A Mate to Believe In (Dragons of Mount Aterna Book 2)

by Riley Storm

  “Why didn’t you report this robbery?” she was asking.

  “Well, Deputy Frazer,” he said. “It was settled on its own. We found the trea—the stuff. There was no need to get the police involved, really.”

  She took a deep breath in, then let it out. “If someone commits a crime, Pace, then you call the police. That’s me. We solve crimes. Do not go out and try to solve it yourself. That’s called vigilante justice, and if you break any laws trying to get it back, you’re still in trouble.”

  Pace gave her his best charming smile. “Deputy Frazer, come now. Do I strike you as the type that would break the law?”

  The green went flat in a nanosecond. “Yes.” There was no hesitation.

  “Ouch,” he muttered. “Skewered with one shot. I’m hurt that you think so little of me Deputy Frazer.”

  “Oh for—if we’re going to work together, please just call me Carla? It’s way easier.”

  “Um. Okay. Carla,” he said, the name rolling off his tongue with practiced ease.

  She blinked rapidly for a few seconds, then shook it off. “So someone robbed your brother. You didn’t call the police.”

  “Well it was worked out before the police got involved,” he said, hurriedly moving on when he noticed Carla’s eyebrows rise up in suspicion at that. “Anyway, the point is, that this is a different person and—”

  “Wait,” Carla said, interrupting him. “How do you know that this is a different person? Why can’t it be the same person?”

  Pace bit his tongue. It wasn’t like he could tell her that the original thief was a dragon shifter who was now dead. That sentence would bring all kinds of unwanted attention down on the dragons of Five Peaks.

  “I just do,” he said a bit more brusquely than he wanted to. “What I’m trying to say is that maybe this means there’s a new thieves guild operating in town. They could just be setting up, so maybe we can stop them in their tracks before they get too entrenched.”

  Carla rubbed her eyes again. He hoped that wouldn’t become a habit of hers around him.

  “A thieves guild? Really. Who talks like that Pace? Not to mention, why would they ever set up in Five Peaks, of all places.”

  Pace stubbornly stood his ground. “I’m just saying, that this seems to be an emerging pattern. That’s all. You might see it start appearing in regular people too.”

  Now her eyes drew down to slits while her mouth, normally full and expressive, compressed into a flat line.

  “Normal people?” she said in an irritated whisper. “What does that mean?”

  Crap.

  “Um, I mean, just that, you know, so far it’s been confined to my, ah, family. Right? Like nobody else to our knowledge has had any issues. But that might change. At any time. But if they start targeting those people in Five Peaks with less, um, robust resources—”

  “The poor. That’s what you’re trying to say, isn’t it?” Carla snapped crossly. “”If they start targeting poor people. The non-rich.”

  Pace’s head dropped as he sighed. “That is not what I meant, Deputy Frazer, and you know it, so stop trying to make it a point. I’m saying that my family is lucky enough to have money to fall back on, a support system. Plenty of people here in town will not be that lucky. They could be far more vulnerable.”

  Carla bit her lip, glaring at him for a moment longer. He held her stare impartially, simply out-waiting her. It wasn’t hard, humans were extremely impatient, and it was obvious that Carla was no exception to that rule.

  “Fine. You have a point. It definitely seems connected, though I’m not sure I buy the thought that they might start targeting regular civilians. It seems that someone has it out for your family, Pace. Not that I could ever understand why,” she added under her breath.

  “Well I’m glad we’re on the same page now, Carla,” he said, reverting back to her name.

  “Right. So what exactly are you proposing here? Just so that I completely understand. No hidden secrets, I don’t want to find out later on that you’ve kept all sorts of other information from me either,” she said, shaking her head. “I can’t believe I’m entertaining this idea.”

  “It will be a good partnership, Deputy, you can trust me on that,” he said. “Which is exactly what I want to offer.”

  “I don’t trust anyone who lies to me,” Carla said sharply, eyes blazing with green fire.

  Pace tilted his head, keeping calm despite the accusation against his character, something that he took very personally. “I did not lie to you,” he fired back, his voice hard like stone, but devoid of anger.

  Carla reacted to this with surprise. It was obvious she hadn’t expected him to fire back, even if he was keeping his temper in check.

  “You didn’t exactly give me a chance to explain,” he pointed out when she didn’t immediately respond. “You threw me in cuffs and then argued with your Sheriff Dunbar.”

  “Trust me, he is not my Sheriff,” she said.

  “He is a bit of a fop, isn’t it he?” Pace joked, trying to take the seriousness off the conversation.

  “I probably shouldn’t shit-talk my superior,” she said. “Though if I did, I would probably have worse things to say. Let’s just leave it at that.”

  “Done. So, do we have a deal?” he said. “Let’s work together to find this jerk who tried to rob my family?”

  Carla grimaced. “Right. A partnership.”

  “I can help you. Like my family, we’re used to staying out of the spotlight. Operating without attracting a lot of attention. There are things I can probably help you with, and you have resources that can help me.”

  He wished she would stop being so reluctant on this. Pace was just trying to help, so why couldn’t Carla see that? There was such a huge chip on her shoulder, like she had to do everything herself. It really was a shame, because she was more than easy on the eyes, and Pace knew there was a brilliant mind lurking in there. But the attitude likely prevented anyone from getting close to her.

  “Fine,” she said tightly. “You want to act as my guide. Then do so. What can you do? What’s your first move?”

  Pace smiled.

  Victory.

  Chapter Ten

  Carla

  “I need to ask you something,” she said, breaking the silence that had fallen over them.

  Pace looked up from his phone, where he was watching the map slowly shift as they drove through the winding road of the mountain, heading east away from Five Peaks on the main road through town.

  There were precisely three ways in and out of Five Peaks. The two-lane national highway that ran through town, linking it through the mountains to the coast, and east out onto the plains, and a regular road that ran northward through a mountain pass up to the city of Kennewick Falls, the nearest population center of any size, two hours north.

  “Ask away,” he said.

  “Why did you bother coming back to the scene if you knew where you were going next?” Carla glanced over at him as she spoke, her hands gripping the wheel.

  They were in her car. Official police business, so she’d made them take her car. Carla was sure it was cramped for someone of his size, but Pace had held his tongue so far. She could respect that.

  “I think you know the answer to that,” he replied, unable to keep a grin from his face.

  “You came looking for me,” she said flatly, somehow knowing the answer.

  “Bingo.”

  “Didn’t think you had it in you to solve it on your own?” she teased, not willing to let him get the last laugh. “Couldn’t do it alone?”

  Pace blew air from his nose. “Well, I’m just doing what a certain police deputy told me to do when a crime had been committed. Get the police involved.”

  It was her turn to give an exaggerated reaction, which included a massive eyeroll. “I’m pretty sure I said to call the police. Not to go break into an active crime scene, scare the crap out of an officer by sneaking up on them, and then basically force your way onto
the case by slowly doling out all the information you have.”

  Truthfully, he was lucky that she had so much riding on exposing whatever was really going on with the Five Families. If Carla had simply been assigned to the investigation, she would never have agreed to actively work with Pace like this. He couldn’t know that, of course, but it had worked out in his favor.

  “That’s not what I heard,” Pace said innocently, shrugging his shoulders. “Besides, car rides like this are far more fun with two people.”

  “We’ve barely said any words to each other, except for you telling me where to turn, and if I’m going left or right,” she pointed out.

  “But the silence has been quite comfortable, hasn’t it?”

  Carla shook her head. She didn’t want to answer that one, because truthfully it had been a relaxed, peaceful silence. Neither of them felt the need to talk. They were at ease in the presence of the other. If she thought about that, it would hint at some things she simply wasn’t okay with accepting.

  “Where am I going next?” she asked.

  “According to the GPS unit installed in my car, we’re going to make one more turn about three miles up ahead,” Pace said, checking his phone. “It will be a left.”

  He’d added that last bit just as she opened her mouth. Carla clamped it closed again, knowing full well he’d waited until she was a fraction of a second away from speaking before answering her next question.

  How can he be so handsome and yet so irritating at the same time! Grrrr.

  “I could have found this on my own,” she pointed out.

  “No you couldn’t. This isn’t your standard factory GPS. We have that removed. This is our own,” Pace said. “Only one of my family members could access it and locate my truck.”

  “Right.” She frowned. “So you’re making yourself useful I suppose. That’s good.”

  Pace flashed her a smile that said ‘I know’, in the most irritating, yet charming and confident manner. It grated on her nerves, and yet was so nice to look at, she was torn between reaching out to hold his face in one hand, and reaching out to punch him square between the eyes. It was a toss-up, and part of her wished he would push it far enough for her to find out.

  Things would be so much easier if he were ugly. She wouldn’t continue getting distracted by his strong features, and those pale blue eyes that laughed along with the rest of his face every time.

  This is going to be a long case if this keeps up.

  “Here,” Pace said, pointing at the turning coming up.

  Carla took the left. They had gone no more than half a mile down the road before she spied his truck. It was pulled off the side of the road. This far out from Five Peaks, the land was flatter, and so the truck had been driven forty or so feet off the road before stopping in a rocky patch of ground.

  “It looks to be in good shape,” she muttered, pulling onto the shoulder.

  The ground was flat, but it was rocky enough that she didn’t trust her car. They would walk the rest of the distance. The last thing she needed was getting the two of them stuck and stranded out here. Together. With no hope of rescue for several hours.

  Carla wasn’t sure she could stand him for that long.

  I would definitely end up punching him before someone came to get us. Definitely.

  “This is an odd place to ditch a car,” she remarked as they walked over, her eyes scanning the ground. “So far from town or any other house. Nobody would leave it here, unless they had another ride.”

  Pace mumbled something. She looked at him, but he was nose to the ground, like her.

  “Don’t get too close,” she said as they approached. “We’ll need to scan the area for tracks.”

  “Right. I’ll go this way, you go that way,” Pace said, pointing, indicating they should circle around the truck and meet up on the far side.

  Carla shrugged. “Just be careful, okay? Don’t step in someone else’s boot print or something. We might need it to solve the case.”

  “I know a good bit about tracking,” Pace said, for once managing not to sound snarky. “You can trust me on this one, Deputy.”

  She ground her teeth. Carla hated it when he called her that. It was her rank after all, so it shouldn’t, but somehow he managed to say it without any trace of the respect that the rank earned.

  Moving to the left, she circled the truck clockwise.

  “I don’t see any prints,” she muttered. “It’s like the area has been blown completely clean. But it hasn’t been windy. There’s not even anything near the door. This guy must have had help. He wasn’t here on his own, there was someone else.”

  “Maybe,” Pace said from the far side of the truck. “But I doubt it.”

  Carla looked up to see him staring at the ground, pondering it.

  “What have you got?” she asked, starting to walk around.

  “Hmm? Oh, nothing,” Pace said, dragging his foot through the dirt.

  “Hey, what the heck! I told you not to obscure anything!” she snapped.

  The big man stood up straight, meeting her eyes. “It’s pointless, Sheriff. We’re not going to find anything out here that will help your case. Whoever it is, they got away clean.”

  She frowned. Something was off about his attitude.

  “We got your truck back,” she said, thinking she’d perhaps found what it was. “Why aren’t you happier about that?”

  Pace shrugged. “I mean that’s great, yeah. But to be blunt, Carla, that’s not really a big concern to me. A new truck is…well, you know I’m lucky to have money at my disposal. Finding the person who did this, and bringing them to proper justice, that’s my concern. That’s what I want.”

  “I see,” she said, her tone indicating she was far from convinced. Something else was definitely going on, and she needed to get to the bottom of it, and fast. “Well, it looks like it’s in drivable condition. So you should be good to go.”

  “Actually I think I’m going to come back with you. I’ll have a mechanic come out and tow it back, give it a once-over. I don’t know what damage might have been done in the drive. The last thing I want is to get stranded on my own all the way out here.”

  Carla thought about telling him that she would follow him back into town so that wouldn’t happen, but the truth of it was, she’d experienced a slight twinge of anticipation and perhaps even eagerness when Pace had stated he wanted to drive back with her. She liked his presence.

  Even if he’s a bit of a cocky prick.

  Carla caught herself. She was going to have to watch herself around this one. In just a few hours she’d gone from treating him as a suspect, to experiencing giddiness at the prospect of spending more time with him. That was dangerous and she needed to be on her guard.

  “Okay,” she said, thinking it over. “But I need to make a quick stop at home real quick, then we can continue the investigation.”

  “Sure. Whatever you need,” Pace said.

  Only once he’d called a mechanic and they were back on the road did Carla realize that this new plan of action meant Pace was going to find out where she lived.

  Oh crap.

  Chapter Eleven

  Carla

  The drive home was, for some unforeseen reason, tenser than the drive out there. It was as if both of them had come to the same conclusion about their enjoyment of spending time around the other, and were now walking on eggshells trying not to overdo it.

  It was one of the weirdest experiences of her life.

  “Can I ask you something?” Pace said, finally breaking the silence after they were more than three-quarters of the way back into town.

  “Sure. I can’t say I’ll answer it, but you can ask it,” she said, wondering what was on his mind.

  “Your boss told you to drop this case,” he said. “You put up a fight when I was in the car in cuffs. Then you went and found security camera footage and came to try and get me to fess up. Now today you’re back at the scene again. So why didn’t you give
up? Why are you defying him and continuing with this investigation?”

  “Yeah.” She nodded, buying herself some time. “You’re right, I did do all that.”

  “Why?”

  “Because it seemed like the right thing to do. My gut told me that there was more going on at the scene than you were letting on. Something was amiss, and it’s my duty to find out what. I couldn’t just back down.”

  “That’s not all,” Pace said, prying deeper. “Is it?”

  “No,” she admitted with a slow breath. “It’s not. This isn’t the first time that a member of the Five has done something like this in Five Peaks. I wouldn’t say it happens regularly, but I’ve been part of the team for eight years now. I’ve seen it all happen in that time. You people are careless. You think that just waving money at a problem fixes it.”

  “So you’ve said,” Pace rumbled in irritation. “Even if you’re wrong.”

  “Am I, Pace? Ask yourself that seriously.”

  He was silent.

  “Anyway, I know that something else is going on here, Pace. I’m not sure if you’re involved, I hope you aren’t, but I promise you, if you are, I will find out, and I will arrest you. You will go to jail, no matter how much money you try to throw at this problem, it won’t matter.”

  “I have done nothing wrong. Nor have I lied to you,” he said quietly.

  “We’ll see.” She chewed her lip. “I also despise Dunbar. The man is useless and I swear he receives money from you to overlook all this stuff.”

  “He does not,” Pace said. “We’ve never paid him a cent. That would be bribery, and we are law-abiding people, believe it or not.”

  “Well, the truth of it is, I didn’t believe your initial excuses. So I made a deal. I’m here now, that’s the end of it.”

  Pace nodded. “Of course, of course.”

  She flicked her signal on and turned off the main road, heading down side streets now toward her house. Carla was regretting this decision big time. Having Pace know where she lived was…unsettling.