by Jadyn Chase
I commanded myself to blink. I wasn’t hearing this from this kindly lady. “And what did he say?”
She giggled, and her cheeks and chin jiggled. “He shrugged and said that was true. Then he wanted to know when you were coming back to work. I told him you would come back to work when you could reasonably walk around without keeling over and without running the risk of getting shot again.”
I nodded and turned my attention to my roast beef. “I wonder how much he knows about the situation.”
“He knows a lot more than you think he does, but the fact remains that, as soon as you’re well, you’ll have to go back to your old life. You won’t be able to hide up here forever.”
“I understand that, and I appreciate your hospitality,” I replied. “If it makes your lives any easier, I’m happy to get moved to the hospital.”
“Oh, no, you won’t!” she cried. “The Lynches would be in your room within the hour. You’ll stay here until Xavier and the boys deem it prudent for you to leave.”
“When will that be?” I asked. “If the danger is so great, then there won’t be a prudent time for me to leave.”
She jumped to her feet with that brisk, businesslike manner of hers. “That’s his decision, not mine. He has the wellbeing of the whole Clan to consider. You’re one person, and you’re….”
She stopped in mid-sentence and her eyes fixed on my face. She didn’t say it. She didn’t have to. I wasn’t part of this Clan, and if they had to sacrifice someone for the good of their people, that someone would be me.
8
Caden
I emerged from the bungalow and propped my shoulder against the doorframe while I picked corn out of my teeth. I gazed across the compound at my parents’ house. I lived in that house all my life. I ate every dinner of my life in that house.
Now here I was, relegated to the bungalow for the foreseeable future. Why? Because she was over there. Caroline was in that house, eating my mother’s cooking and sleeping in the guest room.
She was just a few dozen yards away, but she might as well be on the moon. Pop laid down the law. I wasn’t allowed to see Caroline and I definitely wasn’t allowed in the house under penalty of….something or other. Pop didn’t outline what the penalty was. He only made it painfully clear where I was and wasn’t allowed.
Ma kept me updated on Caroline’s recovery, but after the first day or so, I stopped asking or even trying to find out how Caroline was doing. I got weird looks every time I mentioned her name. News traveled fast on this Ridge, and until someone told me Caroline was dead or in a coma, I could safely assume she was just fine.
Archer meandered out of the bungalow and flopped into a rotten old settee that sagged against the wall. He sighed loudly and propped his feet on a chair. “That hit the spot. Felicia’s getting to be a first-rate cook. I suppose all those parties and weddings gave her plenty of time to practice.”
I didn’t say anything. I wandered in my mind across the yard and up the stairs to Caroline’s room. I stood by her bed the way I did when I brought her here. I gazed down at her sleeping face and watched the quilt rise and fall with her breath.
That was all I wanted—one glimpse of her face to remember her by. Was that asking too much? Apparently so. Pop didn’t need anyone drawing him a map to fathom the truth. I got Caroline on the brain and now I couldn’t get her off it.
How long would this go on? If Pop was right and Caroline went back to the human world and forgot all about me, how long would I keep moping around pining over her before I let her go?
How could meeting a woman change my life so fast? How could not seeing her deprive me of all my motivation to live?
Archer broke in on my thoughts. “Me and Christian are going to the Watering Hole later. You should come along.”
“Great,” I muttered. “That’s just what I need—to spend my evening surrounded by a bunch of sweaty, drunken men.”
He cocked his head and smiled up at me with a depth of understanding in his eyes. “That’s exactly what you do need.”
I turned away. Everybody knew. Christ, I might as well tattoo the word, SAP, on my forehead and be done with it. I was the dragon shifter who got himself hooked on a human woman. How stupid can you get?
“Aw, what the hell,” I exclaimed. “I’ve got nothing better to do. When are you leaving?”
“Half an hour, just as soon as Christian changes his clothes.”
“That could take hours,” I countered. “You know what that guy is like.”
“Yeah. I know.”
Archer scooted down in the settee and got comfortable for the long wait. Screw this. I wasn’t going to spend my precious life mooning over a woman I could never have. I shoved myself off the doorframe and strode off to kill time somewhere else.
I rounded the bungalow headed for the workshop when someone leaped from the shadows. I jumped out of my skin when I came face to face with Caroline.
“Where have you been?” she demanded. “Why have you been avoiding me?”
I pretended to keep walking. “I haven’t been avoiding you.”
“Liar!” she snapped. “You haven’t come to see me once in the week since I woke up. What are you trying to do—give me the flick? Why don’t you just come right out and say it? You don’t have to send your mother to do it.”
“I am not giving you the flick,” I retorted. “You know as well as I do my Pop ordered me to stay away from you.”
“So now you obey orders, do you?” She drew herself up and her black eyes glittered. I hadn’t seen her in over a week. Her beauty assaulted my senses as never before, not to mention her energy restored to its original peak. “I don’t believe you, Caden. If you wanted to see me, you would have come. You’ve been going along with this. You stayed away from me of your own accord.”
I tucked my chin into my neck and barged past her. “It’s complicated. You wouldn’t understand.”
She darted in front of me and planted her hand on my chest to stop me. That simple touch exploded through me like a bolt of lightning, but she was too angry to notice. “Everyone keeps saying that. Of course I don’t understand because no one will tell me what the fuck is going on. What is so complicated, Caden? Tell me. If you don’t tell me, I’ll assume you kissed me in the woods that time because you’re a womanizing piece of shit who doesn’t give a crap about me.”
My shoulders slouched listening to this. “You know that’s not true, Caroline.”
“Then explain it to me,” she barked. “What reason could you possibly have for avoiding me? What is so all-fired complicated that your father forbade you to see me?”
I shook my head and looked away. What could I say? I couldn’t exactly tell her the truth, could I? I couldn’t tell her we belonged to two incompatible species who could never have anything to do with each other.
I couldn’t tell her she would go back to her own world and I would stay on the Ridge forever. I would rot up here, but I would never stop thinking about her. I knew that now.
Before I could decide what to say to her, she raised her hand and grabbed hold of my jaw. She wrenched my head around to face her. “Look at me, Caden. Don’t you dare turn away. Look me in the eye right now and tell me that kiss meant nothing. Tell me you’re a womanizing piece of shit who doesn’t give a crap about me. I want to hear you say the words. I won’t believe it if you don’t tell me.”
Her fingers burned my skin. Damn, I wanted to kiss her right now! If Pop saw us together, he would take me to the woodshed for certain, but I couldn’t tear myself away. I feasted my eyes on her face brimming with emotion and power and unstoppable confidence. Only she, of all the women in the world, would have the spine to confront a man like this.
“Why did your father forbid you to see me?”
Her voice dropped, but she didn’t release her hold on my face. Her fingers snuck their insidious control into my brain. If this kept up, I would have no choice but to tell her everything.
I gulped. �
��There’s no way……” My voice cracked from the strain of holding myself together. “There’s no way we can….be anything to each other, Caroline. I kissed you, and that was a big mistake.”
She convulsed like she’d been shot. She tore her hand away. “A mistake? Why?”
The loss of her touch hurt worse than anything. I could bear anything as long as she still kept contact with my skin. “You don’t understand,” I groaned. “I’m not a womanizer. I’ve kissed two other girls in my life, and I care about you like I care about my own kin. God, you don’t know how much that kiss meant to me, Caroline. You can never know.”
“Why didn’t you come to see me, then?” Her voice strained to the breaking point. “Don’t you know how confused I’ve been ever since your mother told me I wasn’t allowed to see you?”
I could only shake my head in agony. “You don’t know how it is. There are so many things you don’t understand, and I can’t explain them to you. It’s for your own safety. Please believe me. I never should have kissed you, but not because I don’t care about you. I never should have given you the wrong impression. There can never be anything between us. It’s impossible. In a few days, you’ll be better. You’ll go back to Norton and I’ll stay here. We might never see each other again, but even if we do, nothing can ever happen. We live in two different worlds, and they can never come together.”
She tossed her hair out of her eyes. “You’re not making any sense. Even if you’re right and there can never be anything between us, that’s no reason we can’t at least see each other in the meantime. I mean, we’re both consenting adults. You can go your way, and I can go mine if that’s the way it’s gotta be. Your father didn’t have to go to all this trouble over….”
“Yes, he did,” I blurted out. “He had to.”
“Why? Why should he….?”
“Because I’m in love with you, Caroline!” I thundered. “When are you gonna get that through your thick head? I can’t see you. I can’t live here with you on the same mountain when I know you’re right over there and I can’t have you! Do you get it now?”
I rushed away from her seething in torment. There. I said it. Now she knew. I admitted it to myself for the first time, and now I couldn’t take it back.
I never articulated it in so many words. Now I knew it was true. She affected me the way she did because I loved her. I wanted everything with her. I wanted the house and the kids and the white picket fence, and I could never, never have that.
I wanted to run from her, to hide in a hole and lick my festering wounds, but she dodged at me and clutched my arm. “Wait, Caden! Don’t walk away.”
I ripped my arm out of her grasp. “Leave me alone. Just leave me alone. I don’t want to see you again.”
I stormed to the barn and buried myself in the shadows where I could nurse my broken heart in silence. I couldn’t say in peace. I would never experience peace again. I grew up contented and happy on Smokey Ridge. I couldn’t even have that anymore. Nothing could ever be the same.
God, I wished she would leave right now. I wished I could rewrite the last two weeks, so I never laid eyes on her magnificent face.
Thank Heaven she would go back to her own people without ever learning my secret. I couldn’t stand her looking at me with horror and revulsion when she realized I belonged to another species, a dragon species ten times her size.
Better that she should forget all about me and get with someone of her own kind. She would have her own kids in a little house with roses in the yard and a nice kitchen. Maybe she would pause while doing the dishes and gaze out at the sunshine on the red buds, and she would remember the man who once passed through her life without so much as a ripple.
She would think how fortunate she was not to get involved with him. She would think how blessed her life was with her own husband. She couldn’t imagine being happier than she was now, and it was thanks to her husband’s love that she got to that point.
She might wonder what happened to that long-lost acquaintance of hers. She would guess that he found someone he could settle down with. She would imagine him playing with his children and growing to rule his Clan, but she would never really know for certain. She could only hope he got over the loss one day and moved on. She would hate to think of him staying unhappy all his life.
I huddled in a vacant stall toward the back of the barn. Night covered the Ridge and all the light faded from the world, but I still didn’t come out. Headlights angled through the yard when Archer and Christian drove away to town. Let them go. Let them leave me to my misery.
9
Caroline
Margaret folded my uniform pants and smoothed out the wrinkles before she laid them on the bed. She picked up my shirt and shook it out before she folded that, too. “I can’t believe you’re leaving tomorrow. It seems like no time at all since you came.”
“It is no time at all,” I murmured. “It’s less than two weeks and I was asleep for the first two days.”
She sighed and stacked my folded shirt on top of the pants. “Well, I suppose it’s for the best. Morris will be happy to get you back. I know that. He stopped me on the street to double and triple check that you really were coming back tomorrow.”
I stared down at my hands in my lap. The Kellys gave me clean jeans and a t-shirt and sweater to wear while Margaret laundered my uniform. For some reason, I never put it back on.
In my two weeks on Smokey Ridge, I settled into an easy rhythm helping out around the house in between resting my head. Now, when I sat on my bed, I couldn’t bring myself to accept I was really leaving.
This place got into my blood somehow. It soothed me into a fantasy world where modern society outside it didn’t exist. I could stay here forever and be happy—all except for Caden.
He said he was in love with me. What was I supposed to do with that? How could he fall in love with me after a handful of encounters—not even a handful?
Yet it all made perfect sense. I knew when he kissed me that he felt that way. I didn’t put it into words, but that kiss couldn’t possibly mean anything else. The truth was I felt it, too. That’s why I didn’t stop him from kissing me. I wanted him to. I probably would have done it myself if I had thought of it first.
Well, no, I probably wouldn’t have, but you get my drift. I wanted to kiss him. I felt the same connection to him. That kiss fit into some overarching pattern. It represented the culmination of everything that happened since I first set foot in these woods.
On second thought, it couldn’t be the culmination of anything because it was only the beginning—or what? How could it be a beginning when I was about to leave here?
I never told anybody what Caden said to me. I didn’t have to. They all already knew. Every time I looked into their eyes, I read the truth. Caden’s father Xavier, his mother Margaret, his brother Christian, his cousin Archer, his uncle Andrew—they all knew long before I did.
This explained so much about why they acted the way they did, why they kept that invisible wall between me and them. Only Margaret really came near me or acted like I was a real person. None of the others ever even really talked to me. They certainly never tried to get to know me. Why should they when I was only going to leave?
“There you go, darling.” Margaret smoothed her hand one more time over my uniform. “You’re all set.”
I muttered under my breath and didn’t look up. “Thanks.”
“We’re having pot roast for dinner tonight,” she told me. “Why don’t you go out to the shed and get some sweet potatoes and turnips?”
“All right.” What else did I have to do on my last night on the Ridge?
I got up and headed down the landing. By the time I got to the stairs, I heard voices floating up from the living room below. That didn’t strike me as so unusual, but when I got halfway down, I recognized some of them. I slowed my pace to listen. The vibrant tones of their voices reverberated up the stairs and made my hair stand on end.
“Who
was it you say came over, son?” Xavier asked.
“It was Barret, of course, and Rolf, Rupert, and Emile,” Caden replied. “Rolf and Rupert both suffered gunshot wounds and Emile was frozen stock-still, so I don’t know how likely any of them are to come back.”
“If they don’t come, someone else will,” Archer pointed out.
“Barret will come for certain,” Caden added. “He’ll never quit until he gets payback for the bust.”
“I agree with you,” Xavier chimed in, “but we can expect a lot more than that to come this time. They won’t leave the clean-up to a bunch of third-string punks this time. They’ll send over the big guns—fully grown men they can trust to follow through. They won’t leave Barret to fly off the handle with an obsession for revenge. These men will be ten times more deadly. The only problem is we don’t know where or when they’ll strike.”
“I still don’t like letting Caroline off the Ridge,” Caden told him.
Xavier’s voice took on a hard edge and he growled low in his chest. “You said that already, son. We all know where you stand on this.”
“Please, Pop,” Caden countered. “Just listen to what I’m saying for a second. Just put aside what you know about me and where I stand and listen to me. As long as she’s here, they have no choice but to attack us at our strongest point. The minute she leaves, we lose every advantage we had in this fight. They can choose where and when to strike, and we won’t find out about it until it’s too late. Heck, we might not even get there in time to stop them, and we can’t chance that.”
“I hear what you’re saying, son,” Xavier replied, “and I agree with every word, but we can’t hold her here any longer. The authorities on the outside are already getting suspicious that we won’t release her. They’re already saying we’re holding her here against her will, and we don’t need that kind of attention.”
