Grant had every intention of making a really early night of it so he and Colleen could get some sleep as well as some private time. He couldn’t help that every time he thought about her wearing that saucy pirate-wench costume, or without, he’d get hard and want her all over again.
Colleen was in the study trying to sort out all the stuff about the wedding with Calla when Enrick and Lachlan cornered Grant in his chamber. His chamber. He smiled. He never imagined he’d mate the lass and be able to return to his chamber because of that.
Enrick stood with his arms folded, the smile in his eyes saying he was highly amused. “You never mentioned that this was your plan to get your room back.”
Grant chuckled.
“Or that you’d worked out a way to counter Archibald’s moves,” Lachlan said. “Fast work. We thought you’d ask our opinion about what steps you could take to woo the lady.”
“As if I’d ever need your advice in that regard,” Grant said cheerfully.
“We really didn’t expect you to return as mated wolves and now have a wedding plan in progress,” Enrick said. “We are both curious as the devil to know what happened between the two of you. Duncan called us and said you were staying because the lass was involved in some woman’s party. But he wouldn’t say what was going on. Just said you and she were negotiating terms in the wine cellar at the moment. We figured for certain the two of you were still at odds.”
“Aye, but it appears you did well with the negotiations,” Lachlan said.
“We should have followed you there,” Enrick said. “Hearing all the laughter in the background, I’d say it sounded like the lot of you were having a grand time.”
“I told Ian the next time the ladies gather for such a party, you’ll have to come, too,” Grant said.
“What about Archibald?” Enrick asked.
“I’ve sent men to carry the word to all the places we know Archibald frequents that Grant MacQuarrie is now mated to Colleen Playfair and that the wedding shall soon follow. That should put a stop to him trying to see her.” Grant explained that the bastard had approached the woods surrounding Argent Castle in an attempt to see Colleen.
“Not good,” Enrick said. “Though maybe now he’ll give up.”
“We can hope,” Grant said, having every intention of ensuring Colleen’s safety.
“Archibald is sure to want to strike back at you, so we’ll need to take precautions,” Lachlan said. “Now that you’ve mated Colleen, I take it you want me to cancel the reservations at the B and B in the village that you’d made for the lass.”
Grant had forgotten all about mentioning the situation to his brothers. When Lily heard Colleen’s name and started to tell her that she had a reservation there, he’d quickly let the B and B owner know that wasn’t happening. “Canceled,” Grant said. “Lily met Colleen. She knows the story.”
“What about the lass borrowing your car?” Enrick asked. “We don’t want to give your keys to her again if it means having a mad chase on the roads trying to hunt her down.”
Grant rubbed his whiskered chin. “If she asks for my keys, let me know, pronto.”
Smiling, Enrick shook his head.
“Oh, and these are yours.” Grant pulled Enrick’s underwear out of Colleen’s bag and tossed them to him.
Enrick frowned and breathed in the scents on them. “I didn’t want to mention that Colleen had been in my underwear drawer. I asked Lachlan if she’d been in his, but he said no. We discovered she’d been in yours. So we were just a little apprehensive about bringing it up—especially when we learned you’d mated her.” He took another whiff of them. “But I smell Heather’s scent on them, too. What’s up?”
“Apparently, Heather had asked Julia if she would encourage Colleen to capture a pair of your trunks to add to the pirate’s pole.”
“Pirate’s pole?”
“Aye. The lasses had several of ours dangling from the pole. Which we promptly replaced with their bras.”
His brothers laughed. Lachlan said, “Don’t leave us out of the next bash you’re involved in. Sounds like too much fun.”
Enrick said, “Heather claimed mine?” He sounded like he was still mulling that over.
“Aye. Want to tell us anything about that, Brother?” Grant asked, amused.
“Nothing to tell. This is news to me.”
To Grant also.
“I would say you have all the luck,” Lachlan said, “but Heather is nothing but trouble. So I’d say I had all the luck.” Lachlan shoved his hands in his pockets and grinned.
***
Colleen was so inundated with choices, starting with the wedding gown—MacQuarrie plaid or an off-white affair since she’d been mated twice before, even though she’d never had a wedding ceremony. Calla told her she could wear anything her heart desired. Colleen had asked Grant, and he said the same—whatever she wanted. He would love her in it. He had been absolutely no help at all.
They had to discuss the color of flowers and the kind of food to serve at the reception. Then they had to consider the particulars of the bachelorette party, which meant a ladies’ day and night all over again. Different theme, but Colleen thought that the pirate ladies’ theme had appeal. Calla had suggested they do something else, though, just for the bachelorette party.
Colleen was curious what the bachelor party would consist of. Maybe she and the ladies could crash it.
Enrick had contacted all the women of their pack to return home early for the wedding. And to his surprise and Grant’s, they had demanded that they get to extend their holiday by that many days. He had created a monster, and it served him right.
Enrick and Lachlan had escorted Calla to a birthday party she was hosting late that afternoon for a ten-year-old in another town, so they were serving as her bodyguards. They didn’t mind watching over her, but both had vehemently opposed dressing like clowns. Even so, they did it out of a sense of obligation.
Happy to not have to consider anything wedding-related for the whole afternoon, Colleen immersed herself in the finances of the pack and found discrepancies centuries earlier and again last year. Neither was related because the time that had elapsed between them was more than several hundred years.
But still, she was curious about the first—mostly because Grant’s grandfather had not been managing the estates as the MacQuarries had claimed. Archibald had been right, though prior to him mentioning it, she’d never heard of anyone else administering them. As she went through the old documents that had been scanned into the computer, she realized Uilleam Borthwick had been the administrator of the estates at their inception but continued for only a few weeks. Which was probably why future generations didn’t know about it.