’s…” Then
she saw the humor in the whole situation and started to laugh.

Cearnach’s fierce expression didn’t change.

“He’s a distant cousin.” She gave a little shrug, loving the irony. Robert would be
horrified to realize he had tried to come on to her when she was distantly related
to him. “Wouldn’t he be surprised to learn that if he’s thinking I’m available or
something.”

“Distant cousin? How distant?” Cearnach asked, not sounding as though he saw the humor.

“By a couple of marriages. Maybe four times removed? I don’t know for sure.”

“Then he could still want you.”

She wrinkled her nose at Cearnach. “This is strictly a business deal.” If the man
wanted her, it would only be to gain the rest of the loot through a mating.

Cearnach frowned back at her. “Doing business with the Kilpatricks can get you into
a lot of hot water. In the old days, they were smugglers, pirates. They haven’t changed
much since then.”

Her blood chilled. He was bound to make the connection between her and her uncles.
She noted the irritated tone in his voice and suspected that Cearnach’s family members
were probably the epitome of law-abiding citizens.

Since werewolves lived such long lives, her maternal grandfather had been a pirate
and had hidden treasure in the Everglades. She suspected her parents had laundered
the money from the ill-gotten gains in the tavern and lodgings they rented out and
maybe had been involved in their own illegal schemes. Then Kelly Rafferty had taken
over.

“What exactly is the business arrangement with Kilpatrick?” Cearnach asked, the car’s
tires slipping on the wet pavement. He took his foot off the gas. “He’s going to sell
you part of the castle ruins and you can peddle tickets to tourists to see that half
of the castle?”

“That’s
our
castle?”

“Aye. Been in the family for generations. Once you see how much they let the place
go…” He shook his head.

Automatically she went on the defensive. “Yeah, like you would do any better if you
had the chance to own a castle. Years of wars and the elements beating down on a building
ten centuries old, the upkeep, the taxes. I can just imagine how much the place would
cost to repair and maintain.”

“They sold off a lot of the ancient stone walls to keep themselves in whisky,” Cearnach
said drily.

She stared at him, attempting to see if he was telling the truth. He appeared to be
speaking honestly.

“My own castle is in
great
shape, if you want to talk about taking care of the ancestral home,” he continued.

“
Your
castle?” Now this was getting interesting. “Don’t tell me you’re the clan chief and
a duke or something.”

“No, but I’m the pack’s sub-leader, and the clan chief is my older brother.” He sounded
proud of the fact, as well he should, as he glanced at the area where his car should
have been on the side of the road. “Son of a…”

Dumbfounded, she stared at the spot in the driving rain as if looking hard enough
might make the car reappear.

“It’s gone. Your car. It’s… not… there,” she said, barely breathing.

Trying to keep his temper under control and figure out what had happened, Cearnach
thought back to the younger McKinley brothers. They’d been late to their own brother’s
wedding, and they’d been smirking about something when they spied him in the church.

They could have been coming along the same road, seen his abandoned car, and known
it was his. He’d bet Argent Castle that they’d have hauled his car over the cliffs
if they could have managed. Now he didn’t even have a phone so that he could call
Ian.

“We’re driving to the castle ruins,” he said to Elaine, trying not to sound as angry
as he felt as he pulled back onto the road.

“You… want to explore Senton Castle in this rain?” She sounded so incredulous that
he thought she was beginning to believe he might be a little crazy.

“Aye. I have to take a look at the cliffs. Make sure there’s nothing below them that
belongs to me. I can’t get close enough to the edge to see from here. The safest way
to get to the beach to see the cliffs from down below is to park at the castle and
take the stairs.”

“Your car?” she asked, horrified.

“Aye.”

“Who… who would do such a thing?”

“Take your pick. The McKinleys?”

“But they were at the wedding, weren’t they?”

“Two of them were late.”

Her eyes widened. Elaine didn’t say anything for several moments, then finally looked
back the way they’d come. “Why are we going
this
way?”

“This is the way to the ruins. You must have missed the turnoff, remember?” He glanced
at her, noting that her damp hair was still in straggles against her wet dress. Only
a small fraction of her dress had dried out.

“The road is kind of hidden,” he said as gently as he could.

The lass would never have made it to the meeting with Robert Kilpatrick on time. Not
when she had been lost and arrived way past the time they’d planned to meet. Cearnach
wondered why Kilpatrick had left so little time for his meeting with Elaine—the wedding
was only two hours later. Robert would have had only about an hour to spend with Elaine,
and she clearly had expected to spend much more time. Cearnach was starting to believe
that Kilpatrick was up to no good where the lass was concerned.

Without her cell phone, she couldn’t call Kilpatrick, for which Cearnach was grateful.
She shouldn’t have any business dealings with the man unless she had someone else
with her who could see the situation more objectively and ensure she didn’t get ripped
off.

Right then and there, he decided that he’d protect Elaine’s interests until she left
Scotland, if she agreed. He had failed with Calla and could do no more for her. Now
Elaine seemed to need someone to look out for her. And this was the second time, he
was certain.

He thought back to her name, Elaine Hawthorn, and how it could be related to the Kilpatricks
and McKinleys. They were pirates. But what about the Hawthorns?

The memories came back to him in a sudden rush. “Hawthorn,” he said under his breath,
both surprised and glad he’d finally figured it out.

The public hanging of the Hawthorn brothers so many years ago. Robert Kilpatrick and
four of his kin had been desperate to locate the men’s niece, Elaine Hawthorn, because
they had believed she was the key to finding the stolen goods. Cearnach had been the
one to catch up to her�� and lose her in one fell swoop.

Now she was back. Suddenly, he felt possessive all over again. Wanting to protect
her. Wanting to keep her.

She glanced at Cearnach. “What?”

He recalled her haunted expression when she was but a young girl, the way she’d appeared
guardedly hopeful until the man slugged him and she escaped Cearnach’s grasp.

“Why did you run away in St. Andrews, lass?” He spoke quietly, not wanting to put
her on the defensive, and then he added, “I only meant to protect you.”

He pulled into the car park below the castle ruins, which they could see off in the
distance. Four towers and three of the walls were still standing. Despite how rundown
some of the buildings were, Cearnach still loved seeing the ancient ruins, though
his own people had fought the McKinleys a time or two in the distant past and had
caused some of the damage themselves.

Elaine let her breath out in a whoosh, as if she might have finally given up on the
charade, but she didn’t speak.

Did she think he still didn’t know who she was? Most likely, and she wouldn’t come
clean unless he shared with her all he knew. “You are the niece of Tobias and Samson
Hawthorn. My brothers and I were passing through St. Andrews when we heard about the
public hanging.”

“Why would you have wanted to protect me? Yes, my uncles were hanged. I probably would
have been also. Had Lord Whittington known I was their niece, he probably would have
figured I had been pirating along with them. But I could barely keep my head out of
a bucket the whole time I was on the ship.”

“You had never traveled with them before?” Cearnach asked, not surprised. Despite
the way she’d been dressed, wearing more clothes and with her hair hidden from view,
she’d looked as lovely then as now, although perhaps a bit more pale.

She shook her head. “My parents had just died. My uncles were in St. Augustine visiting
them when it happened. They received an offer of a mating for me back home and said
yes to the man. I refused to mate with the wolf who wanted me. I coaxed my uncles
into agreeing to take me with them on this one voyage. I never expected…”

She paused, her voice choking with emotion. “I never thought my uncles would be taken
from me and put to death.” She took a settling breath, but he noticed her eyes were
swimming in tears, and he regretted upsetting her. “What would you have gained by
protecting me?” she asked.

He stopped short of giving her the whole truth, telling her all he could for now.
“You caught my eye when you disembarked from the ship. A flower among thistles. Once
your uncles were taken prisoner, along with most of their crew, I knew the wolves
would be after you, too. I could see how shaken you were when the Hawthorn brothers
were hanged. I knew you must have had some close connection to them. When they were
gone, I saw how young you were, how alone, and smelled on the breeze that you were
a wolf.”

Those—and where the loot was that had belonged to the MacNeill clan—were the most
pressing concerns he’d had at the time. “I didn’t know if you were a royal and able
to shift to wolf form at will, or if the full moon dictated your shifts. I feared
you might be in for more trouble because of that.”

“I’m a royal,” she said. “Because I have very few human roots many generations ago,
I don’t need to shift unless it’s my own choice. Did you attempt to pay people to
locate me?”

“Nay. I used my sense of smell.” He studied her, waiting for her to explain further,
and after a bit of a hesitation, she did.

“A maid came to my room saying that someone was trying to buy information about me.
I didn’t know who else might have figured out I was with the ship when it came into
port.”

“The McKinleys or Kilpatricks. They were there.”

She stared at Cearnach. “They did nothing to try and stop the hangings. They didn’t
try to rescue my uncles or their crew, either.”

“I’m certain they felt their hands were tied, lass.”

“Why would you defend them?” she said, her voice angry. “You don’t even like them.”

“Aye, but I know venturing a rescue with all the armed guards in the square would
have been impossible for them. The best they could have done was to locate you and
keep you safe.”

“Would they? Or would they have been afraid of risking their necks for me?”

Cearnach let out his breath, not about to hide the truth from her any longer, though
he wasn’t certain she would have believed him if he’d told her the reality of the
situation back then. “Honestly? I imagine they wanted to see if you knew where your
uncles had hidden their bounty. Maybe they would have ensured that you mated with
one of their kinsman, again to keep the money in the clan.”

She gave a little grunt of disgust. “
That
I can believe.” She chewed on her bottom lip. “I still don’t know why
you
wanted to protect me.”

“Haven’t you realized that I’m a defender of women and small children?”

She gave a little laugh that told him she didn’t believe him—well, maybe to some extent.

She was right not to have trusted his motives back then. He would have done anything
to hide her from the law and her disreputable kin after seeing how sweet and innocent
and vulnerable she had looked. But he’d had pack reasons, too, for wanting to take
her under his wing and hide her away.

“After searching for you for months, I assumed you’d slipped away on a ship bound
for America or somewhere else.” He hadn’t stopped thinking about her—and the way she’d
appeared so lost and tearful and fragile—for years.

Now? She was very much an alpha, sexy and gorgeous, and he wouldn’t be surprised if
she’d broken a lot of hearts over the years.

“What about the man you were supposed to mate back home?” he asked.

“Long story. Some other time.”

That meant she wasn’t going to talk about it anytime soon. He would ask again later
when he had the chance and she seemed more willing to talk.

“You stay here. I’ll check out the area to see if I can locate my car.” He would have
a long way to walk to reach the site, and Elaine wasn’t dressed for the weather or
a hike so he thought she should remain behind.

“Wait. I’ll go with you.”

Surprised at her declaration, he watched as she turned around and kneeled on the seat.
Then she leaned way over the seat back to reach her suitcase and tugged at it, twisting
it around until she could reach the zipper.

If he hadn’t been confined by the steering wheel, he could have reached for whatever
she needed, but the sight in front of him was too mesmerizing to ignore. Her red dress
clung to her buttocks, showing off her sexy derriere. Like all wolves, she had to
be a runner, and her toned legs and ass showed she was in great shape. His whole body
jerked to attention again.

Calla was a beautiful wolf, but she’d never had a sexually charged effect on him like
Elaine did.

Again he forced himself to look away, remembering the way the gown she’d worn in St.
Andrews had hidden all her curves. The times sure had changed. He was damned glad
he was the only one witnessing the way she looked right now, though. He didn’t want
another male wolf salivating over her like he was doing.

She unzipped the suitcase and pulled out a pair of boots, snagged a long raincoat,
then turned back around. She sat back down on the seat. He eyed the raincoat.

Chin tilted down, she gave him an annoyed look. “Yeah. I had a heavy-duty raincoat
with me. You pulled me out of the car so fast at the church, complaining we were late
to the wedding that only
you
had planned to attend, that I didn’t have a chance to grab my coat.”

An uncomfortable guilt washed over him. He should have asked. He should have considered
the weather and how she could be affected by it.

Not about to admit it, he said instead, “Good. I’m glad you’re more prepared. I wouldn’t
take you up there wearing that slinky dress or those high-heeled shoes and…” He considered
her dress and couldn’t help looking at the way the fabric was plastered against her
rigid nipples or the way he could even see the indent in her belly button, which was
just as sexy. “You’d freeze to death.”

“I accept your apology,” she quickly said, brows raised, challenging him to contradict
her.

One corner of his mouth quirked up.

“I’ll be fine. What about yourself?” she continued, as if he had
admitted
he had apologized to her and the issue was no longer important.

He smiled. The she-wolf was a treasure.

“Wool kilt. Water repellent. I’ll remove my jacket and vest.”

She sighed, eyeing his torso. “You could take off your shirt.” She focused her brown
eyes on his shirt, as if she was ready to help him remove it and wanted to see how
he looked in just a kilt.

She could take off her dress, too, he was thinking.

What he found most engaging was that she wouldn’t meet his eyes.

When he didn’t say anything, waiting for her to look into his gaze and fighting the
urge to grin at her, she looked up, her eyes wide and innocent. There was no earthly
way that the lass had been thinking purely innocent thoughts.

Her cheeks blossomed with color. “It’s not waterproof. Your shirt, I mean,” she explained.

“A good point.” He was still smiling, loving the way he could read her feelings so
easily.

“All right.” She slipped off her soaking-wet pumps and pulled on her boots while he
struggled to get out of his jacket and vest in the confined space between the driver’s
seat and steering wheel. She tugged the raincoat over her arms and buttoned it up,
glancing at him to see if he’d removed his shirt yet.

He was in the process of unbuttoning it, but when she looked at him with such keen
interest and anticipation, he felt his pheromones taking over again. Just her watching
him strip half naked had the darnedest effect on him. He would have felt smug, hearing
the way her heartbeat had accelerated, indicating her intrigue, except that his heart
was thumping just as rapidly, revealing how much he was
just
as intrigued.

As if she was reminding him of where this was going—and that this was not something
more, like him removing his kilt next and then her coat and dress—she pulled the hood
of her coat over her head.

That made him remember how the hood of her cloak had hid most of her features when
she was but a young lass. In that instant, he felt the fates had smiled on him. He
couldn’t have protected her before, but he would help her this time.

He pulled off his shirt, and her gaze shifted to his torso. For an instant, he felt
like he was on a wolf’s version of the marriage mart. A mate mart instead. Did he
meet her expectations?