by Lynn Lorenz
Under a Moonlit Night
Those Sexy Shifters, Volume 2
Lynn Lorenz, Cherie Nicholls, Vanessa North, Lea Griffith
Published 2013
ISBN: 978-1-93176-189-5
Published by Liquid Silver Books, imprint of Atlantic Bridge Publishing, 10509 Sedgegrass Dr, Indianapolis, Indiana 46235. Copyright © 2013, Lynn Lorenz, Cherie Nicholls, Vanessa North, Lea Griffith. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the author.
Manufactured in the United States of America
Liquid Silver Books
http://LSbooks.com
This is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents and dialogues in this book are of the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is completely coincidental.
McCallan's Secret
by Lynn Lorenz
Blurb
When Carrie McCallan, matriarch of the lumber company McCallans, finally decides to remarry, she’s faced with not only letting a man into her life for the first time since her husband’s death, but telling this man about her family’s secret. Not so hard, unless the secret is your family is a pack of werewolves. Carrie will have to take a chance on Leon Wong and discover if he loves her enough not to turn and run.
Dedication
To everyone who wanted a HEA for Carrie McCallan. Happy reading! Lynn.
Chapter 1
“I’m sorry, Carrie, but I’m not going to perform the wedding if you haven’t told Leon about your family.” Father Peter leaned back in his chair and scowled at Caroline McCallan.
“But, Father, how do I tell him? Hi, honey, guess what? My children are werewolves.” She shook her head. “He’ll go running back to Baton Rouge and as far away from Crazy Carrie as he can get.” Just the idea of telling the man she’d fallen in love with the truth of her life made butterflies take flight in her tummy, and not in a good way.
“Do it. I won’t marry you two until you do. It’s not fair to him. He has a right to know the McCallan legacy and make his own decision whether to become part of it or not.”
Hard words but Carrie knew them to be true. She had to tell Leon and the sooner the better, if she wanted that spring wedding. It wouldn’t be large, just a few close friends and the growing McCallan family, but planning a wedding was difficult, no matter how small.
“Okay. You win.” Carrie stood and Father Peter came around his desk to give her a quick kiss on her check.
“A second chance with a wonderful man doesn’t come around every day. Don’t ruin it with lies and deception.” He patted her shoulder.
“I won’t. You’re right, I’m just terrified of losing him. After Michael died, well, I thought I’d never find someone I could fall in love with. Michael was my mate, we were pair bonded, and losing him…” Her eyes filled with tears, even after all these years.
“You’ve been alone for too long, Carrie. It’s past time to move on with your life.”
“I have. Leon is a wonderful man. And he loves me.” She smiled at the memory of the last time they had been together. They’d had a wonderful dinner at his house, and then snuggled on the couch. That night they’d almost … gone all the way.
Carrie giggled.
“I’m sure he does.” Father Peter led her to the door and opened it to let her out. “Call me.” And after a pointed look, he closed the door.
As Carrie headed to her car, she dug out her cell phone. With her heart in her throat, she hit Leon’s number. She wasn’t about to tell him about being a werewolf, although technically, she wasn’t a werewolf. But her late husband, both of her sons, and her son-in-law were shifters. And with her daughter Tori pregnant, if the baby was a boy, he’d be a werewolf also.
No, she’d set up a date. Something romantic. Then, after a glass or two of wine, she’d tell him. She’d take the rejection better with alcohol.
“Hello, Leon Wong here.” His deep voice just resonated inside Carrie. She loved that after over ten years thinking she’d never feel that again, her body hadn’t forgotten what to do, how to react, how to get turned on.
“Hi, honey.” She got into the car and started it up. “I just met with Father Peter and he’ll do our pre-wedding counseling.”
“Great! So when?”
“Well, next week. Maybe.” She bit her lip. “Can I see you later? Are you busy?”
“No, not at all. And I’d love to see you.”
“Do you mind coming out to the house? I know it’s a drive, but you can stay overnight and drive home tomorrow.”
“Sounds fine. I don’t mind the drive, sweetheart. It’s calming, driving through the woods to what you call a house, but everyone else calls a mansion.” He chuckled, deep and warm, and Carrie could imagine the crinkles around his dark brown eyes.
“Oh, stop it. It’s not that big.”
“Of course it is. It’s huge. Frankly, I’m looking forward to you moving in with me.”
Carrie’s tummy cramped. Not that again. They’d been going back and forth about where they’d live after the wedding. Carrie hedged and deflected and mumbled her way through those talks, afraid to tell Leon the real reason why she couldn’t move in with him.
She was the matriarch of a pack of werewolves and they needed her. Especially with Jake, her son, and Russ, her daughter’s new husband, both being alphas. Without her, they would have killed each other by now. Thank God, Jake’s wife Rebecca and Tori got along as thick as thieves.
She made a non-committal noise into the phone and then said, “See you tonight. I’ll fix dinner.”
“Will everyone be there?”
“No, just us.” She lowered her voice. “No kids. No baby.”
“Not that I don’t love your family, but every time I come there, we’re surrounded. I feel like they’re checking me out.” He growled.
“They are.” She laughed. And that was another reason she loved Leon; he made her laugh, like she was young again. And she wanted him in a way she never thought she’d feel again.
“I’m glad we’re getting together tonight. I have something to discuss with you, and I’d rather do it alone.” His voice got serious and Carrie frowned.
“Sure. Do I get a hint?” Her mind raced trying to think of what it could be. Hopefully, nothing too serious. Not like her big secret.
“Well, I just want to…” he paused, and then cleared his throat. “It’s about my family, that’s all.”
“Your family? The one in China?” He’d mentioned most of his family had died in China during the revolution. Only he and his mother escaped to America when he was just a small child.
“Yeah, that’s the one.”
“Sure. We’ll have dinner, then talk. Then, well…” She’d wanted to sleep with him the first moment she’d met him at the faculty alumni party at the dean’s house in Baton Rouge.
“Yeah, I hope there’s lots of well…” He laughed again. “See you later, sweetheart.”
“You too. Take care.” She disconnected and shoved her phone in her purse.
Carrie smiled as she pulled out of the church’s parking lot and headed home.
* * * *
Leon laid his phone down on his kitchen counter and grinned. Every time he talked to Carrie or was in her presence, she lightened his old beat-up heart. Amazing. After all the decades he’d been alone, living in isolation, emotionally cut off from everyone around him, he’d stumbled on a woman as wonderful as Caroline McCa
llan—he didn’t believe in luck, but it sure felt like it.
If he still believed in the old gods, he’d think they’d gotten tired of punishing him for the mistakes of his past. But his belief had died out ages ago, when he and his mother had fled their homeland.
She’d died half a century ago, from old age, most would say, but he knew it was from grief. From seeing his father and his brothers slain. From the life they’d led ever since.
Now he had a chance for a new life. One filled with love and laughter.
Dinner tonight with Carrie. Alone. That was going to be great, especially the sleeping over part. She’d all but said they’d take that last step—sleeping together—tonight. Something they’d been dancing around for nearly a year.
He’d been a gentleman, careful never to rush her, letting her move at her own pace. He’d waited longer for things he’d wanted less. Time, in so many ways, meant nothing to him.
So he’d waited. And gotten to know Carrie, peeling each layer of her personality away, until she’d opened up to him, let him see her vulnerability, her uncertainty about her age, starting over and being with a man again after over a decade.
She was worth the wait. It didn’t matter how long it would have taken to make her his, he would have waited until the string of time played out and the stars burned away, just to be with her.
And when she finally let him physically close, he’d had to control his aching need. They’d kissed. She’d even let him caress her, clothes on, but her shyness about being with a man again after so long had been a barrier to their relationship progressing. She wasn’t ready to expose her body or her heart to him. His heart had already been lost to her.
Each time they were together, they moved closer toward completing their physical relationship. He could see her desire in her eyes, but also her reticence.
She’d been waiting too. Waiting for him to show her he meant business.
Waiting for him to ask her to marry him. For him, it had been an easy decision. She was the woman for him, the one he’d thought he’d never find, knew he didn’t deserve, and who he wanted to spend the rest of her days with.
When they talked tonight, he’d tell her all about his family and himself. He’d finally tell someone the truth he’d kept hidden for most of his life.
And if Carrie didn’t think he was insane, if she believed him, maybe they could have that life together. But he couldn’t marry her without letting her knowing his secret.
He stretched out on the couch and closed his eyes as he ran through his genealogy—a noble line going back in time nearly four thousand years and ending with him. And maybe that was good. Maybe it should end with him. Maybe, somewhere in his homeland, others like him mated and procreated.
He’d passed his time long ago and accepted it.
His other self moved inside him, nudging him to let it out, let it taste the air and feel the warmth of the sun shining through the windows of the sun room.
Only here in his house did he feel safe enough to let his true self emerge. How would he do it tonight? Carrie would have to see for herself, he knew that much about her. She would not just believe because he said so.
She was everything he’d ever wanted in a mate. Steady, sure, confident, yet loving and tender. Funny. Vivacious. And beautiful. Some might want a younger woman, but Carrie had the mature beauty only life, loss, and joy, could bring to a person.
And Leon wanted that beauty in his life every single day.
So, whether he felt comfortable or not, he’d have to show her.
He opened the channel to his inner being and held the doorway open. Heat flooded through the portal, suffusing him with warmth and power and strength. Just enough to let part of it out.
He opened his eyes and looked at his hand.
Dark green scales covered the back of it and when he turned it over, pale yellow, like old paper, tinted his palm. Long claws clicked as he moved them against each other.
He was, in his own way, beautiful. Artists for two thousand years had depicted him and others of his kind with a powerful beauty no one could deny.
He and Carrie were meant to be. She had to understand and accept him, like this. As his true self. If not, he’d leave the area, even the state, to protect himself once again from exposure.
After spending the last twenty years in hiding as a professor at the university and the building a comfortable life here, he’d give it all up on the chance Carrie would still love him.
Even after she saw him as … a monster.
Chapter 2
Leon motored up the long drive leading to the McCallan mansion, or house, as Carrie preferred. She could say house all day, but in anyone’s book, the huge building was a mansion, on the scale of the grand estates of England.
The red brick building stood three stories tall, with long wings jutting out on either side of it and the entire thing was nestled into the surrounding woods.
He’d only been on the first floor, seen the rooms there—library, living room, dining room and the huge almost industrial sized kitchen. How many rooms on the upper floors? His mind boggled.
Carrie’s late husband’s people, the McCallans, built it before the turn of the century and it showed all the wealth and power they’d held at the time. Leon knew the forest he’d driven through to get here was all McCallan land, growing timber to feed their lumber business. Today, Jake McCallan had turned the failing business around by supplying recycled old wood to wealthy people who wanted to go “green.”
The house came into view and Leon slowed down to take it in.
In his native land, a building this size would hold dozens of families, not just a handful of people. When he’d first met Carrie, she and her two sons had been the only ones living there. To Leon, it had been a terrible waste of space and resources, even if Carrie had explained they only heated and cooled the sections the three of them occupied.
But recently, Jake married Rebecca, and had taken in her infant son. Tori, Carrie’s middle child and only girl, had returned, bringing her new husband, Russ Magnus, with her to live. Carrie’s youngest boy, Trey, from what Leon could make out, had always been trouble, and had left. No one in the family knew where he’d gone.
Leon parked in the circular drive in front of the house and got out, the building dwarfing him. He wasn’t a tall man, but he was close to six feet and had never lost his strong build.
Two front doors, large and wooden, blocked his entry.
He grabbed one of the bronze wolf head knockers and gave it a rap or two. The faces of the wolves, teeth bared, amused him. He grinned back, showing his own set of teeth, as if daring them to try anything and sure he could hold his own against a couple of wolves.
He’d fought off worse and bigger.
The door opened and Carrie beamed at him. “Hi! Come on in.”
“Hi!” He stepped in and gave her a quick kiss on her cheek as he passed.
“I’ve got drinks in the living room.” She led the way and he followed, enjoying the shape of her firm behind in a pair of jeans and a slender waist set off with a clinging red blouse. She looked good enough to eat. Or at least taste. Everything about her, even the silver in her salt and pepper hair, turned him on. His cock reacted, like it did every time he was around her, and he adjusted it as he walked down the hall.
In the living room, she’d set out a bowl of guacamole and chips on the coffee table in front of the couch, along with a pitcher of margaritas.
“We’re having enchiladas, so I thought I’d keep with the Mexican theme.” She poured a drink and handed it to him, then served herself.
They sipped. “Excellent! Can’t wait for those enchiladas.”
“I made the mole ones you love.” She smiled behind the large glass. Did she know how she tempted him? How he wanted to take the glass from her hand and cover her with is body? Press his hardness into her belly to let her know how much she turned him on?
“Mmm. You spoil me, woman.” He stepped closer and wr
apped his arm around her waist. Pulling her to him, he nuzzled her neck, loving the way her scent went straight to his cock.
“And you…” she shivered. “You make me feel like a giddy school girl.”
He kissed her neck, unable to keep his lips off her as he ran his hands up her back to cup her head.
She let her head fall back and he nipped at the pulse point on her throat. She gasped and giggled and stepped back. “If you keep that up…” Breathless, she was even sexier.
“Yes?”
“Dinner will burn.” She laughed and finished her drink. After checking her watch, she said, “If I don’t get it out of the oven in a few minutes, it’ll be ruined.”
He wanted to shout, let it burn! I want you now! But he knew she’d worked hard to prepare this meal for him and respected her enough to keep his needs under control.
“Go. Take care of our food.” He laughed and sat down. “I’d wait forever for you, honey.” He picked up a chip and scooped up some of the creamy avocado, tomatoes and jalapenos. He took a bit and moaned as the flavors burst on his palate. The woman could cook.
Carrie ducked out of the room.
Leon exhaled. When she returned, they’d talk. Now that he’d decided to tell her, it burned inside him to get it out and get it over with. Still, his leg bounced as he waited for her return.
*
Carrie opened the oven and pulled out the casserole dish. The mole sauce bubbled and looked wonderful. And it smelled like heaven; just the right hint of hot peppers mixed with dark rich chocolate. The Spanish rice she’d prepared was done, and the black beans were perfect.
Now, she just had to serve it. And tell Leon her family was a pack of wolves.
No pressure there!
She carried the dish to the dining room and placed it on the table. She’d set it earlier using festive red dishes and multicolored napkins. It looked happy. She went back to the kitchen for the chilled carafe of sangria she’d prepared and stored in the refrigerator.
The margarita hadn’t been enough, so she poured a small glass of wine and sipped from it as she readied the rest of the food to take to the table.
