by Zoe Chant
“I am a font of useful information,” Andrea told him wryly. She was already starting to feel her energy return. She was undeniably tired, and in seventeen kinds of miserable pain, but she was pretty sure she wasn’t going to die now.
She hadn’t been so sure of that when her feet had touched the ground.
Shaun gave her sleeve a final roll and fussed over it an unnecessary moment without looking at her.
“Shaun?” Andrea had to ask. “When we met, the first time, did you... are you... have you ever heard about mates?”
“Fairy tales,” Shaun said dismissively. He looked straight into her eyes then, and his gaze was so deliberate and direct that Andrea couldn’t disbelieve him.
“Of course,” Andrea said, glad she had an excuse for sounding faint.
She couldn’t bear to look into his eyes and see his indifference, so she looked away, and found herself looking at a stack of moving boxes, folded flat and leaning against the wall.
Her chest felt too tight for her lungs.
They hadn’t spoken about his plan to move back to the city with Trevor at the end of the semester since their first meeting, but when it didn’t come up again, Andrea had simply assumed that Shaun had changed his mind. That she had changed his mind.
Because she loved him.
Because he loved her.
Because they were mates.
But of course the idea of mates was just foolishness. Of course it was all just a ridiculous fantasy. A ridiculous fantasy that Andrea hadn’t wanted to believe in... but now that the hope of it was removed, she felt like someone had taken away something she hadn’t realized was dear to her.
Inside her, her hawk gave a keen of pain more intense than any of her wounds.
Chapter 29
It took every ounce of Shaun’s self-control to hold Andrea’s gaze, and he was glad when she finally looked away so he could breathe again.
He had only watched one heart break before — Trevor’s when Harriette had abandoned him.
But he had never caused one to shatter himself.
This was the kindest way, he tried to convince himself.
He didn’t want to leave lingering hopes or unmeant promises. He wasn’t going to string her along for a decade or more, waiting for Trevor to grow up. She deserved the freedom to find happiness elsewhere.
Inside, his tiger yowled in protest.
He wanted to kiss away all the pain in her face, to cradle her in his arms and take it all back, but he remembered his promise to Trevor and instead, he started collecting up the blood-soaked towels to start a load of laundry.
Andrea cleared her throat and stood carefully, swaying only slightly. “I should get back to my house,” she said.
“Are you okay to do that?” Shaun asked, glad his arms were full of towels so he didn’t try to catch her.
“I’m fine,” Andrea said firmly. She gave a little sound that might have been an attempt at a laugh. “I guess I was lucky this happened before a weekend. I’ll be back up to speed by Monday for preschool.”
“What about the diner?” Shaun asked, because it was a conversational sort of thing to do.
Andrea grimaced as she tested the range of motion in her arm. “I could tell Gran I lost an argument with a lawnmower, but I think I’ll go with the flu.” She coughed dramatically and winced as it clearly caused more pain than she had anticipated. “Painful cough, aching limbs. Delirium. Wouldn’t want any customers catching it.”
“Can I do anything for you?”
To Shaun’s own ears it sounded cold and uninviting, and Andrea drew herself up and matched him with her own chilly, “No, I don’t need any more help.”
She thawed enough to add sincerely. “Thank you for... this. For everything.”
Her gesture encompassed the bandaging, and the cleaning, and Shaun wondered if it didn’t also included all the places that they had made love in the living room over the past few weeks.
She limped the door and turned. “Goodbye, Shaun,” she said firmly.
Shaun recognized that she knew.
She knew that this goodbye was a real goodbye.
And then she was gone, taking half his heart.
Chapter 30
Andrea was glad it was the weekend for more than one reason.
She spent a long sleepless night, in too much pain to find rest in any position, and wept her pillow wet for entirely different reasons.
In the morning, she made a pitiful call to Gran’s Grit, her voice so rough from crying that she knew it would be convincing. Old George accepted her excuses with a total of three words in response, and she hung up to weep in the shower as the last of the dried blood swirled down the drain.
She had finally started to believe her hawk, that she and Shaun were mates. That if she was patient, they were meant to be together. Really together, not just the desperate, hungry lovemaking that happened irregularly when it was possible with perfect discretion. If she couldn’t have him yet, she at least had some hope that someday she would.
She had convinced herself that he would stay in Green Valley, that someday they would truly be together, that he loved her.
But now she knew for sure that he was leaving at the end of the semester, and that it would be forever.
Even if they could be great together, Shaun thought mates were fairy tales.
He was probably right.
She would have to be an idiot to believe anything else, and she cried helplessly when she realized that she had been that idiot.
When her hot water in the shower finally ran out, she dried off and surveyed herself in the mirror.
The damage from the owl had reduced to scabs, raw and angry red from the shower, but no longer bleeding. The worst of them still made her flinch in pain, and her suspicion that she would be bruised spectacularly had been correct.
It had been a closer encounter than Andrea liked to admit.
And part of her wished the owl had simply finished its work.
She left her towel on the bathroom floor and spent the day fitfully napping and crying on her couch. She went to the refrigerator several times and identified nothing edible, so she ate nothing.
When darkness fell, she curled on the living room floor with her laptop and stared at the screen until it went to sleep, then bent her head in defeat.
Andrea woke with her muscles screaming in pain because of her awkward sleeping position on the floor, but her head and her heart were numb.
She stretched and shook herself, metaphorically and physically, and went to the kitchen for a pain pill and a glass of water. She opened the fridge and mechanically made herself a pile of fluffy eggs with cheese and toast.
After she ate it all, bite after automatic bite, she took an efficient shower and hung her towel on the rack, then stared at her reflection.
The bruises were fading, and the scratches and punctures looked more like recent scars than fresh wounds. But she looked... grim.
You’ll scare little children with that face, she scolded herself, and she made herself smile until it was halfway convincing.
If her eyes still had dark circles under them, it was nothing a little careful makeup wouldn’t hide. Maybe she could blame the red eyes on allergies.
She dressed, washed her dishes, and started a load of laundry, opening all the curtains in the house that didn’t face the neighbor as she worked.
Shaun, she reminded herself. Your neighbor, Shaun, whom you will inevitably have to face again.
But not today.
She set her laptop on the kitchen table, which faced out into the side yard, and worked until lunchtime, when she dutifully made herself a plate with a sandwich, a pile of chips, and a pickle. She switched the laundry to the dryer.
Each time she passed a mirror, she forced herself to smile, hoping that she could train herself into something convincing and automatic by the next day.
At dinner time, she opened a can of soup and nearly let it overboil as she stared through it, the
n tried to eat it while it was hot enough to scald her.
The burning on her tongue was good practice for not letting herself cry.
She folded the laundry after she washed the dishes, and put every item of clothing back in her closet, straightening the house as she went.
It was a good day, she told her reflection as she straightened from spitting toothpaste in the sink.
It didn’t feel like a good day, it only felt like a day.
She made herself smile. It had been long enough since she had cried that her eyes were not cherry red anymore, even if the circles under her eyes had not faded much.
She felt calm, and ready, and strangely bereft of any nervousness at all. She could think about seeing Shaun when he dropped off Trevor without quailing. She felt empty and distant, completely without fear.
You have no power over me, she quoted to her reflection, then paused thoughtfully. What could you do if you had no fear?
An idea dawned on her, and she returned to her laptop, writing feverishly until nearly dawn.
Chapter 31
Andrea looked like she hadn’t slept, Shaun thought. But she didn’t look as frighteningly pale as she’d been before, and the marks on her arms looked like old scars or minor scrapes. He was painfully relieved; he’d spent the weekend helplessly worried for her, gazing at the tiny gaps in her curtains like a stalker, cataloging when her lights went on and off to convince himself that she wasn’t bleeding out in a corner somewhere.
And she still looked better than he did. When they accidentally looked at each other, she smiled convincingly and held his gaze for just long enough that it didn’t look like she’d been avoiding him.
He longed to escape, but Patricia had asked him to stay for a moment, along with all the other parents, while the kids sang a quick song.
Andrea was trying to keep them in the drunken line they had started in, while Patricia stood and said sweetly, “Thank you all for staying a few minutes! I have a very exciting announcement, and the kids wanted to tell you about it.” She looked abashed and excited and amused as she sat at the piano. “They wrote this themselves.”
The song, started raggedly but enthusiastically, began with “You’re invited!” then wandered into wedding metaphors that were as hard to understand as they were to follow, and ended with, “Miss Patricia is marrying Clara’s Dad!”
Everyone applauded and laughed, and Patricia, blushing happily, stood up and added, “I would like to invite you all to our wedding, the week after the preschool closes, up at our house. I particularly would like all the kids to be our flower-bearers. There are invitations with dates and directions in everyone’s cubbies.”
“We’re going to be in a wedding!” one of the kids shouted excitedly.
“But we don’t have to get married!” another responded in relief, and all the parents laughed some more as they gathered their children and lunchboxes and invitations.
Shaun found Trevor in the dispersing crowd and Patricia caught him before he could escape. “I’d really love to have you at our wedding,” she told Trevor directly.
Trevor looked solemnly back. “I have to come,” he said seriously.
“Hold on, slugger,” Shaun stopped him. “We were planning to be gone by then.” He had already listed the house, and had been planning to leave the very day that preschool let out.
Trevor looked at him in near-panic. “Daddy, I have to go. It’s really important.” His lower lip was quivering and he looked as if he were wavering between pitching a fit and simply crying.
Shaun looked at him in consternation, afraid for a moment that he was going to shift. Once the danger of that seemed to be past, he tried miserably to weigh his own need to flee Green Valley as quickly as possible against Trevor’s clear desire to spend one last celebration with his preschool friends.
“It’s only an extra week,” he told himself as much as Trevor. He turned to Patricia. “We would love to attend. Thank you.”
Patricia gave him a sunny smile. “I’m so happy to hear that!” she said, before limping to talk to another parent.
When Shaun finally escaped with Trevor, he was too grateful for the boy’s sulky silence to question it.
Chapter 32
“Oh no you don’t,” Andrea said, fiercely, herding the last stubborn goat into the garage. “You were not on the guest list.”
She brushed her hands off after she shut the door on the marauding animals, and gave a groomsman a high five as she headed back into the house.
She paused and drew in a deep breath before she went to find the rest of the wedding party.
The last thing Andrea wanted to do was ruin Patricia’s wedding, and loose goats were already trying to do the job.
“I am not going to cry,” she repeated to herself in the mirror hanging in what was serving as the girls’ quarter of the house. The giant mansion was being remodeled, and most of the walls in this wing had been torn out. The construction materials had all been shoved into corners and mirrors and curtains had been hung so that the bridesmaids and party members could dress and prepare in peace.
“I always cry at weddings,” Tawny told her, coming to check her own white hair in the mirror next to Andrea. “There’s no shame in it.”
Andrea gave her practiced smile to Tawny’s reflection and didn’t correct the older woman about the reason for her pending tears. She didn’t need to explain that she craved her neighbor so badly that she had trouble eating, or that she slept in his shirt on her window seat every night because it was as close to him as she could be.
“A bridesmaid, at my age,” Tawny was saying bemusedly, smoothing down her dress.
Patricia had taken pity on her wedding party and selected simple, flirty dresses in breathable, festive fabrics. Andrea could actually imagine wearing the dress again, not just burning it as soon as the ceremony was over like her last bridesmaids dress.
“How could I choose anyone else?” Patricia asked, coming into the room like a ray of sunshine. Her dress was simple and sleeveless, with just the barest hints of ruffles and flowers and lace. Her golden hair was up in a knot surrounded by artful curls and strands of white flowers. “Even if you weren’t a dear friend, you’ve been bringing me my mail for years, and it’s time you were part of my news, instead of just bringing it to me.”
They exchanged a warm hug, careful of coiffes and clothing, and Patricia turned her gaze to Andrea.
Don’t ruin her wedding by breaking down, Andrea reminded herself fiercely, and she knew her smile was too wide and too false, so she rushed to gush, “You look so gorgeous, Patricia! Like a goddess!”
If Patricia wasn’t fooled by her ridiculous act, she was willing to play along. “The boot is the very best part,” she laughed, lifting her skirt to show off the ankle brace she was wearing. It had been several weeks since the car accident that had hurt her ankle, but Lee was very protective of her, and insisted that she wear it as long as the doctor said, wedding or not. “It’s a good thing we’ll be walking down the aisle very slowly.”
“You should have put off the ceremony until you could wear heels,” her mother said mournfully, sweeping in through the curtained doorway. “Maybe a winter wedding that wouldn’t be so awfully hot. And really, can’t someone chase off those stray goats?”
But her complaining was warm and kindly meant and Patricia laughed her off.
“I put the goats in the garage,” Andrea said. “They should be out of the way for the ceremony!”
“The photographer is here to take some preparation photos in here,” Patricia’s mother said. “I wanted to make sure everyone was decent.”
Andrea obligingly smiled for the handful of staged photos that the photographer led them through, and begged off as quickly as she could to go coordinate the preschoolers that were starting to arrive.
She spotted Trevor before she saw Shaun, and her heart began to pound in her chest despite her best attempts to remind herself that she was not going to ruin Patricia’s wedd
ing by having a breakdown.
Shaun was as agonizingly good-looking in a suit as she remembered, and looked as lost as Trevor. He clung to his son’s hand as most of the population of Green Valley swirled around gossiping and chattering. Andrea’s pity for him overwhelmed her pain, and she approached them with her smile carefully in place.
“Trevor, you certainly look sharp! All the other kids are over there getting their baskets ready. Find your name!”
As Trevor scampered away, she dared to look up at Shaun. If she looked at a spot by his ear, instead of his eyes, she found that it wasn’t as bad as she’d feared. “You’ll probably find some kindred spirits over on the groom’s side of things. Look for the formally dressed cityfolk over by the pool who look like they’ve never been to a wedding with gate-crashing goats.”
Shaun gave a bark of surprised laughter. “I don’t know, I think the goats sound more fun.”
“They’re very friendly goats,” Andrea agreed.
Shaun leaned close and whispered, “Are we sure they aren’t shifters who didn’t get invitations?”
Andrea giggled. “That could only be the case if Patricia hadn’t invited the entire town. They’re Mrs. Davis’ goats from a mile or two down the road. She’s out of town visiting her sister in California.”
“I guess she sent proxy guests, since she couldn’t be here.”
This wasn’t so bad, Andrea told herself. She could joke with Shaun like nothing had ever happened between them. As raw as her heart was, there was still something wonderful about just being near him. Maybe they could actually be friends.
Until he moved away with Trevor forever.
Then he said her name, “Andrea...” and it didn’t matter what he was going to say after that, everything hurt too much and her ridiculous longing for him threatened to utterly swamp her. It was good that he was moving away, because the pain of being so close to him and so completely far away was more than she could bear.