Hero of a Highland Wolf

  Calla said, “Cearnach rescued me from a bad mating and marriage. The one wolf we faced out there still thinks he can get me to change my mind.”

  Elaine said, “Some of the others were my cousins. The lot of them. True pirates. The bad kind.”

  “And one other,” Julia said. “I’m certain if Grant had known, he would have torn after him himself. Well, he’ll be highly pissed as soon as Ian tells him who he was.”

  “Who was he?” Colleen asked.

  “Archibald Borthwick. Friend of your father and no friend of Grant’s.”

  ***

  Grant knew about Calla’s former fiancé and how Cearnach wanted to save her from a bad mating, and did. But he was surprised that the ex-fiancé continued to stalk her.

  “We’ll get them,” Ian said. “This is the first we’ve seen of them since the big fight where several of Elaine’s cousins were injured. But what I don’t understand is why Archibald Borthwick was with them.”

  Grant’s blood turned to ice. “Archibald?”

  “Aye. He’s as much a pirate as the rest of the men, only he attempts theft in a different way. Word has it he’s got some notion he might still have a chance at running things at Farraige Castle,” Ian said with a knowing glint in his eye. He knew that Grant wouldn’t let the bastard get near Colleen in any way, shape, or form now that they were mated.

  “Why the hell were they here?” Grant asked, though he realized that Colleen had told him where she would be for the night, so he knew she was here.

  “I imagine they’re after the same thing—Baird McKinley still wants Calla, and Archibald has some notion he has a chance with Colleen. Things didn’t work out between Archibald and her father, but maybe he thinks mating her will even work better in his attempt to get his hands on Farraige Castle,” Ian said.

  “Like hell he will,” Grant growled. He would kill the bastard if he thought to lay a hand on his mate.

  “I doubt he knows you’ve mated her yet. I’d make it known in a grand wedding soon,” Ian said.

  Grant intended to do just that.

  Guthrie said, “Just don’t let Calla plan the wedding. It will cost the clan a fortune.”

  Ian smiled. “I have a task for you, Guthrie.”

  His brother frowned at him.

  “Now, don’t get all negative on me. Calla’s been staying with friends—not even her own relatives—attempting to keep a low profile while Baird is still harassing her. I want her to stay here with us. She won’t agree to it. Cearnach has been more of a friend to her than any of us, but even he couldn’t persuade her. She insists Baird won’t make her hide away. She has her party-planning jobs to do.”

  “Aye, I understand how she feels,” Guthrie said warily. “What has this got to do with me?”

  “Julia’s asked if she would stay, but she’s given her the same song and dance.”

  Now Guthrie was grinding his teeth. “You can’t think I’d ask her to. What if she planned parties for every day that she stays here?”

  “She hung your shorts on the pirate’s pole. I never would have thought she’d do such a thing.” Ian smiled. “I want you to ask her to stay.”

  “Ian…”

  “That’s all, Guthrie. Just ask her to stay with us for her own protection. You don’t have to do any more than that.”

  “Aye,” Guthrie said, “but what if she sees more in my asking her to stay than I mean for her to see?”

  Ian chuckled. “You can do it. Just get her to agree.”

  “If Colleen decides she wants to use Calla’s wedding planner services, the lass can stay with us until the wedding’s done,” Grant offered.

  Guthrie sighed audibly.

  “But she’s staying with us after that, Guthrie,” Ian said. “You will make it happen.”

  Grant bit back a smile. If he could deal with Colleen, who he’d thought would be the bane of his existence, and turn the situation into one that he could live with as one happy wolf for the rest of his life, maybe Guthrie’s ordeal would turn out just as well.

  He saw the way Guthrie scowled.

  Maybe not.

  Chapter 20

  Colleen wasn’t ready to take this anywhere yet. She’d mated with Grant, sure. But she had never had a wedding and had never expected to have one. It was all so sudden and…nothing she’d ever given any consideration to.

  But the ladies were excited about the prospect, and everyone was asking her a million questions and offering a million suggestions. Before she even had a chance to answer all the questions.

  “Be right back,” Calla said. “I’ve got to get my laptop and I’ll show you some wedding ideas.”

  “I’ll go with you,” Heather said, “in case the guys try to take you hostage or anything. You know how that turned out last time.”

  They looked at Colleen, and she felt herself blushing all over again. Here she was, supposed to be having an all-ladies’ gathering, and she ends up mated to a very sexy he-wolf. That had to be some kind of record.

  She wondered if Calla had hoped she would have better luck if she went alone. Maybe catch Guthrie’s eye, after having stolen his underwear from his drawer and claimed him on the pirate’s pole. Colleen had been so busy meeting everyone that she hadn’t noticed if Guthrie returned the interest, even though Calla insisted she only grabbed Guthrie’s underwear so he wouldn’t feel left out.

  “What does everyone’s schedule look like?” Julia asked, beaming. “We have a wedding to attend.”

  ***

  Grant was still trying to figure out a way to coax Colleen away from her slumber party to sleep with him tonight. He shouldn’t have been so possessive and needy, but she was his mate and he wanted her with him on their first night.

  They heard the back door open and then Calla say, “Okay, Heather, I’ve got fabric samples and wedding books in my car. Who would have thought our first-ever ladies’ night would turn into a wedding-planning event?”

  Grant smiled, then left the men in the living room when Ian said, “Go, Guthrie. Ask her to stay with us afterward.”

  Guthrie muttered something under his breath about lassies and money and how the two soon parted company.

  Grant smiled, then saw the lasses near the foyer. “Can I have a word with you, Calla?”

  She smiled at him, albeit her expression was a bit wary. “Aye.”

  “Guthrie and I can help you with whatever you need to bring in,” Grant said.

  Calla glanced in Guthrie’s direction and arched a brow.

  He folded his arms. “Aye.”

  “Thanks.” She and Heather headed outside.

  “If you would like,” Grant said, catching up to her, “you can stay with us at Farraige Castle to make all the plans.”

  “I would like that,” Calla said. “Makes it much easier to plan the event.”

  Grant glanced at Guthrie, who wasn’t saying anything. Grant swore that if Guthrie had pockets in his kilt, he would have his hands shoved in them. Grant tilted his head to the side, silently appealing to him to ask Calla to stay at Argent Castle after the wedding was concluded.

  Looking mutinous, Guthrie didn’t say a word.

  When they reached Calla’s car, she handed Guthrie a heavy catalog of fabrics. “Since you are so braw and gallant, you can carry the heaviest of the items.”

  He grunted.

  She smiled, then turned and fished out a couple of bags for Grant to carry, another book for Heather, and her laptop. Once she’d emptied her trunk, they walked back to the keep. Grant cast Guthrie another look, telling him there was no time like the present. Ask already.

  Guthrie scowled back at him, then cleared his throat.

  Everyone looked at him expectantly.

  Guthrie said, “Ian wants you to stay here after the wedding.”

  Grant rolled his eye
s. That hadn’t worked before, and he was certain it wouldn’t work now.

  “I’ve told him and Julia no,” Calla said.

  Grant had been right.

  “It’s not safe out there with Baird stalking you everywhere you go. You were lucky tonight that we came to your rescue, but…” Guthrie continued.

  “Aye, and I thank you. I’m not going to hide away from place to place, not doing my job because Baird and his brothers and cousins are harassing me. I won’t.”

  They walked in silence for some time. Grant really thought the lass would go along with it because he suspected she did have a fondness for Guthrie.

  “Unless…” Calla said and paused dramatically.

  Everyone looked over at Calla, waiting for the rest of what she had to say.

  “Julia wants me to plan a Christmas party at Argent Castle.”

  Guthrie groaned out loud. Grant could just imagine Guthrie thinking about the expenditures for such a venture.

  Calla smiled. “I’m not saying she will. She hasn’t asked, but if she does, maybe while I’m planning the affair, I can stay here for a while.”

  “Christmas is too far away,” Guthrie said.

  Grant was surprised he said so as they made their way around the keep to the gardens out back.

  “Okay, then here’s the deal. If I stay, I have to be allowed to leave anytime I want,” Calla said. “I know Ian, and he’ll want to keep me confined within these walls until Baird no longer has an interest in harassing me.”

  Guthrie said nothing. Grant couldn’t speak for Ian, or he would have said it was a deal.

  “So the only way this will work to satisfy Ian’s need to keep me safe and my need to do my job is if you will accompany me everywhere I go.”

  “I have a job to do,” Guthrie said quickly.

  Calla frowned at him. “Aye, as do I. My terms are nonnegotiable. I don’t mean for you personally to have to escort me everywhere, but as in you—your kinsmen.”

  Looking vastly relieved, Guthrie nodded. “Ian can send out others to guard you, and that should be perfectly acceptable to him.”

  She pondered that and then said, “Agreed.”

  Grant breathed a sigh of relief. He wasn’t even involved in the matter, but he did care about Calla’s safety.

  “But…” she said.

  Grant wanted to shake his head. The terms were agreed upon. The lass couldn’t already be changing her mind.

  “That’s only if Julia asks me to plan a Christmas party for her.”

  Guthrie didn’t look happy about that. Would he tell Julia that? Encourage her to have a party when it went against every financial bone in his body?

  Grant wondered which way it would go.

  Calla changed the subject abruptly and said to Grant, “Since Archibald Borthwick was here tonight, it made me think about him and Colleen, and I thought you should know this. He wasn’t at my wedding as friend of the groom but only because he was trying to learn when Colleen Playfair was coming to Scotland and forgot the time. I didn’t think anything of it because I didn’t know his connection to Colleen. I thought he was an old friend of the family.”

  “Hardly,” Grant said, although Archibald might claim to have been a friend of Theodore Playfair.

  “Baird had said, by rights, the castle should have been Archibald’s.”

  So Archibald had told Baird this tale, too. “How did he figure that?” Grant asked as he opened the gate to the garden path that led to the garden room. They could hear the ladies all laughing and having a good time of it. He wanted to know what they were talking about that was so funny.

  “You know how men are. They were drinking, boasting, and making wild claims. I had no idea what they meant by it. I didn’t even know if they were talking about Farraige Castle. I thought that Archibald was friends with Colleen, though. She said she’d never met the man before she came here. So that had me wondering what was going on.”

  “Aye. He’s like a leech, looking for a free meal ticket. So did you gather anything from what Baird and Archibald said that might give you a reason why he thought he should own the castle?”

  Calla sighed deeply. “His grandfather Uilleam Borthwick had been the manager—and that was one of the reasons. The other was that Uilleam had shown interest in Colleen’s grandmother when her grandfather died. He had every intention of mating her.”

  “What?”

  Neda had never once mentioned, nor had his own father, that Uilleam had not only managed the estate but intended to mate Neda. Grant didn’t believe it.

  “According to Archibald, his grandfather had been the manager. He said that Uilleam was successfully courting Neda Playfair at the time. And that it was only a matter of time before she would agree to a mating. But he said that John MacQuarrie, their scribe, lied to her, saying Uilleam was crooked. Uilleam was fired. Worse, your grandfather took over and managed the estates. Until Uilleam murdered him.”

  Grant couldn’t believe it. Yet, if it was true, it made some sense. All these years he’d thought his family had managed the keep since it was built. Now he was learning that Archibald’s grandfather had been taking care of the property from the beginning. But still, Archibald could be lying, trying to say that Grant’s family had been the cause of all the trouble in the beginning.

  “So if Uilleam had mated with her, he wouldn’t have had to worry about cheating on the accounts because he would have controlled them,” Grant said, “if this isn’t one big lie.”

  “Aye. Agreed. If it’s true, though… What if he did love Neda Playfair? Maybe it wasn’t all about the money and properties. But once she turned on him, he was bitter and took his revenge out on your grandfather for telling on him and then getting his position.”

  Grant could see that. Not that he thought Uilleam loved Neda, but that he was so close to having everything—not just as the property manager, but as the owner while Neda was his mate.

  “My grandfather must have had enough proof to sway her, or she wouldn’t have believed Uilleam was cheating her.”

  “She might have also suspected something wasn’t right. Women’s instincts,” Calla said.

  And that was probably the reason why Archibald’s father had tried so hard to get back all that the Borthwick line had lost because of the mistake his father had made.

  ***

  The fire was still going in the garden room, making the room cozy, and the women’s sweet scents wafted in the air. It was in the wee hours of the morning that all the ladies had finally stopped talking. Colleen stared up at the roof made of skylights that showed off a gray, cloudy night, no sign of stars or the moon. The garden room had cool stone towers that mimicked the castle’s at the four corners of the curtain wall. She was considering making such a place at Farraige Castle for her people to enjoy. She smiled at the notion that the pack was indeed hers, and that they were not just living on her property.

  She heard a pebble hit one of the floor-to-ceiling glass windows and turned her head. Julia and Heather had shut the soft green shades over the windows to make the room more private earlier that day. So they couldn’t see who was bothering them now.

  Julia groaned. “They should know better than to disturb us,” she grumbled under her breath.

  Colleen smiled. Julia needed her nine hours of sleep to be able to deal with life the next day. Colleen watched as Julia opened the garden room door just a crack. “Grant,” she said, feigning annoyance. “I should have known. This is an all-girls’ slumber party, you know.”

  “Can I speak with Colleen for just a minute?” Grant asked, sounding as if he was attempting to appease her, but Colleen heard the hint of aggressiveness in his voice that said if Julia wasn’t agreeable, he’d barge right in and have his way anyway.

  Colleen loved him for it.

  “To give her a good-night’s kiss and that’s it,
right?” Julia asked, as if she was responsible for every member of her pirate crew, and she wanted to ensure the terms were agreeable.

  “Aye,” he said with a smile in his voice.

  Colleen draped her blanket around her like a shawl and got off the couch to get her kiss. She wondered how many of the ladies were awake and ready to watch the show.

  But when she passed Julia, who was already returning to her made-up bed, Colleen didn’t expect Grant’s quick action. Still only wearing his kilt, he grabbed her up. She squealed, and he hurried back to the castle with her.

  The door to the garden room shut, and she heard no one coming after her to rescue her. So much for her pirate comrades-in-arms.

  “A kiss, you said,” Colleen told Grant, wrapping her arms around his neck as he smiled down at her.

  “Aye, a kiss.”

  “And nothing more. That is it.”

  “You will demand more of me, I’m sure. It won’t be my fault that I don’t return you to the garden room for the rest of the night.”

  “Does anyone else know that you came for me?”

  He chuckled. “They would think me a beastly sort if I didn’t rescue my bonny mate from the clutches of those wayward wenches.”

  “And have your way with me.”

  “Aye.”

  She laughed. She never thought having her first ladies’ night out in Scotland could end like this.

  He’d barely carried her to a guest chamber and set her down before he showered her with hard, lingering kisses, as if the hours they had been apart had been too much, his hands on her shoulders, holding her close.

  And she adored him.

  “You can’t do this at every ladies’ night party I have,” she said, the blanket she’d covered herself with slipping off her shoulders.

  “Hmm,” was all he said as he quickly divested her of her red heart-patterned flannel pajama top and tossed it on the floor. Her matching pajama bottoms soon joined it.