“Sure,” I said, because I always had the feeling I couldn’t win an argument with Fieran anyway.
Was I really going to keep arguing that I was terrible?
Though, I could see Fieran’s friends at his table exchanged amused glances, as if he must be really deluded on my behalf if he thought that I was good at this job.
When I brought their dinner out to them, Fieran said, “How much longer are you working tonight?”
“Late. Later than you’ll be here.” There was a flirtatious note in my voice that I heard too late to change, and I felt a sudden rush of embarrassment.
Fieran looked up at me curiously. “Dragon shifters often work at night.”
Beside him, Darien choked. Fieran reached over and whacked him on the back, harder than could be helpful.
“Don’t mind my friends. Scoundrels, all of them. And annoying too,” Fieran said, though I knew he didn’t mean that, given the pride with which he had spoken about them earlier.
I just smiled and set his food down in front of him. I was not going to be drawn into obsessing over Fieran. Especially watching how everyone else was obsessed with them.
What must that be like? To have everyone both afraid of and awed by you?
While I was working, he came up to the bar to try to talk to me. A girl slid in and tried to chat with him. He gave her polite but brief answers and only cursory glances, his attention fixed on me.
I completely lost the plot of what I was trying to do and started inventing tasks like polishing already dry glasses with a cloth. I just didn’t know what to do with myself when Fieran was watching.
I was saved by the need to serve another round to the far side of the room, and I could feel Galin watching me from where he sat at the table with several other farmers.
Galin caught me with a hand at my waist as I turned back toward the front. “I can’t believe what you did today.”
There was an edge to his admiration, too, that I couldn’t quite understand. Irritation, maybe? Jealousy?
“Neither can I,” I said dryly, since Fieran’s version of events was incredible. “I’m not a hero.”
“You’re going to have fun with the dragon shifter before he leaves?” If Galin was trying to hide his jealousy, he was failing.
“No!” I blushed hot, daring a glance over my shoulder. Fieran was intent in conversation with his friends.
“It seems like too good a chance to pass up.”
“Galin, if you ever want to talk to me again…shut up now,” I warned him.
“I’m speaking as a friend,” he told me. When I raised my eyebrows at him, he raised his hands to appease me. “It’s the ultimate novelty, right? When will shifters ever come through our village in our lifetime?”
“Hopefully never, given why they came.”
“Sex is the one indulgence you allow yourself.” Now he was vexed, though trying to hide it; hurt bubbled under his tone. “Neverlove; you never let yourself love anyone, but you can have sex. So what better situation than with the hot shifter you’ll never see again?”
“You’re doing a great job talking me into it,” I agreed.
His face looked as if I’d slapped him—just for a second—before he said quietly, “If you would just let down your walls, Cara…someone could take care of you. For more than just a night’s needs.”
I doubted that very much. Some of us take care of people, and some of us are taken care of, and rarely do we get to be both.
Galin looked as if he had more he wanted to say, but I cut him off. “I can hear Humbridge getting madder and madder in the kitchen. I’ll be back.”
It was an unusual night when I was more willing to talk to Humbridge than Galin, but I felt flustered by our conversation. Was Galin just trying to stake his claim because Fieran seemed to be flirting with me in front of the whole pub?
I carried out bowls of stew, crinkling my nose—fish stewtoday, never a favorite of mine—to a table of three nice old men who never complained.
Well, Dredick did eye the fish stew in a way that seemed displeased, but all three of them were widowers and always took supper at the pub together.
