by Zoe Chant
“I’ll be right back with another milk,” Andrea said cheerfully.
Shelley continued to eat her food trying not to meet Dean’s eyes because every time she did, they both broke into laughter... much to the mystification of Aaron.
“What’s funny?” he finally asked, around a mouthful of fries. “I don’t get it.”
“You will someday,” Dean told him.
To her own surprise, Shelley finished her entire plate, wiping up the delicious gravy with her toast. She usually tried to eat light, and often found heavy food like this too much to finish.
“Dessert?” Andrea offered.
“I couldn’t...” Shelley said just as Aaron stuffed his final bit of corndog in his mouth and declared, “I ate all my food canIhaveabrownie?”
“Chew and swallow, kiddo,” Dean told him.
Aaron did so, obediently, then politely asked, “Could I can I may I have a brownie?”
“Please,” Dean whispered sideways.
“PLEASE.”
“One brownie?” Andrea confirmed.
“Make it two,” Dean said magnanimously.
Andrea took their plates and the half-dozen crumpled napkins that Aaron had managed to generate.
“Thanks for coming out with us,” Dean said, almost shyly. How could someone look so heart-bendingly adorable and so undeniably masculine at the same time?
“Thanks for inviting me,” Shelley said, feeling just as shy. “I’ve had a really good time.”
She had, she realized.
Aaron had been disruptive and there were several times she had wondered exactly how he could pack that much food into such a small mouth and still try talking. But he... was kind of cute, she supposed, and he at least made an attempt at manners; it was hard to dislike something that was so happy and trying so hard. And the food was much better than she had expected; her stomach felt comfortably full and warm.
The brownies that Andrea brought were served warm, with ice cream, and Aaron dove into his with enthusiasm, nearly unseating his ice cream scoop in his attempt to cut the brownie with his fork.
“Want to try a bite?” Dean offered Shelley, holding out a square of warm chocolate draped in melting ice cream at the end of a fork.
Shelley couldn’t figure out how to say no, and she didn’t really want to, so she leaned forward and opened her mouth.
Feeding someone else was supposed to be something seductive and sexy, and this might have been the kind of moment a younger Shelley might have written about in her journal, dripping with purple prose.
Instead, Aaron dropped his current bite of brownie directly into his lap with a loud yelp of surprise, startling Dean into veering off from Shelley’s mouth and he stabbed the brownie he was offering directly into her cheek instead. The soft brownie disintegrated and the ice cream coated crumbs dropped straight down Shelley’s cleavage.
Chapter 10
Shelley gave a squeak of dismay as Dean tried to rise to offer a napkin and bumped the table, nearly toppling Aaron’s milk. “I got it, I got it,” she protested, trying to fish the pieces out of her shirt.
Aaron howled in laughter, and Dean chuckled and tried to clean up his son’s lap while trying very hard not to stare as Shelley, embarrassed and laughing helplessly, mined into her shirt.
“This is going to take a bathroom visit,” she finally admitted sheepishly. She gathered up her purse and clicked off in her heels like a runway model and Dean watched her go helplessly.
“Why are her shoes like that?” Aaron asked, his laughter finally fading. They were the last people eating in the diner and the sound of her steps was very loud in the quiet little diner.
“They’re just fancy,” Dean said. Everything about Shelley was fancy. “Do you... like her?”
Aaron considered the question as he put his last bite of brownie into his mouth. “She’s okay,” he decided.
Dean’s bear wanted to protest that she was much more than okay. She was beautiful and elegant and she was trying so hard to look like she wasn’t completely out of her element. She listened to Aaron’s monologues patiently, even if she looked utterly confused by them, and she was polite and gracious.
And when she laughed...
When she laughed, Dean could see straight through into her joyous heart, and he loved what he saw there unreservedly.
“She’s kind of... funny,” Aaron declared.
Andrea brought the check and Dean opened his wallet and gave her a credit card. “How’d the date go, Sausage?”
“It wasn’t a date,” Aaron said with authority. “It was just dinner.”
Dean cast a glance at the bathroom, but there was no sign of Shelley yet. “It went fine,” he said briefly. “Thanks.”
“Are you going to kiss her?” Aaron asked again, fortunately waiting until Andrea had gone to run the credit card.
Dean looked thoughtfully back at him. “Would you mind if I did?” he asked.
Aaron dragged his fork through the melted ice cream on his plate, considering. Finally, he shrugged. “It would be okay.”
Shelley’s heels gave ample warning across the linoleum floor, and by the time she had returned to the table, Dean had gotten Aaron into his jacket and pulled his own on.
Taking the cue, Shelley put down her purse and put her own jacket on. Dean tried not to gaze foolishly at her. Had she put new makeup on in the bathroom? She looked like she was straight out of a magazine, almost distractingly perfect.
“Don’t forget your credit card!” Andrea called.
Dean signed the receipt, left a tip in cash, and the three of them walked out into the darkness.
“I, ah, drove,” Shelley pointed out. Hers was the only car in front of the diner.
“We walked,” Aaron volunteered. “We live right over there.”
“This is goodbye, then,” Shelley said nervously. “Ah... thanks again for tightening my license plate. Next time I should get dinner. If there... is...”
“I’d like to see you again,” Dean said swiftly.
They were standing very close on the narrow sidewalk. Aaron had walked a few steps away and was kicking a rustling drift of leaves. Dean closed the distance between them before he could lose his nerve, putting a hand on Shelley’s face and bending forward to kiss her with his bear leaning on him avidly.
She hesitated, drawing away. “What about Aaron,” she whispered. “He didn’t...”
“He said it would be okay,” Dean assured her, grateful that she cared.
Then she was meeting his mouth with hers and she was in his arms at last... and it was all much more than just okay.
He tried to keep it a chaste kiss, a polite first kiss that you’d have in public, knowing that Aaron’s weren’t the only prying eyes around. Shelley trembled in his embrace, like she was fighting her own instincts, and opened her mouth with a whimper of need.
It wasn’t very chaste after that.
Shelley’s arms slipped up around his neck, and Dean claimed her mouth with a crushing, probing kiss, cradling her face with one hand, holding her close at the waist with the other. Her whole body pressed up tight to him, in all its gorgeous, curvy perfection, and it still wasn’t close enough. He needed her, craved her like a starving man.
“Can we go now?”
Aaron’s unimpressed voice dragged him back and Dean reluctantly let go of Shelley and stepped away. She was panting, eyes wide and her cheeks flushed. She licked her lips and swallowed.
“Deirdre’s going to be picking up Aaron tomorrow after school. Do you want to come over and have dinner... maybe watch a movie?”
“I want to watch a movie,” Aaron said enthusiastically.
Dean definitely didn’t, and he watched Shelley realize what he was suggesting. Her silver eyes widened and her breath caught in her throat. “I’d like that,” she said softly.
“Can we watch Iron Man?” Aaron suggested. “Trevor got to see it already.”
“You’re going to your mom’s,” Dean reminded h
im.
“Will she let me watch Iron Man?”
“That’s up to her,” Dean said. He was still gazing at Shelley, who had turned several interesting colors and was back to flushed. “At six?”
“Six sounds great,” she said, and she gave that shy half-smile that Dean was sure she had never practiced, because it was so tentative and real.
Then Aaron took him by the hand and drug him away as Shelley got into her car.
Chapter 11
“You never used to go out with us,” Shelley said skeptically as Damien’s car pulled into the parking area at the end of the short drive. “Are you sure this place is safe?”
“Roar!” Trevor said enthusiastically from the back seat. “I’m going to be a lion!”
“Wait!” Damien said severely, ignoring Shelley. “I don’t want clawmarks on my seats.”
“Yes, Grandpa,” Trevor said meekly.
Shelley filed Damien’s tone for a time she might need it with Aaron. A few days before, she would have considered an afternoon out with Trevor some kind of torture, but now anything that could help her understand Aaron seemed like a misery worth enduring.
And it had been a long while since she’d let her lion out to stretch.
“This is private property,” Damien explained. “There shouldn’t be anyone else around.”
“We’re here already?” Trevor said. “Can I get out? Can I change? Can I can I can I?”
“It’s so close to town,” Shelley said, opening her own door and frowning at the dirty leaves littering the ground. “Aren’t you worried someone will wander here by mistake?”
Damien gave her an impatient look. “Do you want to get out, or not?”
Shelley sighed and slipped off her heels. While Damien got Trevor out of the other side of the car, she undressed swiftly and put her clothing neatly in her seat. Then she shifted, and closed the car door with her heavy feline head.
“Now, you think about what it feels like to be a lion,” Damien was saying to the little boy. “How it feels to be covered in fur, and walking around on four paws. What your tail feels like, how clear your hearing is.”
“Springy!” Trevor said. “It feels springy!”
Quick as a blink, he was flinging himself at the ground and cavorting away as a lion cub.
“Good job!” Damien said warmly. Shelley turned away while he undressed himself and after a moment, there were three lions wandering into the autumn forest.
Her lioness was nearly as tall at the shoulder as her father’s thick-maned, silver-touched lion. Trevor, half-grown and tripping over his big paws, still had adolescent spots and barely came to their bellies. He pranced as tall as he could behind them, scampering to chase leaves and bat at low branches.
One of his adventures brought him tumbling into Shelley’s legs, and she had to rein back her lioness’ instinct to send him rolling away with a cuff from her paw.
We wouldn’t hurt him, her lioness insisted. But you have to keep him in line. Play rough, because the world is hard.
Even her animal knew more about parenting than she did, Shelley thought bitterly. All she knew was that she was sorely unqualified, and she was terrified of doing it all wrong.
There is no wrong way to do it, her lioness said reassuringly.
Then it’s me, Shelley protested. I’m wrong. I’m not supposed to be a mom.
Our mate has a cub, so you are supposed to be.
Shelley wished she could be as confident as her lioness. She wanted to be with Dean, but she couldn’t help wondering if fate had just... messed up on this one. Gotten everything wrong, somehow.
She sat, tail swishing, and watched Damien teach Trevor about stalking and how to step quietly. Shelley was amused to note that Damien had no hesitation about sending him crashing into the brush with one of his big paws when he was getting over-enthusiastic. Trevor simply rolled and bounced back up to attention.
When had Damien picked up parenting? He had always been the absent one when Shelley and Shaun were growing up, as safely distant from the child duties as he could manage to be. He showed up for the requisite concerts and recitals, but it was always with a suffering air, like he couldn’t wait to be back to real work.
And yet here he was, with Trevor, looking completely comfortable in the role of guide and teacher, and acting surprisingly patient.
A bird caught her attention and Shelley stilled her tail, watching it from the corner of her eye.
She crouched, gauging the distance between them, and the bird flitted a little further away. Shelley froze, and it hopped along its new branch. She was aware of Damien, nudging Trevor to watch, and she moved a step forward in careful slow motion, staying low and gathered.
She sprang without pausing, using her powerful hind legs to drive her into a leap—not at the bird, but at the space above the bird. It rose in terror, and she trapped it between her front paws and landed on her side, rolling onto her back as she fell.
Then she opened her paws, and let the petrified bird, unharmed, fly free.
It scolded her from the safety of a nearby tree.
“Wow!” Trevor exclaimed, standing again as a little boy. “That was amazing! Did you see that Grandpa? It was so cool! I want to do that! Aunt Shelley is incredible!”
Shelley licked her paw casually and Damien gave a cough of humor, staying in lion form.
Trevor looked between them, and fell on all fours... but was still a little boy. He looked down at himself curiously. “I’m not a lion,” he pouted.
Shelley twisted back up onto her feet and shook the leaves off of herself while Trevor tried various tricks to get back into lion form. “It’s not working!” he complained. “Why isn’t it working?”
An idea occurred to Shelley and she walked to where Trevor was standing—and bowled him over with her head.
He bounded to his feet a lion again, making happy loud noises that weren’t really roars. Shelley wondered how close they were to Green Valley, and winced when Damien put his head in the air and gave a true lion roar. Doubtlessly someone had heard that.
Shelley turned back the way they’d come and heard the others follow: Damien’s paws heavy but quiet, Trevor like a small whirlwind through the dry leaves.
Once they had shifted back and dressed, they piled back into the car and returned to Damien’s house.
Trevor, full of energy, went with Tawny for a piano lesson.
“Might have been a mistake to wind him up first,” Damien admitted as he and Shelley watched them go down the hall to the music room, Trevor making his best—and loudest—lion sounds while Tawny tried to quiz him about his practice time that week.
Shelley shut down her snarky instinct to say you think? and just shrugged.
“Shelley...”
Shelley looked at her father and immediately knew that Tawny had already told him about Dean. She braced herself for doubt and anxiety and was surprised and relieved that she didn’t feel either.
“Thanks for inviting me out,” she said swiftly as she hung up her jacket. “It’s been a long time since I was out on four paws and it was nice to stretch.”
“Might snow next week,” Damien said mildly. “Thought it would be good to get out before we would be leaving too many tracks.”
Shelley made a neutral noise of agreement.
“Do you want an apology?” Damien growled unexpectedly.
Shelley returned his scowl. “For what?”
Her father looked desperately uncomfortable behind his customary frown. “I haven’t been the greatest role model of parenting.”
“I never asked you to be,” Shelley said shortly. This wasn’t about Dean, this was about Aaron.
“But maybe you deserved... better,” Damien said stiffly. “I could have been... more involved with your life.”
“You mean, like not shipping us off to boarding schools when we got difficult?” Maybe it wasn’t about Aaron, either.
“I’m not going to excuse the mistakes I made,” Damien
said firmly. “I wasn’t very present for you and Shaun. I thought someone else could do a better job with you than I could, and I was wrong.”
Shelley looked at Damien warily, not sure what to do with an admission of fault from the man who never admitted weakness.
“You kids scared the spit out of me,” Damien said honestly.
Shelley knew she was staring openly now, with no control over her face whatsoever, or the tears that were pricking at her eyes.
“I wanted the absolute best for you, and it never occurred to me that what you really needed was just for me to be there for you.”
“Dad...”
“I love you, Shelley-bean. And I’m proud of you. And you can do a better job at this than I did.”
“You... didn’t do a bad job,” Shelley choked.
“Of course I didn’t,” Damien scoffed with a hint of his usual arrogant self. “Look at you! But I could have done a lot of things better and you don’t have to go and make the same mistakes.” He folded his arms and looked at her severely. “I am assuming you aren’t going to turn tail and run away from a little problem like this,” he challenged.
A little four-foot problem with a snotty nose and the power to strike utter terror into Shelley’s heart.
She drew herself up. “Whatever else you did, you didn’t raise a coward, Dad,” she said fiercely.
“That’s my girl.”
Impulsively, Shelley stepped forward, and they shared a swift hug. “Thanks, Dad,” she murmured into his shoulder, softly enough that he might not hear her. “I love you, too.”
Then she straightened and backed away and they exchanged frowns.
“I might not be back tonight,” she said frankly.
“I wouldn’t expect you to be,” Damien agreed. Then he unexpectedly grinned. “If you do come back, you’d better knock. It’ll be the first time Tawny and I have the house to ourselves since we got married.”
Shelley made a gagging noise. “Oh my god, Dad. No. Too much information. Let’s go back to being cold and distant now, please.”
He walked away laughing, and Shelley went bemusedly back to her room to change.
This weekend, at least, she could have Dean to herself, the way everything inside of her yearned to have him, and next week she could jump feet-first into I-don’t-know-what-I’m-doing soup.
