Page 9 of Cold Foot Sentry (Wreck’s Mountains #6)

Tawk started reversing out of her driveway, but Tammy waved her hand at him.

“Yeah?” he asked through his open window.

“Do you want to come in?”

“For cupcakes,” he said carefully.

“Just for cupcakes.”

He put the truck into park and rolled up his window, then cut the engine and got out. She thought he would come straight for her so they could go inside, but he made his way to her 4Runner instead, and asked her to, “Turn on the lights.”

“You don’t have to do that,” she called as he undid the latch under the hood and lifted it easily. “I don’t need a hero.”

“I’m not trying to be a hero. Maybe I’m just looking for an excuse to see what engine you’re running in this thing.”

“It’s stock. V6. It’s the 3.4 liter.”

“How many miles on it?” he asked.

“Two hundred thirty thousand miles and was still running like a top until the battery went.”

“The battery looks new,” he observed, poking around under the hood.

“I got it maybe three months ago.”

A frown was etched onto his face as he scanned around the battery, moving his head to get better angles. He pulled out his phone and turned on the light.

She shrugged. If he wanted to fiddle with her truck, who was she to stop him? She’d been having to switch the batteries out too much. Maybe he could figure out what was draining them so fast.

She made her way into the house and turned on the garage lights.

“Thank you,” she heard him call from outside.

She gave a private smile. He remembered his manners a lot better now. She lined up all of the cupcake ingredients on the countertop, but this strange sensation was growing inside of her chest. She couldn’t stop thinking about Tawk, just outside of her house. Only one tiny wall separated them.

She narrowed her eyes at the front door. She really needed to get these cupcakes in the oven.

Her instincts won though, and she gave into her you-only-live-once mentality and opened the garage door so she could sit near him while he worked.

There was an old rocking chair that had come with the house she was renting from Sasha of the Cold Foot Crew. She pulled it up to about ten feet from where Tawk was still messing around under her hood and relaxed into it.

“You don’t have a jacket,” he said without turning around.

“You, and jackets, and bossing me around. I’ll survive.” She wouldn’t admit it, but she was a little chilly though.

“Stubborn woman,” he gritted out, and walked past her into the garage to a table full of old tools that had also come with the house.

There was a tool chest with drawers, and he pulled those open next, taking inventory.

He straightened his spine suddenly and huffed an irritated sigh. “Please put on a jacket.”

She frowned at him. “Why do you think I’m so fragile?” she asked.

He inhaled deeply, and looked like he wanted to say something, but didn’t. Instead, he returned to pulling tools from the drawers, studying them, and replacing them until he found the one he seemed to want. “Forget it,” he muttered as he passed her by.

“I’m honestly asking,” she said, sitting on the edge of the rocking chair. “I’m not weak, you know. I’m not a dragon, sure, but I know things.”

“Like what kind of things?”

“Self-defense. I’ve taken classes most of my life. Plus, I have my CHL.”

“You carry a handgun?” he asked, and now his glowing gold eyes held interest.

“When I feel the need. I go to the range, and practice, and I don’t need anyone to show me what to do.”

He nodded. “What else do you know?”

“Basic stuff on fixing my truck. Tomorrow I’ll replace the battery all by myself and get it running again. I can even change the oil, and fix flat tires.”

“Who taught you?”

“My dad. He was really present when I was younger. He didn’t want me to be his little princess though.

He wanted me to be a little badass that could take care of myself, so he taught me things.

While my friends were at the mall hanging out, I was in the garage with my dad learning about oil filters,” she said with a laugh at the memory.

“I used to get so angry with him and thought he was the worst when he would say no to me hanging with my friends and being normal. He would take me into the woods and camp and show me survival stuff, and he had a punching bag in the garage for me, and he was training me on the weekends to never take shit from a man.”

“I think I would like your dad.”

“Yeah, well he’s different now. I miss the way he was. My mom traveled for work, and so he was the main one raising me, but when my mom retired, they decided to go travel the world. I know they earned it, but I miss the relationship with my dad, you know? Everything changes when you get older.”

“Mmm. Your terminal connectors are bad too.”

“Huh?”

Tawk pointed under the hood of her truck. “Terminal connectors. You need new ones. A few other things too that’ll cause you pretty immediate problems. I can make you a list.”

“Oh. Thank you.” She crossed her arms over her chest. Here she’d been pouring her heart out to someone who was clearly uninterested. She felt silly. “I don’t know why I told you about my dad.”

“Because I asked where you learned all your tough-girl stuff. When do you go to the range?”

“Why? Do you shoot?”

“I can. When?”

“Whenever I have free time. I haven’t been since I moved here. School was…well it was draining at the end. Most of my classes were online, but some I had to travel to Missoula for. Plus work, plus studying for finals, and the move was a lot…”

“It’s over now.” A slow smile took his lips in the gold hues of the porch light. “Back to the fun stuff. I won’t show you how to do anything. I won’t try to be your hero. You can do your thing, and I’ll do my thing in my own lane.”

“You…” She frowned. “You want to go to the range with me?” She’d thought he’d just been bored out of his mind with her stories about her dad.

“My mom is human. She got sick.”

Tammy parted her lips to say something, but she felt like she was on uneven ground with him again. She tried again. “I’m sorry.”

“She’s okay. You asked why I think you’re fragile. Because my mother was. For a while at least.”

“What was she sick with?”

“Same thing all you humans get sick with.”

“Oh.” He was sharing with her. Sharing about his mother. “Do shifters not get cancer?”

“No. She was going through treatment but her immune system was down and she kept getting little colds that turned into big colds. So…put a fucking jacket on.”

She snorted and hung her head at his sweet-and-then-sour demeanor. Okay, so he bossed her around about the jacket for a reason. Did he…did he like her? Did he care?

“I thought Sentry dragons don’t have feelings.”

“Who said that?”

“You hinted at it, and also Harley told me.”

“You asked Harley about me? Harley doesn’t know me.”

“No, but she asked Kade and Jess. One of them must’ve told her Sentry dragons don’t have feelings because that’s what she told me. The internet was next-to useless for information about your people. Wait,” she uttered as something struck her. “Your mother is human?”

“Yes,” he clipped out, and then waited.

“So, your father is a Sentry dragon?”

“Was.”

“Oh. Oh, I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. He and my mother weren’t exactly travel-the-world-together-after-retirement types. He was…” He narrowed his eyes at the ground, searching for the right word. “Strict. With me but especially with my mother.”

“It’s hard to live in a home like that.”

“My mother was too sweet for a man like him. I don’t know why he was her choice. I’ve asked but she doesn’t know the answer either. She was just taken with him, and put up with a lot, and then he left, and it was better. For her.”

“Not for you?”

He shrugged. “I had to learn a lot about my dragon the hard way.”

And she tried to imagine it—a young boy with a mighty dragon growing inside of him, having to figure out everything with no guidance, and a human mother who couldn’t truly relate to what her son was going through.

“That must’ve been very hard.”

“Hardship makes worthwhile men.”

Chills rippled up her forearms. “Where did you hear that?”

He shook his head, and confusion swirled in his glowing eyes. “It’s just how I feel.”

“Hardship does give life experience.”

“And independence, and confidence, and resilience. What value is an untested man?”

And she thought of Aaron. He’d been handed everything his entire life and had this air of entitlement.

He expected the world to bend to him, and to forgive him when he made mistakes without ever taking accountability.

Had the pretty girls in middle school, had her loyalty in high school, had all the cool friends, and had the nice car from his parents on his sixteenth birthday.

He’d been accepted into the college he wanted, and his parents had paid for it all.

He hadn’t gotten his first job until he graduated, and even that was handed to him by his father straight after graduation.

Any bad behavior, he’d charmed his way out of the consequences, including with her until she’d finally left him.

What value was an untested man?

What value was a man who had been handed the world and didn’t understand cherishing something special?

Tawk didn’t say a bunch of filler words. He was a man who spoke when he felt it was important, and the more she came to understand that, the more interesting these exchanges with him became.

“I guess not much value at all.”

“Did you have hardship?” he asked quietly.

“Everyone does.”

“But did you?”