Page 25 of Charming the Dragon
Of all the minutes she sat alone in the dark, afraid no one would find her. And all because she’d simply tried to do the right thing.
Eventually her dad found her, and she’d never forget him opening the trunk and scooping her into his arms. Her father had always been reliable and solid and safe. And he’d believed her retelling of what had happened, too. Nigel was never welcome in their home again, and his family moved away.
It’d been so many years since she’d thought about any of that. Hayley had thought she’d moved past it.
But apparently, she hadn’t.
If not for Nathan, it could’ve been a lot worse. Maybe she’d still be sitting there, panicking, and unable to move. However, Nathan’s arms had been warm and safe, almost as if she trusted him to protect her.
Odd, considering she’d never felt that with any of her ex-boyfriends.
Not that Nathan was boyfriend material. Of course he wasn’t.
Besides, she wasn’t looking for a man. And more importantly, she and Nathan would constantly butt heads, even if he was attracted to her.
No, she could look and admire him—both for his tall, muscled self but also for his calm, intelligent demeanor—but that was it.
She eyed the dragonman, who was frowning again, as he studied a keyboard.
Him doing something and her just waiting around calmed her mind even more. Sitting still and doing nothing wasn’t her style. So she asked, “Is there anything I can do to help?” He started to shake his head, but she added, “Please, Nathan, give me something to do. Even if it’s just mentally cataloging everything in this room, I need some sort of distraction.”
He glanced at her, his pupils flashing, and asked, “How good are you at remembering things without writing them down?”
She sat a little taller in her chair. “Excellent. I don’t have an eidetic memory, but I can remember a lot. Otherwise, I’d never be able to win as many cases as I do.”
He grunted. “Then if you want to, you can see how many terminals there are in this room and note which ones have this kind of switch.”
She went over and peered at the red switch that looked like a small handle. “What does it do?”
“My hope is that they’re part of a firing-up sequence for the generator. Kai wouldn’t keep all of this equipment here if there wasn’t a way to power it.”
“Are you sure he knows all of this is here?”
“My guess is yes. Some of this stuff is quite new. Maybe installed in the last year or so. Some of the decade-old relics are probably decoys.”
“So you mean this room is a kind of puzzle?”
“I think so.”
Her eyes roamed the space. “Normally, I like puzzles. However, I’m not sure about this one. I can use computers for my job, but I sometimes click something I shouldn’t or accidentally open something that crashes the computer.”
The light from the candles was dim, but Hayley swore Nathan smiled. If so, she couldn’t hear it in his voice. “That’s more common than you think. But don’t worry, we each have our own skills and strengths. I can’t cook to save my life, let alone stay awake long enough to sort through records of any kind.”
“Are you trying to make me feel better?”
“Would you rather I made you feel worse?”
“Of course not, that’s ridiculous.”
“Right, then start looking for all the little red handles. I’m fairly confident this computer is the main one, where I can initiate the start-up sequence. However, I need to investigate a little more before I try anything, just in case there’s some sort of failsafe.”
“Which means if we do something wrong, we could be in the dark forever.”
She glanced at the candles and noticed they were significantly shorter than when Nathan had first lit them.
He appeared at her side. “There were more candles in the storage room. And if it’s the last thing I do, I vow to get us out of here.”
She searched his eyes. From what she knew about dragon-shifters, they took their vows quite seriously.
