Tempting The Dragon

Both Pearl and Sapph snickered.

“You could put a little effort into it,” her mother began. “At least wear a dress. Even a nice blouse.”

Jade stared at her. A blouse. She wasn’t even sure she owned such a thing. “No,” she finally answered. “Now if you ladies will excuse me, I’ve got some distracting to do.”

With that, she swept out of the room, her head high.

In the hallway, her steps slowed. Unlike her heartbeat. So much for bravado. She’d been racking her brain trying to figure out exactly how to distract Rance.

She wasn’t sure how far her family expected her to go, but she had no intention of getting even the slightest bit intimate with the man.

Her body’s reaction to the idea of seeing him again called her a liar.

“Good morning.” Pasting a bright smile on her face, she strode forward, hand outstretched. Tall and broad shouldered, his gray eyes blazed as he looked at her. He took her hand, but instead of shaking it as she expected, he lifted it to his lips and kissed the back, his mouth lingering.

Damn. She thought she might melt into a puddle right then and there. Somehow, she remembered to breathe.

Then, while her knees still shook and she couldn’t find her voice to save her life, he released her and flashed that same charming smile. “Hold on, darlin’,” he said, lifting the camera that hung around his neck and snapping a few shots of the house, the front porch and her.

When he’d finished, he was still smiling. “How about you and I go visit Forestwood Lake?”

Together? And then she remembered she needed to distract him.

“Okay,” she managed. Because she knew he wouldn’t see anything unusual there at all. Not once in all the time her family had been taking care of Libby had Libby let an out-of-towner see her.

* * *

How Jade Burnett could manage to look so damn good in blue jeans and a T-shirt, Rance didn’t know. But when he turned and saw her sauntering toward him, her long silver hair tumbling in a luxurious fall over her shoulders, his breath caught in his throat. And his entire body went on red alert. At least he’d gotten a few shots with his camera.

Giving himself a mental shake, he focused on what she’d just agreed to do. Go to the lake. With him.

“Do you want to walk or drive?” she asked.

He pointed to the shiny red Mustang convertible he’d rented in Albany. “Let’s take that. I’ll put the top down so we can enjoy the day.”

Most of the women he knew would have immediately protested, claiming the wind would mess up their hairdo or something. Jade appeared supremely unconcerned. In fact, she seemed delighted. “I love convertibles,” she said.

“Did they tell you to be extra nice to me?” he asked, suddenly suspicious.

“They? Who is they?”

The perplexed frown didn’t fool him. Especially not when she combined it with a mischievous grin. “If by they, you mean my family, then no. They did not ask me to be nice to you.”

Interesting. “Well, then, what exactly did they decide?”

This time, the blank look she gave him was decidedly fake. “What do you mean?”

He waited until they were both inside the car, seat belts fastened, before answering. “About the lake monster. You were going to call a meeting to find out what you could and couldn’t tell me.”

“Put that way, you make it sound as if you truly believe there is a lake beast,” she quipped, well aware of how much Libby hated the word monster.

He shook his head and pressed the ignition. The engine came to life with a powerful rumble. When he glanced at her, she grinned. She dug a hair-thingy from her pocket and expertly put her hair up in a ponytail.

“Nice ride,” she said. “Too bad it’s a rental.”

Amused, he chuckled. “If that’s your attempt at a dig at me, it’s pretty weak.”

She widened her eyes, the picture of innocence. “A dig? Why on earth would you think that? It’s just that this is such an awesome car, probably nothing like what you drive at home.”

Instead of responding, he had the strongest urge to kiss her. This didn’t surprise him, not in the least. Jade Burnett was gorgeous, with her long sexy hair and those amazing green eyes. Not to mention the lush curves of her body. Rance liked women, all women, but until today he’d never really figured he had a type. But now he knew. That type would be Jade. Slender and perfectly shaped, gorgeous creamy skin, with a tiny dusting of freckles across her nose. Lips that were made for kissing and a body that begged for his touch.

Yep. Jade was his type. He had the awful feeling that, forever after this, he’d be comparing other women to her.

Astounded at this thought—after he’d lost his wife Violet and started drinking, he hadn’t ever thought of getting close to any other woman—he concentrated on the drive. He’d already taken a solo trip to Forestwood Lake, walked the trails, stood on top of the marbled stone cliffs. With the wealth of leafy trees and undergrowth all over the rolling hills, the area was pretty, but then so was every other lake or hiking trail in the Catskill Mountains. This part of the earth called to something primal, deep inside him.

In fact, in his previous life, Rance had thought if he ever wanted to become a country guy, he’d buy some land and build a house here. Now, he knew he never would. He needed the fast pace of the city to distract him from everything he’d lost.

“Take the next right,” she said, startling him out of his reverie.

He did as she asked, turning onto the unmarked dirt road. Though there were occasional ruts and bumps, for the most part it seemed to be well maintained. As he drove, he noticed with a sense of amusement the way it wound through the forest in an apparently nonsensical pattern. Then they made one more turn and he slowed, awed despite himself.

The lake spread out below them. From this vantage point, higher than any of the others he’d been to, the sparkling expanse of water was a dark, vibrant blue. He let the car coast to a stop, even though the road continued, and got out, grabbing his Nikon D4S out of the bag on the backseat. While he had several cameras and lenses, he liked this one the best for everyday use.

He walked to the edge of an area that had apparently been set up for viewing purposes and stood still, marveling. A sense of rightness settled low in his chest. He’d only had this feeling a few times in his life—once in a remote area of Alaska, another on Vancouver Island and now here, on the opposite coast.

Lifting the camera, he lost himself in his art.

Jade came and stood by his side, silent, as if she understood. He appreciated that she didn’t feel the need to fill the silence with meaningless chatter.

Once he’d taken his fill of pics, he lowered the Nikon and drank the scenery in with his eyes.

As he soaked in the strange feeling of contentment, he reminded himself he’d come here for a reason. “The only thing that could make this better would be if the so-called lake monster would make an appearance,” he joked.

She snorted, but when he cut a sideways glance her way, her intent expression as she stared at the water seemed far too serious.

For maybe the eightieth time, he caught himself wondering if there really was such a creature. In his world, where shape-shifters walked the streets unnoticed alongside humans and vampires, who was he to even think to discredit such a possibility? Just because he’d never seen one—not Nessie in Scotland or any of the others reported to have been sighted—didn’t mean they didn’t exist.

Hell, he could shape-shift into another creature entirely. Judging by Jade’s aura, so could she, as well as the rest of her entire family. Pack, he figured. Most of the other shape-shifters he met were wolves. Even though he wasn’t, not by a long shot, the aura revealed nothing about what kind of beast they changed into.

He eyed the lake and wondered. A flash just below the surface of a wave caught his eye. As he peered hard at whatever it had been, something big—something huge actually—leaped out of the water as if trying to fly. Or maybe like a whale breaching. Except this was fresh water, not the ocean. Moving fast, its large body arced in a flash of glinting silver scales before it dove back under.

It looked like... No. It couldn’t be.

Stunned, he didn’t move. Didn’t breathe. While he wasn’t entirely sure what he’d just witnessed, he felt a sense of awe that he’d been privileged to have seen such a sight. And of course, he hadn’t been holding his camera.

Chapter 4 (#ulink_be5de835-3a89-5464-becc-c94be8508624)

“Did you...?” Turning to the silent woman next to him, one glance at her ashen face told him she had also seen. “So there is a Forestwood monster.”