A Highland Wolf Christmas Read online

  Copyright © 2014 by Terry Spear

  Cover and internal design © 2014 by Sourcebooks, Inc.

  Cover design by Juliana Kolesova

  Cover photos © chudakov/dreamstime.com, Dmitrij/dreamstime.com

  Sourcebooks and the colophon are registered trademarks of Sourcebooks, Inc.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems—except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews—without permission in writing from its publisher, Sourcebooks, Inc.

  The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious or are used fictitiously. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental and not intended by the author.

  Published by Sourcebooks Casablanca, an imprint of Sourcebooks, Inc.

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  Contents

  Front Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  A sneak peek at Jaguar Pride

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Back Cover

  To Deborah Hill, who has accompanied me to zoos

  and the Saint Francis Wolf Sanctuary in Texas

  to make my research even more fun.

  We worked together at a local library,

  and our lunch and movie dates

  always inspire me to write more.

  Thanks, Deborah, for being a great friend!

  Chapter 1

  In a rush to pack before her ex-fiancé discovered her home alone, Calla Stewart felt jittery, on edge. She knew that breaking up with Baird McKinley had been the best thing for her to do—though she wished she’d taken her good friend Cearnach MacNeill’s advice way before she reached the altar. Wedding and mating Baird was the worst thing she could have done. She should be relieved and happy now, moving forward with her life. Except for one thing. The wolf wasn’t giving her up easily.

  The Celtic Christmas harp music playing and the Christmas lights sparkling on her tabletop tree did little to lighten her mood as she hurried to pack the rest of her things for her stay at the MacNeills’ Argent Castle.

  Normally, her home—the carriage house behind her parents’ manor house—was a place of joy where she could recharge her batteries, relax, and enjoy some peace and solitude after the often hectic days and nights she spent operating her party-planning business.

  But her parents were on their way to Ireland to visit family, so they wouldn’t be around to help her out if she had trouble. Their trip was so sudden—unusual, given the way they always planned things far in advance—that she had asked if they were taking it because of the upset over the wedding. But they’d assured her they just needed a vacation. They hadn’t taken one in years because they’d been busy managing their own chain of hotels. They had looked frazzled and worn out. Calla hated that she’d upset them with the wedding fiasco, but they’d been relieved that she hadn’t gone through with it.

  She still couldn’t believe her dad had gotten his flight times so wrong. She’d thought she was going to have all day to pack. Had she known their flight was so early, she would have already been packed, taken her parents to the airport, and then driven straight from there to Argent Castle. Instead, she’d had to take them to the airport, then come home to finish packing, and finally set out for the castle. Her mother had assured her that next time she was taking charge of the itinerary.

  With a snowstorm on the way, Calla tucked an extra pair of winter gloves in the pocket of her field pack and felt something. She pulled out a picture of Baird and her that a photographer had taken for their Save the Date cards. She’d thought she’d gotten rid of any reminder of that photo shoot. She tossed the picture in the trash.

  God, she regretted having been such a fool. How could she have allowed herself to be taken in so completely by Baird’s charm?

  Calla shook her head, glad the MacNeills had extended the invitation to stay with them while she planned their Christmas celebration—it gave her a place to regroup after the disastrous end to her almost-marriage.

  She turned off her Christmas-tree lights and was about to haul her bags out to the car when she heard car doors slam out front. Four of them.

  Her heart skittered. It could be nothing, she told herself. Maybe the MacNeills had sent someone to take her to the castle, concerned about the weather, or worried about Baird and his kin. She peeked out the curtains and saw Baird stalking toward her front door, two of his brothers and a cousin leaning against his car and waiting for him.

  Her skin prickled with goose bumps.

  Taking a deep breath, she tried to get her wildly beating heart under control. She desperately wanted to ignore Baird’s knock on the door. But her car was sitting near the front door, not hidden in the garage, and he would guess she was here. Besides, their car was blocking her path, and she couldn’t leave until they moved it.

  She wasn’t afraid of Baird, as long as he was simply trying to cajole her into coming back to him, but she wanted his constant harassment to end. She worried that he might take this further if he finally realized he couldn’t convince her to return to him.

  “Come on, Calla. I know you’re home,” he said, sounding a little annoyed, though he was trying hard to sound more like someone who was attempting to appeal to her.

  He wouldn’t want to appear as though he was pleading when his brothers and his cousin were watching him and listening to him. Not when he had been their pack leader, in charge and making the rules, for only the last two years. How would that look to the rest of the pack? If he couldn’t sway one stubborn she-wolf to come back to him.

  If she ignored him, she was afraid they’d delay her so long that she’d be stuck here until the roads were cleared. Worse, what if he and his kin were stuck here too? She’d be sorely tempted to let them sit out in the freezing weather in their wolf coats.

  Resolved to deal with him one last time, she went to the door and unlocked and opened it. “It’s over—”

  He brushed past her, slamming the door behind him. Damn him.

  “I didn’t want to talk in front of my kin,” he said, sounding exasperated.

  “Then don’t bring them next time. Rather—don’t come here again. It’s over between us.”

  He moved toward her as if to give her a hug, but she held her hand out to keep him from drawing closer. “Nay, Baird. We’re not there any longer.”

  Big mistake. He seized her hand and pulled her into his arms, but she quickly jerked away from him.

  “Baird, you listen to me. We are done. Through. Finished. We’re not getting
back together—today, tomorrow, or ever,” she said, as pissed off as she could be. Partly because he’d scared her by getting physical, trying to force an intimacy between them that she no longer wanted.

  He wore a stupid smile as if he knew better. Which irked her completely. Then he noticed her packed bags and his face darkened. “Where are you going? To join your parents in Ireland?”

  How did he know about that? Not that he couldn’t have found out somehow, but it wasn’t exactly public knowledge. As far as she knew, her parents weren’t talking to him, either. Unless he’d been badgering them, trying to get them to change her mind about going back to him. They hadn’t said anything to her about it, though.

  “You’re going to Argent Castle, aren’t you? What did the MacNeills tell you about me? What lies?” Baird growled.

  “Your actions at the wedding revealed just how you would be toward any of my friends. The MacNeills didn’t have to say a thing about you. And if they did say anything adverse about you, I didn’t listen.” Unfortunately. “Your own actions, or inactions, ruined our relationship.”

  Baird shook his head. “All right. I’ve tried to be reasonable about this. The truth is that I love you and I want you back. I’ll…do whatever it takes for us to work through this.” He didn’t sound like his words came from the heart. More like he had to say them, although he desperately wanted to tell her that she was coming back to him, or else. Like he would dictate to a pack member who was way out of line.

  “I’m not mating you. Can’t you get that through your head?”

  “Two weeks, love. Two weeks to change your mind.” He was smiling, but the look was not sweet or warm, and the implied threat was there. Do it, or else.

  “Or what?” she asked, glowering at him.

  He shrugged and headed for the door. Once he walked outside, she stood in the entryway and watched him join his kin. He talked to them casually, his voice so low she couldn’t hear his words, even with her enhanced wolf hearing. They weren’t making a move to get into the car. Damn the lot of them.

  Already snow was accumulating on the cobblestone drive, which made her feel the urgency of leaving now. While Baird and his kin kept talking, Calla grabbed her bags.

  She tried to ignore them, tried not to pay attention to the way her skin felt icy with concern as she packed her luggage in her car. If he wanted to show her how much he cared, he could have packed her car for her. Which she wouldn’t have wanted. But he was showing his alpha side—he wanted his way in this and wouldn’t help her do anything that wasn’t what he wished of her.

  She locked her place up, hoping no one would break into it while she was gone—just to prove she shouldn’t have run off to stay with the MacNeills. The whole time, the wolves watched her, trying to unnerve her. She was pissed off at them, but worried too. She wasn’t any match for four male wolves if they decided to force the issue of her returning to Baird. And she didn’t trust them in the least.

  When they still didn’t move their vehicle, she pulled out her cell phone and said to them, “Please move your car so I can leave.” Or she’d call the police, she implied with her tone of voice. Even though she knew that if she did, Baird would leave well before the police arrived, and she’d be stuck staying behind to give a full report. That could make her even later if the weather slowed her down. Besides, in the long run, wolves had to handle wolves. Incarcerating a lupus garou wasn’t safe for their kind.

  “We’re getting married,” Baird said. “You’ll see. And everything will be like it was before.”

  Over her dead body. Though she didn’t want to say it in case that was exactly what he was thinking.

  They could never go back to the way it was.

  To her relief, Baird and his kin all piled into their car and left, yet she couldn’t help but be troubled by his veiled threat. What did he plan to do if she didn’t go back to him?

  She glanced down at her car, the tires nestled in deep snow, and realized that it wasn’t that the snow had reached so high on the tires, but that they were no longer inflated. If his kin had cut her tires while she and Baird were inside, she would kill Baird, since he was their pack leader and ultimately responsible for his pack mates’ deeds.

  She hurried to the garage, located her tire pump, and then began filling the first tire with air. To her guarded relief, it began to expand. She suspected they’d just let the air out of the tires to show her she wasn’t going to have an easy time of it if she didn’t agree to be Baird’s mate.

  With the clock ticking, she was getting further behind in trying to beat the brunt of the storm. She stored her tire pump, got into the car, and traveled in the direction of Argent Castle, hoping she hadn’t forgotten anything.

  Trying to get her mind off Baird, she thought about how thrilled she was that the MacNeill gray-wolf-pack leaders, Ian and Julia, had hired her to help plan their first mated Christmas celebration, which would be a mix of Scottish and American traditions. The only damper on Calla’s plans was her concern that Guthrie, one of Ian’s younger quadruplet brothers and the financial manager for the pack, would contest any expenditure she suggested. At least, Julia had warned her about that possibility.

  Calla should have been more worried about the weather. It had only been lightly snowing when she left, but by the time she was nearing the castle, she could barely see in the blinding blizzard. The snow blew sideways across the narrow road, and she soon lost track of where the road ended and the land dropped off. Snowplows wouldn’t be out until later on the more isolated country roads, including this one that led to Argent Castle.

  Driving at a wolf’s crawl, she squinted to discern where the road was. Snow and ice clung to branches on the fir trees on either side of the pavement. A haze of grayish white cloaked the area, lending a somber cast to the evergreens. Visibility was limited to only a couple of feet ahead of her.

  Despite the trouble Baird had caused her, she’d still left home three hours early. It should have taken her only an hour and a half to reach Argent Castle. She thought she had only a little more than five miles to go, as long as she didn’t accidentally drive off the road and get stuck. Her tires slipped again. She gripped her steering wheel harder, her skin prickling with tension. The roads were worsening, getting icier with every mile, and she was afraid she would slide right off the asphalt at any moment. As soon as she had that notion, a herd of red deer bolted across the road.

  “Damn!” Her heart nearly stopped as she slammed on her brakes.

  Her car slid on the ice, her heart jumping into her throat. Steering away or toward the slide had no effect. Braking made it worse.

  The car sailed off the road into the deep ditch. Teeth gritted, she braced for impact. The car crashed into a tree with a jolt. The dead stop forced her to jerk forward, her seat belt catching her. Thankfully, she hadn’t hit the tree hard enough to do herself any injury.

  She gunned the engine in reverse, hoping for a miracle. With a whirring, grinding noise, the tires spun around and around. Ticked off to the max, she peered out through the fogged-up windows. Her vehicle was buried in a snowdrift, the cold, wet flakes reaching to just below her door handle. Great. She tried reversing again. Her tires continued to spin, and the front bumper felt like it was hung up on something because it moved a little, but wouldn’t budge any farther.

  As early as the sun set in winter, darkness would descend soon. Only another half hour or so, which was the problem with winter in Scotland. As soon as three thirty arrived, the sun would vanish. She shut off her engine. Without the heater running, the temperature in the interior of the car quickly plummeted. She looked around in the backseat to see if she had anything she could use for traction.

  A blanket. Not that she wanted to ruin it, but she always kept one in the car during the winter for emergencies, and this constituted an emergency.

  She pulled her cell out of her purse and called Julia, but she didn’t answer. Calla tried Cearnach’s number. He was Ian’s second oldest brother and t
he only other one in the MacNeill pack she had a number for, but no answer there, either. Fine. She texted both of them so they’d know approximately where she’d left the car, when, and the direction she’d taken to get to the castle.

  If she ran as a wolf, she’d most likely get there before her anticipated arrival and no one would think she’d had car trouble in the meantime. Well, that and she’d told them she wasn’t coming until after she dropped her parents off at the airport, which had turned out to be a totally different time than expected.

  She tried to open the door, but a wall of snow was wedged against it. She let her breath out in exasperation. She shoved, making a small gap between the door and the snowbank. She’d never make it out of the car that way. Damn it! She closed the door.

  Climbing over the console, she peered out the passenger window. The snow was not quite as deep here. She shoved the door open, grabbed her blanket, and waded through the snow. The ditch was maybe three feet deep, with as much snow piled up in it, and she didn’t think she could get her car out on her own. Not to be deterred without at least trying, she placed the blanket against the back tires and then climbed back into the car. She gunned the engine again, but no matter how much gas she gave it, the car wasn’t budging.

  She silently fumed, got back out of the car, and retrieved her blanket.

  “This really sucks.”

  Even though it would get dark soon, and the blinding snow would make it difficult to see, she could still find her way to Argent Castle using her enhanced wolf sense of smell. She wasn’t sitting here and waiting for a rescue.

  Inside the car, she yanked off her wool coat and then realized she’d have to leave her purse, phone, and everything else behind… No, she’d use her wolf teeth to grab the strap of her waterproof field pack. That would slow her down even more, but it couldn’t be helped. Tucking her purse into the pack, she tossed everything she could live without into the backseat.

  She quickly stripped out of the rest of her clothes, then grabbed her bag. Naked and hoping nobody would find her like this and think she was in some kind of confused, hypothermic state, she squeezed out through the narrow opening. Cold, cold, cold. Snow reached her thighs, and the upper part of her body was bare to the freezing wind. She slammed the door, hit the lock button, threw her keys in the bag’s side pocket, and zipped it up.