Free Heart of the Dragon by Deborah Smith Page A

like this, that you’re dying to be admired for something a little more exciting than your good manners.”
    “Nothing in a research file could have told you that.”
    “No,” he agreed. His fingers ached to stroke the satiny skin of her arm. “Sometimes a man just goes by instinct. And hands-on experience. Judging by what my instincts tell me, I predict you’ll be completely corrupted by the time I’m done with you. You won’t know your wiggle from your walk.”
    “That can work both ways, Santelli. I’ll have you so turned upside down that you won’t be able to find your cynical attitude from a hole in the ground. You’ll be ready to join the PTA and sing in the church choir.”
    Kash gave her a tightly controlled smile. She chortled. “You’re worried,” she proclaimed victoriously. “You’re actually worried.”
    Feeling undone, he pushed her firmly along the sidewalk. “Wiggle,” he growled. Her accuracy and continuing laughter, a soft, pleased snicker, pestered him, making him want to tell her how ill-suited he was for her fantasy. Everything he’d survived and all the years of adjustment afterward had turned him into a loner, guarded about his emotions, bewildered by the family life he saw all around him. He thought even Audubon,who had tried very hard to help him adjust, never expected him to fit in.
    “Why so quiet, Dragon?” she asked slyly several minutes later, when they were threading their way along a canal dock crammed with Thai shoppers and lined with peddlers.
    “I’m enjoying a daydream.” He nodded toward the murky water. “What a colorful splash you’d make.”
    She turned to scowl at him, but his attention was already taken by three Thai men who were idly browsing through a vendor’s silver trinkets. Alarm raced through his blood. Casually he took Rebecca’s arm. “Don’t turn around and stare at them, and don’t appear shocked. But we may have an unwanted audience.”
    Her face paled. “Who?”
    “Three men over by the silversmith’s cart. They were outside the restaurant when we left. It’s just odd that they’d end up here too.”
    She didn’t flinch. His admiration for her steady nerves translated to his hand’s reassuring squeeze on her arm. “Do you think the Nalinat family is after me?” she asked.
    “I think they’re convinced you know where Mayura is. If they can find her, they’ll try to force a marriage between her and their son.”
    “Is that legal in Thailand?”
    “In this part of the world family relations and saving face are more important than the law.”
    “But I can’t tell them anything. Couldn’t we just explain to the Nalinat family that I’m an outsider to this whole feud?”
    “They’d never believe it.”
    She trembled against his hand, though her face remained calm. “I’m not some kind of spy for them, I swear it. Even if you never believe my story about Mayura being my half sister, even if you always suspect my motives for coming here to meet her, don’t ever turn me over to the Nalinats.”
    The desperation in her voice sent a white-hot surge of protectiveness through Kash, even though such fierce gallantry made him feel a little foolish. The world wasn’t made of heroes, only human beings trying to save what little hope and happiness they could. “What, you’d rather stay with me?” he asked in a gruffly teasing tone. “You find me preferable to a family of scheming, coldblooded Nalinats?”
    Her mouth crooked up at one corner. “Only a little.”
    “Good. Then come on. Well make sure those apes over there can’t follow us.”
    He grabbed her hand and led her down a set of weathered wooden steps to the edge of the canal. It was packed with long, flat boats, each guided by peddlers who squatted in the rear under small canopies, with their wares spread out in the hull for people on the street to see. Merchants would maneuver to the docks for shoppers to reach them. Farther out, bigger boats with cylindrical coverings