by Rinelle Grey
Rylee’s expression was sympathetic again. She put a hand on his arm, then her own shoulders squared. “Right, well, I say we head back towards town. I need to do some shopping anyway or we’ll have nothing for dinner. It’s unlikely they’d be that way, but you never know. Maybe one of them could be in town in human form.”
It seemed unlikely to Calrian, but then again, he hadn’t even expected humans to have a town here. For all he knew, his clan had decided to live hiding amongst humans. Stranger things had happened.
Besides, he’d already interfered in Rylee’s life enough. If she needed to do shopping, he wouldn’t keep her from it. “Let’s go then.”
Chapter 30
Rylee wasn’t quite prepared for the stares she was going to get when she drove into town with Calrian. She hadn’t been in Mungaloo much since she was a kid, but everyone knew her dad, and thus, by extension, her.
No one knew Calrian though. And his clothes, or rather his lack of shirt, certainly wasn’t inconspicuous. So instead of heading straight for the grocery store, she drove to the second hand store.
“What can I help you with today, dearie?” Martha, one of the elderly volunteers at the store asked as she walked in. She did a double take when she saw Calrian, and fumbled with her glasses, putting them on then staring in shock and more than a little admiration.
“This is a friend of mine from out of town,” Rylee said, thinking quickly. “The… uh… bus managed to lose his luggage, and… uh… his shirt… got wet. He needs some new clothes.”
“Oh… well…” Martha stared at Calrian again in a manner that could almost be called ogling. “We can certainly help with that. You’re in luck. All men’s shirts are fifty percent off today.” She pointed to the rack, and Rylee pushed Calrian in that direction, painfully conscious of stares from the other customers in the store.
She’d come in here frequently enough in the last few weeks that people recognised her. Usually that was handy. They had even saved a school uniform in Rowan’s size for her last week, they were hard to come by. But right now, she was wishing she had a little more anonymity.
Rylee winced. If Eric didn’t tell her father about Calrian, he’d probably hear about him the next time he came into town.
Well that couldn’t be helped now, and she was sure things would go a lot better once Calrian had some more normal clothes.
And yet, as she helped him try on a t-shirt and a more normal pair of shorts, she began to doubt. Oh the clothes looked more normal, but they only seemed to emphasize how abnormal Calrian was. He looked gorgeous no matter what he tried on. Nothing hid the fact that he was the most perfect specimen of a man she’d ever seen.
And from the stares and whispers around the store, she wasn’t the only one who’d noticed.
Calrian though, seemed oblivious. “Which do you think?” He stared critically at his reflection in the changing room mirror.
“It looks great,” Rylee said automatically from the doorway, trying not to glance around the room and count how many people were staring at them.
“Really?” Calrian’s voice was uncertain. “Do you think it’s better than this one?” He held up a second t-shirt, which looked just as capable of emphasizing his chiselled body.
Rylee hesitated. Calrian sounded like he genuinely wanted to hear her opinion. Unlike Eric. If Eric had asked that same question, he would have clearly been looking for agreement, not an opinion. But Calrian wasn’t like Eric.
He actually wanted to know what she thought.
That was why Rylee froze up completely. For some reason, giving an opinion made her even more nervous than simply giving praise. Her mind was filled with doubts—doubt that he really wanted her opinion, and worse, doubt that her opinion had any value.
Calrian was staring at her though, his head on one side, patiently waiting.
“Um… which is more comfortable?” she asked, knowing she was avoiding the question.
Calrian took her question seriously though, looking from one to the other. “The material of that one is softer,” he indicated the hanging shirt, then pointed at the one he wore, “but I like the colour of this one more.”
Rylee had to admit, the blue shirt did match his eyes particularly well. It was the one she would have picked. She could stare at him all day in it. But this wasn’t just about her. She reached out to feel both shirts, agreeing with his softness assessment too.
“How about you get both?” she suggested. “They’re only a couple of dollars each.” That got her off the hook.
Calrian frowned. “I hate to spend more of your money than necessary.”
Rylee smiled. “Trust me, a couple of dollars isn’t going to break the bank.” When Calrian looked at her strangely, she elaborated. “It’s ok, it’s not expensive, I promise.”
Calrian stared at her for a few moments before nodding acceptance. “Thank you.”
Rylee helped him pick out a couple of outfits before the stares became too much for her, and she hustled him out of the store, heaving a sigh of relief when they were back in the relative privacy of the car. Between the decision making and the staring, that stop had been more exhausting than she’d expected.
“Are you all right?” Calrian’s expression was concerned.
Rylee gave him a wry smile. “Yes, I’m fine for someone who’s going to be the talk of the town.
Calrian’s concern deepened. “I’m causing problems for you again.”
Rylee didn’t want him to feel bad. This wasn’t his fault. She gave a slight grin. “That’s okay. They needed something to talk about. It gets dull around here, and they live for the gossip.”
Calrian gave a slight smile at her joking comment, but it was clear he wasn’t convinced.
“Don’t worry about it. We’ll just get the shopping done, then get out of here,” Rylee promised him. “A few stares and whispers never hurt anyone.”
And it was the truth. She wasn’t in the least bit bothered by it. In fact, if it weren’t for worrying about her father and how he was going react if he found out, she’d be quite enjoying it.
Unfortunately, her father’s potential reaction did put a damper on her fun.
“Perhaps I could wait in the car while you shop?” Calrian suggested.
Rylee shook her head. “No, I’ll be at least half an hour. I don’t want to leave you that long. Unless…” she paused to look at him. “You haven’t heard anything from another dragon, have you?”
Calrian shook his head. “No, I have been calling, but there are no other dragons within calling distance.”
So much for that idea. Well, it had been a long shot.
“Actually,” Calrian said, “I’ve been thinking. If my clan have been here since this town was built, perhaps there is some mention somewhere, maybe in one of your newspapers. Is there anywhere I can get copies of older editions?”
Rylee frowned. The idea was interesting. But she suspected it was going to come to naught. “If anyone had seen a dragon it would be big news. Either that or no one would believe them. It’s unlikely you’ll find anything in the newspaper.”
Calrian nodded. “I realise that there isn’t going to be anything obvious, but if I look through them carefully, perhaps I could recognise a face in a crowd or even a name. I have to try something.” There was a trace of frustration in his voice, and Rylee felt sorry for him.
She started the engine. “Well, it doesn’t hurt to try, I guess. They should have copies of old newspapers at the library. I’ll take you there.” Shopping would certainly be quicker and easier on her own.
Of course there were more issues to deal with at the library, another place she frequented. The librarian looked over her glasses at Calrian, but at least she was a little less obvious about staring than Martha had been.
“Good morning, Rylee. Can I help you?”
“This is a friend of mine from out of town,” Rylee said hurriedly. “He’s doing some research on Mungaloo and wants to read some past newspapers. Do y
ou have them here?” She hoped so, though the library was quite small. If they were in Yerloo, the next town over, they wouldn’t make it today.
Thankfully, the librarian nodded. “We have a selection of papers dating back to Mungaloo’s establishment. They aren’t available for borrowing though. If you want to read them, you’ll have to do it here.”
Rylee nodded. She’d expected that. “Are you okay here while I get the shopping done?” she asked Calrian. That was a completely normal question to ask, right? The strange look the librarian was giving her must be from earlier.
He nodded solemnly. “I will be fine, Rylee. I will wait for you here.”
His words sounded strange to her ears. More formal than most people would use. But it couldn’t be helped. There was no way anyone would guess he was a dragon, especially not now he was dressed completely normally in a grey t-shirt and khaki shorts. No, he’d just seem slightly eccentric, and they could live with that.
So she gave him another glance and then headed back out to the car. It wouldn’t take long for her to finish the shopping. Then she’d be back for Calrian. He’d be fine for that short time.
Chapter 31
The librarian showed Calrian into a back room and lead him over to something that looked a little like Rylee’s TV. For a moment Calrian wondered if he’d be watching the newspapers somehow, but the librarian showed him how to use the machine to enlarge tiny little copies of the newspapers. Calrian guessed they took up less room and were less likely to get damaged this way.
He was a little relieved when she finished her explanation and finally left. He was aware that she had looked at him strangely, just as the women at the previous store had. He wasn’t quite sure why, but he could see that it bothered Rylee, so he felt much more comfortable on his own.
He wasn’t really sure what he was hoping to find here, but with all the history in the room, he couldn’t help thinking there must be some clue here. His clan, at some point, had lived not very far from this town. Was it really possible that there was no hint of their existence here anywhere?
Calrian looked at the labelled box of miniaturised newspapers, wondering where to start? Should he start now and work his way back, or start further back and work his way forwards?
Based on the fact that his clan was not here now but had been in the past, he decided to start as far back as he could. He picked up the oldest newspaper he could find and inserted it into the machine.
It was a fascinating read. Calrian found himself getting distracted from his purpose and scouring the articles for hints as to the humans’ technological progress at that point compared to now. The pictures of their clothes were quite different, and their buildings far more primitive. They’d come far in a short amount of time, and the change was fascinating.
He lost himself in the newspapers. Knowing there wasn’t time to read them all, he had to pick a selection and skim through them, trying not to get sidetracked by too many fascinating articles. He could easily spend all day in here, which was funny because he hadn’t been this fascinated by dragon history when his father had been trying to teach it to him.
This was different though, not quite so ancient. In the last hundred years, these humans had certainly been busy. And the stuff they’d been doing was fascinating. Calrian skipped over most of the pages on current news, all that sad stuff. Oh, he skimmed them, looking for any mention of something that could be a dragon, but once he was sure there was nothing there, it was the science and technical pages he devoured.
There seemed to be some new invention or innovation every day. Calrian began to recognise some of the names of people and companies that reoccurred often. There were patterns there if you looked, and the more he looked, the more fascinated he became.
He barely even noticed when Rylee came back into the room. Not until she laughed and said, “Had any luck?”
Then he looked up from the latest newspaper he was reading, staring at her, startled. It took him a few moments to process her words. “Um… no. I haven’t found any hints of dragons. But I still have a few newspapers to go through.” He waved to a box of the most recent papers, which had yet to be archived.
He suspected there wasn’t going to be anything in any of them either, but for some reason he didn’t want to go until he’d finished. Almost as if the newspapers held a story he was reading, and he had to know the ending.
Rylee stared at him for a moment, then laughed. She glanced up at the clock, then shrugged. “If we stay another half hour we can pick Rowan up after school. I’ve parked the car in the shade, so the groceries shouldn’t get too hot.”
Calrian gave her a grateful smile, then turned back to the newspaper he was reading. He would have liked to talk to her more, but he was very aware that time was short, so he focused on reading.
Rylee watched him for a few minutes, then said quietly, “I’m going to go look for some books,” and left the room.
Calrian tried to read even faster to gobble up as much of the information as he could before he had to go. It was just so fascinating. He almost felt like he’d been given a crash course in humanity. He’d learned so many fascinating things, from the development of cars to alternative power sources, to some strange thing called a stock market, where people bought and sold things that didn’t exist.
Humans were, apparently, even more obsessed with money than dragons had been. He’d seen the growth of that throughout all the newspapers too. If he’d had a coin for every time the word ‘economy’ or ‘economics’ was mentioned, he’d be richer than the richest dragon had ever been.
But all of it helped him understand. He had a much clearer picture now of the struggles Rylee faced. He’d read several articles on single mothers and boys growing up without fathers. He’d seen the price of houses rise and seen how hard it was not to have one. He’d watched companies develop new ideas and grow from nothing into something prosperous.
He may have gotten far too distracted from his original goal, but it was clear the newspapers couldn’t help him find his clan. They might be able to help him help Rylee. He was sure there was a clue in there somewhere, he just wasn’t sure where.
Rylee stuck her head in the doorway. “Are you ready to go? We have to get Rowan.”
Despite his reluctance, Calrian nodded and stood up. Technically, he’d skimmed through all the newspapers. There were many he would have liked to go back and read more thoroughly, but he didn’t have time. Rylee needed to go.
He followed her out to the car, feeling different than he had when he’d walked into the building, as though he’d lived a lifetime in the hour or so he’d been there. The world around him, the human world, didn’t seem so strange anymore.
He still didn’t belong. He still probably stood out like a sore thumb, but he could understand it all. It made a strange kind of sense.
As he sat in the car outside Rowan’s school, he knew what it meant when a loud ringing sound started, and he was prepared when the children in blue check clothes streamed out the gate. It was all very strange and expected at the same time.
“Calrian! Mum! I didn’t expect to see you here,” Rowan exclaimed as he climbed into the back seat.
Rylee smiled. “We were in Mungaloo shopping, and I thought we’d pick you up.”
Rowan chatted happily about his day, addressing remarks both to Rylee and Calrian. Calrian tried to keep up, though he had to admit, Rylee did a better job than he did.
For some reason all the information he’d been reading kept bubbling up in his mind, shifting around and rearranging itself as though his brain was still trying to make sense of it all. The strangest things would suddenly appear in his mind out of nowhere, throwing him off.
But Rylee and Rowan didn’t seem to notice. Rylee filled in any gaps in the conversation and answered any questions addressed to him that he missed, and Rowan didn’t seem to notice his distraction.
It wasn’t until they were pulling into Rylee’s driveway and Calrian saw her father leanin
g on the veranda post, a scowl on his face, that he remembered.
The meeting with Eric that morning, his threat to tell her father.
The problems this was going to cause for her.
Chapter 32
Rylee’s heart hammered in her chest. This was it, the moment that had been haunting her all day. She’d done her best to ignore it, to focus on enjoying her time with Calrian and doing her normal tasks, but it had been there in the back of her mind the whole time, refusing to be ignored.
And now she couldn’t put it off any longer. Her dad came down the stairs even before she’d even opened the car door and was waiting as she stepped out. He glared across at Calrian.
“So Eric was right. You have been cheating on him.”
Rylee stared at him, aware that her mouth was hanging open, but so shocked that she didn’t care. She’d known her dad was going to be angry, that he was going to have issues with her and Calrian, but she hadn’t expected that one.
“Eric and I broke up months ago. I’m not cheating on him.”
Her father crossed his arms. “A few months isn’t long enough to be sure you’re over him. And it certainly isn’t long enough to be ready to move on.”
Rylee didn’t disagree with that, not in principle. She’d thought the exact same thing herself only a few days ago. She was tempted to agree with him and to tell him that there wasn’t anything like that between her and Calrian.
But it was all too mixed up in her mind to even begin to explain. Just thinking about trying tied her stomach up in knots. She could hardly tell her father Calrian was a dragon and that she was just helping him out, especially not when helping him out had involved sleeping with him.
She didn’t want to talk about any of that with her father. He’d never believe any of it. Not that Calrian was a dragon, not that she was just helping him out, and certainly not that there was nothing between them.
She wasn’t sure she believed that last one. Sure, it was probably because of the Mesmer bond that making love with him had been so amazing, but even now that was supposedly gone, she still felt something for him. And from his offer, she suspected he might as well.
