Heart of the Highland Wolf
Chapter 1
The ghostly fog made Julia feel as though she had slipped into the primordial past. She couldn’t believe she’d made it to the Highlands of Scotland where a castle beckoned, filled with secrets, intrigue, and hunky Scots—with any luck. Hopefully, none of them would learn why she was really here and put a stop to it.
Nothing would dampen her enthusiasm as she and her friend Maria Baquero headed for Baird Cottage, within hiking distance of Argent Castle—and the end of her writer’s block.
At least, that was the plan.
After flight delays and missed luggage, they’d had trouble getting their rental car at Inverness Airport—following a mix-up when a Scotsman declared their car was his. Another man had creeped Julia out when she realized he was watching them, and she’d felt apprehensive at the way his thin lips hadn’t hinted at a bit of friendliness. But then she dismissed him as she and Maria finally set off in late afternoon with Maria driving the rented Fiat into the deepening fog.
The laird of Argent Castle, Ian MacNeill, had been a royal pain to deal with concerning filming the movie at his castle. Luckily, as assistant director, only Maria had to do business with him. Pretending to be Maria’s assistant, Julia was to watch from the sidelines and take notes. But not for the film production. For her breakout novel. Julia Wildthorn was one of the United States’ most successful werewolf romance novelists and the only one, she was sure, who had ever suffered a writer’s block like this one.
Dense fog obscured the curving road as it ran through rocky land on either side. Pine trees in the distance faded into the thickening soup, which offered glimpses of quaint dry-stone dykes that must have stood for centuries, snaking across the land and dividing someone’s property from another’s.
Despite Julia’s enhanced wolf vision, she couldn’t see any better than a human in the soup.
Eyes widening, she caught sight of something running in the woods. Something gray. Something that looked a lot like a wolf and then melted into the fog like a phantom.
Heartbeat ratchetting up several notches, she tried to catch another glimpse, her hand tightening on the door’s armrest as she peered out the window, her nose almost touching the glass. “Did you see anything?” she asked Maria, her voice tight.
Maria gave her a disgruntled snort. “In this fog? I can barely see the road. What did you think you saw?”
“A… wolf.” Julia strained to get another glimpse of what she’d seen. “But it couldn’t have been. Wolves here were killed off centuries ago.”
Off to Julia’s left, the mist parted, revealing older aspen, the bark covered with dark lichen stretching upward, while tall, straight Scots pines and stands of willowy birch clustered close together in the distance. But no more signs of a wolf. Julia blinked her eyes. Maybe because she was so tired from the trip, her eyes were playing tricks on her.
Julia straightened and faced Maria. “Maybe it was a lupus garou, if I wasn’t imagining it.” She smiled at the thought. “A hunky Highland werewolf in a kilt.”
She’d never considered she might run across a lupus garou in Scotland. Not as elusive as their kind were, hiding their secret from the rest of the world. Unless she bumped into one and could smell his or her scent, she wouldn’t know a lupus garou from a strictly human type.
“Hmm, a Highland werewolf,” Maria said thoughtfully, sliding her hands over the steering wheel, “although getting hold of a Spanish conquistador would be just as intriguing.”
An Iberian werewolf whose ancestors had been turned by a wolfish conquistador, Maria was a beauty with dark brown hair and thick, long eyelashes.
Being a redhead with fair skin, Julia turned heads on her own, but the two of them together often stole the show.
Maria was still stewing about the laird who was in charge of Argent Castle. “Laird Ian MacNeill is being a real hard ass about the filming particulars—restricting our use of the castle and grounds, the times, the locations, and who knows what else when we arrive.”
“Maybe he won’t be so bad once the filming begins.” Although Julia didn’t believe that—and the sour look on Maria’s face said she didn’t, either. Julia pulled the laird’s photo from her purse. Maria’s boss had paid a private investigator good money to obtain the picture. “Exactly how did the guy get a picture of the laird like this if it’s so difficult to catch a glimpse of him?”
“The P.I. followed him to a Celtic festival. The laird was surrounded by his men and a couple of women, so the detective snapped one shot right before the laird took part in a sword-fighting demonstration.”
“Who won?”
“The laird and his men. According to the P.I., the MacNeills had a real workout against the Sutherlands. Bad blood has existed between them for centuries. The fighting looked so real, he thought organizers of the show might step in and stop the demonstration.”
In one word, Julia summed up Laird Ian MacNeill’s appearance: dangerous.
It wasn’t his handsome features—his short, very dark coffee-colored hair, the rich color of his eyes, the rigid planes of his face, and his aristocratic nose—that made him appear that way. Not his broad shoulders or firm stance or unsmiling mouth, either. It was his unerring gaze that seemed so piercingly astute, like he could see into a person’s very soul.
That worried her.
She could just imagine him wielding that lethal sword against his enemy.
Maria shook her head. “He’s arrogant, hard-nosed, too far above us, and on top of that, we’re Americans and working—or at least he’ll think you’re working—with the film crew he so despises. So just remember that in case you’re getting romantic notions from that picture of him. He’s too wickedly sexy for his own good… or maybe I should say, for your own good.”
Maria was probably right. Julia wanted to see the laird up close and personal for the sake of writing her manuscript, but she didn’t want to hear the disparaging things he might say to her. That would ruin her image of him as the hero type. And if he looked at her the way he did in the picture, she feared he would see right through her.
Just then, they topped the hill and faced a sea of white, curly fur blocking their way. Maria gasped and slammed on the brakes. Julia’s heart rapped a triple beat, and she grabbed the dashboard. Like a pastoral scene from an old-time painting, the mob of sheep was making its way to the other side of the rocky glen. Several sheared sheep—ewes, a curly horned ram, and lots of lambs—crossed the road, along with a sheepherder with a gnarled walking stick in hand and his collie.
Instantly, Julia thought about the wolf.
Once the sheep had passed, Maria started driving slower than before and cleared her throat.
“As soon as we drop off our carry-on luggage, I have to drive over to the estate for a meeting.”
Harold Washburn, the producer of the film, and most of the staff were staying at a local mansion. Maria had insisted on leasing Baird Cottage, citing its closeness to the castle. In truth, it was to hide that she and Julia were lupus garous and that Julia wasn’t truly working for Maria.
“At this rate, I’m not going to make it in time. I haven’t seen a sign in a while, and… I thought we would have been there by now,” Maria continued.
Julia strained to see into the distance, searching for another road sign, but the fog that had parted in places for her to glimpse the trees was again too thick to see a thing.
A shadow of gray bolted across the road. The wolf. A gray wolf.
Maria gasped and slammed on her brakes. Julia’s mouth dropped open, but the squeal died in her throat as headlights reflected off her side mirror. The headlights barreled on top of them. It was too late.
Rubber and brakes squealed behind them. Heart pounding, Julia braced for the crash, the wolf forgotten.
Bang! The rental car flew off the road like an airborne mini-plane. Then it landed hard, tearing down the incline. Bouncing. Jolting. Teeth jarring. A white cloud filled Julia’s vision and she gasped.
A shotgun blast! A horrible jolt. Another bang!
Before Julia could process what had happened, the white air bag deflated, and a snaking wall of rocks loomed before them only a couple of feet away in the fog.
“Hit the brakes!” Julia screamed.
***
As soon as he heard the explosions ahead, Ian MacNeill slowed his car and watched the road and the shoulders, looking for signs of a collision. Some poor fool must have been driving too slowly in the fog, while another had been driving too fast, hence the horrendous noise in the distance.
His youngest brother, Duncan—which being quadruplets meant only by minutes—peered out the passenger window.
“It had to be a car wreck,” Duncan said, his tone concerned.
“Aye.” Ian watched for lights that might indicate vehicles ahead. Their wolf hearing was so enhanced that the sounds made could have been some kilometers distant.
“I don’t see anything, Ian. Not a thing. No tire skids, no broken glass. But the explosive sounds were loud enough that the vehicles had to have damage.”
Unease scraping down his spine, Ian agreed.
Duncan leaned against the passenger door and then motioned toward the incline. “Taillights in the fog, down there.”
“And scraps of red metal from a vehicle up here,” Ian said as his headlights glinted off pieces of metal and part of a taillight reflector.
He pulled off onto the soft shoulder, turned off the ignition, and exited the vehicle. With Duncan at his side, he hurried down the incline toward the cherry-colored fog.