Baylee wanted to remind her mother that the second-best thing to have happened was her father’s untimely death. The man had died so long ago that Baylee couldn’t remember anything about him. She’d been raised by her mother and the rest of the Barnes family.
“If I don’t push you to take the plunge, then you’ll be miserable for no reason. I know you’re already counting down the days. If you stop counting and get it over with, you can fast forward to the good things that will happen,” Mom said.
When Baylee imagined children, she envisioned little dragonlings with grey eyes and mahogany hair. She shook herself. That couldn’t happen. Not now…maybe not ever.
Though Baylee had nothing against the idea of starting a family someday, she wasn’t in any kind of rush to do it now. She didn’t want to make new people without at least knowing more about herself first. Was that too much to ask?
Her mother tapped her fingers against the table. “Your brother tells me that you’ve been acting strange lately.”
Baylee stilled. She didn’t dare look at her mother because she knew the beast had surfaced. Fear made her skin prickle as the fire in the sink behind her finally died out and faded away.
“You should seal the deal with Charlie,” Mom said. A hint of authority made its way into her voice. “Do it before you get yourself into more trouble than you can handle.”
Her mother stood.
Baylee wished she could run to her and cry into her mother’s bathrobe, but she couldn’t expose the torment that she’d brought upon herself. If she did that, then Marjorie Barnes would run out to the county clerk’s office and get another marriage license immediately.
“I won’t stand by and watch my daughter get her heart broken because she wanted to taste rebellion one last time.” With that said, her mother left.
Baylee didn’t waste a moment. She ran up to her room and grabbed a bag. The air in this house had become suffocating. Baylee couldn’t handle it a moment longer. Every time she returned, there was someone waiting to deliver an ultimatum. They hid it behind their good intentions, but that only made the blows sting even more.
She would go stay with Ember or Teagan. Both had their own places with couches that Baylee could crash on for a few days while she laid low and figured out what her heart wanted. They would welcome her.
Wouldn’t they?
She slowed and turned over her thoughts while chewing the inside of her cheek. Teagan hadn’t spoken to anyone in a long time. Ever since she and Callum, her adoptive father, had a falling out, Teagan had avoided any and all family gatherings.
Ember would be more receptive, but her apartment was tiny. It had two rooms and a kitchen the size of a closet. Baylee would only make the space even more cramped.
But Baylee wasn’t about to let that stop her. She knew what this meant. Both cousins had jobs outside of the family farming business. That income allowed them to get their own places, away from their immediate families.
Baylee opened her laptop and ran a quick search for job openings in town. She could take her fate into her own hands.
8
“You do know that Charlie has to fly back to New York soon, right?” Jensen walked beside her, his hands in his pockets.
Baylee clenched her teeth. She had a stack of applications in her hands, gathered from all the places around town that didn’t accept applications online. Over the course of the night, she’d sent in five to various businesses via the internet. When she didn’t get a call-back by morning, she got dressed and set out to prowl the town for more opportunities.
Of course, Jensen decided to tag along, because he didn’t know how to keep out of her affairs. To be fair, she and Jensen had been close. He’d always been the one to push her into trouble as if she were the guinea pig that had to suffer before he decided whether or not he would try it himself.
Today, he didn’t feel like her co-conspirator. He felt like a spy, which made her uncomfortable. She stole a sidelong glance at him, but he wasn’t paying attention to her. His gaze followed a human woman on the sidewalk. A smirk took over his face. He gave the woman a nod, lifting his chin like he was some sort of fuck boy.
“Be careful,” Baylee said. “You might flirt with a fae woman and find yourself in their realm without pants or a way home.”
She didn’t know if that was how the fae worked, but she did know that there were plenty of them disguised as humans here. The woman that had been married to a Montoya dragon was a queen of sorts, and she held court here. Though the woman Jensen had flirted with looked human, there was a chance that she was more than she seemed.
Baylee bit her tongue and regretted her words. They’d assumed the worst of the Montoyas, but she’d found that Gale wasn’t anything like what she’d been told. Because of the fae presence here, they’d been warned about them, too. What if they weren’t as dangerous as she’d been led to believe?
Her world had been turned upside down by her recent affair. Baylee wasn’t sure what to believe anymore. She had a lot to unlearn.
Jensen changed the subject. “What makes you think you need a job anyway?”
“I don’t want to keep waking Mom every time I come home late,” Baylee lied.
She scanned the shops on Main Street. There was a small ice-cream parlor, but the syrupy sweet smell that poured out the door made her head ache. That meant the coffee shop was out of the question, too.
If Baylee had her way, she would have designed her own business, but she still didn’t know what she would do with it. Would she fill it with shelves and shelves of romance novels? Or would she embarrass her whole family by selling sex toys? The idea was tempting at this point. She would have paid good money to see the blush on her mother’s face.
She reminded herself that this was just a job. This wasn’t going to be the rest of her life, only a step toward one that she made for herself. Still, she couldn’t help the irritation that followed every time she had to face the fact that she didn’t know herself.
At twenty-three, Baylee knew next to nothing. Everything she’d been taught was crumbling to reveal the truth beneath. Everything she’d told herself had only been to mask the fact that she had no control over her life.
Not for the first time that day, she wished Gale were with her. She ached to talk out these feelings churning around her mind so that he might untangle them for her. He managed to see to the truth of her words before she could. It had become a trait about him that she loved.
Oh, did she just use the word love in conjunction with Gale? She didn’t love him. No, that wasn’t possible. Gale was kind and patient and understood her better than her own family, but she could never fall in love with a Montoya man.
She couldn’t allow it to happen. Not because she still believed all Montoyas were out to ruin her life—she could do that well enough on her own anyway. She didn’t want to see either of them get hurt because of their feelings for one another. So long as she had her heart on lock down, then she could continue seeing him.
“Hey, you passed the market,” Jensen called out.
When she turned, Jensen wore a look of confusion. He tilted his head. “You’ve been wound tight for days. What has you so bothered?”
Baylee said nothing. She turned her back to her brother as she pushed forward. The inside of the market smelled of cinnamon and apples now that the weather had cooled down. Even from the front of the shop, she could hear the grinder in the back, pressing apples into cider.
Every October, the small market transformed from a farm stand to the epitome of coziness. Pumpkins filled every available bin. People crowded around the wall of spices, clamoring to get everything they needed for pumpkin spice or chai. Against the other wall, handmade scarecrows grinned menacingly.
Drawn forward by the inescapable allure of everything autumn, Baylee made her way to the open cooler of bottled cider. Upon reaching for a bottle, her fingers crashed into someone else’s. Startled, she looked up.
Gale leapt back from her,
his eyes flicking to someone behind her. That someone was her brother, who couldn’t see her and Gale together. She knew that they had to pretend to hate each other in public, but the way Gale’s face twisted with disgust nearly broke her heart.
She lowered her gaze to avoid the pain of Gale’s expression.
“Maybe we shouldn’t have tried the market,” Jensen said as he put a hand on Baylee’s shoulder. “I didn’t know they catered to garbage.”
Baylee wanted to slam her foot down onto her brother’s instep, but she settled for biting her cheek. Her beast snarled at the offense. It begged her to turn against her brother and defend Gale, but she couldn’t. She didn’t know if she would ever have the strength to do so.
“I knew I smelled Barnes.” Gale’s nose wrinkled. “Can’t help but smell like shit, huh?”
The tension rippled over Baylee’s skin. She hated it. She wanted to squirm free of her brother’s grasp, but even if she did, she didn’t have anywhere to go. Gale’s act was far too convincing. Every word stabbed her through the heart, and she couldn’t even bring herself to make eye contract to see if there was an apology somewhere in his face.
This family grudge could eat shit.
But she wouldn’t be the one to say so.
She let Jensen direct her out the door in a huff. Outside, he growled, glanced back, and tugged her further up the road all while muttering.
“What an asshole! I can’t believe he said that,” Jensen snarled.
“You were rude first.” Baylee didn’t bite her tongue until after she’d spoken, when it was far too late to take her words back.
Jensen released her and spun. He flung his arm toward the market behind her. “They walk around this town like it belongs to them! They can’t even face the fact that their legacy is dried up and dead.”
Baylee lowered her voice. “The town is neutral territory. You can’t bitch that they’re here when we’re here, too.”
Jensen stared at her like she’d grown three heads.
But Baylee raised her chin. She was tired of this silent war and the animosity that came with it. It weighed on her. It made her feel bad for wanting to love someone who’d been nothing but kind to her.
Yet, Gale hadn’t been kind back there. Cruelty had come to him so easily. The person that she knew when the sun had gone down wasn’t the same person she’d run into back at the market. It should have been harder for Gale to sneer at them. Shouldn’t it?
“You’re acting like that wasn’t a Montoya,” Jensen said.
“Gale isn’t that bad!”
Jensen’s eyes widened. “So, you’re on a first name basis with that one? How did that happen?”
Baylee stopped herself from speaking this time. She clenched her jaw tight and held her brother’s gaze. Though he wasn’t always the brightest, she could see the gears working in his eyes. His lips formed a grim line that didn’t bode well for her future.
She could see it now. Jensen would inform their mother that Baylee knew a Montoya man by his first name. Marjorie Barnes would grab another marriage license from wherever she was hiding them and forge Baylee’s signature before sending her off all in the name of protection.
Mom would tell her that she only wanted what was best for Baylee. Even though Marjorie had never been a part of the feud, she would claim that she was trying to save Baylee from heartache when everything eventually fell apart.
Regret burned the back of Gale’s throat, sharper and hotter than any dragon fire he’d tasted before. He watched Baylee’s brother drag her out of the store, a sheaf of papers in her hand fluttering. There was no way for him to tell her that it had all been an act. It wasn’t like he had her phone number.
Gale cursed.
Reece appeared beside him and cracked open a bottle of cider without paying for it. “Was that a pair of Barnes? They sure hightailed it out of here. Good to know that we can still show them who this town belongs to.”
Gale fought to keep his scowl off his face. He didn’t want to have to fight for control of the town. It was supposed to be neutral territory. Both families had every right to be here. Neither had to chase the other away. It seemed…wrong.
He’d never considered it that way before. Gale had always done as he had been told. He kept his distance from the Barnes family. When he saw them out and about, he made sure to stay out of their way without giving up his plans.
Now, the fight disgusted him. He wasn’t a cruel person. He didn’t want to become the Old Lizard, who looked down his nose at anyone and everyone.
“What’s with the face?” Reece asked. “You look like you just licked the wrong asshole.”
Gale recoiled. “What kind of idiom is that?”
“Mine.” Reece took a swig from the bottle of cider he hadn’t paid for. “But seriously. You seem like you’re upset that you had to chase the Barnes away.. They’re named after barns because that’s where they belong.”
Gale’s beast growled. He snatched up a bottle of cider and spun to head to the cashier before Reece could catch wind of his unbridled anger. The plastic bottle in his hand threatened to pop. He had to loosen his grip on it before it burst and covered everyone.
At the register, Gale paid for his drink and Reece’s with the hopes that the kind gesture would distract Reece from the incident with Baylee and her brother.
But, Reece was a fool. Outside, he jerked his chin toward Baylee and her brother. “She’s hot for being raised in a barn. I wouldn’t mind riding that once just to say I fucked an animal.”
Gale reacted before he could stop himself. His knuckles collided with Reece’s jaw. Cider arced through the air and splattered against the sidewalk. Reece staggered and fixed his glare upon Gale as he flexed his jaw.
“Do you mind telling me what that was for?” Reece snarled.
Gale’s beast seethed. It wanted to rip into Reece and teach him a lesson on respect.
“You could have paid for your own drink instead of forcing me to pay up.” That wasn’t going to cut it, but Gale couldn’t think of anything else.
Reece’s dragon flashed across his eyes like a warning. Staring Gale down, Reece curled his upper lip as he wiped a trickle of blood off the corner of his mouth. He looked Gale up and down. Gale tried to keep his composure, so Reece couldn’t see right through him.
Gale’s skin tingled. It drew his attention away from Reece for a split second. Time stilled when his gaze met Baylee’s. Even from this distance, he could see the relief spilling across her features. Pride sparked in his chest like dragon fire.
He barely had time to look away before a stony fist connected with his cheekbone. Gale dug in his heels to keep from stumbling into traffic. He leaned forward onto the balls of his feet and glared at his cousin.
“Feel better?” he asked, the rumble of his beast’s fury filling his voice.
Reece cocked his head. “What the hell is wrong with you, man?”
Gale couldn’t stick around anymore. He turned his back to Reece. If he stayed any longer, he would start a fight in the middle of town. Both dragon families had managed to avoid causing a stir in town for decades. Gale couldn’t be the one to break that streak.
“Are you really going to betray your own?” Reece called after him.
Gale’s dragon nearly dragged him back. He could almost feel his fists hitting Reece’s pretty face. Somehow, he managed to remain facing forward and kept putting one foot in front of the other.
This façade was slipping. He didn’t know how much longer he could keep this up, yet every time he told himself that he would never see Baylee again, his beast abandoned him. Gale knew that he would have to give up something in the end. Weighing Baylee and his beast against the family that raised him wasn’t an easy feat.
Though, he had to admit that Reece was making it all too easy.
The Montoya family hadn’t interacted with a single Barnes dragon since the days of Logan and Elliana. They knew absolutely nothing about them. How could his family go around
sneering at people they didn’t know? Baylee might have seduced him and stolen his heart, but Gale had to admit that he wasn’t upset in the least.
If anything, he was happy when he was with her. They didn’t have to hide anything from one another. When they questioned the madness of the grudge their families held, they didn’t have to bury their true feelings.
That would come to an end when Baylee’s family married her off. Gale knew that his time was running out. He had to come to a decision. His gut told him to keep his nose out of her business, but his beast had other ideas.
Gale looked to the mountains where Logan slept. The concept had become more and more alluring. If Baylee’s family took her away from him, then he would have to fight his dragon to stay awake. The beast would choose sleep over infinite loneliness.
Was that how Logan had felt when Elliana left him? Gale wondered if she’d even left him. The story had been told as if Elliana chose to abandon Logan in his time of need, but now that he knew how their families worked, he suspected that Elliana hadn’t made that decision on her own.
The only thing Gale knew for certain was that he had to protect Baylee. Though his task was clear, the path toward it was not.
9
“Are you seeing him?” Jensen’s voice cracked.
The truck swerved erratically, but never left the road. Baylee’s stomach dipped, nervously. Her brother had been clenching his jaw for the past hour. She feared whatever had been going through his mind.
Baylee didn’t answer. She grabbed the door handle and yanked. The wind outside buffeted the door, but she was a dragon. Shoving the door open, she watched the scenery blur as Jensen raced down the road.
“Don’t be dramatic!” Jensen said over the roar of the wind through the open door.
Conquered Destiny (Great Plains Dragon Feud Book 1) Page 7
