Dragon Proposing (Torch Lake Shifters Book 2) Read online

  His expression finally softened. “No, I guess I can’t. I’m pretty much doing the same thing by marrying you. I mean, it’s a career chance I’m trying to save, not a fortune. But it’s a desperate attempt, all the same.”

  Rachel felt all the fight go out of her at his words. “So marrying me is what desperation looks like, eh? Glad to know I’m such a prize.”

  He smiled. “You know I didn’t mean it like that.”

  “I know.”

  They stood in awkward silence for a moment. Rachel realized that her magic ring was still emitting a flashlight beam, and she whispered, “Lucis terminantur.” The light flickered out, leaving them once again only lit by the dull yellow streetlight.

  “Are we crazy?” she asked Jake.

  He shrugged. “Maybe, but there are worse things to be. Come on. I’ll take you home.”

  “What about the car, though?”

  “I’ll get my buddy to tow it. That won’t cost much at all, and if you need me to cover the cost for you I can.”

  She started to protest but he held his hands up and shook his head. “It’s not a big deal, Rachel. You can pay me back once you get your fortune, if you insist. As for the repairs, I know the guy at the garage, too. He’ll probably do them for you on a credit basis, with the agreement that you’ll pay him once your fortune is transferred back to you. He’s a wizard, and as I understand it, all the wizards know the family name Bennett. He won’t refuse you. Besides, I know his shop is really backed up right now, so the repairs will probably take him almost a week anyway. By the time he’s done we might be married already and your money will be well on its way back to you.”

  Rachel took a deep breath, finally starting to calm down. Getting things done on credit wouldn’t have been her first preference, but given the circumstances she was glad to have the option. “Ok. Thank you. Seriously. I was starting to panic there for a minute.”

  “I noticed.”

  She gave him a rueful shrug. “I’ll still have to figure out how I’m going to get to work for the next week. I suppose I could borrow a broomstick from someone, although I hate broomstick flying. I’m so bad at it.”

  Jake laughed. “Really? I would have thought your family would have paid for expensive flying lessons for you when you were younger. Doesn’t every rich wizard heiress need to be a broomstick master?”

  Rachel groaned. “They did pay for lessons for me. Lots and lots of them. And I hated every minute of it. I could never really get the hang of it, but they forced me to continue. I guess I should thank them because I’m at least okay at flying now, which is useful when, you know, you lose your family fortune to a Dark War and then you can’t get to work because your cheap ass car broke down.”

  Jake threw back his head and laughed. “If you hate flying that much, you could always ride in to work with me. Our offices aren’t that far apart.”

  “But my house is kind of out of the way from your apartment.”

  “Not really. And besides, I could always just move in with you. I’m going to be doing so in a week, anyway. I mean, no pressure. You don’t have to say yes. But one week doesn’t make much difference to me. I could start moving my stuff over slowly and then it would be super convenient for me to give you rides to work. You wouldn’t have to worry about your rich little ass falling off a broomstick.”

  Rachel laughed. For once, his quip about her wealth didn’t bother her. “I guess, if you really want to, you can go ahead and move in. It would be helping me out a lot if you gave me rides to work. I’m not sure you understand how terrifying it is to ride on a skinny little broom handle.”

  “Are you kidding? The idea is horrifying. That’s why I stick with being a dragon. Big wings are much safer than tiny little broomsticks.”

  Rachel laughed again, and Jake gave her a tiny shove forward.

  “Come on. Get in my truck and I’ll take you home. I’ll pick you up for work tomorrow morning, and then tomorrow afternoon I’ll start moving in. No sense in delaying things anymore.”

  Rachel nodded but didn’t say anything. Her skin tingled where he made contact with her body, but she tried not to let it show, just like she’d tried not to let it show in the bar earlier when he put his hand on her back. She wasn’t supposed to be feeling attracted to him. Things weren’t like that between them, right?

  As she climbed into the truck and glanced over at him, his eyes twinkling in the light from the streetlamps, she wasn’t so sure. How were things between them? They were about to get married to get around a legal technicality. They sort of couldn’t stand each other, and yet they always borderline flirted with each other. His touch drove her crazy in ways it shouldn’t. And now, he was about to move in with her before they had even announced to anyone that they were engaged.

  “Jake?”

  “Hmm?” he asked, slightly distracted as he backed out of his parking spot.

  “Are we crazy?”

  “Yes. We are definitely crazy.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  Jake reached into the fridge and pulled two beers out. He popped the tops off and then made his way out to Rachel’s back porch. He had to admit, living here was turning out to be a big perk of his upcoming marriage. Rachel’s house hadn’t factored into his decision to propose, of course, but he definitely wasn’t going to complain about it. The place was huge compared to his apartment, and the view from the porch rivaled the view from Russ and Mandy’s house, which until now Jake had thought was the most beautiful house in town. But Rachel’s house wasn’t half bad. It might actually give Russ and Mandy’s place a run for its money.

  Rachel’s house was set near the top of one of the highest hills in Torch Lake, and it overlooked the lake itself, for which the town was named. When the sun set across the lake, it turned the water orange and red, giving the illusion that it was a lake of fire. This was why the lake was called Torch Lake, and Jake didn’t think there was a better place in town from which to see the blazing sunset view than Rachel’s house.

  Jake handed Rachel a beer and sat beside her in one of her oversized patio chairs. For someone who claimed to not have any money, she sure had a lot of nice stuff. He didn’t want to seem overly nosy, but he’d wondered at least a hundred times over the last several nights how she had managed to buy this place if she’d truly been unable to access her family’s money since the Dark War. He hadn’t worked up the courage to ask yet, but the question kept burning in his mind.

  He’d worked up the courage to ask quite a few other things over the last few nights, though. He and Rachel hadn’t been to the Winking Wizard since he moved in a few nights ago. The first night, he’d been too tired from moving so much of his stuff over. He’d brought his bed, along with several boxes of books and clothes, and set up camp in the guest bedroom of Rachel’s house. The guest room was ten times nicer than his room in his apartment had been, and the whole first night he kept pinching himself to see if this was really happening. Was he really moving into one of the nicest houses in Torch Lake, with one of its richest, most beautiful residents, whom he was about to marry? It all felt quite surreal, and he kept thinking he was going to wake up and find out this had all been a strange dream. So far, though, this had all been quite real. The only thing missing from this fairy tale was actual romance.

  Jake had to admit that the more time he spent with Rachel, the more he actually liked her. He tried to keep himself from staring at her, or flirting with her, but it wasn’t easy to ignore her when they were constantly together. He’d told himself to go to the Winking Wizard on the second night he was here, just to have a little bit of space between them. But she’d invited him to watch the sunset on her patio, and he found himself powerless to refuse. Tonight, he hadn’t even bothered making plans to go out. He’d already given in to the idea that he was going to be sitting right here on this patio, spending time with Rachel.

  He was playing with fire, and he knew it. Odd as it was, he knew that the worse thing he could do for his upcoming mar
riage was to fall in love. Rachel occasionally acted like she was borderline flirting with him, but he didn’t think she would respond well if he tried to make an attempt at a real relationship. And, really, Jake didn’t think he wanted that either. Rachel was beautiful and friendly enough that being around her constantly was making him feel a bit infatuated, but that’s all it was—a simple infatuation. He didn’t really want to fall in love with her, when it came down to it. Jake recognized the sad irony in this fact, but he tried to push away the uncomfortable feeling it gave him in the pit of his stomach. After all, he had long since given up on the belief that there was anyone out there for him. He was a big proponent of the idea of a lifemate when it came to everyone except himself. For him, love just wasn’t meant to be. That’s the only reason he’d agreed to this marriage of convenience in the first place.

  To distract himself, he’d poured all of his spare energy into planning his campaign for People’s Governor. He couldn’t officially run for office until he was married, but his wedding was only four days away, and the election was only eleven days away. He wanted to be ready to hit the ground running the moment after he said “I do.” Jake grimaced slightly at the thought of his wedding being only four days away. He still hadn’t told any of his friends. He really needed to do that tomorrow, and he already knew they were going to kill him for keeping this from them for so long. Joe the bartender knew, because Jake had needed to ask him if they could rent out the bar for a few hours on the day of the wedding. Joe had happily agreed, and had also said he’d be honored to perform the ceremony. Jake had sworn him to secrecy, but the time had come to stop keeping secrets. The longer he and Rachel took to speak up and tell everyone they were getting married, the more awkward the situation became.

  Jake shook his head, as if he could shake away the worries and nerves that were growing with every passing day. He turned to look at Rachel, trying to come up with something to say that would get his mind off of the wedding ceremony. That was hard to do, though, when everything that popped into his head came back to the wedding somehow. Finally, in desperation, he decided to just bite the bullet and ask Rachel about her house. His curiosity was killing him. He might as well see if she would be willing to spill the beans on how she’d managed such a posh place with no money.

  “So, tell me,” he said, leaning back in his patio chair and affecting as casual an air as he could. “How did you score such an amazing house with such a killer view if you had no money?”

  She gave him a wary sideways glance. He knew she hated it when he asked her about money, but he figured if he was technically going to be her husband, she could put up with his nosiness now and then. Besides, he had a sneaking suspicion that the girl needed a money management lesson or two. How did she have a house like this and yet no money to even fix her car?

  “I got it on credit. No money down. The mortgage payments eat up most of my salary, but I was banking on being able to pay the house off as soon as I got my fortune. And I bought the house a little under two years ago, when Torch Lake was still in its earliest stages. The High Council here was trying to convince people to come live here, so they were offering some amazing deals on real estate and rebates on mortgages. This place wasn’t nearly as expensive as you might think, and I was lucky that I came along just as it went on the market.”

  “How did you get it with a no-money-down credit deal if you’ve never bought anything on credit before? You told me that you don’t even have any credit cards, and that you paid cash for the car.”

  “Well, yeah. I haven’t built up my own credit score. But my last name is Bennett. That’s enough of a guarantee for any wizard bank.”

  Jake shook his head in wonder. “You know, you’ve told me several times that you understand what it’s like to not be super rich, since you’ve had to work since the Dark War. But I’m not sure you really understand. I mean, you’ve still coasted by on your last name, and on the hope that you were going to get a fortune some day.”

  Jake hadn’t been able to resist saying the words to her. It irked him to no end that Rachel thought she understood what it was like to have no money. She didn’t. She might have been temporarily without savings, but she’d always had the hope of being rich the moment her fortune was processed and returned to her. The only time she’d truly thought there was no hope of getting it back was the brief time between when the High Council announced it would have to have the law officially changed to get rid of it, and Jake’s marriage proposal. As soon as Jake had spoken his mind, though, he regretted it. He saw her eyes flash with anger, and he mentally chastised himself. He should have known better. All he ever did when he talked to her about money was piss her off. In fact, he hadn’t seen the prenup she was preparing yet, but it wouldn’t surprise him one bit if there was a provision in there forbidding him from even asking her about her money.

  “Just because I had my last name and the hope of a fortune doesn’t mean I haven’t suffered. You make fun of me for not knowing much about money, but have you ever stopped to consider that it’s not my fault that I was born a Bennett? I was born into the life I have, and if I never learned about money management it’s because my family didn’t teach me, not because of some moral failing of mine. I’ve had to learn everything about budgeting and saving from scratch, with no one I trusted around to give me advice. I’ve done the best I can, but it hasn’t been easy. And yet all you can do is make fun of me.”

  “Rachel, I only meant that—”

  “I don’t care what you meant. It was a shitty thing to say. You act like I don’t know what it feels like to stress about money, but I do. For your information, I don’t even have the money to cover my mortgage payment or electric bill this month. If you want to stay in that cozy new bedroom of yours, you better hope my fortune comes through quickly, because I’ve reached the absolute limit of how far I can stretch my money. And my savings, as you know, has all been spent in a useless attempt to pay a lawyer to help me. Even the Bennett name isn’t enough to save me anymore, because everyone knows that my fortune isn’t guaranteed. I don’t have anything handed to me on a silver platter like you seem to think.”

  For a moment, Jake found himself speechless. He still thought Rachel had it easier than she thought she did. After all, her financial problems were temporary. They would go away the minute her fortune was transferred to her. But she was under a lot of stress in the present moment, and his constant comments about money likely weren’t helping. In a sudden burst of inspiration, he thought of a way he might help her.

  “Why don’t I pay your mortgage this month?” His chest puffed up with pride as he spoke. He had found a way to help, and it made perfect sense. After all, he was going to be paying her rent next month anyways. Why not contribute to the household finances this month, too? He had some savings, and he could help tide Rachel over until her fortune came in.

  To his surprise, though, she wasn’t thrilled with this idea.

  “No way. I’m not taking money from you. That’s such a typical man response, you know? You think you can insult me but then just swoop in and save the day and everything between us will be fine. Well, that’s not how this is going to work, buddy. I don’t need your help. I’ll manage until next month when I have my fortune, and then I’ll catch up on all my payments. Hell, I’ll pay off the house. I don’t need you to step up and be my knight in shining armor.”

  Her voice dripped with venom, and Jake felt defensive. “I wasn’t trying to act like some goddamn knight in shining armor. I was just trying to do you a favor, since I am living here after all. But if you want to be stubborn and ridiculous, then go right ahead. You don’t realize how privileged you are just to have the ability to say no to my offer of help. You’ve got a safety net you’re about to land on. A lot of people don’t have that.”

  Rachel jumped to her feet and pointed an angry finger at Jake’s chest. “I’ve had it with you and your comments about my money and my privilege. I get it, okay? I’m rich. I don’t take
that for granted, but it doesn’t completely define me. And you need to go look in the mirror before you start throwing stones in my direction.”

  Jake frowned at her, not flinching under her gaze or under the pressure from her finger, which was digging angrily into his chest. “I need to look in the mirror? What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

  “You sit here and tell me I’m stuck up, but you’re stuck up in your own dragon way. You’re so proud of yourself for being honorable and for having an impeccable work ethic that you’ve used those things to put yourself up on a pedestal above everyone else. Did it ever occur to you that dragon shifters aren’t the only ones who are honorable and work hard? Look around you, Jake! This town is full of bear shifters, wolf shifters, panther shifters…countless other shifters who work just as hard as you and have just as much of your precious honor. But you think that you’re better than them. And why? Because you’re a dragon? Being a dragon makes you more likely to be those things by nature, true. But it doesn’t make you infallible. Look at the Dark War! The guy leading that dark magic crusade was a freaking dragon shifter.”

  “I’m nothing like he was!” Jake yelled, anger growing red hot in his chest.

  “No, you’re nothing like him. If you were I sure as hell wouldn’t be marrying you, no matter how much I wanted my fortune back. All I’m trying to say is that you were born to privilege, too. You’re a dragon. But being a dragon doesn’t automatically guarantee that you’ll be good or bad. It just gives you a certain standing in society. It’s the same with my family’s money. I was born into it, but having a fortune doesn’t make me good or bad. For some reason, though, it makes everyone look at me like I’m some kind of awful human being. Like all of their problems are somehow my fault just for being rich. It’s just not true. And maybe I am a little shaky on money management principles, but I’ve done alright considering the circumstances. At least I’m trying to learn instead of sticking my nose in everyone else’s business and telling them what’s wrong with them.”