Page 24 of Dragon Charmed

The boy kept typing on the keyboard as he spoke to Ben. “Do you have a picture?” He stopped typing and turned, giving Ben a once-over. “Wait. You’re not creeping on someone, are you?”

“No! I’m not creeping on anyone. Are you telling me that I can search for someone using their picture?”

“Yeah.” He looked at Ben like he had two heads. “It’s called reverse imaging.”

Ben blinked at him. Had he fallen into another dimension? He had no idea what this kid was talking about. “How do I do it?”

“Instead of searching on a name or phrase, you search on a picture.”

Ben’s stomach churned. “So I can take a picture of myself, for example, and see if it matches any pictures on the Internet?”

The kid tilted his chair so that the front two legs were off the ground. “Yep. Take a picture with your phone and then load it into the search.” He dropped the chair down. “You have a smartphone with data, right? This won’t work on a flip phone.”

Ben narrowed his eyes at the brat. “Yes, I have a smartphone.”

The kid looked at Ben’s computer. Tessa’s pictures were still on the screen. “You better not be a creeper.”

“I’m not. She’s a friend of mine.” Kind of a friend, but he wasn’t going to get into specifics.

The kid chuckled before closing the site he’d been on and standing. “Sure you are.” He nodded to the screen. “You might want to clear your search history when you get done.”

And with that, the little smart-ass strolled off into the stacks. But Ben didn’t have time to think about the kid anymore because his stomach was doing somersaults. What if his picture was on the Internet and he could find out who he was? That was not something he wanted to do on the library computer. Hell, what if he came up online as some sort of criminal?

Even though Larry had said not to use too much data on the phone, it was worth using it in this situation.

He closed out the screen, but before he walked away, he thought he should follow the kid’s advice and then realized he didn’t know how to clear the search. The kid was nowhere to be seen. Not that Ben wanted to ask him anyway, so he searched on “how to clear your search history,” which seemed a bit ironic, but he had to learn somehow.

He followed the instructions—which were actually pretty easy—and then headed out of the library and got into Wanda. He took his picture with the phone and then blew out a shaky breath before pulling up the Internet and using it to search images.

He sat staring at the phone waiting for something, anything to show up. He had to relax his fingers since he was gripping the phone way too hard.

After a minute, the search came back with a blank screen and the words no image found. Well hell, he wasn’t sure if that meant he didn’t spend time on social media in his previous life or not? Probably not since he wasn’t computer savvy now. Disappointment weighed down his chest. He should have known it wouldn’t be that easy. Finding Mia White seemed to be his best bet for now. Which meant spending time with Tessa. If she still wanted to spend time with him.

When she had asked him earlier that day about his social media, he hoped his explanation made sense. He’d almost blurted out his excuse for why he didn’t have a PI license, but he thought it would be fishy if he did that without her asking. Now it was a bit of a waiting game to see if she would broach the subject with him. And it was a waiting game to see if Alisha Brown or Tessa’s friend could remember more about Mia’s foster mother, Evelyn.

Fingers crossed something led them in the right direction.

He started the truck and drove out of the parking lot and down the street in the direction of his motel room. Not that he wanted to close himself up there already. He was surprised at how much he missed being outside and spending time in nature like he had at Walter’s cabin. Living off the land meant a lot of time working outside. Now that he was spending time in the city, he realized it wasn’t for him. Nature called to him.

Had he been like that in his past life? Or had his time with Walter changed him? Hopefully he would find out soon. He wasn’t sure how long he would be able to continue the charade with Tessa. The more time he spent with her, the more he realized how much he liked her. And it wasn’t just the fact that she was gorgeous. It was her intelligence and humor that made her interesting. Okay, and those eyes. They damn well called to him.

A siren’s song.

But he’d lost his past. He couldn’t afford to be swept under until he found himself again.

Chapter 9

Tessa’s fingers set a drumbeat on her steering wheel. She’d been sitting in the driveway of the dragon clan house for a while now trying to decide how much to tell her best friend. She hadn’t planned on telling her anything— yet. Unfortunately Alisha had not reached out with Evelyn’s last name. And if Tessa started questioning Megan about Mia, she would know something was up. At the very least, Megan would think that she was investigating on her own, which would be bad enough. Did she want to tell her everything?

Megan was probably going to be upset with her. Oh, who was she kidding, there was no probably about it. The question was, did she want her to be upset now or later?

A knock on her car window had her almost levitating out of her seat. She glared at Marcus as she rolled down her window.

“Don’t you have some security job you should be doing right now?”

He grinned. “That’s why I’m out here checking on the agitated woman parked in front of the house instead of finishing my dinner. Was wondering if you planned to come inside or if you were going to talk to yourself all night?”

She shook her head at him. “I’m thinking through some things.”