by Amelia Jade
Audrey blushed at the compliment ever so slightly, the first crack in her matronly armor that Callan had seen since he’d first come around. Even the past week, after Kathryn had stayed at his house for the first time, he’d not seen this side of her, despite the growing closeness between him and her daughter.
“I never ordered any new floors. There’s nothing wrong with these floors.”
Callan decided to step in. “Well,” he stumbled suddenly as he realized he couldn’t call her Mrs. Pine, not after the way Brian was acting around her and she was responding. But she had yet to consent to him calling her Audrey. Callan fumbled for a few seconds before she came to the rescue.
“Yes, Callan?”
“I was going to say, before I lost my train of thought, that it was actually I who asked Brian to come over.”
“You don’t say.”
He gave Audrey a fake glare. “Yes, I do say. I weigh quite a bit more than the two of you, combined. So you might not feel it, but I feel unsafe. Brian’s repair work is going to ensure that I don’t ruin your house.”
Mrs. …Miss? Pine, he had no idea anymore what to think of her—thought about it for a few moments. “These are safety upgrades, so that you can continue to assist my daughter in her recovery?”
He nodded. “Precisely.”
Callan had been extremely worried that Audrey wouldn’t consent to the new floors. The cost wasn’t much, and he’d told Colonel Mara that she was paying for it whether she liked it or not. He’d said this was how he made things better with Kathryn. It was just a little white lie; the colonel didn’t need to know the truth.
That hadn’t been the part he foresaw trouble with. Audrey was stubborn, and he knew from the start that she wouldn’t want to accept charity. So he’d come up with the idea of saying it was his fault they needed to be fixed, hoping she might be able to work with that.
“And Brian is going to be doing all the work?”
The contractor puffed up his chest. “Well, I know I may look spry and agile Miss…”
“Pine,” Audrey said, patting the arm he held his hat under gently. “But you can call me Audrey. All my friends do.”
“Very well Audrey. Despite my youthful looks, I was going to let the muscle-bound gang do the work. I’m going to mostly supervise, ensure it gets done right so that your house is nice, safe, and sound.”
“So you’re going to be here all the time?”
“Every day until it’s done Mi—Audrey,” Brian corrected just in time.
“Is this covered through your program, Callan?” she asked, turning to him. “They never asked me for the funds.”
“It is,” he lied again, knowing full well Audrey could see right through him. “Won’t cost you a penny.”
“About time the government did some good around here,” she said with a touch of bitterness. “Now, you men look like you’ll be hungry in no time. I’ll whip up a pie or two for you while you start to work, how does that sound? Do you like apple or key lime better, Brian?”
Callan stared as she started talking with the contractor, the rest of them forgotten. In a moment they moved into the kitchen.
“Did you just set up my mom?” Kathryn asked, as dumbfounded as the rest of them.
“I think so. Did not see that one coming.”
Kathryn smiled and leaned in to him. “That was sweet of you. It was about time she got out there, even if it was just to flirt with someone.”
“That was not the plan,” he confessed. “Not the plan at all.”
“I take it the plan was new floors?” she asked, the chair turning to confront him head-on.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“You need them,” he said bluntly. “And my safety reasons were not a lie at all. They are weak and there are several spots I’m worried I’ll go right through the floor.”
Kathryn stared at him, and he could see the way she was searching his face for motive, trying to understand.
When she spoke next her voice was terse, cautious. “I didn’t ask for your charity.”
“That’s why it’s not charity.” He wasn’t backing down from this. Kathryn would need to learn to accept that he was going to spoil her and share his treasure—whenever he got it back—with her. His mate.
Callan buried the usual feelings of guilt and betrayal at thinking that away, resolving to deal with them at another time. Now was not right. He needed to focus on Kathryn.
“Well, my mom seems happy.”
“Smitten, you mean,” he said as a giggle came from the kitchen at the end of the hallway, the two older people out of sight just around the corner.
“So can we do stuff now?” Corde asked, reminding him that the other two dragons were there as well.
“Yeah, sure, let’s start.” He turned to Kathryn. “We’re only doing half the house at a time, so it will be squished, but that way we don’t have to move anything out of the house. Front hall and common room first, then the kitchen and bedrooms probably.” He shrugged. “Unless that doesn’t work?”
She was staring at him. “You’re serious about this.”
“Dead serious.”
“Okay.”
The word was drawn out, uneasy, but he flashed a smile and kissed her on the forehead to try and reassure her that everything was going to be okay. He wanted to buy them a new house, but judging by the pictures on the wall, that would have never flown. This place, small and rundown as it was, had been filled with love and family for so many years. It needed to be kept with the Pine family.
So, if he couldn’t bring them somewhere new, he was going to fix what they had. Brian was going to do the best job he could, while still being new and structurally sound. Callan thought that Audrey would quite enjoy it when it was done.
What he couldn’t figure out was why his mate was acting so strange about it all. He wanted to do this, for her and her mother. They deserved it. Together they’d made it work for so long, and now he wanted to show them that such hard work did pay off in time. His wealth was meant to be shared, and this was just the first way he hoped to do that. Spoiling his mate and her family was a large reason why he acquired his treasure in the first place.
What was so wrong about that?
Chapter Seventeen
Kathryn
“What’s this?”
Callan smiled tightly, trying to conceal his glee. “For you. Open it.”
She unwrapped the oblong box slowly, noting the gleam in his eye as he watched her closely. Outside his apartment the sun was slowing starting its descent, though it would be many hours yet before it dipped below the horizon. With the work ongoing in her mother’s house she’d elected to stay with Callan, thinking it would be easier on everyone that way.
At first it had been fine. She’d packed a bag, intending on staying no more than a week or so, until the work was finished. Things with Callan were fine, but she wasn’t ready to move in with him. Not yet at least.
But things had started to go sideways. Not downhill, no, not even close. Kathryn was aware that many women would probably have thought they were in heaven with the way Callan had treated her since her arrival. He’d lavished her with gifts, clothes, and, unless she missed her guess on what was in the box, now jewelry as well. Kathryn was flattered by the attention, but it wasn’t for her.
Materialistic affection only reminded her of Doug, and the longer she spent at his place, the more she began to associate the two of them together. She should have said no back when Callan first said he was getting new floors installed at her mother’s house. But the way her mother had reacted to Brian—who she had since gone to dinner with!—had stopped her. It was good to see her mom coming out of her shell a bit.
Now though, it was just becoming too much.
“Oh Callan,” she said, flipping the box open to reveal the necklace inside. “It’s beautiful.”
And it was. It was a silver oval twisted over on itself to form the infinity symbol. Diamonds encrusted t
he border, catching the light and sparkling with the colors of the rainbow.
“You like it?”
She smiled, trying not to let her personal unease shine through. “I do.”
“Here, let me put it on you.”
Resisting his eagerness was pointless, so she didn’t even try. Dipping her head forward, eyes closed, she realized that she would have to tell him sooner rather than later.
“There.” Callan hooked a finger under her jaw as he finished and lifted her head.
“Thank you,” she said, accepting his kiss.
“Don’t thank me. You deserve it.” He grinned some more. “Once I have my treasure it’ll be like this all the time.”
“Sounds lovely.” Treasure? What the hell? What is he talking about? So she decided to ask him. “You have treasure?”
He nodded, his eyes gleaming as they looked at something only he could see. “I do. Oh, you think this is something now? Wait until I can get it back. It will make this look like a guest house of the guest house. You’ll be treated like a queen,” he promised, rubbing one leg vigorously.
“Just call me Your Majesty,” she joked, having to work harder than ever to keep her thoughts from showing on her face.
Callan rose and stretched, not having thought twice about what he just said. “I think I’m going to shower.” His eyebrows waggled at her. “Did you want to join me, Your Majesty?”
“Not this time.” She blew him a kiss. “I’m going to call my mother and see how her date went last night, actually. I haven’t had a chance to talk to her.”
“Okay. Last chance…” His hips shook slightly as he walked away.
She laughed. He was funny, that much hadn’t changed. “I’ll live, I promise.”
He pouted. “Not well.”
“Go on!” She shooed him off, pulling out her phone, keeping the smile plastered on her face until he had made his way into the bedroom and the sound of water running reached her ears.
She got to her feet, still amazed at the progress she’d made in the past few days at his place. The chair now stood near the elevator, and while she did still use it when they went out, unless she was doing a lot during the day, she rarely had use for it around the apartment. Her strength was returning in leaps and bounds, and it felt good. She’d even cooked a meal for them the night before, making just about every ingredient from scratch.
Staring wistfully at the bedroom door, she made her way over to the chair.
“Goodbye, Callan,” she said, taking off the necklace and leaving it on the table where they kept their keys and things.
She wasn’t proud of herself for what she was doing, but it was the way things needed to be. His obsession with wealth had begun shining through strong and clear, and Kathryn wasn’t letting herself go down that path. Not again.
Doug had shown her exactly how it would end. No man could resist the lure of more wealth, and in time he would just view her as a drain on his money, wanting to get rid of her before she “sucked him dry,” as Doug had put it. She couldn’t stand to be around when that happened to Callan, but it was inevitable, she knew it was. The light in his eyes would die out, replaced with dull boredom any time she was around, his only thoughts on how he could make just another few percent on his latest deal.
Kathryn couldn’t go through that. Not again.
Without looking back, she got in the elevator and punched the code for the basement, fighting back tears the entire way, willing them not to fall until she got home. She thanked her lucky stars that she’d reconciled with her mother right away after screaming at her, though in typical fashion her mother had just waved it off, happy to have her daughter back.
Right then she needed her mother. The pain was just too much.
Chapter Eighteen
Callan
The SUV pulled up to her house far too slowly for his liking. He had the door open before it was even stopped.
“Wait here,” he growled at the driver, unfairly letting out some of his anger at him.
It wasn’t the driver’s fault. He’d moved with all haste that he could, but he was unwilling to break the law just so Callan could get to Kathryn’s house sooner. It angered him that he couldn’t have just changed into his dragon and leapt from the top of the apartment building. His massive wings would have carried him across the city far faster than any vehicle could have traveled its stop-and-go streets.
Despite his worry and fear, he’d kept just calm enough to ensure he didn’t do something quite so drastic, though the temptation had been hard to resist. Now, as he rushed up the walkway to the front door, he tried to figure out what he would say to her.
The most important thing, he figured, was why?
After taking a longer shower than normal, he’d emerged to find the apartment empty and Kathryn’s chair gone. His first fear had been kidnapping, but a quick test of the air had proven that theory false. The only scent he’d picked up was Kathryn’s. Whatever it was, she’d left of her own accord.
Fear had gripped his heart next. She’d said she was going to call her mother and ask about the date with Brian. Had something happened to her mother that she needed to leave right away? Did she have to go to the hospital…or worse, the morgue? Callan felt terrible that he’d been in the shower while she got the news.
That’s when he’d seen the necklace on the table next to the elevator. He’d picked it up carefully, noting how it had been deposited in a pile, not laid out neatly. There was a message in that, he knew. Kathryn was getting rid of it.
And she was trying to get rid of him.
Part of him wanted to let her go. This was twice now she’d acted like this, attempting to cut all ties without warning. There was something going on with her, something that she hadn’t told him yet, that was causing this reaction. But try as he might, he couldn’t figure it out. What exactly had he done to make her run away from him, not once, but twice? There seemed to be no rhyme or reason to it as far as he could figure out.
That alone would have driven him to confront her, to find out what it was. He could change it, fix it—whatever needed to happen, he would do it for her. All she needed to do was tell him. Speak to him. Trust him. He only wanted the best for her, couldn’t she see that?
Was it not enough? He hesitated before knocking as the new thought entered his mind. Maybe it wasn’t enough. His mate deserved better than what he’d been giving her, but without his treasure it was next to impossible for him to do that. He wanted to buy her a new house, and her mother one as well. To give Kathryn everything she could ever dream of, but so far all he’d been able to do to profess his love was little trinkets like necklaces and clothes.
He was lucky she wasn’t a dragon, but a human. A female dragon would have laughed at his offering at best, though a much more likely outcome is they would have tried to kill him. Female dragons were a prickly bunch, which is probably why there were so few of them, thank goodness.
That was definitely it. Idiot. He should have bought her more. Showered her with as much lavishness as he could wring out of Colonel Mara’s stingy hands. Angry at himself, and even angrier at the military for withholding his treasure from him, he turned his back on the door, taking several breaths to try and calm himself.
It was a mistake. Nothing more. She had rejected his small gifts, so now he would talk to her and tell her his grand plans. Of all the wealth he’d secreted away in his cave before falling asleep. Gold chalices and coins, rings and crowns. Diamond-encrusted rings, necklaces, bracelets, and more. Rubies in untold amounts, and sapphires and emeralds too. They would all be hers. He would hire the world’s finest gemsmiths to create jewelry beyond her wildest imagination.
The greatest doctors in the world would see to her injuries and her scars if she wanted, though they bothered him not at all. Nothing would be beyond her, he vowed, determined to make the biggest, most grandiose display for her that he could possibly imagine.
Once he got his treasure back. That would be the next st
ep of course. Which would mean a trip back to where he’d been awoken, Fort Stark, to search for it there. And wherever else was necessary as well. Nothing would stop him.
For now, he needed to focus on Kathryn. Spinning back to the door, he rapped his knuckles against it smartly and waited. There was a long pause without any sound from the other side, and Callan had to work to keep his feet planted so that he didn’t bounce from side to side or shuffle or do anything else that would betray his nerves.
Finally he heard some scrapes, and Audrey opened the door.
“What do you want?”
He paused mid-word, the caustic tone of the Pine matron scrambling the circuits of his brain.
“Well?”
Snapping his jaw closed, Callan reevaluated the situation. Despite the fact that he towered over her by close to a foot and a half, the little woman still somehow managed to glare up at him and appear completely unintimidated by his hulking presence.
Probably because she’s smart enough to know you won’t do a damn thing against her.
“I’d like to speak to Kathryn, please.” He’d almost said Katy, but right now was not the time to get formal. It pleased him that Audrey was quite obviously doing as well as ever, but that meant the issue lay squarely with him, and not some sort of outside circumstance.
“I’m sorry, she’s not home.”
It was a lie. He could smell her scent with ease. It was fresh, and the gentle tingle of fresh rain that was her perfume tingled in his nostrils. Kathryn was in the house right now. It would have been pitifully easy to just walk inside and find her, but that wouldn’t achieve his point.
“Please, Mrs. Pine. I’m not here to argue with anyone. But something happened, and I obviously made some sort of mistake. I can fix it. I promise. Just let me talk to Kathryn.”
“She’s not home.”
He sighed. “Have I disrespected you so, that you feel the need to lie to me? We both know she’s in there, either in her room or somewhere within earshot but out of sight of the door. You don’t want me to see her because I’ve somehow upset her. I understand that. But please don’t lie.”