"I'm afraid I've never grown a pumpkin of any size or weight."

"Surprise me."

"I can walk on my hands. I'd demonstrate, but the ground's not conducive to hand-walking. Come on. You wouldn't have guessed that."

"You're right. I will, however, insist on a demo later. I, after all, have documentation of the pumpkin."

"Fair enough."

She kept up the chatter, light and silly enough to make him laugh. He wasn't sure he'd laughed along this path since that fateful hike with his friends. But it seemed natural enough now, with the sun beaming down through the trees, the birds singing.

Until he heard the growl.

She'd heard it, too. He couldn't think of another reason her voice would have stopped so short, or her hand would have gripped his arm like a vise. "Cal-"

"Yeah, I hear it. We're nearly there. Sometimes it makes noise, sometimes it makes an appearance." Never this time of year, he thought, as he hitched up the back of his jacket. But these, apparently, were different times. "Just stay close."

"Believe me, I..." Her voice trailed off this time as he drew the large, jagged-edged hunting knife. "Okay. Okay. Nowthat would have been one of those unexpected things about you. That you, ah, carry a Crocodile Dundee around."

"I don't come here unarmed."

She moistened her lips. "And you probably know how to use it, if necessary."

He shot her a look. "I probably do. Do you want to keep going, or do you want to turn around and go back?"

"I'm not turning tail."

He could hear it rustling in the brush, could hear the slide of mud underfoot. Stalking them, he thought. He imagined the knife was as useless as a few harsh words if the thing meant business, but he felt better with it in his hand.

"Lump doesn't hear it," Quinn murmured, lifting her chin to where the dog slopped along the path a few feet ahead. "Even he can't be that lazy. If he heard it, scented it, he'd show some concern. So it's not real." She took a slow breath. "It's just show."

"Not real to him, anyway."

When the thing howled, Cal took her firmly by the arm and pulled her through the edge of the trees into the clearing where the Pagan Stone speared up out of the muddy earth.

"I guess, all things considered, I was half expecting something along the lines of the king stone from Stonehenge." Quinn stepped away from Cal to circle the stone. "It's amazing enough though, when you take a good look, the way it forms a table, or altar. How flat and smooth the top is." She laid her hand on it. "It's warm," she added. "Warmer than stone should be in a February wood."

He put his hand beside hers. "Sometimes it's cold." He fit the knife back into its sheath. "Nothing to worry about when it's warm. So far." He shoved his sleeve back, examined the scar on his wrist. "So far," he repeated.

Without thinking, he laid his hand over hers. "As long as-"

"It's heating up! Feel that? Do you feel that?"

She shifted, started to place her other hand on the stone. He moved, felt himself move as he might have through that wall of fire. Madly.

He gripped her shoulders, spinning her around until her back was pressed to the stone. Then sated the sudden, desperate appetite by taking her mouth.

For an instant, he was someone else, as was she, and the moment was full of grieving desperation. Her taste, her skin, the beat of her heart.

Then he was himself, feeling Quinn's lips heat under his as the stone had heated under their hands. It was her body quivering against his, and her fingers digging into his hips.

He wanted more, wanted to shove her onto the table of rock, to cover her with his body, to surround himself with all she was.

Not him, he thought dimly, or not entirely him. And so he made himself pull back, forced himself to break that connection.

The air wavered a moment. "Sorry," he managed. "Not altogether sorry, but-"

"Surprised." Her voice was hoarse. "Me, too. That was definitely unexpected. Made me dizzy," she whispered. "That's not a complaint. It wasn't us, then it was." She took another steadying breath. "Call me a slut, but I liked it both ways." With her eyes on his, she placed her hand on the stone again. "Want to try it again?"

"I think I'm still a man, so damn right I do. But I don't think it'd be smart, or particularly safe. Plus, I don't care for someone-something-else yanking on my hormones. Next time I kiss you, it's just you and me."

"All right. Connections." She nodded. "I'm more in favor than ever about the theory regarding connections. Could be blood, could be a reincarnation thing. It's worth exploring."

She sidestepped away from the stone, and him. "So, no more contact with each other and that thing for the time being. And let's take it back to the purpose at hand."

"Are you okay?"

"Stirred me up, I'll admit. But no harm, no foul." She took out her water bottle, and this time drank deep.

"I wanted you. Both ways."

Lowering the bottle, she met those calm gray eyes. She'd just gulped down water, she thought, but now her throat was dry again. "I know. What I don't know is if that's going to be a problem."

"It's going to be a problem. I'm not going to care about that."

Her pulse gave a couple of quick jumps. "Ah...This probably isn't the place to-"

"No, it's not." He took a step forward, but didn't touch her. And still her skin went hot. "There's going to be another place."

"Okay." She cleared her throat. "All right. To work."

She did another circle while he watched her. He'd made her a little jumpy. He didn't mind that. In fact, he considered it a point for his side. Something might have pushed him to kiss her that way, but he knew what he'd felt as thatsomething released its grip. He knew what he'd been feeling since she'd stepped out of her car at the top of his lane.

Plain and simple lust. Caleb Hawkins for Quinn Black.

"You camped here, the three of you, that night." Apparently taking Cal at his word about the safety of the area, Quinn moved easily around the clearing. "You-if I have any understanding of young boys-ate junk food, ragged on each other, maybe told ghost stories."

"Some. We also drank the beer Gage stole from his father, and looked at the skin mags he'd swiped."

"Of course, though I'd have pegged those activities for more like twelve-year-olds."

"Precocious." He ordered himself to stop thinking about her, to take himself back. "We built a fire. We had the boom box on. It was a pretty night, still hot, but not oppressive. And it was our night. It was, we thought, our place. Sacred ground."

"So your great-grandmother said."

"It called for ritual." He waited for her to turn to him. "We wrote down words. Words we made. We swore an oath, and at midnight, I used my Boy Scout knife to cut our wrists. We said the words we'd made and pressed our wrists together to mix the blood. To make us blood brothers. And hell opened up."

"What happened?"