Chapter 4
Maisie was so glad that Robert had a new phone and that he’d invited her and her sister to his open house. When she got off the phone with Robert, she turned to Anne. “Hey, we have a party to go to.”
“Oh?” Anne was helping Maisie clean up the kitchen.
Maisie and Anne lived at the inn in their own three-bedroom private quarters; the wing of six bedrooms, complete with en suite bathrooms, was for guests. The inn had two separate living rooms, one private and the other for guests, and the main dining room was off the guests’ living area and had views of both the ocean and the gardens. The other living room was in Anne and Maisie’s private living quarters, and they had their own smaller dining room with an oak table and chairs that sat eight. The kitchen served both their meals in their private dining room and the breakfasts for their guests in the main dining hall.
Each guest bedroom had a double bed, and a couple of the rooms had pullout couches for additional guests, mostly used by families. Guests could also use the laundry room, which had two washing machines and two dryers. The main dining area had enough seating for thirty. Maisie and Anne picked flowers daily from their garden to put in vases on the tables, along with the white tablecloths that adorned them all. They had also decorated each of the guest rooms and the main inn with Maisie’s photos of the castles, lochs, and wildflowers of Scotland.
The inn was always booked. Everyone loved their breakfasts, accommodations, and the location, as it was easy to explore the surrounding area from there.
“Aye. Robert’s having a party at his new home and his vet clinic—an open house—to show them off.”
“Wow, how neat. Surely he doesn’t want me to come.” Anne wiped off the kitchen counters.
“No, he said he wanted the both of us to come. Lots of wolves should be there—bachelor males—and we haven’t had time to meet any of them much really. Not to mention it would be nice to meet other she-wolves too.”
Anne was stuck on the topic of Robert though. “What if he likes me more than you?”
Maisie smiled at her. If Robert found Anne more appealing, it would all have to do with their wolf genetics and finding the one who would be the right forever mate. She wouldn’t begrudge them their happiness. Maisie could very well find a mate among the other bachelor males if Robert wasn’t the one for her. At least that’s what she was telling herself, but then she teased her sister. “I’ll be sure to wear a shirt where he can see my bandaged arm.”
Anne glanced at it. “You already removed the bandage.”
“I could put another one on.”
Her sister laughed. “You’re too funny. But I look forward to it. Where is his house located?”
“Right next door to the MacQuarrie castle. It’s on the same property that Edeen Campbell’s manor house is located. Edeen is Lachlan MacQuarrie’s mate.”
“Oh, how cool. That’s not that far from us, and it would be so much fun to live right next to the MacQuarries’ wolf pack. So I guess Robert Campbell now belongs to the MacQuarrie pack?”
“Aye. So tomorrow I’m doing transitional training with Conan. I guess he is doing so well, I can start it now. Then I’ll swap with you, and you can train with him next week, so we’ll be on track with Conan minding both of us.”
“I’m sure he will if we learn the commands.”
“I can’t imagine him behaving. I can’t wait to see him during training. I snuck a peek at him at the kennel. He was sound asleep.”
Anne laughed. “Great. They’re giving him a good workout, then.”
“I agree.” Between Conan jumping on them and biting their hands in greeting and barking at everyone, Maisie and Anne had to do something.
“So what do you think of Robert?”
Ohmigod, he was hot, hot, hot. Maisie had been surprised when he’d gotten up from the bed and he was completely naked. It wasn’t a total shock, as lupus garous stripped off their clothes and shifted into their wolves, so she was used to it. She just hadn’t expected it in that moment.
“He’s, um, sweet,” Maisie said.
Anne studied her and chuckled. “You are blushing to high heaven. Did you kiss him?”
“Of course not.” Not yet anyway. Maisie wondered if that was a mistake, if maybe she should have kissed him so he would know she was interested. That she was even having these thoughts was a surprise to her. She did want to mate and have kids one of these years, but it had been ages since she’d dated a wolf or had even thought of it.
“But you’re going to kiss him soon, eh?”
Maisie frowned at her.
Anne shook her head. “You’re definitely more interested in him than you’re attempting to let on.”
The sisters had moved into the area to take over the inn, and they hadn’t really gotten to know many of the wolves nearby yet. They’d been busy remodeling the place, then getting the word out that they had rooms available and booking them, and finally taking care of their guests. But when they’d seen the announcement that the MacQuarries at Farraige Castle had new Irish wolfhound puppies for sale before Christmas—the breed they’d grown up with—they’d gone right over to inquire about them. Little had they known, the MacQuarries were wolves like them, but that had just made the experience even more worthwhile.
Maisie and Anne wanted more of a cushion of income until the inn really paid for itself and more, so Anne had been running the business while Maisie had been taking on freelance photography jobs—since she loved being a photographer—to help pay some of their bills until the inn was making a bit more money consistently. Not only had they wanted to see the puppies for sale, but Maisie had also thought she might be able to offer her photography services to the MacQuarries to help showcase the mother and father dog and their brood. Being that she was a wolf like them, the MacQuarries hadn’t even looked at her website before they agreed.
Of course, she and her sister had put a down payment on one of the male pups right away too.
“Hey, when the boat hit you, it didn’t hurt your camera, did it?” Anne asked as they sat down to have a lunch of Cullen skink—smoked halibut, potatoes, and onions in a thick soup. “I know that’s not as major a concern as the boat hitting you, but I just wondered if it came out unscathed.”
“It did, thankfully.”
“Did you get enough underwater photos for the magazine article?”
“Aye. Before disaster struck, I was about ready to swim back to the car park, but then fate intervened. Oh, I forgot to tell you. Robert’s sister, Edeen, has one of Conan’s littermates. A little female. Her name is Ruby.”
“Aww, she was the tiniest one of the lot. The only red female too.”
“Right. Oh, and another thing. I said I would photograph all of Edeen’s pets, including her Highland cows.”
“Really? That’s wonderful. You’re getting booked to do all kinds of photography assignments. That should really help keep us in the black.”
“Yeah. It’s great. By the way, Edeen makes Celtic period clothes and other kinds of garments.” Maisie left the table and got her laptop, then returned. “This is her shop. Edeen’s Celtic Fashions.”
“She does beautiful work.” Anne was looking at several dresses, and Maisie knew she wanted one because Maisie wanted one herself. “You do realize that if we keep buying dogs and now Celtic period gowns, we’ll spend all your photography income, don’t you?”
Maisie smiled. “I imagine I can also offer my services to the pet owners who go to see Robert. Oh, maybe I can take some photos for his clinic walls if he hasn’t already decorated them. Anyway, I thought you and I could order some new gowns for next Christmas since we planned to do a medieval theme for the guests staying here for the holidays.”
“I love the idea. I want this one.” Anne pointed to one of the prettiest gowns on Edeen’s website. “The shimmering, olive-green medieval gown.”
“Me too.”
Anne laughed. “We always want the same clothes.”
“I told Colleen that I would take their baby pictures for her. Also, her sister-in-law is due any day. So we’ll have quite a lot of money coming in from all the photography work I’ll be doing. I hope that’s not putting you in a bind though, leaving you here alone.”
“Not at all. You can help me when I need you and then go off to do your photography work. This is working out really well. We want Mom and Dad to know that we can do financially well here so they’ll leave Glasgow and join us. Um, about the accident—”
“I don’t want them to worry about it because I feel fine. You know them, and no matter how much we assure them I’m fine, they’ll make the trip out here right away.”
“Okay, but if you start feeling bad, I’m telling them.”
“That’s fine with me.”
“Are you going to work on the garden?” Anne asked.
“I sure am.” Maisie loved being out of doors. So did her sister, so they took turns gardening.
“Then I’m going to clean the guest living area before everyone gets back here tonight,” Anne said.
The living area had games, books, puzzles, several couches and chairs, and a place to make tea. A large fireplace made it perfect for cold, wet nights also.
“All right. See you in a little bit.” Maisie grabbed her garden gloves and her bucket of garden tools. She loved the flower gardens, and she would often see their guests taking pictures of them, which encouraged her to plant even more flowers. Old stones bordered the gardens, and stone walkways encouraged visitors to stay on the paths and not step on the plants. They also had benches for visitors to sit and enjoy the view.
She was weeding around the bluebells, foxgloves, and carpets of purple saxifrage when she saw man-sized footprints in the soil. She frowned. Who in the world was walking through their garden when they had perfectly good walkways for that purpose? Then she saw one of the garden stones was gone. What the…? Her eyes detected something else half-hidden under the flowering purple Scots oregano. She leaned over to grab what turned out to be a driver’s license. The driver’s license belonged to Gus Anderson. He was the guest she had gone to dinner with last night.
Then she noticed teeth marks in the plastic and smelled that they were made by a dog—the size of the marks indicating a small dog. A little way from where she found the driver’s license, a small pink pet collar underneath some petunias caught her eye. Her heart skipped a beat at the thought of a small dog lost out here. “Och, no.”
She lifted the collar off the bark mulch and examined it, finding a little white fur had stuck to the collar. Lady , a heart-shaped pink-metal tag said. The collar didn’t have a tag with the owner’s name, address, and telephone number though. She smelled that the dog belonging to the collar had been the same one that had bitten the driver’s license. Worried for her, Maisie hoped she could find the dog and that it was microchipped so she could find her owners. An inspection of the back of the rabies tag attached to the collar showed the dog had received its last rabies vaccination at a vet clinic in Edinburgh. She wondered if Robert, who’d worked at a clinic there, might be able to learn who Lady’s owners were.
Near where the collar had been, the sun glinted off something else. “What in the world…” Maisie moved some flowers aside to find a phone. She grabbed it and pushed a button, the screen coming to life. The battery was charged, and—she frowned.
Ohmigod. It was Jude Springer’s phone. He had been one of her former boyfriends, the guy she’d dated exclusively back in Glasgow until she caught him on a date with another she-wolf. He hadn’t stayed here, so why was his phone in their garden? She recognized his scent on the phone and the picture of him fishing with a friend as his wallpaper. The friend was a good buddy of Jude’s, and she had always wondered if he would have been a nicer wolf to date than Jude.
She hurried back into the inn and asked Anne, “Have you seen a little dog running loose around here?” Maisie held up the collar.
Anne frowned. “Och, no.”
“I’m worried about her. She’s not going to be very big, and if she’s lost—well, it’s not good. Her name is Lady. Her rabies tag has a vet clinic listed on it in Edinburgh. I came in to call Robert about it in case he can discover whom she belongs to. I found Gus Anderson’s driver’s license also.” Maisie handed it to Anne.
“Oh, he’ll probably be missing that. We can call him.”
Then Maisie showed her Jude’s phone.
“It smells like that bastard you dated, Jude Springer? But he didn’t stay here at the inn. I would have turned him down for a room and said we were booked to eternity if he’d tried to make a reservation.” Anne turned it on and stared at the guy’s smug face, red curly hair framing his face, bright-blue eyes and a smirky grin as he stood next to his fishing buddy. “Jerk.”
“But we would need to unlock it. I agree about not getting ahold of him to give it back. I feel like the Good Samaritan in me would let him know I found it. The vengeful part of me says it’s finders keepers, and he’s out of luck. I’m going to call Robert about the dog now.”
“I can’t believe you found so many things in the garden!”
“Not only that, but a garden stone is missing!”
“No,” Anne said.
“Yeah. I mean, they’re beautiful garden stones, but would someone steal just one for their garden?”
“Sounds strange. I’ll go search around the area for Lady while you call Robert.” Anne set the driver’s license and Jude’s phone on the dining room table and pulled up Gus’s phone number from his registration on their computer. “I’ll call Gus about his driver’s license while I’m searching for the dog.” She left the inn with her phone in hand.
Maisie could have called the clinic in Edinburgh to try to learn who the dog’s owners were, but Robert might have more success getting the information as a vet who had worked in the city. Maybe it was even from the one he’d worked at, which would be a real boon. If the dog liked him, he might even be able to coax her to come to him when she might not go to anybody else. Was her owner just visiting the area, or had they moved here? She pulled out her phone and called Robert.
“Hey, Maisie, what’s up?” he asked, sounding concerned, maybe worried her head was bothering her.
She hurried to explain. “I found a dog’s collar in our flower bed. The rabies tag said it was from True Companions in Edinburgh.”
“That’s the clinic I worked for.”
“Oh, great. Do you remember seeing a dog named Lady when you worked there? I’m really worried about her.”
“A West Highland Terrier? I’ll get right back with you.” Robert hung up.
Maisie hurried outside to help her sister find the lost dog. Maybe Lady had returned to her owner and her collar had just been left behind—that would be the best-case scenario.