Dead Sexy Dragon(7)

“Never needed them.” Stig poured a cup of coffee from the steaming carafe and sat in his usual chair. He grabbed a plate and piled food onto it. Across the table, Cora served herself and sipped apple juice. Bringing up the dreams seemed best done while they were occupied with food. “You sleep okay?”

“Yes.”

Her clipped reply caught his attention. Despite her downward gaze, the stain of a blush was evident on her cheeks. His belly clenched. So that hadn’t been a simple dream. His dragon had preyed on Cora’s psychic energy. That type of thing had happened before but never in such a sexual manner. In the close, cramped quarters at war, Stig often found it impossible to keep from feeding off the dream energy of his comrades. He’d joined his friends on fishing excursions and football games and the like but this thing with Cora? That was all new.

Cora held up a glass jar. “Where did you get these raspberry preserves?”

Clearly she wanted to change the subject. “Farmer’s market in town. They get together every Saturday morning on the courthouse lawn.”

“I’ll have to check it out.” She painted a thin layer of the deep red spread over a halved biscuit.

Her comment reminded him of the real issue at hand. Best to approach the situation delicately. “How long are you planning to stay?”

“Awhile?” She glanced at him as if to gauge his response. “Maybe. Possibly.” She bit her plump lower lip before continuing. Stig tried not to focus on the soft pink flesh compressed between her teeth. If he did, things might get a bit more heated than necessary. “I…um…the thing is…I’m sort of in trouble.”

Stig’s ears perked. All thoughts of a lustful nature fled. “Sort of?” He frowned. “You either are or you aren’t. Which is it?”

“In,” she said quietly. “I’m really in the shit.”

“Money trouble?”

“Kind of.” Her sheepish expression told him there was more to this story than he probably wanted to know.

Stig sighed and sat back in his chair. “No more ‘kind of’ or ‘sort of,’ Cora. Just tell me what’s going on, okay?”

“Okay.” She exhaled heavily and launched into her tale. “So you know how after Grams died, I inherited the bakery, right? Well it turns out Hector was in a lot of debt after he died. He’d started gambling, I guess. Underground stuff.”

“Shit.” Stig shook his head and rubbed his jaw. Hector had always been a little too fond of card games, races, and dice but Stig had never imagined he’d get himself in that kind of trouble. Then again, Stig hadn’t ever expected Hector to plow his truck into a telephone pole either.

“Yeah. Deep shit,” Cora clarified. “A few weeks after he died, these guys showed up at the bakery. They were so scary.”

Stig heard the fear in her voice. It rattled his core. He could just imagine what kind of lowlifes had shown up on her doorstep. “What did they want?”

“Money. Lots of it. And I didn’t have it, Stig. The bakery was barely in the black. All of the companies that we depended on for business were closing down or laying off their workers. My breakfast rush was hardly a trickle through the door. Lunch was even worse. Catering orders nosedived. And birthday cakes?” She shook her head. “When families make cuts, businesses like mine are the first to go.”

Cora went silent. Shame flickered across her face. Stig sensed her reluctance. “Cora?” he prodded gently.

“You have to understand, Stig. I’d just lost my grandmother and my brother within three weeks. I was so confused and swimming in grief. I was desperate. I just wanted them to leave me alone.” She blinked rapidly. A glimmer of tears obscured her soft green eyes. “They told me they wanted me to make some deliveries. They’d drop a box with an address at my back door. I’d hide their box in one of my bigger boxes of cookies or pastries and send my deliveryman on his way.”

Stig tried not to let the disappointment show on his face. Inside was a different matter. He wanted to shout at her, chastise her for such stupidity. He counted backward from ten to get a handle on his frustration. “What was in the boxes?”

“Drugs. Money. Guns.” Cora shrugged. “I don’t know. I was too afraid to look. What if the person on the other end of the shipment reported tampering?”

He could appreciate that fear. “I suppose something went haywire at some point.”

“My delivery guy was T-boned at an intersection during a rainstorm. The boxes of cakes and pastries and cookies went flying all over the damn road. One of them just happened to spill out a brick of cocaine.”