For the Love of Two Highland Bears (2 page)

Sunshine stared up at the two men and swallowed thickly. Hard pressed to decide which one was more handsome, she decided not to try. Instead, she would just admire them both while she could and listen intently to their sexy Scottish accents as long as they remained together.

“We still need a guide if you have anyone in mind,” Roxie said as she batted her eyes at the one with the green eyes.

The man stood approximately six-foot four with pitch black hair and dancing green eyes. Sunshine didn’t know what it was about Scotland, but the men here seemed to grow rather large. Maybe it had something to do with their Viking ancestry.

“We’d be happy tae lead ye back down the mountain, but ye have no doubt seen that it’s nearing late afternoon. Soon it will be dark and the path down the mountain is best traveled in daylight.”

“What are you suggesting?” Sunshine asked, wary. “We have nowhere to spend the night up here.” Turning slightly, she indicated the cave. “I suppose we could stay there, but it’s sure to get colder and our flashlight batteries have almost given out. If only Roxie hadn’t dropped her backpack on the way up here.”

“Then this must be yours,” the other man who was just as tall with dark brown hair and blue eyes, shrugged the pack off his shoulder and handed it to Roxie. “And forgive us both for not introducing ourselves.” He smiled in a way that must have gotten him his way with women everywhere. “I’m Malcolm MacLeod and my friend, here, is Gavin Dunbar.”

“I’m Sunshine Campbell.” She turned and pulled Roxie closer. “And this is my friend Roxanne Hammerlin. We’re from Michigan, in the United States. We came up here to do some research.” She bit her lip as she thought she might have revealed too much.

“Sunshine. What a bonnie name, that.” Malcolm grinned down at her. “I dinnae think I know another lass named Sunshine.” He reached up to touch a lock of hair that fell lose from the elastic she had holding it in a ponytail. “Named for the color of the fire in your hair, are ye?” He shook his head and smiled at Roxie. “I once knew a lass named Roxanne. She was a bonnie lass, as well.”

Roxie grinned. “Call me Roxie. Everyone does.”

“Aye, then, Roxie. I’m glad tae meet ye.” Turning back to Sunshine, Malcolm added, “Now that we’ve discovered that you’re the owner of the pack we found, we’d like ye tae know that we’d be happy tae put ye up for the night at our keep and take ye back into the village in the morning.”

“I—we—” She glanced at Roxie. “We couldn’t possibly accept.” They didn’t know these men. For all they knew, they were a couple of axe murderers who preyed on poor, unsuspecting tourists.

“We insist. We cannae hae you two lasses freezing tae death on clan property.”

“Oh! This is your property?”
Just great!
Leave it to her and Roxie to hike to a remote place in the Scottish Highlands, find a cave in the middle of nowhere and run into the people who owned it, all in the same day.

“It belongs tae our clan,” Malcolm said, “We dinnae own it. The clan does. I guess if I had tae say who owned it, it would be Duncan Wallace.”

“Now that’s a famous name,” Roxie muttered. “The last name, not the first.”

Sunshine gave Roxie a look that should have shut her up in a hurry. Instead, Roxie brushed the bangs out of her face and smiled up at Gavin.

“So, are you guys related to William Wallace then?” She batted her eyes and took a step toward the man.

Gavin gave Roxie a lopsided grin that was rather endearing, but made the man look nervous as he took a step back toward the cliff.

Sunshine pressed her lips together, trying not to smile. It appeared as though the man would climb back down the cliff in a minute. Roxie could be a bit pushy when it came to men. She liked men—at lot—and didn’t care who knew it. “We are. But wouldn’t ye rather learn about that back at the keep while we’re sitting around a nice warm fire and ye hae a cup of steaming tea tae warm your fingers?” He asked.

“Aye,” Roxie said with a wink. “That I would.”

Sunshine rolled her eyes. Leave it to Roxie to flirt with the men who were doing their best to either rescue them or lure them to their doom. Sunshine wasn’t sure which it was yet. Noting the position of the sun, she sighed. No matter what their intentions, she and Roxie didn’t really have much of a choice. They had to go with them or chance freezing to death on the mountain. As choices went, they weren’t good ones at all.

“I guess we should get going or even getting to your
keep
isn’t going to be possible.” She waved her hand to the path. “Lead on, my new friends. It seems that you will have two reluctant guests for the evening, after all.”

It took nearly two hours to make their way down the cliff path to safer ground. The sun hung low in the sky, the light barely peeking over the mountaintops. Green grass dotted the landscape with rocks and the occasional long-haired cow.

A larger group of cattle lowed as they made their way over yet another hill. A cold breeze blew the hair out of her face. Sunshine pulled her coat tighter around her with a shiver. “Are we almost there?”

“Aye, lass.” Malcolm pointed at the next ridge. “The light is in your eyes or ye would see it there on the next rise.”

Squinting, Sunshine stared across the valley. She might have seen something on the other side, but wasn’t sure.

“I think I can see some old ruins.” They had to be ruins. If they weren’t, it meant these two men lived in a castle. They couldn’t possibly accept their invitation to stay in someone else’s castle, could they?

“Those aren’t ruins, lass,” Malcolm said as he leaned close to follower her gaze.

His breath brushed over her ear, making her shiver. The blood rushed through her veins, warming her and, no doubt, making her blush. The man was
hot
. It took every ounce of Sunshine’s willpower to keep herself from leaning back and soaking up the heat she felt radiating from him.

Never before had she felt such an attraction to anyone. Yet here she was, doing her best not to throw herself at this man
and
his companion. Roxie did that sort of thing, never her.

Leave it to them to find two hot men in the highlands instead of the polar bears they’d been searching for all this time.

“We don’t have long tae go,” Gavin said as they started down the hill, heading for the valley already covered in a deep green. “If ye don’t mind our asking, we’d like tae know what ye were doing in the cave. I’m sure that’s one of the first questions the laird will ask if he’s not still distracted by his mate and her new pregnancy. Not many would risk life and limb tae visit a hole in the rock that’s not worth much.”

“Well,” Sunshine paused, wondering just how much she should tell them. The night spent in a strange castle practically uninvited was going to be uncomfortable enough without telling them they were looking for shape shifting polar bears.

Sunshine bit her lip. She didn’t want to lie, but telling them the truth would only garner their ridicule, the way it had at the pub in the town where they stayed.

“Um…”

“The truth, lass,” Malcolm said softly. “The laird can smell a lie and he’ll not thank ye for it.”

“No, I don’t suppose he would.” Taking a deep breath, Sunshine thought of a way to tell the truth without sounding like a crazy person. “My grandfather grew up in the highlands, though he doesn’t remember a lot. He used to tell me of the gravesite of a man his clan called the bear warrior.” She smiled fondly in remembrance. “He always said that his grandfather told him that the man fought like ten men and was always good to have around when the weather grew bad. He could go out in the coldest weather, the worst of storms and come back unharmed where others would freeze to death.”

The expressions on the men’s faces told her they knew about the bear warrior. How much, they knew, she had no idea, but they had at least heard about him.

“You’ve heard about him.”

“No, lass—”

“Don’t bullshit me, Mr. Dunbar.” She practically snarled at the man. “I can tell you’ve at least heard the stories by your expressions.”

“She’s right, you two. You both look worried. Like you’re afraid your secret will get out,” Roxie agreed, her hands on her hips. “Don’t even try to deny it. Everyone we met in town acted as though we were crazy when we walked into the pub and market asking about the bear warrior, yet they all looked scared. Why?”

Sunshine had a good idea why they would try to cover it up. If they didn’t believe they wouldn’t want the world thinking that the people here were crazy bumpkins who believed in shape shifters. If they
did
believe, they would want to cover it up. Why wouldn’t they want to protect the integrity of a secret like that? She was certain they would.

“What do ye plan tae do with the information if ye do find it, lass?” Malcolm asked, lifting one of his perfectly arched brows. “Do ye plan tae tell the world, or write a book, what?” He crossed his arms over his very wide chest.

“Well,” she paused, barely stopping herself from saying something unforgivably rude. Sunshine didn’t want to alienate these men. They were the first to keep talking amicably after their mention of the bear warrior since they arrived in the Highlands. Besides, they were hot enough to fry bacon. “Mainly, I wanted to prove that my grandfather isn’t a crazy old man and I wanted to take proof back to prove that to him as well.” She stared up at him, unable to stop her eyes from filling with tears. “He’s signed himself into a mental institution because now, even
he
, thinks he’s missing a few of his marbles.”

“How old was your grandfather when he thought he saw the bear warrior?”

Malcolm’s demeanor had changed. He looked a little too interested in what she had to say and Sunshine began to wonder if this was something that these people would kill to protect. No one knew exactly where they were. She and Roxie could disappear without a trace and no one would have the slightest idea where to look first if none of these people wanted to share their secret.

They also might be able to tell her the truth and at that moment, Sunshine wanted the truth more than she cared about safety. She knew Roxie would, too. If she knew one thing about her friend, it was that she didn’t back down from anything without a fight.

“Okay. If you must know, he was little more than a boy. He’s not sure about his age. He thinks he could have been twelve or thirteen. All he remembers is waking up in a cage onboard a ship bound for America. When he woke up, he reached through the bars and unlatched the bolt holding the cage closed.”

“Why did they put him in a cage, lass?” Gavin moved up beside her, his frown fierce.

“He said they thought he was a shape shifter since they had seen him with a man they knew to be one. The man they described was my great-grandfather.” Sunshine spun around, unable to look at the welcoming lights of the castle any longer when she knew these men must think her crazy.

“Listen, I know this sounds crazy.” Almost as crazy as her strange attraction to these two men and the fact that she literally wanted to growl at Roxie for flirting with them. What in the world was wrong with her? “But I
know
my grandfather wasn’t lying about it.”

Crossing her arms, she began to pace. “You would understand if you could meet him. Everyone insists that he’s lying about being my grandfather because he looks too young. They think he is my father. My father and mother died when I was little. So it wasn’t strange for people to think that Grandpa was my dad.” She looked up to meet Malcolm’s gaze. “Why would he lie about something like that? She shook her head. He’s my grandfather, but he looks young enough to be my older brother.”

“He could hae aged well, lass.”

“Not
that
well,” Roxie interrupted. “I know her grandfather. He’s an old man in a young man’s body. I’ve been Sunshine’s friend almost since grade school and the man hasn’t aged a day.”

The two men gave each other a meaningful glance.

“Things have gotten so bad that he’s checked himself into the institution.” Tears fell down Sunshine’s cheeks. “I’m afraid of what will happen when he’s there long enough and they notice he doesn’t age.”

Gavin couldn’t help but stare at the lass who could very well be the daughter of the rightful laird of the clan. It was all he could do to keep his mouth from hanging open. He hadn’t been home at the time, but he’d heard the stories of how the laird had gone missing.

The laird, Carson, had been a young man at the time, certainly more than fourteen, but men didn’t mature as fast then as they did now. Their kind especially didn’t mature as fast. A bear as old as two-hundred could appear to be little more than a child to an outsider. They reached physical maturity in their late teens just as humans did, but their appearance was always slow to catch up.

He looked at the youth of today, thinking how medical science had made such great strides in preserving life, but had lost something along the way in preserving their youth. He wondered if maybe it had something to do with the human children growing up too fast in these modern times. Not only did they age mentally, but they aged physically, as well.

What do ye think, Malcolm? Is it possible that she is the granddaughter of our lost laird? Just the idea that we could be in the presence of his granddaughter is staggering.

Aye, Gavin.
Malcolm stared at the young woman.
If she is, it would explain why she’s here by herself, looking for answers. She’s obviously older than she looks. Her friend, appears tae be in her mid-thirties, yet our lass looks barely over twenty.

Our lass…
Gavin shifted his gaze back to the women.
I think I like the sound of that.
Everything within him went still as he inhaled her essence once again.
It’s hard tae believe that we’ve finally found her after all these years.

I know what ye mean, old friend,
Malcolm replied.
Now we just need tae get her tae stay with us long enough to convince her she belongs with us. I hoped that we would find her together.

Ever since Duncan and Jamie found their female together, most of the clan males realized that the reason they all had best friends they would die for, was because they were destined to mate in a triad.