The curse was supposed to be broken. He had hoped it would be something he never had to confess. How did a man tell his wife, a woman who was obviously terrified of wild animals, that she had married one?
"Is something wrong, Sam?"
He realized he stood staring down at her while his thoughts raced. Sam shook his head. "No. Let's go fishing."
WHAT HAD POSSESSED LAURA TO BELIEVE FOR ONE second that she might enjoy fishing? Sam's tackle box was filled with stinky smelling stuff, ugly wiggly plastic worms and bright metal little fish with hooks in them.
"I'll bait your hook," Sam said, and she could have kissed him for not expecting she'd know how to do such a thing herself, or even want to. She wrinkled her nose as he dug into a jar of what appeared to be red squishy caviar. He put one of the eggs on her hook, then placed a red-and-white plastic ball on the fishing line.
He cast out a little ways and handed her the pole. "Trout like salmon eggs. Watch the bobber, and if it suddenly jerks or goes under, pull your rod up and reel it in."
Huh
? "Okay," she said as if she had a clue what he'd just instructed her to do. Laura watched the bobber. It moved, so she jerked her pole.
"That's just the current," Sam said. "You'll know the difference when you feel a tug on your line or the bobber actually goes under."
"I know that," she fibbed. "I just wanted to reposition the bobber thingy."
That sounded lame
.
"If you'd like, sit on that rock and make yourself more comfortable while you wait. Fishing takes patience."
Could a rock be comfortable? And if she sat on one, wouldn't she get the rear of her cute shorts dirty? "I think I'll just stand," Laura decided.
"Okay, suit yourself." Sam walked toward the rock with his baited pole. He cast out before settling on the rock. Her rugged outdoor man looked at home in his surroundings. He was obviously relaxed while Laura worried about what she would do if she actually managed to catch a fish on her line.
Thirty minutes later it wasn't such a worry. "Are you sure there are fish in this lake?" she called to Sam.
"I always catch a mess of fish while I'm here. Nothing tastes better than freshly fried trout."
Laura didn't care for fish. She liked crab and lobster, but had always turned her nose up at anything else. If Sam caught a fish, she vowed to eat it, though. She'd misled Sam when they first met. Now might be a good time to come clean with him.
"Sam, I need to tell you something."
He glanced at her and lifted a brow.
Meeting his trusting puppy dog eyes proved difficult. She stared at the ground instead. "I wasn't completely honest with you when we first met. I'm not the outdoorsy type, Sam. I only pretended be that kind of girl because I figured a woman who shared your interests would appeal to you the most. I wanted you to like me as much as I liked you."
Suddenly Sam stood before her. He took the pole from her hand and laid it on the ground. Lifting her chin, he forced her to look at him. "Usually, I am more attracted to women who share my love of the outdoors, but there was nothing usual about the way I felt the first time I saw you. All I could do was stare—think about how beautiful you are, and smart and funny. I knew you were the woman I'd been waiting for all my life."
Tears pricked Laura's eyes, and the reaction had nothing to do with the smell of repellant she'd sprayed down with before they left the cabin. Sam was the sweetest man. Men like her husband were few and far between. They were all but extinct.
"You're not disappointed with me?" she asked. "You're not mad that I haven't been completely honest with you?"
His warm fingers moved up her face to wipe the tears away. "It was just a little white lie. Sure, I'd love it if you wanted to take off with me and come up here, hang out and relax, but if it's not your thing, I understand. Just because it's one of mine doesn't mean you have to pretend to like something that you don't."
Her heart flip-flopped inside her chest. "I've married Prince Charming." Laura raised on tiptoes and kissed him on the mouth. When he didn't respond, she pulled back to look at him. His eyes were haunted. "What is it, Sam? What's wrong?"
He glanced away. "I haven't been honest with you about everything, either…"
She waited for Sam to continue, but suddenly her fishing pole shot forward on the ground. Sam broke away and bounded after it. He grabbed the pole.
"Come here, Laura. You're going to catch your first fish!"
SETTLED IN SAM'S ARMS LATER THAT NIGHT, LAURA didn't mind the lumpy mattress and the hard metal bedsprings. They'd eaten the fish she'd caught earlier and that was pretty good, but not nearly so good as the sex that followed dinner. Who'd have thought Laura Wulf was a fisherman? Certainly not her.
Sam's slow, steady breathing told her he'd fallen asleep. They were both tired after their hike to the lake and back, not to mention their long lovemaking session. On the way home from the lake, Laura had taken the time to really look at her surroundings and appreciate the woods instead of worrying about what might come charging out of them to eat her up.
Maybe she could learn to like the great outdoors. It would please Sam, and although he said it wasn't important to him, it was important to Laura. She didn't want anything standing between time they might spend together. The cabin could be remodeled. She did it all the time in her real estate practice. The first order of business would be a comfortable bed. One that didn't have a big crack down the middle she kept getting stuck in during the night.
Laura drifted to sleep envisioning the changes she would make. Something woke her later—the sound of the door closing softly. She turned to Sam, but he was missing. Sitting, she listened.
"Sam?"
No answer.
Moonlight spilled in from the windows, allowing her to see that the bathroom door was open, the light off. Sam wasn't in the cabin. Scooting to the top of the bed, she glanced outside. Her husband stood staring up at a full moon. He was naked!
"What in the world is he doing?" Laura mumbled.
For a moment, she wondered if he might be sleepwalking, although she'd never known him to, nor had Sam ever said that he was prone to the affliction. But he seemed awake as she continued to watch him. He walked toward the thick trees at the edge of the clearing. Then he began to run. Naked. Barefoot. Away from the cabin.
Her momentary amusement over Sam's actions quickly disappeared. Laura was afraid. Not for herself this time, but for Sam. What he was doing had to be dangerous even if he was at home in the woods. She rose and grabbed a terry cloth robe she'd brought to keep warm. After locating her shoes and slipping into them, Laura did something only a day ago she could never imagine herself doing. She went outside in the dead of night.
"Sam!" she called, but her husband was nowhere in sight. Now what to do? Should Laura go after him? Did she have the courage? The trees looked like tall monsters in the moonlight, branches shaped like claws waiting to grab her if she came too close.
There were animals out there, Sam had told her earlier. So why would he run into the woods, into danger? A horrible thought occurred. Was Sam a little weird? One card short of a full deck? Laura had trouble believing that. Sam was perfect. Too perfect, she'd often thought.
"He's not crazy or weird," she chided herself. There had to be a logical explanation for her husband sneaking out of the cabin in the dead of night to run naked through the woods. Now Laura just had to find out what it was.
SAM HAD TAKEN HIS WOLF FORM, AT ONE time, he'd read that the cursed Wulf men couldn't control their thoughts or actions when they transformed. Along with the poem composed by the first Wulf cursed, so faded now it was nearly indistinguishable, were letters handed down from generation to generation, explaining certain aspects of the transformation.
Where had Sam gone wrong in the translation of the poem, that is, what little remained of it? Love was supposed to be the curse but it was also supposed to be the key. Since it was said former Wulfs had broken the curse throughout the centuries by marrying their soul mates, Sam had assumed that was all there was to it. He was obviously wrong.
Unless Laura wasn't his soul mate. Sam shied away from that thought. If she wasn't, he didn't care, he loved her. He'd stay with his wife even if it meant he would remain cursed for the rest of his life. But would Laura stay with him?
Through the trees, his sharpened vision caught the glow of a small light. A flashlight, he realized a moment later. Creeping from his hiding place, the wolf skirted the trees until he reached the light. What he saw surprised him. It was Laura. She wore her ratty terry cloth robe, and every so often, she stopped to flag a tree with a piece of toilet paper, marking her trail. Sam felt immensely proud of her at that moment. He realized how much his wife truly loved him.
She'd admitted to being afraid of the woods earlier, yet here she was, out searching for him. Or he had to assume that was the reason Laura had faced her fears, putting herself in danger. Sam wanted to go to her, wrap her in his arms and tell her how special she was… but he couldn't. If Laura saw him in wolf form, she'd be scared to death. At the same time, she needed to return to the cabin.
Since Sam couldn't change at will, he'd have to wait until morning to think of a suitable lie to tell Laura. For now, he wanted her safe. He knew how to send her running for home, even if he didn't like what he must do. Gathering all the misery he felt over deceiving the woman he loved, and the possibility of losing her, Sam released his feelings in the form of an eerie howl.
LAURA FROZE IN HER TRACKS, THE HAIR ON the back of her neck bristled. Her heart rose in her throat. That sound was from a wolf. Were there wolves in the woods anymore? She'd heard they were all but extinct except in places like Yellowstone. It was a wolf… unless it was something worse. Maybe it was Bigfoot. No one knew if they howled or what because they supposedly didn't exist.
Every scary creature, she'd seen in movies, on television or heard about during junior high slumber parties jumped to the forefront of her mind. Trolls. Swamp Thing. Those creepy flying monkeys from
The Wizard Of Oz
. Frankenstein. Mummies. Vampires. Werewolves. The last thought stuck in her mind. A werewolf would howl, wouldn't it?
"Get a grip, Laura," she whispered, although the flashlight in her hand shook, mocking her attempt to be something other than what she was, which was terrified.
The howl sounded again. Laura jumped. She swore it was closer. Rational thought fled. She ran, disregarding the careful path she had made for herself. It didn't matter. The creature was on her heels and all she could do was try to escape.
There was a stitch in her side by the time the cabin came into view. Laura was never so happy to see anything in her life. She rushed to the cabin, slipped inside, closed and locked the door.
"Sam?" she called in the darkness. "Sam, please be here."
But he wasn't. Her new husband was out dancing naked in the woods or something equally crazy while a wild animal chased his wife. Laura turned on the overhead light and pulled the ugly plaid drapes closed over the windows. She settled down to wait. Sam had a lot of explaining to do when he returned.
Although too worried to sleep, Laura managed to doze lightly throughout the night. She woke with a start. Sam stared down at her. The expression of love in his eyes nearly melted her. Then she remembered. Scrambling up, she asked, "Where were you last night?"
Sam pulled back from her and glanced away. "I went for a run."
"Naked?"
His gaze snapped back to her. "You saw me?"
"Yes. I woke when you left, looked out the window and saw you standing naked in the moonlight. Then you took off into the woods."
He scrubbed a hand over his face. "You shouldn't have come after me. That was dangerous."
Wrinkling her brow, she asked, "How did you know I came after you?"
Sam rose, presenting her with his tanned broad back. He wore a pair of jeans slung low on his hips and no shirt. "Because I know you, and against your better judgment you would have done something like that."
Despite the nice view, Laura wouldn't be distracted from the conversation. "If you know that about me you know me better than I know myself," she assured him. "But I was worried about you. There's a wolf in the woods. I heard it howling last night. I think it chased me all the way to the cabin."
When he turned, she had an even nicer view of his broad bare chest. "And you were afraid."
She forced her gaze to lift. "Of course I was afraid. I was terrified the thing would eat me."
He sat beside her again, taking her cold hands into his warms ones. "What if I told you that you didn't have to be afraid of the wolf? That it would never hurt you?"
Sam looked perfectly serious. Was he also perfectly crazy? "How can you be certain of that?"
"I've seen the wolf before. He won't harm a human. At least not unless he's threatened."
The feel of Sam's strong hands holding hers had a calming effect. "Is the wolf someone's pet around here?"
"I suppose you could say that."
"Then he's domesticated?"
"As domesticated as a wolf can be."
Now she understood. "He's like a dog?"
Sam flinched. "Well, no, he's not like a dog. He's a wolf."
Laura wasn't even sure she liked dogs. She was fairly certain she didn't like wolves. "None of this explains exactly what you were doing running around naked last night."
Releasing her hands, Sam rose and went into the kitchenette. He poured himself a cup of coffee. "I like to run around naked at night. It's a rush."
How could running around naked in mosquito-infested woods be a rush? Laura was afraid it went much deeper, and much darker. "Sam, are you an exhibitionist?"