My Heart's Passion (2 page)

Her back still ached from all the driving, but at least her eyes had adjusted to the beauty of the woods and felt slightly less gritty. Reluctantly, she admitted to herself she would a) freeze to death and b) be eaten alive by bugs if she simply lay down in this beautiful woodland area and fell asleep.

Deciding to try and remember the placement of this beautiful spot to revisit later, Chloe began to turn back to her car when she caught the white glow of another human. Startled, Chloe stopped. Thinking it must be another person, maybe lost in the woods, she was about to call out and offer help, when the man turned around and she recognized who it was.

Samuel
.

He was so handsome it was hard to catch her breath for a moment. His chest was bare, giving off a pale glow from the reflected moonlight. Even though he had a light tan, in the silvery moonlight he looked ghostlike, pale. Her mouth dried up, and Chloe couldn’t move her eyes, even when he began to unbuckle and remove his jeans.

Her lust-numbed mind briefly wondered why the hell he was standing in the middle of the forest, stark naked, but she was enjoying the view far, far too much to be too bothered by it.

Chloe rested against a convenient tree, licked her lips and prayed he would stand like that for another twenty minutes or so while she looked her fill. He really was a most stunning man. Why the hell hadn’t some lucky woman snapped him up yet?

He obviously hadn’t seen her yet, and she liked that just fine. Being able to watch him without him knowing of her presence made her feel decadent, naughty. His shoulder-length dark brown hair glowed darkly in the moonlight, caressing his shoulders in a flirty way she briefly envied.

Why was it men’s hair always behaved, no matter how badly they treated it, yet women would pamper and coddle their hair from age about ten onwards, yet it
never
did what they required from it? Men with long hair never had bad hair days. Or bed hair. Chloe smiled as she mentally recited the indignities women put up with.

The thought of bed hair briefly sidetracked her, however, and made her wonder how Samuel would look, rumpled, first thing in the morning after a long, intense night of loving. The mental pictures whizzing through her mind had her blood heating and the chill of the night air suddenly became a much-needed breeze rather than a freezing wind.

Far too soon for Chloe’s liking, Samuel started stretching his muscles and shimmering.

Shimmering?

Chloe rubbed her eyes, damning how tired and worn out she felt after a full day of driving. If the gorgeous hunk in front of her was shimmering she must be far more tired than she realized. Maybe she should just bunk down for the night in her small car.

One minute Chloe was rubbing her eyes, hoping to refocus on all that gorgeous naked masculinity, the next she was staring open-mouthed at the largest wolf she had
ever
seen.

The wolf was huge, far larger than the few specimens she had watched at a safe distance behind a fence at a zoo or parkland reserve. Chloe frantically looked around for where the naked Samuel could have disappeared to.

He was nowhere to be seen.

That so did not happen. I’m overtired. Or over-stressed. Or something. No way in Hell did Samuel just turn into a wolf before my very eyes.

Too panicked to think about anything except the instant denial hammering in her brain, Chloe stood rooted to the spot.

When the wolf-Samuel—
he is
so
not that wolf
, her brain injected—turned to stare directly at her, then sniff the air, Chloe couldn’t help the girlish gasp that escaped her lips.

Oh shit, he’s scenting me
.

Unsure and uncaring where the thought came from, Chloe tried to gather her wits.

The wolf silently padded over to her. Frozen in terror, Chloe mentally begged her legs to run, to move. Never in all her years had she felt so terrified she could not move. She had always been in full control of her body. She didn’t enjoy the feeling of helplessness her terror caused her.

In less than a minute, the wolf had come right up to her. Yet it was not growling, its hairs were not raised in anger or threat. Chloe blinked, totally confused.

Why wasn’t the animal threatening her?

Like a gigantic dog, the wolf stuck its muzzle into her hand, making her pet his head. Despite herself, Chloe felt the warm, silky fur covering the giant beast. For the barest moment, wolf and woman stood in the woods, frozen together.

When a piercing howl broke the silence of the night, Chloe snapped back to reality.

She was standing in the middle of the woods petting a wolf.

Bad idea girl, the big bad wolf ATE Red Riding Hood’s grandmother
.

Jerking her hand back from the silky head of the wolf, she turned and fled back to her car.

For a few paces the wolf loped after her, as if they were playing a game of Chase. As her car came into view, she continued running, panting for breath and the wolf fell behind. Digging her keys from the pocket of her coat, Chloe rushed to open her door. Jerking it open, she was about to jump in, when some niggling sensation made her pause and turn back.

The wolf stood there, on the edge of the forest line. Fierce and proud, he stood watching her. Woman and beast stared at each other for a moment, while time seemed to stand still.

Chloe was scared, but unafraid at the same time. It was the strangest sensation. Not once had the beast growled at her, threatened her in any way, yet he was a wild beast, who hunted and killed smaller animals. And when that wolf in the distance had howled, she had felt very much lower on the food chain.

Coming to her senses, she climbed into her small car, closed the door and roared the engine. Dirt spewing everywhere, she made a 180 degree turn, coming perilously close to a number of trees, and headed back out of the forest.

Driving as fast as she dared, she headed back down to the main freeway, as far away as possible from the strange sensations that Samuel and that wolf had invoked in the forest.

Chapter Two

Samuel stared at the retreating car. Strangely, he felt relieved and sad at the same time. Since first catching sight of Chloe Dennison at her cousin and his brother’s wedding, she had been invading his thoughts and his mind.

This unnerved him on a number of levels. His gut screamed in warning that she was his One, his mate. No matter how hard he tried to push that thought away, it crept back to haunt him at the most unusual times, mostly just before he closed his eyes to sleep at night.

It also unnerved him from the knowledge that she alone could change his well-structured world. Samuel freely admitted he loved his life. He had his freedom in his own small cabin, yet with the vibrancy and love of his family so close at hand when needed. Largely he lived as he pleased, and while he worked hard and well, he still retained plenty of time to party just as hard and still do the things that pleased him.

If his three brothers were any indication, when one mated and fell in love, one became a blindsided sap. Samuel loved his brothers, and liked and respected their respective mates. Yet surrounded by so much mush and happiness, he couldn’t help but wonder if they had all lost their minds.

Any
woman who could mess with his well-ordered and much loved world posed a problem. Yet even knowing this, Samuel still found himself entranced with Chloe, wondering what it would be like to have her wild in his arms, to scream for him and arch into his body…

Musing so long on his human thoughts, the wolf instincts of Samuel’s current form finally kicked in.

He raised his head to the full moon, drawn in by her glow and beauty. The scents of the forest seemed to suddenly come back to life, and his mind was easily, thankfully diverted.

Contemplation could come later. Right now he simply
had
to follow the rabbit as it darted across his peripheral vision and chase it down.

Bounding off, Samuel felt relieved to let his wolf side take over his human one. Mooning over Chloe Dennison was not how he wanted to spend his evening.

* * * * *

Chloe pulled up to Dominic and Mary’s small cabin. After drinking the last of the herbal tea in her thermos and eating her last granola bar, she had come to her senses.

She had been a moron.

Sure, it had taken her the best part of forty minutes hell-for-leather driving, twenty minutes of munching and drinking almost-cold tea, and another hour driving back, but at
three a.m.
, who the hell was counting?

Deep inside herself, she had known since her conversation with Mary that the Rutledge men were…different. Seeing it up close and personal wasn’t a cakewalk, but neither was she a swooning southern belle from some cheesy, cheap novel. She was a mature twenty-six, had held any number of jobs, and was a capable, efficient modern woman.

What was a little fur between friends? It wasn’t as if she would be seeing much of any of the Rutledge brothers. She was here for some quiet contemplation. She needed to make some goals, sketch out some plans.

Like most other women, she had always assumed she would graduate from school, get a job, meet some nice young man, get married, and have kids and work part-time to put them through a decent college.

Instead, she had worked through a large number of jobs, unable to settle down in one area. Mary insisted it was because she hadn’t found her passion, hadn’t found her niche. Chloe, in return, insisted it was because she simply didn’t have a long attention span and got bored easily. What was the use of settling down in one job when so many had such appeal?

Chloe knew she needed to reassess her goals, make some plans for the next five years. She needed to find where her passion lay, and find something she could happily settle on doing for the next few years.

In any event, she couldn’t turn around and drive the long distance home, certainly not because she got a little scared seeing Samuel turning into a wolf. Mary would never have sent her here if the men were dangerous when they turned.

A few howls and a bit of a shock was a small price to pay in return for a long weekend in seclusion, with nothing more stressful than reading and self-reflection on the menu.

Chloe picked up her small backpack, with her necessities and a few half-read books, and opened the car door. A long, hot shower and a long night of sleep would restore her brain capacity. The following morning was soon enough to unpack the trunk and get her larger bag, also filled with books and a few changes of clothes. Mary had insisted on filling her fridge and cupboards with food, so she hadn’t bothered to bring more than her favorite chocolate bars with her.

Crunching her way up to the front door of the cabin, she pulled out the spare keys Mary had lent her. Fiddling around in the moonlight, she found the correct key for the front door.

Inserting it in the door, she was briefly surprised when it didn’t turn the lock. Remembering Mary’s warning of how the lock sometimes stuck, she jiggled the key around, leaning on it to give it more pressure.

When neither maneuver budged the key even an inch, she swore under her breath. Chloe stepped back under the bright light of the full moon and checked the other two keys. Neither of them would open the door, so the first key must be correct.

Trying once more, jiggling the key with as much force as she dared, she eventually pulled back in disgust. Staring at the lock, Chloe realized it had a dead bolt, effectively squashing her chances of being able to pick the lock open.

Sighing heavily, Chloe pocketed the useless keys and walked around the side of the dark cabin to find an accessible window. It was cold, she was tired, and she refused to sleep the night away in her small car, even if she had thought about it earlier.

All she wanted was a long, hot shower and a soft, warm bed. Chloe knew she was fairly proficient at picking locks, but surely some of the windows would be accessible?

Finding the perfect window, Chloe peered in the room. The pale moonlight made shadows, but she thought this was the bedroom. Pulling her lock picks out of her backpack, grateful she always kept them handy for practice; she easily opened the small catch and raised the window.

Muttering curses about Mary under her breath, Chloe threw her small backpack onto the floor wincing at the
thud
of it falling to the floor. Taking a deep breath to steady herself, she rested her hands on the windowsill.

Thankful she had worn only her old black jeans and a light sweater for the long drive, she easily pulled her lithe frame up through the window. Panting with the exertion, dragging a bit of dust with her, she landed with a thud on the cabin floor next to her bag. Standing quickly and brushing the barely existent dust from her jeans, Chloe turned around to close and lock the window behind her, a tired but happy grin on her face.

Just as she lowered the window, she felt thick, heavy arms trap her own arms at her side and lift her from the ground. Before she could even think of her self-defense moves, Chloe found herself being held firmly on a soft bed, a large, heavy body pressing her into the mattress.

Desperately trying to push up against the wide shoulders, Chloe found the mattress made poor leverage.