Rachel hesitated. The Winking Wizard wasn’t her favorite bar, but the place had grown on her. And Jake had just spent several hours at the Magic Cocktail with her. Perhaps she should return the favor by going to the Winking Wizard with him. Besides, she had nothing better to do tonight, and it might be a good idea to get to know Jake’s friends better.
“Alright,” she said. “But just this once. Don’t think I’m going to make a habit of drinking beer.”
Jake grinned at her and shrugged. “Alright, just this once.”
Then he gave a little wave and disappeared into his truck, peeling out of the parking lot before Rachel had even had a chance to start her car’s engine. She shook her head in amusement.
“Some things are the same, no matter the man,” she announced to her steering wheel.
But in her heart, she had a growing feeling that there were a lot of things about Jake that were anything but ordinary.
Chapter Eleven
“Just this once” turned into several consecutive nights at the Winking Wizard. Jake felt somewhat triumphant about the fact that he’d converted Rachel into a regular. Maybe she wasn’t willing to verbally admit yet that this place was better than all the downtown bars, but actions spoke louder than words, and she had happily come along to the bar every night. She’d claimed it was because they needed to finalize plans for the wedding, but they hadn’t done any planning. They still hadn’t told anyone about their engagement, in fact. Rachel said it was better to keep it quiet until the last minute, to avoid anyone hearing about it and tipping off the press. Jake thought her fear of the press was a little overblown, but he humored her. If he was honest, he’d have to admit that he was a little embarrassed to tell his friends about his plan. They were going to tease him to no end, at best, or try their best to dissuade him, at worst. Jake would not be dissuaded. He was willing to sacrifice the vague possibility of ever finding true love for the sure possibility of being able to run for People’s Governor. Torch Lake needed him, and he knew if he ran for People’s Governor he would win. William Graves was a lousy candidate, and no one wanted him in power—not even the wizards, who usually voted for wizards over shifters out of some sort of loyalty to their kind.
Jake guzzled down the last few sips of his lager and glanced at his watch. He had to work in the morning, and it was already almost eleven. He’d been keeping late nights too often lately, but he couldn’t help himself. With all the stress of the recent protests, and now of planning a secret wedding that even his best friends didn’t know about, he’d had a lot of steam to blow off. It had been nice to be around friends every night, enjoying a drink or two while finding reasons to laugh. There hadn’t been enough reasons to laugh lately.
Jake glanced over at Rachel, who was by the magic swivel ball table, her brow furrowed in concentration as she took on her opponent. Magic swivel ball was a bar game the wizards liked to play that seemed to be some sort of weird combination between pool and chess. You needed magical powers to play it, because you had to move your figures across the playing field without touching them—a feat that obviously required a bit of supernatural finesse. Jake had never cared much that shifters couldn’t play, since the game looked rather boring and confusing anyway. The first time Rachel had come to the Winking Wizard, she’d seemed to agree that it was a stupid game. Jake remembered how she’d sneered at the wizards who were playing, and declared that swivel ball was just a stupid game college kids played when they’d had way too much beer.
Apparently she’d changed her mind, because she’d played each of the last three nights, and she hadn’t been drinking an excessive amount of beer. Neither one of them had. After all, one didn’t want to have to deal with a hangover every single day of the week. Jake had tried to convince Rachel to branch out and try something other than a Charmed Star Ale, but she had refused and said that she was happy with the drink and didn’t see the need to torture herself by trying more beers.
Jake chuckled at the memory. He loved beer, and the idea of drinking it being torture seemed ludicrous to him. But he hadn’t pushed Rachel any further. He was just happy that she was tolerating the Winking Wizard. He knew they’d promised that they wouldn’t have to spend a lot of time together once they were married, but he’d still feared that she’d try to drag him to places like the Magic Cocktail on the regular. That place had been nice, and the food and drinks had been surprisingly good. But he would never be truly comfortable there. Things were too stiff and uptight. Jake preferred the laid back atmosphere here, where no one cared too much what you wore or whether you ordered the “right” drink.
It was a good thing no one cared what you wore, because Rachel tended to wear clothes that were wildly out of place for a laid back beer bar. Right now, she was wearing designer skinny jeans paired with a flowy yellow tank top that had some delicate lace detail. The outfit was finished off with a pair of sky-high beige colored heels. Wait, not beige—nude. He’d made the mistake of commenting on her beige shoes the other night and she’d scoffed at him and told him that they were actually nude in color. Jake chuckled again.
And then he let himself watch her rear as she leaned over in those tight jeans to inspect the swivel ball board. Even though they’d agreed that there would be no expectation of intimacy in their crazy marriage, he could look, right? After all, she was his fiancée.
“Dude, do you like her?”
Leif’s voice startled Jake out of his ass-gazing reverie. Leif had snuck up to the table as silently as a shadow, and Jake couldn’t deny that he’d been eyeing Rachel up and down.
“You’ve been spending an awful lot of time together lately,” Leif continued, his tone accusing. “And you can’t keep your eyes off of her.”
Jake shrugged. “We’re friends. Friends spend time together. And can you blame me for staring at her? She’s got an objectively amazing body.”
Leif gave Jake a piercing look. It was obvious Jake wasn’t telling the whole truth, but what was he supposed to say?
Well, I like her enough to marry her. In fact, the wedding is in a week. Consider this your invite.
Rachel would kill him if he spilled the beans on the wedding, and Jake didn’t feel like dealing with a bunch of questions from Leif right now, anyway. So he stood and stretched, just as Russ showed up at the table.
“Leaving so soon?” Russ asked as he sat down with his giant, frothy mug.
“It’s late, boys. And I’ve got a lot of work to do tomorrow.” I also don’t want to have to talk to you guys about Rachel. It’s complicated.
Russ shrugged. “Suit yourself. I think you’re getting old.”
Russ and Leif burst out into laughter at Russ’s little jab, but Jake let it go with only a slight eye roll. “See you later, boys. Try not to get into too much trouble when I’m not around to chaperone anymore.”
Their laughter followed him as he started walking toward the door. He stopped, though, before walking out and turned to head toward the swivel ball table. He should tell Rachel that he was leaving. He wasn’t sure what the proper protocol was here, for telling your fiancée who no one knew about that you were taking off for the night. He figured he should at least say goodbye, even though he could feel Leif’s and Russ’s eyes staring into his back. They were going to give it to him tomorrow for sure. There wasn’t really a good explanation for the fact that he’d just said he wasn’t interested in Rachel, and yet he was making sure to say goodbye. He could say it was because she was his friend, but that wasn’t entirely convincing. Jake frequently left without bothering to hunt down his friends and say goodbye. In fact, his friend Clint was around here somewhere, but Jake hadn’t given a second thought to finding Clint for a farewell.
As Jake approached Rachel, though, he forgot all about his friends and how they might tease him. All he could think about was the fact that Rachel’s ass looked even better up close than it had from far away. And her skin was practically glowing. Her cheeks were slightly pink, probably from a combination of
the warm temperature in here and from the thrill of victory. If the crude chalk scoreboard near the swivel ball table could be trusted, Rachel was winning twice as many games as everyone else tonight.
Jake watched her for a moment before she realized he was there. She threw back her head and laughed at something one of the wizards near her said, then reached out to lightly touch his arm. Jake felt a strange, uncomfortable stirring in the pit of his stomach. Jealousy? Was he actually jealous that Rachel had barely touched some random wizard on the arm?
Jake had no right to be jealous, and yet he was. Even though there had been no official announcement, and even though their arrangement was a business one, Jake felt possessive. Rachel was his.
Without thinking about it, he took a few steps forward and put his hand demonstratively on the small of Rachel’s back. The jolt of electricity he felt when he touched her was completely unexpected. He’d touched Rachel before. There’d been a handshake here, a friendly hug there, a light touch on the shoulder to get her attention…but he’d never felt a connection like he did right now. His whole body was growing warm and tingly, and all the warm tingles were coming directly from the spot where his hand was connecting with her lower back.
If she felt any sort of electricity, she hid it well. She turned to him and gave him a completely normal, friendly smile.
“Oh, hey Jake. Did you see the end of that game? I just whooped Marco’s ass.”
The wizard she’d just been talking to, whose name was presumably Marco, gave a sheepish shrug. “It’s true. This girl has a natural talent for swivel ball.”
“A talent that will take you far, I’m sure,” Jake said to Rachel. “I hear bar game experts are in high demand with employers these days.”
She rolled her eyes at him, but still looked pleased. For someone who’d sworn off this game just a week ago, she was taking her win quite seriously.
“I didn’t see the end of the game, but I’m sure it was riveting. I just came over to say goodbye. I’m heading out for the night.”
“Oh! I’ll walk out with you. I should go, too. I have to get more sleep, or I’m going to get fired. Yesterday I was literally falling asleep at my desk.”
Jake was more pleased by this than he should have been. He wanted Marco to see him walk out with Rachel. This was a ridiculous thing to be happy about, he knew. For one thing, Marco probably had no interest in Rachel other than as a friend. They were just buddies, enjoying a round of swivel ball. And for another thing, Jake was already engaged to Rachel. It’s not like anyone was going to swoop in and suddenly steal her. The odds of someone else being crazy enough to fall in love with her and marry her before he could next week were pretty low.
Still, as they walked out together Jake kept his hand planted firmly on her lower back. He didn’t even care that his friends were probably sitting back at their table, shaking their heads and commenting about how Jake was definitely falling for Rachel.
The situation was so much more complicated than they could ever imagine.
Chapter Twelve
“Well, this is embarrassing.”
Rachel tried to make her voice sound light, like she was making a joke and the fact that her car was refusing to start was actually funny. But it wasn’t a joke, and Jake knew it. He was looking at her with deep concern, as though every pathetic turn of the engine might be physically hurting her, too.
“Pop the hood,” he said.
With an obedient sigh, Rachel popped the hood. She sat in the car for a moment while Jake tinkered around, grateful that his view of her was blocked by the hood for the moment. She needed to gather her composure. She could feel tears stinging at her eyes, and she absolutely could not cry right now. Not in front of Jake. She wasn’t sure when, exactly, it had become important to her to impress him. But it was important to her, and she was pretty sure that crying over a car that wouldn’t start was the polar opposite of impressive.
Rachel took a deep breath and forced herself to open her car door and get out, walking around to watch as Jake squinted into the mess of metal in front of him. They were under a streetlight, but the light was still too dim to see very well.
“Do you have a flashlight?” he asked as she approached. He didn’t look up, for which she was grateful. She wasn’t sure whether her face looked completely composed yet.
“Magicae lucis,” she said. Instantly, a beam of light sprang from her magic ring.
Jake looked up, startled. And then he smiled. “Oh. Right. I forget you can do that.”
Then he went back to peering at the engine. Truth be told, sometimes Rachel almost forgot that she could do magic, too. She didn’t use it much these days, even though she was in a safe town, where magic was accepted and allowed. For some reason, the death of her family had made it hard for her to use her magic ring. Magic had been a painful reminder of them. Her mother had been the one to teach her most of what she knew about magic. Most wizard parents left their children’s magical education to the schools, but Rachel’s mom had taken a hands on approach. She’d wanted to make sure that Rachel knew how to cast spells properly, and was well-prepared in the event of a magical war. When Rachel was younger, she’d always rolled her eyes at the prospect of a war. Everything seemed so safe and settled. The thought of a war disrupting things seemed impossible. But then, the Dark War had happened. Rachel wasn’t rolling her eyes now.
In some strange way, swivel ball had been therapeutic for her. It required the use of magic to play, and for that reason Rachel had shied away from it at first. She still thought it was a bit of a stupid game that was better left to college students, but she couldn’t deny that playing it in the bar over the last few nights had helped her feel better about using her magic ring once again. Maybe the Winking Wizard wasn’t such a bad spot after all. She’d actually started to make friends there. The same people showed up most nights to play swivel ball, and they seemed to actually enjoy Rachel’s company. They seemed to look forward to seeing her. Her coworkers, on the other hand, often seemed to be merely tolerating her. And then Jake’s friends—Russ, Leif and Clint—had been wonderful to her as well. Russ had even assured her that his girlfriend Mandy would love to meet Rachel when she was back in town. Apparently Mandy had been sent away at the last moment to try to convince a dragon shifter to move from a human town to Torch Lake. Rachel smiled at the memory of Russ’s words. Was it possible that she was finally making some real friends in this town?
“It’s hard to say for sure,” Jake said, bringing Rachel abruptly back to the present and to her faulty car. But I’d be willing to bet that you’ve got a problem with the starter.”
Rachel peered down at the car’s engine as though she actually understood what that meant. “Um, so…I probably won’t be able to drive it tonight?”
For a moment, Jake looked as though he was going to laugh at her, but he quickly caught himself and pasted a serious, concerned look onto his face. “No. It’ll need repairs. Costly ones, I’m afraid.”
Rachel sighed and rubbed her forehead. She had no money left. She’d barely scraped together enough to pay her lawyer to arrange a prenup. Everything else was wiped out. Her mortgage payment and light bill were probably going to be late this month, a reality that brought her deep shame. She’d never been late on a bill in her life. Of course, she’d spent most of her life with access to a giant savings account full of her family’s centuries’ worth of wealth. “What am I going to do?” she moaned.
Rachel had only been complaining out loud, but Jake took it as a literal question and decided to answer her. She almost had to laugh. That was such a typical male way to respond.
“Well, I can give you a ride home tonight. I’ve got a buddy of mine who I can call to tow this to a garage for next to nothing. You’ll get the car fixed and gripe about how much it costs and how unreliable vehicles are, and then you’ll move on.”
“Except that I can’t afford to fix the car. I don’t have a single dime left in my savings account.”
> Jake looked at her in surprise. “I thought you were rich.”
Rachel shifted uncomfortably from foot to foot. Her heels were killing her at this point. She should really learn to wear more sensible shoes for a night out at the bar, but she couldn’t help herself. She loved these ones too much. They were even more unforgiving, though, on the uneven gravel of the parking lot than they had been on the smooth floor of the bar.
“I was rich, before the war. And I will be rich when I get my family’s fortune back. But in the meantime I’m, uh, struggling a bit.”
Jake looked at her doubtfully. “But your clothes are all—”
“Expensive shit? Yeah, I know. But I already had all of these before the war. It’s what I managed to salvage before my town was completely wiped out and put on lockdown. I’m one of the lucky ones who not only escaped, but escaped with a suitcase of possessions. It wasn’t much, and lord knows if I could do it all again I would have worried more about taking priceless family heirlooms with me instead of bringing half my closet. But that was my first experience with emergency evacuation. Hopefully my last. I panicked a bit and didn’t think clearly about what to pack.”
“Don’t you have savings though?”
Rachel frowned at the tone in Jake’s voice. He sounded like he was lecturing a child. “I did have savings, which is impressive in itself. It’s not easy to start over completely from scratch on the salary of a grunt worker, but I did it, and I even managed to start a small savings account at the same time. I spent every last dime in that savings account to pay a lawyer, though. Remember? I told you I had just met with a lawyer that first day that you ran into me in the hallway.”
Jake nodded, but the disapproving look on his face didn’t fade completely, and Rachel found herself growing angry.
“Look, I think I did pretty good for myself considering the circumstances. A lot of rich kids would have just whined and gone into a complete depression. I’ve worked hard and done the best I could. And so what if I spent all my savings on a lawyer? It’s not like I threw it away on a gambling spree in Vegas or something. You can’t blame me for making such a desperate attempt to save my fortune.”
Dragon Proposing (Torch Lake Shifters Book 2) Page 9