Desired by a Dragon: A Paranormal Shifter Romance (Exiled Dragons Book 3)

by Sarah J. Stone

“I don’t think he did this. I honestly don’t believe any of the clan would have done it, not at this juncture. Would they have gone out and taken those bones if they had known they were there, before someone else dug them up and laid claim to them? Absolutely, but to steal them after the fact, I just don’t see that happening. They aren’t thieves, no matter how dire the circumstances.”

  “How can you be so sure?” Barb replied.

  “Don’t forget that I’m married to one of them. My friends are some of the very ones that are at the top of the list to have been involved in this if they had chosen to do it, or been ordered to do it. I know that Owen and Connor weren’t involved. I also can tell you that when Aiden kicked them out of the village, exiled them, it was Josh that helped them because he knew what was being done to them was wrong. He put himself at risk to do that and he did it again to help Aaron remove Aiden from power.”

  “But before that, he worked for Aiden. He helped fill in the hole that the remains were buried in. He told me so.”

  “Yes, so did several others, but they didn’t know what they were covering up. They thought they were doing a solid for the community to keep any more kids from getting injured. They are good men, Barb. That includes Josh.”

  “I don’t know. I’m sorry. I just can’t be as sure as you are. I know that you know your husband and his brother. I’m sure you can vouch for their morals, but also their whereabouts, or at least Owen’s, but yesterday I felt like something was off. I felt like Emily stopped by here because she was sent to keep an eye on me. I felt like Josh was doing the same last night. They made sure I was nowhere that I could be inadvertently called out to that site while they were doing what they needed to do.”

  “Do you hear yourself right now, Barb? You are being completely paranoid. I know that you haven’t spent a lot of time here, but I have and I can tell you that these people would not have done this. It’s just not their style, not their nature. If they had wanted those remains, they would have gone through the legal means necessary to obtain them. I know that Aaron was working on some sort of injunction with the landowners.”

  “Why would they have done that? They are the ones that gave Albert permission to dig there, accepted payment from him to do so.”

  “I’m sure that Aaron was willing to offer them more. That might seem like ruthless business, but it’s not illegal. I’ve no doubt that he would have paid them well to stop the dig through whatever means he and his lawyers were working out.”

  “I just don’t know what to say. I feel exhausted, physically and emotionally.”

  “Why don’t you go upstairs and lie down for a while. Try to get some rest and then, when you wake up, perhaps we can try to wrap our heads around this, work it out a bit more.”

  “I don’t know if I can sleep, but you’re right. It think just lying down and closing my eyes for a while might help.”

  Barb slowly made her way up the steps. It felt like she weighed a ton with the effort it took just to carry herself up a single flight and make her way to the bedroom. Closing the door behind her, she stripped off the dress she was still wearing from last night and climbed between the cool sheets. She lay there staring up at the ceiling for a while, trying to sort out the thoughts that ran rampant through her mind, but it was useless right now. Everything was suddenly such a mess, not just with Josh, but also with her work. Something like this could end her career even if she was ruled out as a suspect.

  A thought occurred to her that she hadn’t considered before. The man that had come to Josh’s house was a private investigator, not a policeman. It is what Josh had pointed out to him when he told him to leave. If someone had stolen the remains, why had Albert called in his private security firm rather than the local authorities? What was she missing? The more she tried to make sense of things, the more jumbled up her mind became. Before long, the exhaustion took over and she fell fast asleep.

  She awoke a few hours later to find she had several missed calls from Albert and one from an unknown number, but nothing from Josh. Feeling defeated, she tossed the phone back on the bedside table and rolled over, tears falling down her face. How had she gotten mixed up in this? The bigger issue, she knew, really had nothing to do with what had happened at the site. What she really was kicking herself for was getting too attached to Josh too soon. If she had stuck to her guns and kept things casual, she wouldn’t feel like someone had kicked her in the gut right now. It was the last thought she could remember before hearing Amy talking to her, shaking her gently awake.

  “I must have dozed off again,” she said wearily, sitting up and blinking at her friend who now sat by her on the side of the bed.

  “Josh is here to see you,” Amy told her.

  “I can’t,” Barb replied.

  Amy began stroking Barb’s hair as she spoke. She had always had a calming effect on Barb, able to reason with her when others couldn’t and settle her jagged nerves when she got wound up too tight and couldn’t find her own pull string to unravel the kinks in her nerves.

  “Honey, you can’t just curl up in here and shut everything out. There are going to be more people asking questions, of you, of Josh . . . probably of all of us before this is done. Get up and pull yourself together. We will keep Josh occupied while you get a shower and freshen up. Put on your big girl panties and come downstairs to deal with this. You’re the strongest woman I know and you can handle this. You are just overwhelmed at the moment.”

  Barb nodded, though she felt near tears again. Amy smiled at her and touched her cheek before standing up to leave. At the door, she turned back to her and spoke again.

  “Barb, this wasn’t him. It wasn’t any of us. I know it is hard for you to trust someone you just recently met, but you know me and I’m telling you that Josh had nothing to do with this.”

  “How can you know that for sure?” Barb asked.

  “I just do and if you go downstairs and talk with him, I believe you will know it too.”

  “Okay, Amy. I’ll be down in just a bit.”

  Amy nodded and patted the door frame as she stepped out as if to signal she had done what she could. Barb climbed out of bed and headed to the shower, letting the hot water cascade down over her as she struggled to get herself together. It helped. By the time she had toweled off and slipped into a pair of jeans and a plain black tee-shirt, she felt back on top of things. Drying off her hair a bit, she dabbed on a light layer of BB cream to smooth out her skin and topped it off with a hint of mascara. She had to laugh at herself for even caring how she looked when she felt in such distress.

  “Okay, Barb. Lock and load,” she told herself in the mirror before slipping into a pair of comfortable flats and making her way downstairs.

  Amy and Owen made a hasty exit, clearly giving her and Josh some privacy to chat. She was grateful that it wasn’t to be some sort of group discussion. Taking a seat in a chair across from the sofa where Josh was perched, she looked him in the eye. He looked haunted, as if he had been in the same condition she had since they had parted ways earlier in the morning.

  “Are you okay?” he asked.

  Barb looked at him, surprised by the question. He had been so angry at her accusations and now he was asking her if she was alright? She had come down here expecting another argument, more hostility, but instead he seemed concerned.

  “I’m fine. How are you?” she replied.

  Unlike the well-meaning tone his question had taken, hers came across as terse and unfeeling. She knew it was just her defense mechanisms kicking in, but she hated that she couldn’t reveal her true emotions effectively. Then again, she wasn’t sure what those were, if the truth were told.

  “Listen, Barb. I know that this is a bad situation, not just for you, but for all of us. I was angry that you could think, for even a moment, that I would do something like that. It’s not just about you thinking me capable of it, but to think you could believe I would do something knowing how it would affect you . . . well, I handled it badly.”
/>
  Barb felt his words as much as she heard them, but still, she couldn’t find it within herself to reach out to him, to meet him halfway. She sat there limp, looking sullenly at him as if he were the enemy. Her brain screamed for her to say something, anything, but no words were coming to her at the moment. She was still torn between her uncertainty and the unexpected feelings she now realized she had for Josh. It had only taken a few hours of this rift between them for her to realize just how much he had already impacted her life.

  “Even if you don’t want to be with me anymore, on a personal level, I think that you and I still need to work together to sort this mess out. Neither of us had anything to do with the disappearance of those remains. Aaron assures me that no one else in the clan did either. So, someone out there has stolen something very damaging to us all. It is in all of our best interests to find out who and get it back from them.”

  “Then what? It solves my problems that are to come if I can find who really took it and prove I had nothing to do with it, but there is still the matter of the remains themselves. It would only return them to Albert so he can continue his research, which puts your clan at risk. What then? And what about the skeleton that still remains in the ground? Now that the rain has stopped, Albert will continue to dig, with or without the primary remains.”

  “That is going to take him a while, I’m afraid. The rain was so heavy that it filled the hole with water and there is more rain to come. It is going to take weeks for it to dry out enough for him to continue.”

  “You are assuming that it stays anchored. You saw the watch down there. I’ve no doubt that it was in a quick bag that has deteriorated, but it’s bound to be right by the body that dropped it. If that skeleton is at the top of the dig line, it could very well be pushed free of the dirt and float to the top. Then, we are no longer dealing with some thick necked private eye. We’re dealing with the real cops.”

  “That isn’t going to happen,” he told her.

  “How do you know that?” she demanded.

  “Because I had a local friend give me an update on the dig. The dig site was weakened from all the digging and poorly fortified. The canopy that had been raised above it collapsed with the weight of the rain, and the flooding caused the entire hole to cave in on itself. They are basically starting from ground zero again. Do you think that Albert will really want to start over just to retrieve a few leftover bones?”

  “Yes, I do. This is a big find, Josh. The man believes he discovered a dragon. That is not something he is going to let go of so easily. He will retrieve what he can for testing and continue to look for the missing remains.”

  “Well, then we’ll have help locating them, won’t we?”

  Barb looked at him. She knew he was right. Their best bet was to find the remains, but who were they to go asking questions of the type of person who would do such a thing? Perhaps he had some training in that department, but she certainly didn’t. All of this just seemed very surreal to her and she had to fight her instinct to flee, just to go upstairs, pack her things and go home. She had done nothing wrong, after all.

  “Barb?” he said when she didn’t answer.

  “Okay. What do we do?” she said, just as quickly realizing she couldn’t afford to run away from this.

  She knew it would be career suicide to be suspected in doing something like this and not clear her name. Even if no formal charges were ever filed, Albert would burn her with anyone who might even think of hiring her in the future. It would be the end of her work as a trusted anthropologist on dig sites.

  “We knock on doors,” he said.

  “Don’t you think the Banfield fellow will have already done that?” she asked.

  “Yes, but not with any more luck than he had with us. People in that area are not the kind of people that go around answering questions for strangers. Most of them are former paramilitary types, remnants of The Troubles - ex IRA members.”

  “What makes you think they would answer questions for us then?”

  “They know me. That is the advantage we have. They know me and you are American, so they won’t view you as a threat, just an outsider who has nothing to do with choosing sides.”

  “I see.”

  “No, Barb. I was never in the IRA. My clan remained clear of that carnage on either side.”

  “I didn’t ask,” she said, though admittedly, it was the first thing that had crossed her mind when he said he knew them.

  What was wrong with her that he had become so untrustworthy? She wondered to herself, and then she remembered. It was Garth and all his dishonesty. All the lies she had believed and her determination not to let someone else make her feel so gullible again. Josh wasn’t him and never would be. A part of her knew that. She was just having trouble embracing the possibility that she might have found the one man who was everything she wanted.

  “I’m just telling you. Now, are you with me in this?”

  “I’m with you,” she replied, taking a deep breath and letting it out slowly.

  “Then we can’t waste time. Let’s get out there and deal with this head on. Aaron told me to take whatever time I needed to sort it out. He’s just as keen as we are to find our missing dragon. Aside from the obvious problems, both Patrick and Tandy deserve a proper burial. I intend to bring them home, just like we’ve brought everyone else home that Aiden sent away.”

  “I guess we need to get going then,” she replied. “Let me get my jacket and my bag.”

  She found Amy and Owen in the kitchen with baby Dawn in the middle of the table playing with blocks. Their laughter lightened her mood a little as she passed. She stepped in to tell them she was leaving with Josh to see some people up near the dig. Amy smiled and nodded her approval, but Owen looked a bit more worried about it.

  “Be careful up there, Barb. There are some not so nice people there,” he said. “Do you need me to come along?”

  “No. We’ll be fine. I think Josh only intends to talk to some of the ones he knows and perhaps see if they can use their contacts with the less approachable ones to see if anything more can be learned.”

  “Good enough then. You know how to reach me if you need me,” he told her.

  “I do. Thank you both for everything,” she told them before turning and heading up the stairs for her things. She returned a few minutes later to find them in the living room talking to Josh about his intentions. It was obvious that Owen didn’t like him going up there on his own, but Josh assured him that he would be careful about who he spoke to. With that, they all said their goodbyes and she and Josh left the house.

  CHAPTER 15

  Barb and Josh didn’t talk about what had happened between them as they made their way toward the dig site in nearby Mullaghbawn. Instead, he watched the road in front of him and Barb remained lost in thought as she looked out the window. It was only after they had almost reached their destination, a cemetery and church not far from where the dig had taken place, that she finally broke her silence saying the only words that she could find to begin with, “I’m sorry,” she said.

  Biting her lip, she waited as Josh seemed to absorb this and put the car in parking spot by the church. She could tell that he was weighing his words before speaking, careful not to say the wrong thing. Whether that deliberation was because he didn’t want to give her any further hope after the way she had acted, or because he didn’t want to make things worse remained to be seen. She waited anxiously for his response, her heart like wild horses on an open prairie.

  “Barb, I was very hurt that you thought I could do something like that. It’s hard to reconcile how much I’ve come to care about you in such a short amount of time with how much we still have to learn about one another. I can understand that you could have doubts given all the facts as they have been presented to you. There are bodies in the ground that I, my clan, need to not be exposed any further than they already have been. Some of us even unknowingly helped bury them there.”

  “I should have gi
ven you more benefit of the doubt,” she admitted.

  “Perhaps, but I had to put myself in your shoes. If the situation were reversed, I might have reacted the same way, especially when anxious about how it would affect me, as well. It’s just a part of human nature to doubt and it’s not always a bad thing. It took me some time after you left to sort it all out in my head and come to terms with it, with accepting that you did what anyone would have done. You questioned things. You did nothing wrong.”

  “Yes, I did. I should have discussed what was happening with you before being so quick to jump to a conclusion. I let some prior bad experiences overshadow what I knew in my heart and what I felt. I care about you more than I’ve been willing to admit and the moment you drove away from me at Amy’s house, I felt devastation like I can’t remember. It was as if someone had torn you away from me in some violent encounter.”

  “Then, I guess my question has to be a simple one. Do you still believe I had anything to do with this?”

  “No. I’ve done my own share of thinking today. I don’t believe that you or anyone in your clan had anything to do with this.”

  “Then, let’s go find out who did and put this far behind us so we can get back to pursuing something far more meaningful in our lives, one another.”

  “I’d like that,” Barb replied, unsure of what else she could say. She chewed at her lower lip nervously, a mixture of relief and anticipation flooding over her.

  “Okay. We are going into this church to talk to the minister. He lives right down the road from the dig site and may have seen something. It would be hard to move something the size of those remains out without being seen.”

  “I have a question that has been bothering me since the man showed up at your house,” she told them on their way inside.

  “There was a ton of private security assigned to that site. How did anyone get past them to do this in the first place?”

  “Ah, yes. I already know the answer to that. The local I told you I talked to? He says they were tranquilized. Shot with darts like some sort of crazy spy thriller.”