Second Chances for Christmas
Welcome to Bramblerest! To read the stories that came before this one, click here.
It was almost Christmas and Emma was miserable. And it wasn’t only because it was raining, her car had a flat tire, and her cellphone was dead.
Last month, Reggie revealed to the town that he was a shapeshifter and the news spread like wildfire. She never cared about what he was, but plenty of other people did. They believed the myth that shapeshifters were just as violent as their werewolf cousins. They couldn’t see the gentle man who only wanted to fit in and have a home.
Foot traffic and sales at the Tail and Tome Bookery were down. Carrie, her longtime employee, had quit after she asked Emma if the rumors were true. Emma suspected that the town was giving Reggie the cold shoulder when he went on errands, but he never said.
Not that everyone suddenly disliked Reggie. He’d gotten a thank you note from a few of the members of the high school’s Parent Teacher Organization. They were grateful for his help in finding Mephistopheles the Goat and unmasking the true kidnappers.
With a sigh, Emma bounced her head against her headrest. Rain sluiced down her windows, turning the world outside gray and watery. Distant Christmas lights, strung along someone’s home, were indistinct, glowing circles of red, blue, and green. A SUV rumbled past, splashing water over the side of her car.
She was on her way back from a big warehouse sale, and boxes crowded her backseat, trunk, and even passenger seat. Reggie had offered to lend her his truck, but she said she didn’t know how to drive a stick shift.
Naturally, he offered to drive her. They could just close the store for the day, he’d said. He’d looked at her with a quiet kind of longing. But she politely declined and looked away before she could see the reaction on his face.
On the heels of his revelation to the town, Reggie had asked her out. That should have gotten a very enthusiastic yes from Emma, but she’d blurted ‘no’ before escaping his apartment like her feet were on fire. Ever since, things had been awkward between them. She could tell there were things he wanted to say but didn’t. Silence between them felt charged and weighty. And she’d been so flustered by it all, she hadn’t invited him over for Thanksgiving like she originally intended. He’d spent it alone, no doubt.
With all of that between them, being trapped in a vehicle together was the last thing Emma wanted to endure.
At the time of her refusal, Emma had rationalized her reaction. She was his employer and landlady. It was unethical, could complicate things, and just seemed a very bad idea.
But Emma knew if she had said all of that to her mother, Mom would have replied with a raised eyebrow and a quiet, “Are you sure, Emma?”
It was the reason why she hadn’t told Jenny, her best friend, what happened. Jenny’s reaction wouldn’t have been nearly so restrained.
Emma was so deep in her thoughts that she didn’t notice the cop car until the policeman tapped on her window.
She jumped with a yelp and then cracked the window open. Rain pattered through, sprinkling her face and the inside of her door. The chilly air rolled over her. “Yes, officer?”
A familiar face ducked down into view. “Hi, Emma.” Sheriff Connelly smiled. “Why are you parked on the side of the road with your hazards on?”
“I have a flat tire.”
“Need help getting the spare on?”
“I don’t have a spare.”
“Waiting on the tow truck, then?”
She heaved a sigh. “My phone is dead. I was waiting for the rain to stop so I could walk into town.”
Connelly tilted his head, eyeing the sky. He looked back down at her. “Weather man is sayin’ it’ll keep raining for another hour or two. I can radio for a tow. And, uh, maybe I can take you into town for some dinner?”
“I have merchandise in the car. I need to unload it at the store.”
“I don’t mind helping with that.”
She crossed her arms. “Matt, what are you doing?”
It had always been Sheriff Connelly, or just Connelly, after the break-up. Using his first name felt like ripping off a façade. The veneer of congeniality fell from his face, the line of his mouth turning grim.
“I think we need to talk, Emma,” he said, “and I’d rather do it over a hot meal than on the side of the road.”
“This is about Reggie.”
“Yeah.”
She looked away. “Fine.”
“I’ll go radio it in, then.”
At Emma’s direction, her car was towed to Tail and Tome so the merchandise could be unloaded. The store building had also been her home for years, where she shared the second-floor apartment with her mother. Now, Reggie rented the apartment from Emma.
However, Reggie’s truck was not in its usual parking spot. Emma couldn’t decide how to feel about that. On one hand, it was nice to not run into him, but, at the same time, she rather wished there was someone to act as a buffer between her and Matt Connelly. Though, if Matt was concerned about Reggie, then maybe he was the last person to act as buffer.
A copy of the Bramble Ramble, the town newspaper, sat on the table. Emma picked it up to move it in preparation for stacking boxes there. She glanced at the headline: WIZARDS WARN OF AN UPTICK IN INTERDIMENSIONAL VISITS THIS HOLIDAY SEASON.
Emma tossed the paper onto another stack of boxes, her mind returning to Reggie’s absence. A spark of worry went through her. The weather was bad, and winter darkness had enveloped the evening. Where could he be?
She squelched the thoughts as she used her hand truck to bring in the boxes. It wasn’t like she had any right to know where Reggie was or what he was doing.
Matt helped just like he promised, hauling the boxes in as quickly as possible. Soon, a fine pile was stacked on and around the worktable. He huffed a sigh of accomplishment, settling his hands on his hips. It felt oddly like old times.
Emma didn’t like that feeling.
“So,” he said. “Ready for some supper?”
Matt drove them to The Diner on Main, which was only a couple of blocks away from the bookstore. If the little diner had another, more normal name, it had been forgotten a long time ago.
The diner was quiet. A few people were scattered around the booths. A small family took up one corner, where a harried looking mom tried to entice her seven-year-old into eating his vegetables. Emma felt eyes on her and quickly found the source of the sensation: Elizabeth Avery, the same woman who tried to complain about Reggie’s customer service skills months ago. Mrs. Avery watched Matt and Emma until she noticed Emma watching her. The old woman returned to poking at her chef’s salad.
Matt and Emma took a booth as far from the other diners as they could get.
A waitress bustled up before Matt was done taking off his hat. “What’ll you two be havin’?”
“What I always have, Maude.” Matt smiled. He pulled off his rain-slicked coat.
“Coffee it is. What about you, Ms. Emma?”
Emma, shucking off her own coat, said, “I’ll just have sweet tea, thanks.”
“Comin’ right up.” Maude strode off.
Silence slammed down at the table like a shut door. Emma stared steadily at Matt.
Matt sighed, his cheery smile fading away. “When Maude comes back with that coffee, you’re not gonna sling that into my face, are ya?”
“I don’t know,” Emma said, her tone tired. “Are you going to use Reggie to raise your approval rating? Like you did with my mom?”
He flinched. “Em, I never meant—”
“You could have just passed on the question. You didn’t need to talk it up like you did. You could have even told the reporter to not run the article.” These were all things she had said before, but they bore repeating.
“I know.” He wilted. “I know. That article hurt you, and it cost me our relationship. I’ve regretted it every day since.”
A year and a half in the past, her mother went on a drive along the country roads but didn’t come home that evening. Neither did she answer her phone. In a panic, Emma had called Matt, who was sheriff then, too. He was quick to assemble a search party, calling all the local hunters who knew the back roads better than most.
They’d found the car at two in the morning on a desolate dirt road, smashed up against a turkey oak tree. A later autopsy revealed that her mother had suffered a stroke and subsequently lost control of the vehicle.
Things had already been a little strained between herself and Matt. His job as sheriff of the town meant long nights, but Emma kept getting the feeling he was choosing his job over her. There were more cancelled plans than ones that had been kept, because he kept taking on tasks and shifts that he didn’t need to do.
The day after the funeral, when a reporter interviewed Matt, who was up for re-election, the topic of Emma’s mother’s death came up. Instead of just passing on the question, Matt had used the opportunity to talk up his connections with the townspeople and his ability to quickly respond to an emergency. He talked like Emma’s mother had been a stranger, not the mother of his girlfriend.
“I can’t help but notice,” Emma said, her voice strained, “that you said the article hurt me, rather than that you hurt me.”
Maude returned with their drinks, setting them down in front of them. She must have taken a clue from their body language, because she didn’t ask for a food order, leaving them alone in their little corner.
To Emma, the article felt like confirmation of what she had long started to suspect: that the job was far more important to him than she ever would be. In the subsequent argument in his office, she’d grabbed a nearby cup of coffee and threw it at him. Thankfully, it had been cold. She hadn’t wanted to hurt him. Or, anyone, for that matter.
Tell that to Reggie, whispered a voice in the back of her head.
“I’m sorry I broke your trust,” Matt said.
She picked up her glass of sweet tea. “You broke a lot more than that.” She set the glass down again without drinking from it. “You know, Mom always said I give away my trust too easily.”
“Like trusting a random shapeshifter who wanders into your store?”
“Reggie is a good person.”
“How—”
Maude returned. “Can I get you two anything?”
Matt forced a smile. “I’ll have the Thursday special.”
“I’m not hungry,” Emma replied.
“Emma.”
“Matthew.”
Maude looked between the two of them. “I’ll put in the special for ya, Sheriff. But I’ll also bring some biscuits and apple butter. On the house.” She walked away.
Matt leaned forward, putting his forearms on the table and clasping his hands. “How do you know you can trust Reggie?”
“His background check came back clean, first of all.”
“That can just mean he’s good at not getting caught breaking the law.”
“He also protected me when that burglar broke into my shop.”
“You shouldn’t have even been there. I know you were advised to stay elsewhere until the suspect was captured.”
“If you were so concerned, you could have been there.”
He sat back, frustration flashing over his face before he forced it blank. “You made it very clear that you didn’t want to see me again.”
“Then what are we doing here?”
The bell over the door rang, but Emma didn’t look up to see who else was escaping the rainswept night.
“Reggie is a shapeshifter,” Matt replied. “He’s dangerous. I’m worried about you. I’m worried about what this is doing to your business.”
“Are you sure this isn’t about your public image?” she spat. “How can Bramblerest trust its sheriff if he lets a shapeshifter wander the streets?”
“That’s not fair.”
“Neither is using my mother’s death to get reelected.” She slid down the booth to the edge.
“Where are you going?”
“This was a mistake.”
“Wait—”
But she was already up and walking away, her wet coat in hand. Matt stood and grabbed her upper arm.
Emma faced him, trying to pull her arm away. “Let me go.”
“Sit down so we can have a conver—”
“She said,” boomed a deep baritone Emma would know anywhere, “to let her go.”
She looked over her shoulder and up into Reggie’s dark brown eyes. Normally, those eyes were full of laughter, kindness, or deep thought. This time, however, a quiet anger darkened them. An anger directed at the sheriff.
The diner fell so silent, Emma could hear the cook in the kitchen swear under his breath. The back of her neck prickled as all eyes fastened on them.
Reggie stared Matt down with all the calm of a storm on a distant horizon. Matt released Emma’s arm. Reggie gently pushed her behind him.
“Sheriff,” Reggie said, “I couldn’t help overhearing part of your conversation. If you have concerns, I will be glad to stop by the station to discuss them.”
Matt squared his shoulders. He was almost the same height as Reggie, only having to lift his chin slightly to meet Reggie’s eyes with his own. “I’d like that. How does ten a.m. tomorrow sound?”
“I’ll see you then, sir.” He turned toward Emma. “May I walk you out?”
Emma nodded. Reggie moved as if to offer his arm, but she turned away, heading toward the door. As she did so, she spotted Mrs. Avery again, watching the whole scene with rapt attention and no shame. Emma remembered that she was also one of the biggest gossips in town. Face burning, Emma yanked her coat on.
Reggie stayed close to her, opening an umbrella as soon as they stepped out of the diner. He held it over Emma, letting the cold rain soak his hair.
“Where are you parked?” he asked.
“My car is back at the store,” she said. “It has a flat tire. I’ll have to call someone in the morning.”
“I can take you home, then.”
She almost said no. She wanted to escape the weight of unsaid things and bad memories. But a wave of fatigue ran over her, and she didn’t feel like finding another way home.
“Thank you,” Emma said. “I really appreciate that.”
Reggie was glad they had to walk a ways to his old, F-150 truck. He needed the spare few moments to breathe deeply and calm down.
When he’d seen that man holding Emma’s arm, the urge to punch the sheriff in the face had been nearly overwhelming.
At the truck, Reggie felt a wave of gratitude when his fingers didn’t tremble as he unlocked the doors. It also occurred to him that this would be the first time he had gone to Emma’s new home.
Things were quiet between them as he drove, with the only conversation arising when Emma gave him directions. The rain eased to a stop.
Her duplex was in a quiet neighborhood, the kind with neat hedges and picturesque homes. It glowed with Christmas lights and faux snowmen, Charlie Brown and the other kids singing around Christmas trees, and reindeer grazing beside nativity scenes. The lawn in front of Emma’s side of the duplex was surprisingly bare. But a simple string of white lights hung over the large front window.
“Thank you,” Emma said, opening the door. “Do you, um, think you could pick me up in the morning for work?”
“I can do that.” He cleared his throat. “But, Emma, I really think we need to talk.”
For a second, he thought she was going to say no. Instead, she nodded.
“Soot will be happy to see you,” she said.
“Why wasn’t she at the store today?”
“She had her vaccinations this morning and needed a quiet place to sleep it off.”
“The store has been a pretty quiet place lately.”
“Right.” Emma slid out of the truck, leading the way up her front walk.
The first thing Reggie noticed in her home was that it smelled like cinnamon and oranges. It made him think of home so strongly, his chest tightened.
He chased the feeling away. There was a reason why he’d “gone rambling,” as his mother would have said.
“You can hang your coat here.” Emma stood beside a line of hooks in the wall by the door. She pulled off her coat and hung it up.
“Where are your decorations?” he asked, hanging up his new, wool coat.
The only kind of tree in the living room was a cat tree, on top of which Soot slept. Aside from the scent of cinnamon and orange, rising from a bowl of potpourri on a coffee table, there was no indication of the season at all. Given that the inside of the bookstore looked like the set of a Hallmark Christmas movie, it was surprising to see it so bare in Emma’s home.
“It’s still Advent,” she said. “I don’t decorate until Christmas Eve. Are you hungry? I think there’s some leftover soup in the fridge.”
“Sure.”
There was a touch of Christmas in the kitchen in the form of a small angel statue on the counter. A diagonal crack ran from the hem of the angel’s robe, across its body, to the shoulder. The angel held a trumpet in one hand and a songbook in the other. The paint was worn, but the angel’s smile was beatific.
Emma opened her fridge and pulled out a container of soup. “Do you like broccoli and cheddar?”
“Yeah. Can I help with anything?”
“No. It’s fine. Have a seat.”
He sat at the kitchen table and watched Emma as she heated up the soup. A curl of hair had fallen from her bun to lay against the nape of her neck. For a moment, he was seized by the image of him sweeping it aside to kiss the soft skin there.
He swallowed hard and stared at the top of the table.
Emma brought over the soup in blue bowls and then sweet tea in tall glasses.
“I’ve got some ginger snaps, too,” she said, taking a seat, “if you want dessert.”
“Okay.”
She whispered her blessing over the food. From the living room came a low thunk. As Reggie ate his first spoonful of soup, Soot sashayed into the room. She bumped her shoulder against Emma’s leg before draping herself across Reggie’s foot. Reggie smiled and bent under the table to give Soot a scratch behind the ear.
“Getting vaccines always knocks her out,” Emma said. “She’ll be back to normal tomorrow.”
“Good to know.”
They fell back into silence as they ate. As the level of soup in his bowl lowered, his stomach grew tighter. He was practically choking it down by the time he finished. He set his spoon in the bowl.
He said, “That was really good.”
“Thank you.”
He sipped the tea, clearing his mouth and buying one more precious second. “Em—”
“He’s my ex.”
Reggie’s brows lifted as surprise washed through him. “What?”
“The sheriff. He’s my ex-boyfriend. We were dating when-when my mom died. And then we broke up.”
“You don’t have to tell—”
“He gave a stupid interview. Mom had disappeared and he pulled together a search party and he was up for re-election and he used my mother’s disappearance as an example why he made such a great sheriff.”
“I’m-I’m missing something, I think.”
“He wanted to show off that he pulled together a search party and found her quickly.” Emma sat back in her chair. “Not that it mattered. She’d had a stroke. She was gone before they found her.”
Reggie was still having a hard time putting the pieces together, so he could only think of one thing to say: “I’m really sorry.”
“I just want you to understand some of the history. I think he wants to use you to make himself look good. I don’t think he actually cares about my safety.”
Reggie nodded, remembering the last bit of the conversation he had caught. “But what if he did care?”
“Well, he wasn’t around when the burglar came to my shop the first time. He didn’t even show up after it all happened to make sure I was okay.” Her tone carried a bitter edge.
It made sense, suddenly, why Emma had said no when Reggie had asked her out. “You still have feelings for him.”
Emma’s head lifted, her eyes going wide.
“It’s understandable,” Reggie said. “It’s hard to let someone go. Especially if he meant a lot to you.”
“Reggie, I—”
“But I didn’t like the way he grabbed onto you.” His jaw clenched as the anger flared in his gut again. “He didn’t have any right to stop you like that. I know my opinion doesn’t matter here, but I don’t think he deserves you. Not if he thinks it’s all right to grab you like that, and not if he thinks it’s okay to talk about your mother’s death to a reporter without at least talking to you about it first.”
“Um. Thanks.” She cleared her throat. “Your opinion matters. And I don’t have feelings for him, unless you count anger.”
“Oh.” He wasn’t sure what to do with that information.
“Yeah. Um. You said you wanted to talk?”
He shifted in his chair, moving his feet slightly as he did so. Soot lifted her head to glare at him before laying back down.
Reggie said, “I’m leaving. After the new year, of course.”
He hadn’t been sure what to expect, but Emma’s look of pain and shock was not it.
“But,” she said, “I don’t want you to—”
An ear-splitting roar broke the night, followed by the scream of car alarms. Soot bolted off into another room.
Emma and Reggie shot to their feet. The ground rattled.
Reggie ran out of the kitchen, through the living room, and then out the front door. He jogged down the steps and halted on the walk. Emma stopped beside him.
A red dragon the size of a Greyhound bus stood in the street. It looked from side to side at the people leaning out of their homes to see the source of the commotion. It let out another ear-splitting roar and then took to the air again. The wind from its wings scattered Christmas decorations and rocked vehicles. People, screaming, ducked back into their homes. The dragon angled toward the west and slid away into the night.
“Oh, no,” Emma gasped.
“What?”
“The Christmas light show in the middle of town! I think it’s heading for it.”
“It was pouring earlier, though. I’m sure there’s no one there.”
“It’s rain or shine! Besides, it stopped raining an hour ago.”
Reggie’s stomach dropped. Without thinking, he ran to his truck, swinging up into the driver’s seat. A second later, Emma slid into the passenger’s side. He glanced at her, saw the set of her jaw, and cranked up without argument.
“Oh, what a wonderful time to ignore me,” Emma muttered, hitting the disconnect button. She had plugged her phone into a frankly complicated assembly that looked ready to catch fire. Reggie said it was the only way he could charge his cellphone because the truck had been built when phones were still connected to walls.
“He might be busy,” Reggie replied as he made a left turn. “Just call the police station.”
Emma called the station.
“Bramblerest Police Station,” a bored voice said. “Yes, we heard about the alleged dragon. Yes, we are certain it is only a prank.”
Emma tucked back a stray strand of hair. “Ma’am, I don’t think it’s a prank. I think it’s heading for—”
“Ma’am, no dragon has managed to cross over from the fae realms for five centuries. It’s not going to happen now. We’re already trying to get a hold of someone at the college.”
“But—”
“We have alerted patrols, however. Please stay home and stay tuned to the informational broadcast on your radio.”
“Thanks, but—”
A click signaled the call’s end. She lowered the phone to her lap.
“That didn’t sound like they believed the reports,” Reggie said.
“No.”
“But if multiple people are calling in, how can they not?”
“Well, there was that one year where some wizard students thought a dragon illusion on April Fool’s Day would be funny. I guess they think this is a repeat of that.”
He snorted as he negotiated another turn, this time onto main street. “What happened with the prank?”
The display came into view. In the town’s center, where the big markets and small fairs were set up every year, the annual light show glowed. It was a series of lighted arches and displays, with animatronic elves, reindeer, and a Santa. A winding path cut through it. The show was held for a week in December before being taken down ahead of the Christmas market. Proceeds from ticket sales went to benefit local charities.
Emma’s chest tightened as she saw people walking along the lights, little kids pointing up at glee at the shifting, changing colors. She said, “There was mass panic. Afterward, a petition circulated to force the college to close and the students to move elsewhere. Of course, the college didn’t close. But it was after that that strict rules were put into place about where the students and professors can practice magic, what spells they can use, and whether they can interfere in town affairs.”
A roar shook the night. People in the show screamed and scattered, heading toward the perimeter or back to their cars. A few stopped and pointed. One idiot was trying to film it all on his phone. The red dragon descended upon the town square. Sparks flew up as displays shattered under its claws. It lifted its wings high and whipped its tail back and forth, taking out a streetlight.
Reggie brought his truck to a stop and put it in park. People ran past them, heading for safety. Emma opened the truck door.
“Emma, wait!” Reggie shouted.
But she was already out and running toward the danger. A moment later, Reggie was beside her. He grabbed her arm.
She halted. “What was that about how it’s not right to grab me?”
He dropped his hand. “I wasn’t talking about keeping you from running into danger.”
“Reggie, there are still people in the square! Maybe we can distract it and get them away. Or-or talk to it?”
“Humans can’t talk to dragons.”
“But what about the stories?” Her store was full of tales of knights and princesses negotiating with dragons.
“Those are just stories, Emma.”
“So, you’re saying no one can communicate with dragons?”
Police sirens began approaching. The dragon roared again and swiped its tail, taking out Santa and his reindeer. They crashed into a light pole. Rudolph remained standing, however, his red nose almost a challenge in the night.
Reggie sighed. “Those who are fae-touched or come from a fae-touched bloodline can speak to dragons.”
“Great. I’ll call the college. Certainly someone there is fae-touched.”
“You won’t need to.”
“Why?”
He gave her that small smile that always made her heart squeeze a little. “How do you think shapeshifter families are made?”
He started toward the display. She grabbed his arm.
Reggie slid his hand over hers. “Who was complaining earlier about being grabbed?”
“I’m keeping you from running into danger.”
His smile warmed. Then, he gently pulled her hand away and strode toward the dragon.
The police cars caught up to where she was standing at the edge of the square. Cops scrambled out of their vehicles, moving behind them as they drew their weapons. One of them was Matt.
“Emma!” he shouted. “Get behind the line!”
She stuck her tongue out at him and followed Reggie.
Reggie wondered if he had bitten off more than he could carry as he approached the dragon. His uncle was the one who’d taught him about dragon-speak, as well as other talents of shapeshifters, during the summers Reggie had spent working at the old man’s bait shop. But Reggie had never actually done it. There was a world of difference between hearing about a thing and doing that thing.
The dragon screeched at Reggie, stamping its feet in warning. People huddling against the buildings across the square screamed. Reggie paused on the edge of the display, his boots crunching on broken glass.
It suddenly occurred to him that he was well within roasting range. However, the dragon had yet to breathe fire. Odd. In fact, according to his uncle’s stories, this dragon was a little on the small side.
The sound of footsteps made him turn around. Emma was walking toward him.
“Please, stop,” he said. “I don’t want you hurt in case this goes badly.”
“I’m not hiding behind the cop cars,” she said.
“It would make me feel a lot better if you did.”
She halted a few feet away and crossed her arms.
Taking what he could get, Reggie faced the dragon again. He reached for his magic and shifted down to his large dog form, careful to avoid the shards of shattered Christmas lights. He lowered into a sort of bow.
Greetings, O Mighty One, he thought as hard as he could. Dragon-speak could only be done in his animal form, and it was more like telepathy than actual speech. From how Uncle Hamish described it, it was sort of like they were talking across the magic that made them what they were.
Speaking of magic, Reggie could feel it in the air now. It was like sparkling dust, shedding off the dragon’s body. He sneezed.
The dragon growled.
Apologies, Mighty One. Reggie tried projecting louder, worried that maybe it wasn’t hearing him. Why are you here?
The dragon cocked its head and then, in a petulant tone, it said, I’m cold.
Reggie was so startled, he jerked back up on all fours. That wasn’t just petulant. That sounded like the voice of a child.
It’s winter here, Reggie explained.
Mama would make it warm. The voice sounded almost masculine, too.
I’m sure she would. He took a hesitant step forward. Do you know where your mama is?
She went for supper, but I got bored. So, I went flying. The dragon lowered his head to stare at Reggie with a blueish eye. But everything looked a little blue to Reggie at that moment. But I got lost. And my tummy hurt and then I sneezed real hard and then there was a bright light. And now I’m here. Where’s Mama?
I don’t know where your Mama is. But you’re scaring everyone. And you broke all their pretty lights. Would you like to go somewhere else to wait for her?
I want Mama! The dragon jerked up and roared, flapping his wings.
More displays went flying. Snoopy went crashing through a shop window. People ran for cover.
A child’s wail lifted into the air.
One of the real Christmas trees dotting the display lay on its side near the dragon’s back leg. A little kid, no more than six, thrashed out from the evergreen boughs, scattering the bulbs.
“Oh, no,” gasped Emma. She jogged toward the child.
The dragon growled and snapped at her.
No! Reggie lunged forward, barking and showing his teeth.
The dragon snarled, turning his attention to him. You’re mean.
You snapped at my friend. There’s a child—
I want Mama!
The dragon reared back, front claws raking the air. It beat its wings. The child cowered in the branches of the tree.
Emma bolted toward the kid.
Emma, stop! But it was useless. She couldn’t hear him. Reggie chased after her.
The dragon came down, his shadow casting over them. Reggie turned course, facing the dragon as his clawed foot came into view.
Reggie did the only thing he could think to do.
He leaped up as hard as he could and bit down on one of the dragon’s toes.
The young dragon screamed and pulled his foot back. Reggie hung on, his mouth full of scales and muscle.
Owieeeeee! The dragon’s whine cut through Reggie’s mind. Let go! He shook his foot.
Reggie swung back and forth. He reached up and dug in his front paws. You were going to hurt my friend!
I just want to go home! I miss my Mama!
The dragon gave one more hard shake and, this time, dislodged Reggie. As he flew, he twisted to land on all fours in a full, open dumpster. Boxes, bottles, and black plastic trash bags engulfed his view. He shifted to human and flailed his arms until he stood on his feet. He staggered to the edge of the dumpster. Grabbing the lip, he hauled himself out, dropping to the ground.
In the town square, the dragon had gone into full tantrum mode, stomping his feet and destroying more of the decorations. Emma rushed up to Reggie.
“Are you all right?” she said. “Are you hurt?”
“I’m fine.” He rubbed his lower back. “Though, I’m going to be very bruised tomorrow. The kid…?”
“Back with his dad. What—”
Gunshots broke out as the sheriff’s deputies opened fire. The dragon ducked, lifting his wings to shield his vulnerable eyes. The bullets ricocheted off the scales, shattering windows and peppering storefronts. One hit the dumpster beside them. Reggie tackled Emma to the ground, shielding her with his body.
Connelly shouted for everyone to stop. Slowly, Reggie lifted up, shifting his weight onto his forearms.
“The dragon is just a kid himself,” he said, looking down at Emma. His face started to heat up as he realized how close he was to her. “Are you okay?”
She nodded. “What are we going to do?” Her fingers curled in the lapels of his coat. “We need to get him out of the square.”
“I don—”
A deep, brassy roar reverberated through the night. The baby dragon dropped its wings and looked up.
An enormous dragon swept in overhead, blotting out the sky. Her wedge-shaped head alone was larger than some tour buses. Whereas her youngling was a dull red, she was every color, the town lights flashing off her scales like a kaleidoscope. She let out another cry, ratcheting up to a strident screech. Pain snapped through Reggie’s ears.
He didn’t need to be in his dog form to know that Mama was chastising her youngling for having wandered off.
The young dragon launched up into the air, scattering the last of the destroyed lights display. With a few beats of the wing, he joined its mother, latching onto her side like a reptilian opossum.
The mother dragon flapped her wings, slamming gale-forced winds into the town. Reggie was shoved onto Emma, though he did his best not to smother her. Car alarms went off.
Brilliant white light cracked the sky like lightning—and they were gone.
Slowly, Reggie stood and helped Emma to her feet.
From the edges of the square, people gingerly ventured forth. Emma took Reggie’s hand and, together, they walked out into the destruction. Shocked silence hung in the air.
A little kid cried, “Where’s the doggie that bit the dragon? Is he okay?”
“He’s over here!” Emma shouted, waving an arm. She pulled Reggie into the middle of the square. “This is Reggie Shaw. He’s the shapeshifter I’m sure some of y’all have heard about!”
All eyes turned onto Reggie, who wished Emma hadn’t breathed a word.
Then, someone clapped. One clap led to a group clapping, which led to the entire square of people applauding, Emma included. The only person who didn’t clap was Sheriff Connelly, who stood off to the side with his arms crossed. Reggie fought the urge to hide. He shoved his hands into his pockets and tried to smile. It probably looked like a pained grimace.
The applause died away. One man turned to another and said, “Hey, Howard!”
Howard, a thin guy in a brown suit, had his phone out and was taking pictures of the carnage. Reggie recognized him as the owner of the town’s largest insurance agency. And he only knew that because Howard came into the store one day to talk to Emma about her policy.
“Yeah?” Howard said.
“Does this count as an Act of God?”
Howard shook his head. “Gonna have to call the home office on this one.”
Scattered laughter broke out.
The back of Reggie’s neck prickled. He looked across the square. Sheriff Connelly was watching him and Emma.
Emma didn’t get out of Reggie’s truck right away when he parked it in front of her home. He left it running, letting the warm air rush from the vents.
“Are you sure you’re okay?” she asked.
“Yeah. We shapeshifters are tough.”
“Good.” She shifted in her seat to better face him. “Are you still planning on leaving?”
“One round of applause isn’t going to fix the problem.”
“But it’s a start.”
Reggie sighed, laying his hands on the steering wheel. He tapped it with his fingertips. “You want me to stay?”
“Yes.” She clasped her hands. “When you asked me out, I told you no because, well, I was thinking at the time that it wouldn’t be right for a boss to date her employee. And you’re also technically my tenant, so that just makes it feel worse, somehow.”
“Worse, how?”
“Well, if things didn’t work out, it would be kind of awkward, wouldn’t it? And would we really be able to be a couple if-if you’re afraid I’m going to fire you or kick you out every time we disagreed?”
“Would you do those things?”
“No!”
“I don’t think so, either. It’s okay for you to say no, Emma. And I don’t need to understand the why. But if I was willing to look past you being my boss, then I would hope you would, too.”
“Well, I think it’s more than that, honestly.”
Reggie took her clasped hands in one of his. “You said you didn’t still have feelings for Matt.” He smiled. “Other than anger, of course.”
“And I don’t. It’s just…he really hurt me. And, in some ways, you’re still a stranger to me.”
He studied her for a long moment. “It’s one thing to hire someone after running a background check, and another to go out with him, huh?”
“Yeah.”
He squeezed her hands and let go. “I can give it time, then.”
A thrill of joy went through Emma. “So, you’re not going to leave?”
“I guess not.”
“What are you going to say to Matt tomorrow?”
“I guess it depends on what he has to say to me.” He opened his door. “I’ll walk you the rest of the way.”
Reggie walked into the police station, feeling a pit of dread opening up in his stomach. He really didn’t like police stations. He’d never been officially arrested, but he’d been menaced in stations often enough.
He didn’t have anything against law enforcement. There were plenty of good cops out there, and he’d met a few of them. But he also had experience with cops who thought they only had authority for as long as you knew they were the authority.
The woman at the desk buzzed the sheriff, who stepped out of his office long enough to wave Reggie over.
As Reggie walked pass desks containing other deputies, he felt people turning to look at him.
One of them, standing by the copier, shouted, “Hey, I heard you bit a dragon!”
“Yeah.”
“What’d it taste like?”
“Like a lizard.”
That earned a laugh, and the tension in the room dropped by a degree. Papers rustled and keyboards clacked as people went back to what they were doing, the conversation rising like a gentle wave.
Connelly sat behind his desk, paging through a file, as Reggie walked into his office. Reggie closed the door behind him.
“Have a seat,” the sheriff said, closing the file. He set it off to the side. “Want some coffee?”
“I’m fine.”
There were two seats to choose from, and both looked equally as uncomfortable. Reggie picked the one nearest the door, looking around the room as he tried to pretend to be unbothered. The office was small, with a pair of filing cabinets against one wall and a bookcase full of manuals and awards. On the walls were pictures of Sheriff Matt Connelly with various people, some looking more important than others.
Connelly clasped his hands, leaning his forearms against his desk blotter. “So, you like living in Bramblerest, Mr. Shaw?”
“I do.” Reggie glanced at the file Connelly had been looking at. It had Reggie’s full name on it.
“But you’ve caused a bit of a stir.”
“I can’t help that.”
“Not the first time, though.”
Reggie was trying very hard to not look at the file again. His shoulders stiffened. “No.” He forced a shrug. “Last night was my first time tangling with a dragon, though.”
“Yeah. About that.” Connelly sat back in his chair and pulled his keyboard to him. He looked at his computer monitor and tapped a few times. Then, he turned the screen to show Reggie.
It was a video on WebTube. Connelly hit the space bar to play it. The shaky footage, obviously shot on someone’s cell phone, showed Reggie in dog form launching at the dragon and Emma using the distraction to get a kid away. The title of the video read, “Shapeshifter Helps Save Child!”
It had been viewed over a thousand times, which was all the stats Reggie saw before Connelly jerked the monitor back around.
“That video,” he said, “is all over the town’s GoodNeighbors app, and probably every other social media people around here use. The mayor called me this morning, wanting to know if I knew the identity of the shapeshifter in question so that she could thank him or her. I told her I was meeting with you, but I gave her the wrong time. I wanted us to have a chat first.”
Reggie nodded, though part of him was still trying to come to terms with being a local celebrity. The round of applause last night had been bad enough. But a video, too?
“I’m surprised Emma isn’t with you,” Connelly said.
“She wanted to be here, but I encouraged her to stay at the store.”
“Why?”
Because the last thing Reggie wanted was Connelly and Emma to be in the same room together, but expressing his more protective instincts would just confirm whatever the sheriff thought about the supposedly-violent nature of shapeshifters.
“I told her I could handle this,” Reggie said. “And the last thing she needs to do is close the store on a day it should be open.”
“Well, I think because of that video, Emma won’t have a problem with customers. But I still have a problem with you. I saw the look on your face at the diner. I wonder what you would have done if there hadn’t been an audience.”
“I would have done the same thing, sheriff. I’m not here to make trouble. I was just stepping in because I thought my friend needed help.”
“Is she really just a friend?”
“No.”
Connelly scowled.
Reggie smiled. “She’s also my boss and landlady. Sheriff Connelly, I promise you that I’m only here in Bramblerest to put down roots and live my life. I’m not here to hurt anyone. I’m only glad I could help last night when that baby dragon came through.”
“Baby?”
“Yes. He only wanted his mama.”
“How—”
A polite tap on the door cut him off. Connelly huffed an irritated sigh.
“What?” he called.
The door opened, letting in a rush of voices and movement, as if the number of people outside the office had doubled. A deputy leaned in. “Sir, the mayor’s here. So are—”
“Stall her.”
“Um. Sure.” The deputy grinned at Reggie before closing the door.
Connelly rubbed his eyes. “How did you know the dragon was a baby?”
“Because shapeshifters are fae-touched,” Reggie replied, “which means I can speak to magical creatures while in my dog shape.”
“That’s very nice, but that doesn’t take you off the hook entirely. I have heard too many stories about people coming to harm from shapeshifters.”
“There are bad shifters just like there are bad people, sheriff. And a shapeshifter and a werewolf are two very different things.”
“I’m still going to keep an eye on you.”
“I understand.”
“You leave Emma alone, too. It might be best if you start looking for a different job. We don’t want anything bad to happen.” The sheriff raised a brow. “Do you understand?”
Anger sparked through Reggie’s gut. He stood. “I’m going to do you a favor, sir, and assume you weren’t just threatening me.”
Connelly moved to get up, but Reggie was already through the door.
An explosion of camera flashes brought him to a halt.
Reggie had been so focused on Sheriff Connelly that he hadn’t been paying too much attention to what was happening in the rest of the station.
It wasn’t only the mayor. Several reporters also accompanied her. Reggie tried to rearrange his face into something like a pleasant smile, but he wasn’t sure if he succeeded.
A short, plump woman in a blue pantsuit and sensible shoes walked up to him. “Mr. Shaw, I’m Mayor Melissa Campbell. On behalf of Bramblerest, I want to thank you for your heroic action last night at the light show.” She held out her hand.
Reggie shook her hand. “It wasn’t only me, ma’am, and it was only the right thing to do.”
“I understand. Let’s smile for the cameras!”
Mayor Campbell turned toward the cameras, still holding Reggie’s hand. At that moment, the door to the station opened and Emma walked inside.
A smile bloomed across Reggie’s face. More blinding flashes of camera lenses, but all he could see was Emma, smiling back at him and looking proud.
this was a great story! I really enjoyed it! though like in all romances, I find myself wanting to slap Emma silly for being so obtuse when it comes to Reggie. Screw what others think! don't throw away solid gold because its shaped funny, Girl!
Like I don’t know why it took me soooo long to read this (I do actually, I think I was traveling and it got buried in my inbox) but this was really lovely. I am in edits mode with my own work so when I say it could do with a bit of polish, please understand it comes from someone currently questioning every dang word she writes.