When Ian spun around and headed for the car, Duncan watched him with a darkly amused expression, but he didn’t appear in the least bit surprised. Ian hoped his brother hadn’t known him better than he knew himself. He had not intended to be doing this.
“Ladies,” Duncan said, accompanying them.
“Sarah, the woman who was waiting tables at Scott’s Pub, although she is co-owner and Scott’s wife, said she thought you were with the film crew. Actresses?” Ian asked.
Duncan gave them a second look, this time his expression surprised. He wouldn’t know a star if he saw one any more than Ian would.
His comment brought a smile to Maria’s lips. “Hardly.”
“Doing what then?”
“Assistant director—Maria Baquero. And this is my assistant, Julia—”
“Jones,” Julia hastily said.
The way Maria stared at her and the fact that Julia had interrupted her boss made Ian suspicious. “Are you certain?” he asked Julia, as they reached the back passenger door.
“Why wouldn’t I be?” she asked haughtily back.
“Miss Baquero seemed surprised.” He studied Julia, waiting for a comeback.
Maria didn’t come to Julia’s defense. Which made him suspect Julia’s last name wasn’t Jones. Did she even work for Maria?
Eyes narrowed, Julia immediately pursed that beautiful mouth of hers and didn’t say a word to refute his suspicion.
Duncan stood by the car, waiting to see about the logistics of the situation. Most likely also to see how the scene played out between Ian and Julia.
“Lass?” Ian said, waiting for a response. He wasn’t used to being kept waiting, nor was he often lied to, but when she didn’t answer, he shook his head. “Do you have some ID?”
“In the rental car,” she said with a heavy sigh.
He thought back to the flames consuming the car. “Convenient.” He deposited Julia in the backseat and said to Maria, “You can ride up front with Duncan and see the scenery.” While Ian enjoyed the scenery in the backseat. The spitfire, more like it.
Duncan cast him an elusive smile, knowing that Ian rarely, if ever, sat in the backseat of any vehicle, and then he opened the front passenger door for Maria. She hesitated for a heartbeat and then climbed into the car, whereupon Duncan shut her door for her, and Ian closed Julia’s.
“They’re wolves,” Duncan said to Ian, as they walked around the back side of his car, his voice low so the women wouldn’t hear them.
“And they are with the film crew,” Ian reminded him. He yanked open the car door, then slid inside next to Julia and closed his door.
At once, he knew this was a mistake. The backseat was too small, and he was way too close to the object of his fascination. He felt another tug of desire as soon as he felt the heat and softness of her body when his leg touched hers in the small compact car, smelled her feminine fragrance, and heard her light breathing before the engine roared to life and they were on their way.
With every intention of quashing the interest he had in her, he attempted a distraction and asked, “Where are you from?”
Maria answered, “Los Angeles.”
Duncan smiled in the rearview mirror as he looked back at Ian.
“Have you been involved in making many movies?” Again, Ian asked this of Julia.
And again Maria answered. But Ian didn’t listen closely to her response as she listed movie locations, movie titles, and more. She seemed to be the real deal when it came to her job and her role in this current film venture.
He asked Julia, “How badly is your ankle sprained?”
“It’s fine,” Julia said quickly, as if she wanted to get the focus off herself.
He didn’t believe her. She didn’t seem to be the kind of woman who would fake an injury to get attention. Yet he also knew sprains didn’t take long to heal, not with being a lupus garou. In due course she would be fine.
“Did you sustain any injuries, Miss Baquero?” Ian asked.
“Backache, sprained wrist. Nothing that won’t go away soon.”
“Do you have anything for pain?” He asked because they had said they’d lost everything in the car.
“We’ll be fine.” Then Maria queried about the castle—when it was built and who all had lived there, and Duncan gave her a few agreed-upon details.
Ian didn’t listen, as absorbed as he was in everything about Julia, the feel of her thigh pressed against his, all heat and softness, and the scent of her, sweet and feminine and tantalizingly teasing.
“Are you coming to the meeting tonight?” he asked Julia.
Julia’s gaze riveted on him, her half-shuttered eyes widening, her heartbeat quickening.
“The meeting that Maria said she was coming to with some of the other film staff,” he further explained when her luscious lips parted, but she didn’t say anything.
“Oh, yes, of course,” she belatedly answered.
Maybe she was just so tired that she wasn’t registering what he was saying. Or maybe her ankle was hurting too much for her to think straight. So he asked the next thing on his mind. And that got a swift reaction. “Are you mated?”
Her jaw dropped. The conversation in the front seat instantly died.
Too many heartbeats passed, and he realized she might be getting the wrong impression from his query. “It’s a simple question, lass.” Again, he sounded gruffer than he intended. “I wondered if either of you were mated, and if so, why your mates wouldn’t be here with you.”
Her lips thinned a bit, and she crossed her arms at her waist. “No, neither of us is mated. And if we were, we’d still do our jobs. Our mates would not have to chaperone us.”
“If you were mine, I wouldn’t want you traipsing around a foreign country on your own. Too many wolves about.” At the last, he gave her a hint of a smile.
To his way of thinking, the little wolf was fair game.
***
Ian MacNeill was a wolf. A wolf disguised as a Scottish laird. None of the peerage charts had said anything about titled lords having werewolf roots, so unless one were to encounter a lupus garou laird in person, it would be impossible to know if he or she was one.
Julia knew she’d get the devil of a lecture from Maria about the name Jones. What could she have done? She didn’t want Ian to know that she was Julia Wildthorn, romance writer. And not only a romance writer, but one who wrote about werewolves. Although her stories were a mix of werewolf lore and reality, and not strictly based on their own kind. She’d be in trouble if she did that. Still, she did get some flak from lupus garous who didn’t like that she wrote werewolf romances, period. The majority of werewolves who read her stories loved them, though. She imagined Laird Ian MacNeill would not be one of those.
Never in a million years had she considered that she’d ever meet the laird personally or that he’d be one of her kind, let alone have to give her name to him or anyone else in his clan.
If Ian knew her pen name, he might realize she wasn’t here to work on the film but to write her latest story about Argent Castle and Ian and his people. Not that she wouldn’t disguise the location and the people’s names, but essentially, the story would be about the location and his people. She was certain he wouldn’t want to encourage that.
What shocked her most was Ian asking if she was mated. Adding that he wondered about both of the women—and only because he thought they shouldn’t be here without their mates—was a total crock. The small smile on his brother’s lips confirmed that she was right in her assumption.
Maria cast a look over her seat back, her expression one of butter-him-up-or-else. Did Maria think Julia should be super-nice to the Scottish hunk whose leg was pressed indecently against hers—although she had to admit the backseat was incredibly small for his long legs and he had nowhere else to stretch them? That Julia should encourage some kind of intimacy with him just to get on his good side so Maria would have an easier time during the filming of the production? Or maybe to make amends to Maria since Julia had already caused a situation by using a fake name and catching Maria off guard?
Julia sighed, pressed her leg against Ian’s a little more, and smiled at him. Her smile was faked, but his wasn’t. He seemed more amused than anything. Even so, his eyes darkened fractionally.
And what eyes they were—beautiful rich brown with golden flecks of amber; intuitive, perceptive, way too observant. With the heat on in the car, the silk shell she was wearing had dried, but his gaze slid to it anyway, and she wondered if it was still as revealing as when it had been wet and clinging to her breasts. Then she thought of Ian’s photo in her pocket, and she blushed.
Now she wished she’d had the photo in her pants pocket, although with sitting, she probably would have wrinkled it. Even wet, it might be ruined. That would be a disappointment. Using his picture for visual stimulation would help her to write his description as her next hero.
“What of your pack?” Ian asked Julia out of nowhere.
She waited a heartbeat, expecting, hoping that Maria would answer by filling him in on her pack—large, with complicated dynamics, just like a real wolf pack often was—so Julia didn’t have to talk about her own. But this time Maria said nothing. With Ian running a clan and a pack, Julia imagined he had a large number of people to supervise. She figured he’d think her family insignificant, unworthy of being called a pack.
“It’s just my father and grandfather and me,” Julia said, brushing her hands down her wet pants legs in a nervous little gesture.
Ian frowned.
She let out her breath. This is why she hated mentioning it to anyone—well, of their wolf kind. “My mother and my paternal grandmother died when I was little. My father and his father never remated. My mother’s parents died much earlier on. I had no siblings.”
“I’m sorry to hear about your losses. I lost my da and grandparents some years ago. Your grandfather is the pack leader? Or has he stepped down?”