by Cameron Dane
Cursing her hopeless attraction, Cassie hugged her pillow to her chest and tried to go back to sleep.
* * * * *
Down the hallway, in his own dark bedroom, Connor cried out too, his voice muffled by his pillow as he jerked against his mattress and spilled his seed, the picture of only one woman in his mind.
The only one he wanted. The one he could never have. His fierce attraction to the young woman living in his home was a curse that made today the biggest challenge he was ever going to face in his life.
Connor Hawkins fucking hated full moons on Halloween.
Chapter One
8:00 a.m.
Cassie could feel him behind her, his very presence a silent strength that seemed to reach out and warm her with his life-force whenever he was near. This was no dream though; he was really there. She accepted the fluttering in her belly for what it was; complete sexual awareness and total attraction for this one man. She turned and immediately found him standing close by in the shadows of the small cemetery, quietly looking out for her. As he always did.
At six foot five, with sinewy ropes of muscle from top to bottom and a hard face that couldn’t exactly be described as handsome, he was hard to miss. Connor Hawkins. He was everything Cassie wanted, but someone who possessed so much steely, protective armor, she wasn’t sure he would ever let anyone truly get to know him.
“You don’t have to check up on me,” she finally said, and even gave him a small smile. She rubbed the smooth granite headstone at her back, tracing her fingers over the beloved name affectionately before turning back to Connor. “I’m okay, you know. I’ve been able to come and see him without crying for a long time now.”
“I’m not worried about you.” Connor cloaked himself in his familiar gruffness as he pushed his tall frame away from a giant oak tree and ambled over to Cassie’s side. He crouched down next to her, his knees cracking in the silence, and met her gaze. “But when you didn’t show up for breakfast this morning, I did begin to wonder if I was going to have to find someone else to help Caleb with the castrating today.”
Cassie chuckled. “Uh huh. Right.” She raised a dark brow at Connor knowingly. “You were just selfishly wondering about ranch business because I never, ever jump at the chance to do the hard and dirty work when you offer it to me, me being so dainty and all.” She might be folded up on her knees on the ground right now, but they both knew that she stood at a very decent five foot nine inches.
She glanced at him again. “You didn’t just happen to remember that it’s my dad’s birthday today and automatically know that I’d be here, and come to check on me for that reason? It’s purely business that you’re here, Connor. Is that what you’re saying?”
Connor’s mouth flattened to hard and straight, the line almost grim as his gaze went from her, to the headstone, and then came back to her.
“Since we’re here,” he said instead, “are you all right?”
A funny little tickling flickered over Cassie’s exposed neck, making her shiver. It was the same feeling that had whispered through her insides when she’d awoken from her painfully real dream a number of hours ago.
“I’m not sure,” she said, not quite knowing how else to explain what she was feeling. “There’s going to be a full moon tonight, and it feels like it’s going to be a strange day.” She caught Connor’s dark gaze and held it without flinching. “Does that make any sense? Can you feel it, too?”
Connor’s focus shifted away from Cassie to the line of evergreens in the distance.
“It’s Halloween,” he answered, his voice a little rough. It sounded like his usual enough common sense type answer, but Cassie was watching closely, and she saw the muscles in his shoulders and chest visibly tighten. “There’s bound to be a lot of crazies out to make it feel like a weird one all the way around.” He suddenly turned back to her, and the game face was back on. “You trying to tell me I’m gonna have to worry about you flaking out on me today and blaming it on the holiday?”
Cassie’s smile came fast and quick. “I won’t if you won’t.”
Connor’s smile was a lot tighter than Cassie’s. “No chance of that. Now” -- he unfurled his long body and got to his feet -- “how about it? You ready to get to work?”
Cassie’s gaze moved back to her father’s headstone. She traced the birth date with the tips of her fingers. She kept her hand there and shifted her focus back up to Connor.
“I want to hang out for a little while longer.” She watched Connor’s deep brown gaze mutate to black. He might not want to say it, but she knew that he cared. “Just to visit,” she assured him. “After all, it is his birthday.”
“All right, but don’t keep Caleb waiting long.” Connor’s big hand suddenly smoothed over her head and down the length of her thick braid, and then he was tugging on the end, forcing her face up to his. The human being he didn’t like anyone to see, the one he often acted like didn’t exist, flashed open, bare for just a split second, making Cassie’s heart seize. Just as quickly as it had been there, it was gone. As he let her hair go he coolly added, “And for God’s sake, don’t brood.”
Ah, there was the autocratic man to whom Cassie had become so accustomed. She didn’t mind his raw edges the way a lot of people did, though. In her mind, it was just another part of what made Connor, Connor.
“Don’t worry,” she promised, “I won’t keep those poor unsuspecting bull calves waiting long. After all, someone’s got to turn them into steers.”
“Music to my ears.” Connor gave Cassie his first real smile of the day as he backed away. “Music to my ears.”
Cassie watched Connor walk away, and the secret lightness she always felt in her heart when he was near forced a small, almost invisible smile to her lips. When she heard his truck gun to life and knew he was gone, she turned back to her dad, and for the first time in regards to Connor Hawkins, Cassie poured out her heart.
* * * * *
11:30 a.m.
Connor sat at his desk, his head in one hand and a pen in the other. He fixated on the numbers before him, grimacing as he looked for another way to tighten the strings around the property so that he and his brothers weren’t forced to either take out a loan or let some people go. He growled to himself in the quiet room, despising both options with every fiber of his being. The house and property were paid for outright, and he’d had enough instability for most of his life that he didn’t want someone else in charge of him having a roof over his head ever again. He knew that his brothers, Caleb and Cain, felt exactly the same way. That didn’t even take into account Cassie, for whom he was doing the one acceptable thing his feelings for her allowed him to do. To provide her with a job and a place to live where she could feel secure and protected.
There was only one truly doable option to come up with the necessary funds, and Connor hated it almost as much as the others. He thought about the inevitable need to sell off a couple of horses and cursed a long, steady stream of foul language at himself, knowing his brother Cain would hate like hell having to let even one of his precious animals go.
“Is there someone in particular you’d like to kill with your bare hands?” a deep voice questioned from the door. “Or are you in a mood where anyone will do?”
Connor glanced up and found a face that was almost as familiar to him as his own. As it damn well should be, he’d been looking at it for a lot longer than a natural human lifespan. It was his brother Cain. Great.
“Come on in.” Connor beckoned with pen in hand. “There’s no sense in putting this off. The quicker you get pissed at me the faster you’ll get over it. I don’t see the point in delaying the inevitable.”
“How about because it’s Halloween?” Cain offered as he made his way into the office and took one of the chairs at the foot of the desk. “How about because we’ve all been invited to a party tonight? How about because you know it’s an important day for Cassie, and you know it’ll make her happy --”
“Don’t start
in on the teasing about Cassie with me.” Christ, Connor wouldn’t be able to focus if he started thinking about her. “Please, not right now.” He held up a hand and pushed down the pain in his heart, knowing that he had to do this. “This is serious.”
“All right.” Cain sobered too. “Lay it on me.”
“I’m looking at the numbers, brother, and barring a few things that we swore we’d never do, I don’t see any other choice.” Connor looked up, refusing to let himself hide from Cain. “If we want to get through the winter with our shirts still on our backs, we’re going to have to sell a number of the horses.”
Connor watched Cain while he processed the idea of losing some of his beloved stock. Cain’s jaw ticked and creaked; he glanced toward the window and stared out it for a long time. When he came back to Connor, his blue gaze was suspiciously bright.
“Okay,” he finally said, his voice thick. “If that’s what we have to do, then that’s what we’ll do.”
Connor leaned back in his chair and waited for the relief to wash over him, waited to feel the gratitude toward Cain that the man didn’t put up an emotional fight for the animals he loved so much. Neither came. The sick, out-of-control feeling simmering in Connor’s gut, in fact, got worse.
“You’re not going to fight me?” Connor knew he was poking, but wasn’t able to help himself. “Sometimes I think you love those horses more than you love us. You’re just going to let me sell them, like that?” He snapped his fingers. “Just because I say we need to?”
Cain shifted forward in his seat. “Are you bullshitting me about our situation?”
“No.”
“Did you look at every other option?”
“Yes.” Connor slid the papers across the desk as proof. “Christ, Cain, I swear that I did.”
Cain’s gaze slid up to Connor’s and trapped it in place. “How long did you agonize over this before accepting it?”
“More than two weeks. I just don’t see any other way.”
“So then let it go, big brother. I don’t like it, but it’s done. We’ll sell some of the horses. No,” he corrected, “I’ll sell some of the horses.”
“Maybe we can get them back in a couple of years,” Connor rushed to offer. “Keep track of them, and when we’re in a better position, we can make an offer and bring them home. We’re one good stock season away from making it, Cain, and I have a strong feeling in my gut that this is that year.”
“You don’t have to sell me, Con. It’s okay. We all make sacrifices for this property. I understand that. So does Caleb. You might not want to see it, but Cassie does too. Maybe you should consider coming to one of us the next time you’re stressing yourself out trying to make a decision like this, rather than trying to do it all on your own.”
Connor looked away, uncomfortable with the scrutiny. “Why make four people worry instead of one? I’m fine. I just want you to be, too.”
“I’ll be all right.” Suddenly Cain’s face turned decidedly bleak. “I hate to do it to you, Con, but selling some of the horses is the least of our concerns today.” Cain dropped a bomb. “I just came from riding fence with Hank, and MacLesten is causing trouble again.” MacLesten was their closest neighbor, another cattle rancher. “He’s moving that damn fence on the north side of the property again, and he says if we put it back one more time, he’s going to dam up Willow Stream so that not a bit of that water trickles down to our property, as it rightly should.”
“Son of a bitch, trouble-making prick.” Connor shot up from his seat and started to pace, his hands digging into his dark head of hair. “I hope you told him to go to hell and promised him that if he touches that stream, we’ll sue his ass for every penny he’s got.”
“I did say something close to that.” Cain grabbed Connor’s arm when he passed by, dragging him to a stop. He looked up from his seated position and added, “He says you’re the boss, though, so he’s not going to deal with anyone but you.”
“You’re a fucking equal partner!” Connor could feel his skin heating as his temper quickly rose. “So is Caleb, and that bastard knows it. I swear to God there are days when I could kill him with my bare hands.”
“You’re the face of Hawkins’ Ranch, Connor,” Cain pointed out, “and you know it. You have to talk to him.”
Connor stalked the length of the room in an attempt to calm down, clenching his fists with each step he took. The back of his neck grew unbearably hot, and a pain in his forehead lanced through his skull. Incredible pressure pushed against his flesh from within, burning and stretching at his cheekbones with searing white heat. The fire spread and snaked down Connor’s spine, making him stumble. He jammed the heels of his hands into his eye sockets in a desperate effort to shove the hurt back inside.
Cain suddenly stood up and grabbed Connor by the shoulders, shaking him hard enough to bring him back to the present. “The face Justin MacLesten is going to see will look quite different than the one people are used to if you don’t calm down right now. Get yourself together, brother. Find a way to control your other half before we go to MacLesten, or we’re going to end up with a whole different kind of trouble.”
“I cannot control him!” Connor snapped. He struggled through what he was feeling to remain in his human form. “I hate him; I do not want any part of him. He is the biggest source of why I must be as I am.” Connor heard his speech regressing to his older, formal patterns as his emotions got the better of him. He threw Cain a hard look, but with deliberate intent forced himself to breathe, and focus, and regain his control. “You know this, too, Cain. I don’t want to learn to control him.” Christ, he was the very reason Connor refused to let himself feel much of anything. “I just want him gone.”
Cain leaned back against the desk, crossed his arms, and didn’t let Connor turn away or hide from the probing connection. “There is a full moon tonight.”
“No,” Connor breathed harshly, the word almost a curse. His eyes were as black as the finest onyx. He didn’t dare let himself even think about it. “Don’t you fucking say one more word on that subject.”
“Fine.” Cain backed off, his arms up in surrender. “But you’re going to fall one day, Con. We all will. There will come a point where you can no longer hide from what you covet. Your body and soul will feel something you cannot control. Something much stronger than this anger you’re feeling for MacLesten right now.” He waved his arm up and down Connor’s body, once again a picture of calm and control. “When it does, your secret will come out. You won’t be able to stop it like you did just now.”
There was only one person capable of doing that to him, and Connor had that under control. “I will never let that happen.” His voice was hard and clipped. He pulled away from Cain’s hand and headed for the door. “Now let’s go talk to that fucker MacLesten before I really lose my temper. Christ, it’s not even noon, and I already can’t wait for this day to be over.” He glanced back over his shoulder at Cain. “You’re coming with me. Let’s go.”
“You’re heading for a huge break, brother,” Cain spoke softly before he followed. “And I fear for anyone caught in your way.”
Chapter Two
4:00 p.m.
Tired from his “talk” with MacLesten that had produced a tense, temporary compromise, Connor stood back in the late afternoon shadows and watched, fascinated, as the scene in the main paddock played out before him. He’d tried to stay away, but after the day he’d had, he needed to see her.
She was way too young for him, with her sun-kissed, dark-haired, natural beauty, and her enthusiasm for life. Cassandra Claire was everything Connor had never known he’d wanted until he had taken her into his home five years ago. As much as he didn’t want to feel it, the teasing that his brothers gave him in private was dead on the money. Cassandra tugged at his unused heart, confused him on practically a daily basis, and fascinated him to no end.
Watching her like this while she held down young cattle that weighed almost as much as she didn’t really
help Connor in his effort to remain indifferent; he knew it. It was a self-destructive kind of torture to be in her presence, but this had been the day from hell already, and even if it was in secret, Connor needed to be near Cassandra’s light. It was damned arousing watching her knee deep in hard, ranch-life work, and that was bad enough. What was worse, though, was that every time he saw her like this, it knifed a pain through his gut to know she could never be anything more to him than what she was right now. Employee, pain in his butt, and dear, dear friend.
She was only twenty-three years old and must never be allowed to see him as anything other than a friend. She could never know of the base sexual desires he had for her. It would disgust her and, even if by some miracle it didn’t, there was always that one other thing about him that would prevent them from being truly intimate or close.
The demon thing -- the goddamned, fucking bane of his two hundred year existence, demon thing -- that was the other half of what Connor Hawkins was.
“Shit, that gal sure is somethin’, ain’t she?” a laughing, amiable voice spoke at Connor’s ear, snapping him out of his lustful, inappropriate thoughts.
Connor slid his gaze to the grizzled old man who had sidled up beside him unnoticed. It was Hank Bailey, one of the Hawkins’ Ranch’s many cowboys. The tall, gangly man was rocking back on the heels of his boots with his arms braced against his chest, and he wasn’t even pretending not to stare at Cassandra. Even with this older cowpoke who was absolutely no threat, Connor had to stifle the urge to slam him up against the barn wall and warn him in graphic detail to never look at Cassandra with open appreciation for her beauty again. Connor had to hide the animal instinct that lived just below the surface within him, the one that said Cassandra was his.
