Elise’s eyes flew open, and she sat straight up in bed, breathing heavily. Beside her, Holden turned over and opened his eyes, then sat up with concern when he saw the wild look on her face.
“What’s wrong,” he asked, instantly alert.
Elise blinked a few times, trying to make out his expression in the darkness. It felt strange to have him here. It had been ages since she’d had a man in her bed. She liked having him beside her, strong and warm. She could get used to this, but she wasn’t sure yet that she dared to. There were still so many details to work out. And there was her son to consider. Elise wasn’t sure she’d made the right decision by rushing into things with Holden right now, but she strangely felt no regret. Everything last night had felt like it was meant to be.
“Nothing’s wrong,” Elise said, shaking her head and looking sheepish. “Just a bad dream.”
Holden reached up to caress the side of her cheek, then pulled her back down beside him. “It’s alright. I’m here,” he murmured. “Go back to sleep.”
He himself promptly followed his own advice. A few moments later, Elise heard his breathing steady out beside her as he gave himself back over to his own dreams. She could not find sleep again so easily, however. She looked over at the alarm clock on her bedside table, its numbers softly glowing to tell her that it was just past three-thirty in the morning. Less than two hours until she needed to be awake for her shift at the diner, and yet she already knew she was going to waste most of those two hours lying awake and worrying.
It hadn’t exactly been a bad dream that woke her, as she’d told Holden. In fact, she couldn’t remember what she’d been dreaming, or whether she’d been dreaming at all. Rather, she had awoken from a bad feeling. She knew in her gut that something was wrong, but she couldn’t say what. Why did she feel a sense of dread weighing down on her, and why did she feel like it had something to do with Nick?
Elise let out a long sigh and slowly lay back down against her pillow. She looked over at Holden, who was still breathing with the rapid rhythm of sleep. She was impressed by how quickly he had woken up when she sat up in bed, and equally impressed by how quickly he had fallen back asleep once he realized that all was well. Elise wished she had those kind of sleeping skills.
But was all well, really? Elise couldn’t shake the bad feeling in her heart. She wrestled with whether or not to call Violet and ask if Nick was still there, and alright. She knew of no reason that he wouldn’t be. After all, Violet was a wizard, and trained to do battle. The woman knew how to fight, and could, in all honesty, probably protect Nick better than Elise could.
In the end, Elise decided against calling Violet. She didn’t want to look like a crazed, overprotective parent. Elise had learned over the years that mother’s intuition was a real thing, but she couldn’t imagine what could possibly be wrong with Nick when he was safe in an apartment guarded by a wizard. After an hour of tossing and turning, Elise finally forced herself to go back to sleep. She awoke shortly after to the sound of her alarm, which she switched off as quickly as she could. She winced as she felt Holden stirring beside her, and felt bad for waking him up. But he merely squinted one eye open, smiled at her, and then settled back down to sleep.
Elise shook her head in amusement. From the looks of it, Holden could give Nick some competition on who had better sleeping skills. Elise had always been a light sleeper, and she envied people like her son and Holden who could fall asleep easily and rest as much as they wanted. Elise remembered that Nick’s father had been able to sleep a lot as well. She wondered if perhaps it was a dragon skill.
The thought of Nick once again niggled at Elise’s nerves. As she took a quick shower, she couldn’t keep from worrying that there was something wrong with him, but she made herself hold back from dialing Violet’s number. She would call on her first morning break at the diner. By then, it would be after nine a.m., a more reasonable time to call. And, surely, when Elise called, Violet would assure her Nick was fine.
After her shower, Elise watched Holden as she quietly pulled on her work uniform. She studied his face in the gray light of dawn, and wondered what the hell she’d gotten herself into. Last night, buzzed by the wine and giddy from the fun of a night out on an actual date, it had been all too easy to fall into Holden’s arms. But now that the light of day was coming, Elise was beginning to panic. Not because she thought she had made a mistake by sleeping with Holden, but because she was realizing that the morning was doing nothing to dim her feelings for him. She was falling in love with him, and that love was coming from more than just too much wine and a night out on the town. It was coming from somewhere deep within her. Her belly felt warm and tingly when she thought of Holden, and she had to bite her lip to hold her feelings in check she wanted nothing more than to climb back into bed next to Holden, waking him with a kiss and making love in the full light of day.
But we don’t always get what we want, and Elise could not afford to be late for her shift at the diner. With a sigh, she blew Holden a silent kiss and then slipped out the door of the bedroom. She didn’t bother leaving him a note. He knew where she was going, and that she didn’t have a choice. He knew that she would much rather spend the day with him than serve eggs and coffee to grumpy restaurant customers. She didn’t need to tell him that.
Elise grabbed a banana from the fruit bowl and made her way out the door. The sky was streaked with pink and orange now, and she smiled at its beauty. If there was one positive side to waking up so early in the morning, it was getting to see the sunrise almost every day. Nothing compared with the beauty of a day starting anew.
Elise drove to the diner on autopilot, not registering with her conscious mind where she was or what she was doing. She’d driven this route so many times that she almost could have done it with her eyes closed, especially this early in the morning when there was no other traffic on the road. She continued to move on autopilot when she got to work, making sure the cash register was ready and that hot coffee was brewed. The cooks were in the back of the kitchen already, busily prepping food for the morning rush. They whistled while they worked, but Elise didn’t feel like whistling this morning.
She should have been over the moon with happiness. She’d found a man she loved, and she was pretty sure he loved her. Best of all, he knew how to take care of Nick in ways that Elise never could. So why was her stomach turned up in knots? Was it because she knew deep down that she could never trust a man? Not where Nick was concerned, anyway. Nick already felt deeply the loss of the father he’d never known. He didn’t talk about it much, but Elise could see the pain in his eyes when other boys’ dads showed up to sporting events and he had no one there. Elise tried to make it to as many events as she could, but she couldn’t always get away from work. And besides, it wasn’t the same as having a dad there. She knew that. And she could never bear the pain of watching Nick look to Holden as a father figure, only to have Holden leave. But hadn’t Elise greatly increased the odds of Holden’s leaving by allowing romance into their relationship? Romances were complicated, and Elise knew that if things went south between her and Holden, that would spell out the end of Nick’s relationship with Holden as well.
“Hey, you alright?” a voice broke into Elise’s thoughts. She looked up to see the head cook from the back standing beside her with a worried a look on his face. She smiled at him as warmly as she could.
“Yes, I’m great, just a bit distracted,” she said. “How are you?”
He creased his eyebrow in an expression of worry. “I’m good. But I’ve asked you the same question three times and you’ve been staring out into space like you couldn’t hear me at all. Are you sure you’re alright?”
Elise felt foolish. She must have been really lost in thought. “Yeah, I’m good. Just thinking. I’ve got a lot on my mind these days with my son and all…” she trailed off. It wasn’t exactly a lie that she was worried about Nick. Of course, her worries had more to do with Holden than just with Nick’s general poor behavior lately. But the cook didn’t need to know that detail.
Elise watched as an expression of sympathy crossed the man’s face. “Don’t worry, Elise. Boys all go through these rebellious phases. He’ll come around.”
“I know,” Elise said, still smiling as widely as she could. The man had no idea what had caused Nick’s rebellious phase, and that it had been anything but a typical boyhood stage. But Elise would never be foolish enough to confide in one of her coworkers about Nick’s dragon side, no matter how nice they were to her. There were certain things that even her kind, open-minded coworkers would gawk at.
“Well, anyway,” the cook said with a gentle smile. “I was just asking whether you were going to unlock the door. It’s ten minutes past opening time.”
“Oh, shit!” Elise said, looking at her watch and seeing that he was right. She’d been so caught up in her thoughts about Nick and Holden that she hadn’t realized how late it had gotten. “I’ll go open the door right now.”
The cook chuckled at her. “You really are off in another world today,” he said, then disappeared back into the kitchen.
Elise didn’t bother calling after him with any sort of reply. She rushed to the door instead, flipping the sign in the window so that the side which read “We’re Open” faced outward. She thanked her lucky stars that this was not one of the mornings where her boss showed up early to make sure that everything was in order right at opening time. He had a habit of doing that, and he would have been livid to find that Elise had not unlocked the door yet, even though there hadn’t been any customers walking up to the door in the last ten minutes. Her boss was the kind of man who loved finding any reason to yell at her, or any of her coworkers. Elise took a deep breath to steady her rattled nerves, and then went to stand behind the counter and await their first customers of the morning.
Less than five minutes later, a group of older ladies from town walked in the door. They were early birds, and often the first ones at breakfast. Elise greeted them, and went to grab the coffee pot without being asked. She already knew that this crew liked their coffee strong, black, and plentiful. They would sit here most of the morning, downing mugs of caffeine long after the rest of the breakfast rush had left. Elise didn’t mind. They were a friendly group, and, besides, they always left exceptionally generous tips.
While Elise was pouring coffee for the women, the waitress who would be working the morning shift with Elise arrived. Elise glanced up at her and smiled, then turned her attention back to filling mugs. The front door was already opening again, and two more tables of customers walked in the door. It was going to be a busy morning, as usual. Elise was grateful for that. She needed the tips, and, besides, as long as she stayed busy, she wouldn’t have time to worry about Nick or Holden.
The morning flew by, and the diner was so busy that Elise didn’t bother taking her normal fifteen minute break. She was in constant motion, scurrying about with her order pad, plates of food, and a pot of coffee. The pockets of her apron were filling up with cash from tips, and Elise had finally forgotten the feeling of dread that had hung over her like a cloud since the wee hours of the morning.
Around eleven, the breakfast rush finally slowed. Two waitresses arrived, ready to take over the diner for the lunch shift. Elise closed out her tabs and went happily to the back room to close out her till and balance all of her receipts. It had been a good morning, and she could hardly wait to count her tips. There were times, of course, that working for tips was not so great. But on days like today, when she’d been busy with generous customers all morning, she loved the thrill of seeing how much she’d made at the end of a shift. She always sorted her bills by order of descending denomination, then turned them so they all faced uniformly in the same direction. Only then would she finally allow herself to count them, her fingers flying as the smell of money filled her nose. She loved watching the bills flip through her fingers, knowing that each one meant security for Nick and her. Each dollar she earned allowed them to eat, to pay rent, and, occasionally, to buy some new clothes. Elise might not be proud of the way she’d never told Nick’s father about him, but she was damn proud of the fact that she’d made it on her own all these years. No one had ever supported her but herself. She didn’t owe anyone anything.
Elise had just finished sorting the bills and was about to count them out, when she heard her phone buzzing from inside her purse. Elise set down her money on the desk in the small back office, and reached up to the shelf above the desk where she always placed her purse while she worked. Her boss did not allow his employees to carry cell phones while they worked, so she always left hers in the office. Some of her coworkers tried to sneak theirs out in their apron pockets, but Elise never did. Her boss was always mad enough at her as it was. She didn’t need to take a chance on giving him yet another reason to chew her out. Elise grabbed her purse and sat back down at the desk, then pulled her phone out. When she looked at the screen, her heart instantly dropped.
She had eleven missed calls and twice as many missed texts. No one except Nick ever called or texted her, and he knew better than to bug her with minor concerns while she was at work. Something was very wrong. With shaking fingers, Elise unlocked the phone and started to read the texts. The missed calls were all from Violet and Holden, as were the texts. The words “Nick” and “missing” jumped out at her through the tears that were starting to fill her eyes. How had she been so stupid? She had known that something was wrong this morning. Why had she ignored the feeling?
Elise immediately started stuffing her morning’s tips into her purse, not caring that she was messing up the carefully sorted pile. What did it matter how well sorted her tips were, or how much money she’d made, when her son, the joy of her life, was missing? She ran toward the office door, ready to bolt for her car and drive like hell away from the diner. She didn’t even know where she would go. Home? To Holden and Violet’s apartment? To the police? She would figure it out on the way, when she called Holden back. All she knew right now was that she had to get away from the diner.
She had barely made it out of the office door, though, before she ran smack into a towering figure of a man. She knew before she even looked up that it was Holden. No one in town had a chest that muscular, or a scent that woodsy.
“Holden!” she yelped, looking up at him with wild eyes. She wasn’t sure whether to be angry at him or to collapse into his arms in tears. “What’s going on? I just saw your texts. What happened to Nick? How long has he been missing? Does anyone know where he went? And how did you get back here? My boss would kill me and you if he knew you were back here!”
“One of the cooks told me you were back here. And I’d like to see your boss try to kill me,” Holden said. “He thinks he’s such a badass, but he’s never had to deal with a dragon before.”
Holden’s voice was strained, and Elise felt her heart clenching with fear as she looked up at his pale, drawn face.
“What’s going on? Please tell me you know where Nicky is, and that he’s going to be alright.”
“I know where Nick is,” Holden said, his voice breaking with emotion as he spoke. “And you’re not going to like it.”