by Amelia Jade
It had been an awful long time since she’d had any male interaction like this. Her eyes trailed across his body, a mixture of wonder and longing in her gaze. Maybe she could allow herself to have a little bit of fun. Just this once. He was only going to be around for a few weeks, and then the frosts would come and he would leave.
Where was the harm in playing along a little? Engaging in a bit of flirtatious fun. It’s not like she was going to let it go anywhere. Just fun banter, instead of trying to keep her face rigid and cold. A little warmth. Heck, it might make him work even harder.
“Don’t you do that again,” she admonished as he slipped the shirt over his shoulders. “Otherwise you’ll have to be punished according to the …the, uh, rules and regulations of farmhands in Barton County.”
Palin eyed her.
Sandy wanted to die. Again. Was she really that rusty at flirting? Punish him according to the rules and regulations? What the hell was that!
“I…wasn’t aware there were any, um, rules and regulations. Is there a manual I can read?”
She blinked. “You can read?”
Palin flipped her a finger as they shared a laugh. His eyes narrowed slightly while he looked down at his buttons, fingers working to do them up. Sandy wondered if they would look that good undoing hers. Probably better.
“Okay, well I had better get going,” he said, doing up the last button with a flourish.
“Are you not staying for dinner?” She was surprised by how plaintive her question came out.
Was she craving company that badly?
“I had thought about it, but I’ll be honest, it’s an hour and twenty minute drive to get home. I’ve done a lot of driving this week, so I thought maybe I’d head out early.” He sighed heavily.
“Do you remember how you forced your way into working here? You kind of agreed to doing the drive.”
“Well, it would be nice not to drive.”
She nodded. “I bet it would. Have you tried flying? I think dragons can fly, can’t they?”
“What I meant,” he continued on, purposefully ignoring her jab, “was that it would be awfully nice if I could stay closer to work.”
“I don’t think anyone here has any places for rent. Maybe Rusty, but you don’t wanna live there. Trust me.”
“Okay. Who’s Rusty? Actually, never mind.” His eyes flicked past her to the house.
Sandy understood what he meant now. “Sorry, no. You aren’t staying in the house. I’m not okay with that.”
Flirting was one thing. Him shacking up under the same roof as her? Uh-uh. No way. That wasn’t crossing the line, that was catapulting over it.
“Okay.” His face clouded in thought for a moment. She saw the idea come to him, his eyebrows popping up in time with his face as he lifted his head to look at her. “What about the barn?”
“Ummm.”
“It would be great. It’s unused, fairly clean. I could set up in the loft. It’s not near the house, and I wouldn’t have to drive. It would be great.”
This was a terrible idea. Horrible idea.
“The barn?”
Palin nodded. “Please? I think you can agree I’ve been working hard.”
“Nobody is going to dispute that, Palin. Still, I don’t know about having you stay on the property.”
“You won’t even know I’m here. Trust me.”
There it was again. That line about trust. Once upon a time Sandy had trusted people, extending it to them until it was broken. That was before. In another world. Now she forced others to show that they were trustworthy before she believed it.
“Listen, think on it, okay?” He pulled his keys from his pocket. “I’m going to head home. You can give me an answer tomorrow. Sound good?”
“Uh. Sure.”
He waved at her, smiled that smile that made her heart feel like it was a record being worked over by a DJ. For the second time that evening she thanked her lucky stars for the railing, gripping onto it for dear life as she swayed, ready to fall over at the lightest of touches.
Maybe flirting wasn’t the best idea. It seemed to give him even more power over her.
What have I gotten myself into?
Chapter Eleven
Palin
He had no great urge to hang out at the farmers market all day. It was full of humans, and he wanted to be with his mate. Alone and together. If he could just work hard enough for them to take a day off, maybe he could make some headway. First he would just have to tough it out at the market. Selling her crops and making money was the big priority for Sandy.
“How I wish I could just tell her the truth,” he growled to himself.
There was no need for Sandy to work herself as hard as she did. Palin had the money to afford whatever they could want. He laughed to himself at the awakened dragons and their dusty old treasure. It might be pretty, sure, but the enclave had long ago figured out that the real way to make money wasn’t to rob humans, not literally. No, they needed to manipulate them. That was why almost every dragon in the enclave worked in the same field.
They had seen success beyond their wildest measure. Humans from all over the world came to them for highly secure bank accounts where they could hide wealth of all sorts. The dragons didn’t care about legality or external human governments. They wanted more. And woe upon anyone who tried to intimidate them out of their “neutrality.”
Palin’s wealth was secure with his fellows. He could access it from anywhere in the world, and he had enough to buy her farm a thousand times over. Ten thousand. She would never lack for money again…until he could tell her.
Sandy wasn’t one for charity, so he would have to be careful how he approached things. But either way, she would take a vacation, and soon. Even if he had to mysteriously leave a huge wad of cash somewhere in her house for her to find. Her work ethic was admirable, but he feared she was overdoing it.
“Hey, I’m not paying you to stand around and talk to yourself.”
“You’re not paying me at all,” he joked, lifting the crate from her truck and heading back to the tent. “You’re selling my pay for money, that you’re then going to keep. I’m pretty sure that’s like, indentured servitude or something.”
Sandy tsked. “Who’s been teaching you such big words? You know you shouldn’t be learning. Men your size, with your physique, aren’t you just supposed to be brawn, not brains?” She snatched up a bucket of something green and followed him.
“Well, you just so happened to luck into a real jack-of-all-trades. I’ve got the muscles”—he flexed for emphasis, pleased to note the way her pupils dilated, betraying her appeal—"and the intellect. A dangerous combination.”
“Dangerous to whom, you? Does it make it tough to interact with the others like you?”
He snorted, the noise eventually turning into a throaty chuckle. Palin enjoyed trading barbs with her. “Dangerous to those around me. I’ve been told I’m irresistible.” He gave her a lewd wink, one of his most upfront boasts yet.
Without missing a beat Sandy fired right back. “Whoever said that must have had a terrible sense of smell.”
“Did you just say that I stink?”
“No idea what you’re talking about.” She whistled innocently, heading back to the truck. “Come on, we have more to unload.”
“You’re welcome for that,” he muttered, out of comebacks for the moment.
“For what, doing your job? I would have fired you in a heartbeat if you were slacking.”
He hung his head. This was not a winning proposition for him anymore. “Truce?”
“You started it. Now you’re giving up?”
“I never give up.”
She smiled. “Spoken like a true beefcake that doesn’t realize when he’s beat. I thought you said you had brains?”
“Well, you know us men. We like to overexaggerate things.”
“As a woman, I’m well aware of that.”
He piled the crate down and faced her before headi
ng back. “It’s for your own benefit, you know.”
Sandy laughed. “Oh, this ought to be good. Okay, let’s hear this explanation.”
“We talk such a big game, that you women clearly don’t believe a word that comes out of our mouths, to the point that you start to expect nothing from us.”
She blinked slowly. “Are you telling me that you purposefully tell big bald-faced lies, so that we doubt everything about you?”
“Exactly. That way your expectations are so low, when you find out the truth you aren’t let down. You’re actually impressed.”
“I…” She shook her head. “You’re messing with me, aren’t you?”
Palin grinned and patted her gently on the shoulder. “Me have no brains. Me no mess with no body.” He chuckled falsely in an extra bassy voice and headed back for the truck.
Sandy stayed back at the tent, but he didn’t mind. Locals were starting to arrive, and the sooner they could sell the crops the sooner they could head back. He wanted to revisit the idea of staying with her. Part of it was because he longed to be nearer his mate, but he hadn’t been lying when he said he was growing tired of driving an hour and change each way.
Pulling several crates out from the back of the bed he stacked them up, intending to carry them all at once and be done with the unloading much faster. Just then the first droplets of rain started to splash down on the truck, and on him.
“Perfect.” He glared at the gray, overcast sky. None of the clouds were the dark black thunderheads that warned of an impending storm, but they could come up in a hurry.
As he was preparing to head back around the front of the tent Sandy’s voice reached him through the white canvas surrounding her booth.
“Listen, Rusty. How many times do I have to tell you? I’m not interested. At all. Now please, leave me alone.”
The reply was muffled and he couldn’t make it out. Whoever it was, they were talking away from him, and not very loud. Palin hesitated, unsure of what he should do. His mate sounded unimpressed, but not scared or worried, and he didn’t wish to tread upon her pride. If this was a situation she could handle, then he needed to let her handle it.
“No. Leave me alone. This conversation is over. Now I’m not going to reconsider.”
Her voice was getting heated now. Abandoning his plan to take the stack of crates, Palin snatched up the nearest one and headed for the front of the tent. He wanted to keep himself limber and unencumbered as much as possible. Just in case he needed to intervene.
Thunder rumbled in the sky, obscuring the next exchanges. Maybe a storm is coming. He hoped it wouldn’t be anything serious. The market would be slower if it rained, he knew that much. Rounding the edge of the tent he saw Sandy glowering up at another man.
He was tall, with a thicker body that spoke of a muscular youth but was turning to flab as he aged. A cheap farmer’s hat sat atop a head full of salt-and-pepper hair that fell to his ears. The hat looked out of place, like he felt he needed to wear it, but didn’t feel comfortable with it on. Two close-set medium-blue eyes were doing their best to give an icy stare in Sandy’s direction.
“Where would you like this?” he asked casually, sauntering up to the pair, forming a triangle between the three of them. His nose tickled momentarily, but a gust of wind sent water flying into the tent, distracting him. What was it he’d been smelling?
Both of them turned to look at him. He pointedly ignored the unknown male. Not because he was afraid of challenging him, but because the human was, quite literally, beneath Palin in every way that mattered. It wouldn’t do to make him feel more important than he actually was, which was not at all.
That didn’t stop the stranger from speaking up. “You hired some help, Sandy? And what help too! Why, he looks big and dumb enough to work for free. Is that how you got him?” He began to guffaw loudly and obnoxiously.
Palin stepped forward, turning his back on the stranger and faced Sandy. “Where should I put these, ma’am?” He flashed her a confident smile.
“Move aside, boy, before I’m forced to teach you some manners.” The stranger’s voice was different now. Low. Frosty. Furious, and demanding obedience.
He started to round on the man, but to his surprise Sandy beat him to the punch. “Really, Rusty. You’re going to complain about teaching manners? How about when I asked you three times in a row to leave me alone? Or when you came and initiated a conversation you knew I wanted no part in. You could learn a thing or two about manners yourself.”
Palin stopped his turn. He wanted to see the look on the angry stranger’s face so badly, but since he couldn’t keep the wide smile from his own face, he figured it was for the best. Antagonizing the other farmer even further wasn’t necessary at this point.
The farmer sputtered, said something under his breath so low even Palin’s ears couldn’t catch it, and then headed off, but not without a parting jab. “This isn’t over, Sandy. But it will be, when the next bill comes in. You won’t survive the winter, and you know it.”
Wood exploded in his hands as the crate disintegrated under Palin’s anger. He started to go after the farmer to teach him a lesson. Nobody threatened his mate and got away with it. But before he could Sandy was in front of him, finger jabbing into his chest.
“Easy,” she said, putting both palms on his chest and pushing him gently back into the tent. “Relax, Palin. It’s fine.”
“He threatened you.”
“No, he didn’t.”
“He said you won’t survive the winter. That means he’s going to kill you.”
Sandy laughed harshly. “Rusty? No, he wouldn’t kill anyone. He didn’t mean it that way.” She sagged. “I know what he meant, and he’s right.”
Palin tore his gaze away from where the farmer had disappeared among the tents and focused on Sandy. “What do you mean? Are you sick?” he asked worriedly.
“No, no. Not that. He meant I won’t survive as a farmer. That I’ll be forced to admit defeat and sell the farm because I won’t have the money to pay my bills.”
“Oh. That’s still pretty rude.”
Sandy nodded. She knelt down and started picking up the vegetables—broccoli, that’s what they were! He remembered now—and putting them into nearby crates that were already full. “Rusty is a pretty rude man, but he would never resort to physical violence.”
Palin glanced back at the mass of tents. He’d heard the anger in Rusty’s voice when he’d walked in front of him. People who spoke like that were not used to being disrespected, and they often got very, very angry when they didn’t get their way. He needed to know more.
“Who is Rusty?”
“My neighbor, I guess you could say. He has a huge farm that owns the land on all three sides of me that aren’t road. For years now he’s been trying to buy the Talbert family property. First from my uncle, and then when he passed, me.”
He nodded, grabbing the chunks of broken crate into his hands and dumping them in the back. Sandy hung out behind the tables, straightening her worn black ballcap before she continued with the story. Palin hadn’t known it before, but he loved the look of her in a hat, with her pale pink hair pulled through the hole at the back. It was hot.
Rain came down harder, splattering against the roof in a manner that he normally would have found peaceful, but now seemed almost ominous.
“He’s stepped up his attempts lately, and with his brother working down at the local municipal office, he knows I’m on a payment plan for my property taxes that I’m struggling to meet. If I fall too far behind, the city will repossess the property. Then he’ll buy it from them. But he doesn’t seem to want to wait that long.” She shrugged.
“I think I may have angered him.” Palin stepped up next to her. “I’m sorry about that.”
To his absolute astonishment Sandy leaned in and rested her head on his shoulder for a moment. “It’s okay. He’ll get over it.”
“Maybe.” He cracked his knuckles, but otherwise he didn’t move a
muscle, not wanting to end the moment any sooner than necessary. This was the closest they’d ever been to each other, and he wanted to cherish it. Things felt good with her there. Like that’s the way they were supposed to be. All the time.
Now if only he didn’t have to rely on annoying meddling humans to bring them closer, he would be happier. When they could finally move back to the dragon enclave together, things would improve. He just needed to last that long. Hopefully he could.
“You said this is your family’s farm?”
She nodded. “Yes. My great-grandfather bought it, though I don’t really know much of the details surrounding all that. I, uh, wasn’t really involved with the family for most of my adult life.”
“Why not?”
“I originally had a different career path planned out.” She stood up straight, much to his dismay. Despite the tightening of his pants at the close contact, he wouldn’t hesitate to risk the embarrassment of being caught with an erection if it gained him even an extra second of intimate closeness with her.
“Care to share?”
She smiled, wry mixed with a little sadness. “Nothing exciting. Cubicle farm office work. Moved my way up into the executives. I was doing pretty well for myself.”
Palin was confused. “Why leave a successful career to go work on the farm? That seems…counterproductive.”
“It was, when you think of it strictly from a monetary sense. But sometimes things change.” She fell silent.
Sensing that now was not the time to push on that front, Palin decided to drop his other news. “With Rusty being so mad, I think it would be a good idea for me to stay close to you for the time being. I know you say he’s harmless, but I’ve seen ‘harmless’ people do terrible things more times than I care to remember.”
“Somehow I knew you’d say that.”
“Well then, if we’re in agreement I guess it’s a good thing I packed my bags this morning.”
Sandy jerked as if stung. “You what?” She craned her head back to look up at his grinning face. “I never agreed to anything.”