The Girl Nest Door (Green Valley Shifters Book 2) Read online

  “I have to go get the kids in order!” she said brightly to his ear, running over whatever he was going to say.

  Her forced smile was so much a fixture of her face now that she wondered if she’d sleep this way, and she turned away, willing tears out of her eyes because she was absolutely not going to ruin Patricia’s wedding.

  Chapter 33

  Shaun watched Andrea flee with a sinking heart.

  For a moment, he’d believed her beautiful smile, distracted by the way her hair had been perfectly piled on her head with flowers, and the striking gold of her eyes against the summery yellow of her dress.

  “Andrea,” he’d started, not even sure where to take the conversation. Praise her for her sensibility? Confess that he hadn’t slept a night through without waking to think about her?

  The mask crumbled, only for a moment, and he saw an echo of his own pain in her gorgeous eyes before she was turning away and fleeing. He trailed after her numbly, telling himself that he was only going to check on Trevor and drop off his gift before he found his seat.

  Trevor was standing with Clara at the edge of the yard where a gorgeous table was laid out under a canopy. There was a tower of frothy cupcakes and a pile of beribboned presents that Shaun added his own offering to.

  “Where’s the wedding cake?” Trevor was asking earnestly.

  “We’re having cupcakes,” Clara said enthusiastically. She was wearing a pink dress that was half ruffles. “You can’t have a perfect wedding without perfect cupcakes! There’s strawberry and chocolate and lemon and vanilla!”

  She pointed out how they were each designated with colored roses on each one. “I’m going to have vanilla,” she said raptly.

  Shaun looked at the staid group of suited individuals, and back at the boisterous Green Valley attendees. Mingling with either group sounded like some level of hell and he was glad to see that people were finally beginning to sit.

  “I’m going to go find my seat,” he told Trevor. “You do what Miss Andrea tells you, alright?”

  Trevor didn’t answer, staring thoughtfully at the tower of cupcakes.

  “Cupcakes aren’t until after the wedding,” Shaun reminded him firmly.

  When Trevor continued to be silent, Shaun said sharply. “Promise me you won’t eat any cupcakes until after the wedding.”

  Clara took Trevor’s hand as he nodded solemnly. “Come on, I’ll show you the rings I get to carry. There are going to be bubbles, too.” As they walked away, the little girl stage-whispered, “Grandma has cookies in her purse.”

  Shaun sighed, and went to be seated.

  The usher took one look at him and sat him in the more thinly settled groom’s side of the outdoor seating area without prompting. Shaun didn’t correct him, glancing at the bride’s side of the aisle in bemusement. He was pretty sure there was a homeless guy in the back row sleeping across three seats and there was an ancient woman in a wheelchair wearing a sequined flapper dress. He recognized the big bald man from Gran’s Grits, as well as half of the people who had been eating there. One of them was carrying the old cat who had been sleeping in the diner window.

  He was leaving Green Valley, he reminded himself. He didn’t belong on that side of the aisle.

  Gradually, everyone was seated, and they chatted comfortably as they waited for the ceremony to begin.

  And waited.

  Though it was still early in the day, the sun was sweltering, and the sunshade was most over the wedding dais, not over the guests. Shaun was sweating, and watching others fanning themselves and plucking at their formal clothing. The preacher looked like he might faint. The groom, Lee, was pacing, and his groomsmen looked bored.

  Finally, Andrea herself came out and walked up the aisle alone.

  It put all kinds of uncomfortably perfect ideas in Shaun’s head, watching her walk down the garland-adorned aisle with flowers in her hair.

  “Sorry folks,” she said with the same perfectly composed smile she had been flashing to Shaun since her encounter with the owl several weeks ago. “We seem to be missing a pair of rings. We’re hoping to track them down and get started shortly.”

  The guests broke into murmured speculation as she walked briskly back down the aisle, Lee on her heels.

  A terrible thought occurred to Shaun as he remember how interested Trevor had been in the whole procedure of a wedding, and that Clara had taken him to see the rings.

  Then the goats trotted back onto the scene.

  Chapter 34

  “You can’t go in there,” Andrea protested. “It’s bad luck!”

  “I think that losing the ring already qualifies as bad luck,” Lee reminded her with a look that indicated he had no intentions of backing down. “I’ll take my chances.”

  “Groom incoming!” Andrea cried, recognizing a losing battle when she saw one.

  There was scrambling, and Patricia’s mother gave a cry of protest.

  Clara was in Patricia’s lap, sobbing her heart out, and she looked up tearfully at Lee’s entrance. “I didn’t mean to lose them, Daddy!” she cried, releasing Patricia. “They were there when I showed Trevor, and then when we went back to look, they weren’t.”

  Lee enfolded Clara into his big arms and held her tight. “It’s okay, cub. We’ll find them.”

  “Maybe a goat ate them,” Patricia’s mother hypothesized grimly.

  “Wait,” Andrea said suddenly. “Wait, you showed Trevor? Where is Trevor?”

  The rest of the children were being shepherded by a wild-eyed Tawny, but Andrea hadn’t seen Trevor with the others when she had left them blowing bubbles and practicing the scattering of their (already-badly-bruised) flower petals.

  Clara only shrugged, still crying into Lee’s shoulder.

  Andrea cursed, using words inappropriate for a preschool or a wedding, as she recalled Trevor’s increased social withdrawal over the last few weeks of school. She’d been so busy trying to hold herself together, and had so much baggage regarding that Trevor’s dad, that she hadn’t pursued his unusual intensity on the subject of the wedding, or noticed that he had retreated to having only Clara as a friend.

  Dread in her throat, Andrea went back out onto the lawn — to find absolute chaos.

  In the few moments she’d been inside, the wedding had imploded. Half the guests were chasing stray goats, including a handful of over-exuberant pre-schoolers who were doing more harm than good as they shrieked and raced around waving their arms and loudly calling orders at everyone. The goats were snatching at garlands as they scampered fearlessly out of reach; they clearly had no desire to be penned in the garage again. One of them was on the dais eating the flowers from the arch. Another had been ‘captured’ by a tiny old lady who clearly had no idea what to do with it now, and it was dragging her around behind it.

  As Andrea stood in wide-eyed appraisal of the anarchy unfolding across the wide lawn, Shaun found her.

  “Andrea,” he said, voice a growl of near-panic. “It’s Trevor.”

  Andrea groaned. Did Shaun have to be so distractingly hot? They were in the middle of a crisis and she still got all twisted up in wanting him.

  “I was afraid of that,” she said, dragging herself back to the moment. “He hid the rings?”

  “Probably, but Andrea...”

  “Did he let the goats out?”

  “Probably, but Andrea...”

  “Did he eat the cupcakes?”

  “Andrea!”

  Andrea finally stopped, as Shaun lowered his voice and pulled her off to one side, glowering at the people who had turned at his exclamation. “He’s been shifting.”

  Andrea stared at him.

  “Shifting?” she breathed. “So young?”

  “I’m not sure he knows,” Shaun hissed, glancing around them. “He did it the first night we were here, and again the night he had the bad dream, but he doesn’t talk about it and doesn’t seem to remember the next day.”

  Andrea slapped a hand on her forehead and tried no
t fall into hysterical laughter. “So, we’re possibly looking for a tiger cub with stolen rings.”

  “Lion cub,” Shaun corrected. “Like my dad. Guess it skipped a generation.”

  Andrea closed her eyes to focus. “You said that each time, he was really stressed out, right? So we’ve got to find him and keep him calm.”

  “Despite the fact that he’s got to know he’s in the most trouble he’s ever been in his life.”

  Andrea cracked an eye to peek at Shaun. He was so good-looking it was sometimes hard to look directly at him, but his expression of frustration and worry and — even now! — affection made Andrea want to drop every guard she still had in place and draw him into her arms for comfort.

  “If he’s this hell-bent on causing trouble, I imagine we’ll find him in the thick of the chaos,” Andrea said thoughtfully.

  On cue, there was a crash from the tent with the gifts and the cupcakes, and the fringes of the milling crowd descended on this new source of entertainment like locusts.

  With judicious use of her elbows, Andrea wove her way through the people. “Excuse me,” she said. “Coming through. Maid of Honor, move it!”

  Just as she finally broke through, she stepped in something that squished, and looked down in horror to recognize a sun-softened cupcake. “Oh, no...”

  The tower had been tipped, and several hundred cupcakes were scattered between the edge of the crowd and Trevor, who was glowering defiantly from under the table from beneath the short tablecloth.

  Beside her, Shaun gave a sigh of relief.

  Trevor was still in human form.

  “Alright, my friends!” Andrea called in her loudest, most child-friendly voice. “We’re going to get this all cleaned up and back to our seats! Take a cupcake with you and let’s get back to having a wedding! Let’s have some space, here!”

  The old lady with the goat pulled it past towards the garage, arms awkwardly around its white neck and people began to obediently pick up cupcakes and retreat.

  Andrea had never been so glad that Patricia had taught her the secret of that voice and once the majority of the people had given them an illusion of privacy, Andrea sat down across from Trevor. Shaun crouched beside her, watching and waiting.

  For a long moment, all three of them were quiet.

  Then Trevor said quietly, “I didn’t eat any of the cupcakes before the wedding.”

  Shaun sagged to a sitting position beside Andrea and laughed helplessly.

  Chapter 35

  Laughing was all the Shaun could think to do, he was so tangled up in humiliation and sorrow and pity for Trevor.

  “Trevor, sweetie, did you take the rings?”

  Andrea managed to make the question sound perfectly reasonable and not at all accusing. Shaun was quite sure he would not have been able to do the same.

  But before Trevor could answer, a flurry of gold curls and pink ruffles descended on them. “My cupcakes!!” Clara wailed, running straight between them. She put her hands on her hips and glowered at Trevor. “How could you?! Why would you?!”

  Trevor’s expression of defensiveness didn’t change. “I did it for you,” he said solemnly to Clara. “So your dad wouldn’t get married.”

  “Trevor!” Shaun could not keep himself from saying, outraged and humiliated.

  But Trevor was at least creeping out from underneath the table.

  Clara descended on him furiously, pounding on him with her tiny fists. “How could you!!”

  Andrea started to stand, saying firmly, “Clara...”

  Clara fell into a weeping puddle of pink lace.

  Trevor looked utterly befuddled and knelt beside her before Shaun could stop him.

  “I didn’t want your Dad to stop loving you,” Trevor said plaintively as Clara tried to push him away.

  She stopped crying and stared at him, still holding him at arms’ length. “That’s stupid. You’re stupid!”

  “Clara,” Andrea said again, warning and strangled laughter in her voice.

  Clara looked past Trevor at Andrea. “Well, he is. My Dad is never going to stop loving me. I want Miss Patricia to be my Mom.” Her voice went up an octave. “I want my cupcakes!”

  “I’m sorry,” Trevor said in a quavering but determined voice that made Shaun want to scoop him up and comfort him. “I thought... I thought...” he looked back at Shaun then, a heartbroken, lost look that cut Shaun to the bone. “I thought he might not love you anymore.”

  Before Shaun could find the breath to speak, Clara punched Trevor in the arm. “He can love more than one person, stupid.”

  “We don’t call people stupid, Clara,” Andrea reminded her automatically.

  Trevor looked intensely at Clara, clearly trying to decide if he should believe her. Then he turned to Shaun for a single moment, and flickered his gaze immediately past him to Andrea.

  “Miss Andrea?”

  “Yes, Trevor?” Andrea stood, and opened her arms to the boy.

  He hesitated, clearly wanting to run to her, but swayed in place instead.

  “Are you mad at me?”

  “Oh, Trevor, no. I’m sure you thought you were doing the right thing, even if it wasn’t. We all make mistakes.”

  “I don’t want you to go away.”

  “Oh, sweetie, I’m not going anywhere,” Andrea promised.

  “But we are! We’re going away forever and ever and not ever coming back.”

  It occurred to Shaun that to a five-year-old, going away was the same as if they remained stationary and everyone around them went away. Trevor fell forward into Andrea, who knelt to wrap arms around him and murmur reassuringly near his ear.

  Shaun felt the ground drop away from beneath him as all the pieces to the puzzle finally fell into place.

  Trevor hadn’t wanted Shaun to not like Miss Andrea because he was afraid that he would lose his father’s love, the little boy was afraid of losing Andrea’s love.

  It seemed ridiculously obvious, upon reflection.

  Andrea had been the anchor in Trevor’s life the past two years. Andrea was the parent figure he could trust, even if she had been parenting from next door.

  And what had Shaun done? He hadn’t been there at all, until just these past few months. He was still, comparatively, a stranger to the little boy. And he’d swept in like a bull in a china shop and declared that he was going to take Trevor away from the only person he trusted. In Trevor’s eyes, it probably looked like it was because he and Andrea had fallen out — exactly as Shaun and Harriette had, and probably Harriette and whoever had replaced him. In Trevor’s limited experience, people only got close for a short time, and then fell apart and he was the one who suffered for it.

  He watched Andrea cradle Trevor in her arms and felt like his chest might crack. He’d been so caught up in his relationship to Trevor, and his not-a-relationship with Andrea that he’d never really considered the bond that was already in place, or thought about the fallout of tearing them apart.

  He knelt beside the pair, keenly aware of the damage he’d already done, and of the audience that had not dispersed very far away at all.

  “Clara’s right,” he said gruffly, hoping his voice would carry only to Trevor and Andrea. “People love more than one person all the time.”

  “Are you sure?”

  Trevor had his arms wrapped tightly around Andrea, and he was spattered in cupcake frosting. His little lost voice as he lifted his head to look at Shaun was everything Shaun had ever wanted to protect him from.

  “I’m sure,” Shaun said. “I love you and I love Miss Andrea.”

  Andrea’s head snapped up, and she stared at Shaun over Trevor’s head. There were tears streaking her cheeks and Shaun was gutted to realize she had been crying with Trevor.

  Trevor sniffed. “But you still love me lots?”

  “I will always love you, cub,” Shaun said. “Always and lots.”

  “Even when I do bad things?”

  “Especially then,” Shaun promised. �
��Though I may not like the bad things. Will you still love me if I do bad things?”

  Startled by this shift of power, Trevor furrowed his brow at Shaun. “Yes?” he said uncertainly.

  “What do you think about staying in Green Valley?” Shaun proposed.

  “What about your work?” Trevor asked suspiciously.

  “Maybe it’s time for new work,” Shaun said thoughtfully. “Maybe a bakery in Green Valley?”

  “We could stay?” Trevor asked eagerly. “Next door to Miss Andrea?”

  “If I haven’t messed things up with Miss Andrea too badly,” Shaun said wryly.

  By this point, Patricia had come limping onto the scene. Clara was sobbing more quietly now, and Trevor had stopped crying.

  Behind Patricia, her mother was wringing her hands and exclaiming over everything. “The cupcakes! The rings! Goats! I knew this was all too fast! Can we reschedule? Oh disaster!”

  The two children looked at Patricia with chagrin and anxiousness. Trevor’s arms tightened around Andrea.

  But there was only amusement on Patricia’s face. “Goodness, this was a lot of a cupcakes,” she said, picking her way through the sticky minefield with her rustling skirt held up. She settled down next to Clara and Trevor without care for the frosting that peppered the lawn.

  “Your dress!” Clara said in alarm.

  “Your dress!” echoed Patricia’s mother in even greater dismay.

  Shaun wasn’t watching the dress, he was watching Andrea over Trevor’s blonde head.

  She looked fragile and heartsick and hopeful.

  “Trevor, honey, do you know where the rings are?” Miss Patricia managed to sound both firm and forgiving all at once.

  Trevor turned his head back to bury it in Andrea’s dress.

  “You’re not in trouble,” Shaun said, just as Miss Patricia said the same thing. They exchanged a brief, amused look.

  “He should be in trouble!” Clara said indignantly, outrage cutting off her sobs. “He ruined the wedding!”

  Patricia opened her arm to Clara and the little girl crawled over into her lap. “He didn’t mean to,” she said gently.