by Zoe Chant
"Kay!" trailed back from the kitchen.
"Can I, uh—take your coat?" Dan asked.
She turned around and let him slip it off her shoulders. Under the coat she was wearing a white sweater with pink snowflakes. He couldn't help noticing how the hair curled on the nape of her neck, looking very touchable. It was pinned up loosely, exposing a stretch of neck that looked incredibly kissable, and before he could second-guess himself, he brushed his lips across that soft-looking skin. It was just as soft and nice as he thought it would be. She smelled amazing.
"Oh," Paula said, shivering all over.
"Should I not have? I—"
He was silenced by Paula turning around with the coat still half on. She put a hand around the back of his head and pulled him in for a solid kiss.
After a nearly endless moment of exploring each other's mouths, they broke apart. Her eyelashes had fluttered half shut. "Wow," she murmured, opening her eyes. "I could get used to that."
Dan took a breath. "So," he said. "Coat."
"Right. Coat." Laughing quietly, she relinquished it. "Though I'll just need to put it back on if we go out to the barn."
"Come in and have a cookie first, before your daughter eats them all." Belatedly it occurred to him that there was no one else with her. "No Austin?"
Paula smiled ruefully. "He's over at a friend's house. He tried to talk me into letting him stay home alone, and normally I think he'd be old enough just for the evening, but ..." She shrugged, her mouth twisting. "Not with everything going on."
Dan lowered his voice. "Do you feel safe there?" Because I could stay over, he wanted to say. Just the idea of her being in danger made his bear half crazy with the urge to protect her.
"I do, that's the weird part. I mean, when it's just me and the kids at home, I don't think we're in any danger, especially with all the security measures your friends have taken. But that's with me there. Austin's a good kid but he's only fifteen, you know?"
"Yeah, I get it." Cautiously he settled a hand in the small of her back. Her sweater was soft and fuzzy.
They went into the kitchen, where Lissy froze guiltily with a cookie in one hand and half of another one in her mouth.
"What number is that?" Paula asked. "Ooh, chocolate chip."
"Two," Lissy said, wide-eyed.
"Uh-huh."
"Horses now?" Lissy asked indistinctly.
"Horses it is," Dan said. "Just let me get the girls."
Just let me get the girls turned out to be an operation roughly equivalent in complexity to storming Normandy. Mina had to be rousted from watching her gazillionth episode of Blues Clues, while a drowsy Lulu was tucked into a front carrier. Boots were found, mittens located and lost again. In the five minutes since Dan had last seen him, Sandy had gotten into a video game and was unenthusiastic about being pried out of it to go visit a horse he could visit anytime.
Eventually they managed to get the entire herd roused, be-coated, de-gamed, and headed out to the barn with varying degrees of enthusiasm.
"Derek and Gaby's place is huge," Paula said, looking around at the wide sweep of snow-covered yard. In addition to the barn, there were a variety of outbuildings and a mother-in-law cabin that was Gaby's mom's domain when she was in town; the rest of the family treated it with reverence and left it alone.
"Yeah, it takes some getting used to."
There was a covered chicken run beside the barn, with chickens that set up a clamor at the arrival of people who might have chicken feed. Dan dispatched the older kids to scatter some grain in the chicken pen while he opened the horse's stall and led her out into the trampled snow of the corral, maneuvering carefully with Lulu in the front carrier and trying to look like he knew what he was doing.
The Rugers' horse was a black-and-white spotted pony, too small for an adult to comfortably ride, but sized just right for a child who wasn't too intimidated by large animals. Dan had no idea how to saddle her, but Sandy did, and went through the process under adult supervision, with Dan to do the one part Sandy was still too small to do—lifting the saddle onto the horse's back.
"What a pretty horse," Paula said, petting the pony's velvety nose. The pony lipped at Paula's hands, clearly expecting treats. "What's his name?"
"Her. Apparently the previous owners named her Merlot for some reason," Dan said. "Derek and Gaby and the kids call her Silver."
"Straightforward. A classic. I like it."
"When I have a pony," Lissy declared, "I'm going to name her Princess Ariel Margaret Butterball, but she will be called Bill for short, like the pony in Lord of the Rings."
"Notice the 'when' and not if," Paula said.
It was decreed that the pony was not to leave the corral, so the kids took turns riding her around the trampled yard inside the fence.
"Where's Mina?" Paula asked abruptly.
"She's right—" Dan began.
She wasn't.
"Damn it," he muttered. The kids were used to the barn and it was unlikely she could get into too much trouble here, but there were still a lot of things he wouldn't want a three-year-old investigating on their own. Heavy equipment. Pitchforks. His stomach tightened into a ball of nervous tension. "Mina!"
He went into the barn, with Paula behind him. It was an old horse barn, semi-restored by Derek and Gaby, but there was still junk in the corners, and a million places for a small girl to hide.
The question resolved itself almost instantly, though, when he heard rustling from up in the hayloft.
"Is she up there?" Paula asked, looking up. "Is she allowed in there?"
"No," Dan said grimly. He bent down and picked up a small coat from the bottom of the ladder. There was a little pink dress draped a couple of rungs up. It looked like it had been torn down the back. He swiped it up before Paula could see it.
Oh, he thought, and then Oh no.
Mina had shifted for the first time.
Derek and Gaby were going to be upset they'd missed it. A cub's first shift was a big milestone, like their first step or their first word.
More worryingly, he did not want Paula finding out about shifters by seeing the Rugers' daughter as a bear cub.
Paula had seen the dress wadded up in his hand. She gave a little laugh.
"So she's naked up there? Lissy had a phase like that too. It's cold out here for it." She reached for the ladder.
"I'll get her," Dan said quickly. "Here." He began unstrapping the baby carrier, working awkwardly. Halfway through he realized he had to take his coat off; he ended up tangled in straps and the coat. "Take the baby for a minute."
"There's no need," Paula said, but she held his coat while he finished undoing the straps.
"I don't want her to spook and run off and maybe fall," he came up with. Falling out of the loft probably wouldn't hurt her at all if she was still a bear cub, but that was the one thing Paula couldn't see—not yet. Not until he managed to explain properly.
Paula took the baby carrier and passed him his coat back. "Okay, but let me know if you need help."
"Will do," he promised, and set foot on the ladder. "Mina, honey? It's Dan. I'm coming up."
There was a little noise from above, a sort of yapping grunt.
"Is she coughing?" Paula asked from below.
"Maybe she's allergic to hay." Dan poked his head over the top of the ladder. "Mina? C'mon out, kid. It's just Dan."
It was dim in the loft, and very chilly, colder than the relatively warm barn below. The end of the loft was open and light came in, illuminating scattered piles of hay in the cold gray winter daylight.
Dan hoisted himself over the edge onto the loft floor.
"Did you find her?" Paula called from below, and then there was a creak. He looked down. She was on the ladder.
"Stay down there!" Dan called hastily. "It might—uh—I don't know if it's safe for two adults up here. The barn is kind of old."
"Oh," Paula said. "Yes, of course."
Now that he'd said it, he wondere
d how true it was. He hadn't actually been up here himself yet. When he took a step forward, the floor creaked. It was no problem at all for a kid; he knew Sandy went up here sometimes. But Dan was a big guy.
He got down on his knees to spread out the weight a little more, and also bring himself closer to Mina's level.
"Hey, Mina? Honey? Come on out. It's Dan. Nobody's mad at you."
There was more rustling in the hay, and then suddenly a small ball of fluff, about the size of a beagle, shot out of the hay and ran straight into his arms.
"Hi, honey," Dan murmured. She was a medium-brown grizzly cub with blonde tips on her fur, and just about the cutest thing he'd ever seen, like a teddy bear come to life. She snuggled down in his arms, making happy little grunting noises.
"Did you find her?" Paula called up the ladder.
"Yeah, I'm just—uh—getting her calmed down. Stay downstairs!" he added.
A first shift could be very disorienting. Mina seemed content now, nestled in his arms. She also showed no signs of shifting back.
"Come on, honey," he murmured into her fur. She had a sweet smell, somewhere between baby and puppy. "Time to be a little girl again. Can you do that?"
Mina licked his face.
"Think about your sparkle ponies. You want Sparkle Magic, right? You can't pick up Sparkle Magic with paws instead of hands." Come to think of it, where was Sparkle Magic? She had been carrying the toy around the barn in her fist, the same way she carried it everywhere.
Mina made a little woofing sound and wriggled out of his arms. She scrambled into the hay.
"Mina—no—now is not a good time for hide and seek, sweetheart," he whispered as loudly as he dared.
Mina popped up out of the hay with bits of hay and straw in her fur, and Sparkle Magic Pony clenched between her teeth.
"Ah," he murmured. She'd lost all her clothes, but kept the pony. Of course she had. "Want to show me the pony? Here, let's take a look."
Mina growled softly and pulled back when he put a cautious hand on the toy.
"Right. Now you want to play tug of war."
"Dan?" Paula called up the ladder. "Do you need help?"
"Everything's fine!" he yelled back down. Dropping his voice, he went back to trying to coax Mina back to her little-girl shape. "Come on, sweetie. Let's go home and have a cookie."
Mina's round, furry ears pricked up.
"Yeah, that's right. Cookie. But bears can't have cookies. Only little girls can have cookies."
Mina made a grunting noise, and abruptly there was a small, naked girl with a toy pony in her mouth.
"Aha. There you are." He took off his coat and wrapped her in it.
Turning back to the ladder, he realized he had a problem. He wasn't confident of his ability to climb back down with Mina in his good arm and only the clamps to hold onto the ladder.
Ideally, he'd love to get Mina back to the house without involving Paula at all. He was not at all sure that she wasn't going to shift back to a bear cub. But trying to climb down the ladder with her was too risky. Anyway, he couldn't just abandon Paula.
He leaned over and saw Paula's face looking up at him, a pale oval, her eyes anxious.
"It's okay," he said. "I got her. I could use a hand getting her down, though."
"Is that a joke? Because it's a terrible joke."
She was already climbing up, though, navigating carefully with the sleeping baby on her chest.
"It wasn't supposed to be. On the other hand, if you want hand jokes, I have so many. All taste levels. Okay, mostly bad taste."
"Like what?" Paula asked. She reached the top of the ladder and held out an arm.
"That's hard to say, actually. I'm stumped."
It took her a minute, then her eyes grew round. "Okay, you're right, that's terrible. That's the worst."
"Told you," Dan said, grinning. He gently handed off Mina, with a slight twinge of worry as she left his arms.
She didn't look like she was about to shift back to a bear cub, though. In fact, she seemed to be falling asleep. Shifting could really take it out of you, especially for someone who wasn't used to it. She was going to be starving later.
"Hi, honey," Paula said, settling Mina against her shoulder. Dan watched her carefully—she was on a ladder with a baby on her front and a toddler in her arm, not the most stable condition, but she seemed to be handling it well enough.
Seeing his expression, she grinned.
"I know," she said. "I don't blame you, but don't forget, I'm used to carrying giant stacks of plates around the diner without dropping one. I have mad waitress skills."
With that, she began to carefully descend the ladder. She was right, she didn't even wobble, and stepped off onto the barn floor with a little flourish.
Dan cheered and climbed down the ladder after her.
"I would say that I can't believe she got her clothes off and climbed all the way up there in just the little time we weren't watching her," Paula said. She handed Mina back to him once he was on the ground. "But then I remember one time that I left Austin alone in the bathroom for I swear less than half a minute while I went to answer the door, and he emptied an entire can of baby powder all over himself. I came back to find something that looked like a powdered donut with two eyes looking at me."
Mina started to fuss and flail. She was slippery, tucked up against his shoulder naked in his coat. "Parkle," she complained indistinctly.
"Where'd her toy go?" Dan said. "She had it when we got on the ladder. It's a toy pony with wings, she carries it everywhere—"
"Here." Paula held up Sparkle Magic Pony by one foot. "Has she been teething on this thing? It looks like it was mauled by a bear."
Dan decided not to answer that. He retrieved the pony and tucked it into the coat with Mina, who grabbed onto it with both hands.
"Let's go collect the cowboys out there and get back to the house. I have a pot roast in the oven."
"I didn't expect you to cook dinner," Paula protested. "Takeout pizza would be fine."
"Takeout pizza when I could feed you my world-famous pot roast?"
"Well, now you've raised my expectations." She settled in comfortably at his side as they went back out into the cold. "Weren't you going to tell me more bad jokes?"
"What, you expect me to come up with them single-handedly?" Dan said.
"I take it back. Please stop."
But she was laughing. And he knew right then that he would do anything to make her laugh like that again.
Paula
Dan's pot roast was amazing, meltingly tender and flavorful, nestled in heaps of potatoes and carrots. They all stuffed themselves, although Mina's ability to pack it away was particularly amazing. Kids that age could really eat sometimes, but Paula had never seen a child Mina's size stuff in that much food at one sitting. With Lissy at that age, she recalled, the problem had been getting her to eat anything other than her three favorite foods: fish sticks, olives, and Kraft boxed mac-and-cheese.
"She must be going through a growth spurt," Paula said, laughing, as Dan refilled her plate for a third time.
"You don't know the half of it," Dan muttered.
"Seriously, this is amazing." Paula grinned. "You cook, you clean, you're great with kids—I bet you do dishes too."
"It's one of my jobs, yeah."
"I didn't think the perfect man existed, but I've changed my mind. Pretty sure I've found him."
Dan gave her a look like he wasn't sure if she was teasing or not.
In all honesty Paula wasn't sure either. He seemed absolutely perfect, like her ideal man come to life. But then, she'd thought Terry seemed perfect at one point too.
Did you, though? a small voice in the back of her head asked. She had been in love with Terry, swept away by the rush of new infatuation and the excitement of college life after her small-town childhood. And look how that had turned out.
Maybe she just couldn't trust her own instincts with men.
"Here," she sai
d, getting up from the table. "You cooked, so I'll clear away."
Dan hesitated, but nodded as she started picking up plates. "I'll go put this one down for a nap," he said, gathering Mina out of her high chair. She was nodding over the table.
"If you put her down now, she'll be up half the night," Paula warned. "Voice of experience here."
"That's all right." He smiled at her. "Small price to pay for a little alone time."
"Ewww," Sandy and Lissy said in perfect sync, and then looked at each other across the table.
"Come on, kids," Paula said. "Give me a hand with the dishes."
The kids washed dishes with her, and then ran off to the living room to play video games. When Dan came back downstairs, it was just Paula in the kitchen.
"Where'd the rest of the herd go?" he asked.
"They're playing something called Super Star Speeder, or at least I think that's what he said. I didn't think it would be a problem." She held out a Tupperware container of leftovers. "Where should this go? There's not much room in the fridge."
"I'll find a space." He went down to one knee and started rearranging things.
It was quiet and pleasant, Paula wiping down the counters with a sponge and dish towel, Dan putting things away. They worked together perfectly in sync, Paula handing him items, Dan stowing them in the Rugers' overloaded cabinets and stuffed fridge. From the living room came the kids' yells of glee as they scored points in the game, punctuated occasionally by Dan telling them to keep it down so they didn't wake the babies.
It just all felt so domestic.
She hadn't felt this way in a long time.
"You okay?" Dan asked quietly.
She hadn't realized it showed on her face. "Yeah, I was just thinking about ..."
She was thinking about the last time she'd felt like this, in her little apartment in the city with Terry and baby Austin, back before it all fell apart. But it seemed terribly rude to talk about her ex on what was basically a date.
"Thinking about?" Dan prompted after a moment. "You don't have to talk about it, but you can if you want to."
Paula grimaced. "If you really want to know, I was thinking about my ex. But not like that," she added hastily. "It's just that it's been a really long time since I was in a kitchen with a man—I mean, other than my cook at the diner, but that's obviously different. Sorry. I didn't mean to bring it up."