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  A cloud moved across the moon and a breeze kicked up, making the tall grass whisper as if it was telling secrets.

  Anna unzipped his jeans and worked them down over his hips. He raised a bit to help her with the process. She pulled them off over his stocking-covered feet.

  That was another good sign. His boots were still in front of her fire in the shack. She knew exactly what to do with them when she got back.

  She left the socks on his feet and worked his shorts off of him. She could tell that he was ready for her. His manhood stood tall and thick, a baby-makin' one for sure.

  When she was completely naked, she climbed on top of him and guided him into her with one hand.

  She felt the burst of pain, then the wetness come.

  Seph moaned.

  She moved slowly at first, riding him under the moon. She watched his face contort with the wildness of it.

  Time stood still in the woods surrounding them. Not a peep from a jimmy or the hoot of the lonely old owl could be heard. The grass had even quieted its whispering, listening now to the sounds of the woman and the man doing what every other animal is bound by nature to do.

  Anna moved faster, wetness covering her thighs and Seph's groin. She could smell the blood of her virginity as it seeped into the sod beneath them. The musky smell of sex rose up, filling her senses, as she rode her blue-eyed man with the name that began with M. When she felt his manhood start to grow thicker, bigger inside her, she looked to the moon. Seph moaned under her and she looked down at him. His body was covered with a sheen of sweat. It glistened and she wanted to lick him dry like a cat. His hands were made into fists, holding onto handfuls of grass as if he was trying to anchor himself to the earth.

  A wind blasted through the clearing, raising her hair into a swirling mass around her head. She raised her arms to embrace the moon. The moon smiled down at her, its face full. Clouds raced around it. Thunder rumbled, far off over the ridge.

  Anna looked back down at Seph, her arms still raised to the moon. "Now, Seph," she wailed against the wind that had come, unbidden, and was rattling the branches of the skeletal trees that circled the clearing like dark sentries. "Now!"

  He shot into her. She felt the heat of the first of it, and wailed to the moon, her cry sounding like a she-cat.

  When she felt him shrink inside her, she climbed from her perch astride him and lay down beside him.

  Seph's eyes were closed. Sweat ran from his forehead. Anna brushed his damp hair back from his brow, then laid her head on his chest. His heart thumped against his ribs. She leaned away from him and watched him in the moonlight. If only he wasn't married. If only she could just keep him for herself. She knew that, after tonight, he would come back to her.

  He had to.

  Seph opened his eyes a crack. Anna smiled and ran a hand across the stubble that covered his cheek.

  Clouds covered the moon and lightning crackled. Thunder echoed through the clearing and bounced off the trees, then the rain began to fall. Anna grimaced. It shouldn't be raining. The dew had been heavy in the air and that always meant that it wasn't going to rain. Anna opened her mouth to the sky and let a raindrop land on her tongue. It tasted bitter.

  Seph bolted up to a sitting position. He rubbed at his face with his hands and jerked away as Anna laid a hand on his shoulder. He turned to her, his eyes wide. "Where--what?" his tongue stumbled over the words.

  The rain. The rain was pulling him from under the spell of the tea. Anna reached for his shirt and draped it across his shoulders.

  Seph looked down at himself and back at her.

  "Oh-My-God," he moaned, placing his head in his hands, "What have I done?"

  "It's all right, my darling. I'll never tell anyone. And neither will you." Anna handed him his pants.

  Seph jumped up and jerked them on, not bothering with his shorts. He did a little dance as he struggled to pull them up over his hips. He finally got them on and stood staring at her. "Did we…? Did I…?" he asked quietly.

  Anna got up and put her arms around him, brushing close to him in her nakedness. She pulled his head closer to her until her mouth was next to his ear. "We did. You did," she whispered.

  Seph pulled her arms from around him gently and moved her back. Anna saw a flash of pain cross his face. "I have to go," he said, taking a step away from her. "I'm sorry. I don't know what got into me." He took another step away and stopped. "You are beautiful, but I'm pushing forty and--I'm married. I need to..." Seph's voice trailed off and he looked off into the woods, down at his feet, then at Anna. "My boots?"

  Anna picked up her dress from where it lay on the ground and pulled it over her head. She flipped her long hair out onto her back and started walking in the direction of her shack. "Your boots are back at my shack. You can come get them anytime, but I think right now, you best get on home to your wife before she smells what we've been doin' on the wind." She walked into the woods, leaving Seph where he stood. She vaguely wondered what he would tell his wife and then realized it didn't much matter to her. She had known that the spell would wear off. He would come back after his boots sooner or later.

  The woods were quiet on her walk back to the shack. She felt beady eyes watching her as she picked her way through the trees. She took her time, enjoying the warm feeling that coursed through her body. Even though Seph had acted like he felt mighty guilty, she knew that she had satisfied him. He would come back, she told herself as she brushed the palm of her hand across the top of the tall grass at the edge of the woods. The grass tickled. Her whole body had never felt so alive. The rain had stopped. It had only sprinkled enough to wake Seph from her spell, and now she smelled the wetness of the grass. A light breeze caressed her as she walked up to her porch. It cooled her skin, making her shiver a bit.

  She stepped around the Seph-sized hole in the porch, opened the front door and went inside to the warmth of the fireplace.

  When she came through the door, Fuzzy bristled in his place before the fire and scooted under the bed that sat in the corner of the room. "What's the matter with you?" Anna asked the cat as she walked to the fireplace. She still had the bed in the front room, where she always moved it when cold weather came, and she thought that she just might leave it there for the summer. That way, she could stock the backroom with the things that she would be needing soon. She picked up the poker where it leaned against the fireplace and stirred the coals back to life. When she got a small flame to lick up, she replaced the poker and picked up Seph's boots from where they lay in front of the rocker. She carried them with her to the herb cabinet that stood in the far corner.

  Setting the boots on the floor, she reached to open the cabinet. Anna scratched her chin, her eyes wandering over the canning jars that were filled with herbs, roots, and dried flowers. She tapped her fingernail against her front teeth. She pulled the jars containing wild rose petals and sprigs of lavender from the shelf and set them on the floor beside the boots. She sat, cross-legged on the floor and opened the rose petals, then the jar of lavender, sniffing the fragrance of each before she placed them back on the floor. She pulled Seph's boots closer.

  A low growl came from behind her. She glanced over her shoulder and Fuzzy stopped, frozen in mid-crouch. His ears were laid back flat against his head. He was stalking her.

  "Don't try it," Anna said, turning her back to him. He was acting strange. She wondered if that was a good sign or a bad one.

  She got back down to her business, taking a few rose petals out of the jar that held them and sprinkled some in each boot. "For the sweetness it shall bring," she said. Then she pulled two fine sprigs of lavender from the other jar. "To make it lucky." She put a sprig in each boot. She put the lids and rings back on the jars and screwed them tight. She got up and put the jars back on the shelf in the same spot and shut the cabinet.

  She picked up the boot, went to the fireplace and banked the fire, then headed for the bed. She rubbed the small of her back as she walked, feeling a soreness start
ing to creep in. She got to the bed and bent over to put the boots underneath the foot of it. ‘Sleep with a man's boots under the foot of your bed and it will make you fertile’, her Momma had always said. She placed the boots on the floor and used her foot to shove them under.

  Suddenly, claws raked across the top of her foot. She jerked it back from under the bed, cursing Fuzzy under her breath. She stomped to the front door and flung it open. "Scat, cat!"

  Fuzzy shot from under the bed and careened through the door, but he wasn't fast enough to escape the swift kick that Anna placed on his behind. Anna slammed the door, hearing the cat screech. He must have fallen in the porch hole.

  Anna smirked. Serves him right, acting like that. She padded back to the bed.

  Drawing back the coverlet, she slipped her dress up over her head and dropped it on the floor. Anna crawled onto the bed with its squeaky springs and collapsed. She stretched, and pulled the coverlet up to her chin, placing her hands on her stomach.

  Damn that cat, anyway, she thought. Her eyes grew heavy with sleep. What she needed was someone she could talk to, someone to look up to her. Seph was married, and a married lover would only come around now and then. That suited Anna just fine. But, a child, Anna thought, a child would stay by her side night and day. A child would also keep Seph coming back to her. It would be a binding tie between them.

  "Momma, let there be a seed," she whispered.

  Exhaustion took over and she fell into a deep sleep.

  ***

  Seph stood in the middle of the clearing and wondered just exactly when he had lost his mind. Was it when he had decided to walk home or was it when he took that first drink? It didn't matter now. He had to get home.

  He had no idea where he was. He turned in circles, surveying the woods around him. He could see no familiar landmarks. The moon was starting to dip behind the next ridge. He had to get home soon. He started off in the direction of the spot where the woman had disappeared into the woods.

  When he stepped out of the trodden-down grass and into the grass that was standing tall, he realized just what bad shape his feet were in. Stepping carefully, he tried to keep most of his weight on the balls of his feet. His heels felt like they were shredded. He stumbled over an exposed root that was hidden in shadow. Raking his hands on the raspy bark of a tree, he caught himself before he fell. He got his footing, then shook his hands in the air. They felt like they were burning.

  How do I get myself into these messes? he couldn’t help but ponder that as he tried picking his way over a fallen tree trunk. His hand came down on something sharp, causing him to holler. His yelp of pain echoed through the woods. He felt the palm of his injured hand until he found the splinter of wood sticking out of it. Wincing, he pulled it out.

  He made it to the edge of the woods without killing himself and looked around, trying to get his bearings.

  The smell of a wood fire came from the north. The moon was dipping down even farther now, and the Hollow was as black as the bottom of a well. Seph waded through the tall grass that now had a cottony cloud of fog riding along the top of it. What in the world am I going to tell Chloe? he asked himself as he trudged along in the dark, following the smell of the smoke. He’d never been this late before. Surely, he wouldn't tell her about the woman. Where had she come from, anyway? She wasn't even a woman. She was really just a half-grown girl from what he had been able to see of her. Albeit, a beautiful one. How in the world had he gotten to that clearing? He remembered falling through a porch that he had walked up on to try and find out where he had lost his way and...that was where he'd met the girl. It had been her porch.

  He stumbled onto a dirt track and stopped. His head felt so funny. Full of cotton.

  Now which way? He had been on a dirt track when he had come upon her shack.

  He couldn't go back there, not even to get his boots. Not right now anyway, a voice in his head whispered. A flare of guilt flashed in his heart for even thinking that.

  He started off in the opposite direction of the smoke. The gravel in the road hurt his tender feet, but he had to keep moving. He had to find a paved road and figure out where the hell he was. He heard something moving in the brush along the side of the road and picked up his pace, wincing with every step. All he needed was to get sprayed by a skunk now.

  Oh, he was going to pay for this little outing very dearly, he knew.

  After half an hour, Seph came to a paved. The fog was getting thicker. He didn't know that he'd made it to a good road until the pavement registered under his feet. A chill had crept into his bones from walking in the fog. Actually, he felt like he had been shoved through a knot-hole. His hands and feet were a mess, he was afraid to even look at them, his stomach was rebelling against all the moonshine that he had drank, and his head felt so strange. His mouth held a bitter, woody taste and he remembered the tea that girl had given him. What had been in it?

  A sign post materialized out of the fog. He flicked his cigarette lighter. The flame glowed like a halo in the fog. He held it up to a sign post. The sign read 'The Bend'. Now he knew where he was. He took off down the road, heading for home and praying that his feet would hold out until he got there.

  Seph made it to the house just as the birds were starting to chirp the morning awake. Instead of going inside, he headed for the barn. He eased open the barn door, hoping that the dog wouldn't announce that he'd made it home. Two spears shot into his head as the light inside the barn hit his eyes. Limping to the water trough that they kept for the kids' dog, he turned on the water spigot above it and shoved his head under the ice-cold well water before he could change his mind.

  He came up, shaking his head and gasping at the coldness that ran down the back of his neck. When he could breathe again, he set about taking care of his hands and feet, remembering to pull on the extra pair of work boots that he kept in the barn before going outside.

  As he walked toward the house, the pinkish light of dawn began to spread across the sky. He'd tell Chloe that he'd passed out at old Matthew's last night. She wouldn't like it, but it was far better than telling her what had really happened, although he couldn't remember much of it. He went about the business of slopping the hogs. It wasn't long before he felt somebody watching him. Seph caught the sight of his son, James, out of the corner of his eye as James leaned against a fence post. James sauntered up beside his father.

  "Dad, I heard something last night," he said, looking his father directly in the eye. James was barely an inch shorter than his father and just a hair over sixteen. Their eyes mirrored each other, both sky blue.

  Seph picked up his pail and started toward the barn. "Just what did you hear, James?"

  James followed his father, kicking up dust, looking at the ground as he walked. "Something woke me up and then I heard whispering. You know, kind of like the wind breathing on the tall grass."

  Father and son entered the barn. James leaned on the doorjamb. Seph turned on the water spigot and started rinsing the pail. Seph remembered the sound of whispering grass. It sent a chill through him. "What did this whispering tell you?" he asked his son.

  "It told me that the Devil was dancing last night."

  Seph turned to look at his son. The boy looked honest as hell. "Well, maybe you just heard it wrong, James. Go on now. Have your breakfast, get ready for school."

  "All right, but that is what I heard." James stared at his father. "I know that you didn't come home last night."

  Seph looked at his son without saying a word. That boy's getting too big, he thought. James straightened, shot his father another look and walked out of the barn without looking back.

  Seph hung the bucket on the spike in the wall and turned to walk out of the barn. Suddenly, he froze. The sound of a she-cat's wail echoed in his mind. He shook his head. Damn moonshine, he thought.

  Seph looked in the direction that his son had gone. Funny, how that boy seemed to know things. Things that weren't natural. It was eerie. Seph and Chloe joked about how
the boy had the senses of a man witch.

  A tickle of fear ran down Seph's spine. He hoped James was making this one up because Seph wasn't exactly sure that what he had done last night hadn't been the Devil's work. He couldn't remember most of it, but he knew that he had done wrong.

  It would come back to him sooner or later. He'd never drunk so much 'shine that he couldn't remember after a time.

  He wiped his face with his handkerchief and headed to the house.

  It was time that he faced Chloe.

  Chapter Two

  Anna Caine had busied herself over the past few months fixing the things that she knew she'd better fix before she got too big to do them.

  She'd patched the front porch first thing. She couldn't afford to fall.

  Anna had missed her monthly curse directly after the night with Seph and the next three after that, but she had known when she had awakened the morning after that their mating had 'took'.

  Now, she was busy, trying to get everything done and wondering every evening, as she sat in her rocker, if this night would be the night that Seph would come back. It had been a hair over three months now and she was starting to show a might, but he had yet to pay her another call.

  She put away the hammer and nails that she had been using to fix a broken board that held the wire mesh of the chicken coop in place. Rubbing at her back, she walked to the shack. She was starting to feel the weight of the babe inside her. She opened the front door.

  Fuzzy flew out of the shack as soon as he saw her.

  Anna shook her head and went to the pump at the sink. Why that cat had all of a sudden decided that he hated her, she couldn't figure out. She filled a big kettle with water, set it on the wood stove, and lit a fire under it. A warm bath was what she needed to ease her muscles.

  She got the fire going under the kettle, then pulled the big metal tub that she used as a bathtub to the front of the fireplace. August had just begun, but she still liked a small fire by her bath so that she didn't get chilled when she climbed out. Even in August, the Hollow could get chilly at night and this Friday evening was proving it true. She started a small fire in the fireplace with some kindling and went to get a box of Epsom salts. Sprinkling some into the tub, she hoped that it would leech some of the soreness out of her. She got a pail from beside the sink and started pumping cool water into it, making trips back and forth between the sink and the tub until it was filled to her liking.