Witching Moon by REBECCA YORK Page A

college loan, because the idea of being in debt for the next fifteen years made her throat close.
    Of course, she felt that way now—closed in and smothered. And the sensation had nothing to do with her education loans.
    The disquiet came from her immediate surroundings, this cabin and the wilderness around it. If she could, she would find another place to live and work. But she suspected that by the time she went through proper channels to move somewhere else, her stay would be almost up. So she switched on the kitchen light, then walked around the little house turning on the lights in every room.
    They drove away the darkness but did nothing for the hot, sticky air.
    The small dwelling had two bedrooms. She was sleeping in the larger one. The other was going to be her laboratory.
    Granville had already shipped several long worktables, but some assembly was required, so she’d put that off until later. For the time being, the plants she’d dug up were resting in boxes on a plastic sheet, which she’d spread over the narrow bed in her makeshift lab.
    She had pretentiously given Adam Marshall the Latin name of sweet flag. But she was just as conversant with the common names of the specimens she’d collected.
    In addition to the irislike plant, she had lily of the valley, jimsonweed, and male shield fern. All of the latter were poisonous. And the jimsonweed was reputed to have psychotropic qualities, a fact she hadn’t shared with Marshall.
    She sighed, thinking she might as well go into the work room and start documenting the collection. Maybe she could even make some extracts from the leaves or the roots or the seeds and start testing them for antibacterial properties.
    But instead of focusing on work, her mind strayed back to the morning in the swamp—to the moment when she’d met Adam Marshall.
    She’d been so intent on the clump of sweet flag that she hadn’t even been aware of him until he was almost on top of her. Or maybe it was the way he moved through the swamp, like an animal supremely adapted to the natural environment.
    Those first moments had shaken her to her toes. She simply hadn’t expected to meet up with anyone else out there in the middle of nowhere.
    She’d taken in every detail of the man in those first charged instants. Somehow, when she thought of him, her mind filled with animal images. He was over six feet tall and as dark and dangerous-looking as a hungry bear. His eyes were black and deep set, glittering like the eyes of a bird of prey. He had a blade of a nose, nicely shaped lips, and dark stubble covering his cheeks and chin.
    He’d looked like he’d had a hard night. Probably she did, too, she thought, her fingers unconsciously going to her hair.
    She was in the act of smoothing back the unruly strands when she stayed her hand. What was she doing? The man wasn’t even here, and she was fussing with her hair. Besides, it didn’t matter anyway what he thought of her.
    Even as the denial surfaced in her mind, she knew it was a lie. Some tender, feminine part of her did care what he thought about the way she looked.
    She closed her eyes for a moment, thinking that a twenty-eight-year-old woman should have more experience with men. She’d dated, of course. But it was difficult for her to make connections with people. She’d always felt like there was a barrier between herself and them. A time or two she’d managed to overcome it. But often she hadn’t felt like it was worth the effort. So her focus had always been on her studies or the things that interested her, like gardening or her art. And she’d had a good reason to study hard: she was determined to do well and she wanted to make Mom and Dad proud.
    Now she was paying the price for her sexual inexperience—getting excited about a guy she met in the woods, a guy so different from the academics who had inhabited her world for the past ten years that she had no