“Well, I’m Pearl, and that sounds like some story, but here, come on and help me with the carriers. Ard’s going to be hauling them out to a guy he knows in Minnesota, who can start the process of getting them properly home.”
“That I can do,” Ros said with relief, and she assisted Pearl and her boyfriend Cassidy in getting the carriers loaded into a large panel van. Ard Farron, who turned out to be an older man with an unshakable calm, oversaw the process, making sure the cages were buckled in securely.
“That’s a good day’s work,” he said, nodding towards the hissing contents of his van. “You available for more driving, seeing as you have experience and all?”
She started to stutter, because she couldn’t very well say no if they needed her, but Pearl smacked Ard on the arm.
“Smile when you joke, old man,” she said. “She looked like she was going to faint.”
The fire condors were furious, but they were secure, they had water and food, and as uncomfortable as they were now, they were going to a better place. For just a split second, Ros thought she would miss them, and then one of the matriarchs tried to take a chunk out of her hand through the bars of her carrier, she decided no, that was ridiculous, she absolutely would not.
Junior was the last to be loaded up, and Teagan, human again, came to help her, eyeing the juvenile fire condor through the bars with a baleful glare.
“Stop looking so pathetic,” Teagan said to Junior. “She’s not even the same species.”
“Oh, I dunno. I think he’s pretty cute. I could really be developing a thing for birds of prey.”
Before Teagan could say anything, she reached up and ruffled her fingers through his hair, and she watched in fascination as his eyes went soft and slightly unfocused. Teagan leaned into her touch, only to jerk upright when Junior peeped hopefully, as if to sayme too?
“No,” Teagan said. “Go home, find a girlfriend, have lots of babies and forget all about this one.”
“Because I’m yours?” asked Ros. She meant it to come out as a joke, but instead there was something hopeful about it, longing and loving and maybe she would have been afraid that it was too much if Teagan hadn’t promptly pulled her into his arms and kissed her, fervently and thankfully and passionately.
“Absolutely all mine,” he whispered against her lips, and she lost herself in the wonder of this man she had found.
Then she remembered and pulled back to give him a stern look.
“And I love you!” she said indignantly. She was aware of Pearl and Cassidy, folding up the traps some distance away, turning to look at them curiously, but she didn’t care.
“I love you,” she repeated. “And I can’t get enough of you, and I want to get to know you, and be with you, and spend all my time with you and make sure you’re okay, and so many other things, but oh myGod,Teagan, you can’t tell me you love me and then fly off to play keep away with murderbirdswithout giving me a chance to say it back!”
Teagan looked startled at her pronouncement, but halfway through her tirade, he started smiling. By the end, he was grinning from ear to ear.
“So you do love me, then?” he asked, and Ros threw up her hands, stalking off to help Pearl with the trap she was holding.
“Is that a yes?” Teagan called after her, and Cassidy came up to speak to him, probably to tell him to quit while he was ahead.
“It is,” she told Pearl in aggravation. “I do love him. I love him so much.”
“Aw, honey. Of course you do.”
“Does it ever start to make more sense than this?”
They glanced over at their men, where Cassidy had turned back into an enormous wolf and was snapping playfully at Teagan, who was in his eagle form and flapping over his head.
Pearl laughed.
“Absolutely not.”
Chapter Fifteen
∞∞∞
After Ard drove off with the protesting fire condors, they ended up staying for lunch at Pearl and Cassidy’s RV. It was small and tightly packed for their cross-country trip, and Ros was genuinely impressed by the meal they pulled out of seemingly no space at all.
“It’s sort of a pre-honeymoon,” Pearl explained as Cassidy did up their steaks. “We’re seeing the country this summer, and then we’re coming straight back into wedding preparations in fall. We’re were helping out with a heron release close by and Ard was at a local conference, and that’s how we all got roped into this.”
“Thank you so much for showing up,” Ros said. The camp chair Pearl had set up for her felt like the most comfortable thing in the world, and with the smell of food cooking on the grill, she finally felt as relaxed as Tabbie meant her to be. Oh God, Tabbie. At some point, she would have to call her and tell her all about this madness.