"Of course I love you, Rowan." Her smile was just a little wistful as she brushed back his hair herself. "If you were in love with me, you couldn't have been so reasonable about not sleeping with me anymore." Her smile warmed with affection when he fidgeted. "Alan, we've been good friends, but we were mediocre lovers. There was no passion between us, no urgency or desperation."

Discussing such a matter quite so frankly embarrassed him. He'd have risen to pace, but the wolf had growled quietly again. "Why should there be?"

"I don't know, I just know there should. There has to be." Thoughtfully she reached up to straighten his tie. "You're the son my parents always wanted. You're kind, and you're smart and so wonderfully steady. They love both of us." She lifted her gaze to his, thought-hoped-she saw the beginnings of understanding there. "So they assumed we'd cooperate and marry each other. And they convinced you that you wanted the same thing. But do you, Alan, do you really?"

He looked down at their joined hands. "I can't imagine you not being part of my life."

"I'll always be part of it." She tilted her head, leaned forward and laid her lips on his. At the gesture, the wolf rose, stalked over and snarled. She put an absent hand on his head as she drew back, and studied Alan. "Did that make your blood swim or your heart flip? Of course not," she murmured before he could answer. "You don't want me, Alan, not the way a man wildly in love wants. You can't make love and passion logical."

"If you came back, we could try." When she only shook her head, he tightened his grip on her hand. "I don't want to lose you, Rowan. You matter to me."

"Then let me be happy. Let me know that at least one person I matter to, and who matters to me, can accept what I want to do."

"I can't stop you." Resigned now, he lifted his shoulders. "You've changed, Rowan. In three short weeks, you've changed. Maybe you are happy, or maybe you're just playing at being happy. Either way, we'll all be there if you change your mind."

"I know."

"I should go. It's a long drive to the airport."

"I-I can fix you a meal. You can stay the night if you like and go back in the morning."

"It's best if I go now." Skimming a cautious glance toward the hovering wolf, he rose. "I don't know what I think, Rowan, and don't honestly know what I'll say to your parents. They were sure you'd be coming back with me."

"Tell them I love them. And I'm happy."

"I'll tell them-and try to convince them. But since I'm not sure I believe it myself-" He sneezed again, backed away. "Don't get up," he told her, certain it was safer if she kept that light hand on her dog's ferocious head. "I'll let myself out. You ought to get a collar for that thing, at least- make sure he's had his shots and-"

The sneezing fit shook his long, lanky frame so that he walked to the door with the handkerchief over his face. It looked as though the dog was grinning at him, which he knew was ridiculous.

"I'll call you," he managed to say, and rushed out into the fresh air.

"I hurt him." Rowan let out a deep sigh and laid her cheek atop the wolfs head as she listened to the sound of the rental car's engine spring to life. "I couldn't find a way not to. Just like I couldn't find the way to love him." She turned her face, comforting herself with the feel of that warm, soft fur. "You're so brave, you're so strong," she crooned. "And you scared poor Alan half to death."

She laughed a little, but the sound was perilously close to a sob. "Me, too, I guess. You looked magnificent coming through the window. So savage, so fierce. So beautiful. Teeth snapping, eyes gleaming, and that marvelous body fluid as rain."

She slid off the couch to kneel beside him, to burrow against him. "I love you," she murmured, felt him quiver as she caressed him. "It's so easy with you."

They stayed like that for a long, long time, with the wolf staring into the dying fire and listening to her quiet breathing.

Liam kept her busy and kept her close over the next three weeks. She loved the work-and that helped him justify spending so much time with her. It was true enough that most of her sketching could-even should have been done on her own. But she didn't argue when he insisted she come to him nearly every day to work.

It was only to-keep an eye on her, he told himself. To observe her, to help him decide what to do next. And when to do it. It wasn't as if he wanted her company, particularly. He preferred working alone, and certainly didn't need the distraction of her, the scent and the softness. Or the chatter, that was by turns charming and revealing. He certainly didn't need the offerings she so often brought over. Tarts and cookies and little cakes.

As often as not they were soggy or burned-and incredibly sweet.

It wasn't as if he couldn't do without her, very, very easily. That's what he told himself every day as he waited restlessly for her to arrive.

If he went to her nightly in wolf-form, it was only because he understood she was lonely, and that she looked forward to the visits. Perhaps he did enjoy lying beside her on the big canopy bed, listening to her read aloud from one of her books. Watching her fall asleep, invariably with her glasses on and the lamplight shining.

And if he often watched her in sleep, it wasn't because she was so lovely, so fragile. It was only because she was a puzzle that needed to be solved. A problem that required logical handling.

His heart, he continued to assure himself, was well-protected.

He knew the next step was approaching. A time when he would put the choice of what they became to each other in her hands.

Before he did, she would have to know who he was. And what he was.

He could have taken her as a lover without revealing himself. He had done so before, with other women. What business had it been of theirs, after all? His powers, his heritage, his life were his own. But that might not be the case with Rowan. She had a heritage of her own, one she knew nothing of. There would also come a time he would have to tell her of that, and convince her of what ran through her blood.

What she would do about it would be her own choice.

The choice to educate her had been his. But he guarded his heart still. Desire was acceptable, but love was too big a risk.

On the night of the solstice, when magic was thick and the night came late, he prepared the circle. Deep in the woods, he stood in the center of the stone dance. Around him, the air sang, the sweet song of the ancients, the lively tune of the young, the shimmering strains of those who watched and waited. And the aching harpstrings of hope. The candles were white and slender, as were the flowers that lay between them. He wore a robe the color of moon-glow belted with the jewels of his rank. The wind caught his unbound hair as he lifted his face to the last light of the yielding sun. Beams of it fired the trees, shot lances of glimmering gold through the branches to lie like honed swords at his feet.