How to Tame a Dragon Ch. 04

"Don't worry big sis... I have no intention of fooling around in any way with Daniel." She gave a bitter little laugh, "I don't even think he looks at me in that way!"

She gave a little defeated shrug of her shoulders. "I think I'm doomed to play the role of everyone's little sister!"

Jessie hugged her tight for a minute. "You are my little sister," she whispered softly. "And I would hate to have to damage Daniel in any way, for having done you harm."

Izzy gave a tearful little laugh. "I'll make sure that you don't then," she promised her quietly.

After Jessie had said goodnight, and left her room Izzy sat for a long time on the edge of her bed. She was oh so tempted to go back down and seek out Daniel. The trouble was she was afraid of finding him.

In the end she opted for the boringly safe option of retiring for the night and was asleep seconds after her head touched her pillow.

Izzy had breakfast with just Jessie the next morning, since the two brothers had gone off early -- to some meeting or other.

Jessie was restless, and wanted to go out for a drive again but Izzy just wanted to potter around the house. She left Jessie in the living room, painting her finger nails; and Izzy wandered into the hall with one of her books heading for one of her bolt holes. She had just reached the foot of the stairs when Daniel came storming in, and slammed the door too with a heavy hand. She shrank back into the shadows trying to be invisible but it was too late he'd already spotted her. The thunderous look turned into a charming smile so fast that it took Izzy's breath away.

"Izzy?" Her eyes opened wide in surprise at the wheedling tone. "I don't suppose you're any good at typing?" he asked cautiously.

"Adequate I suppose..." she shrugged. "Why?"

He held up a hand full of hand written notes to show her. "Mrs Wright my secretary is of with the flu, and I urgently need these typing up." He raised his brow hopefully.

"Alright," Izzy sighed. "Let me have a look, and I'll see what I can do." She held her hand out for the papers.

Daniel put his hand on the back of her shoulder and led her to his study. "If you can input them onto my computer; that would be great!" he half begged her.

Izzy sat down at his desk and started to read quickly through, to get an idea of what she was dealing with. His handwriting was terrible! A spider dipped in ink would have been more legible.

"So how long do you think it will take you?" he asked her impatiently.

"I'm not sure yet... come back in an hour, and I might have a better idea then."

"An hour?" he asked disappointed for a moment, but then he suddenly grinned at her. "Can't I just sit here? You might need me to make sense of some of my writing." He was wheedling again, and she bit back a smile.

"No Daniel."

"I'll be very quiet."

"Go away Daniel."

Muttering and mumbling, her left her in peace.

When he returned an hour later -- on the dot, she had managed to type up quite a bit. It had been slow going at first, but then she had started to understand a little about the things he was talking about, and she had adapted to his writing fairly well. Any words that she hadn't been sure off she had been able to make intelligent guesses on; and she was feeling quite pleased with herself.

She had been saving the files and printing them off as she went, so that when he came back she was able to hand him the printouts.

"You go and sit over there with them and read through them to make sure that I didn't make any mistakes," she told him bossily. "I'm almost done here, so you won't need to wait much longer."

Daniel grinned at her tone, but did as he was told. There were a couple of mistakes on some of the technical stuff, but on the whole he couldn't fault her.

He gave them back to her, with the corrections neatly marked out; and she redid them and printed them off again.

"Thank you Izzy," Daniel said quietly. "I really do appreciate you doing this for me."

She smiled at him, her eyes lighting up with pleasure. "You're welcome Daniel," she said softly.

He glanced at his watch and then cursing softly swept out the room, calling goodbye as he went.

Izzy sighed happily, before picking up her book again; and heading for her favourite hiding space, the upstairs window seat. She curled up with her book but found that she couldn't concentrate.

She closed it and sat staring dreamily out of the window. The weather had turned cold again, the winter not quite ready to concede to spring just yet. She sat watching the nasty grey clouds scudding across the sky, totally obliterating any blue at all. She rested her head against the windowpane and allowed her eyes to close...

*

Daniel found her there a couple of hours later. He picked her up and gently carried her to her bed; where he covered her with the blanket and left again.

He so badly wanted to stay with her for a little while; but he knew that it would be a mistake. He had stroked her hair briefly, and she had moved and murmured to him, shifting and arching restlessly, his body's response had shocked him!