Page 67 of Kidnapped By The Messy Dragon

“I don’t want you to change who you are. We’re supposed to grow together. Evolve. Keep your podcast. Be who you are, and grow into the new man you’ve become.” I reach up and take his face in both hands. “You saved Shadow Wolf Creek. You saved me. And we all love you for it.”

He starts up again. “But?—“

I stroke his cheek with my thumb and take my time about it. “I love you, Jalen. All your messiness included. You are perfect just the way you are.”

He stares at me, and his mouth stays open with nothing coming out of it. I’ve made the loudest man in the valley go quiet again, and I’m keeping count.

Then he comes off the railing and pulls me back into his arms. “I love you,” he says, and he kisses me hard enough to bend me back over his arm.

I giggle into it, and he scoops me clean off the floor and swings me around while the gold tiers wheel by below us. He sets me back down, and I cup his face and look into those green eyes that caught me in a lobby.

“I love you too,” I tell him. “And you’re stuck with me.”

He smiles at me.

I straighten his collar. “Now let’s go put your podcast equipment back together. You’ve got a show to air.”

He smiles wide and sweeps me right back up into his arms, and he kisses me as he carries me toward the doors.

“I have the perfect idea for my next episode,” he says over my head. “Andy’s been missing from the diner, and you want to know why? Because a bear shifter named Carissa scooped him up. The man who can’t keep employees couldn’t keep himself. Baby, the tea is HOT.”

I laugh so hard I kick my feet in his arms. “How did you even find that out?”

He hikes me up higher. “I’ve got my receipts.”

“Messy Jay,” I say.

“Where there’s smoke?—“

I catch the rest of it with a kiss, and then I give it back to him against his mouth. “I’m probably the fire.”

We come out of the vault, and the great doors swing shut behind us and lock.

In the elevator I wiggle in his arms. “You can put me down now.”

“Nuh-uh.” He tucks me in closer. “I’m getting my honeymoon.”

I giggle, and the elevator doors shut on us.

EPILOGUE — JALEN

THREE MONTHS LATER

My rig lives in the craft room now.

I could have set it back up in my old corner by the bedroom window. I refused. Malachi offered to build me a proper studio two rooms down, soundproofing and all, and I turned him down flat. My mate spends her evenings in here, and I go where she is. That’s the whole policy. What good is a perfect sound booth if I can’t look up and see her?

So my boom arm hangs over a desk in the corner of Zuri’s craft room, between a ribbon wall she organized by color and a shelf of paint bottles I am not allowed to touch.

Behind me, my mate sits at her worktable painting a dollhouse.

She’s building it for our daughter, our hatchling. Zuri’s belly has started to round out under her shirt, a few months along and finally showing, and every time I catch sight of it my dragon rolls over inside me.

The spa build is coming along downtown, and she and Renee spend half their days bossing contractors in hard hats. The other half she spends in here, painting tiny shutters a soft yellow,while I sit at my desk pretending my hands aren’t sweating on my own equipment.

Tonight is my first night back on air. The comeback special, announced all week, going out live. A whole season of quiet ends tonight, and every creek baby in this valley is about to find out what I’ve been sitting on.

I sit down at the desk and catch my own leg bouncing.