“Such as?”
“Skylar Donovan.”
Tom’s face sobered further.
“You told me you hadn’t met her yet when we spoke this morning. Isn’t that right? But you didn’t introduce yourself when you met her.”
“I was quite busy, as were you,” Tom said. “Besides, who else could she have been? They have the same eyes, and the same kind of bearing. I recognized her right away.”
Gavin nodded. “She looks like her father?”
“Only somewhat similar.”
“If you hadn’t met Skylar before, who else in the family have you met? I’m asking because I read some things online a few minutes ago that sparked my interest in the family, beyond what might or might not have happened here.”
“I don’t rightly know any of them,” Tom said. “But I did see a woman with the Doc once, though only from a distance.”
“Not Skylar?”
Tom shook his head. “Tall. Reddish hair that was long and wavy. A real looker.”
“Where did you see them?”
“On the Doc’s driveway when I drove past.”
“Then it could have been anyone, I suppose. Maybe even someone stopping by or asking directions.”
“None of my business,” Tom said. “Nice hair, though. I remember thinking that.”
“Do you recall when this was?”
“Had to be over a year ago. I drove that road weekly to Sam Martin’s place back then, before Sam passed on.”
Gavin stood up. “Well, thanks. Rumor has it you’ll be out of here shortly. I’ll stop by your place tomorrow to make sure you got home okay.”
“I’ll put the coffee on,” Tom said.
Gavin felt a slight sense of accomplishment as he headed back to his Jeep. Of course, that woman Tom had seen with Skylar’s father could have been anyone, but it could just as easily have been a doctor from Donovan’s hospital in Miami. Fairview Hospital. According to their online photos, a certain Dr. Jenna James had long auburn hair.
From that photo, Jenna James seemed to be young, and quite stunning. Not at all what he would have expected from a colleague of Donovan’s. The woman had a long list of medical initials trailing after her name. But from what he’d found in his search, most of the doctors at Fairview kept out of the limelight and the news, often taking a backseat to Skylar’s father, whose full name was Dr. David Donovan. Although Jenna James was a full partner in the directorship of Fairview, her bio was curiously low-key.
He didn’t want to think about what the internet had to say about Skylar’s personal history. Not yet. He needed time to digest some of what he’d found. For now it was enough to know that, according to some archived newspaper articles, Skylar, just six years old at the time, had lost her mother. She’d inherited a fortune from some other relative at the same time and, along with her sisters, invested a good chunk of that inheritance in the hospital her father had helped build.
And here was the real kicker: Skylar’s mother had been a patient at Fairview.
Skylar couldn’t have known her mother very well. What did kids remember from when they were six, anyway? Also, he’d found nothing about Greta Donovan’s death.
Gavin’s list of interesting information about Skylar and her father was growing, but it had to wait. The approach of darkness rustled across his skin like a stiff breeze. His hands kept fisting on their own, fingers curling, forearms cramping. His spine cracked when he turned his head.
It was almost time to find the monster, face it and take that beast down. That was as necessary as returning to Skylar as soon as possible to kiss her, speak with her, take her to bed.
Dreams, she’d said. Dreams and watchers and werewolves.
After today’s shock, and after being recently unengaged and orphaned, Skylar would need company and reassurances that things were all right. He planned to give her that. He knew how being alone felt because he hadn’t seen his parents since his close call with death in these hills.
He glanced again at the darkening sky. Maybe there was time for him to see Skylar, touch her, hold her one more time.
Just in case.
In case he wouldn’t be returning from his meeting with the giant furred-up devil. In case he never got to kiss Skylar Donovan’s sweet, succulent lips again.
His Jeep was parked down the street. Having only one hour at most before sundown was cutting things too short. Still, the depth of his need directed his next step.
“I have to see you, Skylar,” he said, jogging to his car.
Chapter 17
Thanking her lucky stars to have reached Jenna’s personal voice mail instead of Jenna herself, the message Skylar left was short.
“Skylar here, Dr. James. Trisha said you wanted to see my dad’s cabin, and that’s fine with me. I’ll be in Colorado for a few more days and would like to speak with you, just to connect with someone normal. I have a couple quick questions to ask you. You now have my number. And thanks, both for the condolences and for taking care of the things you did for Dad.”
She disconnected and lowered the phone.
Speak with someone normal? Did she really say that to a psychiatrist? One bad thing about the current world of non-face-to-face communication was that messages like the one she’d just left couldn’t be taken back.
She paced from window to window and across the wooden boards of the porch. Antsy didn’t even begin to describe her current state. She searched the sky for a hint of how much time was left until the sun set, unable to shake the idea that if she were to close her eyes, she’d feel insanity’s fiery breath on the back of her neck.
The quiet gave way to a sound that paused her pacing. There was a car on the road. Not just any car.
She ran. For him. There wasn’t any way to put on the brakes. Gavin was coming back to her, and she wanted him with every fiber of her being.
He stopped the vehicle when he saw her, and stepped out. She stopped three yards away from where he stood, with her pulse thundering.
“What happened?” he asked soberly.
“You came back,” she said.
He closed the door and walked toward her, his body sending out an aura of need similar to hers. Bless him, he hadn’t returned for any other reason than his desire to see her. She read that in his face.
She was in his arms before he slowed down. She was breathing in audible rasps as she brought her face close to his.
He spoke first.
“I’m not sure what this is.” His whisper was hoarse as his lips skated over hers. “I can’t seem to stay away, and I don’t even care.”
He lifted her up with unsteady hands, and Skylar clung to him by wrapping her legs around his waist and her arms around his neck. When his mouth covered hers, heat flashed through her like lashes of flame.
She kissed him back, returned his sensual attack with one of her own, and he groaned with an earthy satisfaction that sounded like relief.
Skylar wasn’t sure how they made it to the cabin. She was tuned to him, ready for him, willing to take him on and take him in. If she had her way, the ground would do just fine for what they were about to do and, as always with this guy, the sooner, the better.
Her ranger had other ideas. Holding her tightly in his arms, he put a boot to the half-open door and walked through. That was as far as they got. She was on the floor, on her back, with Gavin’s long length covering her and his mouth never leaving hers.
He kissed her greedily, deeply, each move of his mouth a ravenous feasting. Skylar tore at his belt and pants. He kicked off his shoes and helped her remove his clothes, then hers, in the dim, waning light. This time, he allowed her full access to his lean sculpted body, scars and all, because he was as ready as she was for this union.
An inch of space was too much distance between them. Their bare bodies slammed together as if they were two parts of a whole needing to be reunited.
They seemed to be enacting a kind of sensuous war, their actions falling somewhere between an all-out sexfest and hungri
ly making love. There was no clear-cut delineation of the unevenness of the relationship. Even the edges of the room blurred as Gavin pressed her arms above her head and settled himself between her naked, pulsing thighs.
Then he was inside her with a slick, heated slide that drove a pleasurable groan from her throat. Buried deep inside her, he paused, shuddered and closed his blue eyes.
But he didn’t hesitate for long. Before her next breath, he rallied with a quick withdrawal followed by a second perfect thrust of his hips. Straight and true, that plunge touched her innermost need, tickled her core and spawned shuddering intense physical longings for him that Skylar could barely contain.
If she’d thought they had done it all in that motel room the night before, she’d been wrong. This level of rugged intimacy was new, different and meaningful. This was something else altogether.
Gavin held her in that place where white-hot sensations and riotous emotions met in a kaleidoscope of light and feeling. A place where there wasn’t enough air in the world to breathe in and there would never be enough time to keep this up.
Another thrust of his hips and a second hesitation forced from Skylar an outward cry of startled emotion.
Then he moved just once more.
And that was all she needed.
Feelings burst open, ran riot, exploded inside her. She came with a dizzying, room-spinning climax that went on and on until Skylar clawed at her lover with her hands and nipped at him with fierce teeth. But he didn’t register any of the damage she inflicted. Her little attacks didn’t seem to bother Gavin Harris at all. He was there with her and at the same time curiously absent, Skylar realized when the world eventually stopped revolving.
He shook, holding off his own satisfaction, and the effort took all of his concentration. One giant quake rolled through him after another. Withholding this last bit of himself seemed important to him, as if it were a task to be mastered.
All the while, his vibrant blue eyes stared into hers.
“No,” she protested, breathless, hardly able to speak at all and seeing in his expression a hint that he might leave her now. “Don’t go. You don’t have to. Not tonight.”
His sad smile reminded her that she’d only heard him laugh one time, and she longed to hear that laughter now. His muscles were tense, his voice strained. “You have no idea how much I want to stay.”
“You’re with me right now.”
His sadness was devastatingly potent. “I have to go. I’m late already and feel the night closing in.”
“But you’ll come back,” she said hopefully.
The fact that he didn’t reply left her anxious.
“You don’t have to go,” Skylar insisted.
“I do. Please understand that I have to.”
“Why? Wolves only come out at night? Is that what you mean? If you have to find one, this is the time?”
“Yes. That’s what I mean. The one I seek will be out there.”
“To hell with that,” Skylar argued. “Being together like this is important to me. You’ll never know how much. Tell me I’m not the only one who believes there’s something to this. To us.”
“You’re not the only one. Hell, Skylar. But I’ve told you. I’ve warned you about me, and that I also have needs that lie beyond this moment.”
“You’ve told me no such thing, other than to mention revenge against an animal that hurt you and might also have hurt my father.”
He touched her forehead with a warm finger and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear—gentle actions, tender moments before a dreaded separation that made the idea of that separation a whole lot worse.
“Then I’m coming with you,” she said.
“I can’t allow that.”
“If there’s a wolf or a pack out there, surely other rangers can help us find it,” she pressed.
“Us? No. You need to go into town where it’s safe.”
She stared back at him. “You truly believe that same nasty wolf is still here, and near the cabin, don’t you? That’s the big danger you perceive for others and for me. Not some madman, but a damn wolf.”
“A man-hater,” he corrected, whispering in a way that made Skylar’s scalp prickle. “And as dangerous as they come.”
He slid off her and braced himself on his elbows without looking away or losing eye contact.
“You’re either brave or stupid to go out there if something you consider to be that lethal is on the loose.” She spoke her mind without using a filter. “Especially tonight, under a full moon, when everyone is restless.”
Skylar felt him stir, and regretted the turn in the conversation. There had hardly been a time when the idea of the wolf hadn’t been in the room with her in this cabin, either openly or in hiding.
“Then you’d stop me from taking my best shot at finding it?” Gavin asked.
“I…”
Could she say what she was thinking? Skylar wondered. Or were secrets to remain secrets?
“I don’t want anything to happen to you.”
His eyes softened, adding fine creases underneath. Seeing that softness tugged at her heart.
“The best way to help me is for you to remain safe, so that I don’t have to worry about you. Can you do that, Skylar? Will you get to safety?”
“I said I would.”
“You didn’t mean it.”
She wondered how he knew that.
“So,” he began, using her words to further his argument, “does arguing about this make you brave, or stupid?”
She answered that question honestly and the best way she could. “It makes me determined.”
“No,” he corrected. “I’m determined and have some of the skills to back that up. You are a liability, like…”
He didn’t say the rest of what he was thinking, so she did.
“Like my father was, or might have been, being a city man and out of his element here?”
He sighed heavily. “Yes, if he actually was chasing wolves in these mountains.”
“How do we find out what my father did or didn’t do? What he knew, or believed?”
“We know that he must not have thought what he was doing that last evening was dangerous, otherwise his gun would have been found in his hand, not here in this cabin.”
Skylar found the flaw in that reasoning, though it didn’t help much.
If her father was delusional and if werewolves had been his target and his reason for being in Colorado, he wouldn’t have believed he needed those silver bullets the day he died because ten days ago the moon hadn’t been full. No full moon meant no werewolves, supposedly…if Hollywood got that right.
The horrible, nonsensical element to all this overthinking suddenly left her feeling sick. She’d come full circle back to werewolves.
“My father fell, and there doesn’t have to be anything sinister about that tragedy other than how things ended up,” she said, testing out her voice and trying to believe that theory.
“Did you think there was something sinister going on?” Gavin asked.
After glancing at the window, she said helplessly, “Yes. But that’s my problem.”
Yet, she thought, if there was no magic key in the word werewolf, why had Gavin brought it up behind Tom’s shed? Was he just trying to gauge her mental state?
Wait just a damn minute.
Was there something in the way he was looking at her? Shit. If he wanted to know about her mental state, did that mean he knew something about her mother?
Could he possibly know anything about that?
If he did, would Gavin be wondering if the whole family might be off its rocker? Like the jokes, did he believe that psychiatrists took up the profession because of their own numerous issues?
Damn it, hadn’t she, for the past few days, wondered that same thing about her father and herself?
What else did he know?
Had he found out that she studied about psychiatry in a school near Miami? That she’d taken time off to get mar
ried, and more time to come here to finish her father’s ties to Colorado?
“Skylar?”
She heard her name, and a sound beyond it from somewhere outside. Familiar heat began to battle the onset of chills. Her body convulsed, automatically responding to the provocative quality in Gavin’s tone.
Something inside her shifted uncomfortably, in need of more heat.
“Skylar,” Gavin repeated with concern.
Through a flutter of her eyelashes, Skylar saw again in fine detail the man so close to her. The wide shoulders above a broad muscular chest. The thick torso, narrow waist and hips. The dark hair, worn long and those brilliant light blue eyes. Every detail about Gavin Harris mirrored what she’d imagined her dream lover would be.
Yet Gavin was only a ranger. A man, not a werewolf.
There were no such things as werewolves.
Holding up a hand, she crawled out from beneath her lover, embarrassed, and no longer trusting her own conclusions because the merging of her dreams and reality continued to mess things up.
There were no werewolves; therefore, either someone had pushed her father over that cliff, or no one had, and his fall was an accident, as officially stated. She would have to accept that and also accept that she’d gone to bed with a stranger because of a dream.
On her knees beside Gavin, she asked with a stern authority, “Do you know about my mother?”
It pained him to answer. She saw that. He didn’t really know the nuances of what she was asking, or why, but his answer was important to her.
“Do you know about my family’s trouble?” she pressed, looking anywhere but in Gavin’s luminous eyes.
“About your mother’s commitment, yes,” he replied. “I know about that.”
Quickly chilling again, Skylar got to her feet and reached for her clothes before turning for the door.
Gavin was beside her. “Skylar, what the hell just happened?”
“I’m going to town like you wanted, if I can use your car.”
She wouldn’t look at him now, couldn’t allow herself to see either the hurt she might be causing or the relief that might show on that face. This man might like to bed her, but he’d gone too far by investigating her family’s personal history behind her back.
Seduced by the Moon Page 13
