Natalie choked on a laugh. “You’re such a fool, Jude.”
“Hey, look at me.”
He refused to say more until he could gaze into those twin emeralds. “I’m not all that bright,” he said, his tone earnest. “But I know worth when I see it. You have guts, and brains, and much beauty inside and out. He’s the fool to have ever let you go.”
“You don’t mean all that.” She stared down at the table again.
“Look me in the eye and tell me that again.”
Natalie gazed fully into his eyes, and a tremulous smile crossed her lips. “You could make me fall in love by looking at me like that.”
“Who is to say that isn’t our destiny?”
At her sudden frown, Jude cleared his throat. “But let’s not tempt fate by pre-guessing anything. Just know I like you a lot, Natalie.”
“I like you, too.”
Out of habit, he glanced around the dining room, observing the touristy chatter of the folks there, and envisioned the place packed with diners, with more waiting in line for tables to be cleared and their turns to come. “I want to help you make this place a success,” he murmured. “It has so much potential.”
“Perhaps I should hire you as my marketing expert,” Natalie said on a chuckle. “You’ll need work, and I need someone to believe in this place, then tell people why they should come here.”
“Why not?” he replied agreeably. “I can talk a wolverine out of its burrow.”
“You’re hired.”
Their food arrived via Jane, the waitress, and Jude ate with a ravenous hunger that rivaled Natalie’s. As she ate, she outlined ways she planned to implement a marketing fellow like himself. “If you were to call travel clubs and agents,” she said, chewing her crispy bacon, “let them know we’re here, we can offer discounts to their members.”
“Cool. That doesn’t sound tough.”
“Then we have to get onto the internet,” she continued, “build up the blog I never have time for, take pictures of the happy people and post them everywhere online, so we can start generating interest.”
“When will the billboard be up?”
“Next week, if the sign guys can create a billboard I can live with. I gave them some general ideas, and they should have some mockups for me within a few days. It seems they are hungry for work, too.”
“Hunger can drive the world.” Jude grinned.
“We should contact tour bus outfits, too,” Natalie added. “If we offer them the right incentives, they can bring their tours here. A couple of buses will fill this place up nicely. Those folks tend to tip well.”
Jude frowned. “Tip?”
Natalie frowned lightly. “Surely you tip up there in the great, unfathomable north? To give your server a little extra for the good service he or she brings to your table.”
Jude felt a blush creep up his neck to his cheeks. He hadn’t tipped a single dime to the waitresses there. He half-choked. “I forgot.”
“No worries. I gave them a bit from my pocket. They work hard and do their best, so I take care of them.”
“Should I, er, tip the female who cleans my room?”
“Georgette would appreciate it, as would I.” Natalie leaned on the table with both elbows, gazing at him solemnly. “The rest of the staff don’t like her, as she’s a little slow mentally. But she cleans the rooms to a shine, and she’s loyal to her bones. I cannot complain about her if it takes her longer than most to clean a room.”
Jude smiled into her eyes. “Then I will tip her generously.”
“She is a sweet lady, truly.” Natalie grinned. “I never regretted hiring her.”
“But you may regret hiring me.” Jude’s smile turned into a grinning leer. “I’ll be tossing you into bed every moment I can.”
Giggling, Natalie tried to shush him, glancing around to see if their conversation was being listened in on. “That will have to be kept very quiet,” she hissed, her eyes dancing. “I mean it. Absolute discretion.”
“You have my word.”
“After breakfast,” she said, taking a deep breath, “I’ll start teaching you your new duties. That okay?”
“Sure.” Jude’s smile faded. “Just know I don’t have many skills. I figured I’d have to learn them.”
“I have no problem teaching you.” Natalie’s smile faded. “But I have no money to pay you, either.”
Jude snorted with a grin. “I have money. I told you that. I will still pay for my room, and I will work for you, as well as protect your delicious body, while learning new skills to help you make this lodge a success.”
“That’s very generous of you. I feel as though I’m taking advantage.”
Jude shrugged. “And if I came to you a pauper?”
“Then I’d give you room and board for free, train you, then hope to hell someone didn’t steal you from me.”
“If it makes you feel better,” he said, “then I’ll accept your room and board for nothing while I train, and a salary when business is better.”
Natalie grinned and held out her hand. “That is a deal.”
Jude took it, then bent to plant a kiss to her knuckles. “To our new arrangement, then. I will work hard for you, and perhaps one day soon, that Peterson fellow will pack up and go away.”
Natalie lifted her glass of orange juice for a toast. “I will drink to that.”
In between her usual duties in taking care of her lodge, Natalie taught Jude how to use the computer, how to make cold calls, and how to take good pictures with the digital camera. She spent time with him as he spoke to the guests, and he applied all his charm and wit, then was forced to disentangle himself from the ladies who wanted to cling to his hand.
“You are too cute and charming for your own good,” Natalie said in his ear, grinning. “They will come back year after year just for your smile alone.”
Jude kissed the corner of her mouth. “Then it's all for the good.”
Within a few days, Jude got the hang of most of it except for the internet. His people never used it, and he grew frustrated when he could not get the damn thing to do what he wanted. Again, Natalie showed her patience in teaching him the basics of search engines, keywords, browsing websites, and how to add items to her own.
“You’re trying too hard, Jude,” she said one afternoon. “Take a break. Look, through your cold calling, we are booked solid through the end of June.”
Natalie grinned at him. “We haven’t been booked solid in years.”
Jude blew on his fingernails and buffed them on his shirt. “I have the gift,” he intoned seriously. “The gift of gab.”
Natalie laughed. “You sure do. You are charming these people over the phone. What could you do in person?”
Jude leaned toward her, his eyes fastened on hers, sexy, intent. “I have no earthly idea.”
Natalie threw her arms around his neck, gales of wild laughter echoing in her ears. “You are a godsend, my savior.”
Jude felt no little guilt in not revealing to her what he truly was. He had not gone adventuring since the night she heard him in the woods, and the need for freedom called to him, nagged him with strident voices. You’re falling in love with her. What if she catches with your seed? You must tell her. You must be set free again.
Stifling the urges, Jude worked long and hard, seeing the reward for his work in her smile, her laughing green eyes. A week passed, and the Buck’s Head Lodge was now booked through the months of both June and July, the advance reservation payments sending the bank balances skyrocketing.
“I finally gave Rick his raise,” Natalie told him one evening as they sat on the porch with their glasses and bottle of wine. “He was offered a job with another inn, and I barely talked him into staying.”
Other guests also filled the tables, the murmurs of their conversations muted and soft. Jude gazed out over the forests, the longing filling him, ensnaring him with need. I have to go again, if even for a little while. I have to, or I’ll go stark raving
insane. “That’s good,” he replied. “I hope he stays. He’s a credit to this place.”
“Now that I increased his salary,” Natalie told him, taking a drink from her wine, “he said he would stay. I offered him enough to make him happy.”
“Good.”
He gazed up at the distant stars.
“Jude?” Natalie asked, her voice far away. “Are you all right?”
He glanced at her, seeing her worry, the lower lip she nibbled, her anxious eyes. Now that the lodge was on its feet and running fast into a bright future, she worried that he would pull up stakes and leave. It was his prerogative, and his right, and obviously she sensed his needs. Natalie was one of those humans who seemed to sense things, even if she truly didn’t know anything at all.
Jude smiled and took her fingers within his own. “Would you mind terribly if I were alone tonight?”
Natalie frowned slightly, half smiling, confused. “Of course not. You are not my slave, I have no claim to you.”
“You have plenty of claim to me, my sweet Natalie,” he replied. “I just need—alone time.”
“Don’t we all.”
He looked into her eyes and read her anxiety. “It is not another female. I promise.”
Natalie half laughed. “Again, I have no claim to you. If you did, or if you didn’t, it’s none of my business.”
“You have more claim to me than you know.”
Plucking her hand from the table, Jude kissed her fingers. “I will come back. I promise.”
Her green eyes glittered in the faint light. “I know you will.”
Jude left the patio and Natalie, striding quickly through the darkness and ducking under the limbs of the trees. He had spotted a clearing earlier. A big one, large enough to accommodate him, but it was quite a walk to reach it. His heightened senses informed him of the wild creatures nearby—the owl, the rat, the badger, the bear, the buck, the coyote, the lynx—all would let him pass, unhindered.
They knew him. They feared him. The greatest predator of all. They watched him with unseen eyes, and none would lay tooth nor talon to his hide. And in turn, he would not harm them. No, he had no need to prey on them and would let them live in peace. Only should they turn on him and attack him or Natalie would they face his wrath.
In the clearing, he gazed up at the stars, the moon low in the night sky. I feel the wind calling me. Jude shifted forms and launched himself into the night. A warm thermal from the earlier sunlight lifted him higher as he soared, happiness and peace drowning his past sorrows. The elders are wrong. We need to fly. It’s in our blood.
For hours, he flew, diving low with wings flattened to his back, Jude soared low over the tops of the trees before spreading his wings and gliding upward again. With the moon nearly down, he knew no human eye could see him. Perhaps a shape winging past the stars, seen, then gone within the blink of an eye.
No human radar was near enough to spot him. He flew far from major airports or military bases. That pleased him, for he had no desire to be torn from Natalie or her lodge. If he could but fly for a few hours when the urges became too strong to ignore, he could then be content in these south lands.
Jude circled high over the Buck’s Head Lodge. His keen eyesight brought the sights below clear. He saw Natalie alone on the porch. The guests had gone to their rooms, and she remained. She gazed up at the stars, her beautiful face tilted back as she looked up into the sky, perhaps searching for him.
She has to suspect. She has to know I am different.
His keen vision saw the shadow lurking near the bushes at the corner of the porch. A man’s shape, stalking Natalie. Jude’s fear for her safety and anger at himself for leaving her alone overrode his need for secrecy. Folding his wings, he dove earthward, silent, deadly.
Chapter Seven
With the weariness of working a long but satisfying day, Natalie finished her evening wine on the porch and stood up. Time to get to bed. She stretched for a moment, yawning, and turned her back on the beautiful night to walk into the lodge. Her hand touched the doorknob when footsteps on the porch stairs caused her to half turn. Jude.
The man seized her with his arm around her waist, his other hand covering her mouth. Natalie and her yells of surprise to call for help muffled, instantly fought him. She kicked her heels at his legs as he dragged her back down the steps, her nails scratching at his arms. Far bigger and stronger than she was, he hauled her effortlessly across the lawn.
Natalie had seen enough crime shows to know that if he got her into a vehicle, she was dead. Fighting harder against his strength, she tried to bite the hand over her mouth, slammed her elbow into his ribs as hard as she could. He grunted and swore at her, but didn’t let go.
Even in her fight or flight state, Natalie saw the night turn black all around them.
Something jerked at the man’s body, and she felt herself ripped from him. Falling to her knees, she heard his choked off cry of terror and pain, then rolled, scrambling to get away in case he freed himself and would come at her again. Her hair fell across her face, half blinding her, and she forced it from her eyes with a frantic swipe.
The scream that rose made it to her throat and no farther.
The Wendigo!
A huge beast held her would-be kidnapper in a huge fist. The man dangled, either dead or unconscious, from talons the length of swords. Blue eyes blazed like fire behind a long muzzle filled with rank upon rank of long teeth. Wings that blotted out the sky and the stars swept behind it, and as it bent its huge face toward her, Natalie knew she was dead.
The creature dropped the man to the ground. Before she could move, or even blink, the beast vanished, and Jude stood where it had been an instant before. He stared at her, his mouth stretched in a tight grimace, and he extended his hand toward her. Unbelieving of what she had just witnessed, Natalie shrank from him.
“Did he hurt you?” Jude asked, stepping over the kidnapper’s body, closing the distance, looming over her.
Natalie tried to speak through her stunned fear, yet nothing emerged, save a strange squeaking noise. His eyes, kind, concerned, gazed into her own as he crouched beside her. Noticing he didn’t try to touch her, Natalie struggled to calm herself, to find a rational explanation for what had just happened.
“Natalie? It’s me; it’s all right, sweetie.”
Swallowing hard, she took a deep shuddering breath. “What the hell?” was all she managed to coherently say.
Jude shifted his body to kneel rather than squat, and his face turned from her slightly. “Now you know what I am. I’m sorry, I suppose I should have tried to tell you.”
“That—that was real?” Natalie stared wildly around, half expecting that the winged beast was somewhere nearby and had flown away. Yet she knew what she saw; despite her attempts to dismiss what her eyes had seen, that the creature had changed into Jude.
“Natalie,” Jude said slowly, still not looking at her, “I am a dragon.”
“A—a dragon?” A sharp urge to laugh wildly, crazily, into his face struck her, but she caught hold of it before it escaped. “That’s not possible.”
Rising, Jude took several paces from her, then suddenly the huge beast stood on four legs again, its vast wings spread wide, shielding her from the starlight. The blue eyes that seemed to spark fire gazed down at her from its tremendous height; the serpent-like neck swerved as the huge muzzle came down to her level.
“Oh, my,” Natalie whispered, struck by the beast’s, the dragon’s, rugged beauty, the warmth in the eyes that stared into her own, the sheer dangerousness in its size and strength. Yet, in spite of her fear, she knew it, he, would not harm her.
Then Jude returned, his expression tight with his worries, his fears. “You see? It is possible to be both dragon and man,” he murmured, stepping slowly toward her. “But revealing what I am is forbidden. Humans must never know we exist.”
In wonder, her terror waning, Natalie let him reach down and help her to stand. “This seems so unr
eal,” she said, reaching up to cup his cheek. “But it is real. I’m not dreaming.”
“No. I think you sensed how different I am. Your instincts told you, even if you didn’t believe them.”
Thinking back, Natalie had to nod agreement. So many things fell into place now—his lack of knowing certain things, his odd ability to heal fast, the night she heard the sounds in the trees. The moonlight blotted out by something huge. The sheer menace in him when he confronted Peterson.
“That was you that night. You were out flying.”
Jude laughed low in his throat. “The urge to fly is so strong, I can’t resist it. That’s why I was turned away from my clan.”
“Your clan?”
He paced a few strides from her, staring up into the night sky. “If humans knew we existed, they’d wipe us from the Earth,” he said, his voice low. “They have the weaponry. We survive by staying away from humans, yet some of us cannot stay out of the sky, even though we are banned from flying except under certain conditions.”
“But if you’re so far north,” Natalie protested, “how can anyone know?”
“Radar. Military advancements toward our lands. There were five of us ejected from the clan, all for the same reason. We agreed to meet in a year’s time, the same day we were banished, me and my friends.” He chuckled. “I was so angry at being banished for doing what comes naturally to us. But even now, I still have to fly or go insane.”
A thought struck her. “Uh, do you breathe fire, too?”
“Yeah. Part of what a dragon is.”
“Wow.” Natalie looked at the body of the man on the ground, suddenly remembering him. “Did you kill him?”
Jude turned to glance at the body. “No. He’s unconscious but quite alive.”
“He saw you; he can tell people.” Natalie chewed her lower lip. She could not ask Jude to kill him, even though he would have killed her. Killing him in cold blood is wrong.
“I don’t think he knew what was happening,” Jude replied. “I knocked him out cold before he truly saw me.”
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