A Highland Wolf Christmas
Page 25

“I’m not here as an attendee,” Guthrie said, though he suspected the redheaded woman already knew that. “I’m only here to watch out for Calla.”
“Is she your girlfriend?”
“Nay.”
The woman offered him a beer. He didn’t accept it. “I’m Rosalind Brubaker. My brother is throwing the party, so I don’t know anyone. Can you help me with one little thing? I’ve asked everyone, but no one will help me. I have a big chest I need to move, and then you can go back to watching out for Calla.” Rosalind squeezed his arm, bringing Guthrie’s gaze back to her from Calla. “You have just the right muscles for the job.”
“I’ve really got to—”
“Calla!” Rosalind called out and Calla joined them. “Do you mind if your friend helps me move something? My brother and his friends won’t help.”
Calla eyed her and then shrugged. “It’s really up to Guthrie.”
“Good. He says he wouldn’t mind.” Rosalind grabbed his hand and hauled him to the stairs.
Guthrie glanced at Calla. She was frowning, but not half as hard as he was. He knew Ethan and Oran would watch out for Calla if anyone came to the house that they didn’t trust, but he didn’t trust the men in the house who were getting plastered. He didn’t trust this Rosalind either—there was something questionable about her impish expression—but he didn’t want to cause a scene. He didn’t mind moving a piece of furniture as long as it took only a minute of his time. As soon as he walked into the bedroom, he looked to see what Rosalind needed to have moved. She closed the door with a clunk.
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.”