by Chant, Zoe
Aaron was descending the tree in his yard, eyes like saucers. “We were climbing the tree,” he sobbed. “I know we weren’t supposed to, but I’m sorry! And Trevor fell! And I won’t do it again! And what is that? Where did Trevor go??”
Another parent or grandparent would have feared a different tableau—a child with a broken leg or dislocated shoulder from a fall like that.
But Trevor’s clothing was scattered around the yard, and a disoriented, blinking lion cub was sitting underneath the tree, favoring one paw.
“Aaron-with-two-As, I am going to need you to take a deep breath and count to ten,” Damien said, dredging his memory to remember how Andrea dealt with Trevor when he got hysterical. “As slowly as you can.” He crossed the lawn and scooped Trevor carefully up with as much of his clothing as he could easily reach.
He automatically scanned the area for onlookers, and was relieved to find that Green Valley had for once decided not to provide an unwanted audience.
But the scream had not gone entirely unnoticed, and as Damien carried Trevor to the most private corner of the lawn, up next to Tawny’s fence, a young man with wild eyes came bolting out of the house. “Aaron! Are you okay? What’s going on?”
“Eight!” Aaron said, panting and pointing. “Nine! Ten!”
“Trevor,” Damien said quietly. “It’s okay now. You’re okay. This is perfectly normal, and I need you to be a little boy again now.”
He was fairly certain that despite his efforts at discretion, Aaron’s father got an eyeful of Trevor’s furry shape before he morphed back into a naked little boy.
“I was so high up!” Trevor said at once, more excited than frightened by the whole experience. “But falling was scary and there was a voice that said we ought to be something else and my wrist hurts.”
Damien breathed a sigh of relief and inspected the wrist, deciding that it was sprained at worst. “We’ll put a wrap and some ice on that,” he said firmly. “And we’ll talk about climbing trees as well.”
“Are you going to tell Dad?” Trevor asked. “Are you going to tell him that I can be a...” he paused and Damien guessed that his lion was filling him in. “A lion! I can be a lion! Roar!” He made tiny claws with his small fingers.
“You didn’t have a mane,” Aaron said skeptically. “And you were spotted.”
“You might need these,” Aaron’s dad added then, handing Damien the rest of Trevor’s clothing.
Damien exchanged a long thoughtful look with him. He didn’t look nearly as surprised by the events in his front yard as he ought to be. “Thank you,” he said levelly. “Bear?” he guessed.
“Grizzly,” the other man agreed with a crooked grin. “Lion seems the easy guess, given your grandson’s development here. Damn, I thought I had another few years before I had to worry about this.” He eyed his son warily.
“Trevor’s precocious,” Damien said shortly, nodding to confirm his guess. “I’m Damien Powell.” He offered a hand.
“Dean James,” he received in response, and they shook hands firmly.
“Now boys, listen up,” Damien said, as Trevor got dressed. “This is not something that you can tell anyone about, not ever.”
Aaron was looking suspiciously at his father. “Can I do that, too?”
“We won’t know for a while,” Dean said cautiously.
Trevor was fingering a place in his shirt where the seam had split. “Can I do it again?” it suddenly occurred to him.
“Not here,” Damien and Dean said at the same time.
“It’s like a secret identity,” Dean said swiftly. “You can’t do that out here where people can see you, like Superman can’t get into his suit out in the front yard.”
Trevor’s blue eyes got enormous. “I’m a superhero?”
“It’s like that,” Damien agreed reluctantly, hoping that the parallels would be sufficient to ensure their discretion. “It has to be kept a secret.”
“What about me?” Aaron whined. “I want to be a superhero.”
“You’re a superhero, too,” Dean told him. “You’re like Batman. He doesn’t have powers, but he still has to keep the secrets.”
“Hey,” Trevor complained. “I want to be Batman.”
“You’re like Superman,” Damien reminded him. “With the powers.”
“Superman is lame,” Trevor pouted. “I want to have a Batmobile.”
“Is everyone alright?”
Tawny was walking across the lawn towards them.
Damien supposed he should be grateful that she had waited this long to investigate. He hadn’t really expected his order for her to stay behind to be honored indefinitely.
“It’s a secret!” Trevor and Aaron shouted together.
“Hey, Tawny,” Dean said casually.
Damien got back to his feet. “Trevor fell out of a tree,” he explained. “He’s fine now.”
Tawny accepted their various statements with skepticism, but nodded slowly. “You need ice on anything, Trevor?”
Trevor wriggled his wrist experimentally. “Nope,” he said, looking at it curiously.
“Superpowers,” Aaron said in a stage-whisper.
“So everything is just fine here,” Tawny said, looking from one of them to another.
“Just great,” Dean said too quickly.
Aaron took Trevor by the other hand. “We’re all great!” he insisted, dragging him towards the house. “But we have to go now! Bye!”
“I’m going to... go get them a snack,” Dean said with a big smile. “See you later, Tawny! Nice to meet you, Damien!”
And then it was just Tawny on the lawn with Damien.
He could tell her now, it occurred to Damien. He could tell her right now that he was a lion shifter, and that she was his mate, and he could be done with dancing around secret subjects at last.
But it felt like he’d only just won her over, like they were still in a tentative place. He didn’t want to unsettle the perfect, fragile balance they had finally found. The truth about him might frighten her. Or make her angry.
He didn’t want to risk either of those things.
“You know, I never did get my treat,” he said, instead, and watched Tawny’s cheeks redden delightfully.
Chapter 21
“Saw your young man outside swearing at someone on his phone,” Marta said, pulling her shopping cart alongside Tawny’s.
“He’s not my young man,” Tawny said automatically.
“Well, he’s not that young, I supposed,” Marta said. “But you’re no spring chicken, so that’s just fine.”
“I mean, he’s not... we’re not...”
“So you keep saying,” Marta said tartly. “But he’s spends an awful lot of overnights at your house for someone who’s not a... whatever you think you aren’t.”
Tawny sighed, keenly aware that her shopping cart was full of dinners for more than one.
“I take it he hasn’t offered to make an honest woman out of you yet?” Marta pried.
“It’s the twenty-first century,” Tawny reminded her. “I don’t need to be married to be an honest woman.”
“That’s what an old maid says,” Marta sniffed.
“I am an old...” It occurred to Tawny that she didn’t really feel like an old maid anymore and she trailed off.
“Not sure what you are or aren’t, are you?” Marta said shrewdly.
Tawny sagged over the handles of her shopping cart. “Not really,” she admitted.
Sometimes, she felt like she and Damien were the absolute perfect fit, like two halves of a jeweled egg. And sometimes, she felt like she was waiting for the other shoe to drop, the rest of the story, a hint of the secrets that Damien kept in his perfect beard. It was almost as if he was playing at this country life. Tawny was not oblivious to the fact that the frequency and intensity of the calls he was fielding had increased.
“Earth to Tawny,” Marta said, and Tawny recognized that she had been talking and Tawny hadn’t heard a word of it.<
br />
“I’m sorry, Marta,” Tawny said, giving herself a shake.
“What’s our book this week?”
“The Pelican Brief,” Tawny said. Damien had helped them pick it.
“And your whatever he is or isn’t, is he going to be there?”
“Damien said he’d be there,” Tawny assured her.
“How long is he planning to stay around?” Marta asked probingly. “Doesn’t he have some big shot career in the city to get back to?”
“I... don’t know,” Tawny confessed, a sudden pang of worry in her chest. What was she going to do when he left? He couldn’t stay here indefinitely.
“You should find out,” Marta said sensibly. “Now, if you aren’t going to pick out some apples, kindly move your shopping cart and let someone who isn’t suffering some kind of an existential crisis get some pie ingredients.”
Tawny could only chuckle, and move her cart.
“See you and your young man at book club tomorrow,” Marta said brightly.
Chapter 22
Shaun pounced on Damien the moment he opened the door.
“Trevor says he has a secret that you know and he can’t tell me because he couldn’t get into the Rusty Leg and I have no idea what he is talking about. Dad, what do you know about this?”
“Justice League,” Damien corrected, bemused that he had picked that up from Trevor’s television. “Trevor turned into a lion yesterday,” he added mildly.
Andrea walked in then, not catching his words. “Is that more laundry?” she asked. “I honestly did not expect my father-in-law to be giving us practice for when Trevor goes off to college and returns only for clean clothes.” Her voice was full of laughter, and she stood on her tiptoes to give Damien a fond kiss on the cheek. Damien was not sure how she had ended up so easy with him; he and Shaun were still cautiously navigating each other like the near-strangers they were.
Shaun was gripping the back of a chair with white knuckles. “He what?” he said, completely ignoring Andrea.
“Who what?” she asked.
“Trevor turned into a lion yesterday,” Damien repeated.
“Oh!” Andrea said, startled. “It’s been almost a year. I thought we were in the clear. I suppose he remembers this one?”
“Clearly,” Damien said regretfully.
Shaun groaned. “He’s probably upstairs shifting back and forth right now. We’re going to go through a fortune in shredded sheets and damaged drapes as he figures out his claws. Should we pull him out of school? There’s only another few weeks...”
On cue, Trevor’s voice came from up the stairs. “Grandpa? Is Grandpa Powell down there? I need his help...”
Damien exchanged a complicated look with Shaun. “Be right up, cub,” he called.
But he paused. “You want to come up for this?”
Shaun raised an eyebrow at him. “You’re not going to insist on doing everything yourself so it’s done right?”
Damien hid a wince, Andrea frowned, and Shaun rubbed his face. “Sorry... I just...”
“You’re a fine father,” Damien said firmly. “And I probably have not told you that enough.”
While Shaun stared back at him, gobsmacked, Damien swept past to the stairs. The compliment tasted unfamiliar in his mouth, but felt better than he had expected to admit.
Trevor was hiding in the closet when Damien arrived at his room, Shaun just a few steps behind. “It’s a secret,” he cried from the closet.
“Your dad is a superhero, too,” Damien said firmly. “You can tell him things.”
Shaun navigated the toy-strewn room and sat down on the bed. “Grandpa Powell told me,” he said. “I’m excited for you.”
Trevor peeked out. He was wearing clothes, but they looked worse for the wear. The neck was stretched out, and the shoulder seam gaped. There was a tear down the front that looked suspiciously like a claw mark.
“You’re not mad?”
“I wouldn’t be mad!” Shaun insisted. “I’m a shifter—er, superhero—too.”
Trevor’s eyes went wide and he crept out. “Are we all lions?”
Shaun met Damien’s eyes as he answered, “You and Grandpa are. I’m a tiger.”
His tone was defensive, and Damien had a moment of chagrin.
When Shaun was a kid of Trevor’s age, Damien had assumed that his son would be a lion like himself. Had he been heavy-handed in his lion-themed gifts? Did Shaun think that being a tiger was a disappointment to his father?
“We’ll all drive out into the woods one day soon and go running together,” Damien said, only realizing afterwards that it didn’t sound like a suggestion. “If you want.”
Trevor nodded enthusiastically. He came all the way out of the closet and perched on the bed next to Shaun.
“There are things you’re going to have to be careful about,” Shaun warned him.
“My feet are sharp,” Trevor agreed solemnly.
“And you’re stronger than other people,” Shaun said firmly. “You can hurt them if you aren’t careful. You heal fast, but they may not.”
“Can I fly?” Trevor asked with perfect seriousness.
Damien chuckled.
“No,” Shaun said. Then he grinned. “But your mom can.”
“Miss Andrea can fly?!” Trevor nearly fell off the bed.
“She’s a hawk shifter,” Shaun told him.
“Like Hawkgirl?” Trevor asked avidly.
“Like a bird,” Shaun clarified.
Trevor quizzed them further, about the limits of his heady new powers, and Damien was pleased that Shaun laid down sensible restrictions. They both emphasized the need to keep all of their abilities a secret.
“Can I tell Clara?” Trevor asked plaintively. “I tell Clara everything. She’d never tell bad people about me, I promise.”
Damien and Shaun exchanged a look that was thoughtful. Clara’s father was a shifter, and her mother knew about them, but another loose-mouthed child with information so powerful...
“Sorry kiddo,” Shaun said regretfully. “The fewer people that know, the better.”
“She might make me tell her,” Trevor warned. “She might sit on me and make me eat dirt.” Realization dawned on him. “Now that I’m a superhero, am I stronger than she is?”
Damien and Shaun both smothered laughter.
“You keep letting her make you eat dirt,” Shaun told him, squeezing him around the shoulders. “And pretend you can’t stop her, so you keep the secret as long as possible.”
Chapter 23
Damien was surprised to find that he and Tawny were not the first to arrive to the book club the following day. Already, all but one of the chairs were full, mostly of middle-aged women. One sullen looking teenager sat at the edge of the group, glaring at her cellphone and typing into it. There were three plates of cookies, and the coffee smelled fresh.
The vulture-like librarian glared at them and went to rustle up more chairs as Damien insisted that Tawny take the only free seat.
She looked like she might protest, then finally sat reluctantly as Damien put his jacket across the back of the chair.
The other women grinned at them like hyenas.
“How’s the garden coming along, Tawny?” one of them asked innocently.
“I’m almost done getting it in,” Tawny said cheerfully. “A few more flats, and it will be done.”
“Tawny wouldn’t say so, but her garden is always the best in Green Valley,” Marta was happy to explain. “Something blooming in every season.”
“Right now there’s not much blooming but dandelions,” Tawny protested, looking pleased and flattered and embarrassed. “All my spring bulbs were eaten by rabbits over the winter.”
“Best tasting garden in Green Valley,” one of the other women laughed.
May gave a nervous giggle and blushed when the others looked at her.
“Our book was The Pelican Brief,” Tawny reminded them, as the librarian dragged two large chairs in to the increasing
ly tiny room.
After some rearrangement, Damien took one of the chairs like a throne, sliding in next to Tawny.
They talked about the book briefly, comparing it to other Grisham books that most of them had read and speculating about the accuracy of the law aspects of the plot.
The woman sitting next to the teenager hissed a warning at her and the girl reluctantly put the phone down. “I liked the movie better,” she said darkly. “Even with Julia Roberts.”
The topic immediately moved to the actress, the other movies she had done, and then to how terrible television had gotten, something they all agreed on.
From there, they began talking about cooking shows, and spring cleaning.
“I took three boxes to charity this morning,” Marta pointed out proudly.
“I got rid of my husband last month,” one of the others said laughingly. “Does that count?”
“Speaking of husbands,” Marta said sharply. “How long are you staying in Green Valley, Damien?”
Damien felt Tawny stiffen beside him and could imagine her stricken expression.
“I haven’t decided,” he said as mildly as he could manage. He very casually reached over and took Tawny’s hand.
In perfectly terrible timing, his phone rang then, and Damien reclaimed his hand to reach into his pocket and turn it off without looking at the screen. “I miss the days you could leave the office and they couldn’t call you anymore,” he said with his most charming smile.
The topic turned to technology then. Marta panned cellphones as a whole. “I wouldn’t be surprised if they find out they cause cancer of the ear, or lead to baldness.”
The teenager made a rude noise, muffled in a cough.
“You sound as paranoid as Stanley,” one of the women told Marta. “I’ve been using a cellphone for ten years, and I’m healthy as a horse.”
“I have a flip phone from the dark ages,” Tawny said peacefully. “It does everything I need it to.”
“You going to get your lady a shiny new phone?” Marta asked Damien slyly. “Top of the line, makes coffee and washes the linen?”