Witching Moon (16 page)

Then she remembered that she had come here in a large black limo. No, she'd better go home first and get her own car.

 

THE
day's attendance had been good, Adam thought as he looked at the pile of entrance receipts. There had been over three hundred admission tickets sold. And thirty boat rides into the swamp.

Maybe that wasn't spectacular by Walt Disney standards. But it was quite good for a small natural preserve in rural Georgia.

The crowds had cleared out, because the park closed early on Wednesday. The staff had left, and Adam was filing some forms when he looked up and saw a woman standing in the doorway.

She was blond and nicely shaped, and as she stood backlighted by the afternoon sunlight, he felt his heart leap.

Sara.

Then she stepped into the room, and he realized she was someone else, wearing shorts that hardly reached her crotch and a skinny little knit top with pencil thin straps and a bottom edge that left three inches of skin exposed around her middle. She wasn't wearing a bra, and her nipples were standing up behind the orange knit fabric.

She was dressed to attract male attention, and he responded the way his hormones had programed him to respond. He felt his body tighten as he looked from her long legs to her erect nipples to her carefully painted lips.

“Can I help you?” he asked in a gritty voice.

She slid her own gaze up and down his body with a proprietary air, and he knew she was well aware of the effect she was having on him.

He closed the file drawer and forced himself not to shift his weight from one foot to the other like a sophomore in high school being eyed by one of the “fast” senior girls.

“I'm looking for Adam Marshall.”

“The park is closed. Didn't you see the sign?”

“The gate was open.”

Oh yeah? Someone on the staff was going to explain that to him tomorrow morning. “I'm Ranger Marshall,” he answered, using his title like a sort of shield.

“Well, that's wonderful. I'm so glad I found you. I'm interested in a boat tour.”

“I'm sorry. The park is closed,” he repeated, keeping his tone even.

She tipped her head to one side and thrust her chest toward him. “Can't you make an exception for me?”

“I'm afraid not. We have our rules,” he managed to say.

She wore no perfume, but her scent was strong. It was as though she hadn't washed her crotch that morning. And the heat from her body was wafting the evidence of her arousal toward him. He tried to take shallow breaths, but it wasn't doing much good. Even a normal man would have to react to that raw female scent. And he was no normal man. He was a werewolf, and even in human form he was caught in the sensual web of that tantalizing aroma.

He saw her lips moving, and her words came to him over the buzzing in his brain.

“Oh. That's too bad.” She took a step into the room, looking like she wasn't all that upset.

“So this is the Nature's Refuge office. It's a bit primitive, isn't it?” she asked, eyeing the scarred wooden desk and the battered metal filing cabinets.

“We're not going for the designer look,” Adam answered as he took in the predatory gleam in her eye. The frank sexual interest.

Most women were more subtle. But he had the feeling she was planning to crowd him into a corner. Crowd him—and more.

And from his vantage point this encounter had the feeling of a trap closing around him.

He didn't know why the trap image sprang to his mind. He only knew it was strong and vivid.

To get out of the confined space, he came around the desk, stepping closer to her so that she'd have to back up. She held her ground.

“I've heard how sexy you are. I thought I'd find out about that for myself.”

“I thought you came for a boat ride.”

“Well, since that attraction's closed, maybe we can move on to another one.”

 

SARA
stopped at the entrance to the park and read the sign that announced the hours. It was ten after five. And the listing said that closing time on Wednesday was five.

The gate was open. But normally, she'd just turn around and go back. Today she needed to talk to Adam, so she drove through and headed toward a cluster of buildings she could see in the distance.

She'd collected some of her plants from the wild, unkempt expanse of the swamp, but she'd never been in the areas that were maintained for the public. When she'd come in the back way, she'd driven over a narrow gravel track. The road leading from the front entrance was two lanes and paved with macadam. To keep it from flooding, it was built up above the level of the swamp.

The drive ended in a rectangular paved area divided into sections by garden ties.

Natural looking, weed-free garden beds bloomed with an assortment of cultivated annuals and perennials interspersed with plants native to the Olakompa. Most of the indigenous plants were labeled with small signs giving their common and Latin names. A nice touch, she thought. The buildings clustered on the other side of the almost empty parking area were either log cabins or simple wood structures painted dark brown.

It was all tidy and well-kept, with a notable absence of trash on the ground. The state of the park spoke well for Adam Marshall. Apparently he ran a tight ship. And he knew how to make a natural area attractive for visitors.

A sign pointed to the office. Getting out of her car, she walked up a short path toward the building—then froze as she saw Adam and a woman standing just inside the door.

 

THE
woman stroked her forefinger along Adam's upper arm, dipping under the edge of his green uniform shirt. The touch of that one finger sent a ripple of reaction through him.

She was well aware of her female power because she smiled and gave him a smoldering look from beneath lowered lashes as she took a step back into the reception area. He followed, pulled toward this uninhibited woman. A buzzing had started in his brain. Probably the result of lack of blood in the upper part of his body.

Last night with Sara, he'd been aroused and achingly ready for sex before he'd wrenched himself away. He'd run from her cabin before he could rip off her clothing and throw her to the floor. Now here was another woman frankly offering herself to him.

“Sugar, we're going to be very, very good together,” she purred. “You and me, we're the same kind.”

He didn't answer. He didn't understand what she meant. Was she trying to tell him she was a werewolf? His fuzzy brain struggled to wrap itself around that idea. As far as he knew, there were only male werewolves. But maybe she was something new to his experience.

She touched him again. This time her hand stroked across his chest and slipped open one of the uniform buttons so that she could caress the heated flesh beneath.

Plenty of women had come on to him before. But never quite so explicitly, so shamelessly.

She was like a bitch in heat, and the wolf part of his nature was responding with an animal force.

He drew in a sharp, painful breath, and she answered him silently by sliding her tongue across her lower lip.

He watched that erotic pink tongue, mesmerized by the slow, enticing motion. And when she opened her mouth and repeated the provocative action along the edges of her even white teeth, he made a low, helpless sound in his throat.

She reached for his hand, lifting it to her breast, stroking his fingers back and forth across the crest of one taut nipple through the knit fabric of her top. “Harder, do that harder,” she whispered.

Somehow the sound of her voice released him from the spell. Or perhaps some dark, primitive god had taken mercy on him. His hand dropped away, and he stood there staring at her. He'd been hard and hot.

Suddenly, he was limp and cold and wondering how he could have thought he wanted to fuck this woman.

There was only one woman he wanted, and it was Sara Weston. “I'm sorry,” he muttered.

“You want the same thing I do.”

“No.”

She took a step back, looking him up and down, taking in his rigid stance and the obvious fact that the erection she'd seen straining behind the fly of his jeans was no longer in evidence.

Perhaps she hadn't believed his verbal denial. But she believed that his body had stopped responding to her.

Anger flared in her eyes as she reached out to stab a stiffened finger into his chest. “You'll be real sorry you turned me down.”

“Don't count on it,” he shot back.

“Smart ass.” Her eyes narrowed, her face contorted, and he felt a sudden pain in the pit of his stomach. It was as if her anger had a physical force that had him grabbing the doorjamb to stay on his feet.

ADAM FELT MISS
Sexpot brush past him, then watched her surge out of the office and march toward the parking lot.

His eyes widened as he saw Sara coming toward her from the parking lot.

The seductress stopped in her tracks, raising her chin defiantly.

“Oh perfect. You! What was I doing, getting him ready to fuck you?” The sharp words rang out in the afternoon silence like a war cry. The fury he'd felt directed at him suddenly had another focus.

“Sara,” Adam shouted. “Watch out.”

He didn't know what he was warning her about. He only knew that under that flaming hot exterior, the blonde in Sara's path was dangerous.

There was a charged moment when the two women stood in silence facing each other.

The seductress balled her hands into fists and jammed them against her hips, looking like a street fighter daring a rival to take another step.

Sara went very still, her arms loosely at her sides and her eyes questioning, as though she had no idea what to make of the challenge.

There were several seconds of dead calm. Of utter silence. Even the birds that normally sang in the trees went silent.

Then five doves flapped away, their wings beating the air in a frantic bid to escape. From what?

They had barely cleared the tall pine at the edge of the parking lot when the sky darkened as though a storm were rapidly overtaking them.

Moments ago, Adam had seen no clouds. Now they hung low and ominous over Nature's Refuge. As the sky darkened, the wind suddenly rose, shaking the branches of the trees around the parking area, sending up an eerie clatter as twigs and branches rubbed against each other. Leaves and bits of Spanish moss tore loose, flying through the air.

It felt like something supernatural was happening. And from deep inside Adam's mind came the knowledge that he had to protect Sara, but he couldn't make his arms or legs work.

What happened next was hardly supernatural. He watched in a kind of shocked disbelief as the woman on the path marched up to Sara, drew back her fist, and socked her in the stomach.

As she gasped in pain and surprise, the woman dodged around her and dashed to the parking lot.

Seeing Sara doubled over and swaying on her feet released Adam from his trance. Quickly he crossed the few yards that separated them.

She fell into his arms, and they collapsed together onto the mulch beside the path. He cradled her in his embrace, pulled her onto his lap, folding his body around hers as though he could protect her—when he'd already failed to do any such thing.

Dimly he was aware of an engine roaring to life and a car blasting out of the parking area. But his focus was on Sara.

She was shaking. So was he.

“What happened?” he finally asked.

“I don't know,” Sara whispered. “I felt so strange. I can't explain it…I thought…”

“What?”

“I don't know. I felt like the two of us were going to fight. But not physically. A fight where nobody else could see what was going on. Like with those voices last night.” She gave a helpless shrug, lowering her head to his shoulder, pressing her face into the fabric of his uniform shirt.

“Who is she?”

“Hell if I know.”

“You two looked pretty friendly.”

He made a helpless gesture. “She walked in here and came after me. Maybe somebody dared her to get it on with the new park ranger,” he clipped out, hoping Sara would drop the subject. He didn't want to think about the woman who had come here with seduction on her mind. He only wanted to focus on the woman in his arms.

He stroked his hand tenderly over her hair, her shoulders, feeling some of the tension go out of her. Still, when she lifted her head again, the troubled look on her face tore at him. “Okay, forget her. You're sure I'm not going crazy?”

“No!”

“Why not?”

He knew his answer wasn't based on logic, but he gave it anyway. “Because I care about you,” he whispered. It was so hard for him to say. Even that much. He'd never told a woman anything that came close to what he'd just said. He'd taken his pleasure with them, and he'd given pleasure in return. But he'd never been compelled to make an emotional connection. Now he felt that compulsion. But he couldn't tell that to Sara. The concept was still too new, too threatening.

She was staring into his eyes, and he was the one who felt stripped naked. If she had secrets, so did he. He couldn't tell her about them, so he rocked her in his arms, his hands soothing up and down her back and across her shoulders.

“You're going to move out here,” he heard himself say.

She blinked. “What?”

“I want you where you'll be safe—in the vacant cabin where one of the rangers used to bunk. We keep it ready for visitors, so it's all nice and clean.” She opened her mouth, but he rushed on. “I talked to Delacorte about that damn place where you're living now. A woman was murdered there. She was an herbal healer. A boy she treated died, and a mob went after her.”

He heard Sara suck in a sharp breath and let it out before saying, “I think I daydreamed about her.”

“About the fire?”

“No. About her living there.” She kept her gaze steady on him. “All my life I've felt like I was different. I would…see things that weren't really there. And I knew they were true.”

“Like what?”

She took another gulping breath. “Sometimes they were things happening in other people's lives. And sometimes I didn't know
what
they were. I didn't want to see them, so I pretended they didn't exist. And finally, they really were hardly there. Or maybe it was that I had trained myself to ignore them. Then…” She stopped again and shuddered. “Then I came to Wayland. And right after I moved into that cabin, I went back and stepped into that woman's shoes for a little while. She had a garden. With herbs.”

His hands gripped her shoulders. “Yeah, well I don't know why Barnette put you in that damn haunted house, but I want you somewhere else. I feel like you're a tethered goat out there drawing…a predator. And I want you where I can keep you safe.”

Sara made a small, distressed sound. But he kept talking.

“I'd say there's still a lot of interest in that damn place.” He evaluated his options and decided to tell her more of what he knew. Not all of it, but enough. “Delacorte says that the woman who lived there wasn't the only person the town went after. Apparently there were a bunch of people who lived around here, people with strange…powers. They were persecuted as witches.”

She gasped, “Witches!”

He went on quickly, “Delacorte says most them left town. Or maybe some of them went underground. I don't know. But he thinks their children have come back to get even with the community. They could be focused on the place.”

“Witches,” she said again. “Are you sure?”

Adam ran a shaky hand through his hair. “I don't know if it's true. But whether it is or not, there are probably townspeople who think that living in that cabin makes you a bad person.”

“What are you trying to say?”

“That I saw someone lurking around your house a couple of nights ago.”

“Why didn't you tell me about it?”

“I started to last night. Then we got sidetracked. I'm telling you now. I chased the guy, but he got in his car and drove away. I don't know who he was. But I'll know him if I find him in town.”

“How?”

“I…picked up his scent.”

“His scent,” she repeated slowly.

“It's a talent I have.” He laughed. “You see ghosts, and I smell out trouble.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. Maybe that's why the smoke from that fire in the swamp sent me into a tailspin.”

She was watching him, taking it in. There was a lot more he could say, but the idea of telling her the rest made his chest constrict. Not yet. Not when he needed to keep her safe.

“I want you to move out here,” he said again.

He saw her wedge her lower lip between her teeth. “The last time we were together…we…about burned up the floorboards under our feet.”

He swallowed around the constriction in his throat. “Yeah.”

“If I'm out here…”

“I'll behave myself.”

“How do I know?”

“Because I want you to trust me. That's important to me.”

He leaned toward her and brushed his lips against hers. The touch was light, but it sent heat leaping through him. Yesterday he would have acted on the need to shift her in his arms and press her body to his. Yesterday he might have rolled her to her back and come down on top of her. Today he held himself in check, because he needed to prove something to her—and to himself.

Some inner strength he hadn't known he possessed helped him keep the kiss light. It was a unique experience for him, simply savoring her taste and the contrast between what he felt now and what he had felt when Miss Sexpot had come on to him. He didn't have much experience with restraint, but he could see it had its advantages.

Sara made a small sound, and he pressed his lips more firmly to hers, just for a moment before he lifted his head.

“Sara, I promise you that it's going to be fantastic between us…when we're both ready.”

She looked dazed. He found that very satisfying.

He helped her up, then turned her to him and held her gently, savoring her, savoring feelings he'd never expected to experience.

“Come see the cabin,” he said.

“We have to move all my lab stuff.”

“We can use the park truck. And there's another vacant building where you can work.”

“Are you sure that will be all right with Barnette?”

“It'd better be!”

He led her along a path in back of the public area. “This is where I live,” he said, then showed her the other residence which was about fifty yards farther. He'd had his pick of the two places, and he'd chosen his because it was more to his taste.

The door wasn't locked. Neither was the one to his cabin, and he wondered if that ought to change. Pushing open the door, he stepped aside and let her go in first.

In the living room was a sofa, a rocking chair and a rag rug. White curtains hung at the window. A pine table with two chairs sat in front of a kitchen area along one wall. Someone had draped a quilt across the back of the sofa, a small homey touch.

The cabin's other room had a double bed, a chest of drawers, and an armoire instead of a closet. Besides the toilet and sink, the bathroom was big enough for a stall shower.

Not a very impressive refuge to offer Sara.

“It's smaller than where you're living now,” he said, keeping his arms pressed to his sides to stop himself from reaching for her. “But it's comfortable.”

She turned back to him, and the breath froze in his lungs as he waited for her to say it wasn't going to work.

What she said was, “You're sure it's okay for me to be here?”

“Perfectly sure. Barnette lets me make the decisions at the park.”

“Are you trying to rush me into moving in, before I change my mind?”

“You catch on fast. Come on; let's get your stuff.”

He drove the truck to her cabin. She took her own car. On the two-mile drive, he had time to consider what he'd been thinking. The need to protect her had been his primary motivation. But the consequences for him were massive. He wondered how he was going to live near her and keep his hands off her. And he wondered what he was going to do at night, when he needed to roam the park as a wolf. Well, he'd told her he walked around at night. He'd just have to make sure he was deep in the swamp before he changed.

Yeah, but what if she comes into your cabin and finds you eating a hunk of raw meat? How are going to explain that?
he asked himself.

 

STARFLOWER
hooked a right onto the dirt road and headed for the meeting place. It was a spot near the swamp where locals sometimes hung out. This evening she could hear rock music blaring from a boom box.

Tonight the music irritated her. But everything had irritated her since the scene at Nature's Refuge.

Adam Marshall had turned her down, despite the power she'd exerted over him—and she'd instantly hated him for that. She could have any man she wanted. But not him. What did he think—that he was too good for her? Then the woman, Sara Weston, had come along and hatred had turned to fear.

Yesterday, when they'd shouted a mental warning at her, Weston had been confused. She'd seemed weak.

But she hadn't been weak today.

The woman had power. Great power. And it looked like she was learning to use it. She'd called up storm clouds and a wind out of nowhere. Apparently she didn't know what to do with them—yet. If she ever found out—God help anyone who was in the way.