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Instantly, his wolfish senses were on high alert. “You wanted me to move something, lass?” he said, annoyed.
“Aye. Me.” She pulled her toga down and bared her breasts. They were remarkable, but he wasn’t interested.
“All right, enough of this,” he said, and with two giant strides, he joined her and lifted her to move her out of the doorway. He jerked the door open, but she grabbed him around the waist.
“Wait!”
“Nay, lass. This isn’t going to happen.”
A man was just walking up the stairs as Guthrie was leaving Rosalind’s bedroom. Guthrie suspected she had not pulled up her toga to respectably cover her breasts when the man caught sight of her. Her brother? Or someone else?
Didn’t matter. The man was red-faced and pissed.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing with my girlfriend?” He took a swing at Guthrie.
Guthrie immediately smelled that the man was a wolf and had been drinking beer. Guthrie ducked from his fist, but then the man lifted his nose, smelled that Guthrie was a wolf, and began to yank off his toga. Bloody hell.
Rosalind squealed, and predictably Calla raced up the stairs to intervene.
“Leave, now,” she told Guthrie, grabbing Rosalind’s now-naked boyfriend by the arm and shoving him away.
“That’s what I was trying to do, lass,” Guthrie said. Even though he didn’t like leaving Calla on her own, if he didn’t have to see another human/wolf party again, he would be satisfied. He just hoped Calla didn’t believe he’d wanted this.
When he joined Oran and Ethan outside, Oran said, “You look a bit flustered, Cousin. Any trouble with the Grecian lass?”
Oran was having too much fun with this. “How did you know about her?” Guthrie asked. “You were supposed to be outside.”
“There are these things called windows,” Oran said. “We saw her pull you upstairs. No windows up there, though.” He smirked.
Guthrie shook his head. “The chest that the busty Rosalind wanted me to move was more of the flesh rather than the furniture variety. I should have known. Luckily, her boyfriend wasn’t armed with anything more than his bare fists, and he was too drunk to aim them at me accurately, or I would have given him a broken nose. Not to mention that the arse was about to shift into his wolf half.”
“Bloody hell.” Ethan shook his head. “What did Calla have to say?”
Guthrie let out his breath in exasperation. She was sure to be pissed off at him all over again.
“Can’t get you out of this one, son,” Ethan said affectionately. “Since I didn’t see any of what happened this time.”
A flash of gray in the woods caught Guthrie’s eye. He frowned as he stared at the trees, watching for any sign of glowing green eyes or further movement. “Did either of you see a wolf?”
Ethan and Oran observed the woods. They both shook their heads.
“I’ll check it out. Ethan, you guard the door. Oran, you come with me.” Guthrie and his cousin took off at a run, and when they reached the cover of the woods, they stripped out of their clothes, then shifted. Nosing around the area where Guthrie thought he had seen the gray wolf, he smelled Baird’s scent. Damn him.
The wolf had run off, though, and Guthrie didn’t find any other scents besides Baird’s. None of Baird’s kin’s. Which he thought was strange.
Guthrie and Oran returned to their clothes and changed. They jogged back to the porch where Ethan was anxiously watching for them.
“Baird was there. No signs of anyone else. Either his pack mates aren’t interested in getting involved in this any further, or he’s going it alone so we don’t catch him at it. Sneakier that way.”
Ethan said, “Sounds like it. You’d think he’d leave well enough alone.”
“Aye, particularly while we are watching out for her. You’d think he’d wait until she was no longer staying with us.” Although that didn’t set well with Guthrie.
They couldn’t keep her at Argent Castle permanently. Not that they wouldn’t want to—she was good-natured, helpful, and everybody liked her. But she had made it known that she was returning home after the clan’s celebration on Christmas Eve.
He hadn’t really thought about it much until now. Sure, he knew she wanted to celebrate Christmas with her parents, but after she’d helped decorate, and he and she had kissed under the tree, he’d had visions of her sitting there on Christmas morning unwrapping presents with the family. With…him.
The notion that she wouldn’t be there bothered him more than he wanted to admit.
He watched the woods with Ethan and Oran for another couple of hours until the laughter began to die down inside the cottage. The party must have been winding down. Wrapped in her coat and a long woolen scarf, Calla finally exited the cottage. With her red hair hanging loose and caught in the cold breeze, she looked frazzled more than anything else, but Guthrie was damned relieved to see her. Though he was certain she was going to be angry with him.
He hurried to get the car door for her.
A half hour later on the way home, she still hadn’t said anything. No one had, and it was killing him not to get this over with. After another silent quarter of an hour passed, Guthrie finally said, “Well?”
She started chuckling.
He stared at her for a moment, then looked back at the road. He would never understand women. “Why did you not tell the lass you needed me for something else?” Guthrie asked, semi-annoyed.
“I didn’t know what she had in mind,” Calla said.
Guthrie snorted.
“I didn’t,” she insisted. “I don’t know the family. And you didn’t have to go with her.”
“If a lassie asks me to help move a piece of furniture, what am I to say? Nay, I might hurt my back?”
She began to laugh.
“I thought you’d be angry over the whole mess.” Even though it appeared she wasn’t—only highly amused, at his expense. He was glad for that. He’d much rather she be entertained than angry.
“You didn’t stay with her when she bared her breasts,” Calla said.
“How come I missed that?” Ethan grumbled jokingly.
“You think my mother would have wanted you in the middle of that?” Guthrie asked, being serious.
Oran laughed. “Nay, she would have been furious even if Ethan hadn’t been involved in any of it. Me, now, that’s a different story. I’m unattached,” he said, smiling at Calla.
