EXCERPT

(WARNING: ADULT CONTENT)

Home to Hawk Ridge

ISBN 978-1-60313-871-0

Chapter 1

This was the night she’d waited for. Studied for. Gathered, cooked, chanted and spelled for. Katerina Bauer stood in the cool October evening and let the breeze filter through her knotting curls. Her Mediterranean ancestry had blessed her with many mystical gifts, but an evil twist along the DNA strand made her a blonde. Tonight her hair was especially untamed and she felt hot as a pistol. Maybe it was the enchanted bath oil she’d soaked in. Maybe the radiance dust. Whatever the source, her personal well overflowed with sex appeal and it made her blood run hot. I sizzle.

He’d notice her. He had no choice, really. She found a foothold in the stone wall, then another, climbing to stand on the narrow structure. Egad, one misstep and—No. Positive thoughts. As important to her success tonight as any amount of magic. She squared her shoulders and stared with deference at the silver moon. “Be my ally tonight,” she whispered.

She slipped her denim jacket off and slung it over her shoulder, pacing silently along the wall. He’d notice her. This house party sounded like a doozie, with loud music screaming from open windows and the smell of marijuana seeping from the siding. Not an ideal setting, but this is where she’d find her man. Steve Rider liked these parties—liked to play cards. Kat had tolerated boozy come-ons and ass pinches to watch him over the past month. Finally she’d resorted to an invisibility charm to admire him in peace. Tonight she’d stay outside and wait for him to come to her.

Why him? He responded to her ad. Sort of.

A month ago she sat in front of her simple altar, massaging empowered oils into a crimson candle. Chanting a quiet gypsy spell, she’d scrolled magical symbols along the length of the soft wax while envisioning the man of her dreams. Then, with a delicate rosewood ember, she lit the flame and left it to burn softly on a bench outside the Hawk Ridge College library. The afternoon breeze stayed obediently at bay while she waited quietly and unseen in the nearby woods. One hour passed, then two. Hundreds of feet had marched by her little burning solicitation on their way through the big double doors.

Finally a big fat guy with an itchy red beard stopped and gave it a curious look, but passed over it with no further interest. Kat was glad of that. But when Steve Rider sauntered up and ran his hand over the flame, she felt the heat. Her left palm burned, then tingled, then cooled. He was the one, unaware that he’d been drawn to the flame by an ancient magic. As he stepped back, the flame snuffed out. It had fulfilled its magical purpose.

In the light of the full moon, Kat squeezed her eyes shut, and opened them quickly. Not a smart move on a narrow ledge. But geez. Trapping a man with a gypsy spell? First of all, she’d become jaded with the authenticity of her family magic. She’d grown up among devious and scheming women who “charmed” men to get what they wanted. Kat knew when the day was done and the money counted, they were simply thieves.

She looked at the moon again and sighed. She couldn’t help it. She was born a gypsy witch, and it was what she knew. Manipulation and deceit. Her aunts and cousins made their way through life charming men and stealing their money—magically or through trickery. Inept and unsure of herself, Kat felt certain she’d remain lonely without help from the gypsy wisdom, such as it was.

There he was. He stood in the doorway of the party house, chatting with a drunken friend. Steve wasn’t a drinker. At least Kat had never witnessed it since she’d been—well, stalking him. This was another plus, since her charms had a better chance to work on a sober man.

Her chest tightened and a smile eased the corners of her lips. He was handsome as hell. What luck. Her flame’s simple intention was to attract “the right” man. The right man could easily have been a troll. Fortunately, the hands of fate brought her someone delicious, with a chiseled jaw line and brown waves that played at his neck. Over the past few weeks, as she watched him from afar, she’d hungered to explore every inch of him.

Her man stepped out into the evening and glanced at the moon. Perfect. C’mon moon, smile on him. Kat looked too as a wisp of clouds drifted over, not blocking the light but giving the moon a moody snub. She ran her hands nervously down the front of her tight, pencil-leg jeans. The game began. Her first fascination.

* * * *

Steve Rider had grown tired of the party the minute he walked in the door. The card table lacked any intelligence and he didn’t see a chance for that to change. Too many under-aged drunks tonight. Where the hell did they come from? He figured he’d head back to the apartment and pop in a movie. Too late to drive out to the farm.

He was older than most of the boneheads at Hawk Ridge College, and only hoped to gain enough knowledge to run his own business. He’d been a logger and a teamster throughout his youth and teens. When his dad died suddenly with the reigns in his hands, Steve was thrust into a management role he wasn’t prepared for. He had no clue how to run a business. Even if it was logging with horses—a rugged, man-versus-beast kind of operation—it was still a business. Somebody needed to mind the store, so to speak.

He said good night to the guys at the keg and stepped into the moonlight, filling his lungs with fresh air. Wow, what a moon. It almost pulsed with energy and he had a childlike desire to linger for just a moment. As he stepped slowly toward the street, he looked up into the trees and noticed a stone wall beyond a scraggly row of shrubs. He’d partied at this house for over a year, and this was the first he’d seen it. For reasons he couldn’t explain, he parted the leafless shrubbery and walked toward the wall with a new and urgent interest in masonry.

In the silver moonlight he touched the cold stone and examined it. The hair on his neck tingled and his heart slammed in his ears with an unsettling rapid staccato. He narrowed his eyes, unable to reconcile his primal emotion, not fear but arousal. Then he heard a stepping sound above him and looked up to a pair of pink pumps standing at eye level on the wall. He drew his eyes upward and saw a goddess with her hair haloed by the moon. He raised a hand to arrest the glare. “Damn. You surprised me. What are you doing up there?”

“Admiring the moon of course.” The woman’s voice drifted on a cloud to his ears, sounding deep and breathy. He took a long drink of night air to settle his nerves.

She stood still as stone, towering above him. Her hair glistened with silver strands of moonlight and fluttered to her waist. His gaze drifted back down to the pink pumps. Few things Steve liked more than the female ankle and these were damn fine. The wall, however, was only a few inches wide and he purposefully squelched his horny thoughts.

“Could you enjoy the moon from down here?” He gently touched one slender ankle and then gripped a little tighter to anchor it in place.

“Do I look like I’m in danger?” The moonlit goddess swung her jacket off her shoulder and let it fall to the ground beside him. Then she stooped down and circled her wild blonde tresses to the side. A breeze rippled by and blew it all back again. Her eyes caught him and held him. Steve’s pulse accelerated and his dick delivered a preemptive warning twitch. As if he’d touched a hot burner, he quickly removed his hand from her ankle and left it hanging in the air instead.

No, she didn’t look like she was in danger. She looked like a dream. A gauzy, soft, sensual dream. Her arms rested casually over her legs and it made her look tough. Tough, as in hot. Hot, as in sexy. But as alluring as she was, she was still six feet off the ground.

“You look like one false step and all the King’s horses wouldn’t be able to piece you together. Or whatever.” Steve reached his arms in the air to lift her down.

In keeping with the dream, the woman effortlessly shifted her legs beneath her. The air between them responded with a vanilla scented ripple. Then with a momentary freefall, she slid off the wall into his arms. A white tank top hugged her breasts as they passed by his face on her journey to the earth. He imagined each one a perfectly defined, single hand squeeze. He plopped her onto the ground, pinned to the wall, just a deep inhale away from a passionate kiss.

No. What the hell’s the matter with me?

Steve removed his hands from her waist and wanted more than anything to touch her skin. It radiated with unearthly warmth—it must be the moonlight. Her nipples stood beautifully at attention beneath the stretched white fabric. He licked his lips. A delicate hand on his chin shifted his gaze from her chest to her eyes.

“Kat.”

“Cat?”

“My name is Kat.”

He swallowed. “I’m Steve.”

“I know.” She danced her fingers on his neck with little spirals. Was she touching him? It felt more like a vibration—a hum. Steve gazed into her eyes. He’d never seen such a delicate shade of green. They smiled and gathered every scintilla of available light. He thought he should look away but couldn’t. He hungered to dissolve into their depths. . .

He shook his head and stepped back. “Um, Kat.” He grasped her dancing fingers. “Are you waiting for someone? What are you doing back here in the shrubs?”

“I was waiting for you.”

Fuck. What do I do with this? Her fingers sizzled in his hand. This goddess he’d discovered on the stone wall was about to go up in a blaze and take him with.

“Waiting for me? Well, I—I was about to leave.” Steve’s words tripped over his tongue and clung to his teeth. “I don’t think I’ve seen you around. Are you a student at the college?”

“Leave?” She’d chosen to ignore his question. “Why would you walk away from a moon like this?”

“I figured it would be hanging in the sky at my place too.” He swallowed again, feeling his pulse pounding at his throat. “Would you like to come with? I’ll, ah—put in a movie.” Yeah, that’s what a hot number like her wanted. A buttery bowl of popcorn and a rented western. He was about to redo the invitation, and add something hotter but she cut him off.

“Steve. Do you want to come to my place?” she purred. “I was going to take my clothes off and dance in the moonlight.”

That would be fun too. She held his gaze in chains. Gossamer chains. “Dance in the moonlight?”

“Uh-huh. Have you ever danced naked with the moonlight warming your skin?” Her cool breath covered him with a soothing blanket and snuffed out the whole world. He slowly blinked it back into existence.

“I, ah… I don’t dance.”

“Yes you do. You like to dance, Steve.” Kat freed her fingers and swirled them on his neck once again and Steve had a confused notion that he’d been wrong. Dancing was his favorite thing.

“Let’s do this,” he whispered. He leaned down and touched his lips to hers and a warm shiver of energy skipped over his skin. He backed away. “Can I kiss you?” He’d never asked for permission in his life, but the sensation made him feel like this time it might be a good idea.

Kat didn’t answer with words but painted her lips on his with unbelievable perfection. Steve’s dick blasted past the warning stage and swelled against his jeans. He circled his arms around her and reached for her ass, eliciting a soft moan from her throat into his. God, could he do this gorgeous creature tonight? He’d just met her. Didn’t even know her. Yet he felt an unquenchable longing. Her breath sustained him and her lips delivered it with a gentleness that assured him it was okay. Steve reveled in the sensation and indulged in every caress of her tongue, if only for a moment longer.

When her hand began to rub the bulge in his jeans, his heart lost its rhythm. He inhaled sharply at the suddenness, although her touch was smooth as butter. “Oh man,” he expelled into her lips.

Kat backed away from his kiss and looked into his eyes, her hand gliding with sensual determination on his dick. He held her gaze, but wanted more of her life-sustaining breath. The way she worked his anatomy, he was pretty sure he was gonna need it.

Her hand sizzled with greater pressure through the fabric of his jeans and his eyes blinked with nothingness into hers. He had thoughts in his head, words on his lips. No, no he didn’t. He just had a raging hard-on that needed more than heavy petting through denim. He reached his hand to his zipper while hers stepped aside to let him open his fly. Her eyes still funneled moonlight into his, and then, “Oh, fuck.”

“This is what you want, Steve. I know how to touch you.” Her voice, her hair, her eyes, her lips. He stood on the precipice of something he’d never experienced before. Her touch was magic and he’d be a fool to stop it.

She pulled his cock and raced down the length with a mind-blowing rhythm, stopping at the tip to rock his world with her thumb. The heat of her touch penetrated to a deep well of desire, somewhere in his chest. He opened his fly wider and adjusted his stance on wobbly knees. With a hungry swallow of air, he planted his hands on the stone wall behind her and closed his eyes. If she was going to beat him off. . .

“Hey Stevo, is that you?”

“What?” Steve’s heart flumped and he quickly stepped back and stuffed his dick in his pants. He blinked reality back into his head and carefully zipped his hard-on into jeans that were, for the moment, way too tight. He turned to see who called his name. “Josh?”

“Oh, shit. I’m sorry. I didn’t know you were with somebody. I thought you were just taking a leak.”

With his dick crying in protest and his heart in his throat, Steve turned back to look into Kat’s eyes once again. He blew a puff of frustration into his arm. “It’s all right, Josh. Kat and I were just—”

What the fuck were they doing? His arms hung useless at his side and his mind careened as if he’d just stepped off a fanciful merry-go-round. All his senses had been pleasured and now he tingled in a bizarre afterglow. He felt stupid and horny and happy, all in one deep inhale. But there was something else, something intangible and unreal. He shook his head but found no clarity.

“Hey, it might be a good time to get outta here. Buncha freshman are starting fights. Why do they have to do that? Dumb shits are gonna get the cops up here again. Can I get a ride back to the apartment?”

Steve looked with confusion at the babbling young man in front of him. The merry-go-round ride had clearly ended and it was time to step away from the stone wall. He turned back to Kat, her green eyes still captivating. But the magic of the moment was gone, leaving a shapeless feeling in his heart. He wanted to hurry away, yet his arms still longed to hold her.

“I’ll see ya around, Kat.” He backed into a sharp branch and turned to grab it for support. “It was nice talking to you.” And with a resurgence of awareness he added, “Don’t climb up on that wall again. Okay?”

Kat tucked a tuft of wild curls behind her ear. “Okay, I won’t. Good night, Steve Rider.”

In the safety of his truck, Steve ran his finger over the mini horn symbol on the steering wheel. His eyes saw Kat’s pink pumps and the mounds of delicious flesh bursting under a soft, white tank top. His mind was fuzzy. Maybe the marijuana from the party had gotten into his senses. Probably some homegrown crap. He rolled down his car window and grabbed a big dose of fresh air. The moon had slid behind a bank of clouds and would appear no more tonight.

“I hope I didn’t interrupt something important there, Steve.” Josh blew a juvenile snort in Steve’s direction. “That was a good-looking woman. She a student? Where’d ya find her?”

“I found her on the wall.” Steve started his truck and thought of Kat’s green eyes, soft voice and wild curls. “I have no idea where she came from. I hope I find her again.”