Chapter 17
Liz
The truck bounced over a root in the road, and the clearing shrank in the side mirror until the trees swallowed it whole.
I pressed my back against the seat and stared through the windshield. My chest hummed with a strange, persistent tug, and my hands trembled in my lap. I curled them into fists and shoved them under my thighs.
A dragon. The man sitting three feet from me turned into a dragon. A massive, deep-purple, smoke-from-his-nostrils kind of dragon. And apparently, I was his mate.
The truck dipped into a rut, and reality lurched back into focus.
My car was still dead on the side of the road.
I pulled my phone from my purse and opened the browser. The signal flickered at one bar, enough for the search page from the night before to reload if I held the phone at the right angle.
Besides the towing cost, there was the repair itself. I knew nothing about cars, but dying in the middle of a drive couldn’t be good. Not to mention I needed new brakes and tires, especially with the winter weather coming up.
Reese had delayed my rent, but that would be due in nine days. My phone bill would be auto-drafted soon. I needed groceries, gas, and the bare minimum of toiletries that kept me from looking like a cave troll.
The knife sat in the RV, but selling it wasn’t as easy as just popping into a pawn shop. They would give me half of its value, and I didn't like that.
But there was still Lucan.
I glanced at him. His eyes stayed fixed on the narrow road, one hand draped over the top of the steering wheel while the other rested on his thigh. Sunlight fell across his face, and for a half-second, my brain lost the thread of financial triage entirely.
I yanked it back.
Selling the knife to Lucan would solve the immediate crisis.
It would also mean handing my dragon mate’s courting gift back to him in exchange for cash, which felt like returning a love letter with a price tag stapled to it.
The thought made my stomach clench in a way that had nothing to do with money.
I set my phone on my thigh. “Who’s the best mechanic around here? Preferably one that doesn’t charge resort-town prices.”
Lucan’s gaze flicked toward me and then returned to the road. “For your car?”
I stared at the side of his face. “No, for the spaceship I keep parked behind my trailer.” I let the silence settle. “Yes, for my car.”
A flush crept up the side of his neck. He scratched his jaw and kept his eyes deliberately on the road ahead. “I had it towed already.”
I blinked rapidly. “You had it towed.”
“First thing this morning to the shop we use.” He said it like he was confessing to drinking my last Diet Pepsi.
I turned in my seat to face him fully. “What shop? I need to call them and find out what the damage is.”
He pulled a face. His mouth twisted to one side, and his grip on the steering wheel tightened enough that his knuckles paled. “It’s taken care of.”
“What does ‘taken care of’ mean?”
“Gary looked at it this morning, and it’s handled. Don’t worry about it.”
Heat prickled on the back of my neck, and my fingers dug into the edge of the seat.
The instinct to snap at him rose fast and sharp, loaded with every memory of discovering charges on credit cards I hadn’t known existed, of watching my savings vanish into a hole I couldn’t see the bottom of while someone I trusted smiled and told me not to worry about it.
I swallowed the snap. Lucan wasn’t asking me for anything. He hadn’t hidden a bill or forged my signature or gambled away the rent. He had towed a broken car and hired a mechanic, and he’d done it without attaching a single condition.
That truth cooled the heat in my chest by exactly one degree.
“I’ll pay you back.” My voice came out flat and controlled. “Or you can just have your knife back.”
“I still have the check in my wallet.”
I exhaled through my nose and watched the trees blur past. “I don’t want financial strings attached to anyone.”
He was quiet for a moment. The truck rounded a curve, and the lake appeared through a gap in the pines, glittering in the sun.
“Why?” The one word was gentle, unhurried, and completely devastating.
I looked out the passenger window and bit my lip. The answer sat right there, coiled in my throat. Every humiliating detail. Every statement I should have opened and examined more closely. Every lie I swallowed whole because trusting felt easier than questioning.
I wasn’t ready to hand him that story. I wasn’t sure I’d ever be. “Ask me another time.”
He nodded once and pulled up next to my RV. “Do you need a vehicle today? I need mine for work, but I’m sure Reese won’t mind if you use hers.”
“I’m good.” I fiddled with my purse strap. “Thank you, Lucan.”
After a moment of hesitation, he reached over and took my hand, stopping my nervous movement. “There are no strings here, Liz. I can help, so let me.”
I swallowed hard and nodded. At some point, I was going to have to move on from my hang-ups. Maybe this could be the first step.
I spent an embarrassing amount of time researching how to kayak and what to wear. Why had I suggested something so ridiculous? Just the thought of all the rowing had my arms cramping.
I was going to make a fool of myself, and canceling was in my best interest, but every time I picked up my phone to text Lucan, I stopped myself.
The walk to the lake only took a few minutes, which didn’t quite give me enough time to convince myself that this wasn’t a date and that I could keep things platonic.
I was also distracted by how beautiful the trees and weather were. But October in the mountains could be a con artist. Today the air was warm enough for a light long-sleeved shirt over a tank top, but tomorrow could bring six inches of snow or a freak ninety-degree afternoon.
The trees varied from green to vibrant fire colors depending on the species.
The summer chaos of tourists and social media poses on every available rock had packed itself up and gone home.
The lake stretched wide and still, reflecting the sky so cleanly that the surface looked solid enough to walk on.
Two kayaks sat side by side at the water’s edge, their yellow hulls bright against the sand. Lucan crouched next to one, checking something, while Atlas stood behind the other with a paddle in each hand, spinning one of them like a baton.
Atlas spotted me first. His face split into a grin so wide it looked like it might actually hurt.
“Liz!” He planted both paddles in the sand and strode toward me with his arms open.
“You came! I told Lucan you’d come. He did that thing where he pretends that he’s not nervous, and I was like, relax, man. She said she’d be here.”
I laughed, sidestepping the hug trajectory by lifting my water bottle in a wave. Atlas adjusted course without missing a beat and clapped me on the shoulder instead.
Lucan stood and wiped his hands on his shorts. His gaze found mine and stayed there. “Hey.”
“Hey.” My chest gave one solid thump. I ignored it.
Atlas’s sandy blond hair stuck up in four different directions, and his green eyes practically glowed with enthusiasm. “I was helping Lucan get the kayaks down here because, and I quote, he wanted everything to be perfect.” He made air quotes. “I’m the manual labor.”
Lucan closed his eyes for a beat. “Atlas.”
“What? It’s endearing. Women love effort.” Atlas turned back to me. “Hey, so we’re doing a thing tonight. Quad barbecue at Zarek’s. You should come.”
I looked at Lucan, and he exhaled slowly through his nose. “I apologize for him. He was supposed to drop off the kayaks and leave.”
Atlas scoffed. “I’m leaving right now. I wanted to extend the invitation personally because last time you came to dinner, you seemed like you had a good time.”
I bit the inside of my cheek. The earnestness on his face was so genuine it bordered on absurd.
“I’ll see how I feel.” I tucked my water bottle under my arm.
Atlas’s eyes lit up, and he pointed both index fingers at me. “That’s absolutely a yes. I’m going to get extra buns.”
“It’s not a yes.”
“Everyone has to eat.” He walked backward toward the trail, still pointing. “Lucan, she’s coming. Get the good chairs out.”
Lucan dragged a hand down his face. “Goodbye, Atlas.”
“Six o’clock!” Atlas called over his shoulder. He turned and jogged up the trail, disappearing into the trees with a whistle that blended in with the birds.
The quiet settled around us again. The lake lapped softly at the sand, and somewhere across the water, a bird let out a long, descending call.
“Is he always like that?”
Lucan let out a breath that carried the weight of knowing someone for a very long time. “Every single day of my life.”
A laugh escaped before I could stop it. Lucan’s expression shifted, his eyes crinkling at the corners, and that warmth in my chest flared again.
I cleared my throat and nodded toward the kayaks. “Should I throw myself in the lake now and save us the suspense?”
Lucan’s grin faltered. He tilted his head, studying me with the slow, dawning suspicion of a man who might have made an incorrect assumption. “You have done this before, right?”
“Does watching six video tutorials and mentally rehearsing in my head while lying in bed count?”
His eyebrows climbed. “Liz.”
“I panicked when I suggested it, and then I was too committed to back out.” I lifted my chin, faking my confidence. “I’m a quick learner when properly motivated by the fear of public humiliation.”
He stared at me for a full three seconds. Then he turned and grabbed a life jacket from one of the kayaks. He shook it open and held it up by the shoulders, waiting for me to step forward.
“It’s going to be fun.” He lifted the jacket higher. “I’ll walk you through everything. Can’t blame me if you get wet though.”
Every rational thought evaporated. My brain, the traitorous, sleep-deprived, hormonally chaotic organ that it was, took those words and sprinted in a direction that had nothing to do with water. Heat flooded my face so fast I felt it in my ears.
I stepped forward and turned around, sliding my arms through the openings. His knuckles brushed my shoulders as he settled the jacket into place, and the brief contact sent a ripple down my spine.
“Okay?” His voice came from right behind me, low and close.
“Yep.” The word came out an octave too high. I busied myself with the front buckles, my fingers fumbling over the clips. “Totally fine. Just excited about the water. The water. That I will be sitting on top of.”
I needed to stop talking immediately.