Green Valley Shifters Collection 1

by Chant, Zoe

  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, then 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 with 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 be
gged 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 wedding 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.

  “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.”