Dragon's Eden Read Online Free PDF Page B

warriors and a
war to her doorstep, not an invalid in need of care.
    “I thought you were here to protect him,”
she said to Jen, her voice a mixture of admonition and wariness.
His rescue had been swift and full of deadly intent; she’d seen the
danger in his eyes and felt it in Jackson’s reaction.
    Shulan had told her many of the details of
Jackson’s story, but the pirate princess had forgotten to warn her
of the old Chinaman’s skill. The ancient and fragile Jen was at
least as alarming as the dragon man.
    “I don’t want anybody killed here,
accidentally or otherwise,” she continued, her gaze taking in both
men so there wouldn’t be any mistake about whom she was talking to,
though she doubted if Jen understood a word she was saying.
    She looked at him, as the older and
supposedly wiser of the two, but whatever assurances she’d hoped to
get weren’t going to come from that quarter. He gave her nothing
beyond his inscrutable gaze and a short, formal bow before leaving
the kitchen. Left without another choice, Sugar let her gaze rise
to the man still dominating the room. Somehow she knew to expect
even less from him.
    He was angry, dangerous in the way of all
wounded predators, and he was more than she could handle. She
wasn’t prepared to cope with a warrior who only answered to an old
man’s sword. She had nothing with which to control him.
    Her hand shook as she pulled out one of the
chrome-and-vinyl chairs flanking her wooden table, the small
weakness irritating her further. He shouldn’t be able to unnerve
her so easily. Maybe all her longing for a mate was better left in
fantasy, if Jackson Daniels was the reality.
    He wouldn’t be staying, of course, but what
other kind of man could she realistically expect to end up on
Cocorico, except one with a violent past and a need to hide?
    Her eyes flicked up once, quickly, then just
as quickly looked away. What she’d seen had not been encouraging.
Dressed, he looked larger than he had naked, taller and more
intimidating—a lot more intimidating.
    She should have chosen different clothes for
him, something to counteract the sheer intensity of his presence.
The unremitting black of his pants and shirt heightened the aura of
danger around him, and it had certainty helped him disappear in the
courtyard.
    “You’re bleeding,” she said. “Sit down . . .
please.” The added politeness was merely that, she told herself. It
was not a plea.
    Much to her relief, he did as she asked,
lowering himself into the chair without a complaint. She had no
idea what she would have done had he resisted her.
    “I’ll . . . uh, go get the first-aid
supplies,” she said, stepping around him and cutting off the
floodlights before making her way to the pantry. She wouldn’t
forget about him wearing black in the night, and she wouldn’t let
it happen again.
    Within moments she was back at his side with
her medical kit. She set the large metal box on the table and took
from it the antiseptic and a sterile gauze pad. He wasn’t hurt too
badly, but she didn’t want to take a chance on infection setting
in.
    “That’s quite a stash,” he said, nodding at
the array of pharmaceuticals in the box. “Are you a drug runner or
a doctor?”
    “I’ve got an out-of-date Red Cross card,”
she said, “and that’s almost as good as a medical license out
here.”
    “Out where?”
    “Here,” she said, not missing his crude
attempt to get information from her. He was still angry. She could
tell by the tension in his body and the barely perceptible
twitching of the muscles in his jaw. But he was controlling his
emotions—thank God—trying to come down off the inevitable
adrenaline rush of finding a sword ready to cut his throat.
    She lifted the antiseptic-soaked pad to
clean his wound, but her hand paused near his shoulder, heeding an
intuitive warning: Touching the dragon man was a risky thing to
do.
    The only times they’d had contact, he’d
grabbed her, taken her by