Page 8 of Sadie's Highlander (Highland Protector 1)

Delia looked like the proverbial cat that had just ripped the wings off the canary. Snatching up her untouched butter knife, she flicked Sadie’s hand away from the phone and lightly tapped the rhinestone-studded case. “Word it however you like, little sister. Convince him. After all, words are your gift.” She shoved the phone closer to Sadie and gave a slow wink. “And I’ll even sweeten the deal. If you can convince Mr. MacDara to acceptyourterms and grant us access, I’ll add you to my team of screenwriters. Your name will be in the credits—billed as one of the leading writers on this project. I promise. This will be the break into the business that you’ve been waiting for, for so very long.”

Screenwriter. Can I really trust her?Sadie searched Delia’s cold violet eyes for the faintest trace of sincerity. Chilling how the contact-induced coloring always took on an oddly sinister hue—or maybe it was just Delia’s personality shining through.She really wants to film here. Maybe she’s for real this time.Sadie leaned forward, struggling to keep any hint of taking Delia’s bait out of her voice. “How can I be one of the screenwriters if I have to spend my days with Alec and my nights at MacDara Keep?”

Delia didn’t bat an eye. “The writers will meet at the park in the evenings to flesh out the next day’s scenes for any needed filler. It’s in the contract. You know that. You argued that the MacDaras would never accept that clause.”

Spend her days with the sexy, enigmatic Alec MacDara and spend her nights writing scenes. Had she died and gone to heaven or was this just another doorway to one of Delia’s levels of hell? Sadie chewed on the corner of her lip, rolling the phone in one hand.

Delia didn’t say a word, just folded her hands around her coffee cup and waited.

“You look like you’re waiting for me to take the bait.” Sadie rubbed her thumb across the phone, the raised rhinestones encrusting the case rough as sandpaper.

With a shrug, Delia coyly attempted a nonchalant smile. “If we don’t film here, we’ll film somewhere else. I won’t lose a thing.” The smile somehow grew cold and threatening as she slowly leaned forward. “But if we don’t film here, I will never give you the opportunity to join my screenwriters again and I will make sure that everyone in the business avoids any and all of your screenplays like the plague. You will be blacklisted in the business, dear little sister. East Coast to West Coast. You’ll be done. The choice is yours.”

Now there was the Delia that Sadie knew. Delia had enough connections to make so good on the threat that Sadie wouldn’t even be able to get an ad printed in the personals, much less sell a screenplay. “If I convince Alec to accept my version of his terms, I start working with the writers the first night. Deal?”

Delia nodded and held out a pale hand, her blood-red nails shimmering dark and evil in the fluorescent lights of the restaurant.

“Absolutely.”

Sadie slid her hand into Delia’s icy grasp. An involuntary shiver rippled through her.Funny. I figured shaking hands with the devil would be a lot warmer.

Chapter 4

“So Dwyn’s gone ta fetch her then?”

“Aye.” Alec stared out the bay window of the kitchen overlooking the sprawling expanse of the park, which had been left as a peaceful wooded wilderness. Strange how the rugged land of backwoods North Carolina so closely resembled his beloved Highlands. He sent up a silent prayer of thanks to the goddesses. If not for their wisdom in choosing such a place, he sorely doubted he and his family would’ve adapted so well to this strange, chaotic time.

A soft touch lightly patted the top of his hand. “Calm yerself, son. Frettin’ o’er what could possibly go wrong steals away the joy of the day and poisons hope for the future.”

Alec shifted away from the window and smiled down at his mother. “Easier said than done,Máthair.She’s different and I wish ta know her better—not frighten her away.”

“Then you shouldn’t have made it sound as though you wanted her to be your sex slave for six weeks.”

“Esme Danai MacDara!” Sarinda spun about, swooped across the kitchen, and gave the young girl sitting at the kitchen table a stern shake. “Yer fifteen years old. Where d’ye learn such? A lady doesna speak so and ye ken that as well as I.”

“If I’m not mistaken, I believe I heard that certain television channel playing soft and low behind our young lady’s door last night.” Miss Lydia, housekeeper extraordinaire and self-ordained grandmother to the MacDara clan, toddled across the kitchen and plopped down a plate of eggs, bacon, and biscuits covered with a thick puddle of sausage gravy in front of the scowling teenager.

“Do you always have to rat me out?” Esme hissed out a disgusted breath and shoved the steaming plate to the center of the table. “And I told you, I’m trying to lose some weight. I can’t eat that stuff if I’m gonna fit in that dress I’ve picked out for homecoming.”

Alec spun a kitchen chair around. He scooted it close to Esme, straddled it, and propped his forearms across the arched back. ’Twas time to set the headstrong lass straight on the skimpy garment the shopkeeper had shown him. “If it’s the dress Mrs. Croft pointed out to me yesterday, ye’ll no’ be wearin’ it no matter how thin ye be. I’ll no’ have my sweet—barely grown, I might add—sister traipsin’ about town lookin’ like the king’s favorite whore.”

Esme shoved her chair back with an enraged growl, fixed every adult in the room with a look that clearly said she considered them all to be idiots, then stomped up the back staircase.

“This is yer fault.” Emrys didn’t look up from the biscuit he was carefully buttering, just slowly shook his head.

“Who’s fault?” Sarinda slid another plate piled high with crisp brown sausages closer to her scowling husband.

“Yers.” Emrys speared a sausage with his knife, waving it in the air as though he were conducting an orchestra. “Ye prayed for a girl. Our lads ne’er acted in such a way when they were naught but fifteen summers old.”

“This is a different time, ye old fool. Esme faces more challenges than ye could possibly understand.” Sarinda snatched the knife out of Emrys’s slightly shaking hand, cut the sausage into bite-sized pieces on his plate, then thumped the silverware down on the table. “Eat yer breakfast and leave the raisin’ of our daughter t’me.”

And here we go.Alec rose from the table and returned to the window. He was in no mood to listen to the argument his parents had been having ever since Esme had developed into such a strong-willed teenager.

The muffled thud of a car door just below the window caught his attention. The sound shot a white-hot surge of adrenaline through him. She was here. Sadie Williams was finally here.

He strode across the kitchen and hurried down the winding staircase leading to the main sitting room of the family’s private quarters. Grant, Ramsay, and Ross met him on his way down. He fixed his brothers with the most threatening look he could muster. “Best behavior—the lot of ye, aye?”

All three grinned and waved away his words. “If anything ruins yer wooing of the lass, dear brother, ’twill be yerself,” Grant said with a snorting laugh as he pushed past Alec and followed his brothers up to the kitchen.

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