Desired by the Dragon

by Isadora Montrose

  Moira looked up from the paint rack and smiled at him. “Ready?”

  Oh, boy. Was he ever! Her smile made him stand to attention and made blood pool in his lower half. He tried for nonchalant. No woman liked to be taken for granted. He and Moira had a great deal of ground to cover before he could openly display any sort of sexual attraction.

  He raised his little bag. “I am.” He let her go out the door ahead of him, not just because it was courteous, but because it gave him a view of her heart-shaped bottom. The lush globes dipped and swayed beneath her silky print skirt.

  Before she went out, she had flipped a sign that said, BACK IN 10 MINUTES. Now she turned her key and set off for the Bean. Her legs were much too short for him to use his normal stride, but he didn’t mind slowing down so he could drag out this opportunity.

  “How long have you been painting?” she asked with the tiniest of frowns between delicate feathery brows. She must darken them, because they were smoky brown rather than invisible.

  He shrugged. “Since I learned to hold a paintbrush.”

  “Where did you go to school?”

  “Art school?”

  She nodded.

  “I didn’t. At least, not since high school.” This was true. He had studied business at Harvard, and explored technique with Elena Androvitch, who was one of the great landscape artists of the northwest. But he had not gone to art college.

  “Really?” Her brows rose, and so did her voice.

  Damn. She didn’t believe him. “I had a teacher in Seattle. But no formal classes,” he said easily.

  “Yeah? Who?”

  Well, of course, Moira had run successful art galleries, even if she had never handled Androvitch’s work personally, she would know who Elena was.

  He cleared his throat. “I’m not allowed to say. I promised her confidentiality.” Which was true.

  Elena had charged him a small fortune for lessons and forbidden him to spread it around that she gave them, lest she be inundated with requests from other hopeful students. It was his profound hope that she had taught him out of admiration for his talent, rather than his family name.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Quinn~

  The Bean and Bran was unprepossessing, just a small storefront. The available floorspace was crammed with tiny tables. Long old-fashioned, wood-framed glass cabinets held the day’s selection of baked goods. The ovens were in the back. The Bean was a Mystic Bay institution, the hub of the community. The place where the locals gathered to discuss politics and their neighbors.

  It was run by a married couple with the assistance of a steady stream of youthful counter help. Lots of local kids got their first jobs at the Bean. Year-rounders, of course. Summer residents need not apply. Like many resort islands, West Haven had an unspoken caste system. Year-rounders were at the top. Tourists at the bottom. Summer residents someplace in the middle.

  Moira pushed on the glass door and they went inside to the accompaniment of tinkling brass bells. It wasn’t Quinn’s first time in the little coffee shop, but he was used to being invisible. Never before had any eyes fastened on him, at least not openly. There had to be at least ten tables crammed into the minute space, each with a quartet of occupied chairs. The Bean obviously didn’t worry about being cited by the fire marshal.

  Not that he or anyone not a year-round resident had to worry about overcrowding. Somehow, there were never any seats for summer residents or tourists. All day a steady stream of locals came and went. There was always room for them to spend a relaxing hour or two chatting with their friends.

  Moira was greeted on all sides and spent a few minutes introducing him to the people gathered at the tables. It didn’t take long for him to realize that this was the opposite of a date. Moira was trying to integrate him into the community. She fucking felt sorry for him. Shift. His disguise had backfired on him.

  A statuesque woman of the type known as an earth mother came around the display cases, gray braid flying, and tie-dyed skirts swirling. She swept Moira into a big-bosomed hug. “How are you, darlin’?” she asked. “And who is your friend?”

  Moira hugged her back. “Hi, Martha. I’m fine. This is Quinn. He’s staying in the Artists’ Colony this summer. Quinn, this is Martha Furlong, one of the owners of the Bean.”

  Quinn held out his hand. After a pause to assess him, Martha took it. Her grip was firm and her gaze penetrating. A mid-range sorceress, he decided.

  “Welcome to Mystic Bay, Quinn.”

  This was his cue to tell Martha and Moira that he had spent some of every summer on West Haven since his birth. That his people were long-time summer residents. He suppressed his urge to claim summer resident status. “I love it here,” he said instead. Which was true, just not all the truth.

  Two people got up from their table, placed their heavy coffee mugs in the dish bucket by the wall, nodded to the pony-tailed dude behind the counter, thanked Martha personally and went out to a tinkle of bells. Moira sat down at their now vacant table and waved him to the other chair.

  So that’s how it was done.

  “What can I get you?” Martha asked. “Lloyd made brioche this morning.”

  “Two coffees and two slices of brioche, please,” Moira said. “Unless you would like something else, Quinn?”

  “Sounds good,” he said. He had never succeeded in scoring any of Lloyd’s famous brioche.

  Even though Drake Investments had provided the seed money for the Bean and Bran, the Drakes didn’t get special treatment there. Which was why Quinn usually patronized the Wheel House. The Wheel House’s coffee was decent, even by Seattle standards. Occasionally, he stopped by to buy the Bean’s baked goods. They were always delicious. But there was never any brioche left for him.

  In his faded T-shirt and blue jeans, wiry Lloyd Furlong looked like just another leftover hippie. Oregon was full of them. Brains addled by one too many hits of acid. Scratching a living in some organic, environmentally-friendly money-loser, while longing for the good old days in the commune.

  Long ago, Quinn’s father had informed him that Lloyd was a veteran, a Marine, and a dragon. Any vagueness in Lloyd’s eyes was due to the horrors of three tours in Vietnam. And despite its organic wares, the Bean and Bran had always been a financial success. Drake’s Venture Capital Department had long since gotten its money back.

  Most people assumed that Martha, a comfortable woman who wore colorful, tiered cotton skirts and Birkenstocks, was the genius behind the pastries sold in the Bean. But it was Lloyd who was in charge of the bakery. Martha ran the front operations and did the books. Lloyd said baking relaxed him. If he got any calmer, Quinn figured he’d slip through the cracks in the foot-wide plank floor.

  Except that today, as Lloyd subjected Quinn to a long, drawn-out stare, he looked every inch a Marine. Quinn nodded, one predator to another. He had no intention of treating Ms. Fairchild with anything but the greatest respect. If he handled himself right, the fairy princess would have no cause for complaint. Women who shared his bed never did.

  Martha brought them big mugs of coffee and two plates with large slices of the buttery brioche. On the one hand, Moira looked as if she enjoyed her food, and on the other, as if she lived on nectar and fairy dust. He didn’t know how she managed that aura of mingled sensuality and aloofness. But it put his dragon on point.

  “Do you take cream or sugar?” Quinn indicated the corner counter where a selection of jugs and canisters were arrayed.

  “Just cream.”

  He brought Moira the correct jug and returned it when she had adjusted her coffee.

  “Oh,” she said in surprise. “If I’d realized you take yours black, I could have gotten my own.”

  “No problem.” Quinn took his first sip. It was hot, honest, drip coffee. Strong and flavorful. He suspected that Martha had hexed her machine. Not that he had a problem with that. Anything that produced good coffee was fine by him.

  “Better than the Wheel House coffee, right?” Moira aske
d proudly.

  It was. “Much. Thanks for bringing me here. I’ve never gotten a seat before. Or a taste of Lloyd’s brioche.” He pulled off a piece and let the buttery cakelike bread melt on his tongue.

  Her cheeks turned slightly pinker. His fairy princess was delicately blushing. “I’m glad you’re enjoying it,” she returned primly as if her blush had not informed him that she was perfectly aware that he was an outsider being given a glimpse of paradise.

  Martha drifted back to their table, her hands full of crockery. “How’s the brioche?”

  “Delicious,” Quinn assured her.

  “As always,” added Moira.

  Martha regarded Quinn, with placid gray eyes. “Staying in Willow Cottage, are you?” It was more of a statement than a question.

  “I am.” Quinn wondered how she knew. Probably had a crystal ball out back. He kept his face as expressionless as a big, bushy black beard would permit. If you knew how to read faces, a beard amplified the wearer’s emotions as each hair exaggerated the underlying movements of the face.

  Martha nodded. “Thought so. Oliver Bramwell had that cottage last year,” she said vaguely. “Don’t know if you ever met him, Moira? You weren’t around much last summer.”

  “No, just for the fair. I never did meet Mr. Bramwell. Is Willow the cottage on the edge of the Old Forest?” Moira asked. She looked faintly concerned. Which translated to full-blown alarm, if he knew his fairy. And he thought he did.

  “Yup,” Martha said. “Drove poor Ollie Bramwell to drink. His pretty seascapes began turning into brooding, threating trees. I hope you’re not having the same problem, Quinn?”

  “I don’t usually paint seascapes,” Quinn replied. He knew that in a resort town they were always salable, but he hadn’t come here to paint tourist peeps. “I am doing a series of paintings of the Old Forest.” And a strictly private series of fairy paintings. With just the one subject.

  Martha’s brows rose. “On purpose?”

  “The trees speak to me,” Quinn said.

  “Do they?” Martha chuckled. “Literally?”

  Quinn knew she was referring to the legends that surrounded the Old Forest. West Haven residents claimed that the trees moved. That they were inhabited by wood sprites and dryads. Quinn had no reason to doubt the stories, and every reason to believe. He found working among those ancient drooping sequoias both inspiring and spooky.

  “I’m never quite sure,” he answered honestly.

  Moira’s silvery eyes narrowed, their blue and green leached by emotional intensity. Already he knew to watch their ever-changing color. “Do you reply?” She asked – as if it were a test.

  “Only in the most deferential way,” he told her. “There’s one old sequoia that has to have been here since before Europeans. You could swear it has eyes. Tells me where to stand and what to paint. I wouldn’t dare put my easel anywhere else.”

  It must have been the correct answer, for Moira’s eyes became a limpid turquoise, as clear as the Old Forest pools. She gave him an approving smile that went straight to his stupid dick. There ought to be a fricking public ordinance against fairies smiling like that.

  “Gotta get back to work,” Martha headed to the back.

  With his usual air of blissful calm, Lloyd watched his wife go into the back. After a minute or two of contemplating nothing in particular, he took off his big white apron and hung it carefully on a hook on the back wall. He ambled into the room, found a chair and carried it across to Moira and Quinn’s table. He sat on it with his arms folded on the back.

  Lloyd’s usual spacey expression had vanished. Given that, before being honorably discharged, he had done three tours of Vietnam, Quinn figured the man had to be at least seventy. Probably older. Of course, dragon shifters aged more slowly than mortals. They remained vigorous into extreme old age. Lloyd Furlong could have passed for fifty, and probably did.

  For several minutes he just watched Quinn and Moira eat. Moira seemed okay with the baker’s silence. But Quinn felt more and more uneasy. Which was undoubtedly Lloyd’s intent. Dragons were masters of predation. The uneasy silence lengthened.

  This old warrior was up to something. It took real effort for Quinn to continue to sip from his mug and nonchalantly gather the last crumbs of his brioche. Whatever powers had gotten Lloyd out of Vietnam intact, had not faded in the five decades since.

  Was Lloyd about to out him? The baker’s golden eyes now gleamed with amusement and his thin frame was poised to pounce. But when he finally spoke, Lloyd’s voice was easy. Friendly. And it was Moira he addressed. “How’s it going over at the store?”

  “Business is good. I have a captive audience,” she said lightly. “I think I’ll make a go of it.”

  Lloyd nodded. “Yup. Ought to have yourself a good season. And a steady business. Before you opened up, those artists of your Aunt Robin’s were all the time complaining that they had to wait on the weather to get supplies from Seattle. And pay extra for delivery.”

  “They still have to pay a premium,” Moira said frankly. “I pass my costs on. Have to. But at least when people run out of the basics, I have replacements in stock.”

  “You seem to run out more often than most.” Lloyd stared straight into Quinn’s eyes. Those golden eyes were suddenly hard to meet. His grandfather’s were not more dangerous.

  By exerting his own talent, Quinn kept his eyes on Lloyd’s face. “I don’t know about that, sir, but I’ve certainly gone through a summer’s worth of canvases in a single month. There’s good energy on West Haven. I find it inspiring. And I feel lucky that Moira opened her shop and I don’t have to waste time making the run over to Seattle.”

  “There’s good and bad energy around here,” Lloyd said dreamily. He was back to being vague. “It depends on your attitude. I’m glad your work is going well, Quinn. And that you know your debt to Moira. It’s good that you’re showing respect to the forest. That fellow Bramwell, he got on the wrong side of the Old Ones and lost his touch.”

  Quinn knew nothing about his predecessor at Willow Cottage, other than that he wasn’t much for cleaning up and doing laundry. Witness this stinking smock. “Is that so? What happened to him?” He drained his mug and waited.

  “Stopped painting. Went back to the city.” Mission accomplished, Lloyd got up, gave Quinn another direct stare, with no hint of abstraction. “Poor bugger went back to being a stockbroker.”

  He nodded impartially at them both and stalked back behind the counter, where he donned his apron like a soldier buckling on his armor. But by the time the next customer approached to pay he had resumed his customary meditative stance. But the veteran would never lull Quinn again.

  He had been warned. Too bad he didn’t know exactly about what. Moira or the forest? Or both? Probably both.

  Moira looked as perplexed as he felt. “Do you know what Lloyd meant?” she whispered.

  “Not really. I’ve been painting the Old Forest, but Robin said that was okay. That she had too many seascapes as it was. She’s really hoping for some stuff that will make the judges sit up and take notice.”

  “She wants to put the Tidewater Art Fair on the map,” Moira said. “Make it a real tourist destination. It’s part of her plan to strengthen Mystic Bay’s economy. She’s asked the University of Oregon to recommend a panel of judges this year.”

  Quinn was surprised. “What about you? I thought you were always one of the judges.”

  Moira stiffened very slightly, but she answered pleasantly enough. “Ever since Robin started the colony and art show, I’ve served on the judges’ panel. She asked me to do it again this year, but of course I had to decline. Too much conflict of interest. And the same problem if I help to pick the judges.”

  Right. She couldn’t both sell the art supplies and favor one artist over another. Bad for business. Bad for the reputation of the show. “Makes sense,” Quinn said.

  “Robin asked the School of Art and Design at the University of Oregon to line up five judge
s for this year’s Fair.” Moira paused. Nibbled at what was left of her brioche. “So if you were hoping to influence the judge, you’re barking up the wrong tree.”

  That had not occurred to him. “I’m glad there is nothing to stop me from asking you to dinner,” he said.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Moira~

  Conversation stopped. The clink of silverware against china faded to nothing. All around her the residents of Mystic Bay paused with coffee mugs partway to their lips. Listening. Anticipation hung in the air like thick smoke.

  This was her own fault. She knew what small towns were like. She had grown up in Mystic Bay and knew that the Bean was the hub of the town gossip mill. Everyone was waiting to hear her answer, to be the first to pass on the news that at last Moira Fairchild had a suitor. That for once the fat fairy was about to get lucky.

  Quinn was waiting on her answer. His posture was relaxed, but she could tell he cared. It was only dinner. And maybe if he had some food to soak up the alcohol, he would get off the sauce.

  “That would be nice,” she said blandly. “Did you have an evening in mind?”

  “Tonight?”

  So soon? But it wasn’t as though she had plans beyond bookkeeping and doing the endless paperwork that came with running a small business. “I’d like that.”

  “I’ll pick you up at seven,” he said with another of his seductive smiles. His beard rippled with waves of satisfaction. The damned thing had a life of its own. He stood up and waited for her to precede him.

  They were reflected in the glass doors. She watched him nod pleasantly to the gossips, acknowledging that his date was about to fuel an afternoon of chatter. He let her open the door, but held it for her to pass through.

  “I’ll walk you back to your store,” he said.