Witching Moon (8 page)

Not far away. Certainly close enough for a wolf to visit.

So would you like a visit from a wolf?
he silently asked Sara.

In his imagination, she smiled.
Yes I would.

You wouldn't be frightened of me?

She shook her head.

“Yeah, sure,” he muttered aloud, banishing another one of his imaginary encounters with Sara from his mind before getting up and stomping back to the filing cabinet.

ADAM CLEARED UP
after dinner, feeling a kind of leaden fatigue weigh him down. He had thought he'd go into town this evening, but he silently acknowledged that he was in no shape for anything but rest.

The tainted smoke from the night before was getting to him. Not that he was having a flashback or anything. But he knew his body better than most people did.

He needed a good night's sleep. And he needed to think through his next move.

So he stripped off his clothes and crawled into the double bed that had come with the cabin. He lay on the hard mattress for long hours, glancing now and then at the green number of the digital clock. Eleven
P.M.
Twelve
A.M.
One
A.M.

Against his will, his thoughts went back to the nights of his sixteenth year, when his body was changing from boy to man, and he knew that soon Dad would take him out to the woods for the first time—where he would change into a wolf or die.

He had wanted to talk to Ross about it. Ross had made the change and survived. He had already left home, but Mom knew where to find him. Only he couldn't ask her, because he didn't want her to see his fear.

He thought of Ross now. Some deep, buried impulse made him want to reach out and connect with his brother. But he knew that it would come out badly.

Still…back when they'd been friends; they'd made trips to the library together. He'd read about the natural environment.

Ross had read about witches and vampires and werewolves.

Would Ross be able to tell him anything about the bag of herbs? Maybe he'd read something that would be useful.

Longing tightened his chest. He rarely admitted it even to himself, but he missed his family with a very deep and fundamental longing. He missed his brother. And he missed his mother. And in some strange, twisted way, he even missed his dad—the Big Bad Wolf, as Ross had called him.

He wanted to see them. Yet he knew that the old phrase, “You can't go home again,” applied to him in spades.

Ross had moved out while he was still in college, after a knockdown fistfight in the kitchen with Dad. Mom had thrown a pan of water on them to break it up, and Adam had watched wide-eyed from the doorway.

He hadn't understood then why Dad was so harsh and why; as soon as his sons grew up, they couldn't get along with him at all.

Then he'd read about wolves in the wild and even watched them. There was always one dominant male, the alpha male, and the others were subservient to him. They had a definite pecking order, with each wolf understanding his place in the pack. Apparently, it wasn't the same with werewolves. Each guy needed to be the alpha male. Nobody was willing to give any ground. So they fought for the top spot. Maybe they didn't even understand what they were doing, but they did it.

So how old was Dad now? In his sixties. Adam could probably go back to Baltimore and wup his hide.

But then what? He'd feel satisfied for a few minutes. Then he'd look into Mom's eyes and feel ashamed.

Mom loved the old bastard. She had no choice; she was the werewolf's mate.

As he lay there in the darkness, he thought about the wild and crazy relationship between his mother and father. They needed each other in a way that had amazed and frightened him ever since he'd been old enough to understand it. The werewolf and his mate. There was a bond between them stronger than the bond between an ordinary man and his wife. He'd heard them making love at night with a passion that had embarrassed him. He supposed no kid liked to imagine his parents making love.

But during the day, it had been so different. His father had dominated his mother. Probably he frightened her. Certainly he hadn't hesitated to raise his hand to her when he'd been angry—which had been frequently.

She could have left him. But she stayed, and she came to him at night like none of the bad stuff had ever happened.

He didn't understand it and he hadn't wanted anything so sick in his own life. Or so intense.

He'd told himself he'd known how to avoid it. He'd had lots of women. It had been easy to attract them ever since his teens, after he'd made that transition from man to wolf and back again.

Girls had flocked to him. He gave a short laugh. Apparently that was an advantage of his animal nature.

And he'd enjoyed playing the field, never getting serious about anyone. That had gotten him in trouble more than once. In fact, he'd been glad to leave Big Bend for Wayland because he'd started to sleep with a woman who, it turned out, was in a serious relationship with someone else.

Of course, he wouldn't have approached her if he'd known she had all but promised to marry another guy. Unfortunately, it had already been too late to make amends when he'd found out. He'd almost gotten himself killed, actually. And he'd vowed to be a lot more careful about his sexual partners in the future.

Wayland had been a new beginning for him. He'd been cautious about getting tangled up with anyone until he knew the town. But there were some women he'd had his eye on. And they'd had their eyes on him. Now the only woman he could think about was Sara Weston.

His right hand clenched and unclenched around a wad of rumpled sheet. He'd met her yesterday morning in the swamp.

Yesterday morning! It seemed like a lifetime.

Yet when he stopped to consider the actual number of hours, he could barely believe the time had been so short. It was easy to imagine her lying in the bed beside him. Easy to imagine her there every night of his existence—so that he could turn to her and make wild, passionate love to her anytime he wanted. He had never thought of another woman permanently in his life. He had only thought of short-term pleasure. And now, suddenly everything felt different.

He reached back and arranged his pillow more comfortably under his head. He had to get some sleep. He had to get Sara Weston out of his mind, he told himself as he closed his eyes.

When he opened them again, the room felt different. There was a vibration in the air. A feeling of expectancy. And the rich, female scent of the woman he had met in the park the day before.

He knew he must be dreaming. But this felt more real than any dream he had experienced before—or could ever have imagined. He had been envisioning Sara in his bed. Longing for her. And his dream had put her there. Slowly, as though he were afraid he was mistaken, he turned his head to look at her.

His breath caught when he saw she was lying next to him. In the park her blond hair had been tied back. Now it was loose and spread across the pillow like a delicate fan. She wore a short cotton gown that covered her hips. His gaze traveled down her body and then back up, pausing to admire her breasts and then rising to her face. She was looking at him as though she couldn't believe she was here.

And she was making the same intimate visual tour. His chest was bare. The lower part of his body was hidden by the wrinkled sheet, and he was thankful for that. He hoped it hid his erection. He didn't move. He was almost afraid to breathe.

He was afraid that if he twitched a muscle, she would disappear. And he was desperate to keep that from happening. He might know he was dreaming, but he didn't want the dream to end.

“What are you doing in my bed?” he asked, hearing the rough, uncertain quality of his own voice.

“You wanted me here,” she answered, and he found it reassuring that she looked and sounded as bemused as he felt.

“Yes,” he admitted to her dream image.

“What do you want?”

He laughed softly. “What men want with a woman who attracts them. To make love with you.”

He saw her swallow. “I don't know you well enough to make love. We just met.”

“We can get to know each other real fast.”

“You weren't exactly charming yesterday morning. I was pretty sure you didn't like me.”

In the waking world, the remark would have made him feel defensive. But this was a dream. He didn't have to be defensive. He could say anything he wanted. “I'm sorry. I was upset. Not with you.”

“With those people.”

“Yes.” He didn't want to talk about those people. Not when he had Sara in his bed. So he said quickly, “I should have said I couldn't believe that a Ph.D. botanist could be so young and beautiful.”

One of her beguiling blushes spread across her cheeks. “Thanks. I think.”

“You're very beautiful,” he murmured. Daring to move his arm the barest little bit, he slid his hand across the surface of the sheet. When his fingers touched hers, she made a small sound, and he went instantly still. But she didn't draw back. Thank God.

They lay there, barely touching. The contact was tentative and also electric. Different from anything he had ever experienced.

His relationships with women had always been hot and sexual. He was hot now. But he felt a kind of sweetness that he had never expected to feel.

Her fingers curled against his, and now he was the one who drew in a quick, sharp breath.

“I want to know about you,” she murmured.

He felt tension pulse through him. He wanted her to know him, but he was sure she would run screaming in the other direction if she found out the truth. Yet he knew he couldn't simply remain silent and hope to keep her here.

Scrambling for something to give her, he said, “I love the outdoors.”

“The swamp?”

“I've worked all over the country. Like I told you, I was in Texas last. It was dry and hot. But it was majestic. My first post was in Colorado. It was so different from where I lived as a kid. I was at a park high in the Rockies, and it took a couple of months before I could get used to the oxygen level.”

“Where did you grow up?”

“Maryland.”

“Up north.”

“Yeah,” he answered, but he didn't want to talk about himself. He was hungry for information about her. “What about you?”

“Wilmington, North Carolina.”

“What did you like best?”

“We were really close to the beach. I used to love going down there with my parents. We'd bring back shells and driftwood and other stuff we found.”

Eagerly he demanded, “Tell me some more. What else did you love?”

“Barbecue. Playing with my dolls. Building a fort in the woods.”

“Did you like school?”

“Yes.”

“What subjects?”

She told him about her school days, and he drifted on the sound of her voice, pressing and stroking his fingers against hers, growing more sensual in his touch when she didn't pull away.

It was the bare minimum of contact. Yet that small link of man to woman was the most electric he had ever experienced in his life. Two inches of his flesh and bone against hers, and he knew he was feeling more than he had in any sexual encounter he had ever experienced.

He wanted it to last forever. Yet at the same time, it wasn't sufficient. He wanted more from this woman. Much more.

Slowly, very slowly, he increased the contact, stroking his fingers against hers, all of his being focused on the sliding sensation of his fingers against her. But it wasn't enough. And when he couldn't suppress his physical need for her, he rolled toward her and reached to pull her against his heated body.

“No!”

“Sara…please.”

In the next moment, she was gone, and he was left on the bed feeling hot and hard and desolate.

Awake now, he lay there breathing raggedly. The dream had seemed so real. Like she'd actually been there with him, exchanging personal information. He couldn't stop himself from reaching to touch the pillow next to him, almost expecting to feel the indentation of her head or the heat of her body The pillow was smooth and flat and cool.

Of course it was! It was just a dream.

Yet the memory of her rich scent seemed to linger in the room like a tantalizing illusion.

He looked over at the clock again. It was after four
A.M.
, and he knew he wasn't exactly in great shape. But perhaps a walk through the Olakompa would help settle him.

He got up and stripped off his briefs. Naked, he padded to the door of the cabin. An owl hooted. Small animals scurried into the underbrush as he walked to a grove of trees and disappeared into the shadows. He stood in the darkness, marshaling his resolve.

He had been sick from the smoke the night before. And that would make the change more difficult. But he longed for the freedom of the wolf.

“Taranis, Epona, Cerridwen,”
he muttered, almost under his breath, then repeated the same phrase and went on to the next.

“Ga. Feart. Cleas. Duais. Aithriocht. Go gcumhdai is dtreorai na deithe thu.”

Earlier, he had been thinking of the first time he had done this.

Tonight the pain was almost as great, but he knew how to deal with it as he felt his jaw elongate, his teeth sharpen, his body contort. Muscles and limbs transformed themselves into wolf shape while gray hair bloomed on his body. Dropping to all fours, he dragged warm, moist air into his lungs and could detect no trace of the tainted smoke of the night before. After a moment's hesitation, he trotted off toward the east edge of the park, feeling a sense of excitement that he fought to suppress.