Come Moonrise

Praise for Lucy Monroe's Books

"Lucy Monroe captures the very heart
of the genre. She pulls the reader into the story from the first to
the last page." ~ NYT Bestseller Debbie Macomber

"Lucy Monroe writes smart, sensual,
emotional books for intelligent women." ~ NYT Bestseller JoAnn
Ross

"Thank you for writing those alpha
heroes I love." ~ NYT Bestseller Lori Foster

"Ms. Monroe never fails to deliver a
story that is overflowing with emotion and sizzle." - 4 Stars,
FAR

Table of Contents

Chapter
1

Chapter
2

Chapter
3

Chapter
4

Chapter
5

Chapter
6

Chapter
7

Excerpt from Win
the Game

More Books by
Lucy Monroe

About the
Author

COME MOONRISE

A Contemporary Children of the Moon
Novella

By

Lucy Monroe

Originally released in
the
Unleashed
anthology.

© Lucy Monroe 2006

Smashwords Edition

http://lucymonroe.com

COME MOONRISE

This electronic re-release has been published by the
author upon reversion of all rights to the author from Berkley
Publishing.

PRINTING HISTORY

Berkley tradesize edition December 2006

Electronic Edition October 2014

COPYRIGHT © 2006 LUCY MONROE

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or
distributed in any printed or electronic form without express,
written permission from the author Lucy Monroe who can be contacted
off her website http://lucymonroe.com.

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment
only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people.
If you would like to share this book with another person, please
purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading
this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your
use only, then please return to your favorite ebook retailer and
purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of
this author.

This is a work of fiction. names,
characters, places and incidents either are the product of the
author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance
to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events
or locales is entirely coincidental.

COME MOONRISE

For Jean Gilsrud...with thanks for your
ongoing support of my dream, your always kind comments about my
books and bringing so much joy into my uncle's life and to our
family.

Come Moonrise

By

Lucy Monroe

CHAPTER ONE

Frankie watched the sleek brown wolf run
toward her across the clearing, its powerful body moving with a
fluid grace that took her breath away.

She should be frightened, but she wasn't.
She'd met the wolf many times before, her mind told her, though she
could not remember any single instance with clarity.

The summer sun warmed her bare skin where
she reclined on the big diving rock beside the swimming hole, one
foot dangling off the side, her toes trailing the water. She'd been
skinny dipping, but her nudity did not bother her. No one was there
to see it, except the wolf.

He stopped about twenty feet away and fixed
his blue gaze on her, his eyes glowing with intelligence she could
have sworn was human. He didn't growl or bare his teeth. His ears
did not flatten. He made no signs whatsoever of aggression.

He simply looked at her.

She didn't understand why, but she tingled
inside, and her body warmed with a blush that made no sense in the
current situation. He was only a wolf, but the eyes that gazed at
hers were those of a man, or so her foolish imagination
fancied.

She didn't move...couldn't move, though she
felt a brief instinct to cover herself. The wolf came forward until
he was in touching distance, a sound coming from deep in his chest,
but it was not a growl. It almost sounded like pleasure.

He butted her shoulder with his muzzle and
she gasped. His mouth opened...was he going to bite her?

He licked the droplets of water that had
rolled down her neck from her still wet hair. She shivered and
gasped again. Then, as if in a dream, she reached up and touched
the wolf, running her fingers through his silky fur. The sound
coming from his chest got louder.

Feeling like it was the most natural thing
in the world, she nuzzled him like she did her pet German shepherd
and just like Snoopy did, the wolf returned the affectionate
gesture. Then his head came up, his ears perked, as if he could
hear something she couldn't.

"What is it, boy?" she asked softly.

He shook his head and danced backwards, his
movements so graceful she envied him.

She had been known to trip over her own
feet. Maybe that was why Ty never looked at her like a woman...he
was as lithe as the wolf. Perhaps her clumsiness turned him
off.

A sudden gust of wind lifted her hair and
its damp mass swirled around her head, blocking her vision. When
she brushed it from her eyes, the wolf was gone.

Had he ever been there?

Her hand lifted of its own volition and
touched where it had licked her neck. Yes, the wolf had been
real.

Disappointed he was gone, but moved in a way
she didn't understand by the encounter, she climbed to her feet and
dove into the swimming hole. The water closed over her naked flesh
and caressed her like lovers hands she had never felt.

If only Ty were there...but if he were, she
wouldn't be swimming naked and he wouldn't touch her the way she
craved.

The thought had barely formed when something
splashed to her left and then she felt a hand grab her ankle and
pull. She kicked out with her other foot, but as quickly as she'd
been grabbed, she was released and she shot to the surface.

She gulped in air and twisted her head,
trying to see who was in the water with her.

Ty's blond head broke from the water right
in front of her as a pair of strong, masculine hands latched onto
her waist.

"Don't," she panted, unable to accept that
her thoughts had taken physical form.

"Don't what?" he asked, his blue eyes
reminding her so much of the wolf she'd seen, that for a second,
she was speechless.

"You scared me...when you grabbed my foot,"
she finally forced out.

He grinned, pulling her closer through the
water. "Did I?"

Their bodies brushed and she yelped.

"What's the matter, Frankie? The water too
cold?"

"I'm naked, Ty!"

"I know. I saw you." His hands slid down to
cup her bare bottom in a move that both shocked and intrigued her.
"I can feel you too."

Oh, wow. She'd never been touched like this
before, but she liked it. A lot. "I can feel you too," she
whispered breathlessly, unable to believe what was happening.

It felt like she'd wanted Ty to see her has
a woman forever, but never in a million years would she have
expected him to join her skinny dipping and touch her like this. He
usually turned and headed the other way when there was a risk of
them getting too intimate physically.

His mouth hovered over hers as his powerful
legs kept them both afloat. "I want you, Frankie."

"I want you too, Ty...so much."

Her lips parted instinctively in preparation
for his kiss.

His head came closer and closer while a
buzzing sound went off in her brain. He stopped, his lips right
above her own, so close she could taste his breath.

"Ty?" she whispered.

Frankie woke up her mouth full of cotton
pillowcase.

Aargh...not again. How many times had she
had that dream? How many nights had she come so close to kissing
the man she loved only to be woken by something?

Her hand slammed down onto the buzzing alarm
clock and the offending noise abruptly ceased.

Darn it. When was she going to stop dreaming
about the guy?

And that wolf...how many times had he been
in the dreams? Even when she was dreaming in the city, the wolf was
there, incongruous and yet her subconscious mind accepted his
presence without question. Maybe because that was the only part of
the dream steeped in reality.

The encounter with the wolf had happened
when she was fifteen. She'd gone to the swimming by herself that
day, but she hadn't gone skinny dipping. She'd just needed some
time to herself. Ty had spent the day flirting with another girl at
school and it had hurt watching them together.

In reality, it had been her tears the wolf
had licked from both her cheek and her neck, not the water from the
swimming hole. She hadn't been naked, but everything else in the
dream was exactly as it had happened in reality.

Until she dove into the swimming hole. That
part with Ty was pure imagination. The funny thing was, no one
would ever believe her if she told them about the encounter with
the wolf. Even Ty hadn't. He'd said she'd probably dozed off and
dreamed it. She knew he was wrong.

The truth was it was the time in the
swimming hole that was truly fanciful. Her encounter with the wolf
had been real and it had sparked a lifelong love of the
animals.

She had spent years researching them, had
even at one time dreamed of doing a field behavioral study on Ty's
father's ranch...the part dedicated to the wolf refuge.

But that dream had died along with many
others the day the man she loved made it clear he wanted nothing
more than friendship from her. That had been six years ago and Ty
McCanlup was still her best friend.

He was also still the man she measured every
other male in her life by and they all came up short.

Her feelings for him made it impossible for
her to maintain a relationship with another man and it was time she
faced up to that. She'd moved to the city, away from him and the
everyday proximity of their friendship. The move should have helped
rid her of her unrequited love and at first she'd believed it
had.

She'd been dead wrong. Lately, it was
getting even worse, the pain of loving and not having him, the
inability to see other men but for the superimposed image of his
face in her mind. The dreams were becoming more frequent too.

Probably because she'd been offered that job
in Oregon. She knew to accept would mean an irrevocable step in her
life.

It had been summer in her dream, but it was
November now and soon it would be Thanksgiving. A time for family
and friends to be together.

It was also time for her to do something
about Ty.

She’d spent four years trying to get him to
notice she was female when she was younger and the last six trying
to forget his gentle rejection. She'd been unsuccessful at both. If
she was ever going to move on with her life, she should take the
job in Washington state and let her friendship with Ty go.

The knowledge hurt, but it had been a long
time coming.

She was at a crossroads both job wise and
personally. She couldn't keep living the half life she'd been
doing. She hated city veterinary medicine and the job in Washington
would be working in a wolf haven. She was also tired of being
lonely, of pining after a man who thought of her as a buddy without
chest hair and maybe if she moved away, cut him from her life
completely, she could learn to care for someone else.

An insidious voice inside
her head asked
but was she sure he saw her
that way still?
There were times Ty looked
at her the same way he had in the dream...as if he wanted her. He
hadn’t dated anyone seriously in the past six years
either.

She made a decision, sitting there in her
lonely bed, still tingling from a dream that could not make up for
reality. It was time to fish or cut bait with Ty McCanlup. She
would go home for the holidays and try one more time. If he
rejected her again, she would cut him completely from her life.

She had no choice.

One way, or another, this trip back home was
going to determine both her future career and the future of her
relationship with Ty.

***

"What do you mean we weren’t invited? The
McCanlups have been sharing thanksgiving with our family since
before I came here to live." Frankie stared at Aunt Rose, her
stomach plummeting in disappointment.

She’d bought the perfect
dress to wear for the dinner. It even made her look elegant and
somewhat curvy, not like a beanpole with a couple of interesting
bumps. She’d spent hours shopping – something she hated doing – in
order to stock her arsenal of
weapons
.