“I can't fly,” she said stiffly.
He tilted his head to one side, obviously waiting for her to continue.
“I can't. Flights mess me up. I get stiff even if I try to move around, and it … just does something that locks me up.”
A little awkwardly, she indicated the length of her arm from her right shoulder down to her fingertips. Morgan's eyes went wide, and then he covered it again with a carefully neutral look.
“All right. No flying.”
“Weren't you planning on flying? You said it was in Upstate New York.”
“I was. Plans change.” Morgan looked like he was fighting with himself, and then he gave in.
“For true mates, plans change. And if someone is coming across the country to help a family member of mine, even if it is to say that they cannot help at all, plans can change.”
With a bit of wonder, Harper realized that Morgan was real. She had seen proof positive of the dragon transformation and of dragon fire. No, it was Morgan the man who had slept the sleep of the dead on her couch and made love to her, that was the one she was unsure about.
Now though, looking into his eyes, she could see the reality of him. He might be a man with secrets, and she had a feeling that the shadows that occasionally shuttered his gaze were very long, but right now, she could see that he was not lying to her. He was earnest in having her come to help his cousin's child, even if it was something that would serve him as well. He would change plans if someone needed him to, whether he was close with them or not.
Harper took a deep breath, let it out, took another one, and gave Morgan a long look.
“Don't make me regret this.”
His grin was as bright as the sun.
“No. Never.”
Chapter Ten
∞∞∞
In the end, Morgan couldn't stay with Harper the way that he wanted to. He had things to arrange, and she did as well.
“I don't know if you make most of your money through hoping your hoard appreciates or what, but I do run a small business,” she had said with a faint trace of humor. “I have to shut things down and to make sure that any clients with questions have them answered before I go. And I also have to make sure that I have enough tools on the road to fix your pretty suit.”
At Morgan's look, Harper laughed out loud.
“You forgot, didn't you? That I had to fix your suit.”
“Will – that is, will you have any problems fixing it while we're driving? It won't hurt you?”
There was something determinedly casual about the way she turned from him, something that he was beginning to realize looked rather familiar.
“No. I'll do the long straight seams when we stop at night. Some of the work is really small and fiddly, and it should be done by hand anyway.”
“Is that good for your hand?”
She had met his eyes with a steely look and a set to her jaw that showed she would not be swayed.
“It's what needs to be done,” she said pointedly. “Are you planning to stand there and tell me how to do the job that you specifically asked me to do?”
Morgan considered, and then he shook his head. He could tell that that wouldn't always be the case. The idea that she was doing something that hurt her just to make money stung and made his dragon growl, low and soft.
He was also, much as he might regret it, coming to recognize the virtue of picking his fights, and he realized that this was neither the time nor the place.
He agreed to come back on Wednesday morning to do a quick fitting with the suit at the shop, and then they could leave together. When they had the details finalized, he didn't expect the soft and excited look on Harper's face.
“What?”
“I'm sorry. I know that there's a lot going on to say the least, but…this is my first vacation.”
“Since opening the shop?”
“Er, well. Since ever, I guess. I started working when I was fifteen at an alterations place at the mall close to where my mom lived, and then I worked there right out of high school. After that, I sort of bounced around from shop to shop before I got the loan to get my own place. Those places don't really give a lot of vacation time, and it's not like I have employees to pick up the slack or anything.”
They had gone on to speak of other things, but her wistful smile had stuck in Morgan's mind. Without telling him directly, likely without even meaning to, she had shown something of herself to him, and what he saw made his heart ache.
As much as Morgan looked like a man, he was a dragon under the skin, and dragons were treasure hunters and treasure hoarders. As the only son of two successful parents, he was very well off, both as humans and dragons were reckoned.
As soon as he had learned that she was his true mate, he had been ready to sign it all over that moment, and, now with a little bit of distance between him and that moment, he could tell exactly how disastrous that might have been. She wasn't ready to be given all his worldly goods, no matter how much he ached to give them to her or how much she deserved them.
However, there was a chance that she was ready for a vacation.
***
He showed up at the shop at eight on Wednesday morning, and he made a face when he found Harper fluttering around the back.
“How long have you been up?” he asked, and she grinned at him. She was wearing her brace that day, and Morgan frowned fleetingly.
“I was having a kind of bad time by the
