“We plan to make it more to your liking. Either you order your own pizza, in which case we might confiscate it as well when the ship comes in, or you include us in your game,” Ian said.

“You don’t mess with pirates unless you are willing to pay the price,” Elaine said, brandishing her sword—in reality, Cearnach’s sword of his youth.

The women agreed. The men laughed.

But they appeared to be at a standoff.

“All right, our pizza’s getting cold. So what do you suggest?” Julia said.

“A three-legged race. Men against the women,” Uncle Ethan said.

“You’re taller and could outdistance us,” Ian’s mother said.

“A sword fight,” Duncan said.

Both the men and the women looked at him like he was crazy.

“Bobbing for apples,” Colleen said. She was the champion apple bobber in her county. And Julia was just as good at it. Surely some of the other ladies would do as well. Hopefully, Ian and the rest of the men wouldn’t.

“A seaworthy challenge,” Julia declared.

The men got a big plastic tub, filled it with water and apples outside on the stone patio, and the game was on. Julia went first, as alpha pack leader at Argent Castle. She pulled two apples out before Ian told her she had enough. She grabbed two of the boxes of pizza.

Ian went next, and no matter how hard he tried, he could not grasp a bobbing apple with his teeth. His shirt and face wet, he finally conceded.

“You will not put this in a book of yours,” he warned Julia. Her smile said that’s just what she’d do.

Colleen was next as owner of Farraige Castle and grabbed three apples before Grant said, “Enough. Show-off.”

Everyone laughed. Grant did not look happy about trying this new venture, and he did as poorly as Ian. No one else was able to fish out any apples, though everyone laughed hard enough about it.

Uncle Ethan eyed the apples that Julia and Colleen had managed to snag and said, “They had the longest stems of any of them.”

“No, they didn’t, Uncle Ethan,” Shelley said. Using her hands, she pulled out two from the water and showed the stems on those.

The ladies grabbed their boxes of pizzas and in sashaying, pirate lady fashion, they headed outside with their booty.

“Brilliant idea,” Julia said. “I never even considered that.”

“I remember how we played that at fall festivals and how good we were. Glad we trounced them,” Colleen said, having so much fun that she never wanted this to end.

When they crossed through the garden and reached the gazebo, they stared at their pirate’s flagpole. All the men’s underwear were gone, and in their place hung colorful silk and lace bras.

“When…who…?” Elaine said.

They sniffed at them.

“Seems all of them at one time or another grabbed our things,” Colleen said. “When we were so busy watching the next player, one of the men must have slipped out to grab a bra and attach it to the pole.”

The ladies laughed and hurried to take down their bras.

Chapter 18

Colleen had thought this was strictly going to be a ladies’ night adventure. Not anything involving the men. She couldn’t believe how the men were playing with them. It was too much fun.

Sitting on the soft moss-green couches that fit together like a meandering stream around the glowing fire pit, the ladies ate slices of pizza and sipped merlot.

They shared stories of how they met their mates. Julia’s mother-in-law talked about how impossible Uncle Ethan was, though Colleen noted the way Lady Mae talked about him in an annoyed, but endearing way, and Heather described who her dream man would be. Colleen wasn’t certain if she was talking about Enrick or not. Aunt Agnes was mum. And Calla talked about how Guthrie MacNeill was the most irritating man who held the purse strings for the clan.

Colleen thought Calla sounded like she had the hots for him.

Julia began telling how she and Colleen had met on the run as wolves and became best friends. “I was about ten years old, off exploring without any pack members, and had caught Colleen’s scent. I was curious who she was. Then I encountered a mother bear and her cubs. My fault, really. I smelled signs of them but didn’t heed the warning. I was too interested in learning who the strange she-wolf was crossing our territory.

“She could have been all wolf and not lupus garou, for all I knew. But I was always on the lookout for a wolf cub my age. Then I got curious about the bears. Nearly a fatal mistake on my part,” Julia said. “Colleen came to my rescue when she heard me snarling and growling and barking in a startled ‘I’m going to get myself killed’ way.”

Colleen shook her head. “You and me both.”

“What did you do?” Heather asked, wide-eyed.

“All that we could do. We kept going in different directions. With two of us, the mother bear was afraid we might attack her cubs. We finally were able to outrun her and spent a couple of hours trying to find each other again,” Colleen said.

“Yeah, best friends forever after that,” Julia said.

Colleen set her wineglass on the coffee table. “I couldn’t believe it when you told me you’d come out here to work on a movie, perfect for providing details for your next book, and ended up mating with the pack leader!”

Julia smiled. “Yeah, but I couldn’t believe how you picked up your first mate, either.”

Elaine tilted the wine bottle and said, “We’re out. We need more for our storytelling.”