Witching Moon (13 page)

“I told you somebody shouted a warning. That's what I'll say if anybody asks about it. But I'm not sure that's what really happened. First I felt like somebody was aiming a ray gun at my skull. Then I heard the voices. But not out loud.” She swallowed. “Inside my head. So maybe I'm going crazy.”

“No.”

“How do you know?”

“I just know. You're not crazy!”

The conviction in his voice warmed her.

“Why not?” she said, the words barely above a whisper.

“Because, like you, I have good instincts about people.”

He took a step toward her.

“Adam…”

The kettle started to whistle. They both grabbed for it; both drew their hands back. She felt his gaze burning into her as she moved the kettle off the heat, then got out two mugs and two tea bags. She felt her heart racing as she poured the hot water into the mugs.

The sweet pungent aroma of mint filled the kitchen as he reached for her. Maybe he was offering comfort. Or reassurance. Whatever it was, she wanted it.

When he folded her into his arms, she melted against him, letting her head drop to his shoulder.

“What's happening to me? To us?”

“What do you mean…to us?” Adam asked.

“Are you going to lie and tell me that nothing…important…happened…after you snatched me out of the path of that truck?”

He had felt the intensity of it all right. But he couldn't talk about it. “We hardly know each other.”

“That's usually the woman's line.”

“Yeah.”

“I'd say what we're feeling has nothing to do with the length of our acquaintance. It's like time has been compressed, like we're living in a speeded-up universe.”

As she spoke, she stroked her fingers along his arm. It was only a light touch, but he felt it scorching his skin through the fabric of his shirt.

He'd thought the dream was intense. It was nothing compared to the here and now.

He knew he should step back before it was too late.

Too late for what?

He didn't want to answer the silent question, couldn't answer because his brain had stopped working. But he didn't need words to know what he wanted, what he had wanted since the first time he had seen her.

Instead of backing away, he hauled her closer, allowing a kaleidoscope of sensations to swamp him again. The feel of her slender body that fitted his arms so well. The brush of her soft hair against his cheek as he lowered his head. The rich woman scent that was making him dizzy.

She stood with her head bent to his shoulder. He crooked his hand under her chin, lifting her face to his, his gaze focusing on her beautifully shaped lips.

He ached to kiss her. But he held himself still, because some part of him wanted to hear her tell him “no.”

He wanted her to say this was a mistake. He wanted her to be the one to make the decision, so it would be taken out of his hands.

He held his breath, waiting, willing her to pull away as she had on the street. This time she stayed where she was, her lips slightly parted.

But she didn't understand that she was playing with fire. He hardly understood it himself.

And he was helpless to do anything besides lower his head to hers. The first mouth-to-mouth contact was like a lightning strike, deep in the forest, creating a hot, instant blaze that swamped his mind, his body.

He had never tasted anything so rich, so heady as this woman's mouth. And he drank from the sweetness she offered like a man deprived of all sustenance and finally bidden to partake of a feast.

She made a small, needy sound that sent sparks to every nerve ending in his body. He angled his head, first one way and then the other, changing the angle, changing the pressure, changing the very terms of his existence.

With no conscious thought on his part, one of his hands slid down to her hips, pulling her lower body in against his erection, desperate to satisfy his craving for intimate contact with her.

The other hand clasped the top of her, pressing her breasts against his chest.

The drive to mate with her was suddenly an all-consuming purpose. His only purpose. He needed to be on top of her, needed to be deep, deep inside her.

She kissed him as though she felt what he did. And he gloried in her response to him.

Breaking the kiss, he lifted his head, his gaze barely focused as he stared down at her.

He had wished her into his bed the night before. But this was reality. And suddenly he couldn't cope with how much he felt.

“I'm sorry,” he managed, knowing that it wasn't an apology for anything he had done.

The desperation of his own need was like a dash of cold water.

Earlier she had fled from him.

Now he was the one who lacked the courage to find out where the heated kiss would lead. He took a step back, then turned and stumbled away, stumbled out of the house. He wasn't even aware that he had climbed into his SUV and started the engine until he realized he was backing away from the house.

 

ON
unsteady legs, Sara crossed the living room and closed the front door, then threw the bolt. She wanted safety where none existed. And in some part of her consciousness, she knew there never would be safety again.

One kiss, and she had wanted Adam Marshall with a force that robbed the breath from her lungs. In her mind, a picture had formed of the two of them, on the kitchen floor, naked, in a fevered embrace.

He had left her shaking. In danger of losing her balance. Physically, emotionally. Mentally. Barely able to stand, she crossed the few steps to the easy chair and sank down.

She had thought they were getting close. Not just sexually close. Something deeper, more profound. Then he had pulled away, and she could have sworn he was afraid to take it to the next step.

Adam Marshall afraid?

Another image came to her. She saw herself throwing clothing into a suitcase and fleeing the cabin. Fleeing Adam. Fleeing Wayland. Because she was afraid that if she didn't get out of Wayland, she would be sucked under the black waters of the Olakompa—never to be seen again. If not literally, then figuratively.

As that panicked thought surfaced, she knew something even more fundamental. Earlier in the day, she had thought about leaving. She was still here. And now she knew that bailing out would be the worst thing she could do. Fate had brought her here to this place at this time. And turning away from what waited for her was worse than staying. She had to face her worst fear and conquer it or she was surely doomed. She hugged her arms around her shoulders, rubbing her hands up and down her arms, trying to ward off the sudden chill that made her teeth begin to chatter.

 

ADAM
drove into the night, feeling pursued by devils that had always lurked in the darkness. And now they had burst forth.

The raw force of what had happened between himself and Sara astonished him. He knew it had started building on the street in Wayland. Well, before that, really, when he'd first seen her in the park. Alone with her in the kitchen, the need to join with her had gripped him with a savage strength that had shaken him to the core.

He had fled those feelings, and now he didn't know what the hell he was going to do.

Run. He wanted to run. Yet he knew deep in his soul that would do him no good.

If he ran from Sara now, it would be like half his mind and heart had been hacked out of his body. On some deep instinctive level, he understood that. Yet he wasn't able to come to terms with the new reality: He must have this woman or die. Till death do them part.

Although that sounded simple, it wasn't simple at all.

Like, for instance, was she involved with the people who had tried to kill him in the swamp? He didn't want to think so, but he still couldn't be sure. Part of him prayed that she wasn't. And part of him welcomed the theory. Because that would give him an excuse to tear ass out of the state.

Right now his fear was as strong as his need. She had kissed Adam Marshall, the man. What about Adam Marshall, werewolf? Would the wolf send her screaming in terror? He had never worried about that with any of his other women because he hadn't been around long enough for them to find out. He had made love with them. Enjoyed their bodies. Given them pleasure. But none of that added up to a teacup full of real intimacy, the kind of intimacy he wanted, needed with Sara.

His jaw clenched as he imagined her terror.

Jesus. What had his father done about that?

Had Ross faced it?

He dragged in a breath and let it out in a rush. It felt like he had come to some sort of fundamental crossroads in his life. And he couldn't cope with what was happening to him.

When he realized he had almost plowed into the barrier that closed off the main park entrance after hours, he slammed on his brakes.

Unlocking the bar, he drove through into Nature's Refuge, an island of peace in the middle of the great Olakompa Swamp. But not for him. There was no refuge for him. Never again. Not in this world.

ADAM SPENT A
restless night, turning the covers into a twisted mass of rope. He told himself he didn't have to make any decisions. He knew he was lying.

He got up early and dressed, prowling the park's public grounds looking for hard manual labor that needed to be done.

There was a place where a path was crumbling into the swamp. The plan was to shore it up with a fieldstone retaining wall. The rocks had been delivered, but the work hadn't started yet because it was going to be a messy job. This morning, Adam put on his grubbiest clothes, then got out a wheelbarrow and started moving loads of stone.

By the time other rangers began arriving, he was covered with sweat, and his arm muscles were protesting. But he had transferred most of the building material from the pile in back of a storage shed to the work area. The staff tried to hide their surprise that the boss was doing the grunt work. Dwayne and Eugene offered to help. He hesitated for a moment. They might take his mind off his problems, but he knew he wasn't fit for human interaction at the moment. So he said he was just getting to the messy part, and he might as well continue by himself.

Eugene looked like he wanted to say something else. But he kept quiet. Adam asked him to check the day's schedule and do any rearranging necessary, as he planned to be here for a few more hours.

Alone again, he marked off the construction area with yellow tape, then figured he'd better get a pair of rubber boots if he didn't want to ruin his shoes. After pulling the boots on, he waded into the water along the path and began evening out the edge in preparation for putting down two layers of stone.

He'd never shied away from hard work. In that way he was like Ross, who had gotten him a couple of construction jobs before he'd left home.

Again, as he had in the past few days, he let himself think about his brother, wonder if he was still alive, even. Werewolves were a violent sort. There were all kinds of things that could have happened to his only remaining sibling.

He bent down, laying the first level of stone in the muck and evening it out, then standing back to judge the length of the wall. The stone was just peeking above the surface of the muddy water, and he figured he'd get his level full of mud if he tried to use the instrument.

He continued, selecting stones that would fit together well, working by feel as much as by eye.

Thinking about Ross kept his mind off Sara. He had been on his own for a long time. What would it hurt to call home and find out where to contact his brother? Or maybe he could even get him through one of those Internet search engines.

He had just set the last rock in the second row when a voice broke through the sounds of chirping birds.

“Seems like you have the makings of a second career, son.”

He was glad he'd put down the stone, otherwise he might have dropped it on his foot.

Looking up, he met Paul Delacorte's dark chocolate eyes. “Howdy, sheriff,” he managed.

“You the new field hand at Nature's Refuge?” the black man drawled.

“If I want to be. Rank has its privileges.”

“You're right on that one.”

“Are you making an inspection tour of the lowlands?” Adam asked.

“I hear you had a little bit of trouble in town last night.”

“News travels fast.”

“Sure does, in a place like Wayland.”

“You're referring to the near miss with the pickup truck?”

“Was there something else?”

“Mrs. Waverly damn near kicked me out of the historical society library.”

“Oh…well.” Paul looked him up and down. “I'd say you could use a break.”

“Yeah.”

“Why don't we set a spell.”

“Sure. Let's go up to my cabin and get a couple of bottles of chilled water out of the refrigerator.”

As he climbed up to the path, Adam caught sight of Amy Ralston watching them. Probably she was curious about what Delacorte was doing here, if she didn't already know.

Since the sheriff had heard about the near hit-and-run incident, everybody else probably had, too. On the way to the cabin, he stopped at an outdoor faucet and washed his hands and face—and boots.

He contemplated sticking his whole head under the stream of water but decided that looking like a drowned rat wasn't an advantage when talking to the law.

Delacorte brought only one bottle of water and set it on the table beside Adam's chair. He picked it up and downed half of it in one gulp.

“Hard work, laying stone,” the sheriff observed.

“Yeah.”

“Ken White would have left it to the staff.” The sheriff shifted his weight from one foot to the other. “He went by the philosophy that on a mule team, the scenery is the same for all the mules except the leader.”

Adam laughed. “Yeah, well, I like to trade places with the mules in the back. That way I know what's involved in all the jobs.”

“A good policy.”

“Is that why you lie in wait for speeders?”

“Partly. But I enjoy taking tourists down a peg.”

Adam lowered himself into a wire mesh chair and drank more of his water, waiting for the sheriff to make the next move.

The man joined him in the empty chair, crossed his legs comfortably at the ankles, and asked, “Did you recognize the pickup truck or the driver?”

“The driver was hunched over. The truck looked like a hundred others in town. I didn't have time to glance at the license plate.”

“It was smeared with mud.”

“You saw it?”

“I got a couple of eyewitness accounts.”

“So why do you figure someone tried to mow down Sara Weston?”

“You think that's what happened?”

“It looked that way to me. The question is why? You have many incidents like that in Wayland?”

“Not many. It could have been a drunk teenager showing off. Or some guy who had a run-in with her.”

“Who would that be?” Adam asked sharply.

“She doesn't know.”

“You talked to her?”

“This morning.”

Adam leaned forward in his seat. “How was she?”

“A little shook up.”

Yeah, he thought. So was he. And not just from the accident.

“She says she's kept pretty much to herself. And she doesn't think she's had time to make any enemies in town,” Delacorte continued. “She did advance the theory that somebody might not like Granville Pharmaceuticals.”

“Has Granville stuck its nose into town before?”

“No. But they make drugs. If somebody thinks they were harmed by one of the company's products, they could have taken it out on the lady.”

Adam ran his finger and thumb up the sweating side of the cold bottle. “That doesn't make a hell of a lot of sense.”

“Sometimes crime is like that.”

“Yeah.”

Adam shifted in his seat. “Since you're here, I'd like to follow up on some research I was doing at the historical society.”

“I'm no historian.”

“You've been in Wayland all your life. And I'm sure your daddy passed plenty of stories down to you.”

The sheriff nodded.

“I was reading an article about a woman whose cabin burned up and her along with it.”

Delacorte's shoulders had tensed.
Interesting.
“How did you happen upon that?”

“Funny you should ask. Mrs. Waverly had the same question. What I told her was that I went back to the year that Austen Barnette bought Nature's Refuge. I wanted more information about the park.”

“Makes sense.”

“So why do you think somebody cut the article about the woman in the burned cabin out of the paper? And somebody else put it back?”

The sheriff shrugged.

Adam watched the man carefully as he continued, “Well, I got to thinking about our earlier talk. You told me about a woman who was murdered around the same time. And I was wondering how many women could die violently around here in a cabin at the edge of the swamp.”

Delacorte recrossed his legs again but didn't speak.

“Are they the same case?” Adam asked.

“Yeah. They are.”

“So the newspaper article was really about the murder?”

“That's right.”

“The story attributed her death to a faulty heater.”

“That was the official explanation.”

“But?” Adam asked, never taking his attention off the sheriff's face.

“A mob went after her.”

“Why?”

“People came to her for herbal remedies. She was said to have special powers with healing. Then a little boy she treated died.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Probably he would have died anyway. My guess is he had a heart defect. But the mob blamed this woman.”

“Jenna Foster. Her name was in the article. That was about all—besides the faulty heater story—to cover up a murder…” Adam qualified, “…when your daddy was sheriff.”

“That's right.” Delacorte's eyes blazed with anger. “He was in the pocket of the white folks that run this town. That was how he made his decisions. I'm not proud of that. And I haven't continued the tradition.”

“Probably there are white folks here who expect you to,” Adam said, keeping his own voice mild.

“I've already showed them it's not gonna happen. I've made arrests my daddy never would have made. And the legal system has gotten convictions.” Delacorte's expression was fierce. “You want the details?”

“I'll take your word for it.”

“Appreciate it.”

They were both silent for several moments.

It was Adam who spoke first. “Well, you told me right off it was a murder.”

“Yeah. And if I knew who killed her, I'd go after him.”

“It's a pretty cold case.”

Delacorte nodded tightly.

While the lawman was in a talkative mood, Adam pushed for more information. “Did her cabin really burn?”

“Yes. But the owner built it back up again.”

“The owner is?”

“Austen Barnette.”

The answer sent a tingle of sensation along Adam's arm. “That's interesting.”

“He rents the place out.” Delacorte paused for emphasis. “Right now Granville Pharmaceuticals has the lease.”

As Adam absorbed that, along with the tight lines of the other man's face, his mind made connections. “The cabin where Sara lives?” he asked, his voice low and gritty.

“Yeah. So there could be a couple of other reasons for someone going after her. It could have to do with the location. Or it could have to do with Barnette.”

“I thought everybody in town loved Barnette. Didn't he make Nature's Refuge into a major attraction, which brings in wads of tourist dollars?”

“That's true, of course. A lot of folks are grateful to him. But you can't be the big fish in a little pond without gathering some algae. He's had problems over the years.

He's done things for the community like build the library and the recreation center. But he insisted on having a say in the staffing of both of them. Some folks don't appreciate that.”

“He picked me to run Nature's Refuge,” Adam pointed out.

“The difference is, he owns this place.”

The silence between the two men stretched again. Adam was thinking that it might not make a difference who owned the park. Some people were probably pissed off that the job of head ranger hadn't gone to a local guy. Like Ken White, for example. Who'd been born and raised in Wayland and knew the Olakompa from childhood.

He pulled his mind away from his own problems and back to the long ago murder. “There was mention of a little girl. What happened to her?”

“She disappeared.”

“You think she died in the fire? In the swamp?”

“Her body was never found. My daddy said that someone might have gotten her out of harm's way. Maybe arranged an adoption out of state when the smoke had cleared, so to speak.”

“Who would have done that?”

“Jenna Foster wasn't married. But she had a daughter. The child's father could have rescued her.”

“And that would be?”

“Whoever he was, he kept it a secret.”

Adam absorbed that new detail, his own speculations taking wild leaps. “You think he's still alive?”

“Why do you ask?”

“I told you, I like to walk around the area at night. I was over by Sara's place, and I saw a guy hanging around there.”