So she was writing her cowboy story instead. No secret boxes. Or… maybe there could be one, and the damsel in distress was fleeing Ian’s ranch after unsuccessfully attempting to locate the hidden cache—a title to the ranch. Her ranch. That would work.
With a smile on her lips, Julia fell asleep for a while. The dark still blanketed the cottage and would for another couple of hours. Maria wouldn’t be getting up until it was light. Before then, it would be time for Julia’s next big adventure. She would be just like the warring clan trying to find a weak spot in the enemy’s defenses.
Only this time the castle was hers. And the enemy was truly the MacNeills. Or at least one of them—the blackmailer—and maybe more.
By the time she had awakened and dressed for her clandestine activities, her ankle felt much better, but it was still stiff and tingling. She was afraid that if she walked too much, the ankle would start to bother her again. If she could just slip into the castle and find the box, she’d be done with her mission and could lie around the cottage for another day just letting her ankle heal up sufficiently.
As quietly as she could, she slipped out of the cottage, locked the door, and hurried through the forest toward the castle, hoping whoever was blackmailing her family hadn’t been watching the place when she left. But it had been hours, and she assumed he’d never figure her to run off like this. Yet she kept a wary watch for anyone who might follow her.
The breeze ruffled the branches of nearby trees, birds tittering back and forth, as she strained to hear over her own footfalls and thought she heard something snap. A dead branch. Or something. She froze. Whirled around. Peered into the forest. Saw nothing, no one. She was alone.
Her step more hurried, she resumed her hike and finally managed to reach the easternmost tower. She skirted around it to the eastern wall and noted no one on the curtain wall, making her feel safe to go about her sleuthing business. She sat on the damp ground to untie her boots, intending to shape-shift. After removing the one, she set it aside and heard an almost inaudible clunk as the boot touched the ground. With her wolf hearing, she thought it sounded like her boot had hit something that was metal, not rock. She scooted over to feel what had made the noise. Her hands moved over the rusty iron, and her heart nearly quit beating. Was it a door? Or just a discarded piece of scrap metal?
Whatever it was, it had been buried for some time and left undisturbed. Maybe for years. She swept away the leaves and accumulated dirt, and smiled. Her grandfather had been right. Or at least this appeared to be what he had described. But the trapdoor was secured with an ancient and corroded lock.
She pulled out her second set of standard lupus garou lock picks, the first having been lost in the car fire. But she wasn’t sure the picks would work on something this old. Then she laughed at herself. She hadn’t brought the sketch map of the place, but she carried lock picks with her? Yeah, if anyone had caught and searched her, they wouldn’t have suspected a thing.
Something in her peripheral vision caught her eye, and she turned to look. Just a pine branch swaying in the breeze. She stared at the location for what seemed like forever. Nothing moved except the tree branches swaying in a waving dance.
With her attention back on the door, she inserted a pick in the lock and jiggled and twisted until it creaked open. She felt that the whole of the castle and the surrounding area would have heard the noise, but perhaps it was just her enhanced wolf hearing that made her feel so self-conscious.
With her heart beating in excitement and trepidation, she pulled the lock free and set it on the ground. She sat and slipped her boot back on, tied it, and then stood and tried to lift the metal door, the brutal rust-caked metal harsh against her bare skin. The door didn’t budge. Stuck. Damn it.
Disappointment slid through her. She wished she could have carried a crowbar with her. If she’d still had the rental car, it would have had a crowbar.
She pulled her sweater sleeves down, covered her hands with them, and tried again. A little give. Her spirits lifted. She crouched lower, putting her legs and back into it while trying not to hurt herself, and attempted to lift it again. It moved.
She grinned. She could do this. With her muscles straining, she tried again. It moved more. She let out her breath. She needed a big can of WD-40. She felt like she was in the Wizard of Oz and had to use a can of oil on the Tin Man, or in her case, the rusty trapdoor. Although a hefty-sized crowbar would work even better.
Her muscles were exhausted, her green sweater wearing rust stains, and her hands raw from the metal digging into them, but she wasn’t about to give up. Not when she was this close to getting inside.
With the last bit of reserve strength she could muster, she pulled up on the metal, which gave the most pitifully horrible screech before she was able to flip the door onto its back on the ground. Her skin sweating with exertion and anxiety, she quickly buried the door with leaves and dirt, but if anyone came to look in the woods, they’d find the open hole into the abyss. She could crouch beside the opening forever to ensure no one heard her making noise, or she could figure that no one would hear her since no one was about, most likely because they all were dead to the world, asleep inside the thick walls of the castle. She might as well enter the tunnel now.
She gave one last look at the woods, the hair on the nape of her neck prickling with unease. Not from the worry of exploring the tunnels, but because of the feeling that something watched her from the woods. But she saw nothing except for trees and more trees. If one of Ian’s people watched her, he didn’t sound the alarm. It had to be nothing. Just her imagination getting the best of her.
Steeling her back, she started down a rickety ladder into the abyss.
Chapter 13
Standing atop the curtain wall, Ian MacNeill watched the road that led over the moat to the gatehouse and that would be filled with Yanks before he knew it. But there was only one he wished to see. Werewolf-romance author Julia Wildthorn. He’d read every interview and felt he’d gotten to know far more about her than he knew about some of his own distant cousins—from her favorite coffee-flavored ice cream topped with hot chocolate fudge sauce to bathing in lavender bubbles in candlelight.
Hell, and the whole world knew it, too.
For now, he tried to enjoy the peace and quiet of the forest and his holdings before the battle of wills began with the film crew. He tried again to put out of his mind the lass who was so soft and curvy and hot and willing. All night, he’d thought about her, and no matter how much he tried not to think about her, he wanted to share the pizza with her like he’d planned, and more.
Hell, he should have tracked her down and brought her back to the castle, instead of sending Guthrie to return her to her cottage. But it had irked him that she had left without word to him, and a small part of him had warned that she was here only as a writer and not interested in him for more than anything but using him. In the heat of the moment, he’d told his cousin to relay the message to Guthrie to take her home.
Now, he concentrated on the darkness, knowing the Americans wouldn’t show up until it was light, but still, he almost hoped he’d see the defiant little red wolf running across his lands again. This time, he’d chase her down, wolf to wolf.
Until he heard something in the woods in the direction of the east wall.
Something faint. Metallic. Something unnatural.
The first thing that came to mind was the secret tunnel entrance, but it hadn’t been used in over… a couple of centuries, he thought. Probably longer than that.
He stalked toward the easternmost tower. Maybe a red deer had stumbled across it or a pine marten had scurried over the trapdoor. But it sounded more like…
The door creaked. Hell. He quickened his pace. Duncan saw him from the bailey below, although Ian hadn’t a clue why his brother was up this early. Unless Duncan was anxious about the film crew arriving and wanted to be prepared. His brother watched Ian, knowing something was the matter, but Duncan was farther from the wall and down below, so he might not have heard the sound. When Ian navigated through the gate tower, he heard the trapdoor creaking even more. Someone had gained entrance. Then a bang. The door had been dropped on its back.
Damnation. As soon as Ian exited the tower, he sprinted along the east wall walk, his warrior brother racing to the curtain wall from down below and looking for direction from him. But Ian concentrated on catching the culprit at his task. The man probably wouldn’t realize that Ian and his people could hear noises within the castle walls because no one but the clan knew they had a wolf’s distinctive hearing. Beyond that, he and his people normally would be sleeping. Within the thick walls of the castle, they most likely wouldn’t have heard more than a muffled distant, ghostly sound.
He reached the spot where he could see the entryway to the secret tunnels at the periphery of the woods. No one was there, but whoever it was had cleverly covered the trapdoor. The entryway was still open; it wouldn’t have been all that visible unless anyone had been looking for it. Ian hadn’t had to deal with the enemy breaching his walls for a very long time.
Time for the hunt. He motioned to his brother, indicating the trapdoor in the woods, and then waved that he was coming down. Ian wouldn’t shout his intentions and alert the intruder that they knew he’d broken in. In that case, he’d probably escape. Best to catch him at his task, discover his plan, and show him how foolish his endeavor had been.
By the time Ian reached the inner bailey, Duncan had already enlisted the support of Cearnach, who grinned as if they were going into battle and were sure to win. Guthrie had even torn himself away from getting an early start on reviewing the financial mess they were in to see what was going on. No matter what other interests the brothers had, the instinct to hunt overrode most.
Several of their clansmen also stood by, buttoning shirts and tucking them into trousers, eagerly awaiting orders.
“We enter the tunnels through the trapdoor,” Ian said. He held up his hand before Duncan could object. “We could spend hours searching all the tunnels and never come close to finding the culprit. But if we go to the tunnel where he entered, we can follow his scent.”