Seduced by the Moon

by Linda Thomas-Sundstrom

  She kept wondering, as she had for several nights now, if madness might be contagious, because the answer to that particular question seemed more important after today’s events. Although she supposed true madness defied the use of logic and reasoning, her brain now hurt.

  She refused to link her father to that building behind Tom’s house. It just wasn’t possible.

  When they reached the cabin, she got out first, walked up the steps and turned at the door. “You never got that lemonade.”

  From a few paces behind her, Gavin said, “Don’t you think we’re going to need something stronger?”

  She gestured him inside. “You’re in luck. No self-respecting Irishman with a name like Donovan would fail to know how to stock a bar.”

  “Funny,” Gavin said, pausing on the threshold with a glance in the direction of the bedroom. “I didn’t put Donovan and Irish together until you mentioned it.”

  “Yes, well, we don’t really know much about each other, do we? Other than how well our bodies fit together.”

  Skylar headed for the kitchen, vowing to keep as far away from the bedroom as possible until they did find out some things. She honestly wanted to know more about the man in her front room, even though her body needed more of what he had to offer.

  Before this she’d thought of Gavin as a distraction to keep her mind off her father’s death and off those exotic dreams about a creature on the hillside. She wasn’t sure when that changed, but it had, probably due to Gavin’s gallant impulse to protect her from whatever danger he perceived in these mountains.

  That, and the incredible sex.

  They might have become lovers for the wrong reasons, but did that have to stand in the way of getting to know him better now?

  Gavin was at the window when she returned with glasses and a bottle of whiskey. She felt his reluctance to deal with the things needing to be said.

  “What are you always looking for out there?” she asked.

  “It’s habit. My job is to watch for things out of the ordinary.”

  She handed him a glass when he turned. “Well then, maybe you can fill in a few missing details for me.”

  She moved the gun from the chair to the table so that he could sit down if he wanted to. With their attention on that gun, and the silver-bullet issue hanging over them like a dark cloud, Skylar went on. “My first question for you, in what will be a lengthy interrogation, is this—why are you drinking while on duty?”

  She hoped her weak smile might break the ice, and watched some of his tension ease. Obviously, he’d expected a more serious discussion after everything that had happened in the past several hours. She was saving that.

  “Just a swig to calm the nerves,” he said. “I’ve never really developed an appreciation for this stuff.”

  “Neither have I.” Skylar poured the amber liquid into their glasses. “But what was in that shed would get to anyone.”

  His nod of agreement caused strands of his hair to fall forward, curtaining his angular cheeks, adding a rugged air to his chiseled beauty that made Skylar’s breath catch in her throat.

  She knew his outline. She had seen it before, and not just in the motel. In her dreams, the being she had the hots for wasn’t merely a man. Was Gavin Harris actually more than he seemed, or had she gone off the deep end again to even consider such a question?

  He studied her as if he were attempting to see where this benign conversation might be going. She dared to say what was on her mind, gripping the glass so tightly she feared it might crack. “The moon is full tonight.”

  His eyes were riveted to hers.

  “Will you be going after the wolf we heard out there? Does more light mean that you might actually be able to find it?”

  Without waiting for his reply, Skylar poured a few more drops of whiskey into their glasses, needing something to do with her hands. She took a swig and made a face as the burn slid down her throat.

  “Everything comes back to one word—wolf,” she said. “You told me last night that the wolf out there on the mountain is a special wolf.”

  Gavin set his glass on the table, breaking eye contact. “It’s a dangerous one, yes.”

  “Earlier, after discovering a horrible scene at a neighboring house, what came to your mind was again the word wolf. Did my father believe in werewolves, you asked. Am I to ignore the connection between those words, or that you brought them up?”

  Tiny movements in the muscles of Gavin’s forearms took her attention there, to the smooth bareness exposed by his rolled-up cuffs. She’d had her tongue on that skin in the night, and he had believed in returning the favor in kind. His mouth had traveled over every inch of her, bringing out far more in her than just shivers of delight.

  Steel willpower kept her from looking to the bedroom doorway now.

  “Please, Gavin. What have wolves got to do with any of this?”

  Why, in my dreams, are you there?

  Gavin moved to stand beside her. Taking the glass from her hands, he spoke with his mouth inches from hers. The delicious warmth of his breath raised her pulse and increased her anxiousness.

  “We’re speculating about the wolf,” he said. “And I’ll admit to being unable to think when I’m this close to you. All I want to do is take you inside that bedroom, Skylar. You’re like an obsession, or a very bad craving. But I’ll warn you now that you probably don’t want to get to know me any better than you already do because I’m not permanent relationship material. I’m involved with the danger around here, and I seek it out. Today, and especially tonight after the sun goes down, I’ll be absent. I can’t protect you if you stay in this cabin.”

  His words were like a spray of those damn silver bullets. He felt the same as she did and craved her the way she craved him, yet he’d just clarified his position on having a relationship without answering her questions.

  “Protect me from what?” she pressed. “What do you think is out there that might hurt me?”

  Her heart sputtered when she looked into the eyes of the man who had freed her from old hang-ups and taboos. Even with all the strange things going on, she’d have passed up necessary information for one touch of his hand on her bare back, and for that hand to render her mindless.

  She saw that same wish mirrored in Gavin’s blue eyes, expressive eyes that were flecked with gold, wide-open, and told her how much he hungered for her.

  Maybe she was in need of both wildness and safety at the same time. Yet Gavin was the one who had been watching the cabin, and admitted as much. Had her dreams been some sort of precognition about meeting the kind of man she needed in order to be the woman she wanted to be?

  Or was something more mystifying going on?

  Could dreams affect reality? Be her reality?

  His breath on her face stirred her inner restlessness. His nearness fed the wildness aching to be released. There was no way to explain how badly she wanted to be satiated, moved, licked and loved by this man. In just two days, life had become so much more interesting and complicated.

  But the word wolf stood between them. And something felt off, if only by a fraction.

  Blowing out the breath she’d been holding, Skylar grabbed hold of Gavin’s shirt. “Tell me,” she whispered. “Tell me why you were watching this cabin, and why you walked into my yard.”

  “Skylar…” He tried to interrupt. Maybe he wasn’t able to follow her thread of thought.

  Any minute now she would have to confess that she’d conjured him up out of the stuff of her dreams.

  I have to be sure, don’t you see?

  “How do I know you’re you, and not some kind of…” She didn’t finish the statement. Wasn’t able to. She knew how it would sound.

  “We don’t have time for this,” he protested, his breath mingling with her breath, his lips touching hers when he spoke. “I’m not sure what you’re asking.”

  “I’m asking for the truth and for a starting point that might explain all of this.”

&nbs
p; “Are you talking about what happened at Tom’s?”

  “That, and more. This. You and me.” She lowered her voice. “And the wolves.”

  He blinked and set his jaw. Skylar’s next thought, as she closed her eyes, was to hope she wasn’t dreaming now. Because that would mean the man beside her wasn’t real and that she hadn’t yet woken from sleep.

  “I’ve never been crazy,” she whispered to Gavin as she reached for the buttons on his clean, pressed shirt. “But I feel crazy now.”

  He didn’t protest when she placed her palms against the fabric covering his chest. His skin felt hot through the cotton and pulsed with a heartbeat as hard and fast as hers.

  “Please prove me wrong,” she said, expecting him to tear himself from her grasp and run the other away. It’s what most men might have done. Danny had.

  Gavin’s hair brushed her cheek when he shook his head. The dark strands felt like satin.

  “I’m trying to understand. I’m sorry,” he said. But he remained close.

  “Werewolves,” Skylar whispered. “Tell me why you brought them up.”

  Her emotions were running rampant. She needed an outlet. Giving in to the lure of his mouth, Skylar pressed her lips to his, finding solace in his taste and his heat. She felt Gavin fight his need to join her on the floor. But another blistering round of sex wouldn’t solve anything in the end, and only postpone the answers to these same questions.

  Hell, was she awake now?

  Her hands glided over Gavin’s incredibly taut stomach. She backed up a few inches. “My father had secrets, and I’m asking if you do, too. I need to know if you’re part of my father’s hidden world, my dream world, or if we’re all merely insane.”

  She paused for a breath. Her hands stopped moving.

  He didn’t speak, either to explain or condemn, and he didn’t touch her back.

  She went for broke. “I see you in my dreams. I think I hear you call to me at night. I feel you near me, even when you’re not. You’ve been haunting me since I arrived, when that was ridiculous because I hadn’t yet met you.”

  The man beside her continued to stare, showing no reaction to what might have been the ravings of a madwoman.

  She rushed on. “That cage had heavy silver-coated bars. You questioned my possession of silver bullets and asked if I knew what they were for. You’re thinking that my father may have trapped a wolf in that shed, in that cage, and that it might have been a mythical beast. And because he may have tortured it and the cage is now empty, that animal is not only angry, but could be out there somewhere, loose.”

  She had one last thing to add, one more long-winded thing to say.

  “I might be completely out of line and in need of treatment at the hospital where my dad worked because I’ll dare to tell you right now that if that cage held some kind of super wolf of the type you called ‘special,’ and if you can imagine how it might react to being caged, then you’ll understand why I’m beginning to believe that same beast might have killed my father.”

  She took in a much-needed breath. “And because I might believe that, you must understand why I can’t be sure that any of this, including what you and I have done, is more than a fraying filament of my imagination.”

  Gavin’s eyes danced with bright golden flames as he leaned back with his gaze locked to hers. Slowly he began to unbutton his shirt. Pulling the edges open, he let her see all of him from his chest to his belt.

  “This is me,” he said. “Take a look, Skylar.”

  His chest was wide. His abs were magnificently muscled. Yet he wasn’t perfect, and maybe that’s why he’d wanted to make love to her in the dark.

  Crisscrossing his flesh, stretching from a spot above his heart to his third rib, ran two parallel scars: thick white jagged lines that looked as though they’d been drawn by a child with a marker.

  Skylar looked up again to meet his eyes.

  “Danger comes with the job, and I’ve had my share,” he said. “This is what I’ve been warning you about.”

  The injuries were close to his heart. The scars didn’t ruin his perfection, though; they served to bring more attention to the tight golden skin surrounding them.

  Dear God, what kind of madness had she let Gavin see?

  “Who did this to you?”

  “I fought off a wolf,” he replied.

  No. Her voice sounded faint. “That’s why you’re going after it.”

  “That’s the reason, yes.”

  Special wolf. That was his special wolf. Not anything sinister. Just an animal.

  “You think it’s out there now?” she asked.

  “There aren’t many wolves around, so there’s a good chance it’s the one I’ve been tracking.”

  He’d been hurt badly, and she’d made him expose that. Skylar wanted to look away, give him space, but didn’t. Couldn’t. He was so damn beautiful, so masculine and sculpted. This was the body she’d shared herself with last night, and she wanted to do the same now.

  She swallowed hard. “Could my father have been killed while chasing that wolf?”

  “I didn’t know your father or the circumstances surrounding his death. But I do know that once an animal has tasted human flesh and gotten away with it, that animal has to be found and put down.”

  “Because it will go after someone else?”

  “Usually it will.”

  Skylar let that sink in. Old questions resurfaced, but with a new focus.

  “Hypothetically, if a wolf had been kept in the cage in that room and gotten loose, would it be smart enough to want to go after humans? Any humans, and not only the one who caged it there?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe,” he said.

  She had answers. Some answers, anyway.

  She touched the scars gently, and felt his skin quiver. “Does it hurt?”

  “Not anymore,” he said, watching her fingers move over him.

  Skylar knew he was lying without truly knowing how. With her hand on his bare skin, their bond solidified. By making love and succumbing to their night of passion, they truly had united on an inexplicably deep level.

  In her defense, who wouldn’t assume that a connection this deep and sudden must be make-believe?

  “Somehow,” she said, removing her hands, “the scars suit you.”

  He pulled his shirt closed. “I have to go now. I have to check in.”

  He had to leave, and she’d have to let him go. Enough truth had been exposed for one day.

  Gavin didn’t want to talk about being mauled by a wild animal, and she couldn’t make him. Nor could she divulge more of her father’s secrets, not when she didn’t know what those secrets were.

  Neither of them was ready to confront the uncanny sense of being fully connected to each other. They were, in essence, still strangers on one level, and yet so much more on another.

  And Gavin, just five minutes ago, had made it plain that he wasn’t in the market for a serious relationship.

  When he turned for the door, she followed him into the yard. The sun was only slightly past its highest point in the sky, so there were plenty of hours to fill before sundown.

  He stopped by the gate before swinging it open, looking every bit the handsomely rugged ranger whose presence tugged at her body and her soul.

  “Will you take that motel room again tonight, Skylar, if I ask you to?”

  “I shouldn’t expect you to visit me there?”

  “Not tonight.”

  He sounded regretful about that. So was she.

  “A full moon makes animals more restless,” he added. “Hopefully I’ll find the one I’ve been searching for.”

  His sad smile melted Skylar’s heart. She wondered what lay behind the expression, if it was a memory of the terrible hurt he must have endured from that animal. Or was it his reaction to the way she’d come unglued in front of him?

  “Will you do it, Skylar? Go to town? Stay safe?” He issued the request in that velvety voice she already knew so well,
the voice that heated her skin and fevered her insides.

  “Yes. I’ll go,” she lied, hoping he believed her.

  Chapter 15

  “I’ve been calling you and am now approaching frantic mode,” Trish said when Skylar checked her messages, all ten of them. “If you don’t call me back right away, I’m calling the Colorado authorities and booking a flight.”

  Curled up in the corner of the couch, Skylar punched in her sister’s number, hoping her voice would sound normal enough to prevent Trish from making good on either of those threats.

  “I’m here, healthy and…” she said when Trish picked up. She had been about to add sound of mind to that checklist, when that was pretty far from the truth.

  “It’s about time,” Trish shouted. “Where the heck have you been?”

  “The power went out last night. I spent the night at a motel in town and just got back.”

  “That motel doesn’t have a phone?”

  “I’m sorry, Trish. I really am. Things happened so fast, I didn’t think to call.”

  “What other things?”

  “Everyone here is busy tracking some kind of rogue animal. One of the local rangers came by last night to suggest that with no lights here I might be better off in town.”

  “Well, glad to hear you exhibited some sense.” Trish lowered her voice. “Did you show the ranger the gun you found?”

  “As a matter of fact, I did. But they want to capture the animal, not shoot it dead.”

  “Did they get it?”

  “I don’t believe they did. I haven’t heard about it if they have, anyway.”

  Silence.

  “What kind of animal is it?” Trish eventually asked.

  “Some kind of wolf.”

  “Well, thank God it isn’t a bear. Does Colorado have grizzlies?”

  “I really don’t know,” Skylar replied. “In any case, I don’t venture far from the yard, except when I have to.”

  That should just about cover it, Skylar thought. Out-and-out lies had a habit of multiplying.

  “Is the power back on?” Trish asked, evidently satisfied with the story for the time being.