Emotions flashed through his eyes. Shock, anger maybe? Desire? Fear…fear? What could he fear from her? Then something almost like resignation?
What the hell was going on?
She found a glass placed in her hands and automatically raised it to her lips, drinking the cool liquid, and welcoming the relief it provided from the hot flush she seemed to be having.
Rebecca hoped she wasn’t getting sick.
2
Josh
Mine. The word echoed in his head as his wolf paced and whined, begging to be let free. Begging for them to take her.
Josh couldn’t believe this.
Surely, he must be wrong?
But then his wolf would be wrong too and that never happened.
There was no way the woman in front of them sipping at her water as trembling hands held it to her face, no way, she could be their mate.
She was pretty, very pretty, but she was human. Human, for the love of the goddess. More than that, she was an emotional mess.
The woman had been running on major high alert from the moment he’d first clapped eyes on her.
He’d had a tiny whiff of her scent when she’d first entered the clearing in the woods, and it had hit him like a punch to the gut, but he’d told himself he was mistaken.
Then her fear had hit him, and he’d gone on high alert himself, a natural response to a female in such distress. He’d been so busy getting her back to this cabin she called home, and scanning their environment for any threats, he’d not really given himself the chance to scent her again.
Once he’d entered her home though, and taken that deep breath as he looked at her, all bets were off.
Her voice, the way she looked, it all hit him so hard that he felt dizzy with it.
Could it be so fast? He knew the bond between fated mates was strong, and real. He’d seen it in his own parents, but surely it didn’t happen immediately?
Maybe he ought to ask one of the other pack members? After all, he had no direct experience with this and could be wrong.
She finished her drink, put the glass down and looked at him, biting her lip.
He wanted to stop her nervous habit by kissing her, right here and now. He’d take her face in his hands, and kiss her until she couldn’t breathe. He’d stop her from nibbling on her damn lip because from now on, he wanted to be the only one biting that delectable flesh.
Whoa. Okay, he needed to rein this in.
He stood, and Rebecca craned her neck to look up at him.
Her green eyes were stunning, but confused, and something about her seemed off to him. He tried to read her mood and picked up her anxiety, but couldn’t understand its source. He didn’t think she was scared of him, and certainly not of the girls. So what?
“Are you okay?” he asked again, and she nodded, forcing a bright smile onto her features.
It looked wrong. Like when you saw one of those robots that were meant to look human but weren’t quite realistic enough to pull it off.
Josh should walk away, but he didn’t want to leave her like this, all scared and shook up.
He sighed and glanced around the room, and his gaze hit the painting on the easel. He stared, stared some more, and then walked over to the painting.
Heart pounding, he examined the canvas, and a soft growl rumbled in his chest.
Rebecca shot to her feet, her chair hitting the floor. He turned to see her back up toward the door leading out of the room. He frowned.
“What’s wrong?”
“You…you…growled,” she said.
“You did, Josh,” Kat supplied with a giggle. “Proper growled, like an angry dog.” She laughed again, and he smiled at her.
Kat always pulled him out of whatever mood he was in, and right now, he was thankful for that because Rebecca looked about to turn tail and run, and he needed to keep his shit together long enough to ask her about the picture she’d painted.
The picture of his parents in wolf form, running through the forest.
He pointed to the painting. “What was your inspiration for this? It’s very good.”
It was good, but that wasn’t why he was asking.
She shrugged. “I don’t know. The pictures just…come to me. Almost fully formed, usually. It’s odd. I always get the urge to start a new one after a long night’s sleep, so I’ve wondered if I’ve dreamed my inspiration and then forgotten it. You know?”
No, he didn’t. The depiction of his parents was far too accurate to be mere coincidence. Maybe, though, he was overreacting, and seeing something in it that wasn’t there because Kat wasn’t freaking out about it.
“I’ve been telling Rebecca about our culture, our way of life,” Sally said. “It inspired her to paint her wolf series, didn’t it?”
Rebecca smiled at the girl, and this one was much warmer than the robot smile she’d given him. “Yes, it did, darling. You did. I’ll be honest, when I first arrived here, I was…wary of the shifters, nervous even.”
She turned and spoke to him, gesturing to Sally. “Then I met Sally, and she loved Darcy, and anyone who loves Darcy is a good person in my book.” Rebecca smiled again, and it brightened her face, making her even prettier. “I did some research of my own, and there’s a lot about your culture I like. I was lucky enough to see three shifters in their wolf form…a few months ago now. At least, I assume they were shifters, due to their size. They came bounding out of the woods, just there.”
She crossed to the window and pointed to a place where the trees thinned out as they neared the grass that made up much of her yard.
“I watched them for ages, fascinated. They played, the same way Darcy does if he meets a friend. And then…they were gone. I didn’t get any sleep that night. I stayed up all night painting them. A few weeks later, I woke up, and had inspiration to paint a different scene, with different wolves. It’s been the same ever since. I go a few weeks not painting, then I have a really good night’s sleep, and I wake up with the idea for a new painting scratching at my brain.”
Josh didn’t know what to say. He looked back at the painting and swallowed hard. He wanted to see more of them, but now wasn’t the time. Not with the girls here, and besides, he needed to get Kat home and fed because it had been ages since they’d had breakfast.
“Can I come back and look at some of your paintings?” he asked, and then cringed at his words. It sounded like such a line.
“This is extraordinary,” he said truthfully, pointing at the oil on canvas. “I’d like to see more.”
“Are you going to buy one, Josh?” Kat asked.
“Maybe, sweet pea,” he said. “Would you like one?”
“Yes.” She stared at the painting on the easel. “I think I’d like this one.”
So, she did see it, the resemblance. Maybe his sister didn’t understand it fully, but he was convinced now that the painting called to her on some level.
“Oh, it’s not finished.” Rebecca flushed and fiddled with a lock of hair.
“Is it sold to anyone?” he asked.
“No,” she said.
“Then don’t…sell it, I mean. I might be interested in it. May I come and see more of your work? Or do you have a gallery space you sell in?” He didn’t want her to think he was using her art as an excuse to see her again. He’d be seeing her again alright, but he didn’t need such excuses for that.
“No… I mean I do sell in galleries but mostly in the big cities. I have a few paintings in New York galleries, London, and San Francisco.”
She trailed off and blushed deeper as if she shouldn’t be talking about her work in such a way.
“You’re incredibly talented,” he said, because she was and because as a fellow artist of sorts, he recognized skill when he saw it.
“Josh sells his work in galleries too,” Kat said.
“Oh?” Rebecca’s eyes widened. “Are you an artist too?”
He shook his head. “I make furniture. Wooden furniture, custom pieces.”
> “He’s kind of famous,” Kat said, and he turned to her and sighed.
“Kat, that’s not true.”
“It is,” she insisted. “My brother’s work is on television. His desk is the one used on The Entrepreneur. The one where the contestants have to put their folders of ideas down and the boss man takes them to read? That desk is my brother’s.”
It wasn’t his, not anymore. He’d made it, sold it, and not even realized that a film production company had bought the damn thing. Next thing he knew, the reality TV show they were making became a huge hit, and his desk had achieved a kind of notoriety. Then design magazines had begun to talk about its stark beauty, and its smooth lines, and the richness of the wood. Then they found him, and soon his other pieces were featured in magazines.
After that things went a bit crazy, and soon he was getting orders for custom-made furniture from Hollywood stars, and city financiers alike.
“Wow, I watch that show, and you know, I’ve always thought how beautiful a piece of furniture that desk is.” Rebecca meant the praise, he could somehow sense it.
The realization pulled him up short and reminded him how serious this was. This woman could be his mate.
She was human. This couldn’t be right, could it?
His pack had always maintained that shifter-human matings were wrong.
Josh needed to see more of Rebecca’s paintings. Needed to see more of her, if he were being honest, but right now, he needed some space and a bit of time to think. He imagined she did too; the poor woman looked all hot and bothered and wouldn’t know what was going on. Deciding to give her that space, he bade Rebecca farewell, and said he’d call her with regards to seeing her paintings.
As he left to walk through the fields with his sister and Sally, Josh had the strongest feeling that his life had irrevocably changed.
3
Rebecca
Rebecca didn’t know what to make of the whirlwind of emotions assaulting her.
That man!
She pulled her sweatshirt away from her body in an attempt to cool down.
Why was she such a wreck? She’d met handsome men before.
Something about Josh called to her on a level she didn’t understand. His scent. Oh, Lord, she needed to find out what aftershave he wore because she might get a bottle herself, and sneak sniffs of it every now and again.
She tidied up her living space, and contemplated what to do. For some strange reason, she didn’t feel like working on her painting. Usually once she’d started on them, Rebecca wanted to do nothing but paint until the piece was finished. Tonight though…tonight she wanted to do…nothing…something.
Maybe she ought to go for a run because she had a lot of pent up energy but no discipline to put that energy into anything as careful and meditative as painting.
After tidying, and re-tidying the same room twice, she decided to pour herself a large glass of wine, and take a long soak in the bath.
She filled the tub to the brim, added bubbles, and climbed in with a contented sigh. Her red wine was perched on the side, and she took a sip every now and again. Laying back, Rebecca closed her eyes, and her mind immediately drifted to Josh.
His dark hair, thick and slightly wavy, suited him, as did his close cut, short beard. Or was it technically long scruff? She never knew where stubble ended and a beard began. Then there was his eyes. Oh, those eyes. So beguiling. They were hard at times, but then at others they showed emotion, like when he looked at his sister; Rebecca could see the love he held for her.
They said the eyes were the window to the soul, and really, she should have paid more attention to Nigel’s because they were empty. She’d sometimes caught him when he wasn’t aware of being watched, and his face in repose had looked like a mask. When he wasn’t play-acting the part of being a nice human being, Nigel was simply a void.
She sighed and took a sip of her wine. When she’d first met him, he’d been nice to her. Complimenting her on little things. Noticing odd details that no man had ever noticed before, like her earrings, or her shoes. She realized now that this had been part of his act to draw her in.
Once he had her where he wanted her, the pretense slowly dropped away.
Not wanting to think about him, not tonight of all nights, not when Josh was a much pleasanter topic for her brain to dwell on, Rebecca purposefully pushed Nigel out of her mind. She closed her eyes and instead tried to imagine what Josh’s wolf would look like. She’d be intrigued to see it.
After her bath, she got ready for bed and treated herself to an early night.
Rebecca awoke the next day refreshed and for the first time in a long time without the sense of dread she’d been feeling the last few weeks. she decided that instead of painting all day, she’d walk into town, get a coffee and visit the stores, then return home to paint.
She ate a banana for breakfast, knowing it wasn’t enough but not in the mood for more, and pulled on jeans, running shoes, and a light sweater. Then she brushed her hair, cleaned her teeth, applied a coat of mascara and some lip gloss, and grabbed her purse.
The bag was cotton with a pattern of bright flowers. She wasn’t one for designer bags, or fancy things. She like what she liked, and mostly what she liked was simple, cheerful items that brightened her mood.
She let Darcy out for a pee, and left him curled up in his basket with a toy stuffed full of peanut butter, which would keep him occupied until she returned.
The walk into town took her a fair while, but she enjoyed it, and once there treated herself to a coffee and a slice of cake. Afterward, she headed to the grocery store and stocked up on fresh food. As she dropped a couple of oranges into her basket, she lifted her head and jumped. Right next to her was Storm.
Storm was a human, like her, and they’d chatted a few times. Not enough for Rebecca to say Storm was a friend, but she’d liked her the few times they’d talked.
“Sorry, didn’t mean to make you jump,” Storm said with a smile. “How are you doing?”
“I’m good. Just doing a little shopping.”
“Me too,” Storm replied with a grin. “Going to make a romantic meal tomorrow.”
Rebecca smiled. Storm was mated to Jagger, a wolf shifter. For the first time she wondered what it was like…a human and a wolf. She got the sudden urge to ask Storm a million and one questions, but instead politely replied, “Ah, unlike me.” She held her basket aloft. “Meal for one and some fruit.”
“You ought to come over one night, eat dinner with us.” Storm looked concerned and Rebecca didn’t want her to be. She was fine, just fine, on her own doing her own thing.
She knew though that turning invitations down tended to lead to suggestions for scheduling some vague future date. One you never bothered to follow up on.
“That would be lovely. I’ve got a painting to finish, but maybe after that?”
“Sounds good…unless you want to come tonight You won’t be painting all day and night, surely?”
Damn. She tried to think of an excuse and blurted out, “Oh, I might be actually. I think I have a possible buyer for this painting. Josh…actually I don’t know his last name…he lives here with his sister, Kat. He saw my current work in progress and says he might be interested, so I ought to finish it.”
Why had she gone with that excuse? Why mention Josh, damn it? Her face heated and she glanced around the store, looking for an escape.
“Steele,” Storm said.
“Sorry?”
“His surname, it’s Steele. And good luck with the painting. I hope he likes it.” Storm’s smile was loaded with meaning, and Rebecca wanted to say, it’s not like that, but she knew protesting too much would only make things worse.
She didn’t want to be the subject of gossip.
“Well, I better get going. Be sure to give me a call sometime. If you don’t fancy coming over for supper, we could maybe grab a coffee?” Storm suggested.
“That would be nice,” Rebecca said with much more enthusiasm.<
br />
Coffee she could do. Coffee was casual. Coffee was quick. Not enough time normally for an interrogation. Yes, she much preferred that idea to going to Storm’s house for a meal.
“Okay, see you soon.” Storm waved at her and strolled off down the aisle. She was really pretty, Rebecca thought. She seemed nice too.
Maybe she ought to try to make at least one friend here. She had no one…except for Sally, and really, Sally was Darcy’s friend when it came right down to it.
As she walked back home, she swung her bag, now filled with groceries, and enjoyed the sun on her face. Small things, but to her huge.
There had been a time when she never thought she’d see the sun again, and that wasn’t being melodramatic. She’d spent a long time in the hospital, recovering, getting strong again. Except her mental and emotional recovery had lagged way behind her physical recovery, and now she lived as a virtual recluse.
Some days, she knew her therapist was right, and that she needed to remember, to face what had been done to her, in order to truly heal, but as soon as she tried, the panic came and it was so bad she thought she might die there and then from her heart simply giving in. Terrified she might totally crack up, she’d push it all away, and save it for another day, promising herself that soon, soon, she’d try to recall everything in order to move on.
It came out of course, at night, in the terrible nightmares, the ones she’d wake up screaming from. The weird thing was as soon as she awoke, she couldn’t remember much, if any, of the dream.
Rebecca possessed some memories of the attack, but they were strange, disjointed and unreal in many ways. She’d suffered a mild brain injury during the attack, and the doctors weren’t sure if the lack of memory of the assault was a result of the emotional trauma, or the physical trauma to her brain.
It might even be that she couldn’t remember the full sequence of events, no matter how hard she tried.
Dark Moon Falls: Volume 2 Page 110
