Dragon Proposing (Torch Lake Shifters Book 2)

by Sloane Meyers

  * * *

  Eleven hours later, when the clock on Rachel’s office computer finally flipped over to five p.m., she thought she had never been so relieved to see quitting time arrive. She’d gone through the day feeling like a zombie, and her boss had yelled at her at least half a dozen times for making some stupid mistake. Ordinarily, Rachel would have worried that she would lose her job before getting her fortune back, but today she was too tired to even worry about that. She forced her exhausted, aching muscles to stand, and winced when she thought about flying home. The very idea of being on a broomstick right now sent shivers of pain up and down her whole body, but even that was not enough to convince her to call Jake for a ride. She still wasn’t ready to face him.

  He had texted her this morning, a quick polite text that didn’t mention the night before. She wasn’t sure if she should be mad that he said nothing about it, or happy that he had taken the hint that she wasn’t ready to talk about it. She’d finally settled on happy. She’d already spent enough time being mad at him lately. Might as well give him the benefit of the doubt.

  Got your note. Let me know if anything changes and you need a ride home from work. It’s no trouble to pick you up. Have a good day at work.

  The text had been sent at about six-ten, a mere ten minutes after she’d left the house. She must have barely missed him on her way out, and she cringed when she thought of how close she’d come to running into him in the kitchen. She knew she was acting ridiculous, avoiding him like this, but she didn’t even have the energy to feel ashamed of herself right now. All she wanted to do was go home and fall into bed without having to have any serious conversations about what was going on between her and Jake.

  Rachel glanced at her watch. She’d have to hurry if she wanted to beat him home and get safely behind her bedroom door before he arrived. He was a fast driver, and she was a horrible broomstick flyer. Moving quickly despite her screaming muscles, she grabbed her broomstick from its spot against the side of her cubicle and started hurrying toward the door. She’d barely made it fifty feet, though, when she was stopped abruptly by a coworker’s hand grabbing her arm.

  “Rachel! Rachel did you hear?”

  Rachel groaned inwardly. She hadn’t heard any office gossip today, and she was fine with keeping things that way. Every minute she stayed here made it more and more likely that she’d run into Jake when she got back to her house, so she turned to her coworker and shook her head slightly. “No, I haven’t heard much of anything today. I’ve been quite busy. And I’m in a bit of a hurry right now, so if you don’t mind, I’ll catch up on the office news tomorrow.”

  Her coworker gave her a funny look and then threw his head back laughing. “This isn’t about office gossip, Rach. This is about the High Council’s announcement.”

  “The High Council?”

  “Yeah, they just issued an announcement that the marriage laws have been abolished and they’re holding a press conference in a few minutes to explain. I thought you would want to hear what they had to say, given your situation.”

  Rachel stood frozen in place for several moments. Everyone she worked with knew about her predicament. The Bennett family name was famous, so it had been impossible for Rachel to hide who she was. It didn’t take a genius to figure out that Rachel was single and likely to lose out on her fortune if the marriage laws weren’t abandoned soon. As if that wasn’t enough, she had participated in the protest alongside Jake, which had put her face front and center in all the news stories. The whole thing was more than a little embarrassing, but Rachel had been willing to make her private business public if there was a chance she could save her fortune. Unfortunately, all of her efforts had failed to help her. The law had been impossible to change in the time she needed it to change. Or had it? From what her coworker had just said, the law was gone. But how?

  All thoughts about trying to beat Jake home were forgotten. Rachel rushed into the break room along with most of the office. All of her bosses and coworkers were crammed into the room, staring up at the large television screen where Councilor Morgan, head wizard of the High Council, was just taking his place on the front steps of the High Council building. The buzz of excited chatter in the break room died down to complete silence as Councilor Morgan began to speak.

  “Citizens of Torch Lake, as many of you already know, the High Council issued a decree at four-thirty today that all marriage requirement laws would be abolished, effective immediately. I know many of you are probably surprised by this, since our earlier efforts to remove the laws were met with quite a few hurdles. The High Council has been hard at work since our last press conference, attempting to find a way to abolish the laws more quickly. One of our wizard law experts found guidelines in some ancient wizard codes to support the emergency abolishment of a law. All of our lawyers agreed that this was possible for the marriage laws, and so, we have abolished the laws using emergency procedures. As of today, all wizards and shifters in the town of Torch Lake are free to inherit fortunes, own all types of businesses, and run for any public office without needing to be married first. The High Council is very happy to take this step, which makes our town more welcoming and on par with modern times. Now, I will take brief questions from the press.”

  The break room erupted with chatter and whooping, and soon the volume was so loud that Rachel could no longer hear what was being said by Councilor Morgan. It didn’t matter, though. She had heard the important bit, which was that she was free. Her fortune was hers, regardless of whether she was single or married. This was the outcome she’d been dreaming of, so why did she suddenly feel so empty inside?

  Quietly, Rachel slipped from the room and went back to her cubicle to get her broomstick. The hallways were deserted now, for which she was grateful. She was fighting a losing battle to keep tears from spilling over her eyelids, and she didn’t want to have to explain to anyone why she was crying. She wasn’t sure herself why she was crying. These should have been tears of joy, but she knew in her heart that they weren’t. They were something else entirely.

  They were tears for Jake. Rachel felt sorrow wash over her in waves as she realized that her marrying him was no longer necessary. She should have felt freed by that knowledge, but instead, the emptiness inside her grew. She grabbed her broomstick and left the building as quickly as her legs would carry her. She didn’t go home, though. There was no point in trying to beat Jake home now, and she wasn’t ready to face him yet. What was he going to do when he saw her? Smile broadly and declare that it had been fun while it lasted but there was no need for them to remain engaged?

  Rachel could hardly bear the thought. She’d been ready to break up with him forever last night, even if it meant losing her fortune. But now, although she didn’t need him anymore, she felt horribly empty when she considered a future without him. How had things swung so far in the other direction in such a short amount of time?

  Rachel climbed onto her broomstick and rose unsteadily into the air, turning toward the lake instead of toward home. As she rose high above the city, she finally allowed the tears to fall. She felt foolish for crying, but the emotion swelling inside of her was too strong to hold back. With her future suddenly turned upside down, she had no choice but to face the truth: she had fallen in love with the one person she was supposed to see as merely a business partner in a marriage of convenience. She loved Jake Palmer.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Jake paced back and forth on Rachel’s patio, using all his willpower to keep himself from texting Rachel. It was eleven p.m. now, and he hadn’t seen her all evening. He’d come straight home after the High Council’s announcement, his stomach tangled in knots. He’d hoped that Rachel would be here already, or arrive soon after him. But she had stayed far away.

  Was she out celebrating with friends, overjoyed at the fact that she would no longer need to marry him? That was the most likely scenario, wasn’t it? Jake himself had received several texts from Russ, Leif, and Clint, all imploring him to co
me out to the Winking Wizard so they could toast the next People’s Governor of Torch Lake. His friends, who still had no idea that he and Rachel had decided to get engaged, were likely confused by the fact that Jake had not returned their texts. Normally, Jake would have been the first one at the bar during a situation like this, raising his Dragon’s Breath Lager high above his head and whooping with excitement.

  But he didn’t feel like drinking or whooping right now. He felt lost. This morning, he’d woken up with a spring in his step that he’d never had before. He couldn’t believe that destiny had sent him, Jake Palmer, a lifemate—a lifemate as beautiful and perfect as Rachel, no less. He’d spent so much time telling his friends not to let their lifemates pass them by, but he’d given up on a lifemate of his own. Now, here she was, and she was engaged to him. What a strange turn of fate that had been.

  Jake had tossed and turned all night, thinking about whether he should tell Rachel that he thought she was his lifemate. He had finally decided against it. He didn’t want to freak her out, and he figured the best option was to give her space. She had taken off so quickly after they made love that he knew he couldn’t deny the whole thing had freaked her out a bit. But, even though she avoided him in the morning, she didn’t call off the marriage. They were still engaged, and Jake figured he could take his time showing her how he had actually come to love her. They would have a lifetime together, after all. Plenty of time for her to adjust to the idea of actually having feelings for each other.

  But the High Council’s announcement this afternoon had brought Jake’s world crashing down around him. He should have been overjoyed. This is what he had worked so hard for. All of his protests and lobbying had not been in vain. The citizens of Torch Lake, himself included, were now free to live their lives without worrying about antiquated marriage laws. But all Jake had been able to think about as he watched Councilor Morgan make the announcement was that this gave Rachel a perfectly good reason to call off their engagement. Their moment of passion last night might be the only one Jake ever had with her. He got the feeling that she hadn’t intended to take things nearly that far. She’d just been carried away in the heat of the moment. Heck, he hadn’t intended to take things that far, either. He’d only wanted to apologize for being such an ass to her. He would never in his wildest dreams have thought his apology would end in him making love to her, and he especially hadn’t foreseen that he would discover she was his lifemate.

  Yet here he was, engaged, at least for the moment, for purely business purposes—purposes that were no longer valid. And the longer Rachel avoided coming home, the further Jake’s heart sank. If she wanted to stay with him, despite the High Council’s ruling, she surely would have told him by now. But why would she want that? Just because Jake had fallen so suddenly didn’t mean she had. As the clock struck midnight, Jake felt certain that she was out celebrating with friends. She had her life back, after all. Her fortune was hers, no strings attached. No marriage of convenience was necessary.

  Jake had been pacing the patio for hours, and he was starting to feel quite stir crazy. But he didn’t want to leave Rachel’s house. She had to come home eventually, and he was determined to be here—and awake—when she did. He had to get off this porch, though.

  Grabbing a small solar-powered lantern off a decorative table on the patio, Jake made his way down the patio steps and into Rachel’s backyard. The yard was large, and the boundaries weren’t well defined in spots. There was no fence, but in some places tree lines or bushes made it clear where her property ended and the no man’s land of the hill began. In other places, the tree line wasn’t a straightforward line, but more of a slow thickening of trees. In those spots, Jake wasn’t exactly sure where Rachel’s yard ended. He walked through one of those haphazard spots now, swinging his lantern around and wondering what it would have been like to live here permanently. Surely, he was going to have to move out now, back to his own apartment. Rachel had no need of him.

  This would have been a lovely place to raise a family, though. If he’d been able to convince Rachel to have kids here, their little wizard-dragons would have had quite a ball running through the bushes and trees of this expansive backyard. Jake imagined himself setting up a tree swing, or better yet, a tree house.

  As Jake mulled over this, he thought he saw something unusual in one of the trees above him. With a sudden start, Jake stopped, then turned slowly and raised his lantern high above his head.

  “What in the world?” he said aloud, squinting up into the darkness. He swung the lantern a little to the left, and then it came fully into view: a tree house. Jake felt an odd twisting of nerves in his stomach. It seemed quite odd that he had just been thinking of a tree house, and then one suddenly appeared. Was this place a little more magical than he thought? Jake shook his head, trying to shake away the crazy thoughts filling his mind.

  Don’t be ridiculous, he told himself. Tree houses don’t just appear out of thin air. This must have already been here. You just never noticed it before.

  Still, it struck him as some sort of sign that he had seen it at exactly the moment he’d been dreaming of building a tree house for his own imaginary children. That had to be a good omen, right? His heart started beating wildly for no good reason other than he was wishing for a miracle, and somehow this tree house seemed to be one.

  Slowly, he approached the foot of the tree, where he saw a ladder leading up to the top. The ladder was sturdy and in good condition, and Jake put the handle of the lantern between his teeth to hold it while he climbed up. At the top, he squeezed through the door into a large, one room tree house, which was also in good condition. The wood looked like it was high quality, and had been weather treated not too long ago. And inside the structure were some neatly folded blankets and a wooden box that looked like a toy chest. Feeling a bit dazed, Jake set the lantern down on the windowsill of a small window, and went to look in the chest. It was filled with an assortment of toys. There were cups, plates, and pretend food. There were also toy bow and arrows and a few sticks with streamers attached. Hats that looked like they might have belonged to Robin Hood were stuffed into one of the corners. The toys were used but in good condition. It looked like children had actually played here. But whose children? Jake had assumed that Rachel had bought this house new, but it was possible she hadn’t, he supposed. Had someone lived here before her, someone with kids?

  As if on cue, Rachel’s head suddenly appeared in the doorway of the tree house.

  “So I see you found the secret hideout.”

  Jake nearly jumped out of his skin. Any other day, he might have made some sort of smart, witty comeback. But right now, he was so relieved to see her that all he could do was squawk out her name.

  “Rachel!”

  She walked into the room and grabbed one of the folded blankets, then spread it out on the floor to sit on. Jake shut the lid of the wooden toy chest and sat down on that, eyeing Rachel. She looked tired. She had bags under her eyes, and it looked like she’d been crying, although it was hard to tell for sure in the odd light of the solar lantern. Her red eyes could also have been a side effect of exhaustion. She couldn’t have slept more than a few hours last night. And yet, she still looked lovely. Jake drank in the sight of her, and he felt an overwhelming sense of sadness. She could have been his, if only the High Council hadn’t found a way to abolish the law so quickly. Jake still couldn’t believe that the law’s abolishment, which he had fought for so fiercely, and had wanted so desperately, had turned out to be the thing that kept him from the woman he loved. Rachel had a resigned look in her eyes, and Jake had a feeling that he already knew what she was going to say. She had come here to call things off. To shake his hand and say “Thanks, but I can take things on my own from here.” He couldn’t bear the thought of hearing those words, and so he tried to think of something to say to distract her. Anything to make her talk about something else, and delay the inevitable breaking of his heart.

  “How’d you k
now I was out here?” It was a weak distraction, but the best he managed to come up with on a moment’s notice. She smiled, and pointed at the lantern.

  “That thing isn’t very bright, but it’s so dark out here that it stands out, anyway. I could see it twinkling back here through the trees, and I figured it must be you. How’d you end up in the tree house, though? I didn’t think I’d mentioned it was back here.”

  “You didn’t, actually. I was just, uh, bored and decided to take a little walk around the property. I still hadn’t seen most of the yard up close. I was quite surprised when I found this little hut up here. Was it already here when you bought the place? I thought you’d bought this house new.”

  Rachel shook her head. “No, it was a little less than a year old when I bought it. The couple that lived here before had two kids, and the dad had built this for them. They decided not long after they moved in, though, that they wanted to be closer to town. They wanted their kids to be in a neighborhood, with other kids to play with. So they sold the house. I’ve kept up with the tree house, though, and made sure it was kept in good repair. I figured I might have kids of my own who would want to use it someday, although I guess that day is probably a long ways off, if it ever comes.”

  She sounded so sad as she spoke. Jake wanted to shake her and tell her that he loved her and would gladly have children with her right now. But how could he do that, when goodbye was written all over her face? So instead he shrugged and smiled.

  “Well, you never know where life will go. And this place was built really well, I can tell. It should hold up for quite some time.”