Blackthorne, Fiona - Moonstruck [Blue Moon 1] (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting) (11 page)

She’d give this wild crazy ride with three men a month to play out, and then she’d go back Boston. Maybe this was the universe’s way of telling her that it was okay to get back out on the dating scene again. The guys would probably be glad to see her go. They’d probably be tired of her by then. No, that was a lie. The memory of Robert’s stricken face rang truer than any excuse she could give herself. Well, she had to go back. That was all.

Stretching her arms upward, she breathed in deeply and turned to considering what had happened last night that hadn’t been so mind-blowingly good. Looking at the facts as coolly and impartially as she could, she was still forced to accept that something had made loud knocking sounds around her cottage. It was mainly her interpretation that the knocks had seemed to have some kind of intelligence, but she couldn’t shake the idea that this was closer to being a fact than she liked. She refused to label whatever it was that had caused the noise, though. Calling it a “poltergeist” or a “demon” made her feel silly and less intelligent than she was. It was an unexplained scientific phenomenon. Hmmm. That was a mouthful. Well, she would use the word
demon
as a shortcut.

She pulled over a piece of paper and a pen and made a short list, then decided to get ready and go into town and do a few errands. Maybe she’d grab lunch at the Double Rainbow again.

* * * *

“God, I fucking hate the rain!” she snarled out loud as she slapped through big, muddy puddles to her beat-up old hatchback. The rain pelted her bare hands, soaking her hair and everything else from her knit wool cap to her parka and jeans. Once inside the car, she started the ignition and sat for a minute, waiting for the engine to warm up as the windshield wipers cleared away the dead leaves. She cranked the heater, hoping the old car would make it through another winter in Boston, hell, that it would make it through a month in Maine. She was in no position to buy a new car. Maybe when she finally landed a tenure-track professorship, she’d be able to do something about getting a newer used car, but for now, Mimi the hatchback was all she had.

She stared into the woods as she thought about her financial situation. The forest was a dense weave of grays and browns, with old, tired yellowish greens. What the fuck was that? She gasped and held her breath as she tried to accept what she had just seen.

A dark, opaque figure, as tall as a person, had flitted from behind one tree to another. She knew it wasn’t a human being. Nothing in its movements had been remotely human, not the way it seemed to glide or the quickness with which it darted. If that hadn’t been enough, the figure had been completely dark, like a shadow. A black shadow.

“No, no, no,” Ava muttered, throwing the car into gear and spinning her tires against the mud and wet grass in an effort to get away from the edge of the forest as fast as possible.

Her heart pounding and rigid with panic, she drove helter-skelter down the pitted gravel road to Long Road then careened the entire six miles to Blue Moon’s tiny town center. It was only when she pulled into a parking spot next to the old red General Store that she realized she was shaking. Badly.

She stumbled out of the car and ran through the rain into the store, gasping as she finally found herself safe inside a building with other human beings. Breathing hard, she looked up and realized that everyone in the store was looking at her.

“Uh, hi,” she panted, trying to smile, but pretty sure it came out as a grimace.

“Oh, honey, what happened to you?” asked an older woman with badly bleached hair and leathery skin. She wore a heavy parka and jeans, and she came right over and put her arm around Ava and led her to a stool by the counter, forcing her to sit down.

“I, uh, just had a scare,” Ava replied, dizzy as the adrenaline started to ebb. “You know, driving these roads in the rain and all.”

“Now there’s a damn lie if ever I heard one,” said a tall, heavyset man from behind the counter. He had a shock of pure white hair and a weathered face, and he wore a heavy plaid flannel shirt. Ava studied him blankly, thinking he must have been quite handsome in his youth. He was still pretty darn good looking now. Obviously Blue Moon had one hell of a gene pool.

“Al, get her some coffee,” the woman said. “Honestly! Men. Stand there yapping all day when there’s someone that needs help.”

“I’m getting it, Cookie,” the man replied. “I’m getting to it.”

“I’m Cookie Boyer,” the woman said, smiling at Ava and patting her hand. “That man over there is Big Al, my husband. We own the General Store.”

“Nice to meet you,” Ava said, slowly starting to feel normal again. “I’m Ava—”

“Ava Bell, staying down at the cottage at White Farm.” Cookie laughed. “We all know, honey.”

“Oh.”

“Small town, you know. Besides, anything that happens down at White Farm is pretty damn important to us all.”

“Do you really believe all—”

“Yes, I do, and if you were half as smart as you’re supposed to be on paper, Miss P-H-D, you’d believe it, too.” Cookie’s warmth and smile took the sting out of her words. Ava was reminded of what she had always wanted her mother to be like, confident and solid like this woman.

“Stop scolding her, Cookie,” Big Al said, coming back over with a mug filled with black coffee. “Cream and sugar’s on the counter, Ava. I’ll be right back, now, okay?”

“Thank you,” Ava replied, looking around her. The General Store was smaller than she thought. It was just a little bigger than her cottage. There were three aisles full of food, a small produce case, and a couple of freezer doors along the wall with butter, milk, eggs, and ice cream inside. Along the walls were all kinds of miscellaneous things for sale, from fishing line to duct tape, light bulbs to mousetraps. There was a counter for making sandwiches, cigarettes for sale behind the register, and a few soggy, generic Maine postcards.

She sipped at the coffee as Cookie rang up a customer, a customer who just happened to be an incredibly buff six feet tall with piercing blue eyes and chiseled features.

“Later, Coleman,” Cookie said to the man. “Take care of your brother. We don’t need one of you down for the count with the flu right now.”

The man grinned and held up the bag through which Ava could see a bottle of cold medicine.

“Not likely,” he said. “But if this doesn’t work, I’ll get Doreen to come down and look at him.

“See as you do,” Cookie replied with an affectionate smile. She pinched his cheek and shooed him out.

A wolf howl pierced the patter of the rain, and Ava jumped, nearly spilling her coffee. The howl had sounded like it was right out back of the store! There was another howl, followed by a few yips, and then a minute later, a more distant howl seemed to reply.

“Oh my God,” Ava whispered to Cookie. “There’s a wolf outside! Aren’t you scared with them so close?”

“Nah.” Cookie laughed. “The wolves here don’t do no harm. They’s good folk as take care of us.”

Ava looked at her, not believing what she was hearing.

“This has to be the strangest town I’ve ever seen,” she said. “The whole place believes in an old ghost story, and everyone here thinks the wolves are nice, friendly puppy dogs!”

Cookie gave her a strange look and put her hands on her hips.

“You mean those boys haven’t told you about the wolves yet?” she asked. “The nerve of them! What were they thinking, getting you all twined up with them without telling you first. When I see them, I’m gonna give them a piece of my mind!”

“I get a piece of your mind on a regular basis, Cookie.” Declan Molineaux laughed somewhat breathlessly as he burst through the front door. “If it’s as good as a piece of your blueberry pie, I’ll take it.”

At that moment, Big Al walked back into the store, looking a little flushed and buttoning up his shirt. Ava noticed that he and Declan exchanged a slight nod, as if acknowledging some wordless message between them.

“Declan, something spooked Ava down at the farm just now,” Cookie said, her singsong Downeast Maine accent sounding oddly comforting to Ava’s ears. “Why you ever let her out of your sight when she’s down there is flat beyond me.”

Ava finally allowed herself to look up at Declan, who had come to stand right by her side. Her heart double-flipped as the tension in it eased. He was so heartbreakingly handsome, with his golden eyes that had wind wrinkles in the creases. His smile was wide and warm and bright as he looked down at her.

“You okay, sweetheart?” he said tenderly, wrapping his arms around her and pulling her close to his chest. He bent down and kissed her lightly on the lips, sending tendrils of heat searching through her veins.

“I’m fine,” she replied, shaking her head slightly as if to bring herself back to normal. “I am just fine. I just thought I saw a figure in the woods. It was probably just a trick of the rain or an animal.”

“Don’t lie, Ava,” Big Al said seriously. “Ugly things, lies. Ugly things attract uglier things. Trust me on that one.”

“I can’t say for sure what it was,” Ava said, realizing that telling the truth was probably better at this point anyway for getting more information. “It was tall like a person, but completely dark.”

“In the daylight!” Cookie gasped and looked to Big Al, distress clearly written on her face. “Oh, Al, in the daylight!”

Big Al, on the other hand, was almost smiling. He looked at Declan, who nodded in reply to an unspoken question.

“When you gonna take her to see Grace?” Big Al asked Declan.

“Soon,” he replied. “Very, very soon.”

“Don’t wait too long, boy. Storm’s brewing. We need to be ready.”

“I know,” Declan said.

Ava shivered against him, confusion and worry rising up in her gut at this conversation she felt she half understood. Were they talking about some kind of supernatural showdown? Who was Grace? What was going on?

“Come on, sweetheart,” Declan said. “Let’s go.”

“Where are we going?” Ava asked suspiciously.

“To find some answers.”

“In the rain?”

Declan laughed at the misgiving in her voice. He tugged her hat down lower on her head and touched the tip of her nose.

“You won’t melt.” He chuckled.

“Says you,” she grumbled, getting up and putting down her coffee cup. “Thank you for…for everything,” she added, turning to Cookie and Big Al. He had his burly arm around his wife, who was leaning into him. They smiled at her and nodded.

“Come back anytime,” Cookie said.

“And buy something next time.” Big Al laughed. “I run a store, not a charity.”

Ava giggled as Declan put his arm around her shoulder and led her out into the rain.

“Come on,” he said. “Just across the street to the church.”

“Where’s your car?” she asked, ducking through the rain.

“Oh, I, uh, left it at work.”

“You work nearby?”

“Here we are. Come on, Father Edlow, let the door be open!”

Ava forgot Declan’s dodging of her question as she stepped inside the quaint white church. Long-dormant childhood habits surfaced as she dipped her fingers in the holy water and crossed herself then genuflected. To her surprise, Declan did the same. Then, he led her to a pew close to the front of the empty church and sat down with her.

She looked up at the simple altar. There was a vase of fresh-cut flowers by it, and a beautifully carved wooden crucifix hanging on the wall. Everything was well made and elegant, but nothing was extravagant or ostentatious. It gave her a sense of peace and tranquility. Declan by her side gave her a sense of protection. She looked up at him.

He leaned in and kissed her. His kiss was so soft, almost reverent. Happiness overflowed in her heart to feel such tenderness from a man, a man whose calloused fingers and tough skin proved he knew enough of what was strong and wild to be able to appreciate that which was soft and gentle.