Breck looked crestfallen. “I’m a leopard,” he said doubtfully. “I don’t think I could take on a dragon.”
Darla sighed, her brief hope draining away. “It’s not Liam you’d have to worry about. He would stand down… but if he did, then Eugene would challenge you.”
“Eugene? That weaselly-looking man hanging on your mother? What’s he?”
“A cave bear,” Darla said with despair.
“Oh, a cave bear,” Breck said archly. “Is that all.” He didn’t have to say out loud that he stood no more chance as a leopard against a giant extinct bear than he did a dragon. “Well, is there another challenge, possibly a challenge of wits? I could manage that pretty handily. How about a swimsuit competition? You should see me in a Speedo. Even your mother would swoon.”
Darla giggled despite herself. “I’m afraid those aren’t part of the ancient dragon tradition,” she said regretfully.
“Then forget ancient dragon tradition,” Breck suggested. “Run away with me. You don’t need your mother’s blessing to live a life of delicious sin in some little town on the mainland.” Darla thought he was trying to make it a joke. A joke too heavy for humor, too intense for levity.
For one short, blissful moment, gazing into his longing golden eyes, Darla wondered if she could… then she remembered. “The retirement home. Without my inheritance, it will go under. Mrs. Asher… Mr. Danby… they’ll all have nowhere to go. My mother will be so angry, and she has so much power. I’m afraid of what she’d do to Liam, to his family, to the home, just to punish me for humiliating her.”
Breck made a noise that Darla couldn’t identify. Anger, maybe, or frustration.
Everything about the situation was frustrating.
He was so beautiful, so graceful.
And she wanted him so badly.
Suddenly, there was the sound of singing, something operatic in a male voice from the restaurant.
Panic filled Darla’s chest. They couldn’t be seen. Surely the attraction that was sizzling between them would be obvious to any observer.
“Chef,” whispered Breck, clearly thinking the same thing. “Out the back!”
Darla scampered after him to the back door, and there was one beautiful moment when his hand was at her waist as he hurried her outside.
It was quiet behind the kitchen, with the just the promise of dawn in the sky. Breck followed her out, and for a moment, they stood close together, not touching. “If I kiss you, I’ll never be able to stop,” he said regretfully.
“I know,” Darla murmured. She wanted him to anyway, but her head knew that the smartest thing to do was simply not to start.
“Good luck,” Breck said. “I…” He started to offer his hand to shake and reconsidered, drawing it back reluctantly. He knew as well as she did that any touch would take them down a road they couldn’t go.
“Good luck,” Darla echoed quickly, then she turned and fled, as the singing came closer and there was the creak of a door at the other end of the kitchen.
Chapter 14
Breck swept the rest of the Darla’s leftover breakfast into the trash and dunked the dishes under the foaming surface of the dishwater just as Chef swept in the door with a deep resounding line of music.
The kitchen was wrong without Darla. Even knowing that she couldn’t be his, it had been better with her near, being able to talk to her, being able to feed her.
Chef broke off his song with alarm as he strolled down the aisle of the kitchen. “Did you set the timer for the bread?”
Too late, Breck recognized that part of the wrongness of the moment was the slight tinge of burning bread in the air. “Oh, hell,” he said in dismay.
The bread was not badly burned, but Breck felt wretched. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I don’t know what happened. I guess I’m... just tired. Not used to this pre-dawn nonsense.” He couldn’t very well give the real reason for his distraction.
Chef waved him off. “This party is a crusts-cut-off sort of bunch anyway,” he said expansively, tapping the tops of the darkened loaves. “The bread inside is fine.” But he gave Breck a searching look that suggested he wasn’t buying ‘I’m tired’ as a believable excuse.
Breck returned to the dishes, and then chopped fruit, unable to stop thinking about Darla, sitting across the counter with her tousled hair and sweet blue eyes. The way she licked her lips so daintily as she ate, her perfect manners, her gentle voice, the longing in her heart-shaped face...
“Hmmm,” Chef said, eyeing the irregular pieces of pineapple he was trimming. “Who is she?”
Breck looked up in alarm.