Chapter 6

Gracie

I wasn"t sure Ryan knew just how many people watched him on a daily basis. The town would certainly talk if we were seen together casually eating lunch. That wasn"t something I wanted to deal with. It did surprise me a little just how upset it had made him. He even seemed a little angry about it.

Ryan Davenport, angry?

He certainly wasn"t known to have anger issues. Hell, I wasn"t even sure he had emotions except constant happiness, always exuding positivity. It was disgusting.

But the Ryan I"d spent the morning with was nothing like that at all, and it had confused me. Could there really be more to him than the shallow, self-assured, probably conceited man I"d imagined him to be? Or was that just the devastated little girl inside me who had crushed on a man who had never even seen her?

I don"t care what Ryan thinks about me, I reminded myself.

Oh, but I did. And I hated that I did.

I should have kept my back to the door. If I had, then I couldn"t have sat here like a pathetic loser staring at the back of his head as he sat there talking with his brother and sister. If Dean were here, then we"d be blessed with all the Davenport kids. Not that any of them were kids anymore.

They were certainly an attractive lot blessed with strong genes. Here in Ravenden, their family was practically royalty. It was normal to see one of them around. And ever since Elias had mated one of Gia"s waitresses, it was very common to see two of them together. But three was a rare treat, and four was practically unheard of.

Elias may have gotten away with mating beneath his station when he mated Kim, at least by our society standards, but I knew Ryan would never mate beneath his station. And I wasn"t sure I would either. I certainly could never see myself mating Andrew though I supposed it wasn"t entirely because he was a Grimes. He was just too much like a brother to me no matter how much I adored him and his family.

The Montgomery name was respectable enough, certainly more so than a Grimes, but still well beneath the illustrious Davenports. And Ryan cared far too much about images to actually allow anything to happen between us, and I knew it. So no matter what sparks may fly or the fact that we were both feeling something, it simply didn"t matter. It couldn"t. The best thing I could do for myself was keep a distance from this man.

So I was doing just that.

Kim had already come and gone with my order, and I smiled as she walked over with my club sandwich and crinkle fries.

"Thanks," I muttered.

"Are you okay?" she asked.

"Fine."

She watched me closely for a few more seconds. My traitorous eyes flickered back over to Ryan, and she followed my line of sight and smiled.

"If you need to talk to the mayor, I"d recommend waiting. When he sits with his back to the room, it"s a sign he wants to be left alone. Few people know that about him and constantly talk to him anyway. The guy just wants to eat in peace. Plus, he"s not in the best of moods today, so I"d recommend you catch him in the parking lot if it"s important.

"Huh?"

"Whatever you want to talk to him about. Trust me and wait."

She squeezed my shoulder and walked away.

I felt like a part of her was being protective of him, but also, she seemed to genuinely be trying to help me too.

Why would she think I needed to discuss something with him?I wondered.

With a sigh and a scowl of frustration I picked up the sandwich and took a big bite.

It"s because you can"t stop staring at him like a starry-eyed teenager.

But I wasn"t that girl anymore, and I wouldn"t be her again. So that line of thought did nothing but piss me off.

Why was I even here? This was ridiculous.

I was pretty sure I"d come into the diner just to see how he"d react. I just couldn"t stop myself from playing with fire. It was in my DNA or something. But Ryan had only turned to look my way once. Otherwise, I only saw the back of his head. It wasn"t the reaction I expected after seeing the emotional turbulence within him when I told him I didn"t want to be seen with him. In that brief moment, I felt like I"d seen a different side of Ryan, one that I had never suspected possible.

Just maybe under that perfectly cultivated exterior there really was a lot more depth than he showed the rest of the Congress.

"Hey Kim, can I get the check please? And a to-go box. Something came up."

I knew she"d assume that something had to do with work. No one needed to know how I"d been benched just for doing my job.

"Sure thing."

True to her word, she dropped over the check and a box before moving on to another customer.

I didn"t even bother going up to the cash register, I just dropped enough cash to cover the bill plus a tip on the table, packed up my food, and left.

Before I even reached the door, Ryan was there.

"Lunch break over and time to get back to work?" he asked.

When I turned to face him, his careful mask was back in place. His smile was warm and friendly, but this time the swirl in his eyes told me a different story.

Yup, there was far more to this man than anyone knew, but I suspected if I let myself fall prey to him, I"d be hit with emotional whiplash. Still, the challenge of unmasking him was far more tempting than I cared to admit. And I never backed down from a challenge.

I smiled sweetly. "If you"re ready, let"s go."

Motioning to the passenger door of my Jeep, I jumped into the driver"s seat and waited for him.

Despite my efforts to avoid becoming the topic of town gossip, my need to feed this unspoken challenge got the better of me. Ryan was just climbing into my Jeep when Novaleigh Caldwell pulled up. She sat there in her car openly gawking at the two of us.

I groaned.

"What"s wrong?"

I nodded towards Novaleigh and gave her a little wave.

"She"s going to start gossiping about us being seen together," he said.

"I have no doubt. Nothing we can do about it now."

He scowled. "So you should have just joined me for lunch and not been so damn stubborn."

I sighed. "This is work, and I"ll set her straight on it."

"Lunches can be business too. I eat with people all the time. No one would have thought anything of it."

"They would, because I don"t eat with people all the time," I confessed.

I turned on the Jeep and shifted into reverse to pull out of the parking spot and then into drive as I sped away, kicking up dust in my wake.

A sly smile tipped my lips as he grabbed hold of whatever he could find to steady himself.

Without speaking, I drove us to the next site, parked, and jumped out.

"Are you coming?" I asked sweetly over my shoulder.

He was cursing under his breath as he followed. I took a bit of sick pleasure knowing that I was already rattling him. I didn"t let that show though as we got right down to work.

It was fascinating to watch him go from perfectly cultivated, to rattled, to fully focused and serious about the task before us as he studied the site carefully.

About ten yards away, he triumphantly picked up a black feather and held it up into the air.

I rolled my eyes.

"Don"t even," he said. "That"s three for three. It"s possibly a calling card. He doesn"t want to give himself up and knows that tracking down the identity of a feather is nearly impossible, but he wants us to know he"s one of us. I think that disturbs me more than anything."

"Or, hear me out here, we"re a town of raven shifters. Ravens have black feathers and one of us is always flying around here. Feathers sometimes come off and fall to the ground. It could still be complete coincidence."

He side-eyed me, then turned with a cocky grin. "Maybe, but we"re keeping an open mind—about everything."

His eyes darted to my lips and then lower before snapping up to meet mine.

For once in my life, I didn"t know how to respond to that, so I just nodded. But when I licked my lips self-consciously, I could have sworn I saw a swirl of green in Ryan"s otherwise dark eyes.

"Walk me through what you think happened here," he surprised me by saying.

"Uh, okay."

We were in a random field along the side of the highway. It could have just as easily been considered a random incident, a cigarette flicked from a vehicle, or a number of other random possibilities. But no one was buying that. It would be too coincidental, plus there was a lack of key ingredients.

"All fires need three basic things: oxygen, heat, and fuel. There"s plenty of oxygen out here. Heat could come from various sources. But there is still no obvious signs of fuel, no gasoline, kerosene, nothing. Plus, it rained three days ago, so just a spark on dry grass was not the case here."

I spent the next half hour walking through every detail of the case that I could remember, including showing him where we found the match. The match was becoming a telltale sign for me and explained the heat portion of each of the fires.

"You know the match could be his calling instead of the feather," I said.

"It could be," he conceded. "Or it could be the combination of the two. I"m just saying to keep an open mind."

And then he winked at me.

Something told me he was here to play as well. I couldn"t allow myself to admit I just might be out of my league with this guy, but I just couldn"t back down from a challenge, no matter what.