Dragon Blood Read online

  Even if that was true, though, she was on the run and she couldn’t afford the distraction.

  She struggled with that for a few moments, uneasy with her reasoning once she’d reminded herself that it was necessary to maintain her pose. Deep down, she not only knew it wasn’t at all necessary, she knew it was a very, very bad idea. She’d arrived alone. That was suspicious enough by itself and maybe being seen with a local would make her look more ‘normal’ and less strange, but it was risky in itself to get too cozy with a local.

  Besides that, she didn’t know how much time she had to find out what she could—if she could find out anything at all—before moving on again.

  She hadn’t actually thought much past trying to discover what had happened to her.

  No amount of trying to reason with herself, she discovered, worked. Every time she tried to counter her urges with logic, she found another excuse to do what she wanted to do.

  And, truthfully, it wasn’t as if she could do any real investigating now. Wandering around in the woods in the daylight was risky. She sure as hell didn’t want to chance doing it at night.

  She might as well go ahead and get this out of her system, she decided. Giving in to temptation was probably the worst thing she could do in a lot of ways, but it should at least have the benefit of clearing her mind so that she focus! It wasn’t as if anything even close had ever happened to her before. This sort of chance encounter with a man that effected her so profoundly was probably a once in a lifetime shot—especially now when her future was looking so grim.

  Abruptly deciding against the casual clothes, she stripped her shirt and jeans off, discarded her bra, and pulled the black dress on.

  Definitely man bait. Shrugging, she searched her suitcase for a small clutch purse, dropped a condom and her small pistol in it and then headed out to her SUV. A girl could never have too much protection!

  In spite of everything, she managed to arrive early at the rendezvous. She didn’t have any trouble finding it. For one thing, it was the only diner. For another, the agency had used the parking lot of the same diner for a rendezvous point when they’d gathered for the exercise that had ended so disastrously for her.

  Primping to appeal was one thing, arriving too early and looking way too anxious was just asking for trouble! Fortunately, she discovered she had the little pictorial historical in the front seat to while away a few minutes. After finding a strategic location to park, she picked it up and leafed through it, more for a pretense than because she could actually think beyond the date.

  She discovered that, just as it had snagged her attention in the store, however, the moment she picked it up she was deeply engrossed. According to legend, long, long ago a young dragoness had chosen territory within theirs (the Native Americans who’d lived in the area at the time) and established a lair, looking about for a mate. Although she waited hopefully season after season for a drake to appear, moving even beyond the territory she had claimed for herself to lay out her scent to draw them, none came. Finally, certain there could be none left, she changed herself into the form of a beautiful woman and went to the village of the people who lived nearest to her, seeking a mate among them.

  According to the ‘old ones’ a beautiful woman had simply appeared near their village one day, following the trail that snaked through the center of it. Naked and barefoot, the people believed at first that she was a white woman who had lost her way, perhaps crazed from some terrible trial, but she bore no injuries and she spoke the tongue of the people as if she were one of them. Moreover, she was unlike any white woman they had ever seen. As tall as the tallest of their warriors, her long, flowing hair was like spun gold, her skin a pale, golden brown, and her eyes a strange amber gold.

  She told them she could not find a mate of her own kind and was seeking the seed of the bravest, strongest, and most cunning warriors among them for her off-spring. In return, she offered to give them warning if she saw their enemies approaching and promised that she and her off-spring would hunt beyond the territory of the people and would not be a threat to them or their food source.

  The people were almost inclined to laugh at her claims, despite the fact that her strangeness unnerved them, but their chief saw no harm in allowing her to stay among them and, despite their fear that she truly was insane, the warriors could not resist her beauty. They began to vie for her interest. As she had told them, however, she refused to accept any of the men as her lover until they had proven they were elite warriors—the bravest of the brave, the strongest of the strong, and the most cunning among them.

  The women grew jealous and began to speak out against her as the men began to fight among themselves, vying for her favor. When two of their finest warriors fought to the death over her, the chief had had enough. He told her that she had to leave the village, whereupon she told him that she had gotten what she had come for and transformed herself right before their eyes into a great, golden dragon and flew away.

  One day not long after, Spanish invaders came, searching for gold. When they spied the golden dragon, they knew that there would be gold in her lair from the legends of the old world.

  As they began to search for the dragon, they came upon the people, saw the pictures of the golden dragon that some had painted on their tepees and demanded that the Indians show them the way to her lair. She was a powerful ally and the Indians refused to tell them, but there were Indian maids among the people who were jealous of the dragon’s beauty in human form and the fact that the braves competed to prove themselves worthy of her. They offered to lead the Spanish to the place in the hills where it was rumored the dragon’s lair lay. The dragon spied them searching for her den, however, and she attacked them, slaying them all, but she was mortally wounded herself in the battle. Her lair was never found for the people never searched for it and refused to pass the knowledge of its location down. The Indians believed, though, that she hadn’t merely chosen lovers among them. She’d chosen mates and that somewhere in the mountains she’d given birth.

  Marlee nearly jumped out of her skin when someone abruptly tapped a knuckle against her window. Whirling, she gaped at the man leaning down to look at her without comprehension for several unnerving moments. Embarrassment flooded her abruptly as recognition dawned. A strange sense of unreality flickered through her, as well, though. How weird was it that the gorgeous guy she’d just met had golden eyes like she’d never seen before, a deep golden tan, and golden hair?

  He grinned at her. “Cold feet? Or you just staking the place out?”

  She smiled back at him sheepishly. “Maybe a little of both?” It sounded better than the truth, but she strongly suspected he knew the truth.

  How often did women turn the man down?

  He looked her over appreciatively when she got out. “I’m not sure Odessa can handle that much good-looking woman,” he murmured.

  Marlee felt the heat she’d just tamed surge into her cheeks again. “Uh … Am I going to be hideously out of place?”

  He chuckled, settling a hand along her waist. “They’ll get over it. Not sure my heart will.”

  “Thank you … I think.”

  “Just a fact ma’am … no bullshit.”

  Marlee smiled. “Right. I should’ve worn my waders.”

  He quirked a brow at her as he walked her across the street. “You come for some serious fishing?”

  “That was sarcasm. I don’t fish.”

  “That’s a shame. And I had tomorrow all planned out.”

  Dismay flickered through her, but she firmly dismissed it. Gorgeous he might be, but there wasn’t a man alive gorgeous enough to get her to slap mosquitoes all day and watch a fishing line bobbing in the water! Besides, she reminded herself sternly, she couldn’t afford to screw around literally or figuratively. This was a onetime deal to appease her clamoring hormones. “Sorry, but as tempting as that sounds, I’ll just have to pass.”

  “I hate fishing, too,” he said cheerfully, pushing the door of t
he diner open as they reached it and allowing her to enter first.

  Half the people in the diner turned to look when the bell over the door chimed and then did a double take, but she couldn’t decide whether it was her or him that had gotten that reaction.

  The dress was just a tad dressy for the diner—no huge surprise!

  Then again, men like Gabriel whatever-his-name-was didn’t exactly grow on trees. She hadn’t realized until that moment that she hadn’t actually gotten his last name. Was that a good thing or just another excellent reason why she shouldn’t be where she was about to do what she had in mind?

  The waitress nearly fell all over herself to dash to the table and toss out menus. It took her a moment to remember where she was when she’d taken their drink orders. Irritated at her awe-struck hovering, Marlee flicked a glare at her. It seemed to penetrate the fog. The woman left.

  Gabriel seemed unfazed, but he was frowning at his menu. “I heard the food here was good, but ….”

  The waitress made it back with two sloshing glasses of tea and managed to catch the comment. She answered before Marlee could do more than open her mouth. “We got yankee pot roast on special. I had some earlier. It was real good.”

  Gabriel lifted his head and sent her a level look.

  “You like chicken better? We got a nice pot pie.”

  “The pot roast sounds good to me,” Marlee responded.

  The waitress turned to look at her as if she’d forgotten there were two people at the table.

  Marlee suspected she had. She scribbled the order on her pad, however, reeling off the choices of sides and taking notes.

  “I’ll have what she’s having,” Gabriel said promptly when the waitress turned back to him, then added when she quoted the options, “Everything the same.”

  Nodding, the waitress left. Gabriel relaxed visibly.

  “I guess you aren’t as used to that as I thought you would be,” Marlee murmured with amusement.

  He looked at her blankly. She saw something flicker in his eyes, but she couldn’t figure out what it was about.

  “Hero worship,” Marlee clarified dryly. “Awed admiration. You don’t do movies by any chance, do you? Modeling?”

  He blinked at her several times and then turned so red she was almost sorry she’d asked.

  Almost. She didn’t think she’d ever seen anything quite as charming. Bashful?

  “Uh … no.” The answer was short almost to the point of being brusque. It was impossible not to get the impression that he didn’t find it the least bit flattering. “Never had any interest in that sort of thing. What about you?”

  Marlee gaped at him. Maybe he had bad eyes? Good thing for her! “No. Not my thing either.” She hesitated. She’d never found herself in quite as awkward a situation. The typical ‘getting to know you’ questions seemed unnecessarily probing all things considered. Shrugging inwardly, she decided to go with it. She couldn’t think of anything else to ask and it would be more awkward just to sit together staring into space. “What do you do?”

  “This and that.”

  He didn’t want to tell her. Now why was that, she wondered? He thought it wouldn’t impress her? Or was he an ex-con, recently paroled and not yet employed? He didn’t have the look of a felon.

  “Depends on the work available in an area. I’ve done some construction, some logging. Mostly, I just like working with my hands and I like being outdoors.”

  Which accounted for all those nice muscles and the beautiful tan! “So … you move around a good bit?”

  He shrugged. “No more than anybody else these days, I guess. What about you?”

  He was tenacious! She didn’t want to tell him what she did for a living either. Even if she hadn’t been in ‘trouble’ her chosen profession was a turn off to men more often that it was a turn on. “Like I said—I’m on vacation. Between jobs at the moment. I just graduated, actually.” She tensed when she said that, irritated that she’d fallen into the trap she meant to avoid—which was anything that could be traced back to her!

  He nodded a little absently instead of commenting on the fact that she looked a little old to have just graduated. “You get settled into your cabin?”

  Marlee grimaced. “Honestly? Not really. I just sort of unloaded and dropped everything. I didn’t know how long it would take to find the place.”

  Fortunately, the food arrived. Marlee wasn’t particularly hungry, but she’d decided very much small talk was going to ruin the evening she’d had in mind. Too big a dose of reality and all that!

  Then, too, there was the fact that the guy turned her brain to pure mush! Of course, in her defense, she hadn’t been on the run before, hadn’t ever expected to be. She might have been trained to ‘get in’ to the mind of a suspect, but she hadn’t been prepared for the fulltime role.

  Not that that was a reasonable excuse. Her survival instincts had been thoroughly aroused. It shouldn’t have been that hard to think like a runner when she was one—and, in fact, hadn’t been until she’d run into Gabriel.

  Ok—so she’d already been stewing when she’d met him, but it was actually a relief to recall that. It seemed to her to support her theory that it was just needs she’d ignored too long, compounded by the fear of a short future and magnified by the fact that she’d stumbled upon two men in quick succession that made her blood run hot!

  She struggled to dismiss her discomfort and the attendant uneasiness that she was acting so far outside the norm for her that all kinds of alarms should be going off in her head.

  Not that she had a problem with the impression she’d gotten that Gabriel seemed to be a tumble weed. It lessened the possibility of a complication she didn’t really need. Unfortunately, the small talk during the meal didn’t seem to be taking them in the direction she wanted to go.

  She’d begun to think by the time they finished that a meal was all she was going to get out of her evening.

  She should’ve been relieved. Maybe if she’d managed what she’d planned it would’ve taken care of the distraction, but it was still way too chancy and something she shouldn’t have contemplated to start with.

  He seemed meditative as he walked her back to her vehicle. “It seems a shame to waste a dress like that on the diner. There’s a tavern close by if you’d like to dance?”

  Marlee considered it, but a night of drinking and dancing wasn’t what she’d had in mind either—besides the fact that that much exposure didn’t seem like a good idea—seemed like a worse idea than the one she’d already succumbed to. She toyed with the idea of shooting straight from the hip but although she wasn’t above thinking wicked thoughts she couldn’t quite bring herself to be that blunt. “I’ve been driving all day. I’m a little stiff for that to sound very appealing. How about a walk instead?”

  He frowned, lifting his head and looking around. “There isn’t much to see here,” he said slowly. “I don’t think those heels would be very good for walking in the park, though.”

  Marlee struggled with another round of wariness and finally pitched good-sense to the wind. “You could always follow me back to my cabin and wait for me to change into something more appropriate for a walk?”

  He relaxed. “Sure. Sounds good to me.”

  Relieved, Marlee unlocked her door and got in.

  “I’m parked across the street. Give me a minute.”

  She had time to reconsider her plans for the evening on the trip out to the camp. She did consider it, just as she had earlier, and she arrived at the same conclusion. She felt more comfortable with the decision than she had before, though. She hadn’t gotten any threatening vibes from the guy, any little ‘tells’ to make her uneasy. She was pretty convinced that he was just an ordinary guy looking to get laid—simple!

  He won more points when he stayed in his truck when he’d parked. She liked the fact that he didn’t make any assumptions. “Would you like to come in while I change?”

  He looked a question. “You sure you’re ok w
ith that?”

  It was going to be hard to jump his bones in the damned parking lot! “I’m sure.”

  She was on edge as he followed her inside, but it wasn’t because she was uneasy. She’d begun to doubt he meant to make the first move and she just wasn’t the type of woman who felt comfortable making the first move herself. Damn it!

  He stopped just inside and looked the place over.

  “Would you like something to drink? I got water and sodas at the store. Unfortunately, I didn’t take the time to put them in the fridge.”

  “I’m good.”

  “Why don’t you have a seat?” He was too damned tall for her to take advantage of him standing up!

  He glanced around and strode to the only easy chair the cabin boasted. Well shit! Was the guy dense or what? Marlee considered the situation as she watched him settle and decided enough was enough. If she was going to take care of her itch, she was just going have to be brazen! When she reached him, she ignored the frantic pounding of her heart, placed a knee on either side of his thighs, and settled on his lap facing him. “I don’t think I’m actually in the mood for a walk,” she said, lifting her arms and draping them lightly around his shoulders.

  Amusement gleamed in his eyes and something else—desire? She was pretty sure of that. Triumph? What game had he been playing? Run till she catches me? “What are you in the mood for?” he murmured huskily.

  Irritation flickered through her, but she found herself smiling. “I’ll give you two guesses but the last one doesn’t count.”

  He settled his hands on her hips and dragged her closer. “Only two?” he murmured, sliding his hands slowly along her thighs. “Give me a hint. I’m not that good at guessing games.” He chuckled at her expression, tilting his head a little curiously. “You’re not like I expected you would be.”

  Marlee lifted her brows. “Is that a good thing? Or a bad thing?”