Page 27 of To Match A Dragon's Fire

“You sure?” they asked.

“Just one minute.” That’s all I needed.

A moment to pull myself together as best I could and then I’d live to fight another day.

The knots in my back were so tight, they were growing knots of their own. I’d been running high on adrenaline and caffeine for the past fifteen hours and I didn’t want to admit that there’d been a few times I wasn’t sure we’d even make it here.

It was my fault. I’d procrastinated and made all the excuses for why we couldn’t leave yet. We should’ve come much sooner.

I didn’t want to think about what might have happened if we’d waited longer.

My eyes went to the window covered in a layer of dust and grime.

A bitter taste filled my mouth.

Who did this Kieran guy think he was? People can’t just go around building houses on other people’s land.

I hadn’t been following the town politics since I left, but I was damn sure the sheriff of Christmas would not take too kindly to this. It was illegal. A disaster. Not at all what I was expecting.

I thought I’d have to come home and face my ex-husband and the whole town who laughed behind my back, but not this.

Tears filled my eyes and I blinked them away as I looked around my old bedroom.

Everything was exactly as I left it when I moved out at eighteen. My dad hadn’t touched a single thing. And after he passed, it all sat here like a shrine to the girl I once was, slowly disintegrating and gathering dust.

Cobwebs clung to the ruffles of the rose-pink bed skirt and gold-painted metal bar frame of my old bed. The vanity mirror and dresser still had the remains of stickers under the layer of dust.

Yellowed posters curled against their tacks on the wood panel walls, detailing the various rodeos that I’d raced in. One worn flyer announced me as rodeo queen for the county fair.

I was once so young.

My kneespopped as I pushed myself up off the floor and went to pull the flyer down.

I clearly remembered the angsty years I’d spent in this bedroom, back before I really knew trauma.

Oh, sweet summer child.I laughed at myself as I took down the posters.If only you knew how much worse it would get.

Noise in the yard caught my attention and I parted the dusty blinds, clearing a spot off the window to peek through it.

The monstrosity of a building with its landing pad-type roof was an eyesore on the otherwise open and beautiful horizon. It blocked out the view of the creek and valley below. Of course Kieran had taken the better view.

He had to be lying.

That was the only rational explanation.

It wasn’t like Portland around here. You could go months not seeing another living soul. Maybe no one from town had noticed him building or they’d minded their own business and assumed he had something to do with me.

Fat chance. I snorted. It didn’t matter how hot he was or how sexy a voice he had, I did not have a thing for trespassers. I wanted him gone.

Come Monday, I’d head straight to City Hall and get this whole mess sorted out. Then Kieran—whatever his last name was—would meet a bulldozer as I forced him off my land.

∞

“How do you light this thing?” The empty click of the burner ignition came with Willow’s frustrated sigh.

“It’s not going to work,” I said as I walked back into the fray.

“She lives.” Riley tilted a wine bottle in my direction as she sat on the old flannel couch, stroking a scowling Dobby perched on her lap.

---