Silverback Dragon (Return to Bear Creek Book 6)

by Harmony Raines

  “No, we didn’t see him until three days after Dad died.” Ruby wiped a tear away.

  “Roxanne made us go to bed early. There was someone at the door. He never knocked or rang the doorbell. Roxanne must have been expecting him. She opened it and let him in.”

  “They were laughing. And kissing,” Ruby’s eyes glowed red.

  “Keep calm, dear,” Fiona said, placing her hand over Ruby’s. “We need you to keep control of your dragon.”

  Ruby nodded. “I’m OK.”

  “They slept together,” Sapphi said quietly.

  “Are you sure?” Fiona asked, shocked that two people could do this when these two girls who had just lost their father were in the house.

  “I couldn’t sleep. I heard them come upstairs, I heard him leave in the morning,” Sapphi’s voice was almost inaudible, but Fiona’s dragon ears heard just fine, and her blood boiled, and her dragon seethed in rage.

  “I’m so sorry,” Fiona said. “For what happened and having to make you relive it.”

  “She married Dad for his money,” Ruby said. “That’s all she wanted.”

  Fiona looked across the table to Harlan, She wanted to ask how their father had died, she wanted to know for sure that Roxanne had not been responsible. But now was not the time.

  “We promise to do whatever we can to stop her from getting her hands on your treasure,” Harlan swore, his voice fierce, his eyes glowing green. In that moment she loved this man who had come into her life. Facing it together, all four of them would make what had to be done easier.

  “I swear it too,” Fiona said.

  “OK.” Harlan clapped his hands. “You girls are going to do the dishes. I am going to call my lawyer, and Fiona is going to go out to work so she can bring home the bacon. Literally.”

  “OK, I’ll go to the office and then stop at the grocery store on the way home. I have a couple of other appointments today, I should be home about four.” She got up from the table, and Ruby and Sapphi did the same, coming over to hug her before she left the kitchen.

  “Thank you, Fiona,” Ruby said.

  “You are welcome.” Fiona pulled back and looked at the two girls. “Harlan and I will do whatever it takes to help you get past this. Treasure or no treasure.”

  Sapphi nodded. “I hate the thought of her wearing Mom’s jewels. She already threw out all of her stuff when she married Dad.” She sniffed loudly. “Dad tried to stop her, but she started crying and said he loved Mom more than her.”

  “He wanted us to be happy,” Ruby said.

  “He didn’t do a good job of it,” Fiona said, and then shut her mouth. “Sorry, that was insensitive.”

  “He thought Roxanne would make us happy. She was nice, before she had that ring on her finger. We thought it was too soon, but we wanted him to be happy too. When Mom died, he was so sad. But once they were married, she changed, she started to make comments about us, she told Dad we were mean to her…”

  “This sounds like Chrysi and Ross all over again,” Harlan said. “Let’s hope it ends the same way, with the criminal behind bars.”

  “I’ll talk to you later.” Fiona left the kitchen, with a peck on the cheek.

  Fiona left the cabin. It was weird leaving the others in her home. Three people she had only met yesterday, three strangers who had free rein to do what they wanted in her house. But she trusted them. Just as they trusted her to do the right thing.

  Heading to the office, she barely noticed the traffic as she thought over the last conversation she had with the girls. Could a man be lonely enough to fall for a woman who was a fortune hunter?

  Fiona had been lonely at times in her life, it was true. Before she came to Bear Creek, she had been at her lowest ebb, but never had she thought about settling for someone she did not love, for someone who was not her mate. But she was a shifter, and shifters behaved differently.

  “Suzie,” Fiona said brightly as she walked into the office twenty minutes later, her car parked in the parking lot and coffee in her hands.

  “Fiona!” Suzie jumped visibly when Fiona placed the cup of coffee on her desk. “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing. Nothing at all.” Fiona perched on the edge of Suzie’s desk, making her supervisor very uncomfortable. However, she reached for her coffee and sniffed it. “A caramel shot?”

  Fiona smiled. “I know that’s how you like it.”

  “You do?” asked Suzie.

  “Yes.” Fiona sipped her own coffee, feeling the caffeine thread through her brain.

  “That is good. So much better than the machine.”

  “Isn’t it?” Fiona agreed. “So, Suzie, if you were a lonely middle-aged woman with two children, would you marry a man in a whirlwind romance?”

  Suzie nearly choked on her coffee. Coughing and spluttering, she reached for a tissue. “That would depend.”

  “On what?” Fiona’s eyes bored into Suzie like a laser beam.

  “On whether I truly loved him, and more importantly whether my children loved him and were ready for another man to take the place of their father. Not that anyone can ever really take the place of a child’s real father.” Suzie looked up at Fiona expectantly, as if waiting to see if she had passed a test.

  “Hmm. Thank you.” Fiona slid off the desk and made her way to her office, which was a place she tried to avoid as much as humanly possible. She preferred being out in the field, visiting her children and making sure they were happy.

  But today, she had something she needed to do. Switching on her computer, she logged in with Mrs. Donaldson’s user name and password. She had procured it one day purely by accident. It was wrong, she knew that, but this was a special case, and Fiona only ever broke the rules for special cases.

  “And this is a special case,” Fiona said, as she began to tap in search parameters.

  First, she pulled up the file she had glanced over yesterday; it said very little about Roxanne Cunningham. So she went into a different database and searched again. Even less.

  “Who are you?” Fiona dug deeper. But there was nothing on Roxanne other than a date of birth. All that meant was she hadn’t been entered into the system for any reason. Not unusual: if she had no reason to be in contact with the three departments Mrs. Donaldson oversaw, then she wouldn’t be in here.

  Birth, deaths, and marriages were the limit of her investigation outside social services. She decided to take a look at Dougal Campbell, the man who slept with Roxanne.

  “Married. Of course you are.” Fiona pulled up the marriage license and took a look at it. This might be the key to it all. Dougal had been married for ten years. If he was having an affair with Roxanne, maybe they wanted the girls’ money to fund their new life together. It made sense.

  It also gave her nothing new to go on.

  A knock at the door made her jump guiltily. Fiona logged out quickly and deleted her history before saying, “Come in.”

  “Hi,” Suzie said. “I went over the paperwork for Ruby and Sapphire. There seem to be a couple of points missing. Could you fill them in for me?” Suzie gave Fiona a penetrating look. Fiona had long ago decided not to underestimate Suzie. She was quiet; some might call her mousy. But underneath she had a spark that made Fiona respect her. “Can you do that for me?”

  “I can.” Fiona took the file from Suzie and placed it on her desk.

  “I can bounce it around for a few days,” Suzie said suddenly, her voice quiet. “But not much longer.”

  With that, she turned and walked out of the office. Damn. Suzie knew there was something going on. But how? It didn’t matter. Fiona was now on a deadline. She was going to have to go and speak directly to Mrs. Donaldson and persuade her the girls were best left with her and Harlan.

  It was against procedure. Once they had been handed to social services, they had responsibilities for the children. If only Fiona had known about them beforehand, she could have taken them in before social services was contacted.

  Needing time to think, an
d to avoid form filling, Fiona left the office. Luckily, Suzie was away from her desk, so Fiona took the stairs and slipped back out into the parking lot. Time to get her other visits over with.

  Then she glanced down at the file. Her mind filled with Ruby and Sapphi and everything they had lost. Against her better judgment, she phoned and canceled her appointments. There was something she needed to do. And she needed to do it before she changed her mind.

  Chapter Fourteen – Harlan

  They walked back to the cabin, tired, but happy. Or as happy as two girls could be under the circumstances. But he had to admit, a few hours in the mountains had done them all a lot of good.

  That’s because I took their mind off things, his dragon said.

  Harlan laughed but did not correct his dragon. You might be right.

  His dragon sighed. There is nothing as majestic as seeing a silver-backed dragon flying in the skies.

  Oh, I don’t know, Harlan answered as they neared the cabin and he sensed his mate.

  I might agree with you, his dragon said.

  That would be a first, Harlan replied, with a chuckle.

  “I’m starving,” Ruby said. “Do you think Fiona has brought some food? You know, food we might actually enjoy eating?”

  “I hope it’s not chicken salad,” Sapphi said.

  “Whatever she’s bought, you need to be grateful and not give her a hard time,” Harlan said. “She’s not used to having a couple of teenagers around.”

  “I know. She’ll learn,” Ruby said. Both girls giggled.

  A barking filled the clearing around the cabin, and the three of them stopped dead in their tracks. “Muffin?” Sapphi said.

  Sapphi and Ruby broke into a run as the barking grew steadily louder and more insistent. Harlan ran after them, and as he got closer to the cabin, he could hear the sound of Fiona trying to calm the dog down.

  “Oh my goodness,” Ruby said, as she dragged the kitchen door open to be greeted by an exuberant dog with far too much hair.

  “Muffin!” Sapphi called, and sank down to her knees, the small, wooly-coated brown dog licking her face and her hands, and then running to Ruby to do the same.

  “You found their dog?” Harlan asked Fiona, a half smile on his face. “I thought you didn’t like dogs?”

  “I don’t. But they do.” She tried to hide her delight at the sound of the girls laughing and rolling around on the floor with Muffin.

  “Maybe it’s another one of those things you need to leave behind,” Harlan suggested, touching her arm gently.

  Fiona looked into his blue eyes; she had never noticed the silver flecks before. “Maybe it is. The past is the past.” She looked down at Muffin. “I know I’m going to regret this.”

  “Life is full of regrets,” Harlan said. “That’s how you know you are living it.”

  Fiona headed back into the kitchen, needing a moment to compose herself. “So, I bought some groceries. And dog food.” She sighed audibly as she put Muffin’s food away. “He’s going to have to sleep outside.”

  Harlan came up behind her and threaded his arms around her waist, inhaling her scent as he kissed her neck. She was all woman, all warmth and life, with a hint of metallic that made her instantly recognizable as a dragon. “I want to lick every inch of your body.” He nipped her earlobe, and her knees nearly gave out. “It’s been a while since I’ve made a woman go weak at the knees.”

  He ran his hand over her ribs and cupped her breast, his thumb brushing her nipple. She leaned back against him, her breathing rapid. “The girls,” she breathed.

  The sound of Muffin barking and the girls laughing came from some way off, but Fiona was right. “Later,” he promised. Harlan stepped back, leaving Fiona clutching the countertop to keep her legs beneath her. “What is for dinner?” he asked casually as if nothing had happened between them. “I’ll cook.”

  “No, I can do it,” Fiona said firmly, trying to assert herself.

  “I insist, you have been at work all day.” He unpacked the groceries, mentally preparing a menu in his head. “I’ll surprise you.”

  “I’m not sure if I like surprises,” Fiona said.

  “Then learn.” He grinned. “Why don’t you go and take a bath? Relax, let me do something for you.”

  “You don’t have to.” Fiona looked as if she wanted to say more, but turned away from him.

  Harlan dropped the spaghetti, he was about to put away, down onto the counter. “Hey, what’s wrong?”

  “I should be cooking you dinner. I’m not a good mate, am I?” Fiona offered. “My mom used to do everything for my father. Cook, clean, mend.” Turning to face Harlan, she admitted. “I’m not that kind of a woman.”

  “Good, because I’m not that kind of man. It doesn’t matter what our parents did. I’m used to looking after a house and kids. I enjoy cooking. In fact, I could happily retire and live here in this cabin with you and the girls forever.” He smiled, and lifted his hand to pull the pins from her hair, letting it cascade around her shoulders. “You make me happy, Fiona. And I want to make you happy. Warts and all.”

  She tilted her head. “I did not notice any warts last night.”

  He chuckled and pulled her to him, kissing her lips. “Then maybe you need to have a very thorough look again.”

  She threaded her arms around his neck and leaned against him. “The problem is, being around you, makes me want to be what my mother was. I want to cook for you, and play house.”

  “What if I tell you being around you makes me want to tear the head off any man, woman, or beast that might even look at you wrong?” He kissed her neck and groaned, pulling away. “And the drive to put a baby in your belly is almost too much to contain.”

  “I wish I could give you a child,” Fiona said, pulling away from him. She looked out of the window to where Ruby and Sapphi were walking back toward the house. “I think that bath might be a good idea.”

  With that, Fiona left the room, walking up the creaky stairs and out of his life. It might only be for a short time, but his dragon missed her already.

  “Where’s Fiona?” Ruby asked, coming into the kitchen.

  “She’s gone upstairs. Do you want to help me make dinner?” Harlan asked Ruby. All day he’d been trying to get a sense of the young woman before him. She was a conundrum, caught between childhood and adulthood. One minute happy to goof around with her sister, the next wanting to be treated as an adult. But she had a big heart. A heart that had been wounded by the loss of her parents and Roxanne’s betrayal.

  “I’m not good at cooking,” she admitted.

  “Luckily, I am, so you can learn from an expert.”

  “Are you an expert?” Ruby asked suspiciously.

  “When you have been around for as long as I have, you learn to be one.” He winked. “I’m self-taught, so we get to do things our own way.”

  “OK,” Ruby said, going to the sink and washing her hands. “I wanted to thank Fiona for getting Muffin for us.”

  “Fiona’s taking a bath. When she comes back down, you can thank her with dinner,” Harlan suggested.

  “Good idea.”

  Ruby helped Harlan make a tasty meal that he hoped they would all enjoy. It had chicken, and salad, but he added wild herbs he had collected on their walk in the mountains, and new potatoes with garlic and butter. Finished off with fresh bread, it smelled and tasted wonderful. And everyone agreed.

  “Thank you, Ruby. Thank you, Harlan,” Fiona said, as she sipped her wine, her plate clean.

  “I ate chicken salad, and liked it,” Sapphi said, sounding disappointed.

  They all laughed, and when Harlan caught Fiona’s eye, he could see she had relaxed, her cheeks a little flushed from her bath, and her wet hair hanging down around her shoulders. “Oh, I almost forgot.”

  Fiona got up from the table and left the room, returning with a gift for Ruby. “Here. I would hate for your life to be ruined by not having straight hair.”

  “Straighteners
. Thank you, Fiona,” Ruby got up and hugged Fiona tightly. “Thank you for everything.”

  “Yes.” Sapphi got up, never one to miss a hug. “You too, Harlan, come on.”

  He got up from the table and hugged the three women he was learning to love. It reminded him of Chrysi and he mentally hugged her too, never wanting her to feel left out.

  “OK, dishes.”

  The girls groaned, but despite Ruby protesting she wanted to try out her straighteners, she washed the dishes with her sister.

  “You have a way with them,” Fiona said.

  “And you don’t?” Harlan asked.

  Fiona shook her head. “I don’t know how to be warm and easygoing.”

  “I’ll let you in on a secret,” Harlan said, coming to kneel beside her and taking her hand. “The layers of resolve you try to hang onto get stripped away the longer you have children. They chip away at what you perceive makes a good parent, until the person left, is one. Or not.” He grinned. “What I mean to say, is you don’t flip a switch. It is all about being willing to learn and compromise. Today you made a huge compromise.”

  “You mean Muffin?” Fiona asked, side-eying the little dog that was crashed out happily in front of the fire.

  “It was a noble thing to do.” He knelt up and kissed her mouth. “And I want to thank you, in so many ways.” He got up and sat back on the sofa. “Soon.”

  “We are going to bed,” Sapphi announced as they finished in the kitchen.

  “To sleep?” Harlan asked. It was still relatively early.

  “The Wi-Fi on our phones works better up there,” Ruby admitted.

  Fiona shook her head. “You could read a book.”

  “I ate chicken salad, so quit while you are ahead,” Sapphi told Fiona as she hugged her and said goodnight.

  “I’ll take your advice,” Fiona said. “Although we are going to have to talk about school and things shortly.” Her face became serious, but she didn’t say more, and Harlan didn’t ask more until the girls had gone.

  “Problems?” He hadn’t had a chance to ask Fiona how her day had gone.