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Lucas’s blood ran hot, his fists clenched inside his pockets. His entire body broke out in a sweat, and his leg tapped against the wall of the building with impatience.
Listen, just listen.
Eliana’s laugh was infectious, even if it was sarcastic.
“Tao, you know I do care for you, but I’m sorry, that’s insane.”
“I think you know it’s not. We don’t need to see Lucas’s notes to know that no one else here can take on the job. I’ll be rejected if I go out there alone without you by my side. Then what?”
Lucas was inclined to agree with Tao. Rationally, he was the only choice, and if he had the former alpha’s niece by his side as his wife and supposed mate, it would be far easier to get people to forget about him fleeing to California.
But the irrational side, the wolf howling inside him, detested the idea.
Eliana let out a guttural grunt. Lucas felt a beat in his chest of affection for her, wishing he could take away her stress and grief. He wanted to take care of her, run her a bath, make her dinner, and massage all of the pain out of her heart and body.
“Let me think about it. This is a lot to take in.”
“Of course. I wanted to ask you as soon as I got here.”
The conversation sounded like it was over, so Lucas moved with the same level of caution. He would go into the kitchen and tidy things up to not only look like he was busy but to act like a perfect gentleman.
But as he was moving inside, he nearly stumbled over an exposed plank on the porch. He snarled at it, thinking it was just shoddy craftsmanship, then stopped for a second to take it all in.
The only light was the dim wash of a lantern on the porch, so it wasn’t entirely easy to notice. Lucas leaned in closer and realized that the plank was a different shade than the others; close, but not quite.
The cut of the plank also wasn’t the same size as the rest. The closer Lucas got to it, the more he realized that it was because it, or perhaps another plank, had been forcibly removed.
One side was sticking into the air, which was a safety hazard within itself. He crouched, then used both hands to rock the plank back and forth a bit. He hadn’t been planning on removing it entirely, but once it wiggled, it was easy to completely take off.
Once he lifted it into the air, he found way more than he had been bargaining for.
Under the plank was what looked like a lockbox of some kind, silver and smooth, glistening under the lantern light. Lucas had to think quickly on his feet before Tao and Eliana curled around the corner and saw him potentially snooping into business that wasn’t his own.
He could run inside and leave the hole exposed or be completely honest with them. Part of him was very nosy, but another part wanted to ensure safety. He couldn’t risk them distrusting him; it was a fault he rarely accepted in other people.
So he stayed there crouching as he heard them come around the corner, looking into the hole in the porch like he was at an archaeological dig.
Eliana and Tao saw him as they approached the restaurant. Lucas heard them both stop and when he looked up, they both had looks of confusion on their faces. Not of distrust.
“Lucas, what is going on?” Eliana implored.
Lucas thought about a time when he was a child and found a corpse of a mouse underneath the crawlspace of his home. His father hadn’t been happy with him, a young shifter pup, picking it up and bringing it into the house to play with.
His father had mostly been offended by the entire thing, which had bothered Lucas deeply. Since then, he had tried to leave well enough alone, thinking that most things were best left exactly as they were.
If he hadn’t seen the plank, he wouldn’t have felt the impulse to pull it up. He wouldn’t have come outside if he hadn’t wanted to hear what Tao and Eliana were talking about. Were all of these events destined to happen at all? Was the plank the first flick of the domino caused by him?
NINE
ELIANA
Eliana wasn’t entirely shocked by Tao’s suggestion. The second she saw him sitting in the restaurant, she knew there was more to him being there than just to console her about Phil. He was a noble, righteously kind man, and despite the fact that being alpha wasn’t originally in the cards for him, he would step up for the sake of the pack.
What she wasn’t expecting was the marriage proposal. She stood there in the dark with her arms crossed, not in an aggressive manner, but feeling at a loss as to what to do with her hands. She had, in some ways, loved Tao before, but there was a reason why they never worked out back then.
A really excellent one.
“Let me think about it.”
