by Nora Roberts
waiting, willing her eyes to open and look into his. “If I kissed you now, Rowan, what might happen?”
Her lips trembled apart as memory of a question once asked in dreams and never answered struggled to surface. Then his mouth was on hers, and every thought willingly died. Lights, a wild swirl of them behind the eyes. Heat, a hot gush of it in the belly. The first sound she made was a whimper that might have been fear, but the next was a moan that was unmistakably pleasure.
He was gentler than she’d expected, perhaps more than he’d intended. His lips skimmed, sipped, nipped and nuzzled until hers went pillow soft and warm under them. She swayed against him in surrender, and request.
Oh, yes, I want this. Just this.
A shiver coursed through her as his hand circled the back of her neck, as he urged her head back, took the kiss deeper with a tangle of tongues and tastes, a mingle of breath that grew unsteady and quick. She gripped his shoulders, first for balance, then for the sheer joy of feeling that hard, dangerous strength, the bunch of muscles.
Her hands slid over and into his hair.
She had a flash of the wolf, the rich black pelt and sinewy strength, then of the man, sitting on her bed, gripping her hand as her body shuddered.
The memory of what could be in dreams, the barrage of sensations of what was, battered each other.
And she erupted.
Her mouth went wild under his, tore at his control. Her surrender had been sweet, but her demands were staggering. As his blood leaped, he dragged her closer, let the kiss fly from warm to hungry to something almost savage.
Still she urged him on, pulling him with her until he buried his face in her throat and had to fight not to use his teeth.
“You’re not ready for me.” He managed to pant it out, then yanked her back, shook her lightly. “By Finn, I’m not ready for you. There might come a time when that won’t matter, and we’ll take our chances. But it matters now.” His grip lightened, his tone gentled. “It matters today. Go home, Rowan, where you’ll be safe.”
Her head was still spinning, her pulse still roaring. “No one’s ever made me feel like that. I never knew anyone could.”
Something flashed into his eyes that made her shiver in anticipation. But then he muttered in a language she didn’t understand and lowered his brow to hers. “Honesty can be dangerous. I’m not always civilized, Rowan, but I work to be fair. Have a care how much you offer, for I’m likely to take more.”
“I’m terrible at lying.”
It made him laugh, and his eyes were calm again when he straightened. “Then be quiet, for God’s sake. Go home now. Not the way you came. You’ll see the path when you head out the front. Follow it and you’ll get home right enough.”
“Liam, I want—”
“I know what you want.” Firmly now, he took her by the arm and led her out. “If it were as simple as going upstairs and rolling around on the bed for an afternoon, we’d already be there.” While she sputtered, he continued to pull her to the front door. “But you’re not as simple as you’ve been taught to think. God knows I’m not. Go on home with you, Rowan.”
He all but shoved her out the door. Her rare and occasionally awesome temper shot to the surface as the wind slapped her face. “All right, Liam, because I don’t want it to be simple.” Her eyes flared at him as she dragged her hair back. “I’m tired of settling for simple. So don’t put your hands on me again unless you mean to complicate things.”
Riding on anger, she spun around, and didn’t question the fact that the path was there, wide and clear. She just marched to it and strode into the trees.
From the porch he watched; long after she was out of sight, he continued to watch her, smiling a bit when she finally reached her own home and slammed the door behind her.
“Good for you, Rowan Murray.”
Chapter 4
The man had thrown her out of his house, Rowan thought as she stormed into her own. One minute he’d been kissing her brainless, holding her against that marvelously male body—and the next he’d marched her to the door. Given her the boot as if she’d been some pesky saleswoman hawking an inferior product.
Oh, it was mortifying.
With temper still ringing in her ears like bells, she strode around the living room, circled it twice. He’d put his hands on her, he’d made the moves. He’d kissed her, damn it. She hadn’t done anything.
Except stand there like a dolt, she realized as temper sagged miserably into embarrassment. She’d just stood there, she thought as she wandered into the kitchen. And let him put his hands on her, let him kiss her. She’d have let him do anything; that was how dazzled she’d been.
“Oh, you’re such a fool, Rowan.” She dropped into a chair and, leaning over, lightly beat her head against the kitchen table. “Such a jerk, such a wimp.”
She’d gone to him, hadn’t she? Stumbling around in the woods like Gretel with a bunch of cookies instead of bread crumbs. Looking for magic, she thought, and rested her cheek on the smooth wood. Always looking for something wonderful, she acknowledged with a sigh. And this time, for just a moment, she’d found it.
It was worse, she realized, when you had that staggering glimpse, then had the door slammed in your face.
God, was she so needy that she’d fall at the feet of a man she’d met only twice before, knew next to nothing about? Was she so weak and wobbly that she’d built fantasies around him because he had a beautiful face?
Not just his face, she admitted. It was the … essence of him, she supposed. The mystery, the romance of him that had very simply bewitched her. There was no other word that fit what he made her feel.
Obviously, quite obviously, it showed.
And when he had touched her because he’d seen through her pitiful ploy of seeking him out to thank him, she’d climbed all over him.
No wonder he’d shown her the door.
But he hadn’t had to be so cruel about it, she thought, shoving up again. He’d humiliated her.
“‘You’re not ready for me,’” she muttered, remembering what he’d said. “How the hell does he know what I’m ready for when I don’t know myself? He’s not a damn mind reader.”
Sulking now, she ripped the top off the container of cookies and snatched one. She ate it with a scowl on her face as she replayed that last scene, and gave herself wonderful, pithy lines to put Liam Donovan in his place.
“So, he didn’t want me,” she muttered. “Who expected him to? I’ll just stay out of his way. Completely. Totally.” She shoved another cookie into her mouth. “I came here to figure out myself, not to try to understand some Irish recluse.”
Slightly ill from the cookies, she snapped the lid back on. The first thing she was going to do was drive into town and find a bookstore. She was going to buy some how-to books. Basic home maintenance, she decided, stalking back into the living room for her purse.
She wasn’t going to go fumbling around the next time something happened. She’d figure out how to fix it herself. And, she thought darkly as she marched out of the house, if Liam came to her door offering to fix it for her, she’d coolly tell him she could take care of herself.
She slammed the door of the Rover, gunned the engine. An errant thought about flat tires made her think she’d better find a book on car repair while she was at it.
She bumped along the dirt road, clamping down on the urge to work off some of her frustration by stomping on the gas. Just where Belinda’s little lane met the main road, she saw the silver bird.
He was huge, magnificent. An eagle, she thought, automatically stepping on the brake to stop and study him. Though she didn’t know if any type of eagle was that regal silvery gray or if they tended to perch on road signs to stare—balefully, she decided—at passing cars.
What wonderfully odd fauna they had in Oregon, she mused, and reminded herself to read more carefully the books on local wildlife she’d brought with her. Unable to resist, she rolled down the window and leaned out.
“You’re so handsome.” She smiled as the bird ruffled his feathers and seemed to preen. “So regal. I bet you look magnificent in the air. I wonder what it feels like to fly. To just … own the sky. You’d know.”
His eyes were green, she realized. A silver-gray eagle with eyes green as a cat’s. For an instant, she thought she saw a glint of gold resting in his breast feathers, as if he wore a pendant. Just a trick of the light, she decided, and with some regret leaned back in the window.
“Wolves and deer and eagles. Why would anybody live in the city? Bye, Your Highness.”
When the Rover was out of sight, the eagle spread its wings, rose majestically into the sky with a triumphant call that echoed over hill and forest and sea. He soared over the trees, circled, then dived. White smoke swirled, and the light shimmered, blue as a lightning flash.
And he touched down on the forest floor softly, on two booted feet.
He stood just over six feet, with a mane of silver hair, eyes of glass green and a face so sharply defined it might have been carved from the marble found in the dark Irish hills. A burnished gold chain hung around his neck, and dangling from it was the amulet of his rank.
“Runs like a rabbit,” he muttered. “Then blames herself for the fox.”
“She’s young, Finn.” The woman who stepped out of the green shadows was lovely, with gilded hair flowing down her back, soft tawny eyes, skin white and smooth as alabaster. “And she doesn’t know what’s inside her, or understand what’s inside Liam.”
“A backbone’s what she’s needing, a bit more of that spirit she showed when she spat in his eye not long ago.” His fierce face gentled with a smile. “Never was a lack of spine or spirit a problem of yours, Arianna.”
She laughed and cupped her husband’s face in her hands. The gold ring of their marriage gleamed on one hand, and the fire of a ruby sparked on the other. “I’ve needed both with the likes of you, a stor. They’re on their path, Finn. Now we must let them follow it in their own way.”
“And who was it who led the girl to the dance, then to the lad?” he asked with an arrogantly raised eyebrow.
“Well then.” Lightly, she trained a fingertip down his cheek. “I never said we couldn’t give them a bit of a nudge, now and then. The lass is troubled, and Liam—oh, he’s a difficult man, is Liam. Like his da.”
“Takes after his mother more.” Still smiling, Finn leaned down to kiss his wife. “When the girl comes into her own, the boy will have his hands full. He’ll be humbled before he finds the truth of pride. She’ll be hurt before she finds the full of her strength.”
“Then, if it’s meant, they’ll find each other. You like her.” Arianna linked her hands at the back of Finn’s neck. “She appealed to your vanity, sighing over you, calling you handsome.”
His silver brows rose again, his grin flashed bright. “I am handsome—and so you’ve said yourself. We’ll leave them to themselves a bit.” He slid his arms around her waist. “Let’s be home, a ghra. I’m already missing Ireland.”
With a swirl of white smoke, a shiver of white light, they were home.
* * *
By the time Rowan got home, heated up a can of soup and devoured a section on basic plumbing repairs, it was sunset. For the first time since her arrival she didn’t stop and stare and wonder at the glorious fire of the dying day. As the light dimmed, she merely leaned closer to the page.
With her elbows propped on the kitchen table, and her tea going cold, she almost wished a pipe would spring a leak so she could test out her new knowledge.
She felt smug and prepared, and decided to tackle the section on electrical work next. But first she’d make the phone call she’d been putting off. She considered fortifying herself with a glass of wine first, but decided that would be weak.
She took off her reading glasses, set them aside. Slipped a bookmark into the pages, closed the book. And stared at the phone.
It was terrible to dread calling people you loved.
She put it off just a little longer by neatly stacking the books she’d bought. There were more than a dozen, and she was still amused at herself for picking up several on myths and legends.
They’d be entertaining, she thought, and wasted a little more time selecting the one she wanted for bedtime reading.
Then there was wood to be brought in for the evening fire, the soup bowl to wash and carefully dry. Her nightly scan of the woods for the wolf she hadn’t seen all day.
When she couldn’t find anything else to engage her time, she picked up the phone and dialed.
Twenty minutes later, she was sitting on the back steps, the backwash of light from the kitchen spilling over her. And she was weeping.
She’d nearly buckled under the benign pressure, nearly crumbled beneath the puzzled, injured tone of her mother’s voice. Yes, yes, of course, she’d come home. She’d go back to teaching, get her doctorate, marry Alan, start a family. She’d live in a pretty house in a safe neighborhood. She’d be anything they wanted her to be as long as it made them happy.
Not saying all of those things, not doing them, was so hard. And so necessary.
Her tears were hot and from the heart. She wished she understood why she was always, always pulled in a different direction, why she needed so desperately to see what was blurred at the edges of her mind.
Something was there, waiting for her. Something she was or needed to be. It was all she was sure of.
When the wolf nudged his head under her hand, she simply wrapped her arms around him and pressed her face to his throat.
“Oh, I hate hurting anyone. I can’t bear it, and I can’t stop it. What’s wrong with me?”
Her tears dampened his neck. And touched his heart. To comfort her, he nuzzled her cheek, let her cling. Then he slipped a quiet thought into her mind.
Betray yourself, and you betray all they’ve given you. Love opens doors. It doesn’t close them. When you go through it and find yourself, they’ll still be there.
She let out a shuddering breath, rubbed her face against his fur. “I can’t go back, even though part of me wants to. If I did, I know something inside me would just … stop.” She leaned back, holding his head in her hands. “If I went back, I’d never find anything like you again. Even if it were there, I wouldn’t really see it. I’d never follow a white doe or talk to an eagle.”
Sighing, she stroked his head, his powerful shoulders. “I’d never let some gorgeous Irishman with a bad attitude kiss me, or do something as fun and foolish as eat cookies for breakfast.”
Comforted, she rested her head against his. “I need to do those things, to be the kind of person who does them. That’s what they can’t understand, you know? And it hurts and frightens them because they love me.”
She sighed again, leaned back, stroking his head absently as she studied the woods with their deep shadows, their whispering secrets. “So I have to make this all work, so they stop being hurt and stop being frightened. Part of me is scared that I will make it work—and part of me is scared I won’t.” Her lips curved ruefully. “I’m such a coward.”
His eyes narrowed, glinted, and a low growl sounded in his throat, making her blink. Their faces were close, and she could see those strong, deadly white teeth. Swallowing hard, she stroked his head with fingers that trembled.
“There, now. Easy. Are you hungry? I have cookies.” Heart hammering, she got slowly to her feet as he continued to growl. She kept her eyes on him, walking backward as he came up the steps toward her.
As she reached the door, one part of her mind screamed for her to slam it, lock it. He was a wild thing, feral, not to be trusted. But with her eyes locked on his, all she could think was how he had pressed his muzzle against her, how he had been there when she wept.
She left the door open.
Though her hand shook, she picked up a cookie, held it out. “It’s probably bad for you, but so many good things are.” She muffled a yelp when he nipped it, with surprising delicacy, f
rom her fingertips.
She’d have sworn his eyes laughed at her.
“Well, okay, now we know sugar’s as good as music for soothing savage beasts. One more, but that’s it.”
When he rose onto his hind legs with surprising speed and grace, set those magnificent front paws on her shoulders, she could only manage a choked gasp. Her eyes, wide and round and shocked, met his glinting ones. Then he licked her, from collarbone to ear, one long, warm stroke, and made her laugh.
“What a pair we are,” she murmured, and pressed her lips to the ruff of his neck. “What a pair.”
He lowered, just as gracefully, snatching the cookie from her fingers on the way.
“Clever, very clever.” Eyeing him, she closed the lid on the cookies and set them on top of the refrigerator. “What I need is a hot bath and a book,” she decided. “And that glass of wine I didn’t let myself have before. I’m not going to think about what someone else wants,” she continued as she turned to open the refrigerator. “I’m not going to think about sexy neighbors with outrageously wonderful mouths. I’m going to think about how lovely it is to have all this time, all this space.”
She finished pouring the wine and lifted her glass in toast as he watched her. “And to have you. Why don’t you come upstairs and keep me company while I have that bath?”
The wolf ran his tongue around his teeth, let out a low sound that resembled a laugh and thought, Why don’t I?
* * *
She fascinated him. It wasn’t a terribly comfortable sensation, but he couldn’t shake it. It didn’t matter how often he reminded himself she was an ordinary woman, and one with entirely too much baggage to become involved with.
He just couldn’t stay away.
He’d been certain he’d tuned her out when she slammed her door behind her. Even though he’d been delighted with that flare of temper, the way it had flashed in her eyes, firmed that lovely soft mouth, he’d wanted to put her out of his mind for a few days.
Smarter, safer that way.
But he’d heard her weeping. Sitting in his little office, toying with a spin-off game for Myor, he’d heard those sounds of heartbreak, and despite the block he’d imposed, he’d felt her guilt and grief ripping at his heart.
He hadn’t been able to ignore it. So he’d gone to her, offered a little comfort. Then she’d infuriated him, absolutely infuriated him, by calling herself a coward. By believing it.
And what had the coward done, he thought, when a rogue wolf had snarled at her? Offered him a cookie.
A cookie, for Finn’s sake.
She was utterly charming.
Then he had entertained, and tortured, himself by sitting and watching her lazily undress. Sweet God, the woman had a way of sliding out of her clothes that made a man’s head spin. Then, in a red robe she hadn’t bothered to belt, she’d filled the old-fashioned tub with frothy bubbles that smelled of jasmine.
She’d lit candles. Such a … female thing to do. She ran the water too hot, and turned music on seductively low. As she shrugged out of the robe, she daydreamed. He resisted sliding into her mind to see what put that faraway look in her eyes, that faint smile on her lips.
Her body delighted him. It was so slender, so smooth, with a pearly sheen to the skin and slim, subtle curves. Delicate bones, tiny feet, and breasts tipped a fragile blush pink.
He wanted to taste there, to run his tongue from white to pink to white.
When she’d leaned over to turn off the taps, it had taken an enormous act of will to prevent himself from nipping at that firm, naked bottom.
It both irritated and charmed him that she seemed to have no vanity, no self-awareness. She piled her hair on top of her head in a gloriously messy mass, and didn’t so much as glance at herself in the mirror.
Instead she talked to him, chattering nonsense, then hissed out a breath as she stepped into the tub. Steam billowed as she gingerly lowered herself, until the bubbles played prettily over her breasts.
Until he longed to re-form and slip into the tub with her as a man.
She only laughed when he walked forward to sniff at her. Only ran a hand over his head absently while she picked up a book with the other.
Home Maintenance for the Confused and Inept.
It made him chuckle, the sound coming out as a soft woof. She gave his ears a quick scratch, then reached for her wine.
“It says here,” she began, “that I should always have a few basic tools on hand. I think I saw all of these in the utility room, but I’d better make a list and compare. The next time the power goes out, or I blow a fuse—or is it a breaker?—I’m handling it myself. I won’t be rescued by anyone, especially Liam Donovan.”
She gasped, then chuckled, when the wolf dipped his tongue into her glass and drank. “Hey, hey! This is a very fine sauvignon blanc, and not for you, pal.” She lifted the glass out of reach. “It explains how to do simple rewiring,” she continued. “Not that I’m planning on doing any, but it doesn’t look terribly complicated. I’m very good at following directions.”
A frown marred her brow. “Entirely too good.” She sipped wine, slid lower in
