by Terry Spear
“I’m sure the scene will be tossed.” Not that Heather was really upset about that. She loved being in the film and doing all the stuff in preparation for the scenes. It would be something she could remember for the rest of her life. Especially the part about the hero named Enrick who had come to her rescue. If he hadn’t done that, it would have been a mundane bit-part scene for her. Sure, she would love to see herself in the final version of the film, but truly, Enrick’s impromptu save had made her day.
“Well,” Lana said, placing her hands over her heart, “Enrick could rescue me any day.”
“He only has eyes for Heather,” Colleen said, coming into the kitchen. “Go easy on him, will you, Heather?”
Heather sighed. “I’m way too much of a wild spirit for him. He would want someone…much less wild, if he ever decided to mate. If he hadn’t grabbed my tray of drinks and food, I would have dropped it because of his sudden and unexpected appearance. So he’s just lucky it all worked out.”
“Good. So you’re not going to give him a tongue-lashing.” Colleen smiled.
The ladies all giggled.
Everyone was saying it. Enrick was courting Heather…in his way.
“I’ve got to make sure we don’t have any more takes.” She hurried off to the entrance of the great hall and watched, along with some others who had some roles in the film during this scene. She wondered if Enrick was still watching the great hall with Lachlan at the other entrance. Lachlan would be there to pretend to control the wolves when they weren’t needed any longer, but Enrick was probably off getting ready for the battle scene. They would film it for several days. Tents in the field. Two camps, the enemies’ and the good guys’.
Heather and some of her kitchen staff would be preparing meals at the hero’s camp in the movie. She wondered which side Enrick was on. He would definitely have to be a background actor. He might not even be allowed to be in the film since he looked so much like Guy, unless he wasn’t seen in any of the close-up hand-to-hand fighting.
She still had her role in the camp, but during the fighting, everyone could watch the scene unfold. She couldn’t believe how much fun it would be, not just watching the magic happen on the screen, but to see parts of it from front-row seats, so to speak, while the scene was actually being filmed.
* * *
It was time for the battle to begin. Before everyone took their places in the field, getting ready to go into battle, she heard Enrick say, “Has anyone seen Heather MacNeill?”
Heather wondered what he needed her for.
“She’s in Guy’s camp, but she’s going to the top of the hill where she can watch you fight,” Lachlan said.
Then she saw Enrick jogging into camp, looking for her, and she smiled at him. She hoped he wasn’t worried he’d upset her with the rescue at the meal.
“Hey,” Enrick said, seeing her and taking hold of her hands, “I’m sure sorry I messed up your scene.”
“You saved me.”
His brow was still deeply furrowed. “You didn’t see the bone?”
She couldn’t lie about it and let him think he had truly saved her because others knew the truth and the word most likely would get back to him. She squeezed his hands. “You did what you had to do.”
He let out his breath. “Great. You had seen it.”
“What if I’d kicked it out of the way and lost my balance and dropped all the drinks and food? We would have had to cut the scene and couldn’t have restarted until someone could clean up the mess. I would have been so rattled, I probably wouldn’t have been able to do it again.”
He smiled and pulled away. “As long as you’re not angry with me. I’ve got to go off to battle.”
“Wait, which side are you on?”
“Your side.” He winked and ran off.
* * *
For the big battle scene in the light rain, they ended up with three hundred extras from the MacNeill clan and the MacQuarrie clan, some Camerons, some MacDonalds, seventy horses, and all the main characters who would battle it out. Enrick knew shooting the scene would take at least a week, longer if they had a lot of trouble.
Between action and cut, the director was watching a laptop, hoping he got all the shots he needed. It was important that no one was seriously injured, though every day there would be injuries. The director was fortunate they had hired so many lupus garou extras who healed quickly. Minor bruises, strained muscles, and cuts went away in a couple of days.
Grant had been there, too, to make sure the director didn’t do anything that would put his and Ian’s people at too much risk, or the animals either.
In the rain and mud, the shooting was taking place for the third day in a row. Enrick didn’t know if they were making headway on the fight scenes or losing ground. The director called cut, began again, and cut. Enrick felt the whole effort was more grueling than when they’d had to fight a battle straight through.
And at night they would be able to wash up and sleep in their beds and prepare for the next day’s shoot after a hearty breakfast.
That night, Enrick entered the keep after cleaning his boots outside so he didn’t track mud through the castle after doing battle in the mud all day. He’d washed his hands, too, and was ready to take a shower when he saw Heather talking to Lana, nodding. He knew he should just keep going and get his shower. He had to smell bad, and he certainly was covered in enough mud to look bad. If anyone had pointed a camera at him while he was battling with Ian’s brothers, no one would have thought he looked like the star of the film.
Heather raised her brows at him and smiled.
He took a detour to speak with her. “So what do you think?” As if she spent the whole time watching him fight in the rain. She was all clean and dry, so she might not have been out there that long. He wouldn’t blame her if she hadn’t bothered.
Lana said good night and headed to the corridor where she and Heather were sharing a room during the shoot.
“I think you did pretty good against Cearnach and his brother Guthrie. Why in the world did the two of them gang up on you in the first place?” Heather asked.
“I’m surprised you would have noticed. Even though we had a routine we’d practiced, two of Ian’s brothers ganging up on me wasn’t in the plans. I would have thought you’d be watching Guy.”
She tilted her chin down at him as if she thought he was making fun of her. “Nay. I can see him closer in the film than I can from where we observe. I was more interested in my cousins fighting you.”
“I spoke too soon when I said that one couldn’t give me enough of a workout.” Enrick stretched his muddy arm out. “I’ll be feeling that tomorrow.”
She smiled. “I’ll see you in the morning then. I wasn’t thinking the battle scene would take that long. At least it’s supposed to clear the day after tomorrow. I can’t wait for the scene where Guy is supposed to swim out into the sea and then return to see the heroine standing there on the beach with his sword where he first meets her.”
“That’s after the battle scene is finished, right?”
“Right.”
“I imagine his double, Larry, will do that scene.”
She chewed on her bottom lip, as if pondering her next words carefully. “Do you need a back rub?”
Enrick smiled. Hell yeah. He should have said no. He didn’t know why he hesitated. Then he reasoned she was just being nice. A friend. And she didn’t mean anything more by it than that.
“Take a shower, and I’ll meet you in your room.”
“Are you sure you don’t mind?” he asked, frowning, still kicking himself for not saying no.
Heather sighed. “Aye. After you rescued me at the meal, I want to reciprocate. I can’t save you on the battlefield, so this will have to suffice.”
Okay, so that worked. She was only trying to thank him. No one could see more in it th
an that. “I’ll see you in a few minutes.”
Enrick headed up the stairs to his room, removed everything, then carried his clean boxer briefs with him into the bathroom. He would leave his regular clothes all muddied up because that was how the shooting would begin tomorrow again. In the old days when he fought, that was the way it was. With seeing Heather in a few minutes, he grimaced at the notion.
He hurried to scrub off the mud and dirt all over his skin, soaping up like crazy, and rinsed off in a hurry. After drying off, he pulled on his clean boxer briefs and put his dirty ones in a laundry bag.
He thought he’d have to call on Heather to let her know he was done, but when he left the bathroom, she was sitting on his chair, looking at her phone.
She had some lotion on the table next to her, and he suspected she planned to rub that on him. He frowned at the lavender label.
“Are you ready?” she asked.
“Uh, yeah, thanks, Heather.”
“You’re welcome.”
He lay down on his stomach on the bed, and she spread the lavender lotion on his back, then began to knead his back muscles. God, that felt good. If she could do that for him every night, he would reconsider the notion he wasn’t going to mate a lassie like her.
* * *
“Do you remember that time we were having a big snowball fight the first big snow of the season?” Heather felt if they were going to continue to see each other for the next couple of months or more like this—well, not exactly like this, but working and living in the same castle—she had to tell Enrick what had happened all those years ago.
“Aye, we had a great time.”
She thought he was remembering a different snowball fight. “When you were nearly knocked out?”
“Aye, you sure could pack a punch.”
Her jaw dropped, and she stopped massaging his muscles. She couldn’t believe he’d known all this time. Had Lachlan told him the truth? “You knew?”
“Aye.”
She couldn’t believe Enrick had never said anything to her about it before this. “But your brother claimed he’d done it.”
“So I could save face. How would it have looked if a fierce Highland warrior was knocked on his arse by a sweet lassie and the snowball she’d thrown?”
She chuckled and began rubbing his muscles again. “Seriously? You knew and you weren’t angry with me? Lachlan told me never to tell you the truth because he wanted to take credit for knocking you down all those years ago.”
Smiling, Enrick shook his head. “Everyone who’d seen what had happened—though most were preoccupied with throwing their own snowballs—said you had the hots for me, or you wouldn’t have tried to knock me out.”
“Ha! I did not have the hots for you. So they thought it was the reversal of the caveman and his woman then?”
“Aye, something like that. I didn’t think I would ever hear the end of it.”
“People just…get notions, whether there’s anything to it or not. You and I weren’t dating anyone, so they just assumed there was something more to it. When there wasn’t.”
“Right. When Grant had to take over the management of the castle and made me second in charge of the castle and our people, I was so busy trying to prove my worth that I didn’t have time for anything else.”
“Like dating.”
“Aye. You stayed clear of me for a long time, too, and that had the rumors starting all over again. Were you afraid I would learn you’d struck me with the snowball?”
“I had the biggest crush on you. It was so silly. You and I would never be right for each other.”
He tensed a little at her words.
She moved her hands from his lower back to his shoulders. “I felt so bad when I nearly knocked you out. Did Lachlan get into a lot of trouble for what I did?”
“Nay. Everyone knew it was an accident. It could have happened to anyone. The snowball was a little icier, harder. Anyone could have done that. You didn’t come to the next snowball fight we had. I thought maybe you’d lost interest in me. Then I learned you were dating other wolves.”
“I told you, I finally realized you weren’t right for me. Besides, you were always too busy to date anyone. Not that I really noticed all that much. I came to see a couple of friends here a few times, but you were always off managing something. The last time I visited with a friend, Timothy saw me and struck up a conversation and asked me out.”
“Don’t tell me you went out with him to make me jealous,” Enrick said.
“Make you jealous? How could I have done that? You were never around. And I told you, my crush on you was over once I came to my senses and realized we would never suit.” So why was she rubbing lavender lotion into his beautiful, toned muscles in his bedroom at night as if she wanted more? She quickly reminded herself she was thanking him for his heroic save in the kitchen.
“But I could have been here. And you knew I would hear about it eventually. Lachlan and Grant both gave me an earful over it. Lachlan said if I’d even bothered to ask you out on a date, Timothy would never have had a chance with you.”
“He was a hothead,” she admitted. “And you wouldn’t have asked me out on a date. I know what you think of me.” She already felt her cheeks flushing with annoying heat. Not the sexy kind. The irritated kind. She didn’t like that everyone thought she was too wild for her own good. It wasn’t like she got herself into trouble all the time, or she did anything too harebrained. She resented it when her brothers intimated she couldn’t be trusted to behave herself. Not once had she offered to show any Americans a good time this time.
“Aye, but I couldn’t tell you he was a hothead. You had to learn it for yourself.”
“I almost mated him!”
“I figured there was something more about him that you truly cared about. I couldn’t interfere. How do you think you would have reacted if I told you what he was really like? You would have figured I thought he wasn’t good enough for you, but that I didn’t want to ask you out myself.”
“Would you have? Asked me out ever?”
“Not while you were dating Timothy. He was part of our wolf pack. We have unwritten rules about that.”
“Besides, if you had, you would have had to deal with him.”
Enrick smiled. “Aye.”
“And now?”
He let out his breath in resignation.
Nope, Enrick wasn’t the one for her.
She considered just leaving his room, but that would look like she had hoped something more was going on between them. She made herself stay put and finish what she’d offered to do for him—because he had rescued her, even if she hadn’t needed the rescue. She began massaging his right arm.
He groaned.
He’d done a lot of sword swinging with that arm. She was glad she only had kitchen duty and serving the meals, and didn’t have to participate in the grueling battle scenes the men were doing.
She worked on his other arm with a slow, gentle massage, loving the feel of his solid muscles and trying to imagine he was some other hot Highlander she was ministering to. But it was of no use. All she could envision was the hot Highlander beneath her. “I bet you wish you were more ambidextrous.”
“Aye. I’ve tried fighting with my left arm in case I was ever wounded, but I always revert back to fighting with my right arm.”
“I would be the same way. Roll over and I’ll take care of the rest of you.” She meant his chest and legs, but when he turned over, his smile was so wicked that she blushed. “We’re not dating…ever.”
His smile broadened. Then he sighed. “You don’t know how good this feels.”
“Oh, I imagine it does. You were so tense, and now you’re so much more relaxed.” At least parts of him were relaxed. His cock was straining his boxer briefs. “I guess I should have asked if the lavender lotion was okay to u
se. I didn’t want to work on you with some of that stuff they use for sore muscles. That lotion smells to high heaven, and it would have stayed with me.”
He chuckled. “The lavender will make me think of you.”
The one Enrick so adamantly wasn’t interested in. As she finally finished massaging his ripped chest muscles, his nipples peaked and she straightened. “What time do you go out tomorrow?”
“Right after breakfast and before first light, though it’s going to be raining again all day.”
“At least we haven’t had any trouble from the McKinleys or Kilpatricks. Fingers crossed. I’ll see you in the morning.”
Enrick rose from the bed and took her hand, and she swore he wanted to kiss her! No way was she going there.
Oh, for heaven’s sake, all she was doing was giving him a muscle rub. That was all.
She smiled. “See you tomorrow,” she said, and then whipped out of his chamber before she got all wild on him and kissed him like she was dying to do and proved her brothers were right.
Chapter 6
Heather had awakened in Enrick the fierce need to be with her by stroking him into a lustful state. She no longer was that little girl in the heather, whacking at the weeds with a wooden sword, or the young lassie who socked him with a snowball because she wanted to get his attention. Or the young woman who was going to mate another wolf.
Hell, he’d wanted to kiss her in the worst way. He knew he shouldn’t, but the way she’d been looking at him like she’d wanted to eat him all up, and the way she seemed ready to move on with her life…
Nay. He’d never thought of her in a brotherly way. That wasn’t the issue. Once she’d blossomed into a full-grown woman, she was a real catch. The problem was she was too…unconventional for him. Yet he couldn’t stop thinking of her, knowing she’d had a crush on him early on. Then her words about visiting friends at the castle and how she’d hoped to catch a glimpse of him. Hoped he would ask to date her. Then she finally gave up on him to date Timothy?
Hell. Enrick ran his hands through his hair.
Lying under his covers, smelling of lavender, his muscles feeling great after the massage she’d given him, he folded his arms beneath his head and stared up at the canopied bed. He would have fallen asleep while she was rubbing his muscles because she’d relaxed him so, but he couldn’t stop thinking of the way she was touching him, the way she’d gotten him all hot and bothered, the way his cock was eager for action.
