by Nora Roberts
And what then? How could it be love, how could it answer anything when it was a lie?
“Gabe.”
“Don’t think. Let’s not think. We’ll just . . . oh, hell.” Cursing, he drew back, dug his phone out of his pocket. “Sorry. Don’t move. Don’t think. Yeah, Gabe Kirby,” he said into the phone.
She saw his face change, that light of lust and humor clicking off into concern. “Where? Okay. No, calm down. I’ll be there in ten minutes. Keep him warm, keep him still. Ten minutes.”
He shoved the phone back in his pocket even as he reached for his jacket. “Sorry, emergency. I’ve got to go. German shepherd, clipped by a car. They’re waiting outside my office with him. I don’t know how bad, or how long. I could—”
“Don’t worry.” She hurried with him to the door. “Just go. Take care of him.”
“See me tomorrow.” He turned at the door, pulled her into him for one quick, hard kiss. “For God’s sake, see me tomorrow.”
“Yes. Tomorrow. Go. Good luck.”
“I’ll call you.” And he was already running to his car.
She watched him pull out, speed away, then sagged against the doorjamb. The dog was in good hands, she thought. Caring ones. And it was best he’d been called away. Best for him, and for her.
He gave her hope, she thought, and what could she give him but shock and pain? Unless, she told herself and ran her fingers over her silver cross, she found the cure.
“Let’s get back to work, Amico.”
She worked through the night, and just before dawn curled up with Amico on his bed for a few hours sleep. The wolf dreams came, as they often did when the moon was nearly full and her system too tired to resist. So she dreamed of running through the night, power pulsing through her, hunger gnawing at her belly. She dreamed of hunting, following the scent, her eyes so keen they cut through the dark.
In the dream she had only one purpose, and no restrictions of conscience to bind her. She flew through the night, free to take what she willed with fang and claw.
Tracking, stalking the one she wanted. In that last leap, she saw his face, the terror, the revulsion in his eyes. And when she bit into his flesh, she knew nothing but pleasure.
She woke with Gabe’s scent on her skin, and her own tears on her cheeks.
SHE sought him out. To do otherwise would be cowardly. No dream, no matter how horrid, would make her a coward now. Before she went by his office, she swung into Luna with fresh stock.
She’d timed it to arrive just shy of opening. Though she heard Shelley wandering around in the front, Simone moved quietly, working in the storeroom.
The music came on, the New Age–type of instrumentals Shelley seemed to think went best with the tone of the products. It didn’t matter to Simone if she played Enya or Iron Maiden, as long as the products moved.
She needed more equipment for her lab, more of the drugs she could only get, and at a vicious cost, through the black market.
And if the risk she was preparing to take with Gabe turned around to slap her, she’d need running money.
She heard the footsteps approach, then Shelley’s startled yelp when her manager opened the storeroom door.
“God! I didn’t know you were back here. You scared the life out of me. Amico! You sweetie.” Shelley crouched down to exchange friendly greetings with the dog.
Shelley was five-feet-nothing. All dramatically streaked brown hair and energy, with a pretty freckled face and a flair for drama. She wore bright colors. Today’s choice was grass green cropped pants and a fitted jacket, and lots of clattering bracelets.
Even without her heightened senses, Simone figured she’d have heard the woman coming from a block away.
She was the open, chatty, cheerful sort Simone thought she’d have enjoyed being friends with, if she allowed herself friends. Someone she’d be able to sit down with, over drinks and a lot of laughs. As it was, they got along well enough, and Shelley, with her vivacious personality and organized soul, was an ideal choice to manage the shop.
“Didn’t expect you to come by until next week,” Shelley said.
“I finished some stock, and since I had a couple of errands in town, I thought I’d bring it by now.”
“Great. Hope you made more of that new potpourri. Autumn Forest? It’s already flying out the door, and we’re running low on the eye pillows. Simone, I love the new hand cream—the seaweed stuff. It’s like magic, and I’ve been—har har—hand-selling it like mad. I was going to send you an inventory list today.”
“I’ll take care of it.”
“You look fabulous.” Cocking her head, Shelley studied Simone’s face. “Charged up, I’d say. Got some other new magic cream you’re not sharing with the rest of us yet?”
Did love show, like it did in storybooks and novels? Put stars in your eyes, roses in your cheeks? “No, but I’m working on a few things.”
“When you’ve got it bottled, I’ll be happy to try it out, whatever it is. Want some tea? I’m making some of our Lemon Twist.”
“No, thanks. I have a couple of errands, like I said, then I need to get back.” She hooked on Amico’s leash. She started out, then hesitated. “Shelley, let me ask you a hypothetical.”
“Fire away.”
“If you were interested in someone, a man—”
“I’m always interested in a man.”
“So when you are, very interested, and there’s something about you that you’ve made a strict policy to keep private, do you feel you have to open that door, to be completely honest?”
“Pretty heavy hypothetical.”
“I guess it is.”
“I’d say it would depend on the private thing. If it’s like I did ten years in the federal pen, then I’d probably spill it. If it’s more like I had liposuction, well, I’m entitled to my little secrets.”
“So the more important it is, the more necessary it is to be honest.”
“Well, if I’d had lipo, I’d consider that pretty damn important, but yeah. But I’d say it hinges on just how deep the interest is, on both sides.”
“That’s what I thought. Thanks.”
She’d have to judge it, Simone ruminated as she walked Amico toward the vet’s office. She’d have to be sure her own feelings, needs, hopes, weren’t coloring her perception of his.
If he loved her, she had to tell him before things went any further. Not only because it was right, but for his own protection.
If it was just infatuation on both their parts, she could live with that. She’d lived with less. Then she would keep her secret and enjoy him within her own safety zone.
Outside the door, she crouched to reassure the dog. “Just a visit, that’s all. Quick in and out, and no exam for you.”
She walked in just as Gabe walked out of the exam room beside an enormous, bearded man holding a tiny yellow kitten in his massive hands.
Their eyes met, and she knew infatuation, on her part at least, didn’t come close.
“Trudy’s all set,” Gabe said, giving the kitten a scratch behind the ears. “No more table scraps, even if she begs.”
“Thanks, Doc.”
As he moved toward the desk, the kitten arched her back, hissed at Simone.
“Jeez, lady, sorry. She’s a little upset, is all.” He gathered the kitten close to the barrel of his chest as she spat and arched. “Your dog probably made her nervous.”
“No problem.” Simone moved aside, knowing it wasn’t Amico that made the cat nervous.
“Come on back. Five minutes,” he told Eileen, then grabbed Simone’s hand to pull her into the exam room.
“I was just—” But he stopped her words with his mouth, had her sliding into the kiss, dropping the leash so her arms could lock around him.
“Me, too,” Gabe murmured. “All night. If you were about to say thinking about you.”
“Actually, I was going to tell you . . . Now my brain’s fuzzy.”
“While it is, let’s escape out the
back door, run off to the woods, and make love like rabbits.”
“I think there was a rabbit in your waiting room.”
“Oh, yeah. Muffy. Why do people give animals such embarrassing names? All right, we’ll be adult and responsible.” But he nipped her earlobe first. “Office hours end today at five. I can be at your place by five-fifteen. Then we’ll run into the woods and make love like Muffy.”
“That sounds close to perfect, but I need a couple of days.”
“Well, I’ll have to take some vitamins, but I’ll do my best.”
He made her laugh, and for that alone she might have loved him. “I applaud your optimism, but I meant I need a couple of days before I see you again. I need you to give me until Saturday.”
“How about lunch today? Hold the sexual marathon. Just lunch.”
“Saturday. Around four. No later than four-thirty. Please.”
“Okay. But—”
“I need until Saturday. And I need you to tell me if you love me. Or if this is just physical for you. And it’s all right if it is—just physical. I’ll sleep with you, because I want you. No strings, no promises. I don’t need them. But if it’s more, I want to know. Not now.” She touched her fingers to his lips before he could speak. “Not now either way. Saturday.”
“You’re a strange and fascinating creature, Simone.”
She picked up Amico’s leash. “I really am. How’s the German shepherd?”
“Beanie? See what I mean about names? He’s a lucky dog. Contusions, lacerations, and a broken tibia. He’ll be fine.”
“I’m glad to hear it. You’re keeping patients waiting, I should go. I’ll see you Saturday.”
“Don’t cook.” Reluctant to let her go, he took her hand again. “We’ll order pizza or something.”
“Or something,” she repeated, and drawing her hand free, walked away.
Chapter 6
SHE locked her doors, set her alarms, turned off the phone. For two days, she lived in the lab, snatching sleep only when her body refused to function, even on the stimulants she risked taking.
She boosted the dose of burdock, added blue flag, and though she knew it was dangerous to ingest untested mixtures, pumped more of the black market drugs into her system.
When the result made her ill, she dragged herself back to work and tried a different formula.
She felt a little mad.
And why not, she thought, as she crushed hawthorn with mortar and pestle. She wished she were mad, that all of this was in her mind. She bombarded her system with echinachea, drinking it as a cold tea, following the advice in the Nei Jing, that hot diseases should be cooled.
And still she felt heated, a furnace burning inside her, as she studied her own blood under the microscope, as she ran endless tests.
But the cycle was upon her. She didn’t need a window, didn’t need to see the sky to know the sun was going down. She felt that pull, the inescapable grip of the moon, inside her as strongly, as surely as hands digging into her belly.
She took the final steps, steps she’d taken three times a month, every month for more than a decade. The restlessness, the tingling rush was already crawling over her skin, creeping under it, like little demons lighting torches in her blood.
She locked the cage door behind her. Sat on the floor as Amico took his place by the basement steps. There she meditated for the time she had left, struggling with her mind against the monster that crouched inside her, waiting to become.
When the change started, she fought it, battled against the pain while sweat sprang hot over her. Discipline. Control. She sat, quivering, her eyes shut, her mind and body as still as she could manage.
Then she was being ripped to pieces. Torn out of herself; torn into herself, with the hideous sounds of her own bones snapping, mutating, lengthening while her flesh stretched to accommodate the impossible.
Her vision sharpened. She couldn’t stop it. So she looked down in horror with eyes now more yellow than green as her fingers extended, until gold fur coated them, and the lethal claws protruded.
She screamed, with no one to hear, she screamed against the pain and the fury. Screamed again when the fury became a dark and horrible thrill.
Screamed until the scream became a ululant howl.
HE’D never known days to be so long, or nights to be so dark and lonely. He’d called her a dozen times—maybe more—but she hadn’t answered. All he’d gotten for his trouble was that smooth and cool voice of hers telling him to leave a message.
So he’d left them—nonsense ones and urgent ones, frustrated ones and silly ones. Anything, he’d thought, to nudge her into calling him back.
He was a crazy man, he could admit it. Crazy to see her again, to touch her again. To have a damn conversation. Was that too much to ask?
But no, she had to be all mysterious and unreachable.
And more fascinating to him than ever.
Probably part of her master plan, he decided as he drove through the rainy Saturday afternoon. Make the man a lunatic so he’d promise anything.
And well, maybe he would.
He felt lightning-struck.
There were flowers on the seat beside him. Yellow daisies this time. She just didn’t strike him as the red rose variety of female. And a bottle of champagne. The real thing.
He was already imagining them sitting on the floor in front of the fire drinking it, making love, talking, making love again, dozing off together only to wake and slide into love and murmurs once more.
He’d turned his schedule upside down to get off midafternoon on a Saturday. And he’d pay for it with extra bookings through the following week. But all that mattered was that she was waiting for him.
He pulled up beside her truck, grabbed the champagne and the flowers, then ran through the rain to her front door.
She opened it before he could knock, but his smile of greeting faded when he saw her face. There were bruises of fatigue under her eyes, dark against the pallor of her skin. And her eyes looked over-bright, feverish.
“Baby, you’re sick.” Even as he lifted a hand to check her forehead for fever, she stepped back.
“No, just tired. Come in. I’ve been waiting for you.”
“Listen to Dr. Gabe. Lie down on the couch there. I’ll make you some soup.”
“I’m not hungry.” But she would be. Soon. “Those need water.”
“I’ll take care of it. You should’ve told me you weren’t feeling well. I’d have come out to check on you. Have you seen the doctor—the people doctor?”
“No need.” Since he wanted to fuss, she let him. Gave him a vase when they reached the kitchen so he could fill it for the daisies. “I know what’s wrong with me. I made you some coffee. Why don’t you—”
“Simone.” He dumped the flowers in the vase and turned to take her shoulders. “I can pour my own coffee. Go lie down. Whether you’re hungry or not, you need to eat something, and then get some rest. Once you do the first, you’re going upstairs to bed. I’ll bunk on the couch.”
“Not much of a date.” She shifted to tap the bottle of champagne he’d set on the counter. “And what about this?”
“We’ll put it in the fridge and we can open it when you’re feeling better. And if that’s not by tomorrow morning, I’m taking you to the doctor.”
“We need to talk.”
“You can talk when you’re horizontal. Got any chicken noodle soup around here?”
He turned away to open cupboard doors in a search. There was rain in his hair, little beads that gleamed against the black. She could smell it on him, smell the freshness of him while he poked through her kitchen to find something to give her comfort.
He’d brought her champagne and flowers and wanted to make her soup.
She stood, pierced by something sweeter than pain. And threw her arms around him, pressed her cheek into his back.
“You’re one in a million. Oh God, I hope you’re my one in a million.”
“I
want you flat on your back, and not so I can have my way with you. I’m going to ply you with condensed soup instead of French champagne, then tuck you safely into bed, while I keep watch on the couch.”
He turned around, touched his lips to her forehead in a way she knew meant he was checking for fever.
“If that’s not love, Simone, I don’t have a name for it.”
“Forget the soup for now, but thank you. Come in and sit down. There are things I have to tell you, and there isn’t a lot of time.”
Now his face was nearly as pale as hers. “Are you seriously ill? Is something wrong with you?”
“I have . . . we’ll call it a condition. It’s nothing you can imagine, and it’s not life-threatening. To me. Come sit down, you’ll want to sit down, and I’ll explain.”
“You’re starting to scare me.”
“I know.” She kept her hand in his as she led him to the living room. Everything looked so cozy, so simple, she thought. But it wasn’t, couldn’t be.
It was the biggest risk she would ever take, but there he was, the most important prize she could ever hope to win, sitting on her sofa looking edgy and worried.
He would look worse than that when she finished. And when she finished, he would either be hers, or he’d be making tracks.
“It happened in Italy,” she began. “I was eighteen. Just. So happy to be on my own for the first time. Everything was ahead of me. You know how it is?”
“Yeah.” He reached for the throw over the arm of the sofa, and tucked it over her lap. “You think you own the world, and all you have to do is start collecting.”
“Yes. I was . . . stifled is the way to put it, I guess, with my aunt and uncle. I behaved as they wanted me to behave, was very careful to do what was expected. Otherwise, I didn’t know what would happen to me. So I was quiet, studious, obedient. And I marked the days on my mental calendar until I could turn the key on that lock and run. There was money coming to me when I turned eighteen. Insurance money, a little trust. Not tons of money, but enough to see me through, to give me some freedom, to finance that trip to Europe I wanted so desperately. And I’d worked summers since I was sixteen, squirreling away as much money as I could. I was going to go to college, but I deferred for a year. At eighteen, it seemed I had all the time in the world, and the possibilities were endless.”
