Page 6 of Cold Foot Sentry (Wreck’s Mountains #6)

He looked over at Jeff and twitched his head.

Jeff and Brian got up and walked toward the jukebox, and only then did Aaron return his attention to her.

He lowered his voice. “I forget why we even used to fight. All I remember is good times. Don’t you?

Don’t you remember what it was like? All the places we went and the things we did, and we were just this little team figuring out life together.

We were always out with a huge group. We were the life of the party.

We were the ones who were always invited out, together. I miss that. I miss you, Tam.”

“I remember you used to come to my bartending shifts and watch me like a hawk and yell at anyone who was male and talked to me. I remember you busted a beer bottle over that guy’s head because he asked for my number.”

“You were my wife—”

“And you didn’t trust me.”

“He shouldn’t have been asking a married woman for her number—”

“He was drunk and probably didn’t know if I was a woman or a fuckin’ turtle, Aaron. It’s an easy no from me when a man asks for my number—”

“Can I have your number?”

She startled hard as she looked up to find Tawk standing there.

“Are you serious, bro? She’s taken.”

“No tan line on that ring finger,” Tawk observed, looking at her left hand. His fiery eyes lifted to hers. “Are you taken?”

“Nope. Completely single. Long-divorced, not dating, no interest in anyone. I have two cats. I’m a cat lady. I don’t want anything more than that. I want peace. Men do not bring me peace. Just my cats.” Oh God, she was rambling.

Tawk nodded, his eyes thoughtful. “I like cats. I came up here for my drink.”

“Shoot, I’m sorry,” she muttered, rushing to pull a beer from the fridge. “I totally forgot.”

“Don’t stress. I was going to put a food order in anyways.” He sat at the bar, just one seat empty between him and her ex-husband.

Well, this was her nightmare.

Tammy fumbled popping the cap off the beer, and when she looked up, Tawk was watching her with an unreadable expression.

“Um, what would you like to eat?” she asked. “If you rush, I can get your order in before happy hour is over.” Her stupid voice was trembling.

He frowned and looked from her to Aaron, and back. “Is he bothering you?”

She sighed and hooked her hands on her hips. God, this couldn’t get any worse. “Tawk, this is Aaron. My ex.”

A smile took Tawk’s lips, and he hung his head, huffed a humorless sound. He nodded, and looked over at Aaron, and chuckled low again.

“What’s so funny?” Aaron asked.

“You’re the reason for the bangs? You?”

Tammy pursed her lips and dropped her gaze, half-mortified, half-amused by the dry humor in Tawk’s tone.

“Who do you think you are?”

Tawk’s smile faded a little but didn’t disappear completely. “Security,” he answered simply, then swung his attention to Tammy. “Do you want him to stay or to go?”

“It’s a free country,” Aaron said. “I can be in here if I want to be. Get me my favorite drink, honey,” he gritted out.

“You know which one. The kind we used to drink together before I took you home and did that thing you like? We’re just talking, you and me.

We’re catching up. Just taking a little trip down memory lane for old time’s sake. ”

Motion caught her eye over Aaron’s right shoulder, and she watched Jess stand up at the end of the table, and then lift her hand into the air, palm up.

And then something terrifying happened.

A prehistoric rumble shook the room, and in a wave, an enormous translucent bronze dragon appeared.

To fit into the cavernous room, he had to be curled up.

His tail appeared first, curled around the jukebox.

The back of the dragon appeared next on the dance floor, and then the legs with the foot long, razor sharp claws.

She tracked the progress of the dragon with a terrified gasp in her throat.

The shoulders appeared and the long neck curved toward the bar, right over where Tawk sat was the head.

It was long, and there were spikes behind the ears.

The eyes were glowing red, with elongated slits for pupils.

The lips were curled back to expose hauntingly sharp teeth, and his nostrils flared just inches from Aaron’s face.

She could see right through the dragon, and Tawk just sat there in the middle of that monstrous head, watching Aaron.

“What the fuck?” Aaron yelled out, falling out of his chair. He hit the ground hard and scrambled backward, but the illusion of the dragon was already gone. There sat Tawk, arm resting on the bar, watching Aaron crab-crawl away with the same red hue to his eyes as the terrifying dragon.

Jess sat back down and started her conversation with Harley again, but Tammy couldn’t move. She stood there frozen in terror.

“That’s…that’s what you look like?” she whispered shakily.

Tawk tracked Aaron’s progress toward the exit, and then Brian and Jeff’s. When they were gone and ripping out of the parking lot in Aaron’s truck, only then did Tawk give her his attention again. He took a sip of his cold beer and said, “Burger basket, hold the veggies, triple meat.”

“F-f-f French fries or tater tots?” she stammered.

Never in her life had she seen a shifter Changed. That was the closest she’d come, and the sheer size of him, and the power that emanated off that illusion still made it hard to drag air into her lungs.

“Both.”

“Say please!” Cash called across the bar, where it seemed none of the human inhabitants had seen the terrifying dragon for that split second.

Tawk gave a slow smile, and his teeth were too sharp. “Please.” There was a growl to his voice, and he smelled like bonfire smoke.

She couldn’t move. Tammy just stood there frozen. “Is that what you look like?” she asked again.

“Can I have your number?” he asked instead of giving her an answer.

“W-why would you want it?” She was just a human, and he was so, so much more.

“So that if your ex comes back and you don’t want him to, you can call me.” He shrugged. “I’ll be security.”

“I can handle him,” she said defensively.

The slow smile was back at the corners of his masculine lips. “I find that sexy.” He stood and pulled his wallet out. “May I pay the Cold Foot tab?”

“Are you leaving?”

“No. I just feel like one of them will try to pay it all before I can.”

Baffled, she took his credit card. “That’s very nice of you.”

“I’m not nice.” The way he said it with such conviction, she believed him.

“This is a nice gesture.”

“It is a selfish one. I’m working.”

“We can hear you, Asshole,” Cash called across the room.

“Jess fed me power just now. I feel good. I want to keep feeling good. In order to stay near Wreck’s Mountains and close to Jess, who can feed me, I need to pull my weight. Perhaps if I pay for their tab, the Crew will soften toward me and let me stay.”

Behind him, the entire Cold Foot Crew was quiet and watching him.

“I don’t have feelings,” Tawk continued. “Not like you, and not like the Cold Foot Crew. That doesn’t mean I can’t build loyalty.” There was this clicking sound on the last word that sounded like a Firestarter, and another wave of bonfire smoke washed over the bar.

“You’re dangerous, aren’t you?” she asked softly.

“Not to you. Not to Jess or her people.”

Okay. Stunned, Tammy turned to the computer and entered in his burger basket order, added it to the Cold Foot tab, and ran his credit card for the entire drink and food check for the Crew.

“So, you understand what nice behavior is, but you don’t really feel it? You don’t feel satisfaction from being kind?”

“No,” he answered sternly.

Well, at least he was honest. More than she could say for Aaron during any part of their relationship.

He took another swig of beer and stood. And stood, and stood. Gads, she forgot how tall he was. He looked bigger now too. Broader in the shoulder, more powerful in the legs. He walked away.

“Say thank you,” Cash called.

Tawk turned. Automatically, he said, “Thank you.”

“Not you, dumbass. I mean Tammy.”

“Tell him thank you for what?” she asked, baffled.

“For making your ex go away. That dude smelled like fuckboy.”

Tammy pursed her lips against a laugh and then cleared her throat delicately. “Thank you for making him go away.”

Tawk held her gaze for a few seconds longer and then turned and made his way back to the table.

“Dude, say you’re welcome, geez. Use your words. Did your mother not teach you manners at all?”

“I smiled at her,” Tawk said. “I was smooth.”

She was pretty sure that’s what he said at least. A 90s hip hop dance song was kicking off, and the girls in the Crew were singing.

Cash was griping at Tawk, but it was Jess who caught her eye.

You okay? the witch mouthed.

Tammy nodded and exhaled the breath she’d been holding.

Much better now.