Cearnach recalled how she’d missed the turnoff to Senton Castle before. He didn’t think she’d easily find her way anywhere quickly without someone to guide her.
“Where is she going?” Cearnach asked, thinking out loud and not expecting Duncan to know any more than he did.
“I’m not sure.” Duncan put his cell on speakerphone and called their brother. “Ian, we’re pursuing Elaine. We have no idea where she’s headed.”
“What happened?” Ian asked.
“We don’t know. The wolf who was with her in the kennels forced her to run. That’s all we can figure.”
“Bring the lass back,” Ian said. “Whatever she’s afraid of, we’ll straighten it out. We’ll be cleaning things up here. Let me know what’s happening and where she’s headed. I’ll send backup as soon as you have some idea.”
“Aye, Ian. Thanks.” Duncan rested his phone on his lap. “Are you sure she went this way and not toward Edinburgh and the airport?”
“Why in bloody hell would she be going there?” Cearnach growled.
“Just a thought, Cearnach. I haven’t any idea why she would. Or why she would leave our protection.”
“Her solicitor wanted to speak to her alone,” Cearnach said. The notion continued to bother him. Something had been wrong from the start.
Duncan didn’t say anything.
Cearnach let out his breath. “It was something important. Something he said he’d ask Kilpatrick if it was all right to discuss with her.”
Duncan pulled out his cell. “What’s his name?”
“Hoover.”
“Is he a wolf?”
“Aye.”
Duncan searched for the number, then finding it, tapped on his cell and put it on speakerphone. “Mr. Hoover? This is Duncan MacNeill.”
“Yes, sir? What may I do for you?”
Cearnach thought the solicitor sounded defensive, like a wolf backed up against a wall, even though he couldn’t know why someone from the MacNeill wolf pack was calling him.
“I’m calling on behalf of Elaine Hawthorn, mate of my brother, Cearnach. You had some news for her but didn’t wish to give it to her. Some important news. I need to know what it was.” Duncan was all business, his voice taking on a tell-me-or-else tone. Most wolves would bend to the pressure.
“I’m sorry, sir. I can’t give that information out to anyone but—”
Typical solicitor response. Wouldn’t work with alpha male wolves who expected an answer… pronto.
“Fine. We’ll come call on you, and then you can decide if your answer is still the same,” Duncan said, his voice so dark that even Cearnach glanced his way. Duncan gave Cearnach an evil smile, his brows elevated just a fraction.
“Sir, if you’re threatening me—”
Cearnach couldn’t help snorting.
“I’m making a promise. I don’t threaten anyone,” Duncan said.
Cearnach smiled at that. With just a look, Duncan could change any beta wolf’s mind. Hoover was definitely a beta wolf.
Hoover cleared his throat over the phone. “Sir—”
“Just… tell… me.”
Despite Duncan’s ability to get what he wanted out of someone, the man still hesitated. Then probably envisioning Duncan coming to meet him at his office and dealing with the wolf face to face, the solicitor said, “Kelly Rafferty’s come for her. He paid Kilpatrick to seek her out and encourage her to come to Scotland.”
“Kelly Rafferty? Who the hell is that?” Duncan asked, glancing at Cearnach.
Cearnach nearly grabbed the phone out of his brother’s hand. “He’s dead! Damn the man.”
He knew Elaine wouldn’t have lied about it. Why in the hell had the man kept the truth from her about his being alive for so long? Then the realization hit him. That’s why she’d run!
Duncan stared at Cearnach, then said, “Who’s Kelly Rafferty?”
“Elaine Hawthorn’s mate,” the solicitor said.***
Elaine’s cell phone rang, nearly giving her a stroke as she headed away from Argent Castle in the direction of Edinburgh. Robert Kilpatrick had charged up her phone? She lifted it off the seat as she drove as fast as she was able on the narrow, winding road.
“You can’t mate with Cearnach,” Robert said vehemently.
Elaine glanced in the rearview mirror. No sign of any car yet. She drove faster on the twisting road, hoping she wouldn’t end up in the trees, her car disabled like Cearnach’s had been.
“You knew all along, didn’t you? That Rafferty was still alive.”
“Oh, aye, lass. You’ve come home to him. The near-death experience changed him,” Robert said as if he was assuring her that the man was someone she’d want to be with again. “When he could, he made his way here. He’s been living here as a respectable businessman. He owns three pubs and a hotel. He gave up on ships after he was able to make his fortune and settle here.”
Elaine didn’t believe Rafferty was a changed man. She understood his need for revenge, that he’d killed the men who’d tried to kill him. But he’d murdered the men who’d wanted to mate her, her parents, and her uncles by having them turned in. None of them had deserved to die.
Tears filled her eyes and she choked back a sob. He hadn’t changed. He was the same as before. She didn’t want to be mated to him any longer. But wolf law only allowed a mating for life. They didn’t believe in divorce, and most never re-mated if they lost their mate early on. The bond between them usually was too great and no other wolf would do.
“I was supposed to meet with you to coordinate a meeting between the two of you later. He was certain you wouldn’t go to him if he tried to arrange the meeting himself. Then you didn’t arrive and I had to go to the wedding and try to figure out a way to find you… again,” Robert said.
For all these years, she’d felt happily secure in the knowledge that Kelly Rafferty was dead.
“Did you know he killed my uncles? Your kin, too?” she asked.
“Lord Whittington had them hanged.”
“Because Rafferty told him they were arriving in St. Andrews!”
Robert didn’t say anything.
“You knew. You wanted their stolen goods. You bastard.” She hung up on him. He was just like all the rest—thieving pirates who cared nothing for their distant relatives except for the money they could help them get from the dead.
She drove and drove and drove. The maps she’d used to find her way here were gone. At least her suitcase and purse and clothes all seemed to be in the car.
Then she remembered Calla. She had to get hold of her. To see if Rafferty had lied about holding her hostage. She called information for Cearnach’s mother and heard the older woman say, “Elaine, where are you?”
“Did you call Calla to have her go to Argent Castle?”
“Aye, about your wedding. Where… are… you? My sons are frantically searching for you.”
“Have you talked with Calla recently?” Elaine asked in a rush. Please, please, Calla, be okay.
“Aye, I told her to wait to arrive here until after the fighting ended between the wolf packs. She couldn’t come here in the midst of it.”
Elaine bit her lip, trying to judge the time that had passed. An hour? Two? “Call her and make sure she’s okay.”
“She’s here, dear. Right here with me. What is this about, lass? Cearnach is ready to have a heart attack over you vanishing like you did.”
“There… there won’t be any wedding. I had to know Calla was safe.”
Elaine stared at the landscape she was passing—a small house in a glen, fenced-in Highland cows, a creek half hidden in woods.
Everything seemed familiar as she drove farther away from Argent Castle. She was sure she was heading back to Edinburgh where she could return the rental car and get a flight out to anywhere that she could. Not to the States, though. She couldn’t return there yet. Not without him finding her too quickly.
“Elaine? Calla arrived at Argent Castle a few minutes ago. What’s wrong?” Cearnach’s mother asked, her voice troubled.
Thanking the heavens Calla was safe, Elaine realized she was in real trouble. “I’m sorry for everything,” she said with tears in her voice. “Don’t make any wedding plans. There won’t be a wedding.”
Before her almost mother-in-law could say anything, Elaine cut off the connection and stared at the road she was on, finally recognizing a few of the landmarks. She’d been so shook up that she hadn’t realized she had gone the wrong way. She was on the road to Senton Castle.
Like a wolf returning to its own territory, she was back home again—at her family’s castle.
She was so turned around. So angry with herself that she could scream. She hated getting lost more than anything else in the world. How could she do this to herself now?
If she continued past the castle, she had no idea where she’d end up.
She pulled into the parking lot at the castle ruins to turn the car around, figuring that she’d have to drive to the nearest city she could find and get directions, when three vehicles rushed in behind her.
Heart nearly failing, she glanced over her shoulder to see them tactically blocking her in. They must have been following her. The road twisted and turned so much that as long as they kept back far enough, she wouldn’t spy them. Or maybe they had suspected where she was headed from the direction she had taken and had come straight here. As if she’d come here of her own accord.
Or had they planted a device in the car that would make her easy to follow? Sure, that’s why Rafferty had suggested she take the car and run. Oh, how could she have fallen so easily into his trap?
Her heart was pounding so wildly that she didn’t know what to do. They’d blocked her in and she had no way to move the car. As a woman, she had no defenses. As a wolf, sure, but if anyone had a tranquilizer dart, she wouldn’t stand a chance against her kin, either.