by Zoe Chant
Then they were standing just across the hedge from each other and Shaun was glad of the shrubbery between them, because otherwise he might be compelled to act on his tiger’s strong impulses.
Up close, she was even more gorgeous, and she smelled like wind and just faintly of sweat, which made his tiger roll in ecstasy.
“Hi Miss Andrea,” Trevor said, bouncing on his toes.
“Hi, Trevor,” she answered kindly, and having her look at the little boy for a moment gave Shaun a moment to try to collect himself. “We missed you at preschool today.”
“I missed making Easter baskets,” Trevor said mournfully.
“Don’t worry,” Andrea said cheerfully. “I made an extra one just for you.”
At Trevor’s slow, grateful smile, Shaun might have kissed her even without his tiger’s instincts trying to drive him into inappropriate actions.
Then she returned her gaze to Shaun and extended a hand. “I’m Andrea. I’m the assistant at Hands and Hearts preschool. You must be Trevor’s dad.”
Shaun gave her the swiftest handshake he could manage; the touch of her fingers was absolutely electric, and he wanted to simply cling to her in abject desperation. “Shaun,” he finally remembered to say, once he’d taken his hand back. “Shaun Powell.”
“Shaun,” she repeated, smiling at him. Then she blinked and shook her head as if she were waking from a dream. “So, Shaun. Are you moving in or out?”
Trevor looked up at him sadly.
“In,” Shaun said promptly. “We’re staying through the end of the semester.”
He wasn’t sure whose smile was most rewarding. He held up the deadbolt key. “If I can manage to get into the house.”
Chapter 4
It was swelteringly hot, considering how early it was, the midwestern sun beating down from a cloudless sky. The snow from the week before had melted entirely.
Andrea peeled off her sweater as she walked. The tank top underneath wasn’t preschool appropriate, but it was a lot more comfortable. She tied the sweater around her waist, tugging it as tightly as she could because she knew it was only the matter of a block of walking before it would slither itself loose again.
Fortunately, the preschool was only a few blocks from her house.
Everything in Green Valley was a few blocks from her house.
Andrea squinted into the sky. Heat this early meant the summer was probably going to be brutal.
She was thinking about applying for work at one of the local farms for the summer, but the idea had about as much appeal as asking for more hours at Gran’s Grits. Work at the preschool was her favorite job, by far, of all the opportunities before her, but it barely paid her utilities and insurance during the winter, and there was only another month before it broke off for summer.
If she could just turn her writing into something that could cover those summer months...
Andrea sighed. She loved the idea of being a writer, but if she had to be brutally honest with herself, she knew that she was failing at it, like she’d failed at her dog grooming business, and at landscaping architecture school, and even at being a cashier at the local grocery store.
Fly...
If only it were that easy.
Fly...
When she was feeling most insecure was when she most craved the peace and simplicity of the sky, and the wind under her wings as a hawk. But half of Green Valley was still blissfully ignorant of the shifters that lived among them.
So she trudged along on her own short human legs, getting damp with perspiration at the waist and cleavage, constantly tugging on her sweater to keep it at her waist.
As she finally turned into her front gate, she looked next door to find a car parked in front of Harriette’s house.
It wasn’t Harriette’s ridiculous purple car, but it was an equally ostentatious luxury vehicle.
Andrea’s heart sank. She was hoping that Harriette’s flurry of packing and hasty retreat had been an end to her undesirable neighbor. She would miss having Trevor next door to slip cookies to, but not his aggravating mother.
Now she must be back with some new guy – some guy with lots of money, just the way Harriette liked them.
But there was no sign of Harriette, nor any sound of her strident voice. Trevor was standing dejectedly with a man in an understated suit who was trying to unlock the front door.
The squeak of her gate got Trevor’s attention. His face brightened and he tugged at the man’s hand. “Miss Andrea! Daddy, that’s Miss Andrea! She lives next door!”
After gazing down at Trevor in surprise, the man turned with a scowl and Andrea sucked in her breath as his steel gray eyes met hers from across the yard and her world fell away.
Somehow, she walked in a daze to meet him as Trevor dragged him to the short hedge that separated their property.
Up close, he was even more arresting than he’d been standing on Harriette’s – on his – front step. He filled up his suit deliciously, all broad shoulders and narrow hips and other features that Andrea was already trying to write descriptions for in her head.
He was straight out of a bedside romance novel, with his perfect jaw and neatly trimmed dark blond hair. His eyes were gray and tragic, and when he touched her hand in a perfectly cursory handshake, Andrea felt like she might actually faint.
“There’s a trick to the lock,” she was able to say, when he confessed his inability to unlock the house. She sounded shrill to her own ears, nervous and juvenile. “I’ll show you.”
For a moment, the hedge confused her, and Andrea had to draw a breath and decide whether to hop over it or walk the long way around back through her gate.
Decorum, she decided, and backtracked around on the sidewalk, hitching her sweater tighter.
Trevor, bouncing in excitement, met her at the property corner and gave her an eager hug. Andrea knelt to give him a full embrace. Trevor was one of the students who drank up affection like a thirsty sponge, constantly seeking approval.
Besides, hugging him gave her a moment to try to collect her thoughts before she stood back up and faced Shaun.
Her hawk was singing non-stop in her head the entire time. Ours, ours, ours, ours.
I can’t think when you do that, Andrea protested.
We don’t need to think. Just knock him down and get him out of those clothes.
There is a 5 year old right here. To say nothing of the gossipy neighbors who were avidly watching all along the block.
Her hawk settled with a flip of wings, but Andrea knew that she wouldn’t be put off for long.
What is wrong with you? Andrea asked silently as she accepted the key from Shaun, with the barest tingling brush of his fingers. “It’s a little sticky, but you also have to pull the key back out the tiniest bit to get it to turn, so don’t just force it.”
He’s ours, he’s ours, he’s our mate! her hawk trilled merrily.
In the middle of demonstrating the trick, keenly aware of how close Shaun was standing in order to observe her, Andrea suddenly froze. Our mate? she echoed incredulously.
Ours, ours, ours, her hawk chortled.
Andrea made herself finish turning the key and the deadbolt shot back. “Nothing to it,” she said weakly. “I babysit Trevor all the time, so I know all the tricks.”
“Thank you,” Shaun said, and even his voice was perfect, musically gruff. It sent little shivers down Andrea’s spine.
Trevor wriggled past them into the house. “I can show you my room, Daddy!” he said eagerly. “And my trains! I have...” the rest of his excited babble was lost as he scurried inside.
Andrea remained on the porch as Shaun started to follow him, then paused and turned back to her.
“Would you like to... ah... come in?”
“Yes,” she said helplessly.
She wanted to follow this man anywhere he led her.
Chapter 5
Shaun held the door open for Andrea and stood carefully out of the way. It took every ounce of his
self-control not to reach out and touch her as she passed; the silky fall of her hair was tantalizing.
“There’s a light, probably,” he said, looking for the switch next to the door.
“Over here,” Andrea supplied, showing him where it was, half-hidden behind the heavy curtains.
There was a moment of confusion over who was going to turn it on, both of them reaching towards it when they thought the other wouldn’t. Andrea flipped it on after a false start.
Shaun gave a sheepish chuckle. “You know my house better than I do,” he said.
“Shall I give you a tour?” Andrea offered lightly.
“Much appreciated,” Shaun accepted.
They stood looking at each other for just a moment, and Shaun thought that her face looked even prettier flushed.
Was she aware that they were mates? If the stories were true, humans usually felt an immediate attraction, but without an animal breathing down her neck like Shaun’s tiger was doing to him, it probably didn’t feel much more than an unexpected wave of desire.
It occurred to him that he was going to have to explain to her that he was a tiger shifter, if he wanted to try to tell her about the mate instinct.
As Andrea led him through the living room, through the kitchen, pointing out the utility room and the tiny downstairs bathroom, he stared at the back of her head in consternation. How did you even start a conversation like that?
Weirder still, he wanted to tell her.
“Come see my rooooom,” Trevor hollered, already halfway up the stairs.
“Be right up,” Shaun promised.
Andrea continued around more quickly, pointing out the pantry under the stairs, and the formal dining room, filled with the ugliest, uncomfortable-looking dining set Shaun had ever seen. It all looped back to the living room, and they were standing at the bottom of the stairs.
“The... ah... bedrooms are up there, of course,” Andrea said, chewing on her lip.
“Come see my roooooom,” Trevor called.
Don’t let her leave, Shaun’s tiger insisted.
As Shaun was trying to figure out any excuse to get her up the stairs, Trevor added, “Miss Andrea! Miss Andrea, I made a house and you have to help me with the roof!”
Not sure if he should be insulted that his son didn’t think he was capable of the task, or just grateful for his interference, Shaun let Andrea walk up the carpeted steps first. When her sweater slithered from her waist, he was rewarded with a view of the most gorgeous ass he’d ever seen, cupped in paint-stained blue jeans.
He caught the sweater before it could reach the steps. “Got it,” he said cheerfully, and did not offer to hand it back to her.
With a blushing backwards glance that suggested she’d seen through his ruse, Andrea finished her ascent to the top floor. Shaun followed two steps at a time and reluctantly gave her back her sweater.
“Come, come look!”
Trevor proceeded to show him into the messiest room that Shaun had ever witnessed.
A sheet over a table, clipped to chairs, formed a house in the middle of the room, decorated with pillows and stuffed with buckets of tinker toys and stuffed animals and... toys that Shaun couldn’t even identify.
Completely unruffled by the mess, Andrea helped Trevor secure the loose edge of the sheet, and they spread the chairs to make it big enough for Shaun to fold uncomfortably into.
“I should probably get home...” Andrea started to say, but Trevor took her by the hand and dragged her into the house, to Shaun’s delight.
“You have to test it with us,” Trevor insisted.
It was a very small space, and although she was a small young woman, they all had to sit quite close together to fit. She and Shaun carefully did not look at each other, and he wondered if she was as hyper-aware of his closeness as he was of hers.
Trevor, utterly delighted by their attention, proceeded to show Shaun each of his most prized possessions.
Shaun was flattered to find that some of the gifts he had sent were favored toys, and puzzled to discover that old packaging and scraps of ribbon and scribbled receipts were equally important to Trevor. He and Andrea indulged the boy’s imagination and let him playact that he was a ‘seller,’ demanding pretend money for each treasure that he handed them.
Shaun was willing to pay any price the boy named, but Andrea bargained with him shrewdly. “I’ll only pay one thousand dollars for that book,” she teased. “Look, it has teethmarks on it!”
“I chewed it when I was a baby,” Trevor conceded. “Okay, it’s free.”
Shaun felt a stab of guilt. He should have been there when that happened. He should know these stories already, not be watching his new neighbor out of the corner of his eyes for all the clues he needed.
“I have to stretch out,” Andrea said, just as Shaun recognized that his muscles were protesting the uncomfortable position he was trapped in. “This is a little boy tent, not a grown-up sized house.”
They all crawled out carefully, Shaun trying not to stare at Andrea’s perfect, curvy body as she navigated the cramped space.
“We should buy you some new shelves to put this all on,” Shaun said, looking around at the disarray of the room as he finally managed to wriggle from the sheet-constructed house without collapsing it.
Trevor yawned, and Shaun remembered how long their day had been. Did Trevor still take naps? There was so much he didn’t know. A glance at his watch showed that it was later than he had expected; outside, the sun was fading fast.
“Want some dinner, kiddo?” he asked.
Trevor brightened. “Yeah, I’m hungry.”
“I should get home and get my own dinner going,” Andrea said, sounding shy.
“Can Miss Andrea have dinner with us?” Trevor begged.
“Oh, I couldn’t,” Andrea said. “You weren’t expecting a guest. You just got here!”
“We’d love to have you,” Shaun insisted, even as he realized he had no idea what the kitchen held.
Andrea looked up at him, and her look was complicated and full of longing. “I...”
“Pleeeeaaaassssse?” Trevor managed to pack about a dozen extra vowels into the plea.
Shaun was somehow relieved to find that Andrea was no more immune to Trevor’s big-eyed entreaty than Shaun was.
“I’d like that,” Andrea agreed. She smiled. “I only had sandwich ingredients at home anyway.”
Shaun smiled back, and stood chivalrously aside to let her go first.
At the top of the stairs, Trevor slipped his hand into Shaun’s, and Shaun looked down at him in consternation; the act of trust hit something inside that he hadn’t expected.
They followed Andrea down to the kitchen.
Chapter 6
Shaun slammed the refrigerator door shut immediately after opening it and cleared his throat. “That’s going to require an exorcism,” he said.
“What’s an exercise em?” Trevor asked.
Andrea smothered her laughter, wondering how Shaun was going to tackle the topic as he met her eyes with a briefly panicked expression.
“Bleach water,” Shaun improvised sensibly, rather than trying to explain demonic possession. “The fridge needs lots of bleach water. Let’s see what’s in the pantry.”
The pantry had a family-sized box of macaroni and cheese that made Trevor’s eyes light up with glee.
“It’s not fancy, but it’s the kind with the sauce in a foil package, no questionable milk or expired butter required,” Shaun said, reading it thoughtfully.
“It sounds delicious,” Andrea said without lying. “As a connoisseur of boxed food and canned soups, I can assure you that is very high end.”
“What’s a can of sewer?” Trevor asked.
Andrea had no luck whatsoever muffling her amusement at that one, and Shaun gave a hearty roar of laughter.
Trevor laughed hesitantly, trying to figure out the joke.
“A connoisseur is someone who’s got really good taste,” Andrea e
xplained.
“I think mac and cheese tastes really good,” Trevor said earnestly.
“There we go then,” Andrea said cheerfully. “Two votes for mac and cheese.”
“Look out!” Shaun said, turning and nearly tripping over Trevor, who was standing directly behind him. “I’m going to be boiling water, so be careful.”
There was a moment of tension, and Andrea could see him regret his strong voice as Trevor’s chin trembled and he started to slump out of the kitchen.
“You don’t have to go that far,” Shaun said swiftly, before Andrea could remind herself that it wasn’t her place to comfort the little boy.
“Here,” Shaun suggested, finding a footstool. “Why don’t you sit here and tell me what to do next.”
“I can’t read,” Trevor confessed shyly, taking the box. Andrea pulled a chair up next to him.
“You can make it up,” Shaun suggested. “I’ll do whatever you tell me.”
Trevor stared at him, glanced at Andrea for support, then looked down at the box tentatively. “Um... first you have to make the water hot.”
Andrea directed him to the cabinet for a pot of the correct size. Shaun filled it in the farm-style sink and figured out how to light the gas stove without her assistance. “What’s next?”
Trevor pretended to consult the box. “It has to bubble. Then add noodles.”
Shaun retrieved the box and dumped the noodles into the water once it started boiling. “How long do they cook?” he asked, returning the box.
Trevor considered. “One hun-red minutes.”
Andrea giggled and, reading the box over his shoulder, held up eight fingers for Shaun.
Shaun set the timer. “Yes, boss.”
Trevor giggled. “We need the bowl with holes in it.”
Andrea pointed out the cabinet for the colander and Shaun found it quickly.
Drunk with his new power, Trevor commanded, “Put it on your head!”