Page 1 of Having the Dragon's Baby

ONE

RACHEL

“Blow it out your ass!”

Of course, Rachel didn’t say that, but she sure as shit wanted to. Instead, she bit her tongue and smiled pleasantly. “Right away, sir. I apologize for the inconvenience.”

She turned away with the returned plate of food and headed to the kitchen.

“Stupid fucking people. If it was so bad, then why would you eat almost all of it, then return it and ask for a new plate because it’s ‘not how you asked for it to be cooked?’” she mumbled to herself as she pushed her hip into the swinging kitchen door. “Oh, wait, I know! Because you’re a lying fat-ass!” she half-shouted once the door had shut behind her.

The line cook looked at her with a raised eyebrow and smirk as she tossed the plate on the back counter.

“Someone piss you off again?”

“I don’t even want you to cook them another plate. Look how much they ate before they had a problem with it,” she huffed, pointing at the almost empty plate.

“Well, we’ll give them some of the old meat and cook it perfectly. That way, we aren’t out of anything, and I don’t have to waste our fresh stuff on them since they clearly enjoyed it the first round.”

Rachel nodded and went back out to tell the customer that the new order would be out soon.

She was tired of waitressing at the local diner for lazy creeps who constantly played the system. Her manager never wanted to do anything about it since he was afraid of losing customers, but if this kept up the way it had, the diner would become bankrupt.

She rolled her eyes, knowing the real reason he did nothing about it. The owner was scared of being called a bigot if he were to turn away someone who ended up being a shifter.

It may have been a small town, but shifters and humans coexisted quite peacefully. There were no issues between the two species. In fact, Rachel thought most shifters were better mannered than humans, but the fear of being blacklisted was too horrid a thought for the owner. Apparently, he’d rather go bankrupt.

After another hour, Rachel was finally through with her shift. She saluted the kitchen staff and headed out the back door, still smelling like grease and stale coffee. She got in her pickup truck and let her mind go blank during the always monotonous drive home.

The truth was Rachel loved living here. The small-town life suited her. But the older she got, the more she felt restless. It was as if she were destined for something bigger than waitressing at the local diner.

Maybe she had just been doing it too long. There had to be something else she could do, something better.

Ten minutes later, she was at her small house. She turned off the old truck and looked at the dark windows of her home.

She knew what she really wanted. A family. Kids. She had wanted that for a long time now, and it seemed it was getting further and further away. Almost to the point where she thought it might never happen.

Rachel shook her head, hating that she was feeling sorry for herself.

She had always been fine with being independent, and there was nothing she couldn’t do, including being a mother. But if it wasn’t in the cards, then that’s the way it would be.

She was done trying to find Mr. Right. The world was full of losers, and she had plenty of the customers at the diner trying to woo her or leaving her their numbers, but none of them were to her liking.

She wasn’t sure there was anyone in this town who suited her. She had too much fire and ambition for all of them. And she didn’t plan on changing for anyone, especially to make them feel more like a man. That was their own issue.

Rachel walked inside and flipped on the lights as she pulled her messy, dirty-blonde hair out of its ponytail and combed her fingers through it.

She quickly stripped off her work attire and jumped in the shower, not wanting the smell of the diner to linger. Feeling revived after the mildly cool rinse-off, Rachel threw on her sweats and baggy T-shirt and settled in for the evening.

She had no plans besides checking her email and the news. The rest was a toss-up between a book or a show, depending on how the mood struck her.

“Just living the dream,” she grumbled to herself as she started up her laptop.

She began with her email, quickly deleting all the junk. She almost deleted one labeled SSA but stopped when she read the header that went with it.

Good afternoon, Ms. Rachel Brookes. We are reaching…

She clicked on it since it used her full and correct name, just to see what they were selling. Most spam used the fake name she used when buying things online.

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