Heart of the Highland Wolf Read Online Free PDF Page B

just so tired that she wasn’t registering what he was saying. Or maybe her ankle was hurting too much for her to think straight. So he asked the next thing on his mind. And that got a swift reaction. “Are you mated?”
    Her jaw dropped. The conversation in the front seat instantly died.
    Too many heartbeats passed, and he realized she might be getting the wrong impression from his query. “It’s a simple question, lass.” Again, he sounded gruffer than he intended. “I wondered if either of you were mated, and if so, why your mates wouldn’t be here with you.”
    Her lips thinned a bit, and she crossed her arms at her waist. “No, neither of us is mated. And if we were, we’d still do our jobs. Our mates would not have to chaperone us.”
    â€œIf you were mine , I wouldn’t want you traipsing around a foreign country on your own. Too many wolves about.” At the last, he gave her a hint of a smile.
    To his way of thinking, the little wolf was fair game.
    ***
    Ian MacNeill was a wolf. A wolf disguised as a Scottish laird. None of the peerage charts had said anything about titled lords having werewolf roots, so unless one were to encounter a lupus garou laird in person, it would be impossible to know if he or she was one.
    Julia knew she’d get the devil of a lecture from Maria about the name Jones . What could she have done? She didn’t want Ian to know that she was Julia Wildthorn, romance writer. And not only a romance writer, but one who wrote about werewolves. Although her stories were a mix of werewolf lore and reality, and not strictly based on their own kind. She’d be in trouble if she did that. Still, she did get some flak from lupus garous who didn’t like that she wrote werewolf romances, period. The majority of werewolves who read her stories loved them, though. She imagined Laird Ian MacNeill would not be one of those.
    Never in a million years had she considered that she’d ever meet the laird personally or that he’d be one of her kind, let alone have to give her name to him or anyone else in his clan.
    If Ian knew her pen name, he might realize she wasn’t here to work on the film but to write her latest story about Argent Castle and Ian and his people. Not that she wouldn’t disguise the location and the people’s names, but essentially, the story would be about the location and his people. She was certain he wouldn’t want to encourage that.
    What shocked her most was Ian asking if she was mated. Adding that he wondered about both of the women—and only because he thought they shouldn’t be here without their mates—was a total crock. The small smile on his brother’s lips confirmed that she was right in her assumption.
    Maria cast a look over her seat back, her expression one of butter-him-up-or-else. Did Maria think Julia should be super-nice to the Scottish hunk whose leg was pressed indecently against hers—although she had to admit the backseat was incredibly small for his long legs and he had nowhere else to stretch them? That Julia should encourage some kind of intimacy with him just to get on his good side so Maria would have an easier time during the filming of the production? Or maybe to make amends to Maria since Julia had already caused a situation by using a fake name and catching Maria off guard?
    Julia sighed, pressed her leg against Ian’s a little more, and smiled at him. Her smile was faked, but his wasn’t. He seemed more amused than anything. Even so, his eyes darkened fractionally.
    And what eyes they were—beautiful rich brown with golden flecks of amber; intuitive, perceptive, way too observant. With the heat on in the car, the silk shell she was wearing had dried, but his gaze slid to it anyway, and she wondered if it was still as revealing as when it had been wet and clinging to her breasts. Then she thought of Ian’s photo in her pocket, and she