Clara Boyer’s strict no-dating-policemen policy gets tested one full moon night when a dog darts across the road and she crashes her car. As she’s counting her lucky stars she’s not injured, a menacing growl echoes from the dark forest. Stuck on a lonely road, she needs help and there’s only one man she can call.
Officer Ethan Rakowski races to her rescue, but Clara discovers Ethan has been keeping dark, supernatural secrets. The animal she nearly hit isn’t a stray dog, but something more sinister. If it’s not destroyed, Clara may be its next victim.
How can a typical night after work go so wrong… or so right with the sexy cop who promises to keep her safe?
Ethan Rakowski was one hell of a guy. She’d learned a lot about him in the few months that he’d been frequenting the diner. Clara looked forward to his visits while she worked, but she tried not to let his flirty nature influence what she already knew about men like him.
He was drop-dead gorgeous with a heart of gold, but his sexy and sinful ways would only lead to a broken heart. He had a smile for everyone. And he flirted with everyone. There was no reason for her to think the smiles he gave her were anything special. He was like that with everyone.
It didn’t help that whenever he laughed, her heart thumped a little faster. And when he smiled directly at her, it felt like the sun smiling upon her.
Clara sighed heavily.
She was so distracted by thoughts of Ethan that all she saw was a flash of gray fur and fanged teeth in the car’s high beams as something darted swiftly across the road.
Clara screamed and jerked the wheel to avoid hitting the animal. She slammed the brakes, but not in time to stop her car from skidding off the road and colliding with a tree.
Crunching metal and splintering wood sent her body surging forward, but her seatbelt held her firmly in place.
It all happened in an instant and then everything was still.
The car’s engine shut off. There was the tiny crackling of cooling metal, but all else was silent.
Clara gasped and remained in her seat, trying to mentally take in what just happened. She glanced at the road, searching for some sign of the animal but found none.
She hadn’t hit it. She’d swerved in time.
But at the cost of her car.
“Damn,” she muttered. Her shoulder was sore from where the seatbelt locked to keep her in place, but besides that, she had no other injuries. The airbag had failed, but thankfully she hadn’t needed it.
Hoping for good luck, Clara turned the key in the ignition to start the engine, but nothing happened. She unbuckled her belt and got out of the car to assess the damage. The front of the sedan was crumpled against a cracked tree trunk.
“Damn.”
Of all the luck. Guess she would be missing that TV show.
Clara shook her head, desperately trying to think of the positives in the situation. She was alive. She wasn’t hurt. That was the important stuff. She could count her lucky stars that she hadn’t needed that airbag.
She could replace the car. Eventually. Her DVR would record her show. Everything was okay. It could have been much, much worse.
A growl echoed from the dark forest.
Clara froze.
She couldn’t tell which direction the sound originated. It bounced eerily in the depths of the surrounding woods.
A dog.
Clara recalled the flash of fur and teeth she’d seen dart across the road. It must have been a dog that darted in front of her.
Had she clipped it with the car? She hadn’t felt an impact, but everything happened so fast. Was it injured?
Clara searched the moonlit road, but with trees on either side of her, she couldn’t see much.
“Dog?” Clara called out, her voice falling flat in the night’s stillness. Even the crickets and other night noises had died away. She whistled. “Here, puppy! You okay?”
Another low threatening growl made her take a step back.
She gasped.
It must be injured. And an injured animal was dangerous, even if all she wanted to do was help. It had been a shepherd-sized dog, if not bigger. If it was hurt, it might attack her out of pain and fear.
Another growl, closer this time, sent her heart hammering.
She would need help with the animal. There was no way she could deal with this on her own.
She got back into her car and found her purse with its contents strewn across the floor of the passenger’s seat. She rummaged through the items, searching blindly in the dark for her cellphone.
When she found it, she let out a relieved sigh.
She went to press 911 but hesitated. How long would it take to have them send someone? It was 911.
Of course, they’d send someone fast.
But Ethan was at the diner. He was only a minute or two away.
She found his number in her contacts list and dialed. She didn’t need to wait for him to answer.
“Changed your mind, Clara?” His deep voice rumbled through the silence of the car’s interior.
“I need help, Ethan. A dog ran in front of my car, and I swerved to miss it. I hit a tree on the side of the road.”
“A dog?” The amusement in his voice died away. “Are you hurt?”
“No, I’m okay. But my car is damaged, and I hear the dog growling in the woods. I think it’s injured.”
“Stay inside the car, Clara. Where are you?” A chill swept through her at the abrupt change in his tone.
She’d never heard him sound so serious.
“I’m on Stoyer Street. About a quarter of a mile to my house. I almost made it home—"
“Stay in the car, do you hear me? Lock the doors. I’ll be right there.”
He disconnected. Clara stared at the screen on her phone for a moment. Why would she need to lock herself in the car? It was a dog. It’s not as if the animal could open the car door, locked or unlocked.
After several seconds of sitting inside the vehicle staring at the moonlit road and darkened forest, she hit the button on her door to lock it. The dog was out there, sure, probably lying out of sight alongside the road. But that didn’t account for the sensation of eyes peering at her. Intelligent, malicious eyes. The hair on the back of her arms rose.
Clara took a deep breath and shook her head to dismiss her thoughts. She was not one to spook easily.
She lived in a small house in the middle of the woods. She’d been living alone there for three years.
It must be the full moon. People got a little wacky during a full moon. That might account for her sudden paranoia.
And she’d just gotten into an accident. Her adrenaline was pumping. Her mind was racing. That might explain the sudden bout of nerves she experienced.
She counted the minutes until Ethan’s arrival. While she waited, she busied herself with returning the contents to her fallen purse, then holding it tight in her lap. When she saw the flashing lights of his police cruiser, Clara let out a trembling laugh of relief.
He parked directly behind her and in an instant was out of the cruiser. She slung her purse over her shoulder and opened her car door to meet him.
Her eyes widened when she saw his gun drawn.
“Where is it?” He demanded in the same no-nonsense voice he used on the phone.
“You’re not going to shoot it, are you?” Clara tilted her head.
“Where is it?” He repeated harshly, his brows creased over narrowed blue eyes.
“I-I don’t know. Maybe over the side?” She waved her hand in the direction she’d last seen it dart across the road. “I may have clipped it. Everything happened so fast.”
“Stay here.” Ethan pulled a flashlight from his pocket and strode to the opposite side of the road. He shone the flashlight deep into the woods. For several minutes, he searched up and down the road. After he finished one side, he searched the other.
Finding nothing, he holstered his weapon and returned to where she stood by her car.
“What was that about?” Clara folded her arms over her chest.
“Don’t you read the paper?” Ethan shone the flashlight over her, checking for any signs of injury from head to foot. “There’s a rabid dog in the area. It took down two cows on the Tanner farm last week.”
“Oh,” Clara said. “I didn’t know.”
Ethan reached for Clara’s chin, gently pushing her head side to side as he shone the flashlight over her skull.
“You sure you’re not hurt?”
“Yes, I’m sure.” But suddenly Clara found it difficult to breathe as he leaned over her, his hand grazing her cheek to move to her temple where his fingers slid into her hair. Finding no signs of injury, he heaved a sigh of relief, his breath fogging the air in front of the flashlight. The tension around his eyes eased.
“You’re okay.”
“Yeah, I’m okay.” Clara stared into his face. The stark relief she saw there touched her heart. He’d been worried. He had raced his police cruiser, lights flashing to reach her.
He’d do that for anyone, she reminded herself. He was a cop. It was his job.
That didn’t seem to explain the way he stared into her eyes. Surely, he didn’t look at everyone with the same heat, the same flash of desire that she saw flickering in those ocean blue depths.
Clara couldn’t concentrate on anything other than losing herself in his gaze. Her heart thumped wildly, and her breath quickened. She could easily imagine herself standing on the tips of her toes to place her lips on his.
What would it feel like to kiss Ethan? To spend a night in his arms.
She was acutely aware of his hand in her hair, sliding to cup her cheek. His thumb caressed her skin, sending a tumult of sparks zinging through her belly.
Her lips parted. To say something? Or to kiss him? She couldn’t decide.
The decision was taken from her when a vicious growl echoed across the road.
Ethan swore. His hand slid from her cheek to grab his holstered pistol. He swung and fired as a large, snarling mass of gray fur came rushing toward them.
