Secrets Dispelled Read Free Page A

of it.
    Pervs? That was nothing new. To some people who didn’t understand him, BDSM or the what’s normal anyway scenario, perv was the natural tag. It didn’t bother him. Each to their own. However, what lassie? The only women he knew who might be around would be safely home with their husbands. The club was closed and none of his fellow Doms who helped run the place had mentioned they or their subs were likely to drop by.
    Coll thought for a brief second and hauled on the steel-cap boots he habitually wore for work—after all he might stop paying attention and drop a chisel on his feet. Unlikely, but then so was some unknown phoning him with a message like that.
    He grimaced, sprayed midge repellent on every area of skin that he couldn’t cover in clothes, shrugged into a thick waterproof and grabbed a heavy-duty torch which could double as a cosh.
    The rain had almost stopped when he got outside but the bloody midges were out in force. Coll slammed the front door—he didn’t want a houseful of the little blighters—and looked around. The area closest to the castle was empty.
    So which way?
    Mindful that for some obscure reason it could be a trap of some sort, although why, Coll had no idea, for life around Diomhair—as far he knew—had been uneventful of late, he scanned the area carefully. Then he moved toward the major driveway that headed direct to the main road, and wondered, why now? Even the ubiquitous white van that had dogged the area on and off like a bad penny and given several of them a bad time seemed to have disappeared.
    Nothing disturbed the midges or the mist and as he rounded the first bend, Coll wondered if he should have headed in the other direction.
    Something under a tree caught his eye and he veered toward it.
    A quad bike, old and on its last legs. As far as he could recall, he’d never seen it before. However a locked box welded to the back made him think for a moment. A farmer? If so, what the hell was he doing around here? And why leave his bike? Coll circled it once and noticed that the engine was still warm.
    Curiouser and curiouser . Oh, he knew the estate supported farmers and gamekeepers and such like, but why on earth would one of them be around the main drive, in such weather?
    A scuffling noise alerted him to the presence of someone or something close and he spun around on his heel. Well, as best he could in squelchy, muddy undergrowth. A thick, thorny, wet branch missed his cheek by inches and a splatter of water tricked over his face and down his neck.
    Fuck, shit and double fuck.
    The young woman—the muddy and bruised young woman with deep green and pain-filled eyes—who pointed a shotgun at him swayed.
    “You fucker, what the hell is all this shit, eh? I should just shoot your balls off and be done with it. In fact if you don’t start taking pdq, I might just do that.”
    Coll froze and like all mistreated goodies in bad westerns, slowly put his hands in the air, even though he really wanted to use them to cover his bollocks.
    “Ha, see, a…” She blinked owlishly. “A… Oh, fuck it, who are you and why did you knock me out? I guess I should be grateful you didn’t half-inch Sean while you were at it.”
    Sean? The gamekeeper? What had she got to do with him? No, that couldn’t be right, there was no Sean working in the estate as far as Coll knew.
    “My dog. Where is he?” She took one step forward and went white. “If you’ve hurt him, I will kill you. Slowly. God almighty, do you know how dangerous it is to knock someone out while they carried a loaded gun?”
    She swayed again and shut her eyes. Not long enough for him to try any heroics, though. She opened them immediately and he swore he could see pain and confusion in her expression. She wasn’t the only one in the confused part of the equation.
    “There was no dog here.”
    “Do you?” She ignored his comment about dogs, spoke angrily, and then winced. “Hell so where’s Sean gone… Oh no,