“We’re leaving,” Gran said. “You’ll need to be strong; she’s hard on men. Brutal. And if she doesn’t kill you before you catch her interest, you’ll need your privacy.”
McKenna’s mother cleared her throat. “Make no mistake. We’re not really leaving until the time for privacy is at hand. If you find our advice confusing, treat McKenna like you would a wounded dragon with no reason to trust.”
“That, I can do.”
“We’ll be watching,” Gran warned.
“Until we trust you with our girl’s emotions,” her mother added. “Shout, if you need us.”
Bastian shook his head as the spirits disappeared and he followed McKenna into a bathroom off the bedroom.
“Okay,” she said, “let’s get one thing straight. I’m not in the market for a man. I need a hardworking employee. That’s it. ’Nuff said. On the other side of this bathroom is my current bedroom, soon to be yours. I’ll move to Mom and Gran’s room, here, but I’m locking the door between your bedroom and this bathroom. Your bedroom and bathroom are off the hall. This bathroom is mine and mine alone. Got that?”
Bastian saluted, his head still spinning from that overdose of opposing wisdom.
“I’ll move to my new bedroom later tonight,” McKenna said. “You get a room adjoining my bathroom because ours are the only two rooms with beds, except for the bedroom in the basement, which you destroyed.”
“By accident.”
“Weird accident, if you ask me.”
He didn’t say a thing. Not even an “okay” seemed to fit.
“Want to see the rest of the house now or after you see the property?”
“The wind seems to be picking up outside,” he said. “Should we not seal the foundation?”
“Right. We’d better put that tarp over your clumsy mistake. Foundation first, then.” Definitely mocking him. “Did you have lunch?” she asked.
“I ate a Creamsicle and a half.”
“Sure you did. Listen, I don’t want to take time to cook now, but I can zap you a couple of corn dogs.”
“I did not think that people ate dogs.”
“Not funny,” she snapped, taking a package from the freezer.
Dogs, not funny, he noted.
Whatever he ate, he liked, hard centers and all. After he finished, they covered the foundation with a second tarp. Crossing her yard, he found patches of lemongrass, pulled some, and ate it for dessert.
“What are you doing?”
“Having a bit of lemongrass. Have you never tasted it?”
“No.”
“Would you like some?”
“Uh, no, thanks. Ranks right up there with chewy Creamsicle centers for me.”
On the way to her barn, a wild animal charged her, and Bastian snapped off a tree branch, got between them, and wielded the branch like a sword.
“Wait!” McKenna shouted. “You’d fight an unarmed pig?”
“That’s a swine?” He lowered the branch. “It can’t be. It’s as big as a horse.”
“Not quite. Want to compare? Come inside and meet my horse.”
“A horse! Can I ride? It’s been centuries.”
FIFTEEN
“Centuries, huh?” Mc Kenna smiled inwardly, but when her hunky, weird employee started sweet-talking her mighty Belgian, her laughter stopped, and well, she wished he’d sweet-talk her. Okay, so she’d flatten him if he tried, but knowing it didn’t lessen the band around her chest. A need she hadn’t thought existed until “zap me and take me” rattled her foundation.
Get a grip, she told herself. “She’s more than nineteen hands high.”
“Horses are bigger than I remember and so much more beautiful.”
Her horse fell under Bastian’s spell, nuzzling him and listening intently to every whispered word.
Bastian boldly charmed Toffee while her stunning beast—well, both stunning beasts—wallowed in a show of mutual affection, and McKenna refused to look envy in the eye.
She loved that horse. Less a farm horse than a pet, Toffee was the only extravagance McKenna allowed herself.
Listening despite herself, McKenna felt the empathetic shiver of Bastian’s whispers along each of her nerve endings, and the touch of his breath, almost caressing her from her dry lips to—
Shocked at her reaction, McKenna stepped away and hit the stall door at her back. Beguiled by a man, a horse whisperer who could break through a brick wall without a scrape, a scarred he-man who liked the taste of Popsicle sticks. One with a half grasp on the English language, and no filtering system for his thoughts.
That’s my man lance in my jeans?
I’ll take one to go, please. And will the traitorous girly girl taking over my libido please depart and leave my sanity behind.
Frankly, she should have tossed the house breaker out on his fine butt over the man lance comment, though it had sounded wholly innocent.
Did innocent men still exist?
Before Bastian Dragonelli, she would have said no. Still, the jury was out on that.
McKenna stepped aside, relieved to stop arguing with herself, so as to fall into step beside Bastian and walk Toffee from her stall.
“What’s her name?” he asked.
“Toffee, for her color.”
He stroked the horse’s neck. “Perfect name. We’ll only go for a short run, okay?”
“Bareback?”
“I won’t hurt her. She’s big and strong, is our pretty girl.”
Our?
He walked the Belgian out into the sunshine, hopped on with an easy grace and familiarity, and they were off.
Bastian shouted as they raced away, not so much a whoop as a bloodcurdling war cry. Earthy, like a warrior, or a beast who’d ensnared its prey.
With uncontained energy, Bastian and Toffee practically flew across the valley, so in sync they made her think of a ballet, big and bold, the two becoming one.
The embodiment of primordial magnificence.
Intimacy. Raw and unrestrained.
McKenna unbuttoned a couple of buttons in the heat.
The tiny owl that perched on Bastian’s shoulder in the basement, or its identical twin, flew over to perch on a fence rail beside her, a magickal creature tilting its head. Hoop, hoop, hoop?
“Okay,” she said. “I get it. I’ll keep him—I mean, I’ll hire him!”
It gave a half nod, hooped, and flew away.
The heavens darkened, the temperature dropped, and lightning struck. One minute sun, the next a downpour so fierce, the raindrops felt like needles pricking her skin. McKenna moved to wait inside the barn door while she watched the wind lash a cluster of ornamental grasses. Purple Mexican bush sage whipped against feather reed, little bunny, and cherry pink silver grass. They bent, but they did not break. The sturdiest of her ancient trees, however, bowed to the storm’s power.
That tarp would never hold.
Bastian whooped as he got close, and when he stopped, so did her heart, because he gave her a smile that about cut her off at the knees. It split his face and softened his harsh features. Made his scars appear natural.
Whoever he was—whatever his background, certainly more than a handyman—he played with a fervor she hoped he gave to his work. If he did, she had half a shot in hell at getting her bed-and-breakfast up and running.
Did he make love with the same rousing exuberance?
Yes, she had lost her mind, or Bastian Dragonelli had taken it from her with some type of primitive grasp. If her atypical reaction to him didn’t exhilarate her so much, she’d be pissed as hell.
Surprising her, and adding to her elation, Bastian lifted her off the ground with an arm at her waist, gave another war cry, and with her in front of him, they took another lap around the valley, wind and rain lashing them, Bastian’s hand steadying her, huge and strong.
Man and beast rode as one. Striking. Sturdy. In control.
For the first time in her life, McKenna felt small. Protected. Safe.
“Are you all right?” Bastian’s long hair whipped against her face when he leaned in. “Do you want to go back?”
His rough-stroking voice electrified her. “No!” she shouted. “Never!”
He urged Toffee to fly, and they did, all three, and McKenna nearly lost her heart, in more ways than one. Nevertheless, peace raced beside them.
It went too fast, that ride, and she did not want Bastian to let go. She liked his arms around her, his hands splayed bold beneath her breast, but all good things must end.
No one knew that better than her.
At the barn, he lowered her to the wet ground like a porcelain figurine in silk slippers.
His skilled dismount, tempered by the worsening weather, brought her to her senses with a jolt.
He walked Toffee past her into the barn, found a blanket, dried the Belgian, and brushed her down with gentle hands and tender words; then he added molasses to her feed and gave her a well-earned midday snack.
Man and beast acted cocky and pleased with their bonding ritual.
McKenna felt left out. She could join them, but since she wanted back in Bastian’s arms, she stayed away.
She’d known him for half a day. Less. Was she hard up or what?
No, was he hard, or what? Hung like a bull. Be still her racing heart. She’d felt his prodding assets behind her.
He whispered a last few compliments into Toffee’s ear and the Belgian’s head came up with a whinny. She nuzzled him, as if they were lovers. No other way to describe it. Toffee was besotted, and Bastian returned the sentiment.
Lucky damned horse.
Inside and out, thunder seemed to follow him as he crossed the barn and approached her. She’d liked their ride, her back against his front, with that “man lance” in his jeans prodding her with interest, as if she were worthy of attention.
Sexy? Her? Hardly.
She would not compare this sophomoric reaction of hers to the storm. She was no cliché. Nor would she be seduced by the foolish fantasy of a scarred warrior.
A scarred stranger.
SIXTEEN
Bastian shut the barn doors before McKenna could gather her wits, his hand swallowing hers once more, and together they ran toward the apple orchard.
“Why didn’t we stay in the barn?” she asked, shivering, wondering if her apples would be damaged by the storm.
“To protect the livestock,” Bastian shouted above nature’s fury.
“Do they need protecting?”
Lightning struck the tree beneath which they stood, sending a falling branch like a spear into Bastian’s shoulder. The weather seemed personal, each clap of thunder a warning, each bright bolt a threat, and Bastian did not seem the least surprised. Protecting the livestock? What was she, chopped liver? “Don’t I need protecting?”
He put an arm around her shoulders and squeezed. “You’ve got me.”
She should be so lucky.
The storm raged, an icy ring of hailstones forming around the perimeter of the tree beneath which they stood, stones as big as her apples. Yet the ground around the rest of the orchard remained green and untouched. Barely wet. “This storm’s directly above us,” she said. “As if it’s aiming at us.”
“Do not doubt that it is.”
His words sent shivers through her, and when the sky caught fire, she screamed.
She never screamed.
He pulled her full against him, her face against his chest. After a minute, she looked up at him. “Did you see that? It looked like five lightning bolts started down here and worked their way to the sky, instead of the other way around.”
Bastian placed his chin on her head and she felt his nod. “As if each strike started at someone’s fingertips and rose upward,” he said. “Yes, I am afraid that I did see.” He held her tighter.
“My apples will be ruined. On this tree, at least,” she said, trying to gauge his mood.
“How could they be ruined?”
“They could freeze, and I can’t spare them. I need the whole harvest this year for my B and B guests. I’ll have to get my fire drums to warm the air around this tree and melt the ice forming on its branches.”
Before she got to the barn, another overbold lightning flash warmed her back. She whipped around, surprised to see that the hail around the tree had disappeared. “Bastian, what happened?”
“It warmed up.”
“That’s impossible. Do you smell baked apples?”
“Uh, no.” He looked odd then as he caught a falling apple and whisked his hand from beneath it. “Hot!”
Said apple hit the ground and split, its peel practically falling away.
“It’s cooked! My apples got cooked on the tree? What the hell kind of storm is this? Could that cluster of lightning flashes have cooked them?”
“Saw that, did you?”
“Not really, but the world went bright at my back.”
“Lightning. Right. Okay.”
She gave him a double take. “Okay,” McKenna said. “We’re picking hot apples right now, you and me, and then you’re getting a lesson on how to add the spices to turn them into applesauce. Jars and jars of applesauce.”
“It’s the least I can do.”
“Why?”
“I mean . . . you are the boss. I am the grunt.”
She eyed him skeptically, because he looked like . . . a kid hiding a pet snake. “We’ll have to harvest the other apples, soon, before another freak storm hits. Are hail and lightning normally part of the same storm?”
They got right down to apple picking in the rain, but the sun came out as they finished. Bastian worked fast. Afterward, he carried several full baskets, one atop another, toward the house.
On the porch, McKenna looked at her home through Bastian’s eyes and realized how badly it needed painting. She nearly apologized for the peeling paint, until she realized that the condition of her home accounted for this man’s presence. Not a warrior, nor a god, no matter how many baskets he could carry, or how primitive and magickal he felt on a horse behind her, but a handyman, human, flawed, and in her employ.
She had nothing to apologize for.
She shivered, and not from being cold and wet, or even from getting her apples flash-baked. Get a crush on the help, why don’t you? First damned day.
She should get that vibrator Lizzie jokingly suggested.
When McKenna flipped the kitchen light switch, nothing happened. “I forgot, the electricity is out—your fault—but you can still shower to warm up. There should be plenty of hot water left for both of us.”
“Both of us?”
“Yeah. You, in your shower. Me, in mine.”
“Oh, sure.”
She led him to his bathroom and gave him fresh towels. “You’ll have to feel your way around.”
“May I?”
She didn’t need light to hear the suggestion in his voice. “Of course not!” But his interest sure did boost her ego, especially during their wild ride.
“Can you start the shower for me?” Bastian asked. “Every one is different. I’ve showered in ice water and burned my butt—sorry.”
“I’ll get it.” Too intimate standing in this small space with a charismatic giant, especially since he’d be naked in a minute. She turned on the spray and got out fast.
She caught her breath in the dark hall, her back against his bathroom door, and heard him talking to someone named Dewcup. “My name is McKenna,” she shouted over the shower. “Did you want something else?” I certainly do.
“No. Sorry. I sing in the shower.”
How human of him.
In her own shower, the warm spray soothed and energized her. She listened for more of Bastian’s song, but heard nothing.
She wore another of her mother’s flowered dresses, a nicer one with a matching sweater and neutral flats. But however feminine she felt, she still had to start a fire in the hearth off the kitchen, in what used to be the keeping room. She planned to remodel around the centerpiece, tall
enough to stand in, a hearth once used by her ancestors to cook and heat the house.
Tonight, it would shed light on their spicing and canning.
Bastian’s footsteps got closer. “I don’t have any clothes up here.”
She looked away, fast. “Why not?”
“They’re in my bag in the basement.”
“I hate to ask, but are you naked?”
“Of course.”
“There is no ‘of course’ about it.” This man, apparently, felt comfortable naked. She squeezed her eyes shut. I will not turn around. I will not. “Grab a blanket from your bed to wrap around you.”
He returned in a blink. Man, he moved fast. “What are you doing?” he asked.
“Trying to start a fire to shed some light on our applesauce project.”
He bent down beside her.
“Holy mother of pearl, hold that blanket closed!”
“I’m holding.”
“I think I need more tinder,” she muttered. “I’ll be right back.” On the porch, she fanned herself so as not to go up in flames after having the naked stud so close with nothing between them but her favorite quilt.
Great. She’d given him her room but forgot to switch bedding. If she switched now, the quilt would smell like a lemongrass herb garden after a soft rain, like him.
It would remind her of everything she lacked in her life.
SEVENTEEN
Bastian waited to start a fire for McKenna until the porch door bounced closed. He did not want to burn down her house, especially after she had been subjected to Killian’s five-fingered lightning drama, not to mention the black-magick hail that might have frozen her apple tree.
He had waited for a thunderclap to silence his fiery tree-warming roar but he accidentally cooked her apples in the process. He only hoped he had not killed her tree. Good thing McKenna had not questioned the possibility.
To get the fire in her hearth blazing, he huffed out a small fire streak.
As a dragon, his roar, his fire, and anger, had gone together, but not here, and especially not around McKenna.
The screen door bounced again. “What was that weird noise?” she asked, coming back inside. “It sounded like an old car huffing its last.”
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