A Howl for a Highlander (29 page)

“I’m not for sale. If you didn’t send the wolf goons to eliminate me last night, then who did? The same people who are giving you grief? I’ll take my chances protecting Shelley here. You’re on your own.”

“Damn it! How much do you frigging want?”

Duncan smiled, but the look was pure evil.

Shelley could imagine just what Duncan wanted—his clan’s money and for this scum to never take another breath.

“Kenneth,” Sal said, sounding shocked, but he wasn’t talking into the mouthpiece of the phone now.

“Hell, boss, where is everyone? No dogs greeting me, no guards anywhere. Are you leaving the island?” Kenneth asked, speaking in the background.

“Where the hell have you been?”

“With Rose. You said I could have the night off to be with her. She’s been giving me grief for leaving her alone so much.”

As if Sal finally remembered he had been having a phone conversation with Duncan, he said into the phone, “Think about it. I’ll pay you a thousand dollars a week to guard me until I can leave the island.”

The phone clicked dead.

If Sal wanted to leave the island, even though his private plane was no longer available, why not just book a commercial flight out? Carlotta must have sent a pilot to fly the private plane home, taking Sal’s bodyguards and guard dogs with him.

Still why wouldn’t Sal have just hopped on a pedestrian flight with the rest of humanity? No passport? Had Carlotta had someone steal his passport? Even with his money, it would take him some time to get another one.

Duncan shook his head. “This is bad, Shelley. Really bad.”

“Do you think Carlotta’s just trying to scare him? Or do you think she’s hoping you’ll kill him now that he has no protection?”

“Either could be a distinct possibility.”

“So what do we do? If you ask for the same amount again, he’s going to get suspicious. Even if he felt his miserable life was worth it and he could hand your clan’s money over to you, then what? You can’t let him get away. The Feds or Interpol or someone is going to pick him up eventually. Then they’ll put the wolf in jail, and…”

“Right now, all I care about is protecting you, Shelley. If Carlotta is behind this, and I highly suspect she is, she’s not only after revenge for her wandering mate, but also after you, not me, for breaking up the family. As far as I’m concerned, you’re all that matters. She had to have sent the two wolves. When she learns they didn’t accomplish her mission, I wouldn’t put it past her to send more.”

“But your family’s money. If Carlotta kills her husband, then she’s…”

“Got control over all the money. Sal’s too greedy to realize he’s stolen from a wolf pack, and she may not realize it, either. If he dies, we go after her.”

She sighed. “All right. I guess that means I need to cancel the trip to swim with the stingrays today.”

“No, we’ll go. She can’t do anything to you or me while we’re in the public view. Since I’ve taken care of one of her men, all we have is one left to deal with. From the way he ran last night when I tore into his companion, he’s not as alpha as he tried to act.”

Another thought made her shudder. “The other bodyguards all disappeared. Would the two men have killed them before they came to see us?”

“Maybe. Or maybe his bodyguards were bribed to leave on a boat. Carlotta might have even paid them to leave on the private plane. The thing is, money does talk. Carlotta’s got enough of it to do whatever she wants. Sal should have realized that before he began to play this game over you.”

Shelley figured Sal thought he was invincible. Maybe he’d always fooled around with human types, and as long as Carlotta was floating in dough, she didn’t care. Picking up another wolf? That might have earned her ire, something Sal hadn’t anticipated.

“If Sal is alone, he won’t be able to take down the other wolf. I doubt he’s much of a wolf fighter. Since Kenneth is human, Sal can’t let him suspect what he is, so he can’t solicit his help,” Shelley said.

“I halfway suspect Sal might know where the other man’s hiding. Or the man might have slipped away with the rest of the bodyguards when they left.”

“Do you think Carlotta would let the man come home with the others after he failed to do her job?” Shelley asked, not believing Sal’s mate would be that kind. Not when she was setting Sal up and most likely wanted Shelley dead.

“No.” Duncan rubbed his chin in thought. “I have to stay with you, so I’m not running all over the island looking for the guy. Sal can deal with him. I suspect once Carlotta learns that her play for you didn’t go as planned, she’ll be sending more of her people. That’s why I think it’s time I got you to Scotland.”

She didn’t respond to his comment but instead pointed to the clock on the living room wall. “We need to rendezvous with the boat that’s taking everyone out to snorkel, if you’re game.”

“Let me get my swim trunks.”

She smiled. “No Speedo?”

“Later. When I’m with you, it nearly strangles me, and I definitely don’t want to be swimming with you in public wearing that stretchy swimsuit.”

***

Duncan had assured Shelley that no one would bother them during the day. But as they made their way to the boat that would take them out to the Stingray City sandbar, they both watched for signs of danger while pretending they weren’t worried in the least. Shelley noticed Duncan surveying the area for any sign of trouble as they left the villa, on the road to the boat dock, and around the area when they parked.

He became a little less vigilant when they had climbed aboard the boat and were headed out to the sandbar to swim with the stingrays.

“How long is the excursion, Shelley?” he asked, settling down to enjoy the trip with her. She was wearing a T-shirt over her bathing suit and had already slathered a good amount of sun protection on her legs and arms.

As a wolf, her fur would protect her from the sun’s rays, but as a human? Although she was lightly tanned from working in her garden, and despite the smattering of clouds beginning to clutter the sky, she still was vigilant about using a good sunblock. She glanced up at the darkening sky, frowning, and sniffed the air. A storm was coming. Maybe later tonight.

“The trip takes three and a half hours,” she said. “It’s about a mile out off Rum Point so it’s like being way out in the middle of the ocean, but it’s supposed to have a sandbar that makes the area really shallow.”

He shook his head and whispered to her, “I’ve done a lot of things, but something’s not natural about this—a wolf swimming with a bunch of stingrays.”

“Two wolves,” she said back.

He smiled at her, a heart-thumping, want-to-take-you-back-to-bed smile. “You’re only a wolf in disguise. You’re really a mermaid.”

She grinned back at him. “Don’t tell me you have a thing for mermaids.”

“Only this one.” He squeezed her hand, then kissed it.

When they reached the sugar-white sandbar in the North Sound, they slipped into the aqua water wearing fins and snorkels. Shelley was surprised at how shallow the area was. Only about three feet deep. She remembered reading how the hammerheads fed on the rays in the shallower water. That made her twist around, looking for any sign of a shark.

“For years, local fishermen cleaned their fish here before they brought the catch to shore. The rays learned it was a good place to find easy food,” a guide said. He pointed to one of the rays. “Stubby. See he has no venomous barbed tail? Sharks like to eat rays. Stubby got away from one but lost his tail in the process. In fact, one hammerhead managed to grab ninety-six stingrays’ tails. None of the venomous spikes were digestible, so when he was caught and opened up, the fisherman found all of them.”

All of a sudden, a herd of flying stingrays descended on them, circling close and vying for the food they knew the snorkelers had. Swooping in, the rays competed with one another for the food, bumping the swimmers, brushing against them, and jostling for a better chance.

Several of the people were feeding the rays bait, but being the predator that Duncan was, he wouldn’t do it. Shelley was more interested in reaching out to run her hand over one of the large Southern rays’ wings. The skin felt like velvet-covered muscle as the ray glided by, reminding her of an underwater version of a
Star
Trek
Klingon Bird of Prey warship. Some of the rays were huge, and she knew they could get to twelve feet across their wing spread. She enjoyed watching them dive and turn on the proverbial dime in such a graceful manner to feed, like giant gray birds in sweeping slow motion.

It was interesting to see that as much as they wanted the food, they were like floating acrobats as they dove and veered. She also noticed they had a pecking order—like wolves.

When she turned to see what Duncan was doing, she saw to her surprise that he had taken a bit of bait from the guide. With his hand outstretched flat, keeping his fingers from being bait, Duncan offered the bait to a hungry ray. The stingray glided over his hand, and the food vanished, the gentle creature twisting away to look for his next morsel. She smiled at Duncan as he watched the ray with an expression of wonderment, and then he caught her eye. He looked a little chagrined that she’d spied him feeding the ray.

He swam over to join her and pull her into his embrace as a man nearby said, “Hey, look at this.”

In the clear glass-like water, they could see the ray wrap itself around the man’s thigh, and then he said, “Ow.” The stingray skated away, leaving a round bite mark on the man’s leg that was already bruising.

The man proudly announced, “He gave me a hickey.”

Sure enough, the man’s thigh sported a stingray hickey. He seemed delighted with his bruised badge of courage. Shaking his head, Duncan took Shelley’s hand and swam with her toward some breakers. She wondered if that was the extent of the snorkeler’s man-against-nature trial of his life.

That’s when she started thinking about Duncan and how many times he might have fought against other wolves in life-and-death situations. She hadn’t even considered that. He wasn’t a warrior in appearance only. Not just an expert swordsman because he’d liked to wield a sword.

For now, she wanted to enjoy this other world, a marine world she’d never before explored. She figured he was just like her, in uncharted—for them—territory. She poked her face into the water to see the brightly colored yellow-and-white fish as Duncan kept hold of her arm, not letting her drift away from him. She loved how she could relax while he took care of her.

Despite the problems they were having with Sal and probably now Carlotta, Shelley had never had this much fun. It wasn’t just being here, which wouldn’t have been half as special if she were by herself. Being with Duncan made her feel so alive—even seeing him steadfastly deny he wanted to feed the stingrays, then doing so with such awe.

When she lifted her face from the water to see where they were, she realized they’d gone some distance from the boat and the ocean stretched for miles around them. For a minute, panic filled her. The water was deeper where they were now, and without the stingrays to distract her or the boat close at hand, she realized how far they were from any shoreline. Duncan might think she seemed like a mermaid, and she did love the water—especially this water—but she was still a wolf who felt a bit out of her element.

“They’re beginning to load the boat,” Duncan said in a deeply reassuring voice. “Ready to go home?”

She didn’t want to sound or look anxious, but he knew. He could tell by the way her heartbeat had accelerated, saw the way she’d scanned the horizon as if looking for a safe haven, and felt a light sheen of goose bumps on her arm, which he tried to smooth away.

“I’m feeling a little waterlogged myself,” he said. “I’m ready for a meal and anything else we can come up with.” He gave her a smile that said he meant to take her back to bed.

“You’re not going back out by yourself to scent-mark the area again, are you? Or to look for the other man?” She wanted to clear that up now as they swam back toward the boat. The rays had drifted off to other areas now that no one had anything to feed them, leaving only schools of colorful fish darting back and forth.

“No. I’m staying with you. Until Cearnach gets here—”

“I’m not leaving for Scotland with your brother.”

Duncan shook his head, waited for her to climb aboard the boat, followed after her, and then set his flippers, snorkel, and mask aside as he sat beside her on a bench. “You’re not related to Julia Wildthorn, are you?”

“No, why?”

He smiled and wrapped his arm around her. “You remind me of her.”

Shelley was shocked. “You know her? The romance writer? Personally?”

“Aye. She mated my brother, Ian.”

With incredulity, Shelley stared at him for a couple of heartbeats, then smiled. “Oh my God, she’s famous.”

“You read her books?”

“No, but that doesn’t mean I don’t know of her.” Shelley couldn’t quite fathom why Duncan was still smiling. “Do you read her books?” She couldn’t keep the astonishment and amusement out of her voice.

He cleared his throat and said in a disgruntled way, “Nay, they’re romance.”

She studied him further and didn’t think that the sun had anything to do with the way his skin was reddening. “I guess if she’s going to be a wolf sister, I’ll have to read them.” So had Duncan sneaked a peek at Julia’s books? She suspected so. “Did she say anything in her books that you think might be interesting to try?”