www.laurenesker.com
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If you enjoyed this story and would like to read more of Lauren's books, you might try:
Shifter Agents - paranormal romance about the men and women of the Shifter Crimes Bureau. Each books is a full-length romantic suspense novel with an HEA. Visit the series page here.
Metal Wolf - the first book in a new science fiction romance series. Sarah is a farm girl who dreams of the stars; Rei is a cyborg soldier who crash-lands in her backyard. The stars may be closer than she thinks ...
The Neighbors Might Talk
Elva Birch
Trudy straightened up and brushed her hair back from her face, the silver strands teasing the edges of her vision.
Insects hummed, and the sun beat down on her shoulders. It was so beautiful and peaceful in the country; no kids shrieking in the streets, no neighbor dogs who wouldn’t stop barking.
If the wind died down, she could hear the distant highway, but for the most part, the breeze muttered musically in the cornfield next just outside their little fenced yard and kept the heat from being oppressive.
“You about done out here?”
She looked back to find Rikard, looking tanned and more relaxed than he’d ever been in the city. He was carrying the compost bucket from the kitchen.
“Almost done with this row,” she answered, admiring the way his body still moved underneath the casual t-shirts he now wore. They suited him so much better than the ties and jackets he’d put aside with his job as a university professor. He had loved his job – or at least parts of it – but they’d both been happy when he could put aside all the hassles and red tape. Quiet retirement in the country stretched before them like a promise.
Rikard dumped the kitchen scraps into the big compost barrel and came to stand beside her. “Nice beans,” he said sagely.
“These are peas,” Trudy reminded him.
“Great tomatoes,” Rikard said suggestively, eyeing her grubby shirt. “Ready to come inside yet and peel out of those dirty clothes?”
“I want to finish this row,” Trudy said regretfully, knowing his ulterior motives. “It’s supposed to rain tomorrow and I want them all staked up before that happens.”
When she tipped her head up, Rikard bent to kiss her, slowly and full of promise.
“You could take a little break,” he suggested, one hand tracing her jaw.
“Mmm,” Trudy said, tempted. “Out here? In the sun? The neighbors might talk.”
“We don’t have any neighbors,” Rikard reminded her. “That’s why we retired out here, instead of staying in the suburbs.”
“I thought it was for the fresh odor of cows and the sunburns,” Trudy teased.
“It was really so I could screw my wife on the back lawn without judgmental gossips thinking they had moral fucking high ground,” Rikard said with a chuckle.
“Rikard!” Trudy said automatically.
“I’m retired,” he said, laughing. “The kids are grown up and already learned all my bad habits anyway. I can swear like a sailor if I want to, now.”
Trudy loved how easily he laughed since he’d left the city.
But given a better opportunity to show off his vocabulary, neither of them could come up with anything more clever than “What the hell is that?” and “Dear heavens!” as the sun was momentarily blotted out and a gigantic shape crashed down from the sky above, rattling all the windows in the house as it skidded halfway across the lawn and collapsed squarely on the row of peas that Trudy had just spent all afternoon staking up.
They clung to each other as the form gave a tremendous groan, unrolling enormous, sail-like wings over the raised beds that had just been destroyed.
“Honey,” Trudy said hesitantly. “I think there’s a dragon in my garden.”
Before Rikard had to come up with a plan to deal with a creature nearly the size of their house, the mass of shimmering scales and wing membranes gave a weird shiver, and there was suddenly a man lying near the center of where the dragon had been.