The Fireman Finds His Flame

by Heather Horrocks

  “I’d like to take you to meet some friends of mine, maybe invite them to join us at a nice restaurant for lunch. Afterward, I thought we could watch a movie here. I have a small theater room here.”

  She chuckled. “I doubt that.”

  “Well, I do.”

  Her eyes sparkled when she noted the confused expression on his face. “Not that you have a theater room, but that it is a small room. Nothing in this house is small.”

  He shrugged. “It only has eight seats.”

  “And they’re large seats, right? To accommodate a dragon’s derrière.”

  He laughed. “Only two of them are that large. Most of my friends are smaller shifters.”

  “So, you’re pretty much the largest of the shifters, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “So does that make you alpha to them?”

  “Yes.”

  “I thought so.” She paused and studied him. “Where do swans fall on the alpha scale?”

  He smiled slowly. “Swan princesses are always at the very top of the scale. Beauty rises to the top.”

  She laughed. “That’s good to know. So you’re telling me that if I gave you a command, you’d obey it?”

  “Let’s find out.” He motioned toward her. “Command away.”

  She lifted her chin thoughtfully. “I think I’ll save this test for later. I want to use my power wisely.”

  He smirked, playing along. “It’s good to know you’re not power hungry.”

  “You know what? I’ve changed my mind. Bark like a dog. A little, yippy one.”

  He laughed. “So you’re willing to use your power for evil.”

  She smiled. “So are there any friends of yours that I didn’t already meet at the reception last night?”

  “I think you met them all.”

  “All right,” she answered just a little too quickly, apparently happy to spend time around others during their honeymoon period. Their non-honeymoon phase.

  It was probably for the best, as he wanted to reach out and pull her into his lap and cuddle and kiss her.

  She must have sensed his thoughts, for she rose and gathered the plates. “I’ll clean up.”

  He put out a hand and grasped her arm, and the touch was electric. She caught his gaze. He shook his head. “I’ll do it. Why don’t you relax? Read a book. Watch a movie. Whatever you’d like. I’ll leave you alone for a few hours until it’s time for lunch, if that makes you more comfortable.”

  The relief in her eyes made him sad. “Thank you.”

  He wished she’d say his name. “You’re welcome, Mara.”

  Her eyes widened at the sound of her name on his lips. Then she smiled, nodded, and said, “Which way to the theater?”

  He pointed and watched her walk off, her hips swaying gently, along with her hair.

  He’d never imagined he would be married — but if he had, this would never have been the kind of honeymoon he’d have envisioned.

  She Wouldn’t Want Me to Die

  “THIS IS INCOGNITO?” MARA ASKED.

  One of the two best restaurants in town, Ty had told her, yet it looked like an unassuming bed and breakfast. The sign was almost hidden by foliage — not overgrown, but artfully done.

  “It is,” Ty said.

  Two couples waited for them on the porch. She recognized Quade and Heather, and she’d met the other couple at the reception — Sheriff Samuel Winston and his wife Amber.

  “Is Walter not coming?” Mara asked.

  Ty shook his head. “He doesn’t like being the odd man out.”

  “Sounds like it’s long past time to launch Project Nerd Girl, then.’

  He chuckled. “I think you’re right.”

  She’d been careful not to let her hand brush against Ty’s, as any contact with the hunky dragon seemed to sizzle across her nerves, but he whispered, “We’re supposedly on our honeymoon so it might be good if we hold hands.”

  Oh. Yeah. She looked up at him. His eyes were as warm as the rest of him. He reached out a hand and, after the briefest of hesitations, she took it. The contact sent a shock through her.

  She walked beside him, her body humming at the contact of hand-holding.

  On the porch, he released her hand as he greeted the others.

  The two women welcomed her.

  Amber said, “It’s so good to see you again, Mara.”

  Heather touched her arm. “You look radiant. Married life already agrees with you.”

  Platonic married life, maybe. Still, she smiled at them. “Thank you. It’s good to see you, as well.”

  Amber said, “I’ve never been to this restaurant before. I’m so excited.”

  Sheriff Winston put an easy arm around his wife’s shoulders. “Luckily the dragon has offered to pay for said meal.”

  “Is this place expensive?” Mara asked.

  The others all nodded.

  Ty motioned toward the building. “Shall we?”

  They headed toward the double doors. Ty said, “Not that way.”

  Mara looked at him and he grinned. “This way.” And he led the way around the porch toward the back of the Victorian building.

  She exchanged glances with several of the others. Finally, the sheriff shrugged. “Follow the big man.”

  Ty reached back and took Mara’s hand again. They came to a door at the back with a sign that read: Private.

  He knocked three times.

  A moment later a little window shot open — just like in the movies — and a man said, “Password?”

  Ty leaned in closer and said something Mara couldn’t hear, though the sheriff laughed.

  The door opened, and Ty said, “Come on in, folks. Welcome to the secret restaurant within a restaurant — Private.”

  How very cool. They followed a man in jeans up the back stairs. The hidden restaurant, Private, occupied the entire second floor. Five tables were set up around the main staircase, and seven were set back in alcoves, affording more privacy. The cozy spaces looked like they’d been bedrooms in a prior incarnation. The effect was charming.

  They were led to one of the alcoves and the men pulled out chairs for the women. Mara sat down and Ty sat beside her.

  The server, a young woman with pointy ears, handed out menus. When she’d gone to get their drinks, Ty said, “They serve expensive burgers, fries, and steaks at Incognito. Up here, they serve more exclusive meals.”

  Mara opened her menu. There were no prices listed, but there were delicious-sounding entrees. Several variations of salmon — cedar planked and Southwestern maple glazed salmon with pineapple salsa, both served with rice and roasted asparagus. King crab-stuffed lobster tails and seared tuna with wasabi-butter sauce. Colorado lamb chops with thyme-infused stock and pork chops with raspberry sauce.

  And the desserts! Turtle cheesecake. Salted caramel chocolate tart. Butterscotch cashew bars. And a host of others.

  “Anything sound good to you?” Ty asked her.

  “Everything!” she said.

  The others chuckled and agreed.

  Ty said, “My favorite is the prime rib, but the raspberry pork chops and pineapple salmon are also good.”

  Mara ran her fingers down the selections, and came back up to ... yes. “I want to try the seared tuna with wasabi-butter sauce.”

  Samuel ordered a large steak and his wife the crab legs, Quade the pork chops and Heather the salmon.

  While they waited for their food, Quade told them a story about his latest extreme sports adventure. “You know those videos you see on Facebook where people are clinging to a mountainside, standing on just a little ledge?”

  “They scare me,” Amber admitted.

  “Or the ones where people ride bikes on trails like that?” Quade asked. When everyone nodded, he said, “I did one of those bike rides.”

  Heather shook her head. “He texted me videos that I couldn’t even bear to watch until he’d gotten back home safely.”

  That led to Samuel talking about the b
ase-jumping competition he’d been in.

  “I thought that was illegal,” Heather said.

  Samuel nodded. “It is in the U.S. except at certain organized events. I participated in the Tombstone Challenge in Moab, Utah. There were more than forty of us jumping off the cliff with parachutes.”

  “How tall was the cliff?” asked Amber, looking horrified.

  “Nearly four hundred feet tall.” Samuel looked at his wife. “I stopped doing that stuff once we got married. I don’t plan on leaving you free to marry anyone else.”

  She touched his arm and smiled up at him. “Good thing.”

  Then the food arrived, and nothing else seemed to matter. It was the best meal Mara had ever eaten.

  Once she’d polished off her seared tuna, followed by the salted caramel chocolate tart, Mara leaned back in her chair and sighed. “I need someone to take me out of here in a wheelbarrow. I’m stuffed.”

  The others laughed.

  “Me, too,” Heather agreed.

  Ty handed the server a card, and the man returned it a few minutes later. Ty signed and, when the server saw the tip he’d included, he grinned broadly.

  Mara had to smile. Apparently her dragon was generous. Another good point about dragons.

  They gathered their coats and purses and went through the small but full room. Mara stepped outside and breathed in deeply. “My tummy is very happy. And so are my taste buds.”

  Amber said, “Thank you for including us in your honeymoon lunch. This has been wonderful.”

  Honeymoon. If only that were true.

  The others gave their thanks, too.

  Ty took her hand again and said, “You’re welcome. Thank you all for celebrating with us.”

  As they walked around to the front of the building, Mara saw a woman walking along the sidewalk, headed toward a white car. The car had a vanity license plate that read: Swan.

  Swan?

  Swanbumps rose on her arms and Mara took a few steps ahead.

  The woman turned to climb into the car and, when she saw Mara, her eyes widened, and the stricken look on her face revealed everything. This woman had stolen her coat!

  She pointed as she started to move. “My coat!”

  Ty looked surprised, but ran after her as the woman climbed into the car.

  “That woman!” Mara called out. “Stop, thief!”

  Thirty years of anguish were about to come to an end for Mara.

  Ty put on a burst of speed and passed her by. The sheriff ran past, as well.

  The woman started the car.

  Ty jumped forward again, grabbing toward the door — just as the car shot forward and the woman escaped.

  Feeling like someone had punched her in the gut, Mara dropped to her knees and watched as the coat was whisked away from her yet again.

  Ty ran after the car, but it soon left him in the dust. He could have changed into a dragon — but he didn’t.

  He came back to her as the sheriff pulled out his cell phone and called the station.

  Ty lifted Mara carefully, gently, and she clung to his strong form. “Chase her.”

  “The car was too fast.”

  “As a dragon,” she begged in desperation.

  “As much as I’d like to, I can’t change in plain sight in daylight,” Ty explained.

  Mara slumped against him, moaning as the hole inside her felt like it was going to consume her. “She got away. It’s a woman. It’s been a woman all this time.”

  Mara felt as though a spotlight had just shown her where all the puzzle pieces went.

  No wonder a man hadn’t tried to coerce her into marriage. A man never had the coat. A woman had it.

  “Walter needs to look over the rentals again, this time looking for a woman.”

  He nodded, patting her back awkwardly. “We’ll find it. We know it’s still there. And now you can sense it, we can find it. Let’s go somewhere I can shift—”

  “I can’t feel it.” She shook her head. “I saw the license plate that said Swan and the woman’s face when she saw me.”

  The sheriff came over. “I’ve called in reinforcements. As long as she stays in the car, she’ll be stopped within ten minutes.”

  “I’ve seen her before,” Mara muttered. “The other night, when I sensed the coat so strongly in Fangs.” She’d looked and seen three women leaving the bar, but thought nothing of it because she’d been looking for a man.

  She’d been so convinced the thief was a man that she hadn’t even seen the coat that night.

  How stupid she’d been! “I guess we didn’t have to get married, after all,” she said, resigned. “It was a woman, not a man.”

  Her words cut Ty like a dagger, and the pain swirled in his gut, churning with the feeling of failure that he hadn’t gotten the coat back for her.

  He could bring himself to point out that it wasn’t just men who were untrustworthy.

  The only words he wanted to say were that he loved her, and that he would take away her hurt.

  But he couldn’t. Not without finding the coat.

  Determination swelled within him. He would find this woman. He would get the coat back. And he would give it to Mara as a real wedding gift.

  They went back onto the porch of Incognito and sat on the benches there, waiting to hear

  Finally, about ten minutes later, Samuel took a phone call, then turned to Ty. “They’ve located the car in the parking lot at Moonchuckle Bay Studios.”

  Ty and Samuel both knew what that meant. In the press of tourists, the woman would be difficult to find.

  Quade stood nearby with Heather. Ty motioned to them and they came closer. “Heather, would you and Quade keep Mara save with you? I’m going to see what I can find. I’m going to fly over the studio.”

  He was going to fly low over the studio — low enough that it would cause a commotion. And he didn’t care.

  He was going to get Mara’s coat back, before the woman escaped for good.

  But, first, he needed to ask Mara how to get the invisible coat off the woman.

  Ty drove his car to a more secluded part of town and climbed out, checking that no one was around when he shifted and took to the air.

  He’d recognize the woman again if he saw her. Her face was indelibly burned into his mind. Blonde hair. Red lips. Pretty face. In her thirties.

  He just had to find her — and then hope he could pull off the coat in the way that Mara had told him would work: Take hold of the woman’s arms and say the words, “frigöra pälsen,” which was Swedish for “Release the coat.” You stupid cow was implied.

  He could say it. He practiced it aloud several times as he flew, trying to get the accent correct. “Frigöra pälsen. Frigöra pälsen. Frigöra pälsen.”

  He flew over the studios, banking several times as tourists pointed him out to their excited children. He didn’t see a woman in a red coat, though she could have ditched the coat along with the car. But there was no one who looked or smelled like the woman. He circled around again with the same result.

  He didn’t think she was still at the studio lot, so he headed along Make Believe Boulevard toward Mane Street. This is the path that the studio shuttles took, taking tourists from points along Mane Street and back. That is likely how the woman left the lot after she ditched the car.

  He flew up and down Mane Street. Again, he didn’t see the woman.

  But he would find her.

  He caught a whiff and closed his eyes, gliding a hundred feet above the ground.

  There! He opened his eyes — and saw the woman exiting a taxi and heading toward a small house. Quickly, he dropped down behind the house and, as a man, ran around the house, jumping the fence, just in time to catch her at the front door. As she unlocked it and pushed herself inside, he pushed in behind her.

  “What are you doing?” she asked, her eyes wide in fright and her voice indignant. “Get out of my house!”

  Ty could barely see the feathers on her coat. They were more like
a wisp he could sense rather than something he could see. “I’ve come for something that doesn’t belong to you.”

  She wrapped her arms around herself, shaking her head vehemently. “Go away.”

  As he paced forward, she turned and ran. He caught her in the kitchen, turning her to face him, taking her arms in his big hands, and saying, “Frigöra pälsen” in his deep dragon voice.

  She screamed, “Nooooo!” — and then he was holding Mara’s feather coat in his hands! He could feel it, if not see it.

  The woman gasped. “No! Don’t take it! You’ll kill me!”

  He looked at the thirty-ish woman and shook her head. “It’s not yours. It never was.”

  The woman grasped at him, but he stepped away. “I know a Swan Maiden who is going to be very happy to have this back.”

  “She wouldn’t want me to die,” the woman said in a totally different tone — a wheedling, begging voice. “I know she wouldn’t.”

  “That is not in my hands.”

  “It is literally in your hands.” She sighed and tears flowed. “She’s at the studio then? Where you found my car?”

  He looked at her then — and saw lines forming about her eyes. She was indeed aging. “I left her in Sheriff Winston’s safekeeping.”

  Then he jogged into the backyard, shifted, and took to the air.

  He headed toward the studios — but then started wondering if that was the best thing to do. If he returned it to Mara now, she’d leave him. He needed a few days to woo her, enough that she’d want to stay with him.

  He headed to his house. He’d hide the coat, just for a few days. Two days. Just two. She’d been without it for thirty years. Another two days wouldn’t make that much difference to her, but it could make or break their relationship.

  He wondered if he was any better than her sisters’ husbands, but no, that didn’t feel right. He wasn’t planning on keeping the coat forever to keep her in their marriage. He just wanted to keep it for two days.

  Things were going so well between them. In two days, if he couldn’t win her heart, he’d give her the coat, and let her walk away, if that’s what she chose.

  Walter had told him that if she flew away and came back again, then she was truly his.