Chapter Fifteen
Rowe
They ate dinner together that night.
He had hoped that it might be romantic, or at the least a little sexually-charged atmosphere between the two, after all the talking they’d done earlier that day. Now that they were behind closed doors, Rowe had wanted to try and pick things up again, see where they went. It was becoming more painful with every passing hour to have his mate so close to him and yet feel like the distance was farther than before.
While he tried helplessly to speak to her, to engage her in conversation, Cheryl just gave him vacant, one-word replies. He eventually gave up, sitting back to watch her. Something was going on, and it wasn’t him this time. It was evident in her body language, the way she spent forever aimlessly pushing a morsel of food around on her plate before finally getting up the energy to stab it and shove it into her mouth.
It was almost like she’d given up hope, or had lost her faith in something. Rowe was left in the dark, unable to read her mind. His irritation with her attitude grew, until finally he snapped.
“What’s going on with you? Will you please just tell me what I did wrong so I can fix it?”
Cheryl stopped poking at the food on her plate. She’d barely touched the meal, much to his chagrin. They were having perfectly grilled pork tenderloin, seasoned asparagus, and garlic mashed potatoes. Classic fare that in his estimation was delicious. Apparently Cheryl couldn’t taste it.
Silence reigned as she continued to stare down at her plate like some sort of sullen teenager that was being forced to eat with their family when they didn’t want to. It was a side of her he’d never seen before, and until she opened up he had absolutely no idea how to fix it, leaving him to feel helpless.
That wasn’t a feeling he was used to. As a dragon shifter he was young, only just entering his eighth decade, but it had allowed him to spend much time around humans of an equivalent age, from their early twenties to mid-thirties or so. The experience piled up, and he often found himself easily able to dissect emotions and situations in a way that his human friends would find acceptable.
All that seemed to flee him when it came to Cheryl. He was too scared of making a mistake and permanently ruining things between them. The thought of losing his mate and never being able to have what Palin or Torran had found was a fear that he’d so far been unable to shake.
The ranch house creaked slightly in the wind. With all the laborers having their own building to bunk down in, the huge ranch house was almost creepy with only the two of them living there. The noises were the only sounds they heard, besides each other when they were in close proximity. It was nice when he sought peace and quiet, but at times where noise would help it could feel absolutely cavernous with just the pair of them.
He was about to press the issue with Cheryl when he noticed her swipe at her eye.
Instantly he was on his feet, heading to a nearby side table and grabbing a box of tissues. He crouched at her side and slid one into her hand. “Here.”
She grabbed it and dabbed at her eyes.
“I’m sorry.”
“What are you sorry for?”
It was the classic argument. A man apologizes, and a woman wants to know why. There was no winning this argument.
“I’ve done something to upset you. Something that I’m oblivious to, but the effects are noticeable. I don’t know what it is, but I’m sorry.”
“That’s nice to hear, but you didn’t do anything,” she explained with a sniffle. “Nothing bad. You’re kind of the hero of it all.”
The conversation was not going the way he’d expected, leaving Rowe at somewhat of a loss. “Can you maybe explain for me?”
She smiled up at him, and his heart bounced. He couldn’t get enough of her looking at him like that.
“The barn, the other day. You saved my life from the falling hay bale. Then you handled the graffiti. Today you charged into the forest and fought off two men who were trying to kidnap one of the workers.”
Rowe was uncomfortable with the praise. He was just doing what needed to be done. The workers had gotten in the way of something they didn’t understand, and he was the only one who could handle it. That didn’t make him a hero for cleaning up a mess that they didn’t create.
“Whether you hate it has nothing to do with the truth,” she said, seeing his reaction.
“Maybe.” It was as much as he was willing to concede with her. As far as Rowe was concerned he’d just been doing his job. He said as much.
All at once the tears resumed in full force.
“Cheryl. Please, talk to me. What’s wrong?”
“Like you said, it’s just your job, Rowe.” She sniffled and blew her nose. He handed her several more tissues, anxious to get to the bottom of things.
“I don’t understand.”
“This isn’t my job! Something breaks? Okay, not likely, but it’s not too out of the normal. But did you know that they looked at the rope that broke?”
He shook his head. Nobody had told him that.
“It was cut halfway through.”
Rowe went still, the implications clear. Someone had purposefully tried to hurt them.
“Then there’s the graffiti, and today someone was assaulted and kidnapped. Kidnapped! That’s not my job. This doesn’t happen in the real world. I don’t know what to do here. The workers are ready to revolt and leave, regardless of how good the pay is.” She laughed, but it wasn’t a pleasant sound. “There’s talk now that the pay was so good because Palin knew this was going to happen. They’re calling it danger pay.”
He shook his head. “That’s not it. That’s just the way Palin is. He’s very generous.”
“It doesn’t matter! People don’t get kidnapped on a farm, Rowe! Something weird is going on, and it’s my job to figure it out and I can’t because it doesn’t make any sense and oh God…” She looked up at him. “They’re going to fire me for this, aren’t they? I’m going to lose my job.” She started to shake.
Rowe did the only thing he could think of. He pulled Cheryl in tight and held her while she cried.
“This is all my fault,” she heaved through the sobs.
“Say again?” he asked, not sure he’d heard her properly.
“My fault,” she said, the sobs halting for a moment. “It’s all my fault. I’ve done something wrong. Maybe someone is pissed off at me and is doing this to get back at me.”
Rowe’s jaw was hanging open by the end. “That is some convoluted logic.”
“Why?”
“Do you have any enemies? People who would want to get back at you?”
Cheryl was silent. “No, but that doesn’t—”
He cut her off. “Does anyone who even dislikes you have any idea where you are right now, or what it is you do?”
Cheryl shook her head. “What if it was one of the workers though?”
“I fought the men who took the worker today, Cheryl. I saw their faces. They’re twins, like I told you, and they most definitely are not part of our farm hands.”
“It could be though.”
“No,” he said strongly. “It couldn’t be.”
“I screwed up by not addressing the vandalism in a more serious manner. It’s my fault, Rowe. Someone could be dead now because of me.”
He rolled his eyes. “Stop trying to victimize yourself, please. This would be going on whether you were here or not.”
Cheryl stopped crying. “How could you know that?”
“I just know.”
His mate sat up straight, never taking her eyes off him. She readjusted the ponytail, tightening it up after it had come loose, keeping the red-tinged hair from her face so she could better examine him.
“That’s rather cryptic. How do I know you aren’t the one behind this?” she asked. “You seemed to know just what to do, or when to do it.”
The growl started in his stomach, and he just barely stopped it short of his mouth. The table and cutlery rattled it was so loud. Cheryl’s face went wide and she looked around nervously.
“I am not your enemy, Cheryl. I’ve never once done anything to deserve that accusation.”
Defiance sparked in the backs of her eyes, but it extinguished as she realized he was right. “I’m sorry, Rowe, you didn’t deserve that.” She slumped, suddenly exhausted. It had been a long day.
“Take this.” He handed her the tissue box and then without asking he simply picked her up, holding her sideways against him.
“What are you doing?”
“Putting you to bed. You need to curl up in your bed and pass out. Doctor Rowe’s orders.”
“You’re a doctor now too?”
“For you, I’m whatever you need me to be,” he whispered. “Driver. Bodyguard. Friend. Confidant. Lover. You just need to ask.”
He waited for her to speak, but she didn’t say a word as he brought her up to her room and opened the door.
Rowe just wanted to scream at her that if she would just let him in he could help share the burden, to ease her straining shoulders. He could do whatever she needed to make everything easier, including revealing his secret, so that she could rest knowing that he would be able to keep her safe no matter.
Until she asked though, he was severely limited in his options. That wouldn’t stop him from being there if she needed, and he carried her with the same gentle touch that he would if they were headed to bed as lovers. That was just the sort of person he was.
So he carried her upstairs, ready to put her to bed if that was all that was needed of him. Rowe would just have to stay lonely for a while longer.
What was one more day after seventy-one years?