Hero of a Highland Wolf (18 page)

“I believe I might have been a wee bit hasty,” Grant had to admit.

They heard loud music beating outside.

They all looked in the direction of the gardens and laughed. Grant knew Ian and his family had every intention of crashing the ladies' pirate party with tricks of their own. He was glad he'd caught up to her on the road and come along for the ride.

Colleen had needed this—to reconnect with Julia after all this time and to make new friends here with Julia's new relatives. She couldn't believe that Julia had actually married, as had Shelley and Elaine, when their wolf kind normally just mated and it was a done deal for life.

Ian had a title, Julia had explained. To pass down to their offspring.

Colleen wore a white peasant's blouse, a beautifully embroidered red corset, and a navy blue full-length skirt as the music blared and a fire pit glowed with red-orange flames. They danced on the stone floor that had been cleared of the sofas and dining table, having the time of their lives.

Though Colleen had wanted to speak with her friend privately, she figured she'd find the time since she was going to be here all night.

“Did you see the looks on their faces?” Calla asked, taking Colleen's hand and swinging her around on the floor.

If Colleen ever had to marry, and that was something she'd never considered before, she wanted Calla to plan it for her.

“Oh, aye,” Lady Mae—Ian's mother—said, all smiles. “I don't think I have ever seen my sons want to learn more about what we were up to than I did today. They are dying of curiosity.”

“So when do we decorate our flagpole?” Elaine asked.

She was the only one of the women actually descended from pirates, though she insisted that her uncles were privateers, therefore they were commissioned to do the job. But still, the rest of her family were out-and-out pirates, and that fascinated Colleen.

“Let's do it now,” Julia said. “Before we really start celebrating and forget to! You did bring a pair of Grant's and Enrick's, didn't you, Colleen?”

“Yes. Luckily, Grant was staying in a guest chamber so I was able to search for the perfect pair.” Colleen held up a pair of blue plaid boxers. She was glad the guys didn't know about this and weren't planning to get back at the women. “Thankfully, Grant had already taken some with him to the other room or he would have wondered why I was rummaging through his underwear. Enrick had already left his room this morning before I grabbed a pair of his.”

The ladies laughed.

“Good. We suspected Grant would follow you here sometime today. We didn't want him to feel left out.” Julia waved a pair of red, white, and blue striped briefs she'd gotten for Ian. “I claimed him for America even if he remains in Scotland.”

“Does he wear them?” Colleen asked.

“Oh, yes. He's great at trying to please me.”

Colleen loved him already.

Shelley twirled a pair of black, active mesh boxers. “Duncan likes black.”

“On you,” Elaine teased. She stretched out a pair of boxers—white, semitransparent. “Love these on Cearnach.”

Colleen hadn't expected Ian's mother to have snatched anyone's underwear. She was widowed. But she shook out a pair of longhorn-steer-decorated boxers. “Shelley's Uncle Ethan's.”

Grinning, everyone clapped.

Calla showed off a pair of black briefs for Guthrie. “I didn't want him to feel left out. I figured he'd have boxers with dollar signs all over them.”

“They would have cost too much,” Julia teased. “He's in charge of the purse strings, Colleen. Even for this affair, he was fussing. It's coming out of my book sales, so I told him to think of it as a promotional party. He grumbled that I wouldn't be selling my books to any of you but giving them away free.”

Colleen laughed. She slipped her hand in her bag and pulled out another pair of briefs, this pair red. “Hot, eh, Heather? I don't know how I'm going to explain how I was in Enrick's underwear drawer when I return to Farraige Castle.”

“Thanks, Colleen,” Heather said, beaming.

Colleen wanted to ask if Heather had an interest in Enrick. She must or Julia wouldn't have asked her to grab a pair of
his
briefs.

Everyone turned to Aunt Agnes. She smiled brightly and spread her hands. “Not me. No love interest and I certainly don't want to snag any man's trunks just to say I did it.”

Julia dug in a bag and pulled out a pair of hot chili pepper boxers. She tossed them to her aunt and said, “Shelley's Uncle Jasper will do.”

Aunt Agnes caught the boxers and frowned. “I don't want him thinking I stole his boxers,” she said with a sniff, holding them far away from her as if she might catch something while she stared at the flaming-hot chili peppers imprinted on them.

“Are we ready to hang them on the pole, ladies?” Julia asked, heading for the door.

“Aye, aye, captain!” the women all shouted.

Colleen laughed. She had missed these parties with Julia and her girlfriends, but this wasn't anything like she'd experienced.

They headed outside into the cool mist and stood before the flagpole as Julia pronounced the pirates' claim to the men's underwear and then proceeded to attach them to the pole as if they were flags blowing in the chilly breeze.

“We need to starch them so they stiffen,” Heather said.

The ladies all laughed and Heather blushed. “You have dirty minds.”

They all laughed again.

“What's next?” Elaine asked.

“Pizzas!” Calla said. “They should be arriving any moment.”

“Everyone armed and ready?” Julia asked, just for the authenticity.

“Aye,” everyone said.

Colleen suspected Julia intended to put this in a story someday. Julia had even given Colleen a sword, though she thought it was one of the lads' practice swords, as dull and lightweight as it was.

They headed into the castle, armed and ready to confront anyone who thought to give them trouble, and saw the men with the boxes of pizza, looking as though the treasure was theirs and they weren't eager to give it up. The whole lot of them wore smug smiles.

Ian gave Julia a challenging look. “We paid for the booty. You want it, you'll have to fight for it or win it.”

Ian and his brothers, Grant, and two older men who must have been Shelley's uncles Ethan and Jasper smiled back at the ladies, not appearing interested in handing over the food.

“Don't think to spoil our party,” Julia said with a threat in her voice, though Colleen knew it was all playacting.

“We plan to make it more to your liking. Either you order your own pizza, in which case we might confiscate it as well when the
ship
comes in, or you include us in your game,” Ian said.

“You don't mess with pirates unless you are willing to pay the price,” Elaine said, brandishing her sword—in reality, Cearnach's sword of his youth.

The women agreed. The men laughed.

But they appeared to be at a standoff.

“All right, our pizza's getting cold. So what do you suggest?” Julia said.

“A three-legged race. Men against the women,” Uncle Ethan said.

“You're taller and could outdistance us,” Ian's mother said.

“A sword fight,” Duncan said.

Both the men and the women looked at him like he was crazy.

“Bobbing for apples,” Colleen said. She was the champion apple bobber in her county. And Julia was just as good at it. Surely some of the other ladies would do as well. Hopefully, Ian and the rest of the men wouldn't.

“A seaworthy challenge,” Julia declared.

The men got a big plastic tub, filled it with water and apples outside on the stone patio, and the game was on. Julia went first, as alpha pack leader at Argent Castle. She pulled two apples out before Ian told her she had enough. She grabbed two of the boxes of pizza.

Ian went next, and no matter how hard he tried, he could not grasp a bobbing apple with his teeth. His shirt and face wet, he finally conceded.

“You will not put this in a book of yours,” he warned Julia. Her smile said that's just what she'd do.

Colleen was next as owner of Farraige Castle and grabbed three apples before Grant said, “Enough. Show-off.”

Everyone laughed. Grant did not look happy about trying this new venture, and he did as poorly as Ian. No one else was able to fish out any apples, though everyone laughed hard enough about it.

Uncle Ethan eyed the apples that Julia and Colleen had managed to snag and said, “They had the longest stems of any of them.”

“No, they didn't, Uncle Ethan,” Shelley said. Using her hands, she pulled out two from the water and showed the stems on those.

The ladies grabbed their boxes of pizzas and in sashaying, pirate lady fashion, they headed outside with their booty.

“Brilliant idea,” Julia said. “I never even considered that.”

“I remember how we played that at fall festivals and how good we were. Glad we trounced them,” Colleen said, having so much fun that she never wanted this to end.

When they crossed through the garden and reached the gazebo, they stared at their pirate's flagpole. All the men's underwear were gone, and in their place hung colorful silk and lace bras.

“When…who…?” Elaine said.

They sniffed at them.

“Seems all of them at one time or another grabbed our things,” Colleen said. “When we were so busy watching the next player, one of the men must have slipped out to grab a bra and attach it to the pole.”

The ladies laughed and hurried to take down their bras.

Colleen had thought this was strictly going to be a ladies' night adventure. Not anything involving the men. She couldn't believe how the men were playing with them. It was too much fun.

Sitting on the soft moss-green couches that fit together like a meandering stream around the glowing fire pit, the ladies ate slices of pizza and sipped merlot.

They shared stories of how they met their mates. Julia's mother-in-law talked about how impossible Uncle Ethan was, though Colleen noted the way Lady Mae talked about him in an annoyed, but endearing way, and Heather described who her dream man would be. Colleen wasn't certain if she was talking about Enrick or not. Aunt Agnes was mum. And Calla talked about how Guthrie MacNeill was the most irritating man who held the purse strings for the clan.

Colleen thought Calla sounded like she had the hots for him.

Julia began telling how she and Colleen had met on the run as wolves and became best friends. “I was about ten years old, off exploring without any pack members, and had caught Colleen's scent. I was curious who she was. Then I encountered a mother bear and her cubs. My fault, really. I smelled signs of them but didn't heed the warning. I was too interested in learning who the strange she-wolf was crossing our territory.

“She could have been all wolf and not
lupus
garou
, for all I knew. But I was always on the lookout for a wolf cub my age. Then I got curious about the bears. Nearly a fatal mistake on my part,” Julia said. “Colleen came to my rescue when she heard me snarling and growling and barking in a startled ‘I'm going to get myself killed' way.”

Colleen shook her head. “You and me both.”

“What did you do?” Heather asked, wide-eyed.

“All that we could do. We kept going in different directions. With two of us, the mother bear was afraid we might attack her cubs. We finally were able to outrun her and spent a couple of hours trying to find each other again,” Colleen said.

“Yeah, best friends forever after that,” Julia said.

Colleen set her wineglass on the coffee table. “I couldn't believe it when you told me you'd come out here to work on a movie, perfect for providing details for your next book, and ended up mating with the pack leader!”

Julia smiled. “Yeah, but I couldn't believe how you picked up your first mate, either.”

Elaine tilted the wine bottle and said, “We're out. We need more for our storytelling.”

“I'll get us a couple more bottles. I know this story,” Colleen said.

“Are you sure?” Julia asked. “It's always a fun story.”

“When you tell it,” Colleen said, smiling.

“I could go with you,” Heather said.

“No, no, that's fine. I'll be really quick.” Colleen didn't want to stop Julia's spiel, but she really didn't want to hear it again, either. She uncurled herself from the couch.

“Her first beta mate had tried hard to approach her at a barn-dance social. The guys had been pushing him all night to cross the floor to ask her to dance. She waited and finally, giving up on him, crossed the floor instead and asked
him
to dance.”

The ladies chuckled.

Smiling, Colleen opened the door to the garden room. Yeah, he was cute and she never regretted taking him for her first mate.

Julia continued with the story, “No one had expected her to become interested in a beta like him. But he was the sweetest guy, and she loved him for it. She nearly gave him a heart attack when she asked him to dance, though.”

Colleen closed the door and headed down the stone path toward the keep. Grant was so different. If he was intrigued with her at that same dance, he would have made his interest known at once, probably elbowing everyone out of the way if they approached her and glowering at anybody who even considered such a move. She wasn't sure if she could have handled a wolf like him way back then. Now? She wasn't certain anybody else would ever measure up to the way she felt about him.

She walked quietly down the moss-covered path, listening to the wind whipping through the trees, her skirt flying, and wondered if she could have an all-girls' party at Farraige Castle—not in quite the same manner, but as a way to get to know the MacQuarrie women better when they returned home.

She watched for any movement outside, figuring her concern was silly. No one would be observing the garden room. The men laughed inside, probably imbibing too much whisky and having their own fun. She slipped inside, not sure why she felt so apprehensive, but her skin crawled with unease, as if any moment something would come out of the dark and give her a heart seizure.

Just as she attempted to tell herself how silly that was, something in the dark touched her arm, and she swallowed a scream. A small light shown from a hallway, and between that and her preternatural wolf sight, she could see her way in the kitchen, but no one was here. She did
not
believe in ghosts, even if a ghostly cousin of Ian's purportedly hassled the lasses in his clan.

She should have allowed Heather to come with her, but she thought that only one person going would be quieter than if more of them went. She could see the men wanting to take the game a little further.

She found the door to the cellar and opened it, then headed down the wooden steps. They creaked with every step she took, sounding as though she was setting off an alarm bell signaling “intruder alert.”

When she reached the stone floor, she hurried to the racks in the far back corner where Heather had picked out the other bottles of merlot.

She was about to grab two bottles when she heard someone coming down the steps. A man's heavy tromping. He wasn't making any effort to hide that he was coming. He could smell that she had just been here, too. Did he think she was still down here? Or maybe he suspected she'd come and gone, and he had missed her. He was probably only here to grab more wine for their own party upstairs.

He approached the wine racks where she stood, and she barely breathed. Carefully, she unsheathed her sword with a soft swish loud enough for any wolf to hear. She hadn't expected that unsheathing her sword would be so noticeable.

A man chuckled.

Grant
. She sighed with relief. Yet her skin still prickled with awareness. Whether he was playing the game or not, she still felt a wolf's wariness, a natural tendency to be on guard. On the other hand, they were alone in the dark, and that had her thinking of kissing and other possibilities, which she swore she was going to ignore this very minute!

“What a delightful scent I smell,” he said, drawing closer, his stride shorter now, his voice seductive, playful, and
very
interested.

She would not let him get her all excited again, not let him melt her with his touches and then leave again.

“I hear your breathing, lassie, and your heart beating out of bounds. The lass isn't stealing the laird's wine, is she?”

She couldn't help it. She smiled. He
was
playing the game still. “Don't come any nearer, Grant,” she ordered, unable to see him yet for all the racks of bottled Chablis, merlot, Riesling, and pinot grigio. Her darn heart was beating even faster now, her blood pounding. The anticipation of his stalking her was killing her.

He laughed, his voice dark and sexy. “You are not in charge of
this
castle. You are a pirate. What should I do with a pirate who is stealing the laird's wine, eh? When he is my best friend?”

She smiled, though she wasn't ready to face Grant, even in play like this. She thought she heard an eagerness, a wolf's determination, and something more that drove him toward her.

“I believe I've found the lassie I want to keep for my own.”

Her jaw dropped. He couldn't be serious. He had to be teasing. Playing the game.

He came around the corner and his dark gaze met hers, then lowered to take in her corset. “I like this style on you. You should play dress-up more often.”

She looked down at the kilt he wore and the fur-covered bag in front of his crotch—the sporran—which made her want to lift it and see if she could get a rise out of him. “Where did you get the kilt?” She loved seeing him in it and couldn't think of a better way for him to perform his part.

His eyes darkened even further with intrigue as he moved in closer.

“I have a spare one and set of clothes in the trunk of my car at all times. Since you lasses wished to be pirate wenches, the men and I donned our kilts to entertain you in the right manner.”

“You…you are still playing the game.”

“Aye, until you ladies are through.”

Okay, so that's what she thought. He didn't
really
mean he wanted to keep her for his own. She could play the game.

“Don't come any closer,” she said, waving the sword at him. She suspected he wasn't going to let that deter him.

“I like your determination, playfulness, and resourcefulness. Next time we bob for apples, I want you on my team.” He moved in closer.

She backed up, bumping into sacks of grain and barely catching herself before she fell on top of them.

“Did you come down here for some wine?” she asked, trying to get him back on task, which shouldn't include stalking after her.

“Nay, lass. I had first lookout.” He drew closer.

“First…lookout?”

“Aye, you see, each of us has vowed to capture any pirate wench who approaches the keep. You were the first. I claim you.” He pressed into her space, forcing her to move her sword ineffectually to the side.

She laughed. “You are too funny, Grant, though I have to say I love your sense of humor.”

“I'm serious,” he said, his voice rough with need, his hands on her shoulders, caressing, endearing. He wasn't playing now. No teasing light in his eyes. He was all business, his eyes dark with desire. “You can't tease me by looking like you do, stealing my trunks in a way that's tantamount to saying you have claimed me, lass, displaying them for the whole of Ian's pack to see, and then say it is all pretend. You are not pretend. You are real. The way your heart beats when I am near, and mine beats just as rapidly, the way your scent changes, telling me you want me like I want you—this is real.”

She smiled up at him, unsure what to say. She was normally not tongue-tied. But around Grant like this, with his close proximity, the way his musky male wolf scent tantalized her, the way he looked at her as if she was sex in a risqué costume, her emotions swept her away. Yes, she'd been mated twice before, and those had been agreeable matings, but she hadn't felt the same for them as she did for Grant. A raging torrent of emotions—of lust and longing and sexual arousal—unbalanced her, making her feel as though she needed a safety line. And someone to tell her if this kind of a relationship was healthy and would work out for a very long
lupus
garou
's lifetime.

Yet could she walk out on him today, give up on him and the castle, and turn over her inheritance to her cousins? Could she stay here a whole year and a day, and be just the owner of the castle, while he served as her manager? And get over the physical attraction to him that had her wanting so much more?

She knew she couldn't. She'd thought about what Archibald had said, but she didn't believe him. Grant's grandfather and parents had been murdered. His people had worried that Grant and his brothers were next. Archibald had to have lied to attempt to cause dissention between her and Grant.

Her heart was beating like a she-wolf who was caught, tested, and forced to tell the truth. Yet she couldn't say it. What if she was wrong about Grant and her being right for each other?

Or what if she was still fantasizing about
them
, and he was just playing with her—as part of the game?

“Why did you really leave this morning and come here?” he asked, his tone of voice gentle, coaxing, but he wouldn't let her go, wouldn't step back out of her space. He was forcing her to hear his own rapid heartbeat, the smell of his arousal, and the feel of his heated body.

“To see Julia.” That was true. She had to see her and bounce her thoughts off her friend as they had always done. How could Julia have mated Ian without talking it through with Colleen first? Yet she hadn't wanted to talk to Julia with the other ladies present, and she hadn't believed Grant would end up here, too.

“About?” Grant asked, his hands cupping her face, his thumbs caressing her cheeks, his gaze locked on hers, alpha to alpha.

You.
Colleen took a deep breath. No, not about him. But about… “Us.”

“You and me?” he asked, his eyes misty with sexual craving.

“Yes, if you must know.”

He grinned. “Aye, lass. That was all I wanted to know.”

He leaned down to kiss her, but she stopped him, her hands on his shoulders. “That's it? What if I was going to tell her that…well, that…”

“You were going to tell her that we have a need for each other that we can't quench. A wolf's need. You know how it is for our kind. We find the right one, and that's it for us,” he said, serious as could be, still eyeing her with determination. He wasn't going to back down.

“But…”

“Your other two mates were betas.”

She frowned up at him. He had been checking up on her?

“Aye, you adored them. You were saddened to see them go. You pined for years after each of them died. But what you had with them was not the same as what we have between us.”

“That's what's wrong,” she said, her hands slipping to his back, her eyes averting to his gloriously muscled chest.

“Nay, not wrong.” He lifted her chin and kissed her forehead. “You do not have the luxury of brushing me aside and saying that because I wasn't like your other mates, I'm wrong for you. They were good for you when you needed them. But now you need…”