Blackwolf's Redemption

“No game. Just tell me, please. What’s the date?”

“June 22, as you well know.”

“Not June 21? The solstice…”

“It fell on the twenty-second this year. That only happens—”

She could almost feel the blood draining from her head.

“It only happens every four hundred years. I know that.”

“So?”

“So…” She licked her lips. There was only one last question to ask, but she was afraid to ask it. “So the last time it happened the year was—the year was 1975.”

Jesse put his fists on his hips. Legs apart, eyes locked to hers, he looked less savage but twice as dangerous.

“Was 1975? Give me a break, okay? This is 1975.”

“Now?” Sienna said calmly. “Right now, it’s—”

Her eyes rolled up into her head and she crumpled to the ground.

CHAPTER FOUR

ONE second, Sienna Cummings was looking at him as if one of them was crazy.

The next, her eyes rolled up and she fell to the ground. Or she would have, if Jesse hadn’t caught her. She was limp, her face bloodless, her lashes dark crescents against high cheekbones.

Great, he thought, clasping her shoulders as he held her up. A trespasser who’d perfected the art of Victorian swoons.

If she thought that was going to change anything, she was wrong.

“Miss Cummings,” he said roughly. “Come on. Open your eyes.”

He shook her, not altogether gently. Nothing happened, not even a flutter of those long, dark lashes. His mouth thinned. She really had fainted, right in the middle of what they’d have labeled a typhoon on the other side of the world.

And he was stuck with her.

The stallion nuzzled his shoulder.

“Yeah, okay,” Jesse said grimly. He wrapped one arm around the woman, slipped the bridle from Cloud’s massive head and ran a rough hand over the animal’s neck. “Go home, boy.” The big horse trotted for the open barn door and Jesse clamped both arms around his unwelcome guest and did the same, running for the shelter of the house.

Her head fell back; the heavy rain beat down on her upturned face and he cursed softly, cupped her head and brought her face to his shoulder.