Dragon's Second Chance Romance - Riley Storm Page 0,47

of the gate.

Claire licked her lips, watching him go. She noticed Pietro also watching.

There was a lot of work to be done to fix the relationship with her parents, but she no longer felt like it was impossible. For the first time in months, things were looking up for her.

As if to reinforce that point, Pietro came up to embrace her.

“Where would you like to go, free woman?” he said lightly.

“Not entirely free. That much community service is going to take a long time to finish,” she pointed out.

“Better than jail time though, no?” he countered.

She couldn’t argue that, but everything seemed to choose that moment to sink in. Her energy fled, and Claire was suddenly inordinately tired. All the stress she’d been holding about the trial and her prison term just evaporated, and she realized how exhausted she was.

“Can we go home?” she asked quietly. “Well, to the place where we’re staying. Since we don’t have a home.”

Pietro was quiet, giving her a wordless affirmation as they headed for the exit, his arm around her shoulder.

It felt nice to have him so close, protective and comforting. She couldn’t deny any of that.

Of course, now I don’t have jail as an excuse as to why I should keep pushing him away. What do I do about that?

Claire didn’t have an answer, but she suspected she would need one. And soon.

Chapter Twenty-Six

Claire

“Gayle?” she asked, surprised to see a familiar face as she entered the giant white tent in the middle of a former farmer’s field east of Five Peaks.

The shorter, plumper, crimson-haired woman turned to see who had called her name. “Claire?”

“What are you doing here?” Claire asked as Gayle came over and the two redheads embraced briefly, Claire’s brighter fiery red hair at a marked contrast to Gayle’s darker red tone.

“I started volunteering here on my time off,” Gayle said with a shrug.

Although the two weren’t the closest, Claire had helped out at Lilly’s store several times. Gayle was one of the actual employees there, and they had chatted on several occasions. Now, it appeared they were going to be seeing even more of each other.

Claire nodded. “I’m surprised Lilly gave you the time off,” she joked.

“Only twice a week,” Gayle agreed. “The store is busy though, which is wonderful. She’s having a hard time keeping things in stock.”

“Yeah,” Claire agreed, looking around.

“Why are you here?” Gayle asked.

“Community service,” Claire said. “Court ordered.”

Gayle nodded. “I see. Well, I guess you work for me then.”

“What exactly do we do here?” Claire asked, looking around the inside of the tent. It was stacked high with various cardboard boxes off to her right, some large, some small. A twin pair of tables ran down the center of the rectangular tent. At the far end were bins full of what appeared to be clear empty bags.

“We’re making care kits,” Gayle said, gesturing at the cardboard boxes. “Unpack the items here, one of each goes into a pile and then into the plastic bag. Then we hand them out.”

Claire nodded. “What’s in them?”

Gayle led her over to the nearest line of tables and opened one of the boxes to reveal the contents.

“This table does food care. Dried food bars, bottles of water, etc. Basic essentials. That line over there is for things like blankets, underwear, t-shirts and the like.”

Behind them a trio entered, two women and an elderly male.

Claire smiled at them and they smiled back, one of the women waving at Gayle.

“Everyone seems friendly here,” she remarked. “I hadn’t really been expecting that.”

“Balance the Scales is a really great charity,” Gayle said. “Helping out all the people who came to Five Peaks to see the dragons, only to get stuck outside with nothing.”

That was exactly why Claire had chosen it as her volunteer hours location in the first place. Given her…whatever it was with Pietro, something that had to do with dragons seemed appropriate to her.

“Who funds all of it?” she asked. “I’d never heard of it before now, though that probably doesn’t mean much.”

“I’m not entirely sure,” Gayle said. “I know that Clarice Aterna is the head of the foundation, the one who has put it all together. Rumor has it all of the Five are funding it, but I don’t actually know.”

Claire hid a smile. Unlike Gayle, she knew now that the ‘Five’, the founding families of Five Peaks, were actually the cover story of the dragon shifters. The five families were the five different clans that lived around Five Peaks. Hence