Frowning, she walked with Cearnach outside. “It’s possible, I suppose. It would make sense as to why he wanted me to meet with him. That it was about more than a treasure that might not be all that valuable.” She continued walking in silence for a few steps, then asked, “Why didn’t I know about the properties all these years?”
Before Cearnach could speculate, she shook her head and answered her own question. “I changed my identity after I sold off my parents’ estates. Some of Rafferty’s pirate crew still thought to make me part of the bounty that they received after murdering Rafferty. I knew Rafferty was dead, yet I kept looking over my shoulder, worried that he’d come back for me.
“He did, you know. Not after he died, of course, but before that. His ship would be a month late in returning, and I’d be so hopeful he’d died, and then when I thought I might be free, he’d return. So that’s the way I felt. That I’d be shopping at market, I’d turn, and there he’d be, that menacing, cruel grin on his face, his eyes locked onto mine, telling me to get home before he even spoke a word.
“I kept moving, reinventing myself over the years. I had to anyway since I didn’t have a wolf pack that could hide my longevity from others. Humans would begin to ask what my secret was to looking so young when they were aging and I was not. So moving was essential.” She frowned up at Cearnach. “Do you think Kilpatrick wanted me at the castle ruins to somehow force me to turn the deeds over to him?”
“It’s possible.” Cearnach wasn’t about to tell her otherwise. He didn’t trust Kilpatrick.
She shuddered and he wrapped his arm around her shoulders and pulled her close. “Then it was good that you ran off the road, and I met you first instead,” she said.
He smiled down at her. Someday, he supposed they’d tell their children how they’d met—her version and his.
Cearnach caught the eye of Logan, the blacksmith’s sixteen-year-old son. Logan was practicing sword-fighting with another young man, but he lowered his sword and looked hopefully at Cearnach as if he wanted to join him and Elaine in the kennel.
Full of the devil at sixteen, Logan reminded Cearnach of himself at that age. Logan loved animals more than anything else and didn’t care for working in the smithy like his father did, to his father’s disappointment.
Cearnach nodded and Logan raced toward them.
“Don’t run with the sword, lad,” Cearnach cautioned him, continuing on his way with Elaine to the kennel.
“It’s not real. Just a play sword.” Logan frowned. “Laird said if you were too busy protecting your girlfriend…”
Cearnach gave the youth a quelling look meant to guard his words.
“We all know she’s kin to our enemy, the McKinleys and the Kilpatricks, but lots of people say you’re protecting her from them. So doesn’t that make her your girlfriend?” Logan glanced at Elaine and gave her a big smile, then frowned when he saw her bruised face.
“She is a friend,” Cearnach said. Mate.
“They say Vardon McKinley hit Elaine. Are you going to kill him?” Logan asked.
“No, he’s not going to kill Vardon,” Elaine said firmly.
“Someone ought to. Oran was saying that Vardon has beaten women before. He doesn’t deserve to live.” Logan swung his sword at a fake opponent. “Some of our kin said Flynn’s bothering Elaine. Do you want me to talk to him? Not that I haven’t already. I told him to leave the lass alone… or else.” He cast Elaine another big grin.
“He spoke with you?” Cearnach asked.
“Aye, said she was a bonny lass, and if you hadn’t been interested in her, he was.”
Cearnach shook his head. “If he won’t listen to Ian or me, he won’t listen to anyone.”
“Maybe he’ll listen to me,” Elaine said. “I hadn’t thought to talk to him. Not that I ever saw him.”
Both Cearnach and the lad looked at her, then at the same time said, “Nay.”
“He doesn’t pay attention to women?” Elaine asked, sounding irritated.
“Ask Lady Heather,” Logan said. “He pesters her all the time.”
Cearnach glanced down at Logan. “Did you have something you wished to speak with me about other than Flynn and the like?”
“Oh, aye, while you protect the lady, do you want me to bathe the dogs today?”
“Did your father give you leave to do so?” Cearnach asked.
“Aye. He said that I was to help you wash them.”
Cearnach opened the kennel door, then closed it behind them. Yips and happy woofs greeted them.
“One of the wolfhounds, Sheba, had pups about eight weeks ago. All the rest are adult dogs,” Cearnach said.
Elaine looked through the metal gate. “Ah, they’re adorable.”
“You want all of the dogs out at once?” Logan asked.
“Aye.”
“Do they all live out here?” Elaine sounded disappointed, and he thought about her comment concerning the dachshunds.
If she chose one of the pups to keep for her own, would she want it to sleep with her in her bed? In their bed? He had other plans for their bed.
He glanced back at her as she peered into the huge cage where Sheba lay curled up on her bed while her pups ran to the cage door.
“They’re not family pets?” she asked.
He heard the distinct dissatisfaction in her voice. “They’re like family, lass. They only come out here to sleep at night. During the day, they join the family in various activities. They’re only here right now because this is bath day, and we needed them gathered in one place. After their bath, they get to be walked and join other family members for the rest of the day.”
Logan busily opened all the cage doors. The wolfhounds were huge and ferocious-looking with their shaggy, wiry coats, bristly hair over their eyes, and chin whiskers giving them an old-man appearance. They jumped all over each other, vying to reach Cearnach to earn his attention, while others were checking Elaine out thoroughly—the newcomer to the clan.
Cearnach opened the door for Sheba. Elaine was grinning broadly as she tried to pet all the rambunctious dogs at once. Elaine looked so sweet, right at home with the dogs as the pups licked her all over in greeting. He chuckled under his breath.
Sheba rose, stretched, then trotted over to greet them.
He crouched down to pet her pups as they scrambled over each other to lick and bite him.
“They’re huge for being eight weeks old. I had a yellow Labrador retriever. Her pups at this age were so much smaller, like the difference between a young fawn and a baby moose.”
Cearnach laughed. “Aye. The adult males are taller than a man when standing on their hind legs. Come on,” he coaxed the pups as he took Elaine’s hand and walked through the kennel and into a large shower room with stainless steel benches on one side, a sink on another, and hoses hanging from one wall.
Logan greeted the dogs competing for his attention, but he was checking Elaine out, watching the way the dogs were nosing her, smelling her, brushing up against her, and how she was petting them all.
“You have what? Fifteen adult wolfhounds, ten puppies, and two poodles?” she asked, trying to count them.
“Aye. Sheba’s pups will go to good homes,” Cearnach said. “Most of them. If Ian can convince Julia, that is.”
“How do you know which you’ve washed and which you haven’t with all this chaos?”
“Logan will take the washed dogs into the drying room as soon as I’ve finished with them.”
“Do you want me to help?” Elaine asked, sounding eager.
He smiled at her. “They’re awfully”—one jumped up on him and he finished with—“rambunctious. They’d probably knock you over. Especially as the floor gets wet.”
He began to rinse one of the dogs, though two others tried to tackle the spray. The dogs bumped into Cearnach, who ignored the distractions. Then he turned off the hose and set it on its hook before he began soaping down the dog.
He glanced over to see what Logan and Elaine were doing. She was sitting on one of the benches, cuddling three puppies at once while all were delightfully licking her throat and chin and nipping at her fingers. She was grinning and chuckling. Logan was watching her, beaming.
As soon as Cearnach rinsed the dog, Logan came to take him to the drying room and whispered, “If you don’t want her to be your girlfriend, she can be mine.”
Before Cearnach could respond, Logan, serious as could be, led the wet dog off to the drying room.
Cearnach glanced back at Elaine and saw her washing one of the pups in the large sink. He smiled and shook his head. She would fit right in with the pack.
By the time Cearnach had begun to work on Anlan, father of Sheba’s pups and the last of the male wolfhounds he had to wash, Dillon, the most mischievous of the males, had spied the hose with a devilish gleam in his dark brown eyes. Cearnach knew what he was up to before the dog lunged, but he couldn’t thwart Dillon fast enough.
The dog grabbed the hose and gave it a tug, sending a stream of water Elaine’s way. The water blasted her in the chest and she squealed in surprise.
The stream of water swung wildly as Cearnach wrestled the hose away from the dog’s tight grip. The spray came back around and hit Elaine’s face as she tried to get out of the way.
By the time Cearnach feinted releasing the hose and Dillon loosened his grip to re-situate his teeth for a better hold, Cearnach had pulled the hose free. Elaine was already sopping wet and wiping her eyes. Logan looked on in horror, then he ran back into the drying room and raced out again to give her a clean, dry towel.
She wrung some of the water out from her sweater. She was soaked to the skin, revealing all, which for Cearnach’s consumption was fine. But for the lad, no.
“Logan, why don’t you go up to the keep and ask Lady Julia if she has something dry that Elaine can wear?”
“Aye, I will.” Logan raced through the shower room.
