A Howl for a Highlander (10 page)

“I’d like that.”

“It was the least I could do when you gave me your big bed to sleep in. I had really hoped you might change your mind and come down to join me once I warmed up the sheets a little.” Duncan didn’t even glance in her direction; he just looked all sexy and forbidding. Getting too close to the flame was definitely going to get her singed.

She had just raised another bite of the cheesy eggs to her lips, but she paused to comment. “I’m afraid it might have gotten a little too hot.”

He winked, a look that promised he would have heated her up well and good. “That’s what the air conditioner is for.”

She laughed, loving his sense of humor.

He finished cooking his omelet and joined her at the table. “I also changed out the rental car early this morning.”

A frisson of alarm shook through her. “You didn’t have trouble last night when you were investigating Silverman, did you?”

He hesitated a fraction too long for her liking in answering her. “No. I just thought it prudent to swap out cars. Just in case.”

“Are you certain?”

“Aye, I am, but I wish to err on the side of caution.”

She finished her eggs and set her plate aside, leaning back in the chair and ready to have a serious discussion. “I overheard you talking to your brother about missing a lead in your investigation.”

“Aye. A lady said her boyfriend works for Silverman. I must have looked like I was ready to kill the bastard, and she quickly quit talking to me.”

That didn’t sound good. Shelley sighed and looked at the omelet he’d nearly polished off. “You’re a wonderful cook.”

“Thank you, but remember it’s our secret.”

That made her want to meet his brothers, including the laird, and see their interaction for herself. Since she had no siblings of her own, she was curious to see Duncan and his brothers in action. Her friend, Wendy, had four brothers, but Shelley thought that Duncan’s family would be different since they were nobility of sorts and owned a castle. And were Scottish.

She smiled, then turned serious. “Are you sure I can’t help you in any way with your mission?”

“Nay. I don’t want you involved in this. No telling what might happen.”

Partly relieved—because she wasn’t into spy and criminal apprehension scenarios—but disappointed that she couldn’t help him in any way, she looked back at the egg carton, cheese, and ham still sitting out. She was still hungry from swimming and not having eaten any dinner, and she was craving more of Duncan’s omelets. Not wanting to sound too greedy, she proposed, “If I promise to clean up after you, will you… fix me another omelet?”

He gave her the biggest boyish grin, and she smiled back, loving that she’d made his morning.

“Aye, it’ll be my pleasure.”

But he didn’t just fix her another omelet. He also mixed her champagne and chilled orange juice. The mimosa was a delightful drink, and she wondered why she’d never tried it before. He also helped her clean up, letting her put the groceries away while he handled the manly task of scrubbing the stubborn eggs off the skillet. She was ready to drag one hot Highlander home to Texas and keep him. Then she’d tell Wendy she was right. Shelley
was
a sucker for strays—but what a stray. Only he wasn’t really a stray. He had a whole pack relying on him to do right.

Afterward, they both dressed, and when she came downstairs to join him, she eyed his soft pair of faded jeans and black T-shirt, which had no logo, no design, nothing to take away from his sexy wolfish appearance. He didn’t need a smart remark emblazoned across his chest. His whole presence screamed hot male. She liked that she was the one who got to keep him for a while.

Within the hour, he had dropped her off at the trailhead of the Mastic Reserve. She felt the whole world beyond this one place vanish as she quickly immersed herself in taking pictures and notes of the lush, green vegetation. Wearing olive-green capris, a short-sleeved leafy shirt over a peach tank top, and black sneakers to navigate the muddier areas, she carried a lightweight canvas pack on her back filled with a couple of chilled bottles of water—courtesy of Duncan—insect repellent, and sunscreen.

Armed with a notebook and pen in one hand and a camera in the other, she was all set. She made her way slowly through the black mangrove forest. The long-leggy trees dipped into brackish water with their roots sticking up out of the wet soil, gasping for air, while ferns clustered together in the moisture. Vines crawled up tree trunks, reminiscent of where the ape man had swung through the jungle doing his Tarzan yell.

Snapping shots of all the plants, she was falling in love with the whole place. Normally she would have thought of nothing else, but at the back of her mind, a niggling concern about whether Duncan was all right kept worrying her. The fact that he’d changed out rental vehicles meant he’d been concerned about something. She hadn’t wanted to pry, considering he hadn’t wanted to involve her. She worried about his continued investigation today, though, and what trouble he might get himself into.

Having opted to take the self-guided tour, Shelley found herself blissfully alone, snapping a picture of a strangler fig, each of its snakelike tentacles like a boa constrictor wrapping around its prey. Not only was observing the vegetation a real treat, but the colorful parrots—with their iridescent green feathers, red cheeks, and white-ringed eyes—caught her attention as they nested in tree holes and twittered about in the foliage. Suddenly one took flight overhead, and she witnessed its brilliant blue wing feathers spreading out as it flew away while a cacophony of birds’ chattering filled the air.

A calabash tree towered above with huge, round fruit attached to the trunk—the shell of the fruit so hard that it could be hollowed out into bowls or cups. Thin corded branches drooped toward the ground, weighed down by heavy clusters of purplish and orange ripe mangoes, with others hidden by the thin green leaves.

She was so busy as she moved on to each specimen that she felt as though she was alone in a tropical jungle on an uninhabited island, seeing a world for the first time as explorers to the island might have. A stand of silver thatch palms caught her eye. The tree derived its name from the silver color underneath the fronds and was the only one in the islands with that feature. A blue iguana raced along a fallen tree trunk; a grass snake coiled on a slab of slate. No poisonous snakes lived on the island, thankfully.

Shelley looked up at the thirty-foot-tall palms, thinking how much fun it would be to see the silver reflected in the moonlight. She had read that the palms had been used to thatch roofs in years past, only needing to be replaced every five or six years. If the fronds were cut during the full moon, supposedly they would last for nine years.
The
full
moon
. It would be out tonight, and the urge to run as a wolf tugged at her senses. Made her want to strip out of her clothes and shift into the wolf to explore this world on four paws, nose to the ground and sniffing the air, running through the thick underbrush, not staying to the path.

She was pondering that bit of folklore about the viability of the fronds cut during the full moon, comparing it with werewolf lore and making plans to come back that night, when she heard the sound of shoes crunching on leaves and heading her way on the winding path.

A woman said in a gratingly syrupy voice, “Ah, come on, Sal. You know how much I love to get away from your house and spend the day taking walks along the beach or here in the forest. I mean, we can have sex there all the time, but I also like to get out and see the island while I’m here.”

Shelley did not want to hear about some strangers’ sex lives. Why couldn’t they have gone swimming at the beach or gone shopping or done anything but come to the forest?

The woman said, “No, before you say it, I wanted to be with you, not by myself while one of your goons followed along.”

“Not everyone loves me like you do,” Sal said candidly.

The mention of sex had caught Shelley’s attention first, but then the woman’s comments about goons made her ears perk up even more. Hearing that the couple sequestered themselves at his estate and that not everyone liked him or loved him, according to him, suddenly made her think of Duncan’s Sal—Salisbury Silverman. Neither Sal nor his girlfriend had mentioned his last name.

The couple was moving toward her at a leisurely pace. Shelley stood still, not knowing whether to move along the path in the same direction they were headed to try to get out of their way without them realizing she had overheard them, or to step off the path into the jungle so they wouldn’t see her. The problem was with the poisonous plants growing in the underbrush.

Maiden plum had sap that could cause serious skin rashes. The Manchineel tree’s leaves and fruit were poisonous to the touch, and even standing underneath the tree during a downpour could be hazardous to one’s health. The lady hair plant was also to be avoided because of the reaction of skin to the fiberglass-like stinging hairs, so she didn’t want to get into any of those. Of course, the last option would be to face Sal and his girlfriend as if they were insignificant in the scheme of things, unless…

Dread bunched in the pit of her stomach. What if it
was
Sal Silverman? The man Duncan was looking for. The one who had stolen the college funds. Could there be another Sal with goons residing on the island? Maybe. But probably not.

Then she took a sniff of the breeze and cursed herself for not noticing. The man was downwind of her so she couldn’t tell if he was a wolf or not, which would help her to further identify him as the one Duncan wanted.

But if this Sal was a wolf, he could smell
her
.

Chapter 6

Damn. Shelley wanted to call Duncan and tell him she thought she was soon going to be face to face with his quarry, but she knew how well her voice would travel in the forest. Just like Sal’s and the woman’s did as they sauntered closer to her.

She should have planned this better, made sure she and Duncan had some kind of code to use in the event something like this happened.

Who was she kidding? She never thought she would run into Duncan’s target out here. Or anywhere else, for that matter. She thought the guy would remain secluded at his island estate.

But she had to tell Duncan the man was most likely here and let the Scot decide how he wanted to deal with the news.
Somehow
. She pulled her phone out of her pouch and dialed his number.

The footfalls seemed to quicken in her direction. Great.

“Why are we in such a rush now?” the woman said to Sal.

“I thought you wanted to take a dip in the pool. If you wait too long, you’ll get burned.”

“Thanks for worrying about me but I never burn. Will you swim with me?”

“Not this time,” he said.

Shelley dropped back into a crouch with her phone still to her ear. She was pretending to look at a termite hill and wishing Duncan would answer the phone when she heard his voice mail.

Frustrated that she couldn’t reach him pronto, she quickly said, “It’s me.” She figured Duncan would recognize either her voice or her phone number, since she didn’t want to say her name out loud in the forest. She had to say something in some sort of code, but she wasn’t sure he’d figure it out. Still, she didn’t have any other choice. “I just found the plant specimen I know you wanted to locate. It’s
really
important. Call me!”

She hung up and was just taking another close-up picture of a mahogany tree when the man named Sal and the woman edged into view. Shelley turned slightly to acknowledge them, get a good look at both of them, and categorize them like she did her plants in the event she saw them again. She was dying to take a picture of them to give to Duncan to verify that this was the man he was after.

Instead, she gave them a half smile in greeting, said a perfunctory “Hello,” and began writing in her notebook again as if they didn’t interest her in the least.

Sal had light-brown hair with streaks of gray threaded through it and looked to be in his midfifties in human years. He was wearing a white polo shirt and black jeans and muddy, white boat shoes. His face was tanned as if he spent a lot of time in the islands. If this was Duncan’s thief, he was using Duncan’s family’s savings—as well as those of others and the college—to enjoy the island paradise. He was fairly nondescript beyond that, except for his eyes. They were a wolf’s eyes—amber, curious, intrigued.

The woman was closer to being in her early twenties. She quickly wrapped her arm around the man’s waist as if she was afraid he might stray as soon as he saw Shelley. Especially because of the way he was showing his interest in her. The woman was wearing hot pink shorts and a hot pink halter top with nothing to hold up her swaying breasts, which had to be enhanced, considering how big they were and how petite the rest of her was. The woman’s hair was long and blond, and either the wind had done a number on it, or she thought it looked sexy without being combed after she’d fallen out of bed that morning.

“Hello,” Sal said to Shelley, drawing close and obviously interested in or suspicious of her.

Probably interested. Because she was a female wolf. She figured he didn’t have a reason to be suspicious of her; her worry about who he might be had probably put her on edge.