0968348001325302640 brenda huber shadows

  “Why are you saying these things?” She fought to pull her hands from his, struggled to put space between them. “What are you trying to do here? Werewolves, Cam? I may be a little off my game tonight, but I’m not crazy. Why are you doing this?”

  “JJ…just please, please let me explain. When I’m done…just give me a chance to explain.” And then, because he’d fought the truth for too long and realized he only had one chance to do this right—one chance to truly claim his mate—he gathered her resistant form into his arms and pressed her close.

  His breath skimmed her lips as his eyes bore into hers. “I love you, JJ. I need you to remember that, when you see… I need you to remember that I love you more than anything.”

  His kiss was explosive, fast and hard. His lips demanded a response, would accept nothing less than honest emotion from her. Her response was immediate. She wound her arms around his neck and surrendered with a small whimper. Satisfied, filled with dread, he pulled back and set her away from him before pushing to his feet.

  He kept his eyes on her as he slowly worked the buttons of his uniform loose. His gear, boots, and pants followed. Once he’d stripped down to the skin, he offered her one last resigned smile. She was so beautiful—with her big, shining blue eyes, and her damp, golden hair falling all around her shoulders, curled up there in on his sofa, wearing his shirt—

  that his heart ached. “I love you, Jillian.” Then he closed his eyes, centered his focus, and gathered inside him all the power the Great Spirit had bestowed upon his ancestor so very long ago.

  Even a man who is pure of heart And says his prayers by night

  May become a wolf

  When the wolfsbane blooms

  And the Autumn Moon is bright.

  ~Old Gypsy Poem

  Shadows

  by

  Brenda Huber

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales, is entirely coincidental.

  Shadows

  COPYRIGHT  2009 by Brenda L. Huber All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission of the author or The Wild Rose Press except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

  Contact Information: info@thewildrosepress.com Cover Art by Rae Monet

  The Wild Rose Press

  PO Box 706

  Adams Basin, NY 14410-0706

  Visit us at www.thewildrosepress.com Publishing History

  First Black Rose Edition, 2010

  Print ISBN 1-60154-771-4

  Published in the United States of America Dedication

  This one is for my sisters-in-law, Holly and Brooke…

  It’s not where you go, but who’s beside you that counts.

  And for Theresa, Tammy, and Treva… Wonderful additions to our extended family.

  Acknowledgements

  As always, deepest thanks to my editor, Joelle Walker,

  for unfaltering encouragement and priceless insight.

  You are truly a godsend!

  Special appreciation to Rae Monet and her magical talent for providing me with insightful cover art for my stories.

  Prologue

  He perched at the edge of a cold, dented folding chair, resting his elbows on one end of the long table, his thumb clicking his pen in rapid-fire succession as the mayor called the council meeting to order. What a bunch of sanctimonious, hypocritical bastards they were. Every last one of them. His condemning gaze skimmed over the small group, lingering on particularly deceitful faces sprinkled here and there throughout the gathering. He stifled a disparaging snort, covered it beneath the guise of a cough. This assembly held enough skeletons to open up its own bone yard. Among these corrupt, ignoble men and women, he was a veritable saint. But then, saint was such a strong word.

  No, perhaps not a saint.

  But, surely, an Apostle…

  Across the table reclined humble Mayor Hughes…the pompous windbag. What would the good people of Sutter Hollow think if they knew about the mayor’s predilection for Texas Hold’em?

  What would they say about his sticky fingers dipping into public funds with startling regularity to keep the wolves from clawing at his door?

  His gaze wandered to the man at his left. From beneath lowered lashes, he eyed the saintly humanitarian Councilman Andrews. Passing a hand over his mouth, he hid the disgusted sneer. Andrews certainly had a convincing song and dance, pandering to the local ladies-aides, offering substantial donations to the clinic, all in the name of awareness and prevention of domestic violence.

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  Were those do-gooder church socialites really so gullible? Or were his donations so generous they were willing to look the other way…pretend his meek little wife simply had an unnatural attachment to sunglasses indoors, and long sleeves on hot summer days?

  He shifted in his seat, realigned the yellow notepad in front of him, clicking his pen. Their monotonous voices droned in his ears. He gritted his teeth against the urge to leap from his chair and shout of their misdeeds.

  Voting for new playground equipment in Juniper Park began. The nays had it. Next, the council voted on repaving some of the more troublesome roads in town. Again, the nays carried the vote. Finally, they voted on improving council chambers with new flooring—white carpet, of all things—and new furnishings. The ayes had it.

  Of course.

  As long as the council got its white carpet, who cared if the town’s roads had potholes large enough to lose a whole fleet of VW Bugs? As long as the council got new, cushy chairs to pamper their fat, spoiled asses once a month, who cared if the community’s children played on dangerous equipment? As long as money lined the council members’ pockets, who cared if the town’s residents barely scraped by, pinching pennies and recycling pop cans to pay this month’s utility bill?

  This gathering was—as was the town itself—

  peppered with sinners. Infected with the unrepentant. It was a sad state of affairs, to be sure.

  The Devil had knocked on Sutter Hollow’s door, and its population had blithely flung the door wide open, inviting him in for dinner.

  He forced a brittle smile to his lips as the meeting adjourned. Pushing to his feet, he shuffled through the door along with the rest of the crowd.

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  Shadows

  Fortunately, the meeting had been short tonight. He needed fresh air, could barely tolerate another moment with such a duplicitous bunch. He stepped clear of the outer door as he buttoned his coat, tugged at the collar, and watched a fellow councilman and councilwoman bump shoulders. The sly couple floated down the sidewalk, exchanging a warm, albeit fleeting caress and a covert, intimate smile before hurrying off in opposite directions to separate spouses and families.

  Sinners, one and all. His mother’s harsh voice, reproving and unyielding, echoed in his head. Lust and gluttony. Greed and sloth. Wrath and envy.

  Pride… Beware, lest the Devil sink his claws into you and drag you from the path of righteousness.

  The chafe needed separating from the wheat, or God’s hand would smite them all as surely as it had brought down the walls of Jericho. It was time. The town must be shown the error of its ways before it was too late. Sin was insidious.

  God’s children must be protected.

  He strolled down the sidewalk as streetlights began blinking on overhead. Maggie’s was slowing down for the evening. He veered inside and slid into a booth, shrugging off his jacket.
A glass of ice water slid beneath his nose before he’d even managed to pull his attention from the laminated menu/placemat.

  “Hey there, handsome,” Lori purred. Her bold gaze swept over him, leaving him cold and angry.

  And wanting.

  Damn her.

  Lecherous sin surrounded him. It was infectious.

  Cocking a hip, she shot him a wink, snapped her gum. “What can I getcha tonight, sugar?” Rubbing his damp palms down the thighs of his slacks, he forced the sinful lump of desire from his throat. His guts twisted in revulsion. It was wrong to 3

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  want her. The Devil was at work here, offering him carnal sin from every wicked smile and lush curve this woman so blatantly offered. Her bright, painted eyes laughed at him. Her glossy red lips beckoned him to partake of eternal damnation, as surely as Eve had offered Adam the cursed fruit of his downfall.

  God has handed me over to the godless, and cast me into the hands of the wicked.

  She was the Devil’s tool. His lure.

  Well, he refused the bait. He was God’s hand to smite the sinners.

  Let my anguish plead the cause of a man at grips with God, just as a man might defend his fellow.

  Lori had ignored the warnings. She hadn’t changed her ways. She was unrepentant. She’d soon pay for her sins. Forgiveness would be between her and God now. Relaxing against the vinyl-covered booth, he smiled up at her, much more at ease. Yes.

  It was up to God to have mercy on her soul…and Lori’s judgment was at hand.

  Nonetheless, my hands are free of violence, and my prayers are pure.

  He smiled up at her. “I’ll just have the usual, Lori.”

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  Shadows

  Chapter 1

  Evil tracked JJ through the house, ruthless and methodical. Panic stole her voice, cut her scream off before it could become more than a feeble gurgle in the back of her throat. Terror, cold and vicious, squeezed her heart in its unrelenting, icy fist. His breath grated in the darkness nearby…too close. His sinister, husky chuckle echoed in the stillness, sending shivers crawling up her spine and gooseflesh slithering down her arms. Death stalked her, nipping at her heels. Nowhere to run. Nowhere to hide.

  No place he wouldn’t find her.

  Her sister’s dying cries filled her head, coursing grief and adrenaline through her veins.

  Run, JJ. Run…

  The flashing, gas pump-shaped indicator next to the speedometer drew her gaze to the dash, and she exhaled on a harsh expletive. Her eyes burned, as if someone had plucked out her eyeballs, rolled them in superheated sand, and shoved them back into her skull. Still jittery from the nightmare, too much caffeine, and not enough sleep, JJ drilled her fingers against her temple, desperate to ease the throb taking up permanent residence there. Six a.m.

  glared in luminescent green from her silent radio display, the numbers cold and unsympathetic.

  How could she be running on fumes already?

  She’d begun this impulsive flight with a full tank, already stopped to refill twice, grabbing a large mug of not-so-great convenient store coffee and a carton of individually wrapped brownies both times. She’d put mile after mile behind her, but the memories 5

  Brenda Huber

  refused to fade. The brownies had left behind the vicious crash that inevitably followed a sugar buzz, and the thick, stale coffee was nothing more than a sorry reminder irritating her stomach.

  And the gas was gone.

  Holy crap, she’d done it again. How far had she driven this time? The answer came at her with a sharp pang of self-disgust. The answer was simple…too far. She pressed the brake, angling her car for the off-ramp. At this point in her recovery—

  what a sad, sorry lie that optimistic euphemism was—even one, singular mile was too far. There’d been a trigger. Something innocuous most likely.

  Something she may never be able to recall. Then the dreams had come. She’d panicked.

  And she’d run.

  She’d driven all night, hour after hour. How then was it she couldn’t outdrive the nightmare?

  What she wouldn’t give to be able to put distance between her and the things haunting her sleep the way she’d put mile after mile, city after city behind her. Her psychiatrist had urged her to take the next step in recovery, move beyond her grief. That was the normal, sensible thing to do…but something always held her back. Sooner or later, she always found herself in the same position. Fighting for every breath. Tunnel vision focused solely on escape, everything else blurred around the edges by the dark shadows of fear. Her hastily packed bags tossed in the back of her Grand Cherokee. Her white-knuckled fists clutching the steering wheel in a death grip. Her booted foot crushing the accelerator to the floor before the cold sweat of terror had a fighting chance to dry.

  Anxiety attacks, her shrink had called them.

  The term was far too tame as far as JJ was concerned. This was something far worse than 6

  Shadows

  anxiety. It had to be. This was cold and clawing and blood curdling. And this…this thing crippling her wouldn’t bother itself with a mere attack. No, it went for all-out, no-holds-barred, brutal assaults.

  JJ flinched as a blur of honey-gold rocketed from the ditch. The massive animal dodged the beam of her headlights, disappearing down the opposite embankment. Damn dogs. Damn big dogs. Didn’t they have leash laws around here? Swearing softly, she ground a palm against one eye and caved to the urge to yawn.

  Almost a year had passed since the night of unanticipated violence and vicious betrayal. Three hundred and thirty-eight days since the night the man she’d loved as a brother snapped, shattering her life. She knew she couldn’t go on this way, running every time the memories caught up with her. Sarah wouldn’t have wanted this for her little sister. JJ knew it.

  Somewhere deep, deep inside, JJ understood.

  It didn’t help.

  The shrink she’d visited on a regular basis for almost four months after her sister’s brutal murder had spent many, many billable hours encouraging her to acknowledge that her sister had been an adult, responsible for her own actions.

  Her sister—the responsible adult—had chosen to remain in an abusive marriage. Still, the knowledge—and all the therapy in the world—

  couldn’t alleviate the debilitating guilt gnawing at JJ. She should have been able to do more. Do something.

  Anything at all.

  And when the darkness closed in on her, and her sister’s lifeless eyes haunted nightmares stained with blood, nothing could stifle the urge to run. Guilt and self-doubt were her constant companions.

  Things could have been so different if JJ had been 7

  Brenda Huber

  more effective in convincing Sarah to leave him—

  leave him and stay gone, but she’d failed Sarah.

  She should have been prepared when Jerry Dewitt had finally snapped.

  Pushing free from the tangled web of guilt and stifling memories of sobbed pleas, JJ traversed the shadow-filled blacktop, following the road signs to the nearest city, Sutter Hollow.

  She squinted at a large green rectangle with shiny white lettering. Her voice echoed inside the car, the sole sound aside from the hum of the engine and the roll of tires in over three hundred miles.

  “Population eight hundred fifty-five,” JJ murmured.

  “Can you consider a city a city with less than a thousand people?”

  “No,” she debated aloud a moment later, quirking her lips. “Less than a thousand should make it a town.”

  Then, after another moment of consideration, she snickered, “Town, ha! A village… maybe.” JJ cast a wary glance at overgrown ditches on either side of the road, half expecting cornfields to pop up and spooky little kids with funky eyes and possessed smiles to peep at her from between the rows. Giving a mirthless, nervous chuckle, she shook her head. “Cornfields belong in Minnesota and Iowa, JJ, not Maine, and possessed children are the stuff of movies
. Pull it together.”

  But her mind had already begun wandering down exhausted, disconcerting pathways as the age-old argument of who was the bigger monster, Freddie or Jason, began to fill her thoughts. Did a cornfield full of possessed children trump an abusive, murderous brother-in-law? She didn’t debate long.

  She’d take a cornfield full of those creepy little freaks any day of the week and twice on Sundays.

  Her monster won…hands down.

  Her monster was real.

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  Shadows

  She had the scars to prove it.

  She rubbed at the knot at the base of her neck with trembling fingers. She wasn’t even going to touch the whole Children of the Corn thing, but she’d bet her last commission Dr. Greene would’ve had a field day analyzing that one. She blinked, squinting at the dashboard as endless miles of driving caught up with her. Maybe Sutter Hollow had a nice, padded psych ward. She could check in for a day or two, just until the shakes were gone. Kinda like those big-name celebrities did with rehab. She could hear it now. Paging Dr. Greene…

  Groaning aloud, rolling the kinks from her neck and shoulders, JJ eased up on the accelerator.

  The drowsy little New England town snuggled at the edge of a serene lake, bordered on two sides by dense, rolling woods. Thin tendrils of mountain mists streaked down from the ridge behind the town, curling possessive fingers around pristine buildings, blanketing the quiet structures and empty streets with memories of another, simpler time. A time when horse and wagon traversed dirt pathways. A time when the plaintive hoot of an owl punctuated the steady hum of grasshoppers, and cheerful birds greeted the dawn. A time long before chaotic rattle of automobile and irritating chime of cell phone stirred the air.

  Now cold metal beasts sat motionless on impersonal, aging asphalt at haphazard intervals, but the overall impression was much the same.

  Peaceful. Hypnotic.

  Drawing a deep, cleansing breath, she squared her shoulders and readjusted her grip on the steering wheel. A small sigh of relief escaped her lips as her vehicle coasted into the small Terry Redlin-esque community on the last wisps of fuel. Some of the tension eased from her shoulders as she scanned the streets for some sign of a gas station. Quaint 9