Secrets Dispatched Read online

  The promised snow hadn’t materialized yet, and mindful of the diktat ‘the morn’s morn’, Shane thought it might well be best to suss out the landscape so to speak, and see if her quarry was at home. She couldn’t find a phone number, either for Diomhair Castle or J. Sutherland, and guessed both must be unlisted. Therefore she would need to drive over and see for herself if Jess was around. If she was and they talked, then Shane could come back to the hotel and maybe decamp into the city before the probable storm hit.

  “So, what are you up to today then?” The waitress had arrived to clear the table. “If you want to see something of the area, you’d best do it today. There’s maps and guidebooks to borrow at the reception desk, and if you don’t have a British mobile, we’ll lend you one. Too expensive to use a foreign phone all the time. Tomorrow will be a sit in front of the fire and read a book day. The library is the wee room to the left of the front door, if you need something to read. Mind you with thon e-readers, it’s easy now isn’t it? We’ve generators and coal fires if the electricity goes down. Oh, don’t worry. At this time of year the snow doesn’t stand for long, and they have the lines fixed in no time, but tomorrow now? Better not be outside. You could have a spa session or something, eh?”

  Shane nodded, somewhat bemused by the flow of information. “I’m going to look at your local castle, I think. It said on the net it’d been restored.”

  The look on the waitress’ face was wary. “It’s private.”

  “I thought there was no law of trespass?” Shane said airily. “I know I won’t be allowed inside, but surely I can go and look?”

  The waitress—Katrine, her name badge read—looked dubious. “Hmm, Tuesday isn’t it? Yes, I reckon you’ll be okay to drive up and look. It’s close… Er, close by.”

  Shane would swear Katrine hadn’t meant to say close at all. Closed maybe? Did it mean she knew about the club, and it was closed on a Tuesday? Maybe that would make it easier to see Jess and talk to her? Whatever. Shane made her mind up to set off as soon as she could.

  “That’s great then. I’ll go into the village for souvenirs once I’m ready and do my sightseeing. I’ll be back in time for dinner, so can you book me a table for seven?” That way, she’d made sure someone knew where she was. Ever since Poisonous Pete the Plonker, as she’d dubbed him eventually, Shane had been extra careful about letting someone know her whereabouts.

  She waved a thank you to Katrine and returned to her room. Once she’d seen Jess, she’d feel a whole lot better and be able to move on.

  Shane scrambled into her boots and thick coat, borrowed one of the British mobile phones and went outside to the car. By the time she’d driven out of the grounds of the hotel and turned onto the route that sat-nav Sally assured her was the correct way to go, the weak sunshine had turned to a misty drizzle. Within ten minutes it became sleet that covered the road in whiteness and made it incredibly slippery. For one brief moment, Shane wondered if she should turn around and go back to the warmth and safety of the hotel. However, she reckoned she only had a few more miles to go to her destination, and there wasn’t anywhere to turn. Not only that, if the weather forecast from the hotel was correct, the next day would be a no go. Best to carry on.

  A white van came out of nowhere and sped past her in the opposite direction, spraying muddy slush over her windscreen, which blocked out her view. The car swerved and for one heart-stopping, and she admitted bowel-clenching, moment, Shane was unable to see the road. She swore. The last thing she wanted was to end up in the ditch. She’d have to pay a fortune if the car was damaged, to say nothing of then trying to find her way to the hotel with a broken ankle or something. She drove on slowly but steadily and thanked the fact she’d learned to drive on muddy dirt roads as well as asphalt. Mud or sleet, Shane was of the opinion there was not a lot of difference in the slippery stakes.

  However, the one problem with sleet, Shane decided ten minutes later, was that it turned to snow. Heavy fat flakes that rapidly covered the windscreen, which the wipers had a hard time to dispel. Snow wasn’t something she encountered very often. By then, she was traveling along a narrow drive, which, according to the now annoyingly cheerful Sally and a tiny discrete plaque on the gatepost, was the entrance to Diomhair, and was a private road—no trespassers. It was irritating to have to get out of the car to brush the snow off to read it, and debate on the wisdom of turning on to it. However, Shane was sure she’d read somewhere that there was no law of trespass in Scotland, even if Katrine hadn’t actually agreed with her when she’d asked the question earlier. Therefore, she ignored that bit as a warning to tourists and itinerant sales people.

  Do you even get those these days? Isn’t it all telephone calls and spam emails? She was somewhat hazy on the subject and after all, this was Scotland, not Australia. How was the net around here? Her phone, as well as the one she’d borrowed from the hotel, was hovering on one bar of reception, and the radio in the car delivered very little music and almost total static.

  Shane rounded a bend with care and was relieved she had done so when the back of the car fishtailed and slid into a skid. She drove into the skid with competence and corrected it. She wasn’t an outback girl for nothing, even if she did live in the city now.

  Ahead, almost hidden in the gloom, she could just make out a tall, dark stone building with a turret.

  A turret? Wow. It was a real castle it seemed and not some mock Victorian monstrosity. Shane hadn’t had time to research the history or even if this Jess lived in it as her private home. Was it one house or apartments? Was it offices and a health club as well? Whatever it was, it was big and imposing and austere against the white of the snow. Shane fell in love with it there and then. How fantastic to live in it in any way.

  The brief information she’d found on the net had been vague in the extreme. The car lurched over some unseen object, well hidden in the snow, and Shane brought her mind back to the alleged roadway. Wool gathering wasn’t a good idea in that sort of weather. She realized she was probably driving over the verge and not on the tarmac surface. If it was even tarmac, she had no way of knowing.

  With hindsight she regretted setting off from the hotel without bringing an insulated mug of tea or one of the delicious looking cookies she’d spied to sustain her. Even though she’d had that big breakfast not long before, her tummy rumbled and her mouth was dry. Apprehension or excitement? A bit of both probably.

  Nevertheless, by the time she pulled up outside a big wooden door, she was shaking and it wasn’t all down to the weather and lack of food. She decided she was scared. Scared that Jess might not be there, scared she was. Scared that Jess would hate her, not be prepared to talk and leave Shane unable to find completion. Shane switched off the engine, and watched the snow fall. It better slow down soon, or she’d be hiking back. Was it quicker cross country? How dare the snow defy the weathermen and come a day too soon?

  Wuss, get out of the car. Or turn on the engine and go away for good and try to enjoy a cold, wet holiday. She took a deep breath, did her coat up, pulled her hood over her head and stepped out of the vehicle. A blast of icy wind rocked her on her heels and almost took her breath away. The temperature had dropped considerably, and the snow was now so heavy her tire tracks were almost obliterated.

  Shane hoped to hell someone was at home, or she’d more than likely be found in spring as a frozen corpse inside her buried car. She moved toward the castle door with her breath making white, misty spirals in the air and with snowflakes on her eyelashes. Thank goodness for contact lenses. Specs would be useless. Mind you, she patted her pocket to make sure her lenses case and her glasses were there. She’d lost too many lenses in the past and ended up half blind, not to carry specs around, annoying though it might be.

  She looked at the walls of the castle and groaned. She had to get in there? Why not try something less challenging like breaking into the Royal Mint or wrestling with a croc.

  Okay you can do it. Deep breath and go.

&nb
sp; The snow was piled up higher near those forbidding walls and even though she only had a few yards to trudge through it, her jeans were soaked by the time she searched for the doorbell. To her amusement, it was an old fashioned tug rope type. Not that she felt much amused. Pissed, more like. Could they not have an ordinary bell like everyone else? It would take a giant to get a good sound from it, not a five foot something woman.

  She hauled and after a second or two, heard a deep clang echo inside the building.

  “Come on. Hurry up.” Shane pulled the bell again. “Please, please someone answer the bloody door.” She stamped her feet, to try and get her circulation moving faster and for the first time thought what an idiot she’d been to continue her journey to the castle once the snow started. Shane dipped her head to pull her hood farther over her head in a vain effort to keep her hair dry. Already frizz-head hair had begun, and she’d have a devil of a job with it once she got it dried again. Not for the first time, Shane wished she’d kept it short in the style she’d cut it after the arsehole experience, as she now called it. Instead, she’d let it grow, more as a way to show herself that Poisonous Pete the Plonker and his only long hair is acceptable diktat, wasn’t why it was long. The one thing she did do now—which he’d objected to—was using straighteners on it. Hence knowing that all her hard work was about to be ruined if no one answered the door.

  “For fuck sake, open won’t you? What if I say open sesame? Or get on my knees and beg? Will that work?”

  There was a grating noise, and a blast of heat hit her. Before Shane looked up, someone spoke.

  “Open sesame won’t. But I do like the idea of you on your knees and begging. I won’t make you do it in the snow though.”

  Oh, fuck and shit. I know that voice.

  Chapter Two

  Ross Mackie looked down at the snow-covered woman in front of him and wondered if he was hallucinating. Who in their right mind would be out and about this far from a semi-decent road in weather like this? Especially with her head bowed and if you discounted the fact she wasn’t on her knees, in an almost perfect subbie pose.

  Was this some kind of joke? Had Jeff and David decided to teach him a lesson for refusing to go on holiday and, as they said it, recharge his batteries? The only place Ross knew how to do that was right there, at Diomhair with the perfect sub. Not on a far-flung beach or on a city break bored out of his skull, all by himself.

  Sadly he’d come to the conclusion there was no such thing as a perfect sub, at least not for him. Seeing his colleagues all loved—and subbed—up brought it home very forcibly that he had no one in mind to play with on a permanent or even semi-permanent basis.

  Goodness knows why. There were plenty of people who were members of the club who would go down on their knees for him to practice his area of expertise on them, but none he would choose to do so with. Except on a teaching basis. For a while, he’d thought he and Connie, one of the subs, would make a go of it, but eventually they’d both agreed they made better friends than Dom and sub. She still subbed for him if he needed one for a demonstration, but that was it. By choice or not, he was alone.

  Sad or what?

  Now his interest and his cock were piqued. It was a shame it was so bloody cold, because he reckoned his dick would snap in half if it got as hard as he sensed it could.

  “So, pet? Are you stopping there to become a snowman or do you want to come in? You can kneel and beg inside instead of out here.”

  The woman looked up at him and scowled. Something about her seemed familiar, but he couldn’t put his finger on what. Dark hazel eyes, fringed with long, snow-edged lashes sparked fire at him.

  “Ha, ha funny—not. I’m looking for Jess Sutherland. Could I speak to her, please?”

  The accent was definitely Australian and very similar to his own. Ross took a step back and gestured. “She doesn’t live here anymore.”

  His visitor went pale and swayed. Ross hoped to hell she wasn’t going to faint on him. He might have done his basic first aid training, but swooning women and no one else about was an assault charge waiting to happen. In all honesty, he was probably all kinds of a fool to even think about offering her the option to wait inside until the snow stopped, or Jess turned up. He’d spoken the truth when he’d said Jess didn’t live in the castle any more. However, Jess and her husband David had said earlier they were on their way back from Glasgow, and Ross knew Jess and David would call in—snow permitting—on their way to their new home half a mile away.

  Ever since Jess had looked in his fridge and seen a moldy orange, two cartons of yoghurt and nothing else, Jess was convinced he was incapable of feeding himself. It didn’t matter how much he protested he was about to go to the supermarket, Jess insisted on stocking his fridge and checking he’d eaten the contents.

  He took hold of the swaying woman by the arm and held her steady. As he doubted she would be able to turn her car around and drive back down the lane anyway, he really had no option except to offer hospitality. Once he had her safely seated in a chair, he would phone and warn Jess she had a visitor.

  The car was parked—or should that be abandoned—in the middle of the flowerbed, albeit a snow-covered one. Ross wondered how she’d managed to even get it that far. The tiny runaround certainly wasn’t fit for the weather. Ross didn’t want to be accused of letting her drive away and into a ditch.

  “Hey, no fainting. Women are only allowed to lose consciousness around me for other reasons, not the weather or lack of someone to visit.”

  He hadn’t meant to say that, especially about passing out, but once said, he couldn’t rescind his words.

  Those expressive eyes widened, and she almost smiled.

  “I can believe that.”

  Now why did he not think that was what she had intended to say that? What did she mean by it? “Pardon?”

  She dropped her gaze, all subbie correctness. Did she even know she exhibited all those traits?

  “D’you want to come in and wait for her? She’ll pop in soon.” Why was he so insistent? After all, he was alone, it was a BDSM club, even if it was closed, and although she looked familiar, he didn’t know who she was or what she wanted. Not really a good situation.

  “Yes, please, I’ll wait. I do need to see Jess. Don’t let me stop you from doing whatever you were doing.”

  Ross stiffened. Talk about a brush off the first order. It was as well she wasn’t his sub. She’d not be able to sit comfortably for a week if that was her attitude.

  “Follow me.” He spun on his heel and walked back along the corridor without waiting to see if she followed it not. The heavy thump as the door closed made him smile. Miss whoever she was had a temper then.

  Ross stopped and turned around to look at her. She’d pulled her hood right down and her hair twisted in a mass of dark brown curls over her shoulders. Once again an elusive memory tugged at the edges of his mind. Perhaps if he didn’t try to recall who she was, her name would come to him? “Do you realize how stupid you are coming inside when you don’t know me from Adam? I could be an ax murderer.”

  “Are you?” she said and grinned. “I’ve got a black belt in judo and know how to disarm an ax wielding madman at five paces.”

  Somehow he doubted it, but he admired her grit.

  She waved one hand in the air. “My brothers taught me. They said it works every time.”

  The cheeky expression on her face made him jump. Who was it she reminded him of?

  “Ah, good. What’s their chosen method of disablement?”

  She giggled. “Whip up my top, wave my boobs and when they’re gobsmacked, kick them in the goolies and run like hell.”

  Ross looked down to where her heavy jacket covered her breasts. “I guess that might work.”

  She nodded. “According to Troy and Jase, it will. I trust them.”

  Ross narrowed his eyes. The names coupled together like that were as familiar as his own. Rather than ask her to clarify her statement, he chose to prod a lit
tle more. It was the most fun he’d had for ages. If she was related to the Donoghue brothers, she knew more about his lifestyle than she let on. He wished he could recall her name. Something not usual, he thought—a boy’s name maybe? She’d be around ten or twelve years younger than him, and someone he remembered as a leggy, flat-chested school girl. No wonder he couldn’t place her. This woman might still be leggy, but she certainly wasn’t flat-chested. Now she was a beautiful and voluptuous woman who piqued his interest.

  He’d heard about her accidental voyeur sessions all those years ago. Or was it accidental? He hadn’t caught up with Troy and Jase for years. Maybe once she owned up to who she was, he could ask her how they were. For now though…

  “I think, girl, you need to explain further. What’s your name?” He barked out the question in a short staccato burst of words and she jumped. However, it seemed she wasn’t intimidated easily.

  She returned his stare with one of her own.

  “Why?”

  Ross blinked and the pulse in his wrist jumped. One thing he wasn’t used to was backchat from sassy subs. He was more used to instant obedience and awkwardly, sometimes blind, adoration. Oh, he liked a bit of spunk, not lap dog placidness, but he never received, or welcomed, such blatant confrontations. They caused more trouble than the excitement the results gave him.

  “Just answer the question.”

  She bit her lip. Not in a worried way, he decided, but more in a considering one. Even though his temper was provoked, Ross had to stop himself laughing. She was so unafraid, and really she should be quaking in her sheepskin boots. There she was with a strange guy, with no one else around, and she was challenging him. Okay, sunshine, you want it, then by God, you’ll get it.