The Rookie

by Abigail Owen

  Only he couldn’t.

  Damn, reality sucked sometimes.

  Chapter Four

  Sera glanced up from opening a new bottle of wine at a burst of noise from outside to find Aidan’s gaze on her. Again.

  That was the third time he’d looked over at her since he and the team arrived at the winery. While she and Delaney worked beside her other summer servers doing tastings by the caboodle, Finn, Aidan, and the team had settled in with camping chairs by one of the picnic tables, listening to the live music.

  Wide double doors to the tasting room stood open, spilling light onto the grassy area outside to mix with the lights strung through the trees. The honeyed scent of blossoms floated in on the evening breeze to blend with the oiled wood of the bar. Through the doors, Sera had a direct view of Aidan from her spot behind the large mahogany bar that wrapped around two sides of the room. Granted, that view was often blocked by the stream of guests meandering inside. People stood in groups swirling wine in glasses. Other guests perused shelves displaying goods and treasures from local artisans.

  But she still caught those looks through the throngs. Looks that set her on edge.

  Oddly, though she had no idea how, she sensed a significance in that lingering gaze, almost a yearning. Like he wanted to share something with her, but couldn’t.

  Or maybe he’s not looking at you, and it’s just coincidence.

  The man kept his emotions tightly leashed, giving the world only the side of him that was determined, capable, and unwavering in every step he took. But even in real life, she could see more. See how alone he was, though surrounded by friends. She could see it, because she was the same.

  Except sharing and truly seeing each other…that wasn’t the relationship they had, not in waking life at least.

  It’s the relationship you want, the devil camped out on her shoulder whispered.

  The time she spent in her dreams just talking with him… In moments of weakness, she missed that even more than the physical pleasure.

  With ruthless focus, Sera shoved the small glow his sudden attention gave her down deep.

  She couldn’t deny she wanted Aidan, but that didn’t mean she had to give in. The guy presented too many problems to her already complicated life.

  You are leaving. The stern mental retribution helped. Sort of.

  Sera plastered what she hoped was a warm, receptive smile on her face for the patrons standing in front of her and tried her best to ignore the presence of the sexy shifters gathered outside with the patrons to enjoy the evening.

  At least she was inside the tasting room while the guys sat outside, lounging around. That low rumbled voice wasn’t in hearing range to skate over her nerves and distract her, or she’d be a worse hot mess than the wicked witch with a bucket of water poured on her. However, she also had a direct view of how his attention kept being pulled back to a twenty-something brunette with hair tumbling down her back and big tits on bold display in a low-cut shirt.

  Sera tucked her own fine, pale blond hair behind her ear and refused to compare her chest, which could only be described as “perky” on its best days, to the other woman’s ample curves. The woman was practically in his lap. Why hadn’t he blown her off? The man was uber serious, his only focus on his role within the team. She’d even call him myopically obsessed with his job. He usually didn’t pay any attention to women. Or at least, not that Sera had noticed.

  She shouldn’t be noticing or caring anyway.

  You’re leaving, she reminded herself as she uncorked a new bottle of Pinot. Leaving, leaving, leaving.

  But a glance up showed him watching her again. Unwanted heat surged into Sera’s cheeks. She couldn’t let this go on. With raised eyebrows, she tried to play it off like she was only mildly curious.

  “What?” she mouthed.

  Aidan shook his head, just barely. “Later,” she thought he mouthed back.

  So there was something?

  She gave what she hoped was an uncaring shrug, despite now burning with curiosity, and kept working, finishing up with the bachelorette party she’d been helping. It took a while as they bought two or three bottles each. At this rate, she’d run out of the pinot noir and possibly the chardonnay by the end of the summer.

  Those two wines had been hardest hit from the fire that had taken out her barn, which she’d converted into a state of the art wine storage facility. She’d hoped to make it to harvest on what was left before running out. Likely no such luck.

  Not my problem anymore. Though she hated leaving it like that.

  Sera focused on pouring a taste of her winery’s best barbera into the glasses lined up across the bar for her next round of tasters and gave the usual spiel by rote. “If you’re interested in joining our wine club, it’s called the Barbarians after this wine, which is one of our most awarded.”

  The new group in front of her nodded, with smiles of mild interest, and Sera’s gaze wandered outside, yet again. It didn’t help that her son was out there. With dragon shifters. Six years old and completely rapt, because he thought they were firefighters. His heroes.

  “Oh, jeez,” Sera muttered.

  “What?” Delaney asked as she worked the bar beside her. Her light brown hair was pulled back into a ponytail that swung as she bopped to the music floating in from outside. Delaney glanced over from where she was serving a different group of patrons.

  “Blake’s got out his latest nerf gun, and I think he’s going to—”

  As she watched, a stream of rubber-tipped bullets spewed from Blake’s gun, pelting both Aidan…and the woman still plastered to him.

  Sera tensed as the woman’s face pinched. She said a couple words that Sera couldn’t hear from inside, except Blake’s expression froze, then the tips of his ears turned bright red, a sure sign tears were imminent.

  Poised to run out and intervene, Sera hadn’t taken more than a step when Aidan suddenly stood up abruptly, dislodging the brunette. He said a few words to her, and Sera wished she could see the other woman’s face to see her reaction before she stalked away in a huff. With a grin, Aidan swept Blake up and flipped him upside down, tickling him to delighted squeals and cries of “no fair.” Then put him down and aimed Blake at Titus, who jumped to his feet to use his lawn chair as a shield.

  “They’re fine,” Delaney said, also watching the scene.

  Through her own chuckles, Sera did her darndest to keep her heart from warming at the sight. Why’d the guy have to be so…likable? She could’ve resisted the attraction without that part. Well, that and the false sense of intimacy those dreams gave her.

  With reluctance, she resumed her duties. “How’d the fire last night go?”

  Sera hid a cringe at the words she’d directed at Delaney. Clearly her mind was more focused on the man than on her job.

  Delaney didn’t catch anything odd in the question since the call had come while she’d been here with Sera. “Fine. Except for Aidan. He got a bit scorched when he tangled with a rogue.”

  Sera paused mid-pour. Scorched? Where? The memory of the pink welt on his wrist bubbled up.

  No. Dreams. Just dreams. Sometimes it was harder to separate fact from fiction. “He went out with the team?” she managed to ask.

  Good for Aidan. He’d been working himself to the bone for them.

  Delaney paused, and a grin stretched her lips. “Do I detect a hint of interest?”

  Sera snorted through a mild moment of panic. “Better check your facts, Sherlock, because you’re way off.”

  Another group left, opening up a hole for yet a new set of patrons to step forward. As she wiped the bar with a cloth and got ready for the next group, she hoped to hell she got the right level of casual into that.

  Delaney tilted her head and leaned over to glance outside. “I don’t blame you if you are interested. He is kind of gorgeous.”

  Gorgeous didn’t begin to cover it. From what she’d been able to find out, Aidan was born to a Lebanese mother who’d mated a
blue dragon shifter. Again, thanks to not being one of them, she’d had to do a little subtle digging, but she’d figured out his parents had had Aidan here. Something about wanting a smaller community of shifters to live with, and so choosing to move to the colonies. Whatever that meant.

  Regardless of origin, the combination of genetics in Aidan’s blood had turned out a man who was a breath-stopping version of striking. Darkly tanned skin that she sort of had a secret fantasy about licking all over. Thick, black hair with a bit of a curl to it, worn short, and a matching scruff covering his face. Tonight, he was wearing a black polo shirt with jeans—a combo that only highlighted his coloring and the defined muscles of his chest and arms. Plus, his best feature…straight, thick black brows over intense eyes a brilliant shade of sky blue.

  Eyes that could nail her to the floor with a single, penetrating glance…before moving away in indifference. She’d never met a man more single minded, and his only focus in life seemed to be his team.

  Delaney raised her eyebrows, expecting an answer.

  Sera grinned, forcing a laugh. “Don’t let Finn hear you say Aidan’s gorgeous.”

  Right on cue, Finn turned his head, his gaze searching out her and Delaney. His hard face stern, Finn cocked his head in question.

  Delaney laughed. “He knows I’m his.”

  Finn nodded, as though satisfied by that response, lips tipped in his harder version of amusement before he turned away.

  But not before Sera’s cheeks flamed with horrified embarrassment because, while Aidan hadn’t looked over, his shoulders had tensed, so he’d probably heard, too. Damn dragon shifters and their enhanced hearing.

  Deliberately, Sera pulled her gaze back to Delaney. That didn’t help, either. The woman practically glowed, even though she’d only been a dragon shifter a short while. Only since last fall when she and Finn mated. Was that what having a mate was like? Pure happiness? Utter belonging?

  It couldn’t last. Life had taught Sera that much. But she wouldn’t rain on Delaney’s rose-colored parade. “Finn still growls any time one of those guys looks at you sideways,” she said instead.

  Delaney shrugged as if to say, what were you going to do with a dragon shifter?

  Yet another couple stepped up to the bar, and she got busy setting out glasses and starting her memorized promo for the wines, thankful to drop the subject anyway. Four hours later, every patron, except the team, had left. The band had cleared out, and all the other servers had headed home. Only Delaney and Sera remained inside, wiping up and cleaning all the used wineglasses.

  “Hey.”

  For a pathetic moment, her hands trembled at that smooth, deep voice, the sound sliding over her nerves like silk. Then, like magic, the tension in her shoulders eased, as though her body trusted him implicitly, even as sexual tension rushed in, claiming her in a different way. An addictive combo she couldn’t allow herself to feed.

  Her back to Aidan, Sera took a minute to compose herself. Cheery smile in place, careful none of that interest showed in her eyes, Sera turned, keeping her distance. “Hey there, stranger.”

  Aidan trailed his gaze over her in a way she felt along every nerve ending, though he also kept a bubble of personal space between them. “Blake’s fast asleep in his room. I made sure he brushed his teeth. Titus is finishing up a bedtime story.”

  Then he went and did something like that. Settle down, heart, she sternly instructed the bucking organ.

  “Thanks.” This time her smile was real, and Aidan blinked then frowned.

  What? Was she not supposed to smile now? Fine. Whatever. Walk away like usual, buddy. Except a stubborn part of her didn’t want him to go. “Did you have something you wanted to tell me?”

  He paused at the change in subject.

  “Earlier,” she reminded him. “Didn’t you say ‘later’?”

  Unable to help herself, she dropped her eyes to his wrist. Part of her almost expected to see the pink scarred skin that had been there in her dream this morning. Silly to be disappointed when she found no evidence of any wound.

  “Oh. Yeah. Um…” His tone pulled her gaze back to his face. His broad shoulders shifted, his expression easing. “My place on the team is official.”

  As she blinked up at him in shock, a tentative grin slipped across his face. That smile hit her like the Coyote had just dropped a bunch of Acme bricks over her head. Real-life Aidan never smiled at her this way, and she wasn’t prepared for the impact.

  Everything in her responded, unable to hold back.

  “That’s fantastic! No one deserves it more.” He’d been working twice as hard as every other man on the team, except maybe Finn. He’d earned this.

  And part of her understood that he wanted it on some basic level that drove him.

  On impulse, because dammit she was a hugger, she stepped into him and wrapped her arms around his waist. For a split second, she thought he might return the hug. Instead he held himself stiffly until she let go.

  Disappointment weighed down her heart as they stared at each other. Sera shifted awkwardly on her feet. If wanting could be a physical presence, she’d be drowning in it about now. Couldn’t he feel it, too?

  “I’d…better go,” Aidan murmured.

  Sera contained her sigh with difficulty. Things couldn’t go on like this…she couldn’t go on like this much longer, that was for dang sure.

  Needing to look away from his disgruntled expression before she was tempted to see what his reaction would be to something more outrageous than a hug, Sera lifted her gaze over his shoulder.

  She paused, then frowned, not processing what she was seeing as she caught an orange glimmer of light in one of the upstairs windows of her house. Since Delaney had moved out, leaving to live with Finn at the Huracán’s headquarters, no one had been in there. So why was a light—

  The glow flickered, dancing in and out of the darkness behind the window. Cold dread clamped icy claws on every muscle in her body. That wasn’t a lamp, that was fire.

  “No.” The word punched from her.

  Blake.

  Sera took off at a dead sprint, and even that wasn’t fast enough. A tendril of smoke eased out of the open doorway on the second level and horror reached inside and snatched her heart out by the roots. Blake was in his bed on the first floor.

  Please let Titus still be in there.

  Before she could burst inside her house, a strong arm wrapped around her middle, slamming her momentum to a stop and lifting her into the air, her legs kicking out in front of her.

  Sera went berserk, thrashing and fighting to get to her child. “Blake!”

  A low grunt sounded in her ear as she landed an elbow in her struggle to be free, and another arm wrapped around her. “Shhhhh,” Aidan whispered.

  The loose door to her apartment swung open on a gust and the flames in the window upstairs grew brighter. She struggled harder. “Let me go!”

  “The guys are on it.”

  Out of nowhere, and almost too fast for her to track, all the other members of the team appeared. Four sprinted up the stairs to the empty second-story apartment where the flames now flickered in the window, while she caught a glimpse of Levi and Drake as they went into hers—more cautiously than Sera would have, but still faster than she could move, regardless.

  She held her breath, hardly aware of Aidan’s steady presence at her back as he held her. Her entire life, the most important thing in her world, was in that burning building.

  “Where are they?” she whimpered, straining against Aidan’s grip. The apartment was tiny. It shouldn’t be taking this long—

  She caught a glimpse of dark blond hair before Levi ducked through the door sideways, his ridiculously broad shoulders blocking her view. Then he turned, and Sera had to gulp down the sob of relief that threatened to explode from her.

  He had Blake.

  Aidan let her go and she ran for her child, not breathing until she had him in her arms, babbling and on the edge of incoherent. Af
ter hugging him, she knelt and inspected him from head to foot. Blake looked fine, no physical signs of fire anywhere on him.

  “Does anything hurt?”

  Little hands pushed her away. “I’m fine, Mom.”

  “You’ve got a brave kid there.” Levi pulled her gaze up to him. He peered at her with his golden, almost copper penny-colored gaze. “He was trying to use the fire extinguisher.”

  “It was too heavy,” Blake grumbled.

  Aidan ruffled his hair. “We’ll grow those muscles, won’t we, buddy.”

  Her child tried to put out a fire rather than run from it? Her initial panic subsided in a whoosh, and a mother’s fury rushed in to replace it like air punching into a vacuum. Sera knelt a second longer, inhaling through her nose, trying to get a handle on it.

  Finn called his Beta over. “Levi.”

  Rivin, Keighan, Hall, and Kanta, the four men who’d gone upstairs, now stood a little way off with Titus who, unfortunately, hadn’t been inside. Drake, who’d helped Levi, finally emerged from the lower level.

  Sera blinked as he stopped in front of her to put a hand on her shoulder. “You okay?”

  Sera gave a jerky nod, surprised that he’d ask. Drake tended to stay away from everyone.

  He squeezed her shoulder and went to talk to Finn quietly. No doubt they’d dealt with the fire in short order. Dragons had a unique control over flames, and with no other humans here to witness it, except her and Blake, they’d been able to use those abilities openly.

  “Not too much damage.” Finn looked over to her. “We caught it time. You’ll only need some minor repairs.”

  “And new curtains,” Rivin tacked on.

  Sera stood slowly. “Blake, go with Titus. I want him to check you out, okay?”

  Titus was the medic of the team. Sending her son to him was as good an excuse as any. Mostly she needed Blake elsewhere, because she was about to lose her shit.

  “I’m fine, Mom,” Blake insisted. He’d stopped calling her Mama these last months, claiming he sounded like a baby. She wouldn’t have minded hearing it right now, though.

  “I still want him to check.”