Page 80 of Dragon Her Heels

At least the tall, dark, and handsome, who would work as my groom for the race, understood the severity of the situation. However, I needed to teach him that my precious little girl was not a blight. I kissed Lady’s nose before holding her out to Lucifer. “Please address this problem promptly.”

Laughing, the Devil accepted my pet and settled her on his shoulder before heading off. I assumed he turned the corner before teleporting to keep from startling my parents. They’d accepted his presence readily enough, but he’d done his best to behave for a change.

Darlene giggled. “She loves you, and Lucy will set up a room for her so she can come with us and make sure she has a warming mat in your trailer. He’ll also take care of the transit permit you’ll need for her. Try not to worry. You’ll be happy she’s with you. We can keep her at our seats. All your horses will be with us in our area.”

Right. My magic had made it so Lady couldn’t thrive without me. The other alligators I’d saved did better being left on their own, but Lady? No. Lady needed to be near me to be happy.

She even had a heated bed in my office, and there was a shallow tub so she could hydrate as needed. She wouldn’t be able to stay with me in my office forever, but I’d cross that bridge when we got to it. Fortunately for my sanity, she grew at a slow pace compared to other alligators.

My magic likely had something to do with that.

Sometimes, it did what it wanted, and sometimes, I failed to notice.

I frowned. “Where are your seats if you can keep the horses with you?”

“We have three sets of suites at the finish line, and it’s rather spacious. It was part of our agreement with the race coordinators to do the demonstration. After the demonstration race is over, you’ll go to the gate while they’re grooming the track. Lucifer paid for the practitioners to do the work to allow the demonstration to occur immediately before the race itself.”

Ah. That was right. Lucifer had more money than sense, and he had no problems with spending excessively. “But I bought tickets for my parents.”

“We’ll give them to someone hoping for seats to the race, never fear. That’s a race day issue.” Darlene grinned at my parents and winked. “We have a hobby of messing with her immaculately planned schedule. She’s fun once she realizes her meticulous schedule is no longer organized precisely as she likes it. Crystal, I do have a question for you.”

“What is it?”

“Why did you dump an absolutely obscene amount of work on Durant?”

“Mr. Durant deserved it,” I announced, and I lifted my chin and sniffed. “He attempted to add me to his hoard again. This time, he attempted to slip a marriage license in with a health insurance and life insurance policy, hoping that I’d just start signing and initialing without reading. That earned him a punt into the lake after I beat him with the papers.”

Darlene snickered. “I see. At least it wasn’t pie, right?”

I put some serious thought into crying. “He tried to make a lemon milk pie. It became a curdled horror show, and I’m pretty sure someone failed to explain what custard is to him. I admire his persistence and willingness to make an utter fool of himself, but really? A lemon milk pie?”

“That does sound like a crime against the universe,” the Queen of Hell admitted. “Please tell me that’s everything.”

“Well, that’s everything from yesterday. I think the only reason I got off lightly was because I was working with the horses for most of the day to prepare for the race. Then I had to take care of the orchard, teach the house sitters the drop off route for the eggs and fruit, and try not to go insane. I’m not sure I succeeded on the last part.”

“You’re fine. But is he even going to be able to make the race with the to-do list you gave him?”

“He’d probably try to eat the horses!”

Yuless burst into laughter. “Why would you think that?”

“I caught him licking David. I punted him across the pasture for that stunt. Because she’s a perfect girl, Zenzi helped.” I raised a brow at Darlene. “For the record, that was the day before yesterday. When he isn’t trying to slip marriage documents into my paperwork, he’s doing something to push my buttons.” I pointed at Yuless. “At least all he does is keep trying to figure out how he screwed up a cherry pie with premade crust and canned filling! Rather than go home and destroy his kitchen, he goes to the third floor and attempts to murder Isaac through hysterical laughter. At least Isaac helps with the cleanup.”

The succubus regarded the tall, dark, and handsome with a despairing expression. “Please tell me she’s joking.”

“She’s really not.”

“I regret that rule now. I also regret hanging a sign on my gate informing the world that all single men wishing to enter my domain must bake me a pie, in my kitchen, while supervised, to confirm it hadn’t come from a bakery. The only good news is that the other dragons, who keep insisting on coming over, have half a clue about how to bake pies. In better news, they come as a pack and bake enough pies so everyone gets a slice and only a slice, which has spared the poor bathroom scale.”

“Crystal, are you okay?” Darlene asked.

I thought about it, allowed my shoulders to slump, and I shook my head. “I haven’t had pie or coffee today. Or even tea. I was trying to be a responsible driver.”

The succubus gasped. “Lucifer, it’s an emergency. She hasn’t had coffee yet today.”

Deeper in the mansion he’d taken us to, the Devil chortled. He came back, and he held Lady in his arms, who had been dressed in a fluffy neon pink onesie. The alligator dozed, and I assumed he’d handled her hydration and temperature needs in the time he’d been dressing her. “I know this is going to be one of the greatest sins I have committed today, but make her a decaf. The last thing she needs is to be bouncing off the walls. I’ll handle the pie problem, however. I have a baker downstairs who has been behaved enough to earn a day off from the dungeons.”

My father considered my ragtag group of friends before staring at me. “If you ever need a break from this, you can use your old room at home for a while. We really don’t mind. It sounds like you could really use a break.”

No kidding.