Reese watched me with a look of sympathy and understanding. “Been there.” She slid her own untouched water glass toward me when I’d emptied mine.
As the heat gradually subsided, I stared at the innocuous baggie I’d dropped on the counter in my shock. Twenty thousand dollars. For something a naked man in the woods had left—or dropped—in my tent.
What moral code did one go by in this situation? Did I try to find the owner? What if it was stolen? Had the man robbed someone and then lost his clothes during the getaway?
Holy shit. What if he’d murdered someone and his lack of clothes was because he’d gotten rid of the evidence?
“Look,” Reese said after I’d finished drowning myself in ice water, “why don’t you just move into the RV? We can worry about payment later, after you get this appraised properly.”
I looked at her skeptically. “You’d let a complete stranger stay in your RV on the promise of future payment?”
She shrugged, a small smile playing on her lips. “Consider it a professional courtesy from one woman who’s had to start over to another.” She paused. “I might actually have a buyer for the knife. Let me take some pictures of it. Definitely get it appraised, though.”
I hesitated, torn between caution and the overwhelming need for a decent place to sleep. What did I have to lose at this point?
“Let’s do it.”
Chapter 5
Lucan
Itilted my face toward the morning sun and took another massive bite of my breakfast burrito.
Kade might be a grouchy bastard most days, but the man could cook. The eggs were perfectly fluffy, the chorizo had just the right amount of spice, and the potatoes were extra crispy.
“How’s your nose today?” Zarek’s voice cut through my moment of second breakfast bliss.
I glanced up, confused. My nose? I ran the back of my hand across it, checking for hot sauce or something. “What about my nose?”
Zarek’s lips quirked up at one corner. “You know, because you’re a bear now.”
I took another bite of food, and it took me a second to register what he was saying before it clicked. I choked on my burrito, coughing as Atlas pounded me on the back a bit too enthusiastically.
Kade’s head snapped up, his brow furrowed. “What do you mean—” he started, but the sound of tires on gravel interrupted him.
Reese pulled into the spot next to Kade’s truck, and like someone had yanked an invisible chain, Kade was up andmoving before she even turned off the engine. His half-eaten burrito sat abandoned on the picnic table, a testament to how thoroughly his mate had rewired his priorities.
“Look at that.” Atlas sighed dramatically, one hand pressed to his chest. “Our fearless leader, felled by love. It’s so romantic I could weep.”
“It’s ridiculous,” Zarek muttered, stabbing at his burrito with a fork. Who eats a burrito like that? “He drops everything the second she appears.”
I watched as Kade opened Reese’s door, his normally stern expression softening into something that would have been sappy on anyone else. When she smiled up at him, he leaned down to press a gentle kiss on her lips. The casual intimacy of it sent a sharp pang through my chest.
My dragon stirred, a restless pressure beneath my ribs. He wanted that.
I couldn’t agree more. Seeing Kade with his mate only heightened the ache that had been growing since I’d caught her scent in the forest. The memory of her face flashed through my mind. The gentle curve of her jaw, the wideness of her brown eyes, the way her short hair was just the right length to grab onto a handful.
Even terrified, she’d been the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen.
“Oh, shit,” Atlas stage-whispered, “look at Lucan’s face.”
“What?” I snapped out of my thoughts, suddenly aware I’d been staring dreamily at nothing.
Atlas pointed at my face with half a burrito. “You have full-on heart-eyes. See, Zarek, you’re clearly the flame killer here if you can’t appreciate this level of romance.”
My neck grew hot. Was I really being that obvious?
“Heart eyes? What? No!” I rubbed at my eyes defensively. “It’s the bear spray.”
