Adrian had jumped at the chance to get out of the tiny cottage where the proximity to Lucy was making his head spin.

Unfortunately, he hadn’t foreseen her ability to make him even crazier at the bar than he had been in the cottage.

Their companion, Jeremy Hall, was young - in his twenties, like Lucy. And though Adrian liked to think Lucy was an ageless twenty-something, Hall was every bit the hare-brained “bro” Adrian figured he must have been himself, ten years ago.

Hall was very pleasant and high-spirited. As a matter of fact, he was making Lucy laugh in a way Adrian hadn’t seen very often. And he was good looking in a wholesome way, with his blond hair, blue eyes and skinny jeans.

Still, Adrian couldn’t help feeling there was something off about the younger man.

Hall laughed and let his hand rest casually on the back of Lucy’s stool.

Yes, there was definitely something very unlikeable about this client.

Are you sure it’s not just that he’s flirting with Lucy?

Adrian squelched the unbecoming thought and turned his attention back to the conversation at hand.

“So you’re, like, young for this job, right?” Jeremy asked Lucy.

“I didn’t finish college,” Lucy admitted. “Adrian hired me anyway. He took me under his wing and taught me everything I know.”

“You didn’t need much from me.” Adrian couldn’t hold back a warm smile. “You’re a natural.”

She blushed and looked down and Adrian cursed inwardly. When would she learn to take credit for her own hard work and talent?

“I knew it,” Hall said. “You’re a prodigy, right?”

“Oh, I don’t think so,” Lucy laughed.

“Don’t be modest,” Hall told her, his face earnest. “I’m a prodigy too. That’s why my grandfather put me in charge of this account.”

Adrian hid his smile. The grandfather had probably put Jeremy on the account to keep him out from underfoot in the office.

“Wow,” Lucy said, wide-eyed. “He must be really proud of you.”

Fire lashed Adrian’s chest and he felt sick. How could she fail to see through this goofball? You didn’t exactly need the heightened senses of a panther to smell bullshit this deep.

“Yeah,” Jeremy grinned. “I’m looking forward to blowing his mind with the commercial when it’s done. Hey, you want another one?” He indicated the glass in her hand.

A whole scenario played out before Adrian’s eyes, Lucy drinking too much, Hall escorting her back to his place…

But Lucy shook her head, sending her curls tumbling down her back and a wave of lush springtime to Adrian’s sensitive nose.

“This was so much fun, Jeremy, but I’m beat after the plane ride. I think it’s time to head back to the cottages and turn in.”

“Cool, cool, cool,” Jeremy said. “We’ll do this again another night then. How are the cottages? I wish we had more good places to stay in town.”

“Very comfortable,” Adrian put in quickly. The last thing he wanted, the very last thing, was for Hall to offer up his apartment as an alternative to Lucy sharing a room with Adrian. He preferred the torture of having her close to the torture of having her with a man he didn’t trust.

Lucy dimpled and nodded in agreement.

By the time they found themselves back in the cottage, it was nearly midnight.

Lucy disappeared into the bathroom and came out in yoga pants and a t-shirt. He tried hard not to notice how cuddly she looked.

Then it was his turn in the bathroom. Though he normally slept naked, Adrian kept on a t-shirt and boxers. He found himself rushing through his bedtime routine, eager to get back to her.

The room was small, but the entire back wall was taken up by a huge window looking out into the woods and the creek that rippled past.

When he emerged from the bathroom, he couldn’t help noticing that the moon was almost full. It looked enormous through the trees and reflecting back in the swollen creek.

Adrian felt the panther rising in him and he bit his lip until it nearly bled.

It was his three hundredth moon.

His foster brothers and sisters all had some close calls as their protective magic wore off. They had all guessed his would be easier, now that the portal back in Tarker’s hollow was open, but no one really knew for sure.

Whether he was ready or not, his animal was coming to the surface. He hadn’t been able to shift completely since childhood. And he’d expected to take time off, go to the woods and experience it with abandon this month.

But when the opportunity with Horizon Cards came up, Adrian jumped on it. It was a huge account. And after all, they were in the woods. When the moon was completely full in another few days, he would just have to get out of the cottage for a night.

Meanwhile, the more immediate problem was sleeping with Lucy, without… sleeping with her.

Her soft scent filled the room as he approached the bed. She had staked out a side and was lying on top of the blankets with an e-reader.

He was pleased to see she was reading. Most people would be watching TV or playing around on their phones.

“Do you read a lot?” he asked as he eased himself onto the bed beside her.

He glanced at the e-reader and she flushed.

“Most nights,” she replied. “How about you, do you read a lot?”

“Yeah,” he smiled. “Thrillers, crime dramas, that kind of thing. How about you?”

“Um, fantasy, romance,” she said softly.

Romance novels - he seemed to remember hearing that those were supposed to make women horny. Desperately, he tried not to think that tantalizing thought.

“Is that what you’re reading now?” he asked, trying not to sound hopeful.

“Yeah,” she said, “sort of.”

“What do you mean, ‘sort of’?” he asked, intrigued.

“This is a paranormal romance about a woman who falls in love with a man who can… change himself.”

“Change himself? Like a diaper?”

“Like a shapeshifter,” she said, looking embarrassed.

“A… shapeshifter,” he echoed, unable to process what he thought he was hearing.

“Yeah,” she said, chagrined. “I know it sounds dumb, but it’s actually sort of awesome. The guy is a werewolf.”

“No way,” Adrian said thinking of his foster siblings and wondering if they knew this was a thing. His sister Darcy was a wolf, and so was his brother, Will.

Lucy seemed surprised at his interest.

“Yeah, it’s neat. In the part I’m reading now, he’s going to prevent a heist. He knows who the bad guys are because of his superior sense of smell.”

Well that checked out.

“Do you…” he began and wasn’t sure how to finish. “Do you like the idea of a guy who could turn into an animal?”

“Well, sure,” she grinned. “It would be like having a superhero for a boyfriend.”

He nodded slowly.

She laughed.

“It’s just a book, but it’s nice to escape reality sometimes.”

She didn’t know the half of it.

He was half-tempted to ask how she would feel about having a panther for a boyfriend but he had already pushed this weird conversation too far.

“I know what you mean about escaping,” he said.

“What do you do to escape?”

“I like being outside,” he replied.

“Is that why you knew about the trees?” she asked.

“What trees?”

“When we came in,” she said. “You knew that the tree that had fallen was dead already, and that the others were okay.”

“Oh,” he said. “Yeah, I grew up on a farm. It was mostly an apple orchard, but we also grew vegetables and Christmas trees.”

“No way,” Lucy breathed, placing her e-reader down on the bedside table. “I thought you were from Philadelphia.”

“I’m from the suburbs of Philadelphia,” he told her.

“So you’re… a farm boy?” she asked.

“I guess you could say that,” he chuckled. “Why are you so surprised?”

“I don’t know,” she said, looking a little embarrassed. “I guess you just seem like a city guy. Plus isn’t your brother a big shot in Glacier City?”

Ah, Derek. The rich brother. Well, the richest brother.

“Yeah, a lot of us strayed from the nest,” Adrian laughed. “Poor Mom.”

“How many of you are there?” Lucy asked. Her face wore an adorable expression of confusion.

“We’re foster siblings,” he explained. “So there are… a lot of us.

“Oh,” she said, her face taking on the sorrowful expression he’d seen so many times when he mentioned he’d grown up in foster care. “I didn’t know.” Somehow on her it looked sincere, like she actually cared.

“It wasn’t like that,” he said.

“Like what?”

“Like you’re thinking,” he chuckled. “Like the movie Annie or an after-school special or something. It was awesome. I was happy. I was an incredibly lucky kid.”

“You’re serious,” she said, a furrow in her brow.

“Of course I am,” he replied, mystified.

“It’s just,” she began. “I don’t know. It seems like the kind of thing a grateful person is supposed to say. But I can tell you mean it. That’s… awesome.”

“Well what kid wouldn’t want to grow up in an apple orchard?” he teased.

But of course that hadn’t been the best part of growing up at Harkness Farms. Kate Harkness could have raised them in a fiftieth-floor apartment on bread crusts and rainwater and they would have been happy and content.

“I’m thinking it wasn’t just the orchard you loved,” she said with a knowing smile, as if echoing his thoughts.

“How did you guess?” he laughed.

“I’ve talked to your Mom,” she said lightly.

Oh, right. Lucy had worked the phones for him when she first came to William Howard as an apprentice. She would have spoken to Kate when she called in to talk with him.

“So how did you wind up in Glacier City?” she asked.

“I wanted to be a writer,” he said, remembering those days of living in a fourth floor walk-up and trying to write the great American novel. “I ended up writing copy for commercials.”

“That seems like fun,” Lucy said, wrapping her arms around her legs as if she were settling in for a bedtime story.

“It was fun,” he said. “But the problem was that no matter how good the creative concept was, or how perfect my copy, it all came down to the actors.”

She nodded. This was their world - of course she understood.

“Anyway, we had an account with a cereal company,” he went on. “We had a really clean concept for a funny kid, the copy was ideal for staccato delivery. I asked if I could sit in on a casting session.”

“Nice,” Lucy said.

“And then,” he laughed, “I was hooked. Quit writing copy the next day, lived on savings and Ramen until the internship with the casting director was done. Then he hired me. And here we are.”

“Wow, you were hooked,” Lucy said, impressed. “Who was casting that day?”

“Mr. Howard,” he said.

Her eyes got big and she nodded.

Mr. Howard was a big deal. Adrian realized how lucky he was.

“He took me under his wing,” he said, shaking his head, still disbelieving it. “He made my career.”

Lucy smiled.

“It’s true,” he told her.

“I know,” she said softly. “That’s how I feel about you.”

Adrian shook his head. That was altogether different.

“Please don’t shake your head,” she insisted. “You gave me this chance when I had no other options. You trusted me with your clients and your own reputation. I will always be grateful to you.”

A thousand emotions ripped through him.

He remembered the young girl who had turned up on the office doorstep, desperate for an apprenticeship. She had been willing to do anything - fetch coffee, type email, clean up databases. She was grateful for a kind word, never asking for opportunities, but always ready to jump in and help.

Her words made his heart ache. Though he knew they weren’t meant personally, he felt them that way. He couldn’t help it.

But they were all the more reason he couldn’t have a romantic relationship with her.

“You came to me talented, and willing to work hard,” he said gruffly. “I didn’t have to do much.”

“That’s not true,” she laughed. “I didn’t know the first thing about casting.”

“When you handled Brad Silver, I knew,” he said.

Adrian had discovered Brad in an after-hours production of Hamlet at a black box theatre in Chelsea. He was unbelievably talented with almost tragic good looks.

Adrian had brought the kid in for two auditions but he couldn’t hold it together in front of the camera. A lot of actors were bad auditioners and great performers. It was the equivalent of being a bad test taker but still really smart. Nonetheless, without good footage for the client, there was really no point in pushing an actor.

He’d decided to bring Silver in for one last go just two weeks after Lucy started working for him.

“All I did was talk to him,” she said. “And bring him a bottle of water.”

“You say that because you didn’t see his other auditions,” Adrian laughed.

Brad’s audition had gone from nervous bordering on robotic to warm and confident with Lucy in the room. There was something about her that set people at ease, made it easy for them to take in her soft-spoken yet insightful direction. Silver had booked the job and made them all look really good.

“I’m glad you were happy,” she smiled. “I still say I didn’t do anything, but if Brad was the reason you handed me my career, I’ll take it.”

Adrian hadn’t handed her anything, she’d worked her ass off for it. But there was no point arguing because every word that came out of her mouth was melting him. And he needed to stay cold.

“We’d better get some sleep,” he said.

“Oh, yeah,” she said, “of course.”

He almost felt bad for cutting the conversation short. But he leaned over and turned off his bedside lamp.

A moment later she turned hers off as well.

Leaving nothing but soft moonlight in the room.