Hollywood Dragon: BBW Dragon Shifter Paranormal Romance (2 page)

Chapter Three

The bridal shower in Malibu was just as A-List fabulous as Jan had expected. She sat next to Shelley, who wore designer clothes and Jimmy Choo sandals, wearing her own four-year-old handkerchief top that she’d found at Marshall’s and her battered sandals from Payless. She smiled and cooed with all the other stellar guests at every dainty gift bag from designer shops containing staggeringly expensive gift cards, struggling to be happy for her deserving friend.

After it was over, they drove back to Jan’s shabby apartment, but before Jan got out of Shelley’s car, Shelley said, handing her a thick envelope, “Here are the gift cards. Get yourself a bridesmaid dress, and clothes, and all the rest.”

Jan exclaimed, “Shelley, I couldn’t possibly . . .”

Shelley sighed. “Jan. We’ve shared everything since college. You’d be doing the same thing if our situations were reversed. Mick gives me anything I want. And you know my idea of style is a good motorcycle jacket, so these cards are wasted on me.”

Jan knew it was true. She hugged Shelley fiercely.

“I’ll pick you up in a week. Have fun!” And Shelley drove off.

The next week Jan spent in a whirlwind of activity.

Monday through Thursday mornings before her lunch shift at the restaurant, Jan took the bus on shopping expeditions, coming home with bags of gorgeous Art Nouveau decorated Lee Andersen clothes, and hand dyed tunics from Art of Cloth. Her greatest triumph was a gown by Stefanyszyn in a deep shade of blue that she knew would go well with the pale teal wedding dress that Shelley had chosen. Add in two pairs of Manolo Blahnik shoes—sandals for everyday and heels for the wedding—and her outfits were complete.

Then came a morning appointment at an exclusive salon that ordinarily she would not have dared walk in. While she got the best mani-pedi of her life, she watched, mesmerized, as her thin, flyaway wisps of blond hair shaped into rich waves and curls. How was it possible that cutting hair somehow seemed to add to the volume? As she stepped back onto the bus to cross town to her voice coach, her hair slithered over her shoulder blades every time she moved her head, no longer snarling.

The next morning, Shelley arrived in her great new car. “Shall we hit the road?”

Jan wheeled her suitcase full of marvelous clothes out to Shelley’s new Mercedes. She was still smiling as they climbed into the car.

“You’re grinning,” Shelley said.

“You’re getting married and I have a whole week off from waitressing and trolling for auditions,” Jan said, settling back against the fine upholstery as Shelley maneuvered into the traffic heading north. “A whole week. Luxury! And—Shelley, I want to thank you again—”

Shelley groaned. “Stop that! You know I got the shoes gene, but clothes? You put them on, you forget about them until you take them off, then you have to launder them. I wish we had pelts . . .” She paused, laughed, then clammed up.

Jan waited, and when Shelley seemed absorbed into melding into the traffic joining the 405 and 5 freeways, she said, “Pelts? Where did that come from?”

“I dunno. Wedding brain.”

Jan accepted that, though thinking it an odd turn in the conversation. It was usually Jan who got fanciful, not practical Shelley. “So tell me about this place we’re going. You’ve mentioned it a couple times. Sanluce? Who names a town Sanluce?”

“Gold miners.” Shelley glanced over. “It’s technically Santa Lucia, from the days of the giant rancheros. But after the Gold Rush, a bunch of unsuccessful forty-niners swarmed in. Most of them swarmed right out again, but a few stayed. They began calling it Sanluce, and the name stuck.”

“I guess it’s better than Hangtown and Dead Man’s Gulch. Is it picturesque?”

“Oh, it just looks like any small town,” Shelley said, and her voice dropped a half note—like she could have said something else, but was consciously not saying it. “Real nice people. They pretty much all know each other. I think you’ll like Mick’s grandparents. They live half a block away from the motel where I booked rooms for you and the family. I figured you’d rather stay there than with the LaFleurs, though they offered their guestrooms.”

“Where will you be staying?” Jan asked.

Shelley flashed a grin. “With Mick’s grandparents. I can help around the house. Mick’s granddad is pretty frail, and his grandmother is not a whole lot better. So you can join us for meals. Is that okay?”

“Sounds perfect. And if there’s any way I can help out, you know you can count on me,” Jan said. “So I think I asked before, and we got sidetracked. Tell me about the best man. Will I be expected to sit with him at dinner and so forth?”

“We’re being really casual,” Shelley said. “As for the guy, his name is JP. Mick says they used to call him Jeep when they were boys. His real name is French—Jean-Pierre. His mom is the town’s mayor. Their family owns most of the ranch land around the town, but he does something else—oh yeah. He’s an A&R scout for a big record company in Hollywood. And for some of the music venues. I met him last month, but JP had just returned from Japan. He was jetlagged and didn’t say much.”

“Maybe he was brain dead from listening to all those boy bands,” Jan joked.

Shelley grinned. “Somebody’s got to do it! Anyway, he was really quiet, but seemed nice enough. Definitely not a jerk.”

“Good to know,” Jan said, wondering if Mick and this mystery Jeep guy were having a similar conversation somewhere in Sanluce.
Jeep
. Who would ever go by the name Jeep? He had to be a dork.

Then she had to laugh at herself. Dork or no dork, of course they weren’t talking about her. Far more likely Mick had totally forgotten Jan’s name.

The sun rimmed the western mountains on the other side of the Central Valley, the light fading from golden to ochre when Shelley and Jan left the highway and drove along an equally flat, straight two-lane road for a few miles. The scenery was pretty much limited to ripened corn and wheat, some with workers bobbing among them, others with machines zooming slowly up and down rows. Jan blinked, finding the unending succession of straight rows hypnotic.

Dusk had begun softening the shadows and melding them together when they reached Sanluce. The first sign of human habitation outside of those rows of crops were a couple of parked vans, one with a sign for awning repair and the other advertising aluminum siding—noticeable only because both were parked beside an empty lot without any aluminum siding, or awnings, anywhere in sight. Jan wondered idly if the drivers were teenagers and this was the local Lovers’ Lane parking spot as Shelley drew her attention by making a grand sweep with one hand.

“Here we have Main Street,” Shelley said.

It had a total of four stoplights, and Jan counted twice as many cars.

“Looks like rush hour is ending,” Shelley joked as they rolled by the one-story, white stucco or fake brick storefronts.

Jan had hoped for something interesting or at least eye-catching. She wasn’t going to say anything out loud, but now she could totally see why the residents had bypassed the mellifluous mystery of ‘Santa Lucia.’ This placed looked like a ‘Sanluce.’

On the corner where Main Street crossed Santa Lucia Ave sat the old church that Shelley had mentioned.

“It doesn’t look like it dates back to the 1800s,” Jan said, disappointed.

“That’s because it’s been rebuilt a couple times. Quake damage,” Shelley said.

It was boringly modern, and the Protestant church across from it was even more boring, being the same white clapboard you found all across the US. More important, one glance and you knew neither building had great acoustics. “Hey,” Jan said, straightening around again. “Where is the wedding being held, anyway? I’m going to need at least one rehearsal to check the sound.”

“You’ll have as much time as you like. We’re doing a rehearsal the day after the boys’ bash. As for the wedding, it’s going to be on the LaFleurs’ grounds. They have a pretty garden.”

“Outside?” Jan said, wincing. At best that meant pin mikes, amps, and crappy outdoor speakers. But even worse would be trying to project in open air, with sound waves dispersing on the breezes, or being absorbed by grass, trees, and listeners craning to hear.

“Yes, but Mick says they have a state-of-the-art sound shell.”

Now
that
was interesting. People usually didn’t have state-of-the-art shells at simple outdoor weddings.

As they passed the last of the town buildings and entered the residential area, Jan glanced back at those neutral-colored walls and roofs. It was almost as if someone had designed the place to be so boring no one would want to stop.

She had to laugh at the idea. Of course not. These were agricultural folks, who probably didn’t have time to mess around with fancy buildings. Or art.

Or opera.

“Here we go,” Shelley said, pulling up before a white stucco motel with a red tile roof and some plaster archways that seemed to be a vague gesture in the direction of the haciendas of Old Mexico.

Since the room was already paid for all they had to do was collect the key—a real key, a heavy brass thing—from the middle-aged manager whose quick, deft fingers and intent, toothy smile distracted Jan, making her think of raccoons.

They walked down the short row to the last room, which was small but  scrupulously clean. It seemed the best of the bunch in that it had three windows: front, back, and the side that overlooked the parking lot and a dusty field of sparse grass beyond. They opened the windows to air out the stuffiness, and left Jan’s suitcase. After that they drove 500 yards to a small house in the middle of a row of equally small houses of 1920s twenties vintage, each with an orange or lemon tree planted in front. A few people had gone wild and planted both.

“Now you know where the Volkovs live,” Shelley said as they walked up to the whitewashed porch. Shelley rapped the smiling gargoyle-faced brass knocker—the first curious thing Jan had seen in the entire town.

The door was opened at once by a small, elderly woman. “Shelley! You are come at last. We waited dinner.” Her Russian accent was strong. “Is this your friend?”

“Jan, Mrs. Volkov.”

“Jan, be welcome!” Mrs. Volkov pronounced her name ‘Chan,’ which Jan found delightful. “You must call me Baba Marisia, please. That is how the boys always call me. Come, come! They sit in living room.”

“Is there anything we can do to help?” Shelley asked, leading Jan into a minuscule entryway.

Baba Marisia, Jan saw, was as short as she was, and much lighter in build, spare but not angular. In her youth she must have been sleek and graceful, like an otter. Jan liked her smile. Her voice, though tremulous with age, rang on a true note as she gestured to invite them into the living room.

They stepped into the waft of delicious spicy cooking aromas: paprika, garlic, slow-baked pork. The low rumble of male voices spilled out in a glissando of hilarity.

Jan quickly picked out Mick’s deep basso in the midst of a brassy baritone and a pure tenor that sent tingles down her spine. Then the talk broke before thin, breathy voice of an elderly man, who broke into wheezy laughter, causing an explosion of mirth.

Jan peered past Shelley into a small, cramped living room full of simple furnishings of polished carved wood, with Russian Orthodox icons framed on the walls, and what seemed to be an entire soccer team of men that she quickly saw was only four. But they took up a lot of space.

Shelley flew into the arms of the second biggest man there—tall, blond, blue-eyed Mick Volkov. They kissed with quick fervor that made Jan’s heart squeeze—would anyone ever kiss her that way?—then Shelley, flushed and grinning, turned her hand out to Jan.

But before she could speak, Mick exclaimed, “Look who arrived not ten minutes before you—Dennis!”

Jan stared over Shelley’s shoulder at the largest man there, an enormous, broad-shouldered guy with tawny hair. He leaned heavily on a cane as he stood politely, and grinned at Shelley with a dashing smile. “Great to meet you, Shelley.”

“Hey, Dennis. Please, sit down, everybody.” Shelley glanced around. “Dennis, I thought you were somewhere along the Amazon.”

“I was!” Dennis owned the brassy voice. “But an accidental encounter with a Lancehead pit viper, a slippery rock, and a shattered femur added up to the head honchos kicking me back to base. So I decided, I’m halfway home, so let’s not let a little thing like a bum leg make me miss my good buddy’s shindig.” As he spoke Jan caught a flicker of a glance between him and Mick, and his tone shifted pitch:
Added meaning
, she thought, sending a look Shelley’s way. But she was smiling at Mick as if she hadn’t heard a word.

Then the tenor broke the pause before it could become awkward. “Are we being rude? Shelley, will you introduce your friend?”

“Oh, I’m sorry. I’m so bad at this . . . ” Shelley began as Jan’s gaze snapped to the right.

Next to an elderly, frail-looking gentleman who had to be Mick’s grandfather stood a knife-lean man with blue-black hair, black eyes set at an entrancing tilt above blade-sharp cheekbones in smooth olive skin. At first he seemed medium height, but that was only in comparison to Dennis and Mick, the two giants. He was actually quite tall.