Heart of the Highland Wolf

Page 32

He took another tack. “Guthrie says you’re famous. Could be good for business to say you stayed here for a time.” He crouched in front of her and dabbed at her bloody shin. His gaze strayed to her panties—a red lace thong. Trying to concentrate on cleaning her cut and not on how beautiful her slim legs were or how easy it would be to slip off the thong—or how he wanted to remove her sweater and bra, too—he wiped carefully around her injury.
“Hardly,” she laughed tightly, wincing.
“I’d beg to differ. You’ve been interviewed all over the place.” His gaze returned to hers. “Lavender baths, Celtic music, and candlelight to get you in the mood for writing your scenes?”
Her lips parted slightly. Kissable full lips begging for his touch.
“You mentioned on a personal blog that you had writer’s block. Is that why you’re here?” He taped a bandage over her shin, smoothing down the edges to keep it in place. He had to know—was she writing about his people in this new story of hers? Was she writing about him? And if so, was he just one of the characters in her book and nothing more?
“I had writer’s block, yes,” she said, pursing those beautiful lips, her eyes narrowed a little.
“But no longer?” He scooped her up and resituated her on the mattress so that her head rested on his pillow. Then he tucked another pillow under her right foot and covered her with a lightweight cashmere throw.
“Nope. The writer’s block is all gone.”
He detected a hint of a smile in her expression and in her tone of voice. But he did not find it amusing that she would write about them—not as werewolves. “Is that so? What is your next story about then?”
Again, the flicker of a smile, but she attempted to remain serious. “Cowboys in Texas.”
He stared at her uncomprehending. “Cowboys?” he finally said. He didn’t believe it. He folded his arms. “On your blog, you said you loved everything Scottish. That you intended to write about Highlanders of old. That you had family roots in Scotland.”
The hint of a smile faded from her expression. For a moment, she didn’t say anything. Trying to come up with another story? She was a storyteller all right.
“You must have spent half the night reading everything there was to read about me,” she finally said.
“I’ve never known a published author before. I was curious.” More than curious. “So why come to Scotland to write about Texas cowboys? You didn’t say anything on your blog about wanting to write about them.”
She shrugged. “A good friend of mine was writing about hunky Wyoming cowboys. And another, about Texas Rangers—you know, the good guys with the white hats? I just… well, changed my mind. Writer’s prerogative.”
“I see.” But he still didn’t believe her. “Do you have your notebook with you?”
She sighed. “No. I guess in my hurry to return here, I forgot all about it.”
“Hmm,” he said, thinking she looked dreamy-eyed and huggable. But if she could steal into his castle without a bit of remorse, he’d have one of his brothers look for her notebook in the cottage where she was staying and find out just what it was she was writing. As soon as her friend was on the premises during the shoot and Julia was incarcerated in his bedchamber, he’d send somebody. “Any other aches or pains you want me to look after before I get some ice for your ankle?”
She raised her hands and showed him her palms. They were rust-stained and red in places where slivers had entered the skin. He swore under his breath and looked over her hands, rubbing gently where her soft skin was unmarred. He shook his head. “I’ll get the ice and a pair of tweezers and be right back.” When he reached the door, he said, “Stay, Julia. I don’t want you injuring yourself any more than you have already. The cost of personal liability insurance is enough as it is in this place.”
She gave him another small smile, and he thought how tired she appeared. The truth of the matter was that he was damned tired also. Taking a wolfish nap with her certainly appealed, after he took care of her injuries. After that? She was his houseguest for as long as it took for him to learn the whole truth about her.
He left her, not wanting to, but not trusting her entirely so he locked the door. This time when he told her to stay, he intended to hurry and return to her, and he didn’t intend for her to slip away.
When he reached the kitchen, every chair but his own at the table was filled with his brothers and cousins. They all stopped eating as half-empty dishes of porridge, black pudding, square sausages, eggs, tattie scones, and haggis littered the table.
His cousin Heather smiled brightly at him, dark hair pulled back in a ponytail, dark eyes flashing with excitement. “My brother Oran said the author Julia Wildthorn was the one you were chasing in the tunnels. Was it really her? Was she researching the castle for another one of her books? I’ve read all of them. Where is she? Can I meet her?”
He frowned. “You have her books?”
“Aye, is she writing one about you this time?”
He glanced at his brothers, who cast him bigheaded smirks and then continued to eat their breakfast in silence. He wondered again whether Julia was using him and his kin to write her current novel. Cowboys, his arse.
“Heather, can you get me an ice pack?” He avoided the issue of her meeting with Julia just yet and began searching through a drawer of stuff—containing everything from pliers to staples and pens. When he had a moment alone with Heather, he’d ask to see the books she had of Julia’s.
“What are you looking for?” Cearnach asked.
“Tweezers.”
No one said anything right away, and he was certain they were all either trying to remember where a pair were or to figure out why he would need them.
Cearnach said, “In the blue bathroom. I’ll get them.”
Duncan forked up a bite of sausage. “She wasn’t too disturbed to see Flynn, was she?”
“No.” Ian took the ice bag Heather handed to him.
“Did she tell you why she sneaked into the secret tunnels?” Guthrie asked.
“I believe the more important question is—how does she know about the secret tunnels? An American? A red wolf? Never lived in Scotland before?” Unless she had lived in Scotland before. As many years as their kind lived, she could very well have resided in Scotland for a number of years earlier in her life.
Guthrie set his coffee mug down. “She’s a writer. A published author. What if Julia Wildthorn isn’t her real name? What if it’s a pen name, and she’s truly a Highland—”
“MacPherson,” their Aunt Agnes said, sweeping into the kitchen, her silver hair coiled up in a bun, her gray eyes surveying the crowd at the table before she sat down in Ian’s vacant chair and motioned to Heather to bring her a plate of food, which would consist of fruit, fruit, and more fruit.
“You’re back from your trip to London so soon?” Ian asked, astounded. “Where’s Mum?”
“Still there.” She waved a dismissive hand as if London wasn’t her favorite place to be, although he knew better. “Guthrie called me and said we had a little red wolf in the house. I had to see for myself.”
He wondered if her interest was something more than that. She’d said often enough that he had to mate and produce some offspring who would inherit the title. And she hadn’t wanted to be here while the filming was in progress. He wondered just what Guthrie had told her that would have influenced her to return home.
“What made you think she could be a MacPherson?” Ian asked, as Cearnach returned to the kitchen with the tweezers.
Aunt Agnes waved a piece of honeydew melon at him. “Some portraits of the MacPherson family are stored in one of the tower rooms. This Julia Wildthorn? She reminds me of them. When Guthrie informed me we had a famous author here and showed me a picture of her on the Internet… well, the lass looks so much like the MacPherson woman in the portrait that I’d swear she was one of them.”
Ian was suddenly suspicious. “Why would we have portraits of the MacPhersons in one of the tower rooms?”
“I’m not sure,” she said vaguely. “But I can look into the family journals and see if I can learn anything. Or you could ask her directly.”
He didn’t like where this was going. “Cearnach? I need to speak to you for a moment.”
Cearnach rose from his chair and quickly followed Ian into the great room. “What did you need me to do?”
“I want you to run by Baird Cottage when the place is vacated, as soon as Julia’s friend Maria is here doing her job.”
“And?”
“Locate that notebook of Julia’s. I want to know what she’s been writing in it.”
“Her new story?”
“Or anything else that might clue us in about her. And grab her bags so she has a change of clothes. I also want to know about those paintings in the tower,” Ian said.
“So she’s staying with us then.” Cearnach folded his arms. “I’ll get the journal. As to the paintings, except for seeing with my own eyes if the woman favors them, Aunt Agnes will be the one with all the historical knowledge.”
“I have to know what’s going on with the lass.”
“Is she all right, Ian?” Cearnach asked again.
“As long as she stays put, she’ll be fine. I’ll see you later.”
“I’ll make sure everyone’s in place for when the film crew gets here.”
“I’m counting on it.” Ian headed for the stairs and then turned slowly. “Have Guthrie do a search for anything on a Julia MacPherson.”
“Will do.”
Then Ian headed up the stairs, although he heard Guthrie ask Aunt Agnes in the kitchen, “Who were the MacPhersons to us?”
This was just what Ian was dying to know.
If his family had portraits of them stored in the tower room, the MacPhersons must have at one time lived in this castle. And if Miss Julia Wildthorn was a MacPherson, not giving him her true name, had she something more to hide?