A Highland Werewolf Wedding (Heart of the Wolf #11)

“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.

“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.

Chapter 5

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.