Bound By Desire (The Acadian Curse) (6 page)

“It’s not what you think,” Sarah said.

“Oh, yeah? Because it sure looked like
something from where I was standing.”

Sarah fiddled with the knob on the radio, but
Linda slapped her hand away and clicked it off. There was no way
she was getting out of this without an explanation.

“There were problems with the birth last
night. I got stuck out there and spent the night. He let me use his
shower this morning.” All of it was technically true. She’d jut
left out the parts that Linda would never believe, and the parts
she would be embarrassed to admit.

“I saw the way you were looking at each
other, like a pair of hungry bobcats.”

“What am I supposed to say? Grant’s an
attractive man.”

“Yes.
Grant
is.”

Sarah sighed. There was no stopping this now.
She could only hope to stem the damage.

“Listen, don’t go around telling every one
about this. I’m sure it would upset my father.”

“Are you kidding me,” Linda’s hearty laugh
filled the cab. “You getting your hooks into the most eligible
rancher in the county? Your father will be as pleased as puppy
that’s gotten into the larder.”

He should have never agreed to see her again.
He should have said no. Absolutely not. Even a simple shake of his
head would have sufficed.

The thought tormented him all day. It was
there as he looked into the amused expressions of the ranch hands
that were not accustomed to seeing women leaving his house early in
the morning. It was there later in the day as he drove into town
for groceries. It grew stronger at as he caught the buzz of
whispers as he walked down the aisles of the supermarket.

Grant knew how it went. He’d lived in a town
as small as Rutledge his whole life. Though they’d never admit it,
these people lived for gossip, and Linda Reed had the biggest mouth
around. It probably had only taken the story a couple of hours to
spread through town. He’d expected nothing less. Their stares
didn’t bother him.

But they did keep bringing to mind the reason
for all the attention. He couldn’t push away the memory of her. The
feel of her skin, soft and warm under his palm. The taste of her
lips. The fire it built in his blood.

He fought against the tension that began to
coil in his groin. The memories spiraled out of control inside him.
The sight of her lips wrapped around his cock. The heat of her
mouth. The hungry look in her eyes as she looked up at him from her
knees. How was he expected to say no to her with those were
thoughts buzzing in his head?

Dear god, he had to get a handle on
himself.

It wasn’t as if he had gone months without a
woman. He’d had plenty of hookups over the last couple of years.
Usually he would drive out to Red Bluff or Chico during the middle
of the moon’s cycle. He’d never had any trouble finding someone
else whose itch was in need of scratching. Nothing that had lasted
past a single night. Nothing that could come back to haunt him.

He could have used a drink, but he would
never risk it. The curse was always close on moon nights, barely
contained beneath the surface. He took what precautions he could.
He kept to a strict schedule and watched the clock like a hawk.
There were no unplanned stops, no diversions, absolutely nothing
that might let his guard slip.

Sometimes it wasn’t enough. He could see
through the creature’s eyes, feel through his skin. Colors were
brighter, textures more intense. He battled for control, but every
so often his restraint would slip. Like it did this morning.

He should have known better than to let her
into his house. Hell, he
did
know better. He could feel the
creature under his skin, all of his primal desire clawing its way
to the surface as he listened to her shower. The image of her wet,
naked body hung in his mind, taunting him. He’d curled his hands
into the countertop, determined not give into the growing impulse
to burst into his bathroom and have her right there against the
tiled wall.

Somehow he had been able to resist. But when
she’d admitted her desires in the kitchen and insisted on touching
him, the last of his resolve had shattered.

He’d never been so happy in all his life to
get an unexpected visit from Linda Reed. He couldn’t care less how
much she gossiped about finding Dr. McIntire—Sarah—at his place.
Tongues could wag until they cramped. He knew what had happened,
and more importantly, what hadn’t happened between them. Sarah was
still safe from him.

For the moment.

For always.

He knew well enough what she’d meant when
she’d talked about continuing their conversation later. She planned
on coming back.

Grant tightened his grip on the shopping cart
and pretended not to notice the long stare old Mrs. Johansen gave
him as he passed her in front of the butcher counter.

Well, if Sarah showed up tonight—and he felt
it right down to the depths of his soul that she would—he would
just force her turn her father’s old truck around. He’d do it at
the end of his shotgun if need be.

That was that.

So why the hell did he find himself reaching
for a pack of two steaks when all he needed was one.

Sarah expected trouble as she pulled into the
circular driveway in front of the old Andersen place that
evening.

No, not the Anderson place. She didn’t care
what that sign down by the highway said. It was Grant’s ranch
now.

She hit the brakes, popped the long gearshift
free and set the emergency brake. She straightened her back as she
waited for the dust cloud to crest over the car and dissipate. She
could just make out the Grant’s tall form standing on the
porch.

Her heart sped a little at the sight of him.
His arms were propped out before him on the wood railing. He was
waiting for her.

Of course he was. She’d expected trouble
coming here tonight. That was why she’d brought ammunition.

Sarah grabbed the brown paper bag at her side
and swung open the door.

“You drive too damn fast,” he said before her
feet even hit the dirt.

Sarah shrugged. “I’m usually in a hurry.”

“Don’t you have a car of your own?” He came
down onto the step, but kept a hand on the post.

“I do,” she said. She dismissed his curt
tone. “But it's no good on these roads. Besides, I kind of like
this old truck. I learned how to drive in it."

“It's old,” he said.

Sarah’s eyes went wide as she arched her
brows. A little laugh sputtered out from between her lips.

“I didn't mean….”

“Good thing, or I might be tempted not to
share this with you,” she said, raising the bag in her right
hand.

“Is that from Maggie’s?”

Sarah nodded and risked stepping up on the
first stair. He didn’t stop her, even though she could tell a part
of him wanted to.

“What kind is it?” he asked.

“Peach. Peace Offering Peach, I suppose,”
Sarah said with a smile. He stared at her, silent. She let her eyes
fall to the thick oak plank beneath her feet. A flush of
embarrassment started to burn her cheeks. “Come on. You’re not
going to leave me out here to eat this whole thing by myself are
you? Because I am totally capable of doing just that.”

The war within him was clear on his face, and
Sarah knew it had nothing to do with the contents of the paper bag.
Maggie’s pies were good, legendary even, but they wouldn’t make a
man question his most deeply held beliefs.

And that was exactly what she was asking
Grant to do. She knew it. She’d wrestled with her conscience all
day. Was it nothing more than selfishness and the promise of
pleasure that had her craving to see him again? Maybe. But if it
was solely that Sarah could have resisted. She wouldn’t have been
happy about it, but she would have stayed home tonight. She had no
right to put her own desires above another person’s welfare.

But no matter she tried, she couldn’t
convince herself that Grant was acting in his own best interest.
She had no doubt he
thought
that he was. He thought he
needed to be chained to wall in order to keep everyone else safe.
And from the sound of the gossip around the office that day—and
there had been plenty of it—his life wasn’t any better during the
other twenty-eight days of the month. He hardly went out at night.
No one had ever seen him out with anyone. And, while everyone made
certain that Sarah knew what a nice guy they all thought he was, he
hadn’t made a single close friend in the three years he’d been in
town.

He wasn’t just hiding himself away on the
nights that he changed. He was hiding from life. All because he
thought he was a monster.

He wasn’t. Sarah believed that down to the
bone. She’d stared into the eyes of both the man and his demon and
had found no evil there. Intensity? Yes. Potency? Ferocity? Without
a doubt. But not malice.

She’d been the only one to have the chance to
see both sides of him, and Sarah had no doubt that, if Grant had
his way, she would be the last. She was the only one who could
change his mind about what he was. She was the only one who could
show him that this
curse
wasn’t as terrible as he believed,
and that wonderful things could come out of the power within
him.

As she saw it, she had two choices. She could
either come out here and try to prove that to him, or she could
walk away and leave him to his misery.

The answer had never been in doubt. Sarah
McIntire was her father’s daughter after all.

So she’d come up with a plan, flimsy and
feeble as it was. She would have to arrive at the perfect time. Too
early and he’d have time to think better of letting her stay. Too
late and he’d probably already be locked away for the night. She’d
been able to wait until seven o’clock to leave the office before
her nerves got the best of her, but, even then, the sun still
seemed pretty far from the horizon. She decided to stop by Maggie’s
shop to waste a little more time. Besides, she figured fresh baked
pie had never hurt anyone’s cause.

The way Grant was staring at that bag now, as
though either the means for redemption or damnation of his soul
rested inside it, made Sarah think that she’d timed it just
right.

She risked another step. He looked up at her
face. He didn’t need to say a word to stop her. His body was tense
and still. The strange light was back in his eyes, rising and
falling, growing then fading. Both sides of him were struggling for
control, the same way they had the night before. Right now, it
looked like a draw.

For half a second, Sarah doubted her own
resolve. She glanced westward. The sun’s edge was just barely
touching the mountain line. It was now or never.

“Let me inside, Grant. Please.”

He stared at her, hard. His lips were pressed
together so tightly that they had almost disappeared.

Sarah slowly rose up the last two stairs. He
made no move toward her or away. She lifted her hand and wiped away
the sweat that had begun to bead on his brow.

“Please,” she repeated.

Sarah leaned in closer and brushed her lips
against his. That was it. She wouldn’t push him any farther.

There was more than a hint of glittering
emerald in his stare when she pulled away.

“Are you sure you want this?” His voice was
thick and rough. She wasn’t sure which part of him was asking. It
didn’t matter. They were both him.

Sarah swallowed past the quickly swelling
lump in her throat and nodded. It was her hands that were trembling
now.

“Then come with me.”

Before we both change our minds.
He
stared at her, almost apologetically, before he turned and strode
inside. Sarah followed. She set the pie down on the foyer table and
locked the front door behind her. Grant was obviously past thinking
about such trivialities. He was already halfway down the hall. The
thin fabric of his T-shirt was now stretched so tight that she
could see each muscle in his back working underneath as he
walked.

He threw open a door next to the kitchen and
disappeared through it. Sarah sucked in a breath through her
clenched teeth. She looked down at her hand. It was still wrapped
around the cold metal doorknob. Apparently, she wasn’t as sure
about this as she’d thought.

But she was committed.

“In for a penny…” she whispered to herself
before she let go of her last chance of escape and raced to catch
up.

A flight of stairs led down to a basement.
Below, another door—this one thick, dull steel—hung open. Beyond
it, Sarah could make out bare walls bathed in a fluorescent
glow.

Her legs felt shaky as she took the first
step, and it wasn’t just from excitement. Sarah hated basements,
always had. In her mind they were always dank, dark holes in the
ground, just like the one her grandmother had had. Her rational
mind knew that Grant’s wouldn’t be anything like the rotted wood
and flickering bulb basement of her childhood, but it didn’t
matter. There would still be monsters hiding in the corners, only
this time they wouldn’t only be in her imagination.

“The door will shut in thirty seconds. Once
it’s locked, it won’t open until dawn.” A deep voice carried up
from the bottom. Grant’s voice was changing quickly now.

The time for thinking was over.

Sarah hurried down the rest of the basement
stairs. Her feet moved deftly despite the weakness that had set up
in her knees. She didn’t stop running until she was in the center
of the room.

The bunker he had created beneath his house
was every bit as stark as she imagined it would be. It was smaller
than she envisioned though, not more than a ten by ten foot square.
The walls were the same dull steel of the door. The only concession
to comfort was a thin beige carpet covering the floor. The light
came from a single industrial-looking fixture adhered to the
ceiling. A simple folding table and chair were pushed against the
far wall. On top of the table there was a pile of neatly folded
blankets and a couple bottles of water.