Page 3 of Dragon His Heels
Chapter 2
This was not going according to plan.
Talia stared at the fat white pillars lining the front of the brick mansion overlooking a thirty-acre, sandy bottom lake. The house, located in a quiet suburb of Detroit—and the lake—was owned by the Zilarra dragon colony. Which meant the current reeve called it home.
In other words, Gabe’s place.
Talia had been enjoying a girls’ night out with her bestie, Petra, when Jasmine called, begging for her help. She hadn’t hesitated to rush out of the restaurant and head straight to New Orleans. She hadn’t even stopped at home to change from her flirty sundress and high-heeled sandals, which hadn’t exactly made traveling easy. But the desperation in Jasmine’s voice had spurred her on, and once she arrived, she was glad she hadn’t wasted a single minute. That minute might have been the difference between life and death.
And now it was the next morning and she was back, with Ruby in tow, and despite her lack of sleep—or maybe because of it—she’d figured introducing him to the child was the perfect plan. Ruby needed a father, and he needed some responsibility he couldn’t ignore.
Moving in with him, though, was not part of the plan she’d concocted on the fly.
‘Took you long enough.” Gabe flung open the door and pulled her into the two-story, pristine white foyer.
“It hasn’t even been an hour,” she said. And that even included taking a much needed shower.
“Come on.”
She released the handle on her wheeled luggage, and it wobbled for a few moments before falling on its side. He didn’t even notice; he was too busy leading her across the tile floor toward the home theatre room he’d had installed shortly after taking over as reeve. He opened the door, and the teapot song fromBeauty and the Beastassaulted her ears. Ruby glanced up at them from her perch on the wrap-around couch. A TV tray piled with cookies and potato chips and a can of Coke was parked in front of her.
“Is this appropriate for a kid her age?” Gabe demanded, glaring at Talia like she’d done something wrong by going to her own home to pack a bag before moving in so she could help take care ofhisdaughter.
“The movie? Yes. The cookies and chips and caffeinated beverage? Most definitely not.” Talia strode to the little girl, lifting the tray and moving it across the room.
Gabe shrugged and stabbed his thumb over his shoulder in Talia’s direction. “Don’t look at me,” he said to Ruby. “Blame her.”
Talia glared at him and pointed at the doorway. “We need to talk.”
He sauntered out of the room like he wasn’t the least bit worried about what she would say. Damn it, she should tell him to forget this, she wasn’t cut out for this crap.
Except she was.
He strode to the wet bar set up in the foyer—because what mansion didn’t need a wet bar in the entry?—and dropped a handful of ice cubes into a lowball glass before pouring whiskey over them, filling it almost to the rim.
She doubted it was his first drink of the day, either. In fact, she was pretty certain he’d still been drunk from the night before when she showed up with Ruby this morning.
“Is there anything I need to know about last night? Any messes I need to clean up?”
He shrugged and took a slug from his drink. “Nah. We went to a hotel, so housekeeping had to deal with the cleanup.”
“I’m afraid to ask.”
His gray eyes sparkled over the rim of his glass, which didn’t conceal his grin. “She wanted me to cover her in marshmallow fluff before fucking her.”
Talia stared at him. “Are you serious?”
He laughed. “One hundred percent. Not my thing, to tell you the truth. Too damn sticky. But hey, now I can say I did it.”
She shook her head. The man was a hopeless case. And she was a fool to think she could help him grow up and accept his responsibility like the reeve he was supposed to be. “Okay, let’s focus on Ruby. If we’re going to make this work, you cannot paint me as the bad guy every time you screw up with her.”
Gabe took a long swallow of his drink and then offered it to her. “Want some?”
Damnation, she was tempted. Gabe’s antics drove her to drink on a regular basis. “Did you hear me?”
“You’re practically shouting and you’re two feet away and dragons have exceptional hearing, Talia.”
She pursed her lips.
