Aye, Julia had influenced Ian to do many things he had never allowed before, but Guthrie couldn’t wrap his mind around this. Especially since Calla had proposed it and given him the credit after she had spoken to his class! He suspected this was her way of getting him back for having her talk to the class in place of his lecture.

After their meeting, Guthrie went to look for Calla and soon found her in the kitchen sneaking a scone. She nearly dropped it when she heard him approach.

“Hungry?” he asked.

Her face flushed beautifully.

He lifted the remaining one off the platter and took a bite. “As long as Cook doesn’t catch us in here, we’re fine.”

She smiled, looking a little guilty. “I’m used to grabbing a bite to eat on my own schedule.”

“Most of us sneak one a time or two. So, you liked my class on saving money, eh?”

Her eyes widened fractionally.

“Ian said you proposed having a festival of sorts to Julia.”

“Aye, but she has to have Ian approve it, and he doesn’t ever open the castle to the public.”

“He did this time.”

“Are you serious?” she asked.

“Most assuredly, and I’m in charge of finances for the affair. So, shall we set up a plan for expenditures? We need to figure out the amount it would take to recoup our losses, then how much will serve as a profit.”

They heard someone coming, and Guthrie grabbed Calla’s hand. “Let’s make plans in the garden room.”

“Wait. We need paper or my laptop first. Don’t we?”

He smiled. “Aye.” This early, he couldn’t get away with kissing her in the garden room, or more of what had happened last night.

In the garden room, he and Calla brainstormed fast and furiously all the events they could have. Periodically, Guthrie stopped to call a pack member to see if he or she could be in charge of one activity or another. After a few hours, they’d made all the plans and contacted everyone to carry them out.

“That worked well,” Guthrie said, satisfied that they had been able to work out Calla’s grand schemes in a cost-effective way. Though he knew it would take some effort to make the event run smoothly, the pack members worked well together and he knew they could do it. If it was a success this year, they might be able to do it again next year, and they’d be able to plan it even better. He grabbed a bottle of wine. “Want some to celebrate?”

“Aye. I think we really accomplished a lot in the short time we worked on this.”

“We did.” And so well together. Between the two of them, they had some great ideas from festivals they’d attended, plus his knowledge of his own pack’s strengths and her experience. Most of all, working with Calla was a real pleasure. He could see how well she planned her parties and other social gatherings, how he’d been wrong about her apparent frivolity. She actually had a real business sense when she figured costs and revenues. She was just as thorough and detailed as he was. He admired her for all of it.

They sat together on the sofa this time, enjoying their wine, but he couldn’t quit thinking about Baird and his involvement in this business with Calla. He didn’t want to bring it up again, but after Baird had called and threatened her, and with his men still in the area, there had to be something more to this.

“Calla, I’m certain Baird’s angry because you stood him up at the wedding, and female wolves are a rare commodity. So he can’t easily find another she-wolf for a mate. Not only that, but he’s an alpha—the lost honor and pride in losing you after you said yes has to be killing him. His men are probably talking behind his back about how he couldn’t keep his woman. And I know he’s got to be furious that we’ve taken you in—given his kin’s history with the MacNeills.”

“But?”

Guthrie frowned. “It just seems like this goes further than an obsession over the woman he loved and lost.”

She shrugged. “I have a steady income. Some men might find that handy. But I live in the old carriage house behind my parents’ place so I don’t have any properties to call my own, if Baird was hoping to add the manor house to his assets.”

“Your parents have no other children, though, and everything—including their manor house and any other investments they have, their hotels even—would go to you, right?”

“Sure. But he’s not someone who thinks about money a lot.”

“You mean like me?” Guthrie asked.

She smiled a little. “I never heard him talk about finances. We just never discussed them. Though I did talk to Robert, his pack financial manager, for tips on good investments.”

Guthrie grunted. “I hope you didn’t invest in anything his cousin was in charge of.”

She rolled her eyes. “Nay. I was just asking to see if he knew something I didn’t.”

“Do you have money? Investments?”

“Sure, I’ve got investments. Just because I spend large amounts of other people’s money doesn’t mean I spend my money like that. I’ve saved up a lot of change. But like I said, it’s not anything Baird and I ever talked about.”

“Having kids?”

She raised a brow. “I assumed he wanted kids. But nay, we never actually talked about it. Still, it’s a natural inclination wolves have.”

“Did you plan to live with him or…”

“We were getting married,” she reminded Guthrie.