Battle Bond: An Urban Fantasy Dragon Series (Death Before Dragons #2) - Lindsay Buroker Page 0,26
ravaging his security system, but I’m not positive I would be welcome to return. If I walk in at the side of his new business partner…”
“We’re not business partners. I’m more like his gopher. Or maybe his apprentice.” Dimitri’s eyes lit at this more prestigious title. “He’s already given me some tips for growing a following online. I bet he’d approve of me using a pretty girl to sell my stuff.”
I snorted. “You’d be better off with a twenty-year-old ingénue.”
“I don’t have one of those. I have you. And that dress.” Dimitri pointed. “Go get it before someone else does.”
“You’ll throw yourself in front of me if there’s a new tarantula?”
“Deal.”
He had to point me past three dresses to the one he’d had his eye on. The floral wasn’t as bad as I’d feared when he’d said the word. There were roses on the ivory fabric, but they were sage green, a color I didn’t usually look ridiculous in. I was less enamored with the buttons up the front. They seemed too much of an invitation for some thuggish panther shifter to unbutton, but the Northern Pride didn’t likely do business at the farmers market. Judging by the women pushing strollers, this wasn’t a gun-buying clientele.
“Are you interested in that dress?” The vendor strolled up. “It’s vintage from the nineties. It’ll look fabulous on you. What great height you have.”
Hearing that something from the nineties was vintage now made me feel old, and I was pretty sure vintage also meant it was used, but I guessed it would do for selling yard tchotchkes. Besides, it was getting warm, and being in something sleeveless might feel good.
The price was right—Dimitri had made a good guess—though the vendor was disappointed that I wouldn’t try on any of her sandals. The table would hide my combat boots. They wouldn’t matter.
A few minutes later, changed and with my weapons stashed under the table, I listened to Dimitri tell me what his gizmos were and what recycled bits and pieces they’d been made from, and attempted to look personable to anyone who wandered past. That wasn’t my strength. He should have held out for an ingénue.
Still, as soon as he faded into the shadows at the back of the stall, interested people started coming up.
“How much for that big fish made out of wrenches?” asked a bearded man in green plaid who was clearly practicing the lumbersexual look. He wasn’t as flagrant about checking out my chest as the panther brothers had been, but his gaze skimmed past on the way to the metal fish statue.
Dimitri hadn’t given me prices, since he was standing nearby. After taking in the latest iPhone sticking out of the guy’s pocket, an Apple watch on his wrist, and a BMW logo on the car keys he dangled, I said, “Three hundred.”
Dimitri sputtered. Because the price was too low or too high? I hoped he hadn’t brought thousand-dollar pieces of art to hawk from a tent.
Green-plaid Guy lifted his eyebrows. “How much for your number?”
I grabbed one of Dimitri’s business cards. It had the name of his business, Sculpted Rain, rather than his name, along with a website and phone number. Perfect. I held up the card. “It comes with the purchase.”
“I’ll give you two hundred.”
“The price is three hundred, my friend, but I’ll throw in the Scorpion Stinger lotion. It’s got a nice zing.”
“All right.” He pulled out a wallet thick with twenties and hundreds and counted out the money. “Don’t forget the number.” He paused, noticing Dimitri in the shadows for the first time. “Er, is that your partner?”
“Nope. He’s the hired help. This stuff is heavy. Dimitri, wrap up the fish statue and take it to the man’s car for him, will you?”
Dimitri squinted suspiciously at me but glanced at the money and silently went along with my suggestion.
I stuck the bills in his cash box and soon sold an owl with eyes framed by horseshoes to an older man who said his wife “loves this crap.” He wasn’t clad in overpriced techno-gadgets, so I only charged him sixty for his piece.
When Dimitri returned, he said, “You know that man is going to call me later, looking for you.”
“He’ll be disappointed that this was my last day at work and I sold the business to my porter.”
“This isn’t quite how I expected this to go.”
“You’re selling products and making money. No complaining.”
“Fine,” he said as another man approached the stall and started admiring wind chimes made from