by Mina Khan
He wiped his palms on his jeans and held out a hand to her. “Here, let’s get you up first.”
She grasped his hand. Electricity jolted from her fingertips up her arm. Lynn let out a sharp, surprised squeak and stumbled.
Jack’s solid arms embraced her in an instant. “You might have a twisted ankle.”
An injury would be easier to explain than crazy hormones. The ploy might also get her into the house. “Ow. Ow.”
He gathered her into his arms and lifted her off the ground. His warm, musky scent ignited a sizzle at the pit of her stomach, torching her insides and flaming onward. Lynn focused on a distant tree over his shoulder. Focus. Focus yourself.
A cool breeze soothed her skin as a beautiful sunset blazed behind him. The scene could be the ending of one of the old Western movies her dad watched— the cowboy ready to take his bride into his home. Ready to kiss and claim her. The last thought punched straight to her stomach and a fever burned her cheeks. Happily-ever-after only happened in romance novels and Hollywood.
He looked at her through the sooty fringe of dark lashes. “Now let’s see what we can do for your pain,” he drawled, his voice soft and sultry.
“Kiss and make it better?” Oh. My. God. Did she just blurt out those words? Was that breathy voice hers? Her mind and tongue both seemed to be going at the same speed— out of control. Lynn’s heart cantered.
His eyes —green, green eyes— widened, glittered with interest and something more as he stood rooted to the spot, holding her against his thudding chest. Full, sexy lips and square jaw shadowed in stubble. She wanted to run her hands all over and discover every soft and hard inch of him. Her breath came in short, shallow bursts as his head drew closer. His warm breath whispered across her skin.
She managed a strangled laugh. “But an icepack would probably be more effective.”
He chuckled. “Probably, but the other sounded a whole lot more fun.”
“Oh.” She dropped her gaze and found herself staring at the V of his tanned chest revealed by his unbuttoned blue cotton shirt. The desire to undo the rest of the buttons made her throat dry.
He pulled back, shifted her in his arms. “Well, um, let’s get you inside and see what we can do.”
Her gaze flicked up and clashed with his. Her mind whispered promises.
Jack marched around to the back of the house, up onto the back porch and kicked open the screen door and the unlocked backdoor.
Dammit, guess she was the queen of Thebes. A frustrated breath escaped her. Okay, you’re here to play detective. So detect.
Inventory of the room might help her get her mind off the fact that the damn man made her so weak-kneed that she had to be carried around. Lynn’s gaze traveled over the cheerful yellow mudroom. A white washer and dryer set stood against one wall. A wooden table, a bench, and a shelf stacked with boots and shoes and umbrellas. Nothing out of the ordinary.
They passed through the kitchen/dining area and her gaze fell on a dark wood sideboard against one wall. Ferocious-looking flying dragons were carved onto each door. Two more dragons faced each other and formed the decorative top of the piece.
“That’s a sixteenth century piece from Mexico that my great grandfather found during his travels,” he said.
Admiration shone in his eyes as he looked at the sideboard. Lynn glanced back at the piece. “It’s beautiful. You like dragons, then?”
He shrugged. “Don’t really have much of an opinion on dragons, but my forefathers apparently had a taste for them,” he said, walking through the shadowed house. “I just like the sideboard because of the craftsmanship.”
Lynn leaned back in his arms and kept her eyes trained on the sideboard. Where she’d seen dragons and gone on alert, Jack had seen the creatures and thought of the craftsman, someone who’d spent hours making pieces of wood into functional art. His noticing and appreciation made her wonder if she needed to slow down and take in the details of life. Or maybe she was just coming down with something.
They passed a series of family portraits. All of the men sported dark hair, green eyes, high cheekbones and hawkish noses. The last face seemed softer, with rounded, ruddy cheeks and multiple chins. The one before it had twinkling eyes and a mysterious smile. He seemed to be a good-looking rogue. But the other two were almost identical down to the cold eyes and sneering lips. The first one had a flare of white hair giving the man a skunk-like appearance.
“Who’s who?” she asked.
“Great-great-grandpa, followed by Great-grand pa, Grandpa, and my father.”
He carried her through another set of doors and stopped just inside. Musky dragon smell hung in the air, soft and dry, like undisturbed time in a forgotten cave. “Can you turn on the lights? The switch is just by your head.”
She flicked on the switch and light flooded the room. A number of animal heads —from deer to bear— stared down at her with glass eyes. She stifled a scream as her gaze shifted from curved horns to bared fangs. In the end, none of it had been enough. A shudder ran down her spine. Damn spooky. She pulled her gaze away from those eyes. “I see you are a decorating-with-dead-animals fan.”
Jack laughed as he settled her into a gigantic leather armchair and pulled up a stool for her foot. “Not really,” he said. “This was my grandfather’s sanctuary and he was the great hunter.”
He waved a hand around. “Then my father inherited it and added some of the furniture. I haven’t bothered changing the décor.”
She looked around. A lot of the things —like the heavily carved desk, the wet bar, the ornate crystal chandelier, the thick maroon drapes with gold fringes— didn’t seem to fit Jack.
“So how come you haven’t laid your claim?” she asked. “I thought all men marked their territory.”
“I don’t know,” he said. “Just hadn’t thought about it. I’ll get the ice pack.”
She watched him leave. An interesting man with hidden layers. Well, she’d unwrap him— the mental image that popped into her head warmed her all over again. Figuratively speaking only. She’d get to the bottom of the who and what of Jack Callaghan. She looked around the room until the display cabinet occupying a corner caught her attention. Curious, she padded over to it. Guns, of course. A few arrowheads and battered ancient coins. Her gaze fell on a dessert-plate-sized shimmering scale and she drew in a sharp breath. Silvery, with concentric rings of white on white, it was beautiful. “A dragon scale,” she whispered. “A big one, too.”
Trembling with equal measures of excitement and nerves, Lynn fumbled with the latch. Finally, it snicked open and she reached in. For a moment her hand hovered over the scale. Touching it, holding it, would make it so much more undeniably real. But she’d never seen such a large scale. How big was the dragon it came from? Even Obaa-chan, the oldest dragon she’d known personally, had been like thirteen feet, the size of a playground see-saw. She took a few calming breaths. This particular dragon must have been more like a Tyrannosaurus Rex.
Her fingers closed on the cool, smooth scale. She pulled it out and cradled it, spending minutes just staring at the thing. Finally, her mind kicked into gear. She counted the calcified rings, each representing a year. Damn, the thing had been about a hundred and twenty years old when it lost this particular scale. So, not Jack. He definitely didn’t act like an ancient dragon.
She held the scale up to the light. The tension in her shoulders relaxed. The edges were almost transparent, so the dragon had lost the scale a long time ago. Good, then her chances of running into a ginormous geriatric dragon were pretty remote.
She gently returned the scale to its place in the display cabinet and latched the door again.
“What are you doing up?”
Guilt flushed through her as she turned. How long had he been standing there? “Curiosity got the best of me.”
“Haven’t you heard of the saying curiosity killed the cat?” He walked over to her and looked into the cabinet. “More worthless ancestor junk.”
&nb
sp; “They can’t be totally worthless,” she said. “Otherwise, why keep them?”
“There are some neat stories attached to most of those items,” he said. “That musket for instance was used by my great, great grandfather when he was a foot soldier in the confederate army.”
“What about the scale?”
He laughed. “My grandfather always told these tall fishing tales. The more he drank, the larger and wilder the fish got.” He gazed at the scale. “Looks like at least one of his stories might have been true. That must have been a monster.”
Lynn stared at Jack. Was he truly clueless about the scale? Or was he lying again? “Why didn’t he get it stuffed and mounted like his other trophies?”
He glanced around the walls. “Maybe he ran out of space.” He swept her off her feet and carried her back to the chair. “Let’s take care of the foot, then I’ll drive you back to Jen’s.”
Once he’d settled her into a chair, Jack knelt at her feet and quirked a brow at her. “Which one hurts?”
“The left.”
His fingers slipped under her calf, raised her foot and placed it on a well-muscled thigh.
Lynn gnawed her lower lip as he pulled the lace out of its knot and carefully eased the shoe off. What took moments seemed to take agonizingly long. He peeled the sock off and revealed her foot.
She felt strangely naked as his cool fingers caressed and massaged her skin. How could such innocent touch be so intimate? Warmth pulsed through her, made her gasp.
His fingers stilled. “Sorry, did that hurt?”
“No.” She licked her lip. “It felt good.”
He smiled and his fingers worked their way up, slipped under her pants leg.
Lynn closed her eyes as all thought ceased to exist, aware only of the desire that thrummed and shivered through her body.
Fingers and heat traveled back down. Then a sharp jab of cold. Breath hissed out of her. Lynn’s eyes popped open as she almost leapt from the chair.
He’d applied the damn ice-pack.
Chapter 8
Next morning Lynn beamed at the newspaper as she read her story and sipped coffee. The editors had made only a few minor changes. She ran a finger along the “special correspondent” designation following her name. “It sure felt good to use my laptop for something more worthwhile than checking email.”
Jen nodded. Being an early riser, she’d read the paper first. “You have a writing talent. You shouldn’t waste it.”
“Maybe,” Lynn said taking a sip of her coffee. “Writing an article like this is definitely more rewarding than some of the ad jingles I had to come up with.”
“I know I prefer you out of work and writing cool articles rather than dying a slow corporate death.” Jen arched an eyebrow. “Or writing a book you don’t share with anybody.”
Lynn sighed. Yeah well, some people had natural talent and calling, while others had nightmares and screwed-up lives. Sometimes, she envied Jen’s creative and happy spirit.
Her friend glanced at her watch and hopped out of her chair. “Vamonos! We have to go!” They planned to ride together to the county meeting since Jen would be requesting a grant for Paradise Valley Volunteer Fire Department. Lynn chased after her.
When they arrived at the county courthouse, Jen screeched into a parking spot. “Let’s go, let’s go!”
Lynn followed Jen into the library, then up the stairs to the second-floor meeting room. They stood huffing in front of the closed door. A young girl, sitting at a table covered in piles of paper, handed them agendas along with a welcoming smile. “They’re still in executive session.”
“All that hurrying, just to wait,” Lynn jabbed her elbow into her friend’s arm.
Jen rolled her eyes and then introduced the girl as Lexie, the new intern at the county clerk’s office.
“What are they in closed session about?” The lowliest person on the totem pole often gave details without knowing any better.
Lexie shrugged. “Some personnel issues and a land deal of some sort.”
Just as Lynn opened her mouth to ask more questions, the girl’s cell phone chirped. Lexie glanced at it and lit up. “It’s the boyfriend. Hey, can you guys watch the table for a bit?” She waved at the table. “Hand out agendas and stuff if someone new comes by?”
Receiving their nods, she thanked them and took off down the corridor giggling into the phone. Jen sank into the chair, as Lynn glanced at the agenda. Curiosity pricked her. What land development? Where in the county? She looked through the stacks of paper on the table. “Great, there’s supporting materials for all the agenda items in the public session.”
Jen shook her head. “Think of all the poor trees. I’m lobbying for them to put everything on CDs and made available to anyone interested.”
“Not a bad idea, but not everybody has a computer or uses one.” Lynn picked up one of everything. Her eyes fell on a stack of red folders that had spilled across the floor behind the chair. She bent down and restacked the folders, taking one for her pile.
The door flew open, and several men stepped out laughing and shaking hands. A tall, young man, dressed in a snappy navy blue blazer and chinos, stuck out among the more casual county bunch. Her gut tightened, and the dragon shivered under her skin. Surprised and suspicious at the sudden wakefulness of her beast, Lynn considered the young man.
Did he have something to do with the proposed development? He definitely looked city-slick— his clothes, the shoes, and the Bluetooth almost hidden by trendy longish brown hair with blond highlights. Yet, somehow, he reminded her of Jack. Maybe it was his bearing. Or maybe she just had Jack on her mind.
Both men were about the same height and coloring, but the similarities ended there. This guy seemed thinner, his face softer, rounder— overall, more boyish.
Then the stranger’s pale gray eyes met hers.
Cold ghostly fingers brushed her thoughts. Lynn stiffened, then forced out a smile.
His gaze traveled down her body and then back again. Red, hot lust slammed her. Lynn sucked in a breath. For an intense moment she could smell the guy’s cologne, a spicy blend of lemons, oranges, and rosemary with a hint of musk.
“Henry, how about talking some more over breakfast at Fuentes?” One of the other men spoke from the group.
The man broke eye contact as he turned to answer.
The vortex of feelings, emotions, and sensations ceased as if a faucet had been turned off. Lynn dragged in a breath, her shoulders sagged in relief. Something was definitely wrong with the dragon.
Lynn hurried after Jen into the meeting room. What was up with the creature? Biological clock ticking? Or was this the dragon equivalent of menopausal hot flashes? Okay, so she was only five years away from thirty. Not horribly old. After all, in dragon years that’d translate to what, fifteen? Oh, great. Teenage hormones.
Unease tugged at her, all prickly and insistent. She glanced back.
The man stood watching her. He winked just before Lexie shut the door.
“Pigeon poop.” Lynn’s fingers hovered above her keyboard. Would the Herald print the phrase even as a direct quote?
Armed with a Diet Coke, her notes and a stack of documents, she sat at Jen’s kitchen table typing her story on the county commissioner’s meeting. She focused on the Paradise Valley Volunteer Fire Department’s grant request as that had been the most interesting thing on the agenda.
Jen had marched to the podium and said: “The new fire engine we have, thanks to you and the federal government, sticks several feet out of the barn we’ve to park it in. So next time you see the engine and the back part is covered in pigeon poop, don’t be surprised.”
The audience laughed in response. Jen was a hoot. But obviously an effective hoot. The commissioners’ awarded the VFD $50,000 of the $100,000 they needed.
Finally, after consulting her notes, she used the more dignified Jen quote in the story: “We need to build a new fire station that can adequately hold all our equipment and ha
ve an area for community gatherings.” Lynn grinned. The girl owed her, and she’d remind her of it. Of course, then Jen could pull out a whole laundry list of what Lynn owed in return. Okay, no gloating.
She typed in the last period, leaned her chair back on two legs and reviewed the story. Short and sweet. The smiling faces of all five commissioners danced through her head. They had seemed almost happy to allocate the money.
Michael Ward, one of the commissioners had said: “We read in the newspaper what a wonderful job y’all did at the Jarvises. We want to make sure the volunteer firefighters have everything they need to continue doing a good job and keep the community safe.”
Even now, hours after the meeting, Lynn basked in the warm fuzzies of the statement. Talk about a domino effect. Maybe many people wouldn’t consider a freelance writer an Essential Employee, but she felt essential. She returned the chair to its upright position and glanced at Jen’s studio door. Still shut. Oh well, she’d just have to read the story in the paper tomorrow. Lynn hit the send button.
She stood and stretched. Her stomach rumbled. Dropping the empty Coke can in the recycling bin, Lynn headed for the refrigerator. No chocolate, no dips. Looked like Jen had already halfway shifted into the raw food idea she’d talked about. Lynn grabbed an apple and munched her way back to the kitchen table.
Her gaze settled on the stack of papers— material she’d picked up at the meeting and her notes. One more look to see if she could get a few more story ideas from any of them and then into the recycling bin the whole pile would go. Lynn plunked into her chair, ready to work. A bit of red, sticking out from underneath the stack, caught her eye.
Her heart leaped. She’d forgotten all about the folder. If it turned up something important, she’d have to send in another story right away. Fun, fun. She flexed her fingers, and pulled it out. Nothing on the cover indicated what lay inside. She flipped it open and began to read.