Without realizing it, she’d been tapping her feet to the song the girls were singing, and all at once, Chase stood and took her hand.
A swift charge of electricity went through her. Her blood bubbled from the heat of the fire the electricity created. Her body reacted by moving without conscious thought towards Chase MacAdams, and her eyelids snapped open as she realized what his touch had done to her.
His voice was husky and fully sexually charged as he asked, “Dance?”
She couldn’t speak as she allowed him to lead her onto the small dance floor. It was a lively rendition, of all things, of “Chicken ’n’ Biscuits”. She laughed when she searched for and found her voice. “I can’t believe they know this song here in the Highlands.”
“Oh now, doona be surprised at anything we have here in the Highlands,” he answered, and there was no doubting his meaning.
When the song ended, Roxie was flushed with the excitement of dancing and flirting with this hunk of all hunks. Then the female band began a ballad, and he immediately put his hand on her waist and drew her to him.
He led her in a slow dance, his movements becoming slower with each beat of the song. She felt his solid body press against hers in an erotic movement, and an explosion erupted inside her. She couldn’t tell its origin, she couldn’t think how or why, but she felt herself glide into his body as he leaned into hers, and suddenly her arms were sliding up his chest and his arms were wrapped tightly around her. There was no one else in the pub … were they in a pub?
Roxie felt as though they were in a black room lit by tiny stars and that he was leading her away from everything she knew. She felt the wolf in her raise its head and begin to howl with need and desire. She beat it down as she so often did these days … more and more lately.
She felt his hands move behind her to a point just above her butt, and she knew an instant where she wanted to guide his hands and make him grab her butt and pull her in …
She could feel his breathing in her ear, and she knew it wasn’t from the exertions of the dance. She sensed his alpha wolf reacting to her wolf, and she felt them both yearning to run. All at once, she was inside his head and she saw through his eyes as his wolf raced through the foothills …
He stopped suddenly and set her apart, staring down into her searching eyes with a strange expression on his face as he said, “What—what the hell are you?” His tone was as harsh as it was surprised.
“What do you mean?” She tried to appear innocent but felt guilty as hell.
“Don’t play games with me,” he returned, eyeing her doubtfully.
“I didn’t think I was,” she answered softly. She could see he wasn’t sure what he had experienced, wasn’t sure if he had really felt her in his head. How could he be sure of anything, when the experience had been an unexpected event for her as well?
Her inner wolf had suddenly emerged and joined with him in his mind. She had never had that happen to her with anyone. From his uncertain reaction, she was fairly certain the experience had been a new one for him as well.
The thing was, she told herself, she hadn’t initiated it—so how had it happened? What could have made her mind-meld like that with him? She hadn’t realized that she was inside his head until it was too late. And then her wolf had taken over and joyfully run with his … what the hell? This was potential trouble. She knew he had definitely realized something, but what? Did he think it had been his libido? Had it been his libido pulling on hers? She wasn’t sure.
He took her hand, brought her back to the table, and said grimly, “Sit.”
“What is it? What’s wrong?” She had to wheedle her way out of this by pretending ignorance.
“Ye be wrong—everything about ye is all wrong. For one thing, lass … look at ye—too lovely to be hiding out in the Highlands. It doesn’t make sense to me, and when something doesn’t make sense, there is a reason. I want the reason. Tell me now, the truth if ye will, just why and what are ye really doing here away from life as ye should be living it, and don’t be telling me it is to write a book, for I don’t buy it.”
She took a chance with half a truth, one that had been ever present during her years in university life. “I wanted to get away … just get away until I decided what I want to do with my life.”
“Why?”
“That is personal.” She lowered her gaze to her hands playing with one another on the table.
“Why do I hear a lie in those words, Roxie MacBran? I think ye know exactly what ye want to do … I don’t think finding yerself is why ye came here to me.”
“Look,” she said, leaning forward. “I am a Patquah Indian, and my family wanted me to return to the fold. I wasn’t ready to turn them down cold, and I wasn’t ready to go back. I love them … I love my tribe, but I wanted to know the land my dad came from—thought I’d come up here and see what he left behind when he fell in love and married my mother.” Half-truths were often worse than lies, her mother had told her. Half-truths often caused hurt in the end because they were believable.
Chase l
eaned back in his chair as though accepting her words and asked, “Yer father is a Scotsman?”
She laughed. “MacBran is the name.”
He leaned forward again, coming very close to her, and said softly, “Aye then, I can see both in ye—the exotic Indian and the beauty of Scotland. Where did he hail from—yer father? Nearby?”
“Yes, oh he is very much a Scotsman, and he lived on the other side of Inverness. In fact, he maintains his ancestral home there still, MacBran Manor, and we have stayed there often, so it is not so strange for me to want to be here in the foothills of the Grampians.” She smiled tentatively. She was aware in that moment that she wanted to tell him everything. He was a hybrid—he would understand what it was to be different. She wanted to confess what she was and why she was there. Instead, she bit her bottom lip and felt ashamed of the lie that stood like a boulder now between them. She knew she was lying—and he suspected it.
He gave her a half-smile and wagged a finger. “Right then, we’ll leave it at that for now …” He eyed her speculatively and asked, “So, an American Indian are ye? That makes sense, for ye have that beauty in ye.”