by Rinelle Grey
Brad forced what he hoped was a convincing laugh. “I imagine it is. It’s amazing what they can do with Photoshop these days.”
The barkeep laughed in return. “Too true.”
“So is the woman a local?” Brad asked casually. If he could find out where she lived…
The barkeep shrugged. “Sort of. She grew up here, but then moved away a few years ago. Most of the kids do. Too boring for them here in Mungaloo. She was visiting her parents for Christmas I guess.”
Brad tried to think of any way he could ask for her parent’s names or addresses, but came up blank. He'd find it some other way. It was a small town, there couldn’t be too many Evans’. Could there?
He stood up and folded up the paper. “Do you mind if I borrow this? The story might entertain my wife.”
The barkeep nodded, “Sure, I have no use for it.”
Brad thanked him and tucked the paper under his arm, then went back upstairs to Lyrian, his mind working overdrive.
When he’d told Lyrian he’d help her find Lisa, he’d only said it to make her feel better. He hadn’t expected to actually be able to locate her.
Now that he had this clue, he couldn’t avoid facing reality. Couldn’t really pretend any longer that they weren’t going to find her family eventually.
Couldn’t pretend that this feeling between him and Lyrian could turn into something permanent.
Brad bit back a sigh. Pointless, emotional diversion. He didn’t have time for it, and it would achieve nothing besides. Instead, he focused on what he had to do. This was something he could do to help Lyrian, and that was a good thing.
Lyrian had finished feeding Anarian by the time he returned and was sitting on the bed playing with her. Any awkwardness there had been earlier seemed to be forgotten. She looked up when Brad came in and gave him a smile. “Good morning.”
He put a plate of food down next to her, then sat on the edge of the bed. Was now a good time to ask her what had happened? To ask why she’d pulled back? Was it better to do it before he revealed that there was a good chance one of her brothers was here, in Mungaloo? Or perhaps it was better not to get his hopes up.
He stared into her eyes, but the hesitation was still there, she was just hiding it.
So instead he handed her the paper. “I found this downstairs.”
Lyrian stared at the picture, her eyes widening. “Verrian!”
That dispelled any last doubts Brad was holding on to. “So he is your brother then? I thought it might be.”
Lyrian nodded eagerly, then to Brad’s surprise, she burst into tears.
He stared at her in shock for a few moments. What was wrong? What was he supposed to do? Should he not have told her?
“Are you all right?” he asked tentatively.
“Yes,” Lyrian assured him. “I’m just so relieved he’s alive. I was afraid he was dead.” She dabbed at her eyes with the corner of the sheet, sniffling a little.
Brad found the sound strangely endearing.
Any doubts he’d had earlier over whether this was the right decision faded away. This was important to Lyrian, and it would be important to their daughter.
“It’s even better than that,” Brad told her. “We have Lisa’s full name now, and the man downstairs said she was probably staying with her parents. We just have to find her and she’ll be able to tell us where your brother is.”
Lyrian’s face was wreathed in smiles. “How do we do that?”
“We just look up her address.” Brad reached into his pocket for his phone, but came up empty. He searched his other pockets, then his bag, even though he knew he wasn’t going to find anything.
He swore under his breath. He’d left his phone at Uncle Henry’s. There went his plans.
Another thought occurred to him, and his heart skipped a beat. Nate!
He’d been talking to his brother when the dragon had shown up, and he’d just thrown the phone away. He’d told Nate he’d explain later, but in his rush, he’d forgotten. His twin brother was probably worried sick.
He needed to let his brother know he was okay.
Just the thought of talking to his brother cheered Brad up. Nate would help. He’d offered, but Brad had told him there wasn’t anything he could do. That had been before the dragon had attacked. Right now, he was sure he’d feel a lot better if he wasn’t doing this alone.
“Give me a minute, I need to call my brother and tell him I’m okay,” he told Lyrian.
She stared at him for a moment, then nodded.
Brad used the hotel phone in their room, but Nate’s number rang out. His cell went straight to message bank.
Brad frowned. Where was he? It was unusual for his brother to be unreachable.
The thought worried him a little, even though there were probably several reasonable excuses why he might be out of phone range.
If he hadn’t been chased by a dragon recently, he probably would have thought nothing of it. Either way, he couldn’t do anything about it right now. Nate was thousands of miles away. He’d have to try again later.
He turned his mind back to finding Lisa. He wasn’t going to let a simple thing like a missing phone get in the way. There was more than one way to find an address. He’d just have to do things the old fashioned way.
“Let’s eat, then we’ll see what we can do,” he told Lyrian.
Chapter 14
Lyrian watched as Brad searched through a huge book. It was filled with columns and columns of names. How could he possibly find the one he was after? But though he muttered under his breath, it didn’t take long at all for him to point to an entry.
He knew so much about the complex human world, and she knew nothing.
That thought made her uneasy. Usually she loved new situations, revelled in them. But things had changed since becoming a mother. She wasn’t just responsible for herself anymore. She couldn’t just transform into dragon form and fly away if danger threatened.
She had Anarian to think about.
Brad was good for her daughter. Good for them both.
So why had she frozen up when he’d kissed her earlier?
Was it because she knew if she slept with him just one more time, they’d be bonded for life?
Or was it because she was so tempted to?
“Here are the listings for Evans. There are only three addresses, so this shouldn’t take long.” Then he swore again, his shoulders sagging. “But I can’t look the addresses up either.”
Lyrian had no idea what he was talking about, but she was glad to have a distraction from her thoughts. “What do you mean?”
Brad heaved a sigh. “Not having my phone is a problem. I’m going to need to go find a map.” He frowned, staring around the room, then smiled and pulled out a blue folder filled with colourful bits of paper. He hunted through them. “Ahh, here’s one.”
Lyrian began to feel a little excited. “So are we going then?”
Brad paused. “Just as soon as I find a carseat.”
Lyrian frowned. “A carseat? The car already has seats.”
Brad shook his head. “For Anarian. Babies have to have a special seat to ride in the car. To keep them safe.”
Lyrian smiled, a different kind of emotion tugging at her heart now. Unlike her earlier attraction, this one wasn’t dangerous. Brad’s obvious love and concern for his daughter made her want to hug him. He’d make a perfect father.
But in this case, his worries were unfounded. “She’ll be fine,” she assured him. “I’ll hold her.”
Brad shook his head again. “It’s against the law,” he said firmly. “And it’s dangerous.”
“Against the law?” Lyrian asked in disbelief. “That seems a little extreme.”
Brad shrugged. “It’s just the way it is. Don’t worry, it won’t take long. You wait here, and I’ll find a store to buy one. Then we can look for Lisa.”
Brad spoke like what he was saying was common sense. That there was no other option. But his words fill
ed her with trepidation.
Stay here. Alone. Without Brad?
“What if someone figures out I’m not human?” Her voice shook a little, embarrassing her. But not enough to overcome the fear.
“If you stay in the room, you’ll be fine,” Brad assured her. “I won’t be gone more than half an hour.”
Half an hour seemed like forever. “What if that dragon shows up while you’re gone?” Lyrian asked. “A door isn’t going to stop her.”
Brad hesitated a little longer this time. “She’s not going to come in here,” he insisted. “There are too many people around.”
“She could in human form,” Lyrian argued. “And if she does, I’ll have no choice but to run. And then how will I find you again?”
She might try to fool herself into thinking she’d be fine without Brad, but in reality, she knew she couldn’t navigate this world without him. She was grateful he was here. Grateful that he seemed to know what to do. She didn’t want to be separated from him right now.
Brad obviously didn't want to be separated either. He stared at her for a long moment, then sighed. “All right. I suppose we’re not going far. But you need to keep Anarian out of sight. If we get pulled over for not having a carseat, it’s going to be a big problem.”
Lyrian was so relieved she would have agreed to anything at that point.
Luckily, they didn’t have to drive far and Anarian lay quietly in Lyrian’s arms.
Brad talked to the people in the shop, and they helped him pick out a carseat. It looked just the same as all the other ones to Lyrian, but he seemed happy with it. Then they headed back out to the car to put it in.
Brad put the box down on the path next to the car and was just wrestling the seat out when a police car drove up the street. It slowed down a little as it came close to Brad’s car, and Lyrian felt her heartrate speed up.
What did they want?
The police officer stared at the ute.
Lyrian stared back at the vehicle too, and winced. The paint was blackened in places, where the Trima dragon’s lighting had hit it. It drew attention to them and proclaimed that something was wrong even more than her unusual looks.
The police officer’s gaze turned to Brad and he frowned.
Brad hadn’t even noticed, he was so intent on the box.
“Brad?” Lyrian prodded, her voice quiet.
Brad looked up then, and saw the car. His face paled. “Let me handle it.”
Lyrian was more than happy to, even though she felt bad for not being able to help.
Well, technically she could help. She could blow the human away easily, and his car too. Or she could transform and fly them all away.
But none of those would help right now. Attacking the humans might solve her immediate problem, but it would only create even more issues. The last thing they needed right now was to become their own article in the human’s newspaper. That certainly wouldn’t help her find her brothers.
She bit back a hysterical laugh. Or maybe it would. Maybe they could find her if they knew she was awake.
The car pulled up behind them and the man got out. He walked around to the ute as Brad straightened up.
“Hello, officer,” Brad said, his voice friendly. “Fancy meeting you here.”
“What’s going on here?” the officer waved his hand, indicating both the ute, and the box.
“Carseat,” Brad waved. “For the baby.” He didn’t say anything about the car. Instead, he gave a lopsided grin. “Turns out I’m a daddy.”
The man glanced at Lyrian and Anarian, and Lyrian was relieved his eyes only scanned them, paying little attention. He turned back to Brad. “What happened to your car? It didn’t look like that yesterday. And wasn’t it a rental?”
“Yeah,” Brad said slowly.
Lyrian winced. How was he ever going to explain the damage to the ute?
“It, uh, was hit by lightning,” Brad said. He winced as soon as he’d said it.
Lyrian tried to keep her expression normal. As though they weren’t hiding something.
The police officer’s eyebrows shot up. “Lightning?” he said disbelievingly. “We haven’t had a storm here in months.”
“We, uh, drove towards the city late last night. Trying to get the baby to sleep. No rain, but lightning flashing around everywhere.”
The police officer stared at him disbelievingly.
Brad stared back, his face completely straight.
If Lyrian didn’t know better, she would have believed Brad’s story. He was much better at lying than she was.
The police officer stared at him for a moment longer, then back at the car, then shook his head. Then his eyes went back to the carseat. “So what did you put the baby in last night then, if you just bought this seat?”
“Oh, we had a seat,” Brad said. “But it, uh, was damaged.”
The police officer raised an eyebrow. “From the lightning?”
“No, from a poop explosion,” Lyrian interrupted. “Horrific. Too awful even to wash.”
The police officer’s face immediately screwed up. No one wanted to think about that.
But he wasn’t quite ready to give up. “Where is it then?”
“The store took it,” Brad said promptly. “They said they’d dispose of it.”
The police officer glanced towards the store.
“Go on,” Lyrian urged. “I’m sure they’d show it to you. Make sure you hold your nose though.”
“No, I’m sure it’s fine,” the officer said hurriedly. “Make sure you install that securely.”
He headed back to his car, his step quick.
Brad watched him go for a minute, then turned to Lyrian with a nervous laugh. “That was quick thinking,” he said admiringly. “You totally scared him off.”
Lyrian wanted to grin back. It was kind of funny. At least, it would be if she hadn’t been so scared. Now that the danger was over and the adrenaline fading, her arms and legs suddenly started to tremble.
As the police car drove off, she leaned against the ute for support.
“Are you okay?” Brad asked, his expression concerned.
He seemed to spend a lot of time worrying over her. She needed to stop being so weak. She was a princess, and she had a job to do.
Lyrian nodded, taking a deep breath and pulling herself together. “Yeah, just a bit shaken. Let’s get this done.”
Brad’s eyes searched her face for a moment, and Lyrian did her best to look as tough as she could. It must have worked, because Brad nodded and turned back to the carseat. He pulled it out of the box, and wrestled it into the backseat of the ute. Lucky they’d brought his, even if it was burnt. Henry’s old ute only had the one row of seats.
Lyrian watched dubiously as Brad put Anarian into the seat and buckled her in.
It made sense, having a special seat for a baby. Lyrian had learned how to use the human’s seat belts, and they definitely helped on bumpy roads, but they were far too big for a baby. A mini one for a mini person was a good idea.
Anarian wasn’t so convinced. She screwed up her face and cried. Gut wrenching, heart stopping cries of distress.
Lyrian’s heart constricted at the sound. Anarian was normally such a happy little baby. She’d never objected to anything with this much force. Lyrian bit her lip. “Maybe this isn’t such a good idea…”
Brad looked just as uncertain as she did. He stared at the little baby, her face turning red with rage. “But everyone uses them, surely all babies don’t hate them this much.”
Lyrian had no idea. She didn’t know anything about other babies. She only knew about Anarian, and she clearly wasn’t a fan.
Brad frowned. “If only I had my phone…” Then his face brightened. “Maybe we should go out to Henry’s and get it?”
Lyrian had no idea why he was focusing on a phone right now. That wasn’t going to help Anarian.
Neither would going back to the house. “There’s probably a dragon there waiting for us, rememb
er?” she reminded him. “I don’t think that’s a good place to go.”
Brad sighed. He knew that as well as she did. “No, probably not.” He looked at the crying baby again. “She just really enjoyed watching the videos. I thought it might calm her for the drive.”
Lyrian felt guilty for assuming he hadn’t been thinking about Anarian. Her heart melted. He really was the sweetest man she’d ever met. The perfect father.
And probably the perfect mate too. Even if he wasn’t a dragon.
Brad’s face brightened. “I know, maybe she’ll like the radio.”
This time, at least, Lyrian knew what he was talking about. Old Henry had loved to listen to the radio. “Maybe,” she agreed. “But it’s back at Henry’s too.”
Brad grinned. “No, the car has one.” He climbed into the front seat and fiddled with something.
Moments later, a loud sound blared through the car.
Lyrian winced.
She expected Anarian to cry louder, and for a few seconds, the baby did. Brad adjusted the volume, and changed the music to something lighter and more bouncy. Lyrian stopped crying and stared around.
Then she smiled.
“Looks like that worked.” Lyrian didn’t even bother to hide her relief.
“Good, let’s go while she’s quiet,” Brad said, patting the seat next to him.
Lyrian hesitated. It seemed a bit unfair to leave Anarian in the back seat by herself, but she also wanted to be up front so she could see where they were going. She glanced at the baby again, but she seemed happy now, so she climbed in with Brad.
They could always stop and change places later if they needed to.
“Are we going to find Lisa now?” Lyrian asked, starting to feel excited.
“Sure,” said Brad. “Have you got that map?”
Lyrian stared at him. “Me? I thought you had it?”
Brad sighed. “We’ll have to swing by the hotel and grab it.”
Lyrian bit her lip. Another hold up.
But surely it wouldn’t take long.
They were close to finding Verrian, she was sure of it.