Read Sisters of Colford Hall 01 - The Invasion of Falgannon Isle for Free Online Page B

sheets.
    The room felt smaller, stifling because of his presence.
    She started after Ian, but a mountain of flesh blocked her path. Her eyes at nipple level, they traveled up his frame to a chiseled face and ice blue eyes. She wondered what Wulfgar thought of her nutty islanders.
    “This is his,” he rumbled, shoving a leather laptop case at her. “I’ll bring the rest in the morning.”
    “Rest? What rest? He’ll be leaving come morn.”
    Wulfgar shook his head. “Desmond isn’t going anywhere until he finishes what he came to do.”
    Over my dead body, B.A. vowed. The Viking horde and their shape-shifting panther leader could decamp from her island come morning. Oh gor, this was Monday; the ferry wouldn’t run again until Thursday. She was stuck with the Vikings until then.
    Putting the laptop on the dresser, she followed, determined to have it out with them. “Why not leave him at The Hanged Man?” she called to their retreating backs.
    “No can do, lass.” Robbie leaned on the newel post, waiting for her. “A call came from Hamish the Lighthouse on the radio. A cruiser is fetching the three Yank lasses over. They’d detoured to Iona to sightsee. That’s why they missed the ferry. The Hanged Man will be full shortly, leaving only the garret designed for Hobbits. I took in Dennis, the other Viking, and Wulfgar’s bunking with Callum.”
    “Surely, one of you can stay here then?”
    Ian smiled. “‘Tis a chaperone you’d be wanting? The Cat Dudley volunteered.”
    “A chaperone’s needed for this Desmond feller,” Angus chortled, “the way our B.A. had him on the floor wallowing him.”
    “‘Tis true,” several of them agreed.
    Black-headed, blue-eyed Ian tweaked the faint cleft in her chin, jerking back as she slapped at his hand. “Mind, B.A., no wallowing your Viking until he wakes up.”
    “You’re wasting breath, laddie. She’s a Montgomerie. You ken they never listen,” Angus reminded from the front walkway.
    “Pelicans,” she snarled to Ian’s and Michael’s backs. “Where am I going to sleep? I dunna have furniture for the house yet, just the bedroom and kitchen—as you bloody well ken.”
    Ian turned around on the porch. Fog swirled about him, so thick it swallowed up the other traitors. She heard car doors slamming as they piled into the silver Range Rover.
    “There’s room enough on your bloody parade ground, Florence Nightingale. He’d have to be a sprinter to catch you. If he gets frisky, sic the cat on him.” He winked and then vanished.
    Speechless, B.A. watched the Rover’s lights show up in the mist, slightly disembodied since the silver car blended with the gray fog. Something brushed against her. She glanced down to see Dudley weaving around her legs. “Some chaperone. You like The Bloody Panther! Go home to the Marys, I’m sure they wonder where you are.”
    Dudley sniffed at her, then loped back up the stairs.
    Oh, great! She had two un-neutered males upstairs.
    Carrying the tray into the bedroom, B.A. set it on the nightstand. The Panther Desmond hadn’t moved. She seethed over their foisting him off on her, but anger shifted to concern. Surely, this was too long for him to be unconscious.
    She hesitated before sitting on the edge of the bed, female skittishness pulsing in her blood. Taking a deep breath, she steeled herself to touch him, then fought the instinct to jerk back due to the heat his body radiated. Not fever—high-metabolism men came blessed with it, while women shivered, counted calories and struggled not to turn into Goodyear Blimps.
    Her hands trembled. It’d been so long since she touched any man outside her brothers and a few islanders—who were one extended pack of siblings. So long since shed wanted to.
    She checked his clothes for glass shards, finding none. His raven-black hair lay in waves and ringlets so thick it was hard to tell if the skin was broken where he’d hit his skull. She ran her fingers through the curls. Only to check