“I’m sure he won’t—” I cut off as she shakes her head, braids slapping. “Okay, I’ll see what I can do.”
I turn the dragon over in my hands. The craftsmanship is remarkable, and this kind of break will take more than glue.
Quinn sniffs, wiping her nose on her sleeve. “Emily can fix anything. She fixes houses and bridges and boats. She can fix dragons, too.”
I purse my lips. “You think so?”
“Yes,” she says with complete faith. “But don’t tell Uncle Blake, okay? He’ll be sad.”
“Our secret,” I promise, pressing a finger to my lips.
She smiles then, small and relieved, and returns to arranging the uninjured toys around the coffee table.
I stay kneeling, studying the broken wing in the fading afternoon light. Woodworking isn’t in my wheelhouse, so I can only hope Quinn’s right and Emily will understand what to do with it.
Otherwise, I’ll have to break my small charge’s trust and tell her uncle about the accident.
The wooden dragon sits heavy in my palm as I trace the splintered edge of its wing with my thumb. Each roll of the water taxi sends tiny vibrations up through the bench into my spine, matching the nervous flutter in my chest.
Ridiculous. I’m a grown man fretting over achild’s toy as if I’m planning to propose marriage instead of asking for a simple favor.
At least, I hope it’s simple.
The late afternoon sun catches on the water, transforming the bay into a field of silver ripples with each wave. Salt hangs thick in the air, coating my mouth and making me thirsty.
“Emily, Quinn asked if you might— No, that’s not right.”
I clear my throat, glad no one sits near enough to hear my muttering.
“Ms. Wilson, I heard you work with wood in your pastime, and I was wondering?—”
Too formal. Too presumptuous.
“I know you’re busy, but Quinn’s dragon broke, and she said you could fix anything?—”
No, that sounds like I’m using Quinn as a manipulation tactic, which is the last thing I want.
My attention drifts toward the bow where Emily stands with Kyle, her silver hair whipping around her face in the wind. Unlike me, she hadn’t changed, and she still wears her mud-splattered work clothes.
She stands with her feet planted shoulder width apart, swaying with the gentle pitch and roll, one hip cocked as she listens to Kyle talking.
The sun strikes her profile, illuminating thestraight line of her nose and the firm set of her jaw. She nods at whatever Kyle says, then laughs, the sound carried away by the wind before it reaches me.
A month ago, I’d labeled her as just another Alpha. The type who bulldozes through life, expecting others to fall in line or step aside. The type I’ve learned to keep at arm’s length.
But then came the market confrontation with that horrid Omega, Auren, and everything I thought I knew about Emily Wilson cracked open.
I recall how her shoulders stiffened when Auren approached their table, the way her fingers curled around her coffee cup until her knuckles whitened. The flash of raw pain when he spoke to her, masked but unmistakable.
Not the reaction of someone full of self-confidence. No, I’d seen that expression in my own mirror, the haunted look of a person hurt down to the bone and still piecing themselves back together..
My own assumptions about her sit uncomfortably now, how quickly I’d judged her secondary gender and written her off. Alpha, and therefore insensitive to the struggles of others.
Yet when Quinn tackled her at the mud puddle, Emily’s first instinct wasn’t to reprimand. I hadbeen halfway into the clearing when it happened, rushing to defend my precocious charge, before her unfettered laughter halted me in my steps.
Covered in mud, with the sun turning her hair to liquid silver, the mask of professionalism cast aside in a moment of pure joy, she had beenbeautiful.
And when she dropped to her knees in the mud to help Quinn build an unsinkable boat, the patience in her touch and the way she spoke to the girl as an equal gave me another peek beneath the mask Emily shows the rest of the world.