by Zoe Chant
It occurred to her belatedly that perhaps she should have worn something a little more enticing when entertaining one of the most handsome men she had ever met, but when she got out to the kitchen, it wasn't as if Morgan was dressed any better than she was. He had put on his jeans again but nothing else. Harper allowed herself to admire the way the jeans rested low on his hips and the muscled curve of his back before clearing her throat.
“What're you up to so early?” she asked.
He glanced over his shoulder, a slight and almost shy smile on his face.
“Breakfast. You were good enough to get me dinner last night. It's nothing fancy, I'm afraid.”
Harper went to sit at the tiny table in the corner of the kitchen, watching as he cracked two eggs into the hot skillet.
“Doesn't need to be fancy to be good,” she said. “Thank you.”
Morgan practically purred, and she wondered when someone had last thanked him for something. He didn't have the look of someone who had been thanked for much recently, and she wondered all over again at that loss of weight and the occasionally cagey look he got when she tripped over something sensitive.
Morgan plated two egg sandwiches and brought them to the table, pausing momentarily at the fabric that she had piled up in the other, usually-unused chair.
“Ah, sorry, let me get that.”
Morgan shot her a quizzical look as she shook out some of the test-garments and gathered them up to stow in the living room.
“Are those trousers that fasten up the back? Are you trying to start a new trend?”
“I wish. No, some of my regular clients are disabled. Maybe some thirty percent of my work is altering clothing to make it more adaptive to their needs, and a small percentage of that is dedicated to trying to make better adaptive clothing in general. I wish it was more, honestly.”
She saw his eyes drop to her wrist, bare of its brace so far today, and peaceably she took a bite of the sandwich. He could always ask if he was so curious.
They ate together in silence, but there was nothing sharp or heavy abut it. The sandwich used plenty of butter and a little of the hot sauce she kept on hand along with a sprinkle of grated cheese. It was simple but perfect, and finally she sighed after the last bite.
“That was delicious, thank you,” she said, and she was rewarded with a smile.
“Do you want more? I can make you another one.”
“Want, yes. Need, no. Should have, no. It's a little heavier than what I eat for breakfast in the first place, but I really don't mind.”
“I can find us something lighter for lunch,” Morgan offered, and Harper could see how very easy it could be. Something in her was already whispering to let it be easy, to let Morgan slide in, to let him do what he liked best, which seemed to have a lot to do with what she liked best.
Instead, she shook her head.
“Look, as much as I might like a…dragon butler, we need to figure things out, all right? I don't – I don't know about this true mate stuff.”
“You don't know it, you just feel it.”
“Like you do?”
His nod was sure and certain, and when he saw her dubious look, he sighed.
“You like me, right?”
“Yes.” The answer came out, pure unvarnished truth, and they both looked a touch startled.
“I'm glad,” Morgan said. “We can start there. Come to the convocation with me.”
“Is that the event you need the suit for?”
“It is. It's a gathering of my family and the clans with which we have the closest links. I'll be there this weekend, and I can't avoid going.”
“And you can't wait until, say, next week to come back and let us getting a proper wooing on?”
“I'd rather not,” he said with a slight smile. “I'm a spoiled only child, I'm afraid.”
“And you don't think your family is going to pitch a fit about you bringing home some random seamstress and presenting her as your true mate?”
“They'll be thrilled. And you can speak to some people who have been in your shoes. Some of us take our spouses from other clans, but true mates are often humans who have no idea of our world until the thunderbolt strikes.”
All right, that was tempting. Harper couldn't deny that there was definitely something going on here, something beyond just a physical infatuation and a dry spell. There was something about Morgan that made her heart beat faster. Even now, she wanted to reach out and graze her fingertips across the fine line of his jaw.
She shook her head.
“I don't know. You know how this sounds, right? It's fast, I have a business...”
Morgan paused, and a thoughtful look crossed his face.
“I might have some business for you.”
She frowned.
“Look, I told you before –“
“Not that kind, I promise. But one of my cousins, Miranda, or rather her daughter. She's…Oh, three or four by now, maybe? She hates clothes.”
“Most kids go through a phase where they hate clothes. Is she shedding them to run around naked? That's pretty common.”
“It is, but no. It's more screaming fits when she has to wear most clothing, and crying, and so much upset that her mother and father are at their wits' end.”
Harper considered.
“That could be a few things. Do they give her clothes that are too small, or even too big? Little kids are sensitive, and that might be enough.”
“I don't know. I'm afraid that I don't pay much attention during the family talks, but when I saw them a few months ago, they were getting worried. Would that be something you could do, come and look and see if you could help?”
“I'm not a pediatrician or a child psychologist...”
“You don't have to be, but you do work with clothes. You make sure they fit the person rather than the person having to fit them, right?”
“it's not nice to throw people's words at them, Morgan.”
“When the words are very true, I don't mind pitching them where they might help.”
He grinned, so boyish for a moment that she had to resist the urge to lean over and ruffle his hair. That made her think about how it had felt the last time she had gotten her fingers into it, and she shoved her thoughts aside in a hurry, because wow, that was absolutely not conducive to making good decisions right now.
“What are you afraid of?”
If it had come out as a taunt, she would have known that she should go nowhere with Morgan Castell, no matter what the tug at the very core of her was saying. Instead he uttered it gently, his hand coming across the table to rest over hers, and she swallowed. She noticed that he had placed it over her left hand, the one he had seen without a brace. Somehow, she knew it was no accident.
“I can't fly,” she said stiffly.
He tilted his head to one side, obviously waiting for her to continue.
“I can't. Flights mess me up. I get stiff even if I try to move around, and it … just does something that locks me up.”
A little awkwardly, she indicated the length of her arm from her right shoulder down to her fingertips. Morgan's eyes went wide, and then he covered it again with a carefully neutral look.
“All right. No flying.”
“Weren't you planning on flying? You said it was in Upstate New York.”
“I was. Plans change.” Morgan looked like he was fighting with himself, and then he gave in.
“For true mates, plans change. And if someone is coming across the country to help a family member of mine, even if it is to say that they cannot help at all, plans can change.”
With a bit of wonder, Harper realized that Morgan was real. She had seen proof positive of the dragon transformation and of dragon fire. No, it was Morgan the man who had slept the sleep of the dead on her couch and made love to her, that was the one she was unsure about.
Now though, looking into his eyes, she could see the reality of him. He might be a man with secrets, and she had a feeling that t
he shadows that occasionally shuttered his gaze were very long, but right now, she could see that he was not lying to her. He was earnest in having her come to help his cousin's child, even if it was something that would serve him as well. He would change plans if someone needed him to, whether he was close with them or not.
Harper took a deep breath, let it out, took another one, and gave Morgan a long look.
“Don't make me regret this.”
His grin was as bright as the sun.
“No. Never.”
Chapter Ten
∞∞∞
In the end, Morgan couldn't stay with Harper the way that he wanted to. He had things to arrange, and she did as well.
“I don't know if you make most of your money through hoping your hoard appreciates or what, but I do run a small business,” she had said with a faint trace of humor. “I have to shut things down and to make sure that any clients with questions have them answered before I go. And I also have to make sure that I have enough tools on the road to fix your pretty suit.”
At Morgan's look, Harper laughed out loud.
“You forgot, didn't you? That I had to fix your suit.”
“Will – that is, will you have any problems fixing it while we're driving? It won't hurt you?”
There was something determinedly casual about the way she turned from him, something that he was beginning to realize looked rather familiar.
“No. I'll do the long straight seams when we stop at night. Some of the work is really small and fiddly, and it should be done by hand anyway.”
“Is that good for your hand?”
She had met his eyes with a steely look and a set to her jaw that showed she would not be swayed.
“It's what needs to be done,” she said pointedly. “Are you planning to stand there and tell me how to do the job that you specifically asked me to do?”
Morgan considered, and then he shook his head. He could tell that that wouldn't always be the case. The idea that she was doing something that hurt her just to make money stung and made his dragon growl, low and soft.
He was also, much as he might regret it, coming to recognize the virtue of picking his fights, and he realized that this was neither the time nor the place.
He agreed to come back on Wednesday morning to do a quick fitting with the suit at the shop, and then they could leave together. When they had the details finalized, he didn't expect the soft and excited look on Harper's face.
“What?”
“I'm sorry. I know that there's a lot going on to say the least, but…this is my first vacation.”
“Since opening the shop?”
“Er, well. Since ever, I guess. I started working when I was fifteen at an alterations place at the mall close to where my mom lived, and then I worked there right out of high school. After that, I sort of bounced around from shop to shop before I got the loan to get my own place. Those places don't really give a lot of vacation time, and it's not like I have employees to pick up the slack or anything.”
They had gone on to speak of other things, but her wistful smile had stuck in Morgan's mind. Without telling him directly, likely without even meaning to, she had shown something of herself to him, and what he saw made his heart ache.
As much as Morgan looked like a man, he was a dragon under the skin, and dragons were treasure hunters and treasure hoarders. As the only son of two successful parents, he was very well off, both as humans and dragons were reckoned.
As soon as he had learned that she was his true mate, he had been ready to sign it all over that moment, and, now with a little bit of distance between him and that moment, he could tell exactly how disastrous that might have been. She wasn't ready to be given all his worldly goods, no matter how much he ached to give them to her or how much she deserved them.
However, there was a chance that she was ready for a vacation.
***
He showed up at the shop at eight on Wednesday morning, and he made a face when he found Harper fluttering around the back.
“How long have you been up?” he asked, and she grinned at him. She was wearing her brace that day, and Morgan frowned fleetingly.
“I was having a kind of bad time by the end of last night, so I crashed out early. Came in at five or so. Come on back, I want to see this on you.”
Morgan had always thought of clothes as clothes, never really thought much about them besides how they covered him and how they might present him to others. However, Harper's restrained excitement was catching, and curious, he let her present him with a stack of clothing that was studded with pins.
“So are you planning to turn me into a pincushion?”
“No, I want you to put on the clothes inside out. That'll give me a better idea of how the seams are going to lie.”
Morgan nodded, not quite sure he understood, but willing to bow to her superior expertise. He carefully put the suit on, still managing to give himself the odd scratch and poke, and he felt a little ridiculous until he moved out from behind the screen.
“This…fits better.”
Harper laughed as she came to look him over.
“Good!”
“No, it feels easier to wear. It doesn't feel like a load of wool on me.”
“And again, good. That's exactly right. It didn't fit you well before.”
“It was made for me.”
“It was, and then you changed.” She paused. “You know, it's not your job to stay the exact same shape as your suit. It's impossible.”
Before Morgan could read too much into that, she was looking him over, walking around him and making quick notations on a small scratch pad she carried. She was dressed much as she had been the first time he had come into the shop, this time with a soft cardigan over her tank top and skirt, and he couldn't take his eyes off of her.
While he was certainly still enthralled by her existence and the discovery of his true mate, nothing at all was helped by the fact that she was a very beautiful woman whisking around him, touching him in unexpected places as she plucked at his clothing while he had to keep his hands down by his sides.
He did all right until he happened to glance down and notice that her round cheeks were flushed as well.
“How are you doing there, Harper?” Morgan asked softly, and his suspicions were confirmed when that soft blush deepened and spilled down her neck.
“I am doing just fine,” she said almost defiantly. “I am a professional. I do things like this all the time.”
“With all those handsome men that come in for a suit fitting, yes?”
“Are you going to remember that forever?”
“I might. It makes you blush.”
If anything, that made her blush even harder, and he couldn't help smiling wider at that. It occurred to him how foreign the smile felt on his face and how very long it had been since he had last smiled so very much.
“Shush,” Harper said. “I just have a little more to do, and then we can get on the road.”
Morgan quieted, both because she had asked him to and also because it allowed him to watch her work, which was a strange pleasure all on its own. She was ferociously intent on the task at hand, and he found himself enthralled by the small line between her pale eyebrows and the way strands of her silvery hair escaped her casual ponytail.
“All right,” she said. “Can you move a little for me? Stretch out a little, twist, arms over your head, that kind of thing.”
Obediently, Morgan did as she asked, and then he blinked. It was still a wool suit. It wasn't like it had magically turned into a T-shirt and athletic shorts or anything. However, some of the adjustments Harper had made allowed him to move a great deal more easily, to bend and flex almost as he would in his normal clothing.
“You're magic,” he said, making her laugh in surprise.
“You are literally a dragon,” she said, as if he had somehow forgotten. “I think you have the market cornered on magic.”
“This fits better than it did wh
en I first got it.”
“Good! That means I am doing my job. If the fit's to your liking, that's going to be all I need,” Harper said. “Go ahead and get undressed.”
He raised an eyebrow at her, causing her to blush again.
“And then get dressed in your regular clothes. I believe you were pretty set on your family reunion?”
The reminder of the convocation was almost as good as getting doused with cold water. Morgan could feel his face go still, and he turned from Harper before she could see how it had affected him. In the excitement of the attack and in finding his true mate, he had almost forgotten what was happening, what he had to do.
Harper's not a dragon, he thought, stripping behind the screen. She won't care, will she? She didn't even know dragons existed a few days ago. Surely she doesn't care.
That made one of them.
He came out from behind the screen to find Harper packing his suit, zipping it carefully into what looked like a reinforced garment bag. There was something about her careful motions and determinedly cheerful expression that made him think she knew that something was up with him, and he was incredibly grateful when she didn't mention it.
“Well,” Harper said gesturing, “this is me. If you grab the box, I can grab the rest.”
The box contained a small sewing machine, a miniature version of the steel monster that took up one wall of the shop. Otherwise, apparently all she was bringing was the garment bag containing his suit and a backpack.
“Is that all you're taking along?”
Harper raised an eyebrow at him.
“Yes? I'm just going to be sewing and maybe consulting with your cousin's kid. It's not like I'm meeting the president or something.”
Morgan bit back the protest that she would be meeting his family. He knew that they would be kind – they had better be – but he rebelled against the idea of her thinking she was just the help.
“You're right,” he found himself saying. “But if you find that you want something a bit nicer or more formal, I'm the one asking you to consult. I will be footing the bill for the clothing as well, if you decide you want something else to wear.”