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

  Shaun obediently did so, to Andrea’s delight.

  Trevor nearly fell off his stool chortling and Andrea giggled helplessly. Her initial impression of Shaun had been of an aloof man in a business suit. But with his jacket off, his sleeves rolled up, and a colander on his head, there was no way to take him too seriously.

  While the noodles boiled, Trevor directed Shaun through a series of increasingly ridiculous tasks, laughing harder with each antic until his commands were completely unintelligible and Andrea’s sides hurt from laughter.

  The timer finally hauled them back and Shaun burnt his tongue testing a noodle, then drained them and mixed in the sauce.

  They took their bowls into the dining room and Trevor threw himself onto his hyper-colored noodles.

  Andrea was glad for his enthusiasm; if he had not been so busy trying to get her attention and tell her things through his mouthfuls of food, she knew she would be gazing in helpless longing across the table at Shaun. She thought she’d done a decent job so far of playing herself off as just a friendly neighbor who knew his son, not a helplessly smitten idiot who couldn’t stop imagining him taking his shirt off.

  Her train of thought was not helped by her hawk, who was keeping up a monotonous chorus of Ours, ours, ours in the back of her head, despite several pleas to just stop.

  It was hard enough not to watch Shaun eat.

  The way his jaw worked, and the amusement in his eyes as he put more noodles into Trevor’s bowl after the first was vacuumed up... Andrea made herself look back at Trevor and stop thinking about Shaun’s eyes.

  After his third refill, Trevor began to look glazed-over, his hysteria ebbing away to a tired stupor.

  “I think it’s time for bed, kiddo,” Shaun suggested. “Finish that last bite.”

  “Let me help clear up,” Andrea insisted, standing and gathering the empty bowls.

  “Don’t wanna go to bed,” Trevor protested, eyes heavy and slow.

  “You’re going to anyway,” Shaun said firmly.

  Trevor looked like he might protest and Andrea backed carefully into the kitchen. She knew better than to get in the way of a test of wills between parent and child.

  It was weird and intimate, watching them navigate each other. She knew that Shaun couldn’t have been in Trevor’s life much; she had lived next door to Trevor for two years and had never seen his father. They were clearly just starting to build trust... and already it was apparent that there was a beautiful bond growing there.

  As attracted to Shaun as Andrea could not deny that she was, she was happier yet to see Trevor with a parent that would care about him. She had always adored the sweet little boy, and wished a better life for him.

  She was putting the dishes in the dishwasher, listening to Trevor’s whine and Shaun’s growl without being able to hear any words, when there was an unexpected soft thump and a very growl-like growl.

  She put the pan in the bottom tray of the dishwasher and looked up as Shaun, looking rather wild around the eyes, came into the kitchen.

  “Thank you for your help unlocking the house and showing me around, I will have to make you a real dinner at some point, it was lovely to meet you, Trevor will see you at preschool tomorrow morning.”

  Without really understanding how or why, Andrea let him herd her out of the kitchen and out onto the front porch.

  “I... uh... thank you for dinner,” she said, baffled. “Good...”

  The front door closed firmly in her face.

  “... Night.”

  Andrea stared at the door for a long moment, trying to make sense out of any of it.

  Ours, her hawk muttered unhelpfully.

  She turned away slowly, glancing back over her shoulder at the house.

  They aren’t ours, she said firmly.

  Even if she already wanted them to be.

  Chapter 7

  “You have to go to bed now,” Shaun insisted, grateful that Andrea had taken the dishes to the kitchen and wasn’t witnessing his complete inability to do a basic parenting task like convince a completely exhausted kid to go to bed. “Finish that bite.”

  Perhaps recognizing that the macaroni in his spoon was all that was between him and the horrors of bed, Trevor sucked a single noodle off of it and spent a good minute defiantly chewing it.

  “You’re just trying to waste time,” Shaun said crossly. “Put it all in your mouth.”

  Trevor got another single noodle into his mouth.

  Shaun recognized the challenge, and knew that Trevor was testing him. And what was he going to do? Throw him over his shoulder and haul him off to bed?

  “Mommy let me stay up and watch TV,” Trevor said slyly, watching his face.

  Shaun could feel his temper, stretched like an abused rubber band and threatening to snap. “I am not your mother,” he growled. “And I am not going to do things the way she did. And you are going to finish that bite and you are going to go to bed and Andrea is going to go home. Right. Now.”

  Trevor’s eyes got big in his face and he froze, spoon still suspended in front of his mouth. His face got redder and redder, and then, like mercury, he shifted into a solid, fluffy little lion cub swimming in little boy clothing. The spoon clattered to the table and sent the final few cheesy noodles spinning in every direction.

  Standing on the chair with his tail fluffed up and his front paws, too big for his frame, on the table, lion-Trevor opened his mouth and gave a wail of surprise that turned to a growl.

  Shaun swore, then remembered that Trevor still had ears. He resorted to his own growls when he failed to find safe words that did the situation any justice at all.

  A clank of pots from the kitchen drove panic into Shaun’s heart.

  He had to get Andrea out of here.

  Even if he had considered telling her about himself, it was one thing to confess to being a shifter, and quite another to expose a five-year-old as what most people fearfully considered a freak of nature. Trevor’s secret was his own to protect.

  And he couldn’t even spell protect yet.

  “Wait here,” he told the lion cub. “Don’t move.”

  Andrea was putting the last dish into the dishwasher as he came into the kitchen, and her warm smile as she stood nearly made him forget why he was there.

  Trevor.

  Trevor was a lion.

  “Thank you for your help unlocking the house and showing me around, I will have to make you a real dinner at some point, it was lovely to meet you, Trevor will see you at preschool tomorrow morning.”

  Shaun let the words tumble from him as he herded her directly for the front door.

  While she was still thanking him, puzzled, for the dinner, he shut the door on her and dashed back to the dining room.

  Trevor had given in to sleep at last, and was lying in a boneless heap on the clothing he had squirmed out of.

  A boneless, furry heap.

  Shaun hadn’t started shifting until puberty; he hadn’t even known that shifting this young was possible.

  Bad enough that he didn’t know the first damn thing about being a father, now he was the father of an unpredictable shifter child.

  But looking down on the slumbering cub, Shaun could find no regret.

  He was glad this had happened with him, not with Harriette; surely she would have brought something like this up if it was something Trevor had done before?

  Probably, this was the first time Trevor had shifted, all worked up after too a long day of traveling and his whole life being dumped upside down.

  Shaun knelt and gathered the limp cub into his arms, cradling the creature against his shoulder.

  Trevor’s mother had abandoned him. He was stuck with a father he barely knew. He’d missed the day at preschool that he’d desperately wanted to attend. Add a late dinner and an argument to that, and Shaun didn’t blame him for wanting to escape into some other form.

  “I’d protect you from all of this if I could,” Shaun said, holding the lion cub close. “I s
hould have... tried harder to make it work, gotten a better lawyer. I should have been here for you more.”

  Trevor stirred in his sleep, nuzzling his whiskered nose against Shaun’s neck.

  He shifted back to a little boy halfway up the stairs, and barely came awake as Shaun awkwardly tried to dress him in a pair of superhero pajamas.

  “Daddy?”

  “Yeah?” Would he have questions about being a shifter? Shaun braced himself.

  “Do you like Miss Andrea?”

  That wasn’t the question Shaun was prepared for. “Yes,” he said helplessly, thinking of her laughing golden eyes and gorgeous curves. “I like her a lot.”

  Our mate, his tiger reminded him with a purr.

  “I don’t want you to like her,” Trevor said with unexpected fierceness, his blue eyes suddenly wide open and intense.

  Shaun froze in the act of tucking the blanket around Trevor’s neck.

  “She’s your teacher,” Shaun reminded his son plaintively. “Don’t you like her?”

  “I like her as a teacher,” Trevor said, as if the distinction was clear. “That’s all you should like her, too.”

  Shaun felt like his chest had been carved hollow. Every half-formed idea he’d had about telling Andrea he was a shifter, and her mate, was suddenly, abruptly dead.

  His tiger gave a yowl of despair.

  Trevor was the only thing in their world that could have kept him from Andrea.

  For someone who wasn’t even four feet tall, it was a lot of power.

  Before he could stop himself, Shaun vowed, “I won’t then. I promise.”

  The words were like a vice around his heart.

  Chapter 8

  Andrea counted paintbrushes out into paper cups and dug the scissors out of the back of the cabinet, then stared at the list of things left to collect for several moments without reading a single word.

  “Use your sounds if the word seems complicated,” Patricia teased her, limping in through the storage room door to switch out the poster for the next letter behind her chair. “A sounds like ah or aye. B sounds like buh...”

  Andrea blushed. “Thanks, Miss Patricia,” she said mockingly, shaking her head. She gathered up the rest of the supplies she needed efficiently, and followed Patricia out to set up the room for the onslaught of preschoolers.

  “I met Trevor’s dad,” she said as casually as she could, placing the supplies at each desk.

  Patricia glanced over at her suspiciously and Andrea felt her traitorous cheeks heat again. “Do tell!”

  “Just briefly,” Andrea protested. “I helped him unlock the house. It has a tricky deadbolt. And I watched Trevor for Harriette sometimes, so I knew how to work it. That’s all. Just unlocked the house for him, and showed him where the light switches were.” She made herself shut her mouth.

  Patricia’s laugh was as golden as her hair. “Oh, you got it bad,” she teased. “Is he a dish?”

  “Such a dish,” Andrea admitted. “The most gorgeous, steel-gray eyes. And these shoulders...” She caught herself making vague shapes with her hands and put herself back to work putting art supplies at each spot.

  “And?”

  “And the jaw. And the legs. And the suit. And the smile...” Andrea sighed to remember and her hawk gave a whistle of anticipation.

  “And?!” Patricia insisted. “Have you got a date?”

  “No!” Andrea protested. “All I did was unlock his house.” How many times could you say unlock in one conversation before you sounded like an idiot? “Well, we did have dinner. But it was just a box of macaroni and cheese.”

  “Mmm, unlock his house,” Patricia said suggestively. “It sounds like you did.”

  They both giggled like schoolgirls, and then the bell at the front door jingled cheerfully and the first of the children began to arrive.

  Andrea debated telling Patricia about how her hawk was insisting that Shaun was her mate; she had told Patricia she was a shifter, and Patricia’s boyfriend Lee was a bear shifter. Were they mates? Certainly their attraction had been mutual and immediate, but Andrea didn’t know for sure, and wasn’t willing to risk driving a wedge into what appeared to be a fairy tale romance if Patricia wasn’t Lee’s mate.

  Attraction can happen without being mates, she told her hawk firmly. You’re just confused because it’s been a long time since there was anyone in town worth being interested in.

  None of her logic could save her when Shaun walked in with Trevor.

  He was not wearing a suit, but he may as well have been, he was so neatly pressed and put together. Andrea was keenly aware of her worn jeans and stained t-shirt. She was also keenly aware of her nethers, which were as obnoxiously interested in him as her hawk was. Her whole body seemed to hum with need.

  She was trying to decide if her voice would wobble if she offered her usual cheerful good morning, when Trevor spotted her and waved, drawing the attention of his dad.

  Andrea had no voice left at all.

  Shaun’s gaze was like a shot of sunlight after rain, and Andrea had to force herself not to bolt across the room into his arms.

  You don’t even know if you’d be welcome there, she reminded herself with clenched teeth. It had certainly seemed like he was interested in her, but the unceremonious way he had shown her out left her feeling terribly unsure.

  We know, her hawk muttered.

  She wasn’t the only one who noticed him, either.

  “Hel-lo!” trilled one of the mothers dropping off a daughter. Her prominent wedding ring didn’t stop her from eyeing him appreciatively and obviously as she played with her styled hair.

  Andrea had to turn away before she rushed to defend what wasn’t even hers. She stalked, instead, to a creative play station being abused by Aaron, one of the other little boys, and knelt to encourage and demonstrate more gentle play.

  “You weren’t kidding,” Patricia said, settling beside her as the door jingled behind them with the parents leaving. “Dish indeed!”

  The children were oblivious to the reference and Andrea scowled at her friend. “Aren’t you supposed to be staying off of your ankle?”

  “I’m sitting!” Patricia insisted with a warm laugh. “See?”

  “Can we play stand-and-sit?” Aaron begged.

  “If Andrea wants to,” Patricia said with a smile for Aaron and a sly sideways grin for Andrea.

  Andrea wanted very different things, but a game of stand-and-sit would distract her for a little while, so she gathered the interested children and started the rowdy singing exercise with them.

  Chapter 9

  To Shaun’s relief, Trevor was still a little boy in the morning, and didn’t bring up the topic of his unexpected shift.

  Shaun watched the boy devour a granola bar and a box of raisins for breakfast. He was going to have to go shopping today as soon as he dropped Trevor off. And bleach the fridge before he stocked it.

  “Do you ever wish you were an animal?” he asked leadingly, helping himself to another granola bar.

  “I am an animal!” Trevor said enthusiastically.

  Shaun froze, oatmeal brick partway to his mouth. “You... are?”

  “I’m a dog! A flying dog! I can sniff out danger and bite bad guys!” Trevor began to enthusiastically demonstrate his sniffing, nearly toppling his water glass and scattering raisins.

  Shaun’s heart returned to normal and he had to laugh, saving the water glass and retrieving the raisins that had bounced across the table. “Well, get ready for preschool, Puppydog,” he suggested. “We don’t want to be late.”

  Trevor seemed to have no memory of his shift, and Shaun had hope that it was just a one-time thing, brought on by too much stress and uncertainty.

  He could not find a good way to determine if Trevor remembered the promise he had coaxed from Shaun. It was an impossible vow, not to like Andrea. But wasn’t he obligated to keep it anyway?

  He was desperate to see Andrea again, and dreaded the apology he owed her. How was
he going to explain how rude he’d been the night before? How was he going to be able to look at her and not want her more than he’d promised he would?

  To his mixed relief, the preschool drop off gave him no opportunity to talk to Andrea at all. She met his eyes briefly, and before Shaun could formulate actual words, she was turning away to save some play equipment from the abuse of one of the children.

  He realized belatedly that there was a woman trying to make conversation with him, batting mascara-crusted eyelashes at him.

  “I have places to be,” he growled, when his scowl failed to scare her off.

  Green Valley had only one all-purpose grocery store, and although it was small and poorly lit, it proved to be unexpectedly well-stocked. Shaun bought a box of trash bags, considered, and dropped another box of them into his cart. Harriette had taken all of her personal belongings, but had left piles of miscellaneous things that he had no interest in keeping.

  Industrial-strength cleaner went into the cart, then came out in favor of more child-friendly ‘green’ cleaner. Was Trevor old enough to stay out of toxic things? Shaun frowned. He would have to make sure everything was up out of reach. Should there be covers on the electrical outlets? Or was that only for toddlers?

  The produce was an interesting mix of sad-looking imports and beautiful local greenhouse goods. Shaun considered a fat red tomato.

  He could make Andrea a fresh spaghetti meal. He could bake bread, if the oven worked, and make sauce from scratch. Kids liked spaghetti, didn’t they? They didn’t have blocks of Parmesan, but the grated stuff would do.

  There was a selection of local meat as well, and Shaun frowned over a choice of beautiful steaks. Did the house have a grill? Did Andrea eat meat? For that matter, did Trevor like it?

  He realized with a scowl that he was automatically considering Andrea in his meal plans, and took the second steak out of his cart, then put it back in. He could offer her a neighborly dinner without breaking his vow, something to redeem himself as a cook after having to serve her a meal from a box.