“You’re doing it wrong,” Blaine grumbled, looking over Estelle’s shoulder to check on the form she was completing.
Estelle glared up at him and shook her head. “Actually, I’m not.”
“You are. See, you’re supposed to put the…oh.”
Estelle raised her brow at him and shrugged him away.
“I told you.”
Blaine pursed his lips and walked away. So, he had been wrong about a stupid piece of paperwork. Big deal.
“Blaine, we’re having some issues with the front-end loader,” Jake said, coming up from behind Blaine.
“For fuck’s sake!” Blaine growled. “What else is going to go wrong this week? You know we only have a month left in the season!”
“I’m heading down now,” Jack said, his voice quiet and even despite Blaine’s fury. “I know it’s been rotten luck, but remember, we at least found that quartz deposit. And there’s gold close by, I can smell it.”
“Yeah,” Blaine grumbled, closing the door to the office in Jack’s face. He wouldn’t be able to relax until the lawyers got back to him about the deed to the mountain. The dragons were honing in on the territory fast, and making it sound a lot like they wanted a fight. If that’s really what they wanted, he could give it to them, but there would be a steep price to pay…
“Blaine! Jack asked if I wanted to ride down the mountain to see the front-end loader. Can I?”
Blaine was torn from his thoughts by Estelle, who had come through the door without knocking. Wasn’t she even the least bit intimidated by him, for crying out loud?
“I don’t give a shit!” Blaine exclaimed. “I ain’t your daddy.”
“Well no, but…” Estelle looked at him, her eyes twinkling as she seemed to consider her next words.
“What, you’re thinking I might fire you for leaving during office hours?”
Estelle nodded, but an easy, beautiful smile lit up her face. It was hard to be mad staring at her, looking at him like that. He let out a deep sigh.
“All right then. Just get that shit to me before -”
“It’s already done,” Estelle said, pulling a small collection of papers from behind her back and walking them to Blaine’s desk. “I guess I’ll see you later then.”
“Yeah, I guess you will,” Blaine grumbled.
Estelle’s smile widened and Blaine shook his head as she turned away to follow Jack to the parking lot. That was some girl.
He sighed, trying not to think too much of it.
“You coming or what, Blaine?”
Jack was outside the window, looking in at Blaine with a mischievous expression in his eyes.
“What the hell,” Blaine sighed. It would be good to get out of the office for a while. It was starting to feel a bit stuffy. At least outside he could oversee what was going on and have a good idea of what to expect.
They rode in Jack’s truck, Blaine and Estelle sandwiched together between Jack as they descended Oak Mountain, until they made it to the bottom, where, sure enough, the front-end loader was sitting with its scoop dangling in the air and tufts of black smoke billowing out from the engine.
“So, what happened here, boys?” Jack asked, strutting down the steep incline and down to where the men had congregated, all of them avoiding Jack and Blaine as if they were the plague.
“Tad here broke the damn thing,” one of the men said quickly, shoving a scrawny man forward. Blaine narrowed his eyes, but the men started laughing. So, they were just picking on the kid.
“All right, well whichever one of you was driving needs to come up and tell me what you know so we can get this puppy fixed. You know we have a time crunch.”
The men mumbled their agreement and then got back to work, leaving everybody busy except for Estelle and Blaine.
“So, what’s this mine for?” Estelle asked, walking casually over to Blaine. “It looks different from the other ones.”
“Not much different,” Blaine said. “We’re mostly just testing the area. See that boulder over there?”
Estelle’s dazzling baby blue eyes scanned the side of the mountain until it located the boulder and then a beautiful smile lit her face. Blaine had to look away before she realized he was staring.
“I see it.”
“Well that means that there was probably a river around here in ancient times. We’re checking for gold here, see those machines?”
Again, Estelle’s eyes followed Blaine’s hand she nodded.
“We’re stripping off the overburden so we can test the area. It will help us to map out the course of the pay dirt.”
Estelle contemplated this for a moment before finally turning to Blaine.
“What makes you so passionate about gold?” she asked, her blue eyes intent on his. Damn she was pretty. He had half a mind to take her right then and there. His claim on her must have been stronger than he thought. What the hell was wrong with that bear? Didn’t it care that she was half his age?
“You mean other than the money?” he asked, quirking his brow and doing everything in his power to tear his thoughts away from his attraction. But the bear wasn’t making that very easy.
“I guess so,” Estelle said with a soft laugh. “I would assume you wouldn’t care much about money… The shifter communities are usually really self-sufficient…”
“Well, we have our share of resources,” Blaine agreed. “I think what I really love about it is the adventure.”
“Adventure, huh?” Estelle asked, grinning.
Blaine held her gaze, the bear urging him to take charge of the situation. Maybe get her alone and find out more about her. But he was disgusted by its shameless efforts at advancement on the young girl. She was half his age!
“I’m an adventurous guy, believe it or not,” he said, unable to keep the flirtatious tone out of his voice. He glanced around at the men, embarrassed by the thought of being caught flirting with a kid, but they were all busy and hard at work. It took a lot of time to sample the area for gold, and he knew that they were on the right track. He could feel it.
“I believe it,” Estelle said, coming a little bit closer. Blaine cleared his throat.
“How’s it coming over there, Jordie?” he bellowed, ignoring Estelle’s face falling as he disengaged quickly from the conversation.
He just couldn’t let himself do this. No matter how much the bear wanted her, it wasn’t right. Blaine would just have to be stronger than his impulses, whether he liked it or not. He wasn’t going to get himself entangled with anyone. Especially not after the last time…
“Goin’ good, boss,” Jordie said, gesturing to the silt he was sifting through. “Might have found ourselves a riverbed, just like we thought.”
“Good!” Blaine said, heartened by the news. “All right then. Keep looking.”
Thank god something was going right around here. It was hard enough to be stuck in the damn place with everything messing up. He was sick of all his efforts being fucked up.
“Blaine, what are you guys doing here?”
“Fuck,” Blaine grumbled. “Geron.”
“You’re trespassing, Blaine. You know that.”
Blaine could feel Estelle’s eyes upon him; sense her confusion and worry. And for some reason, that pissed him off. Bad. No woman needed to worry about him. And fuck Geron for making her feel like she should.
“Dammit, Geron, this is my mountain. You have no right to tell me that I’m trespassing anywhere.”
Knowing that Estelle was there seemed only to escalate the situation. Blaine could not have his masculinity threatened by this annoying old Dragon shifter. He wasn’t worth the trouble or the time, and yet Blaine could feel his blood pressure rising dangerously high.
“The land belongs to nobody, but the shifter clans made a pact long ago that your kind have been completely ignoring. We stand true to the old laws, if they had not existed then why do you think that there are tunnels here that are full of ancient Dragon shifter artifacts? You can’t keep us from our heritage forever. This is our birthright, not yours. And if you aren’t careful with that giant machine of yours, you are going to find yourself destroying a tunnel that you really don’t want to mess with.”
“I think you really don’t want to mess with me right now, Geron,” Blaine growled, the bear inside of him nearly uncontrollable with rage. “We’re going to do things our way just like we always have, whether you like it or not. This mountain has been in my family for generations. “
“I understand that you feel like you have a need to explore these places. I do. And we have been patient. But that will no longer be the case, I promise you. I wish you luck.”
Geron bowed deeply at Blaine, a sarcastic, resigned smile on his face.
It took everything that he had not to lose his temper and go after the cocky old man, especially when he saw the fear and worry on Estelle’s face.
“What was that about?” she asked him, stepping cautiously forward as if she could sense his anger and wanted to be careful.
“Those Dragon assholes have been giving my kind shit for centuries. Even though this mountain belonged to my people, they tunneled in secret. They are the trespassers. And yet, they feel like every time we do something to encroach on those tunnels in our own land, that they are entitled to keep that special place. It’s a power game. And we have tried to make peace with them, and have been at peace for 50 years. But ever since my grandfather died, they have been coming after me and trying to get as much of our land as possible for themselves.”
Of course, Blaine could not tell her about the holes story. About the powerful portals that existed within the mountain. How the Dragon shifters had destroyed holy altars that essentially cause a war between the two clans. How the shifters had been seeking these portals for centuries, and all they knew was that somewhere in Oak Mountain, is where they resided.
Portals were a source of power, a direct link right back to the world where shifters belonged. Their lives were not meant to be dull and confined by human rules. No, they deserved to roam free in nature, without having any human backlash telling them that there was something wrong with them for being born the way that they were.
Ancient bear shifter magic had been able to locate the mountain, and Blaine’s ancestors had purchased it for themselves. There was an unspoken rule that well remaining on earth, the shifters had to abide by human laws and regulations. The deed was a pact, it was a reluctant source of peace. And it had been passed down throughout Blaine’s family for a long time. The Dragon shifters had respected his grandfather and his grandfather’s father before him, but they had always been looking for an opportunity to encroach on the mountain. They had always been looking for the portals so that they could exploit their power.
With Estelle standing there looking at him, her baby blue eyes full of concern and pity, Blaine found himself even more furious than he had begun. He let out a tremendous roar and took off running up the mountainside, unable to keep the bear within him from taking over. He had to be alone. All of this was just too much. He would have to do with the Dragon shifters, with or without the law on his side. He would do whatever it took to protect the mountain. Especially now that there was a girl like Estelle living on it with him.