Witching Moon
Page 24
“I’m not going to run away again.”
The sense of relief was profound, followed by the need to pull her into his arms then, and make love to her all over again. But her next words stopped him.
“That isn’t a promise that I’ll stay forever.”
“What is it?” he managed to ask as he sat up and plumped his pillow behind him, giving himself something to do so he wouldn’t have to meet her eyes.
She looked at him, then slid up carefully, pulling the sheet with her to cover her breasts. Then she took several moments to arrange her own pillow.
“A promise that I’m going to try and act like an adult, not a scared little girl.”
“Good.” He wasn’t sure what else to say. What else to do. But he couldn’t stop himself from reaching for her hand and holding on. He had gone to sleep wondering what he could say to influence her thinking. And he’d known it would have to be the truth. But the speech that had sounded so plausible as he’d silently rehearsed it last night now rang hollow in his mind. Still, he had to try and make her understand.
“I was always a very happy bachelor. I loved playing the field. I loved having a good time with a lot of different women. Those kinds of times are over, because now the only woman I can think about making love to is you.”
“Making love with you is wonderful,” she breathed.
He shifted his hand and knit his fingers with hers, then couldn’t stop himself from leaning over and brushing his lips against the tender place where her cheek met her hair. He ached to hear her tell him she loved him. But there was no way to force her response or her feelings. She had made discoveries at her parents’ house that he knew had jolted her. Then she’d come home to an attack from the witches. And to the wolf. He knew she was still grappling with the aftershocks. All he could do was hold on to her and hope that she’d come to feel about him the way he felt about her.
“I’m not very experienced with men,” she murmured.
“Is that supposed to be a negative?”
“Isn’t it?”
“No. But at least this morning you’re worrying about man-woman stuff. Not witch stuff.”
“I’m still worried about witch stuff.”
“Okay. But let’s demolish the man-woman problem first. At least from my point of view. I knew the moment I saw you that you were the right woman for me. But that scared me. I tried to run away from it. I tried to tell myself it wasn’t true. None of that did me any good. I kept thinking about how much I wanted you…needed you. Don’t tell me you didn’t feel something…significant that morning in the swamp!”
“Are you trying to get me to say I felt an instant attraction to you?”
“Did you?”
She heaved a little sigh. “Yes.”
“So it wasn’t all one-sided. That’s a relief.”
“You know it wasn’t all one-sided.”
“Yeah. But I like hearing you say it.”
“And do you like hearing me say that I pick up information from your brain?”
He kept himself steady, knowing that she was trying to get a reaction out of him. “Like what?”
“Like your watching the witches that night in the swamp. I saw it in your mind.”
“You tapped into my consciousness because something…bad had happened to me. Then you did it again, when you thought Delacorte was going to shoot me.”
“You can call it what you like. I say we’re right back to the witch stuff.”
He wanted to physically shake the negative thinking out of her. Instead he turned and reached for her, pulling her close against him. “All my adult life I’ve run from real intimacy. But you are the woman who completes me. Maybe all my life I was waiting for a witch.”
She laughed, then quickly sobered again. “Living with me isn’t going to be easy.”
“Then I guess we’re even.” He swallowed hard. There were still things he didn’t want to tell her. He wanted some time to show her how good they could be together before he had to get into the really bad stuff. But Ross had given him hope that life with a werewolf wasn’t going to be the total disaster of his parents’ marriage.
He was desperate to make her understand how he felt, yet at the same time, something else teased at the back of his mind. Something important. Perhaps she felt his sudden tension, because she drew back and asked, “What?”
“Something…” He closed his eyes, trying to bring a scent into focus. And when he did, his body jerked.
“What? What’s wrong?”
“Her smell!”
“Whose smell? Who are you talking about?”
He tried to make his muddled thoughts clear. “I was thinking that when the woman came to my office and tried to seduce me, I didn’t respond, because the only woman I wanted was you. Then I started thinking about the way that other woman smelled.”
“Good? Bad?”
“That’s not the point. The point is that her distinctive scent wasn’t masked then. Later, I picked it up down at the historical society building. Her and a lot of other people. Too many people for me to sort them all out. Then last night in the mist, there were only five witches. I couldn’t see their faces. But I could distinguish their scents. Including that woman. She was there. Lord, maybe I should have figured out before that she’s one of them.”
Sara shuddered, her gaze turning inward. “Maybe I should have. That woman hates me,” she whispered. “I saw it in her eyes the afternoon when she came on to you. She’s so sure of her womanly power. But you turned her down. In front of me. Then last night, she tried to kill me. It was her. She was the one driving it. I know that know.”
Adam felt a wave of cold sweep his skin. “She’d kill you because I want you instead of her?”
“Well, not just that. I think she’s afraid of me. And I think she hates both of us, because we didn’t give her what she wanted. And she always gets what she wants.”
“Jesus.” He turned and grasped her by the shoulders. “Maybe you’re right. Maybe she’s the motivating force. But whatever it is, I want you to promise me to stay in the Refuge where you’re safe. Promise to stay here!”
She gave a tight nod.
“And I want you to do something else. Practice.”
She looked puzzled. “Practice what—my plant experiments?”
“No, your witchcraft.”
“What…?” she gasped.
“You said that they hit you with mental thunderbolts. And you hit them back. But they were stronger than you. So practice doing it.”
Her voice rose in panic. “I don’t know how! I don’t know what I did. I don’t even know where to start.”
“Figure it out, because they tried to kill you once, and they’re going to come back looking for you.”
His words had been harsh. The look of terror on her face tore at him. He reached for her, held her tightly, rocking her gently in his arms. “I’m sorry,” he murmured as he skimmed his lips against the side of her face and her silky hair on the top of her head. “I hate to scare you.”
“I know why…why you did it. I have to face facts.”
He nodded against the top of her head. “Yes. We both do. Tonight I’m going to go out looking for the bastards. I don’t need to see their faces, like I told you…” He still couldn’t say the word werewolf, so he put it in third person terms. “The thing about the wolf is that he has a fantastic sense of smell. And tonight, he’s got something to work with.”
“Adam, for God’s sake, be careful. Last night, you hurt them. I could feel their fear and their anger. It’s not just her now. The whole coven is out to get you.”
“Yeah, but I’ll bet they don’t know that the wolf is me.”
“Don’t count on it.”
“Okay, and I’ll be careful,” he growled, because it was the answer she wanted—needed—to hear. And he would do anything to keep her happy while he tracked down the Satan’s spawn who had tried to kill her.
CHAPTER
TWENTY-FIVE
AMY RALSTON WAS in the office down at the boat dock when her cell phone rang. The number on the screen brought a kind of sick feeling to the pit of her stomach. Furtively, she looked around. No one was in the immediate vicinity, so she pressed the Receive button.
“Hello?” she said in a lowered voice.
“What’s up?”
“Nothing.”
“Where’s Marshall?”
“At the office.”
“And where’s Weston?” The voice took on an ugly ring as the speaker said the woman’s name.
“She’s in that shed, working with her laboratory stuff.”
“Tell me if either one of them leaves the park.”
“I’m only here till dark. It will look funny if I stay after hours.”
“I know that! Just do your best. Try to get some extra evening hours. And one more thing, if you take any tourists out into the backcountry, see if you can spot any more of those cloth bags.”
“I hate those things.”
“Somebody put them out in the swamp to warn us away. I want to know if there are any more.”
“Okay,” Amy whispered.
The line clicked, and she was left listening to dead air. She wanted to turn off her phone, but she left it on because she didn’t want to get into trouble.
Brenda had hurt her once, given her a terrible pain in the head. And her cousin could do it again if she wanted.
But that wasn’t the only reason why she’d agreed to be Brenda’s spy at Nature’s Refuge. She had been surprised when her cousin had come to town and looked her up. She had heard stories about some of the people in her family. Her great-great grandfather had been killed by a mob. And her uncle and aunt had gotten out of town after another woman had been killed.
Brenda had come back with a group of friends. Friends like herself, she said.
Amy wasn’t exactly sure what that meant. Her own family had never had any of the problems of Brenda’s parents. And she knew she was pretty ordinary.
But Brenda was special. At first, Amy had been excited about that. Now she was afraid of Brenda and her friends. Especially that spooky guy who was fixing up his parents’ old house outside of town. She didn’t like him or the others. She wished Brenda wouldn’t hang around with them. But Amy knew she wasn’t going to stop her. And she knew that if she didn’t do what Brenda said, she could get hurt—real bad. So she’d tell her when Adam Marshall or Sara Weston left the park. And she’d look for some more of those yucky bags in the swamp.
ADAM knew Sara had spent the day in her laboratory. He suspected she hadn’t gotten much done. But he wasn’t going to press her for details, because he was trying to show her that he could give her space. If that was an issue.
Still, he could only stay away from her for so long. When he went off duty, he invited her to his cabin for dinner. Steaks on the grill and salad. A nice normal meal. Only his steak was almost raw and he went easy on the salad.
She didn’t comment on his dietary habits. And he did his best to steer the conversation to her work and his stewardship of the park, because those were safe topics.
But she had a way of turning everything back to the subject that was uppermost in her mind. He watched her playing with the wax that had dripped down one of the candles he’d set on the dining room table for atmosphere. He knew how to set the stage for physical intimacy. He had a lot less experience with sharing his thoughts.
“I was thinking about why I went into botany,” she said.
“Why?”
“Probably I have some of the same interests as my mother.”
He nodded, admiring what the candlelight did to her pale skin.
“But science is so…logical. There are reasons for everything…even if you don’t know what they are. That appealed to me. I think I was looking for control and structure.”
“Would you have liked some other field better?”
“I don’t know. Maybe I’ll give up plants and become an artist.”
“What kind of artist?”
“I loved working with oil and acrylic paint. I think I’d be good at painting the swamp. The birds and animals. The vegetation. Landscapes.” Her voice had taken on an excited glow.
He covered her hand and lightly stroked it. “You should do what makes you happy.”
“And does your job make you happy?”
“You probably know I picked it so I could be outside. Close to nature.”
“Yes.”
“But I was never exactly happy. Until you walked into my life.”
“Adam…”
“Sorry. I’m not trying to force you into anything,” he lied.
Finally he reached for his plate, intent on carrying it to the sink.
“Let me do the cleaning up,” she said.
“You don’t have to.”
“You cooked. I’ll clean.”
“Okay,” he answered, thinking that being with her, sharing chores with her felt natural. Simple. But nothing in their lives was really simple, was it?
He cleared his throat. “I’m going out. Will you wait here for me?”
“Yes.”
He wanted to add, in my bed. But he didn’t press his luck.
“Are you driving into town?”
He had debated about that. He could travel faster in his car. But he wasn’t taking any chances on the witches watching the park entrance. He wanted them to think he was here guarding Sara. “I’m going the back way.”
He let that statement settle in the candlelit room. The back way. Through the swamp.
She nodded, then reached toward him. That was all the invitation he needed to pull her into a tight embrace.
“Be careful,” she murmured.
“I will. And you lock the door as soon as I’m gone.” He bent and kissed her. Just one undemanding kiss that made him instantly hard as one of the candle shafts. Before he lost his resolve, he turned and walked through the front door, feeling her gaze follow him as he strode into the wilderness.
SARA stood quietly by the window watching Adam disappear down one of the nature trails. Then she locked the door, feeling reassured by the rasp of metal against metal. But as she seated herself on the couch, she knew that a locked door only provided a false security. Anyone who wanted to get in here could break a window. Unless she stopped them. The gun she’d brought to Wayland was in her purse which was resting on the floor near her feet.
She had boldly pulled out the weapon that first time in the swamp with Adam when she hadn’t known who he was. And before that, she’d had several sessions at a practice range to make sure she knew how to use the gun and how to take care of it. But she still wasn’t certain if she could actually shoot anyone.
There was something so awful about pulling the trigger when you were facing a person, not a paper target.
And even if she could do it, what if a whole group of people attacked the house, the way they’d done with Jenna Foster.
The thought brought a clogged feeling to her throat. She had brought the gun for security, but it might not do her much good. Adam was right. She needed another form of protection. The power that she’d inherited from her birth mother.
Strangely, she didn’t feel the same reluctance as when she thought about a gun. A gun was a mechanical device. The skills Adam had told her to cultivate came from within her.
But how did she call them up? She’d flailed out in response to the witches’ attack. But what guarantee did she have that she could do it again?
Had her mother tried to save herself on that terrible night? Sara didn’t think so. Her mother had been a gentle woman. A woman oriented toward healing. That had been her special talent, and maybe she hadn’t even known there was a way to defend herself.
Sara sighed, feeling weighed down with a deep sorrow. Jenna Foster had died so young. Lord, she probably hadn’t been as old as Sara was herself. And not only that, she’d borne a child by a man who couldn’t even admit their relationship to the world.
She was sure he wanted her for his wife, although he was being careful not to press her. Was she the right wife for him? She still wasn’t sure. But the idea of living without the man she loved made a cold knot form in her stomach.
The man she loved. She knew it was true, even if she’d been afraid to say it to him.
Her hands clenched and unclenched. Fear seemed to rule her life. And she hated that.
When she felt her nails digging into her palms, she deliberately tried to relax. Tried to open herself. Tried to bring back the feeling of power that had seized her when the witches had come hunting for her.
WHEN Adam was deep in the swamp, he took off his clothing and changed, then headed toward Wayland, sticking to the paths through the wilderness, moving quickly, intent on staying out of human sight.
The thought of going into town made his steps falter. A wolf was made for the natural environment, with trees or open sky overhead and soft dirt under his feet, not hard pavement lined with buildings.
More than that, the town was dangerous, now that Delacorte was on the lookout for a werewolf. Every minute he spent on the streets was a minute too long. But he had no alternative. It wouldn’t do him any good to simply pick up the trail of a witch. He needed to trace it back to the man or woman’s house.
His thoughts flashed to his brother. Ross had offered to help him. And if he couldn’t find the damn witches in a reasonable amount of time, he might have to ask for help. Two noses would certainly be more efficient than one.
He had reached the residential area and began moving more cautiously. At the edge of the downtown, he stopped dead and sniffed the air, hoping he wasn’t going to pick up the strong scent of Paul Delacorte.
He didn’t. But that proved nothing. The sheriff could be in his cruiser, metal and glass between himself and the outside air.
The wolf moved cautiously from building to building, a gray shadow gliding down back alleys when he could, cataloging the odors he encountered.
Garbage. Marijuana. Roses. And in one of the houses he passed, fresh baked bread and a pot of beef and vegetable soup slowly cooking.