Heart of the Highland Wolf (6 page)

At least that's what her grandfather had said. But something really worried him about that box. He'd been so adamant and just as concerned as her father that she locate it and bring it home. Why now? Why after so many years of trying to get back in and not succeeding? Why not leave it buried in the castle walls?

It was locked, he had warned her. She wasn't to break the lock. But a niggling of untruth plagued her. What was in the box that she was to risk sneaking into the castle and locating it, and then return it unopened to her grandfather?

Pandora's box came to mind.

“They left the castle in haste? This gets better and better.” Maria entered Julia's bedroom. “So what's in the box? Maybe a claim to the estate?”

Julia only wished she knew. “I'm sure my grandfather or father would have said. And I'm sure once a family abandons a castle to another, if that was the case, we'd have no claim to it anyway.”

Julia sat on her bed and pulled on her socks, then her boots.

“You're probably right, but… if the MacNeills have lived here since your family vacated it, wouldn't they have found the box already? Disposed of the contents, most likely?”

“It's hidden. Or at least it was.” If it was valuable, the MacNeills might have hung onto it. But what worried Julia more was whether or not the box contained information that could be used against her family. So many years had passed. What information could possibly be of importance any longer?

All ready to go sleuthing, Julia collapsed on the green tweed sofa again, eager for Maria to leave so she could run off.

Wearing a more casual hot-pink wool sweater and black jeans, Maria whirled out of the bedroom and met Julia in the living area. “A secret niche? You can't be serious. If I wasn't so afraid of losing my job or had more nerve, I'd go with you. But still… I don't think you should be doing this.”

“I'm just going to take a walk around. No one will see me. I'll be sure of it.”

Maria didn't look convinced. “Laird MacNeill said he didn't want anyone roaming around the property without his permission. And we kind of have an in now. We don't want to ruin that.”

“I'll be in the woods outside the castle, not inside.” Unless Julia located the secret tunnels her grandfather had mentioned. Although he'd said the place had been too well defended in earlier years for them to try to get back in that way, and in more recent years, they hadn't been successful with a couple of quick tries to locate the tunnel entrance. A lone female might do the trick.

“Around the perimeter or within the castle—the place is off-limits unless Laird MacNeill gives us permission.” Maria gave Julia a critical look. “Just because he dropped us off at the cottage, he still might not make any concessions for us. Although you can't tell me there's nothing going on between the two of you. The air practically sizzles with the way he looks at you. Don't think I didn't notice the interest you've shown him in return.”

“He got me an ice pack, nothing else. Well, started the bath. Don't read anything more into it than that. He was just being nice. All right?” What Julia didn't say was how much she suspected Ian didn't trust her one bit and that was all his interest in her. Keep your friends close and your enemies closer—wasn't that the old adage?

Maria motioned to the fireplace crackling with heat. “He started a hot, little fire—probably more than the one in the fireplace. Grabbed a blanket from your bedroom. I imagine he removed your heels and stockings, and no telling what else he would have removed if you'd been agreeable. I'll bet he also carried you into the bathroom, or he wouldn't have been leaving it when we arrived.”

Julia's face heated. She was not about to tell Maria that Ian had kissed her in a way that she'd remember forever. Her ex-boyfriend had never come close to setting her on fire the way Ian had.

Maria's brows rose. “He offered to remove your clothes, didn't he?” She laughed. “If we'd had any food, he probably would have fixed you something to eat.”

“He's a laird. He probably doesn't know how to cook. But I'll be careful. Like a wolf in stealth mode.”

Maria's dark brows rose, and her worried look returned. “You're not going as a wolf, are you?”

“No.”
Not at first
. Unless Julia could locate the secret entrance easier that way. “What did you think of Duncan MacNeill?”

“He's one to watch. Quiet and lethal. As for Laird MacNeill, after Harold took one look at that photo of him, Harold summed him up in four little words, ‘
Bad to the bone
.'”

“Yeah.” Julia thought of Ian's image in the photo and of him sitting in the pub. He'd had the same cool look as he did in the photo, his eyes hauntingly perceptive. And he appeared to be in charge, even miles from his castle. How far did his sphere of influence reach? Why didn't he have an entourage? She imagined a laird would have lots of people tagging along with him everywhere he went, trying to get on his good side, wanting favors. Maybe it didn't work that way in this day and age.

Ian looked to be around thirty or so, maybe a little older. Not old enough to be so obstinate about not wanting to film at the castle, so set in his ways and not liking change.

“Maybe we can deal with someone else.” Because despite what Maria might think about Ian and her, Julia knew he was wary of her. Maybe she could make some inroads into her project by soliciting one of his lackeys, if she could make friends with someone who could get her inside the castle.

Yet her thoughts flashed back to Ian's expression, his assessing looks, and his dark eyes watching her, studying her, and perhaps attempting intimidation. She wasn't easily intimidated. But she had the feeling that sneaking around him wouldn't be an easy task.

“Don't count on it. He's the laird and in charge. Even though I spoke to Guthrie MacNeill, he was only the go-between. Ian is definitely ruling the roost. And hell, I'd say you made a pretty good start on getting his attention anyway.” Maria let out her breath and favored her left wrist. “I know you're going to the MacNeills' castle after I leave. Nothing I say is going to convince you not to. You could really screw this up, you know. If you get arrested—”

“I'll plead I was a dumb American who got separated from the film crew on the way to the meeting and got lost.” Apparently Maria didn't have much confidence that Julia could slip in and out of places without detection like a master thief.

Then again, attempting to sneak into the underbelly of a castle was a new experience for Julia, so Maria's concern wasn't totally unfounded.

“You don't think that when they drag your bones in front of the laird of the castle, he won't figure something else was up?”

A horn honked out front. Julia followed Maria outside and waved at Chad. He was the fetch-it guy, a surfer type with sun-streaked blond hair. Young and thrilled to be here, he smiled and waved back at Julia as Maria got into the car.

As Chad backed out of the drive, Julia waved at Maria, smiling cheerfully in an effort to assure her everything would be all right. Maria just shook her head at Julia, full lips thinned in a grim line.

Julia had no plan to get caught during her clandestine mission, but she wasn't about to wait around until tomorrow to try and slip inside, either.

Julia grabbed her key to the cottage and locked the door, ready to storm Argent Castle in a surreptitious way.

Already having gotten used to being in the dry cottage, she felt the cool mist lying thickly all over the area and was reminded of the car wreck and her subsequent fear of being followed. And of being injured. Her ankle bothered her just a hint, but she shoved the notion out of her mind and walked at a quickened pace through the ancient Caledonian Forest that linked Ian MacNeill's castle and the cottage where she was staying.

The forest was like a tie to the past where time seemed to stand still. She envisioned an ancestor of Laird MacNeill, with his men wearing kilts and equipped with bows and quivers of arrows, hunting in these very woods on horseback for deer or wild boar.

Moving at a steady pace, she soon warmed up a bit. But she was getting wetter and wetter, her sweater and jeans soaking up the light, misty rain like a thirsty sponge. She'd considered wearing a jacket, but the fewer clothes the better if she was going to shape-shift. Thankfully, the boots supported her ankles and pine needles cushioned the ground, so except for a gnawing worry that she'd twist her right ankle again, it felt fine for now.

Scots pines towered overhead, the fragrance of pine sap reminding her of Christmas and hiking through northwestern California forests, and the sweet, strong scent of juniper also wafted in the cool dampness. Coming from the direction of the castle, muffled Scottish voices with their distinctive, pleasing burr garnered her attention, and she stopped walking to consider her surroundings. She imagined that the people speaking were within the castle walls, in the bailey, outer or inner, and that no one would imagine a trespasser nearing their domain.

With no known predators in the area—as far as animals that might endanger humans—and no humans wandering about, she felt safe in the woods. She was alone except for a couple of Scottish crossbills feeding on pinecone seeds, one a red male with dark wings and tail feathers, and a couple of others calling excitedly to one another and sounding like they were speaking with a Scottish accent.

The cocky trill of a crested tit added to the forest sounds, and she looked up to see the perky bird sitting on the dead stump of a pine, the feathers on his crown standing straight up like a Mohawk haircut. A golden-ringed dragonfly flittered beside her and vanished, and butterflies fluttered about.

The feeling that she was in primeval woods, transported to the long-distant past, made her imagination run free. She envisioned a clan chief's daughter dashing away from an enemy clan, seeking shelter in the castle beyond the woods, and praying she'd reach it before she was caught.

But places like this that seemed unspoiled and serene now could have harbored dangerous men throughout the ages, creating a perilous situation for any who passed through the area. Or clans who fought with one another, and if her envisioned chief's daughter had been from the enemy clan, she'd be in deadly trouble.

She patted her pocket where the script map, a hasty sketch that her grandfather had drawn from memory and given her,
had
been. She'd taken it out and left it back at the cottage, in case she was detained for trespassing and searched. What would they make of the map? Maybe that she knew where the secret entrance was and planned to break in. That's why she'd left it back at the cottage.

Only now she couldn't remember exactly where her grandfather had thought the entrance was. She stalked toward the castle walls to get her bearing but kept to the woods. At the easternmost corner tower, she would skirt around it to the eastern wall. Somewhere along there at the edge of the woods the hidden entrance was located.

Like the mob of curly, white sheep suddenly appearing before Maria and her on the road, the castle unexpectedly loomed across a moat through the screen of trees in which she now stood. Her jaw dropped. The golden sandstone castle walls and the castle inside were spectacular, overwhelming, and impressive, the very tops of the towers disappearing into the fog and giving the illusion they reached for the very heavens.

She glanced to the east, saw the round easternmost tower, and headed deeper into the woods to stay out of sight. But when she finally reached the area along the eastern wall, she could find no sign of a secret entrance. Maybe as a wolf she could locate it with her nose to the ground, smelling any traces of human wanderings or, better than that, any hint of an underground tunnel system by the cooler air seeping out of the edges of a trapdoor or the dampness within an earthen dwelling by its cavelike musty smell. The other option was locating the postern gate, or back door to the castle—the one that had been used by pedestrians or tradesmen and was located on the south side. If she could discover it, that might be an easier way to enter.

Even if she'd had a written invitation to explore every square inch of the castle—which she didn't and knew wasn't forthcoming—she felt driven to find a more covert way in. She imagined that was due to her innate sense of adventure, her family's ties to the land, and her unconquerable imagination, which dreamed up worlds of romance, mystery, suspense, and adventure.

This
was
the ultimate adventure.

Truth be told, no way was she going to get an invitation inside the castle. Beyond that, no one would give her blanket permission to search for the hidden cache her family left there centuries earlier.

With her heart beating hard from the exercise and her rush to avoid being caught if someone
was
hiking through the forest, she traversed the area, back and forth, searching, looking for any sign of something out of place, an indication that a hidden entrance into the castle was here somewhere. If she could find the secret entrance, and it was still a viable way into the tunnels underneath the moat and castle walls, she'd have a better chance at exploring the place without detection. She thought.

Listening for sounds of humans in the vicinity, she still heard none.

She sighed. Time to shape-shift because she'd never get anywhere with her search as a human. She stripped off her clothes, buried them as best she could under leaves and pine needles, welcomed the heat that pervaded every tissue as the change took place, and in a couple of heartbeats, she shifted, the motion fluid, fast, and painless.

As a human, she felt comfortable in the woods; as a wolf, even more so. Except for the worry someone might try to shoot her. But she was lower to the ground and could run faster, and with ears that could twist this way and that, unlike human ears, she could detect where sounds were coming from better. Although in her human form, she still could hear sixteen times better than a human could.

The warm coat of the wolf covered her in fur that not only kept her body heat from escaping but also had long guard hairs that kept the moist air from penetrating. Her wolf's coat was lighter because it was summer and she'd shed her winter coat already, but if she were to stay in these colder temperatures, her coat would grow thicker to accommodate the weather in Scotland.

Nose to the ground, she sniffed the area, wanting to search every square inch of land and find the secret trapdoor, if there was still one, that would lead through underground tunnels and hidden passageways into the keep. To her frustration, she'd searched for probably a good hour and a half and was almost ready to give up. Not wanting to worry Maria, Julia intended to head back to the cottage so she could accompany her and the rest of the staff to meet with the MacNeills.

But first, she wanted to do one last thing—get a look at where the postern gate was located around the rear of the castle. Was it still a viable entrance? Used still? Less fortified and not half as secure as the tower gate in front of the castle? Or was it blocked or, worse, walled up?

Running through the forest still on all four paws, she remained hidden in the shelter of the aspen and Scots pine. She had just made the turn at the southeastern tower when she saw movement on top of the curtain wall. A man had been looking out at the woods with no particular focus, as if admiring the beauty of the forest, but now he quickly shifted his gaze to her.

Ian MacNeill
. He was dressed in brown trousers and an ivory polo shirt. He couldn't see her, she didn't think. Not from the height he was at. Not from the distance to the trees. Not with the forest providing a leafy canopy. Or the mist that continued to drape the area in ghostly overtones.

Yet his eyes focused directly on her, his gaze looking straight into hers as if he could see her. Not only her, though, but her eyes, as he locked onto her gaze. But he couldn't see her. She swore he couldn't. Or maybe that was wishful thinking.
Caught
in the act.

He stood so still, gazing so long at her—his lips parted as if he was surprised, every muscle in his body filling with tension, his hands clenched into fists on top of the curtain wall—that she worried he did see her. That he didn't want to scare her away, but that if he could, he'd call up the cavalry and order them to hunt her down.

She didn't dare move, just in case the movement might verify that she was here, although no matter how much she considered that he seemed to see her, she knew he couldn't. It just wasn't physically possible.

But then she reconsidered. He was a wolf. And if she could see him…
damn
.

“Ian, we got a call.” A man hollered to him from a long way off, his voice dark and gruff, but Ian didn't break his eye contact with her. She thought it was Duncan's voice. “The producer and some of his staff are on their way.”

Julia's breathing suspended. She had to get back, rejoin Maria, and go with her as she and some of the film staff sought audience with the man she was now eyeing. Maria would worry about her—think she'd been caught—that she was in trouble. She had to get back.

But she stood mesmerized as she stared at Ian. His dark hair fluttered in the breeze, his face sculpted in chiseled granite, his jaw taut, and the faint outline of his muscles appearing beneath the shirt that was growing damp in the wet weather. He didn't move from the spot where he was standing, eyeing her with—well, she couldn't tell. Surprise, probably. Annoyance, maybe. A wolf in these woods.
His
woods. Did he realize it was her?

“Ian! Did you hear me?” the other man shouted again.

Ian's lips turned up slightly. That faint curve of his lips did her in. He had to know it was her. “I'm here, Duncan.” Ian spoke just as darkly, but his words were softer, more dangerous, and quieter, as if he was afraid he'd scare her away. And he didn't want to chase her away, she assumed. He wanted to hunt her down.

She thought he might briefly turn to acknowledge Duncan, but Ian wouldn't release her gaze, and she couldn't wait, in the event he did tell his younger brother to send hunters to locate her. Plus, she was supposed to be with the film crew who were to meet him soon. Had she taken longer in her search than she had anticipated? Maybe it had been two hours already. She bolted for where she'd left her clothes, intending to shape-shift and then head to the cottage where she hoped Maria still waited for her.

The wind in her fur, and the smell of the cold, misty air and of deer and a fox, made her take in another deep breath. Something intrinsically heavenly about the Highland woodlands appealed to the wolf side of her and to her Scottish roots. The moors, the lakes, the rivers, the waterfalls, the fields of purple heather, and the mountains. The castle, too. It was the place of romance and Highland hunks, just like Ian, who had captured her with his gaze as if he could hold her hostage there forever.

Too bad he could only be a fantasy character in her werewolf romance tales.

Before she reached her clothes, she heard something snap in the woods and stopped dead, her heart thundering as she swung her head around, listening and looking for anyone or anything that might be out here.

Movement in the trees—two men. The two men who had been at the airport. The fairer one who had taken their first rental car. The other, the dark-haired man who had been watching her with too much interest. Too much of a coincidence that they'd be here now. Too much of a coincidence that they were here together.

Were they Ian's men? Or someone else's men? Maybe whoever was responsible for Maria's car accident?

She dashed away, hoping she'd lose them before it was too late.

***

If Ian MacNeill hadn't seen the red wolf with his own eyes, despite the mist surrounding her and making her appear almost ghostly, he would have thought she was a figment of his own very vivid imagination. Even so, he couldn't help watching her, waiting for her to move, to prove to him she was real and not some ethereal wolf from the past. He'd seen them before. Wolves, no longer really here. Ghosts of the past. Wolves with a history. Not
lupus garous
, but real wolves.

But red wolves had never lived in the area. Grays, yes, the last killed off in the seventeenth or eighteenth century, depending on the source. Red wolves, no. He'd never even seen one before. And red
lupus garous
? Possible, although he had never met one. Was it Julia? Or someone else from the film crew?

Despite telling himself Julia was a
lupus garou
and that wasn't any big deal, he recognized that she wasn't like any female wolf he'd ever known. She fascinated him, by both her actions and her reactions to him. He'd never been so caught up in wanting to know more about a woman. A woman with secrets. With a name that wasn't her own. And with a job that wasn't truly hers?

If the wolf was the woman, her ankle was faring better. But what was she doing roaming around his lands? Out sightseeing? When he'd said in no uncertain terms that no one was allowed to. Newly turned and had to shape-shift quickly?
That
was a dangerous proposition, and she shouldn't be here in unfamiliar woods, risking detection. Or here on this job, period.