Her cheeks blossomed with color. “It’s not waterproof. Your shirt, I mean,” she explained.
“A good point.” He was still smiling, loving the way he could read her feelings so easily.
“All right.” She slipped off her soaking-wet pumps and pulled on her boots while he struggled to get out of his jacket and vest in the confined space between the driver’s seat and steering wheel. She tugged the raincoat over her arms and buttoned it up, glancing at him to see if he’d removed his shirt yet.
He was in the process of unbuttoning it, but when she looked at him with such keen interest and anticipation, he felt his pheromones taking over again. Just her watching him strip half naked had the darnedest effect on him. He would have felt smug, hearing the way her heartbeat had accelerated, indicating her intrigue, except that his heart was thumping just as rapidly, revealing how much he was just as intrigued.
As if she was reminding him of where this was going—and that this was not something more, like him removing his kilt next and then her coat and dress—she pulled the hood of her coat over her head.
That made him remember how the hood of her cloak had hid most of her features when she was but a young lass. In that instant, he felt the fates had smiled on him. He couldn’t have protected her before, but he would help her this time.
He pulled off his shirt, and her gaze shifted to his torso. For an instant, he felt like he was on a wolf’s version of the marriage mart. A mate mart instead. Did he meet her expectations?
Keeping a straight face, he flexed his muscles a bit, and her gaze shot up to his. Her cheeks instantly filled with color again. She might be an alpha wolf, but he realized how much he flustered her.
He tried to minimize his smile, but he was having a hard time doing so. He was having even more trouble keeping his kilt from tenting under his sporran.
She quickly said, “We could run as wolves. It’s raining hard enough and no one’s parked here, so no one would see us.”
Her suggestion completely took him by surprise. In part because his other head was thinking for him and he needed a minute to focus on what she was saying.
“Our wolf coats would keep us drier. We’d be more sure-footed and could travel faster and farther,” she added.
“Are you game?” He couldn’t remove the rest of his clothes while he sat behind the steering wheel. She could climb into the backseat and take off her clothes and shift, then he could follow her.
“Not sure. What do you think?” she asked.
He’d much prefer to run as a wolf. They could smell the scents up close, nose to the ground, which they couldn’t do walking upright as humans. But he was surprised she’d ask his advice. Any young girl who could escape him and his brothers while they were attempting to track her down—not to mention Lord Whittington, once he’d received the news that she was in the port city, as well as her kin, who were trying to get hold of her—seemed able to get along without seeking anyone’s opinion about anything. She evaded all of them, which meant she had been a lot more capable than he’d given her credit for.
“We can shift up at the castle. There are enough enclosed rooms to shield us from prying eyes. A cellar where bread was once baked and walls to the baron’s and baroness’s rooms still stand. No roof, though. A chapel and a tower. A couple of other rooms, stone stables for the horses…” He paused. “Yeah, even a couple of locking restrooms. That should work.”
“Okay. We can do it.”
As angry as he felt about his car, he couldn’t help but be pleased that Elaine wanted to help him with this. And run as wolves? Even better.
He considered the left side of her face again.
She took a deep breath and pulled her hood forward more. “The bruising will be gone before long, and you don’t need to be angry about this anymore.”
But he was.
“Let’s do this,” he said, right before they left the car. He noticed her gaze had shifted again, and she was giving his torso another appreciative look.
He smiled. Briskly in the cold wind, they walked the half-mile winding path to the castle. The walkway was mossy green and shiny wet. The rain had thankfully let up to a light drizzle. The whole area was shrouded in a blanket of thick mist, making it look surreal, otherworldly, ghostly.
The wind was still blowing fiercely across the cliffs and tugging at Elaine’s hood to such an extent that she had to hold it in place around her face. The air was cold and wet as it pounded his bare chest, but he barely noticed, as hot as she made him feel from the way she seemed to enjoy his appearance. More than that, he knew that his shirt would have been soaking wet, plastered to his skin, and just about as cold.
He shifted his gaze from Elaine to the cliffs overlooking the loch that surrounded the ancient ruins on three sides and had made the place nearly impenetrable from encroaching enemies.
When they reached the mossy stairs to climb down one of the cliffs, he took hold of her hand because the steps were slippery. At least initially that was the reason, but he felt as though he was on a date with the she-wolf. Wolves didn’t date. They had casual sex with humans, or they found a wolf that would be the perfect mate. Dating was a human condition.
Yet, for the first time ever, he felt like a man on a date. A very agreeable date. One that he didn’t want to end.
Chapter 6
Cearnach observed Elaine as she watched the water dashing against the rocks below, white froth splashing over stones bathed in green moss. She was taking deep breaths, her eyes sparkling with enthusiasm.
“It’s breathtaking,” she said, her voice filled with awe.
Just as breathtaking as she was. “Aye. Just imagine when the castle was wholly intact.”
“It would have been intimidating then.” She looked up at the castle that rose high above the cliff opposite the one they’d climbed down. The stairs carved into that cliff were just as steep and deadly.
He smiled darkly, thinking of how dangerous laying siege to the castle had been. “Aye, and with men at the ramparts, armed and watching every move, if we had approached it back then.”
They reached the bottom of the steps, traversed a long slippery walkway, and then headed back up another hundred and fifty or so stairs until they arrived at a stone tunnel, its mouth gaping open, that led into the inner bailey of the castle.
“This is so cool,” she said, staring at the moss-covered rock walls, the rainwater running off the gray stones. “To think that the people who lived here in ancient times passed this way regularly.”
“Yes, but if you were a foe, you’d be dead.” He pointed at the mossy stone walls that rose high above and the arrow slits from which archers could riddle an intruder with arrows before he could defend himself or escape.
She shivered, and he rubbed her arm and smiled. “You’re a distant cousin of the Kilpatricks so no worries.”
“Yes, but I’m with one of their staunchest enemies, a MacNeill wearing his clan plaid, although you left your sword behind. Besides, they’d probably figure I was besotted with the enemy and a traitor to the Kilpatricks’ cause.”
Cearnach laughed. “So you do like the kilt.” He said it as a statement of fact. If she said she didn’t, he wouldn’t believe her.
She gave him a smile that said she liked a little more than that. The way she still held his hand—not immediately releasing it when the way was no longer slippery—made him think she enjoyed his company too.
They headed through the tunnel, their footfalls echoing off the rock walls and floor before they reached the opening into the inner bailey. Despite it being October, the courtyard was covered in soft, bright green grass that was short, as if someone came in and mowed it on a regular basis.