LITMIR.BIZ

       www.millsandboon.co.uk

      To Erotic Romance author Madison Hayes,

       who is not only a genius of words, but a treasured friend I simply could not do without.

      Thanks for all the endless support, and for always

       being there when I need it most!

      You’re the best!

      Lots of love.

      Rhy

      The hunger is coming…

      CHAPTER ONE

      There will be time, there will be time

      To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet… —T.S. Eliot

       Henning, Colorado, Friday Afternoon

      THE WOMAN WAS TROUBLE.

      Ian Buchanan knew it the second he set eyes on her as she climbed out of a banged-up, dust-covered, dark blue rental. Knew it as he set down his hammer, watching her walk toward him, her small frame backlit by the burning orange glow of the sweltering afternoon sun while she carefully made her way through the rugged terrain of the building site.

      And the first words out of that soft, pink mouth—her lips glossy and sweet looking, voice mellow with a sexy, husky little rasp to it—confirmed his suspicions.

      â€œMr. Buchanan, my name is Molly Stratton and I’m here because…well, I know this sounds crazy, but your mother, Elaina, asked me to come and find you.”

      She didn’t laugh. Didn’t smile. She just stared up at him with the biggest pair of brown eyes he’d ever seen. Waiting.

      â€œIs that right?” He ignored her small outstretched hand while he pushed his sunglasses up on top of his head, picked up his Coors, and took a long swallow of the beer. The glass rim of the longneck was cool against his sweat-salted lips, the beer even cooler as it went down his dry throat in a long, icy glide. She watched him while he drank, her dark gaze snagging on the column of his throat as it worked. A soft wash of pink warmed the delicate crest of her pale, freckle-dusted cheekbones as she stared, those full lips parted the barest fraction. Something down low in Ian’s belly cramped in reaction. His blood went thick.

      Oh, yeah, she was trouble, all right.

      Ticked at himself for reacting so easily to her, he set the bottle back down on top of his battered cooler with a distinct thud, noting from the corner of his eye the way she flinched at the harshness of the sound.

      She was nervous—and obviously crazy as hell. Either that, or a pathetic little con, looking for an easy score.

      â€œSo tell me, sunshine,” he drawled, injecting just the right amount of ridicule into his deep voice. “You talk to the dead often, or is today just my lucky day?”

      Reaching up to hook her windblown hair behind her left ear, she held his hard gaze without so much as a flicker of those long, thick lashes rimming the deep cinnamon brown of her eyes. “As a matter of fact, I do. How often depends on them…not me.”

      Ian stared at her while those strange words played through his mind. She’d stopped just a few feet away from where he stood, her gaze both shy and direct in that way that always captured a man’s attention. The bristling Colorado mountain breeze played havoc with her shoulder-length, honey-blond curls, carrying a scent to his nose lost somewhere between want and need—and something hot caught fire in his blood, like a burning glow heating him from within. Even down deep, in those forgotten places where things always stayed cool and calm…and lifeless—where nothing and no one could touch him—he sensed an uncomfortable spark of awareness.

      Dropping his sunglasses back down to shield his eyes, Ian picked up his hammer and went back to work, bracing the wall he’d just raised. He no longer held her gaze, but he still felt her, like a fine tension that vibrated from her body to his own, its rhythm rapid and quivering.

      What the hell?

      â€œI know it sounds…impossible,” she added, “but it’s true.”

      Yeah, sure it was.

      â€œDon’t they have medication for people like you, Miss Stratton?” he asked with a heavy dose of sarcasm, determined to ignore her…the heat…the irritating beads of sweat snaking down his spine beneath the damp cotton of his T-shirt. Not to mention the unwanted sexual hunger twisting belligerently in his gut. “What’d you do, miss a dose?”

      â€œI’m not psychotic or delusional.” She sighed, sounding tired. Weary even. “And I’m not after your money or—”

      â€œGood,”

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