A Howl for a Highlander

Page 2

He had no intentions toward her. So why couldn’t he take his eyes off her?
“Sir?” the man behind him said, waving to the line as it had moved up. The man’s sharp tone instantly pulled Duncan’s attention away from the classy wolf.
He needed to get laid.
Chapter 2
Getting laid, yeah, Duncan thought grumpily. But not by a female wolf. They played for keeps. One mating was all it took to be committed to another wolf for life.
He made a concerted effort to keep his eyes forward while he was in the customs line, watching it move slowly toward the customs agent and not looking back to see if the silver-adorned female wolf might be joining him in line soon. He really tried hard. But he couldn’t help himself. She was definitely alone, at least for now, and that bothered him.
He had to admit that if she’d been an elderly female, it wouldn’t have bothered him in quite the same way.
He glanced back to see if she was anywhere in sight. No. Just as well.
Telling himself that didn’t help. It bugged him that he didn’t know where she’d gone. He considered what might have occurred. Either she’d lost a bag and was not in line yet, or she was waiting until he cleared out of the airport.
He finally managed to reach the agent and tell the immigrations officer which hotel he was staying at. Then he was on his way to the car rental area in the center of the terminal.
He had just paid for his car hire and was heading outside when he saw her pulling her bag to the taxi stand where palm fronds danced overhead in the hot, humid breeze.
Passengers were waiting impatiently in line, some scowling, tired from their extended flights and ready to settle into hotels, villas, or other destinations throughout the island. One tapped his foot on the ground; another complained grouchily into a cell phone about the delay.
Duncan’s lady wolf looked at the long line of disgruntled passengers waiting for a taxi, and her whole body drooped a little in the heat. Her expression was one of resignation, not annoyance like most of the other passengers. He didn’t blame them, though. Patience definitely wasn’t one of his virtues, either.
He knew his next move was not a good one. Not that he minded rescuing a damsel in distress on occasion, but he was afraid he’d want much more than that with her, and he couldn’t afford it—either emotionally or financially. But he couldn’t just leave her there waiting for a taxi when he had a rental car, unless she preferred that to his giving her a ride.
He swung his bag over his shoulder and stalked toward her, immediately catching her eye. Her wilted form quickly stiffened, and her eyes narrowed a little with suspicion.
“I’ve hired a car,” he offered, trying to show he meant her no trouble.
She raised her brows a little. “Scottish?”
“Aye. American?” he asked.
“Yep.”
Just like the woman his oldest brother had mated, Julia Wildthorn, werewolf romance author. After the American, Silverman, had stolen their funds, Duncan hadn’t thought he’d care for Americans in the flesh, but Ian’s mate was definitely the exception.
Passengers waiting for taxis turned to stare at the two of them. Several gave them brilliant smiles. Love in the making in paradise. If only their observers knew what a disaster that could be between wolves if they weren’t careful.
One silver-haired man said, “I suppose the offer doesn’t stand for a couple of old codgers like us, does it, young man?” Looking as though he was ready for fun in paradise, he was wearing a floral shirt over a well-rounded belly and standing with his wife, who was dressed in a pink blouse that matched her pink hair.
The female wolf’s green eyes gleamed with amusement. “You can drop me off at my villa, if you don’t mind… if it wouldn’t be too much trouble to take them to their rental also,” she said to Duncan. A glimmer of a smile perched on her lips, enticing him to take the bait. Her voice, lightly seductive, instantly snagged him to do her bidding.
The woman would be his undoing.
Duncan gave a little huff of a laugh at the way she’d played the game. Did she think the older couple would protect her from the big, bad wolf? He seized the elderly couple’s bags and said, “Sure, the more the merrier.” Not.
But he was determined to take the female wolf to her place last, wherever it was, so that he’d have a moment alone with her and could learn if she was meeting someone or was by herself for the duration of her trip… during which he shouldn’t involve himself in any way in her affairs.
“Where are you staying?” he asked the older man.
The man looked back at the female wolf, as if knowing that she needed him to be her knight, and motioned to her. “Where did you need to go?”
The tourist wasn’t an alpha, reminding Duncan more of a fatherly type who was trying his best to be chivalrous and protect the young woman. He couldn’t help but admire that quality in the older man and wondered if he had grown daughters of his own.
“A private oceanfront villa. That way, north on Seven Mile Beach,” she said, waving her arm. “About seven miles from the airport.”
“Private villa?” Duncan figured the she-wolf had some money. “And where did you need to go?” he again asked the older couple.
The older man motioned south. “To one of the hotels in that direction on Seven Mile Beach. But you can drop the young lady off first.”
“That’s all right,” Duncan said. “My place is near hers, so it would make things more convenient if I dropped you off first.” In truth, he had no idea where his hotel was. Only that it was the only cheap one that had been available on such short notice.
The older man looked at the female wolf as if trying to read her concern. She shrugged. “That’ll be fine with me.”
Yet Duncan swore she didn’t mean it at all.
After dropping the couple off at their hotel with everyone wishing everyone else a fun time on the island, and another look from the older man that said he wished he could go with them to ensure the lady’s safety, Duncan left the couple behind.
Driving north, he said to his very quiet wolf passenger, whose hint of a floral and female wolf fragrance drifted about him, “I’m Duncan MacNeill, and you are?”
“Shelley Campbell.”
“Of Scottish descent,” he remarked, glancing at the Scottish lion on her shirt, getting another eyeful of the shape of her beautiful breasts, and wondering what they would look like without the Scottish lion guarding them.
“Yes, I am. And you’re from there still?”
As if all Highlanders had left the country for some other place. For some reason the notion irked him. “Some of us stayed in Scotland, aye, lass.”
A hint of annoyance flashed across her pretty features. “Hmm,” she said softly, but he heard the irritation in her voice. “Well, my family members were crofters, replaced by sheep in the old days. Fuadach nan Gàidheal, the expulsion of the Gael in the 1700s.”
Well, he’d walked right into that one. He cleared his throat. He knew that his ancestors had displaced families in the same way during the Highland Clearances. She wouldn’t like that he was from one of the ruling families that had done so. She definitely wouldn’t be sympathetic to the fact he and his family were in financial trouble and could once again be on the verge of losing their castle if he didn’t get the money back from Silverman.
When he had cleared his throat but didn’t say anything, she gave a tiny disgruntled laugh under her breath. “So, does that mean your family was just more fortunate than mine? Followed a clan who took care of them and didn’t toss them out on their ears when it looked more profitable to raise sheep instead?” She paused as if anticipating that he would assure her that was all that had happened. When he instead waited for her to ask the question that he dreaded hearing, she forged on. “Or forced their people to work for free to harvest and process kelp along the seacoast?”
He’d thought she was going to ask if he was one of the ruling class. Instead, she seemed to think he was from one of the crofter families either kept on or put to work at some other job.
He took a deep breath, trying not to let her see how much he didn’t want to tell her the truth. He’d thought she liked that he was Scottish, maybe because of the Rampant Lion T-shirt she wore. But now she appeared more likely to see him as the enemy.
He’d never thought he’d have to face someone descended from a line of Highlanders who had been ousted from the old country and resented the treatment. It was in the past, after all. He had a hard time seeing how her family could hold a grudge for so many years, particularly once they’d found living wherever they were now more agreeable than where they had lived in Scotland. At least that would be his assumption. He had to remind himself that, as werewolves, they also lived long lives, so she and her family would be less removed from the experience than a human would have been.
Although battle hardened from years of experience, he felt unwilling for the first time to parry with his perceived foe. Mostly because he had nothing to fall back on to make his stance sound heroic.
“Or worse?” she said, her tone growing more wolfishly dark.
He could feel her eyes steady on him, watching for any expression or body language he might reveal. Wolves were good at reading others’ reactions. Even though it was an instinctive ability, he didn’t like that she was doing it to him. His family had done what they had for the sake of necessity, and he really didn’t feel he owed her any explanation.
So why he responded in the way he did was beyond his comprehension. “Depends on what you might think of as worse. But, aye, we managed the lands, and where we could, we kept our crofters on the land. In some cases, we just couldn’t.”
“Managed the lands,” she said, her voice now full of contempt.
So much for wanting to protect the wolf from anyone who might wish her harm. If he’d tried to clear her off the lands in the old days, he suspected he would have had a real battle on his hands. Wrestling with that body of hers did appeal, though. In truth, if her family had worked for his, he would have kept her on the land, very close at hand, rather than sending her away.