Chapter Forty-Four – The Dragon’s Favorite Strays
Chapter Forty-Four
DAKOTA
“I’m just saying, Mom,” Rabbit says as we walk the next morning. “If you wanna date him, I’m totally cool with it.”
“We’re not dating!” I tell her for what must be the eleventh time in the last hour. “It was just sleep!”
It’s my fault she caught us this morning. I’d sworn to myself last night after the kissing session that I’d wake up early, make sure no one saw that Murr and I were bunking behind the customer service desk and snuggled up.
Did I wake up early as planned? I did not.
My daughter found me, wrapped in Murr’s arms, drooling on his chest. I haven’t slept so well in years, and even after Rabbit woke us up, Murr just pulled me tighter against him, as if he was in no hurry to let me go. It was nice. Too nice. I’m still warm and giddy thinking about it, hours later.
Rabbit’s giddy about it too, but for the wrong reasons. “Just know that I approve if you want to settle down.”
Oh dear god. “No one’s settling down! There’s nothing to approve of!” She wiggles her eyebrows at me and I clasp her face in my hands, holding her still. “Go find Aggie and see if they’re ready to put the plan into action.”
She races off, practically skipping across the parking lot, as if she’s having the best day ever. This is exactly what I didn’t want to happen if I got caught kissing Murr…but somehow in the light of day, it’s not so terrible. Rabbit has been razzing me, and Aggie won’t shut up about big meat, but all in all, I’m in too good of a mood to care that much. Maybe if I had time to sit and stew on my feelings, but today is a busy one.
Today, we’re going to catch our nomad.
This morning, over a breakfast of smoked meat and a few mouthfuls of freshly-plucked dandelion greens, we talked about the plan to capture Curtis. Aggie and Dottie have a signal that they are supposed to give Curtis when all is clear. It’s a green triangle flag, like the kind a kid would have sticking off the top of their bike. The green flag tells him all is clear, and in the trunk of the car, they’re supposed to leave a bank drive-thru canister with instructions on where to meet. It sounds convoluted, but Dottie explained to me that he won’t want to meet them near the bookstore, because it’s not a ‘neutral’ location. He’s too worried that Murr will come back.
We put in the address of a nearby diner instead, one off the highway. There’s another strip mall nearby, and Dottie is up on the roof there with a telescope, and Murr is at her side in human form. I’m hiding inside the old diner with binoculars and a whistle. Rabbit’s going to set up at the far end of the old, pothole-filled parking lot with a telescope of her own. Aggie is going to be our bait, because I refused to let Rabbit do it. Once we give the signal, Aggie is going to wander in the parking lot near the diner, pretending to look for her thick eye-glasses and to hopefully lure in Curtis.
We all have whistles, and the moment one of us blows, Murr is going to shift forms and spring into action. Once we get eyes on Curtis, we’re going to spring Murr on him. Murr has promised not to eat him, only to hold him captive.
Now we just need our nomad to show up.
Aggie signals that she’s ready, and I give her a thumbs up and climb into a broken window of the diner. I settle into the nearest booth, my binoculars at hand, and scan the area for a bicycle-riding jerk.
I shouldn’t be thinking about Murr and kisses.
Or how it was the best night of sleep ever, because he was like a big sexy space heater.
Or how his mouth was impossibly warm, his tongue like liquid heat against mine.
Or how my mouth tingled when we were done kissing.
A new, horrible thought occurs to me…oh god. What if I’m allergic to kissing Murr?
I wonder how many times I’ll be able to kiss him before the allergic reaction gets too bad? Because I really, really want to kiss him again.
