Moon Shadows by Nora Roberts

much faith in me. Then we come to the big, overall reason I’m standing here this morning talking about this and hoping we’re going to be digging into those eggs in a second. That would be because I love you.”

Chapter 8
    F OR the first time in days she slept easy. Maybe it was hope, or love, or having Gabe dozing beside her for a long Sunday morning nap, but the changing dreams didn’t follow her.
    Before he’d opened this door inside her, she would have considered sleep during the cycle a waste of valuable time. Now it was a renewal of energies and strength, and she woke rippling with both.
    She was surprised to find him gone, and like a love-struck moron raced to the window, sighed with relief when she saw his truck still in the drive.
    â€œWell, Amico, look at me.” She patted her chest so the dog could happily leap up, plant his paws on her shoulders while she scrubbed her hands over his head. “A lycan in love. Broke a big promise to myself, didn’t I? Never get emotionally involved, never get emotionally attached. Not with anything, not with anyone. Broke it with you, too, though, and that’s worked out, right? God, don’t let me ruin his life.”
    She danced with the dog, one of his favorite games, thendropped down to wrestle with him before going downstairs to let him out for a run.
    Fall was biting at the air, and its nip had turned the trees to gold and red, pumpkin orange and burnt yellow. Fall meant the sun set sooner, and the nights stretched longer and longer. Soon her hours as a wolf would rival her hours as a woman.
    She would have less and less time to work, to be, and more time trapped inside the beast.
    She wished for summer, endless summer with its long, bright days and short nights. How she dreaded the coming of winter, and its bleak, white moons.
    She closed the door, closed it out. And followed Gabe’s scent to her lab.
    â€œHey.” He took a long look at her, the sort that seemed to drift casually over her face but measured every inch. “I’d hoped you’d sleep longer.”
    â€œI don’t sleep much during cycle. I generally have dreams. They’re disturbing.” He was surrounded by books, hard-copy files, and the computer screen was filled with an analysis of one of her blood samples. “What are you doing?”
    â€œBoning up. Got to go a ways to get current here. Did you ever consider going into medicine? Your case notes are excellent.”
    â€œI’ve done some lab work here and there, but it was self-serving. I’m happier making herbal soaps and skin cream. I like the smells and textures. Labs are cold, and sterile. If I—when I,” she corrected, “find a cure, I never want to look through a microscope again.”
    â€œI guess that scratches any idea of you working with me.” He pushed back in the chair, and however light his tone had been, she saw something darker on his face. “I need to talk to you about some of your experiments, and the fact that you have, with some regularity, ingested poisonous substances.”
    â€œI’m careful with the amounts and the combinations. Cancer patients are routinely bombarded with poisons.”
    â€œSimone—”
    â€œI have to kill what’s inside me. I can’t do that with aspirin, for God’s sake.”
    â€œAnd from your notes,” he continued in that same steelytone, “I’m aware you’ve considered the possibility that if you kill what’s inside you, you go right along with it.”
    â€œI don’t want to die. I don’t have a death wish. I got over that. On my twentieth birthday I drew myself a hot bath. I drank three glasses of cheap white wine. I got the razor blades. I had Sarah McLachlan on the stereo. I was ready to do it, to end it.”
    â€œWhy didn’t you?”
    â€œBecause I realized it’s bullshit. What happened to me isn’t fair, it isn’t right, it