“But I don’t believe in magic,” he told her.
“Don’t you?” she murmured. “I assure you, it exists.”
He laughed suddenly, and she liked the sound. It was deep and rich and full. “A white witch, I hope?”
“Of course,” she replied, grateful that he was following the whimsy of the conversation. She had to get away from him, try to analyze what she had done. Dear God, but what could she do? Rise and say “Excuse me, I think I’ll leave now”? He would never let her leave—like that. And reality told her now that they both had lives to return to; that a man such as this was very experienced; she had probably been one in a multitude who had fallen victim to his touch.
Except I doubt few fell as fast, she told herself scornfully, suddenly ashamed. Still, she had no intention of stupidly saying that she never did such things as she had obviously just done. He didn’t believe in witchcraft—how could she explain that she had been under his spell and that it had just been so beautiful and right?
With her senses returned, she wasn’t even believing the situation herself. But she was lying naked beside a man as splendidly formed as a knight of medieval times and his fingers were still caressing her naked flesh and she was still savoring that touch.
Face it, she had just made love with some jock weight lifter, and where on earth did one go from there, especially when confusion was now her reigning emotion?
He was watching her; those deep hazel eyes were reading her too clearly.
“Was there a reason,” he demanded quietly, “that you shouldn’t have made love with me? A husband? A fiancé?”
“No,” she said with a furious blush. “I mean yes.” Of course there was a reason; she simply didn’t do things like this … remotely like this … and, dear God, now he was really staring at her, assuming from her confused answer that she not only did do things like this but that she was a married woman who did things like this. … “I mean, no, I’m not married. …”
His grin slowly returned as he rose to sit, still eyeing her nakedness possessively. “Good,” he said lightly.
She frowned in sudden horror. “Are you married?”
He laughed again, that throaty sound that sent provocative tingles racing down her spine. “No, witch, I assure you, I’m not married.”
He bent to brush her lips with a kiss. “Believe it or not,” he said ruefully, “I happen to have some wine. Would you like some?”
Her brows lifted in query, and he pointed across the pond to a cooler beneath an oak. “Ah, yes, please,” she murmured. If he went for the wine, she could escape.
But he clutched her hands as he rose and drew her to her feet, cradling her body against his. She shivered again with the electric contact; it was incredible how intensely she could feel him, how his flesh, even now, burned hers, how it made her dizzy, ready to fall against him and accept his touch all over.
“Come on,” he murmured, and he set off toward the water with her hand firmly grasped within his. Totally disoriented simply by the feel of his body against hers, she followed without protest. He was comfortable, completely unselfconscious of his own nakedness. He wouldn’t allow her to be self-conscious of her own … and after the way she had responded to him, it would surely be absurd for her to profess modesty now.
But just before they reached the opposite shore, he swept her into his arms again. And there, in the water that reached her midriff, he made love to her again, and once he touched her, she felt powerless to stop him. His attraction was undeniable; she couldn’t attempt to lie to either him or herself. He turned to take her hand, laughing with the devil in his eyes, and bent to kiss. And then his hands cradled her buttocks, lifting her, and she was once more lost to the delirium of his demanding sensuality.
But when he procured the small splits of wine, she laughingly insisted they return to her side of the shore. And as she employed all her wiles to keep from any serious discussion, she feigned a growing exhaustion, until she once more lay against his massive chest wishing that they could speak seriously, that she could invite him home to dinner, that she could get to know him, that she could have him forever.
But she had a man, a very good and decent man, and if he wasn’t already at the inn, he would be there soon. And even if she didn’t know whether she loved him or not, she could never appear before him suddenly with another man. She owed Marc a certain loyalty.
Loyalty! She laughed bitterly to herself. Loyalty! I have been with a man twice whose name I don’t know, and the only excuse I can come up with is a spell?
Her face flooded red with shame, yet still she couldn’t regret the experience. She had never known passion like that before. It had been destiny they should meet, that she should learn just how rapturously beautiful it could be to be with a man.
She suddenly discovered she was crying as she lay against his chest. How she had needed him. Perhaps that had been part of the spell. And it had all happened so quickly.
With the tears sliding silently down her cheeks, she continued to feign sleep. She felt the subtle change in his chest when he too dozed. I can run now, she thought, but I don’t think I can ever escape this encounter.
Her eyes closed as she rested with him, waiting for his sleep to become deep. But then her wait became her own downfall; comfortable, uniquely secure and sweetly exhausted, she slept. When she awoke, darkness had almost thoroughly descended. Only the moon’s glitter upon the pond shed light.
She was alone; her cloak lay around her shoulders.
She jolted to a sitting position, staring around her. There was nothing, no sign of human habitation other than herself.
Shivering, she strained her eyes across the pond. There was no sign of a man with the naked beauty of a barbarian … no sign of anything.
Mystified, she covered her eyes with her hands and groaned. Was I dreaming? She blushed with the thought; surely it was impossible to dream anything so erotic, so full of thought and detail …?
Or am I seeing things?
I’ve gone crazy. I must have gone crazy.
“Oh, God!” she groaned aloud, clenching her teeth. Which would be better? she wondered bitterly: to convince herself she was losing her mind and envisioning things, or realize and accept the fact that she had just made love with a total stranger?
She began to shake. No, she told herself. He had been real. He had been wearing cutoffs. He had offered her wine in twentieth century splits. No one could imagine, or envision, or dream such an interlude.
Marc would tell her that she was recalling things, emotions from the past, that she had been having insight and adding the contemporary pieces with her mind. Marc was the one who believed in spells and ghosts and strange quirks of the mind. He would tell her that she had dreamed up someone’s tumultuous past.
Marc. The man she was dating. The man she supposedly cared for.
She could never tell Marc about this!
If she had been dreaming, she assured herself, it had been a normal dream—one a psychiatrist might have a heyday with—but otherwise normal.
It was dark. They were supposed to be in Boston by ten, and she was late.
She jumped to her feet, drawing her cloak about her. Even without the moonlight, she would have found the almost invisible path between the trees. She started running.
She stumbled, gasping. Her eyes turned upward; a full moon rode the sky.
Witches’ moon was what they called it.
She choked back a little cry and started running once more through the woods she knew so well.
Soon she reached her home, entering the inn by the rear “false” door and following the hidden staircase, Eleanora’s staircase, to her room. She had barely closed the door behind her and started to run her bath when she heard a gentle tap at the door.
“Serena,” Martha Heyer, her housekeeper, chef, and all-around friend and confidante, called softly. “Marc is here.”
“Thanks, Martha!” Serena called out, willing her teeth not to chatter. �
�Tell him just a few minutes.”
“Sure thing, sweetie,” Martha returned. “But he seems mighty nervous about this dinner. I’d hurry if I were you.”
“I’ll hurry.”
The bath water was running. Serena rushed to her dresser to pull out the black chemise and slip she would wear with the filmy black cocktail dress. Absently she pulled the ribbon of her cloak and it fell to the floor.
She started to move hurriedly away from the dresser when she was suddenly caught by her reflection in the mirror above it.
There was a tiny reddened patch above her left breast, and as she stared at it, she noticed two more, one on her right hip, one on her upper right thigh.
The mirror also reflected her color as she turned rose-red from head to toe. She hadn’t been dreaming; the man had been no apparition. Not unless apparitions had substance.
But she had known she hadn’t been dreaming. Unless she had also dreamed that pleasant male scent that still lingered about her, that feeling of being passionately cherished, deliciously loved.
She tore away from the mirror and hurriedly plunged into the bath. But she bit her lip furiously as she hesitated before purging her flesh thoroughly with her own rosewood soap.
And she had to stop and remind herself that time was of the essence as she found herself staring out the skylight and noticing once more that a full moon rode the heavens.
A witches’ moon.
CHAPTER ONE
THE HIGHWAY HAD BECOME a continuous ribbon of gray and black. Justin blinked, trying to dispel the illusion. A bead of perspiration dripped from a dark thick brow into his eye, and he blinked furiously once more, then sighed. He hadn’t planned to stop until he reached the town and the guesthouse, but he had no suicidal tendencies nor did he intend his own tired driving to possibly injure another person. Besides, his long legs seemed cramped as all hell, and despite the air conditioning blasting through the small sports car, the July sun was creating an uncomfortable heat.
He pulled off the road, cut the engine, and immediately stepped out of the driver’s side to stretch his cramped limbs.
Hands on hips he viewed his surroundings. He stood on an embankment of high grass beside that endless ribbon of highway. He had been driving without a stop, except to fill the gas tank, since he had left New York City, and now he had begun to succumb to road mesmerization.
Actually, he thought with a deep, throaty chuckle that startled a few birds from the trees, he couldn’t be more than a few miles from his destination—Salem. If he had just been able to hold out a few minutes more.
No, it felt too good to be out of the car, and the forestry that surrounded the road on either side seemed to lend a certain coolness to the oppressive July heat. And hell, there was no fire he had to get to. He was his own boss and therefore had all the time in the world. He shrugged a little ruefully to himself. The city had taught him to hurry; life was high-speed, spiral gear. And he had to admit he was a perfect candidate for the pace of the city. He was a bit of a workaholic—and when he wasn’t working, he was still going, moving, doing.
Justin stretched once more and started to fold his legs back into the confines of the car, but then hesitated. His deep hazel eyes were caught by the movement and rustle of the maple and oak trees that grew densely along the side of the road. A breeze was lilting through the branches, and the gentle sway of the foliage was as mesmerizing as the road. A crooked grin split the strong line of his jaw. The eyes that had appeared so deep and intense were suddenly lit with a twinkling brilliance as he laughed at himself. I’m being compelled by those trees, he thought with a grimace. No, not by the trees, but by a need to relax, to feel the breeze or the touch of a leaf.
He had been driving barefoot; he reached into the car for a pair of leather sandals, then slammed the door shut and locked as he balanced himself with a hand on the roof of the car while he slid his feet into the sandals. Whistling softly, he strode around to the trunk, inserted the key, and popped it open to secure a small Playmate cooler. Then he started toward the trees and the certain area that had especially attracted his attention—a break in the trees that indicated a small footpath.
The trail was overgrown, obviously no longer still in use. It was cool beneath the sheltering leaves, and he could smell the earth and the greenery. There had to be a lake or lagoon within the forestry, he thought, to give the area its intensely fresh and crisp feeling despite the summer heat. Good place to jog, he thought almost mechanically, glad he had stopped driving because he would certainly return.
He followed the break in the trees, and as he had expected, the clearing portrayed a body of water, still and clear, reflecting the sun with a crystal brilliance like a bed of sparkling diamonds. His footsteps quickened until he reached the end of the trees, then he slowed, appreciating the view of the water and the tall grasses that grew to its edge, giving way to soft, sandy dirt. The breeze stirred suddenly, causing the grass to bend and dip as if in supplication, and seeming to kiss his forehead with coolness while lifting a thatch of dark hair from his brow. He dropped the cooler beside a tree and stripped his knit kelly sport shirt over his head to relish the coolness against a broad, heavily muscled chest. Then, like a kid at a watering hole, he whooped out a joyous cry and pelted into the water, sinewed calves and rock-hard thighs moving him at a wild, breakneck pace.
The water was actually cold. It hit his flesh with a delightful shock, and he swam steadily through it. Reaching the middle, he doubled and headed toward the bottom—it was no more than twenty-five feet deep—and was surprised and pleased to discover nothing but rocks or sand. No beer or soda cans—not even an old boot. The small pond was as clean and natural as the foliage that harbored it.
Minutes later he swam back to the shore, shivering slightly as the air hit his flesh, but loving the sensation. After all the heat, it was wonderful.
He walked a few feet from the water to sit beneath the tree that sheltered his cooler, He grimaced as his wallet creaked beneath him—he had forgotten he carried it in the back pocket of his cutoffs. He half rose, pulled out his wallet and a few waterlogged bills, and set them beside him on a large flat rock that seemed to be attracting a few rays of the sunshine that filtered through the trees. Then he dug a beer out of the cooler, popped it open, and leaned back against the trunk of the tree. Damn, but it felt good to be alone. It felt especially good to be away from Denise.
He winced and closed his eyes at the unbidden thought. There wasn’t a thing wrong with Denise. She was beautiful, sophisticated, intelligent—and one hell of a determined lover. A little too determined, he thought with a frown, bothered that he should be feeling any guilt. He had told her from the beginning that he didn’t believe in marriage and was essentially a loner. And Denise, liberated woman that she claimed to be, assured him that she certainly didn’t intend to marry either—why would she want to become some man’s maid?
But she seemed a little too fond of his position, of the prestige that came with each of his acclaimed books.
Face it, Justin told himself with a certain amount of disgust, you’re here just as much because of Denise as because of any desire to do thorough research.
Not just Denise, but my entire lifestyle.
Denise was so fond of the things he was coming to wish he could avoid. She loved the faculty lunches, the dinners, the cocktail parties. And she adored autograph parties. She was so gracious … so gracious that he was sometimes sure that he could see the wheels of her mind turning within the emerald glitter of her eyes. Predatory eyes. She was a brilliant and cunning woman, certain that in claiming her own freedom, she would eventually bring him around to where he believed he needed her.
He lifted his beer can to the powder-blue sky and the liquid brilliance of the sun. “Keep shining like that,” he assured the golden orb, “and you will convince me that I’m a country boy at heart!”
He dated other women, and he didn’t hide the fact from Denise. She allowed him that freedom too, and
that was a little of what bothered him. She should have been perfect: she was the toast of all his friends, and despite his wandering ways, he was well aware that she remained loyal. That too bothered him. It was all so calculated. No real emotion. Like he sometimes felt about her lovemaking. Well-planned, well-practiced mechanics. Anything to please.
He shrugged and sipped his beer. Maybe he should marry her. He could settle down and have two point five children and vacation on the Riviera every year. He was assured the presidency of the university in another ten years. Denise would never run to fat—she was too egotistical ever to do so. She would always be perfect, his house neat as a pin, his two point five children would wear clothing without a dot of dirt or hint of a wrinkle. Surely a man could meet a fate far worse than that.
No. He had been married before. For all of two years. To a woman just as beautiful and just as perfect. And from that relationship had come one good thing, a daughter who spent exactly one month with him every year, and then every other Christmas vacation.
It wasn’t that he didn’t believe in love, he simply didn’t believe in love lasting. It began so beautifully, but time made caricatures of love; it became contorted, buried beneath jealousy, spite, and all those other things that raised their ugly heads as disagreements mounted steadily to shouting matches.
He finished his beer and smiled to himself. Nine out of ten times he blamed himself for the problems in his relationships. He was a man who needed space as well as being someone who didn’t really know how to give. Mary and he had been a disaster from the start. They had married out of high school because she had been pregnant—ironically, she had lost the baby. The relationship had been shaky; but she had gotten pregnant again right away, and he had been bound to stay, bound to try. But the daughter who should have strengthened their love merely became a pathetic pawn in the shouting matches. Money had been their basic problem. He had been a struggling student himself in those days. And there had been a few too many older men around to take Mary to dinner when he couldn’t or when he was studying. Maybe, he told himself, he had never forgiven her for accepting those invitations behind his back, for turning “dinners” into affairs.
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