Page 25 of Dragon Charmed

“Well, why don’t you come inside? Dinner is almost over, but I’m sure Marilyn will feed you.”

Tessa loved the clan’s cook. They had bonded over Marilyn’s love for baking and Tessa’s love for eating. She followed Marcus inside and walked with him to the dining room. Eric and Megan were sitting on one side of the table with baby Bella between them, and on the other side was Eric’s sister, Sienna. Marcus sat in the chair next to Sienna where a half-eaten meal waited for him. How long had he been watching her sitting in her car?

Megan grinned. “Tessa. Come join us. We’re just finishing, but I’m sure Marilyn can bring you a plate. How about some pork chops and sweet potatoes?”

At least that explained why Bella’s face had a jack-o’-lantern vibe going on. And she threw her orange hands in the air when she saw Tessa. Eric ducked out of the way as a glop of potatoes flew in his direction.

Tessa chuckled, which had Bella laughing as well while Eric tried to corral her hands with a baby wipe.

“You’re wearing your dinner, young lady. Did you actually eat anything?”

“Bah!”

Megan smiled at her daughter. “You wouldn’t think so by looking at her, right? Come sit down and have something to eat.”

She sat on the other side of Sienna as everyone started eating again. For once her stomach was churning while she tried to decide what to reveal. “I’m good.”

Megan gave her a puzzled look. “Okay, we’ll be finished in a few minutes, and then we’ll have dessert. Marilyn made salted caramel brownies.”

Tessa shook her head. “That’s okay. I’m going to skip dessert.”

Marcus’s fork jerked to a stop midway to his mouth. Eric stopped wiping Bella and stared wide-eyed at her, as did Sienna and Megan.

Megan blinked. “Are you okay?”

“What do you mean?” Tessa asked.

“You have never turned down dessert before,” Eric said. “Hel—” He stopped mid-word at Megan’s glare. “I mean, heck, you're going to give Marilyn heart palpitations.”

Sienna nodded. “Marilyn literally makes notes on her dessert recipes on how much you like something. She calls it TRS—Tessa’s rating system.”

Marcus frowned. “I asked her to make bread pudding the other day, and she asked me if you would be coming to dinner since it wasn’t one of your favorites.”

Tessa smiled. “I’ll talk to her for you, Mr. Sourpuss.”

Megan narrowed her eyes. “So explain to me why you don’t want a salted caramel brownie.”

Tessa tapped her fingers on the table as she tried to decide what she was going to tell Megan since she hadn’t exactly planned to spill it to the whole group.

Megan glanced down at her fidgeting digits, and Tessa stopped tapping. She might as well blurt it out since she was famous (some would say infamous) for speaking her mind, right?

Although maybe she would wait a few minutes before she told them what was going on. Distraction was called for. “So were you able to do some research on the Templars?”

Megan’s eyes lit up. “Yes. I’m actually surprised I didn’t know more about them. They were around from 1120 to approximately 1310. And I was right that they worked for the Catholic Church.”

“Doing what?” Sienna asked.

“There were three factions. One were knights who fought as part of the Second Crusades. Another group were sergeants who were tradesmen, and the third group were chaplains,” Megan answered.

“So they are like the knights we see in all the King Arthur movies,” Tessa said.

Megan nodded. “You have seen their symbol before in movies based on knights. The red cross on the white background.”

Tessa nodded. “I know what you mean.”

Megan leaned forward. “Here’s the interesting part. And I'm kicking myself because I didn’t make the connection at first. This red cross on the white background is on the flag of England. The UK flag we see a lot of the time has the red cross for England, the blue for Scotland and the red for Ireland. It’s a fascinating combination of the three countries’ flags in one.”

“Megs, stay on point,” Tessa urged.