“I’ll get us a couple more bottles. I know this story,” Colleen said.

“Are you sure?” Julia asked. “It’s always a fun story.”

“When you tell it,” Colleen said, smiling.

“I could go with you,” Heather said.

“No, no, that’s fine. I’ll be really quick.” Colleen didn’t want to stop Julia’s spiel, but she really didn’t want to hear it again, either. She uncurled herself from the couch.

“Her first beta mate had tried hard to approach her at a barn-dance social. The guys had been pushing him all night to cross the floor to ask her to dance. She waited and finally, giving up on him, crossed the floor instead and asked him to dance.”

The ladies chuckled.

Smiling, Colleen opened the door to the garden room. Yeah, he was cute and she never regretted taking him for her first mate.

Julia continued with the story, “No one had expected her to become interested in a beta like him. But he was the sweetest guy, and she loved him for it. She nearly gave him a heart attack when she asked him to dance, though.”

Colleen closed the door and headed down the stone path toward the keep. Grant was so different. If he was intrigued with her at that same dance, he would have made his interest known at once, probably elbowing everyone out of the way if they approached her and glowering at anybody who even considered such a move. She wasn’t sure if she could have handled a wolf like him way back then. Now? She wasn’t certain anybody else would ever measure up to the way she felt about him.

She walked quietly down the moss-covered path, listening to the wind whipping through the trees, her skirt flying, and wondered if she could have an all-girls’ party at Farraige Castle—not in quite the same manner, but as a way to get to know the MacQuarrie women better when they returned home.

She watched for any movement outside, figuring her concern was silly. No one would be observing the garden room. The men laughed inside, probably imbibing too much whisky and having their own fun. She slipped inside, not sure why she felt so apprehensive, but her skin crawled with unease, as if any moment something would come out of the dark and give her a heart seizure.

Just as she attempted to tell herself how silly that was, something in the dark touched her arm, and she swallowed a scream. A small light shown from a hallway, and between that and her preternatural wolf sight, she could see her way in the kitchen, but no one was here. She did not believe in ghosts, even if a ghostly cousin of Ian’s purportedly hassled the lasses in his clan.

She should have allowed Heather to come with her, but she thought that only one person going would be quieter than if more of them went. She could see the men wanting to take the game a little further.

She found the door to the cellar and opened it, then headed down the wooden steps. They creaked with every step she took, sounding as though she was setting off an alarm bell signaling “intruder alert.”

When she reached the stone floor, she hurried to the racks in the far back corner where Heather had picked out the other bottles of merlot.

She was about to grab two bottles when she heard someone coming down the steps. A man’s heavy tromping. He wasn’t making any effort to hide that he was coming. He could smell that she had just been here, too. Did he think she was still down here? Or maybe he suspected she’d come and gone, and he had missed her. He was probably only here to grab more wine for their own party upstairs.

He approached the wine racks where she stood, and she barely breathed. Carefully, she unsheathed her sword with a soft swish loud enough for any wolf to hear. She hadn’t expected that unsheathing her sword would be so noticeable.

A man chuckled.

Grant. She sighed with relief. Yet her skin still prickled with awareness. Whether he was playing the game or not, she still felt a wolf’s wariness, a natural tendency to be on guard. On the other hand, they were alone in the dark, and that had her thinking of kissing and other possibilities, which she swore she was going to ignore this very minute!

“What a delightful scent I smell,” he said, drawing closer, his stride shorter now, his voice seductive, playful, and very interested.

She would not let him get her all excited again, not let him melt her with his touches and then leave again.

“I hear your breathing, lassie, and your heart beating out of bounds. The lass isn’t stealing the laird’s wine, is she?”

She couldn’t help it. She smiled. He was playing the game still. “Don’t come any nearer, Grant,” she ordered, unable to see him yet for all the racks of bottled Chablis, merlot, Riesling, and pinot grigio. Her darn heart was beating even faster now, her blood pounding. The anticipation of his stalking her was killing her.

He laughed, his voice dark and sexy. “You are not in charge of this castle. You are a pirate. What should I do with a pirate who is stealing the laird’s wine, eh? When he is my best friend?”

She smiled, though she wasn’t ready to face Grant, even in play like this. She thought she heard an eagerness, a wolf’s determination, and something more that drove him toward her.

“I believe I’ve found the lassie I want to keep for my own.”

Her jaw dropped. He couldn’t be serious. He had to be teasing. Playing the game.

He came around the corner and his dark gaze met hers, then lowered to take in her corset. “I like this style on you. You should play dress-up more often.”

She looked down at the kilt he wore and the fur-covered bag in front of his crotch—the sporran—which made her want to lift it and see if she could get a rise out of him. “Where did you get the kilt?” She loved seeing him in it and couldn’t think of a better way for him to perform his part.