“You don’t owe me anything,” Teagan said honestly. “But I want to know.”
“Everything. It’s everything.”
“Everything?”
“Absolutely everything has dropped on my head all at once, and I guess when hit the birdie buffet out on the deck, it sort of all just boiled over. I promise you I’m usually better at handling this –“
Teagan shook his head.
“Hon, you don’t have to tell me anything you don’t want to tell me. And given the fact that you just ran out there to rescue a stranger from a bunch of big birds, I have no doubt that you usually handle things just fine.”
She gave him a brief smile, bright like a flash of gold in the pan.
“All right. Hell, I’m going to have to start telling this to all my friends and family in a little while, so I might as well start rehearsing with a sympathetic audience, huh? I lost my job because my boss ran off with his wife’s boyfriend and they took the company payroll with them.”
Teagan hadn’t been expecting that, and he blinked twice to make sure he had it right.
“His. Wife’s boyfriend?”
“Yeah. I am, or well, was, I suppose I should say, the bookkeeper for their print shop. Apparently, he found out she was cheating on him, went to find the guy she was cheating with, one thing led to another, and long story short, the last anyone saw of them, they were headed for the Gulf, and I’m out a job.”
“Oh. Well, that’s rough. I’m so sorry to hear that.”
“Right. Came home from getting fired, my boyfriend wants to have a long talk about us.”
“You have a boyfriend?” asked Teagan in alarm, but she laughed.
“Not anymore! It was the kind ofit’s not you, it’s me talk.And long story short again, Richie is off to retrain at a fancy school in France. I mean, it was kind of not working out anyway, but Tabbie, that’s my best friend whose family owns this cabin, Tabbie keeps calling him afucking clown,and honestly, it’s not fair to Richie at all. He’s finally figured out what he wants, and I’m an unemployed bookkeeper. I’m not going to blame him for chasing his dreams.”
Teagan might have if it made Ros look sad, but he couldn’t argue with Richie being so far out of the picture he was actually in France.
“Absolutely his loss,” Teagan offered, and Ros smiled, small but genuine, and warm as the sun.
“And then my apartment flooded. Like sewage started coming up through my drains, it wouldn’t stop, and after they finally got it shut down, my landlord tells me that they’ll need a month, maybe more, to get it fixed. So I’ve lost most of my things, and I’m basically homeless for a month, maybe two.”
Teagan stared at her, and he knew in that moment that there was absolutely no way he could drop thehi, I’m your true mate, we’re fated to be together, and by the way I turn into an extinct species of eagleon her right now.
“Lady, did you cuss out a nun or something?” he asked finally.
“That would make sense! I don’t know! What I do know is that I have the best friend any girl could have, and she’s letting me stay at her family’s cabin. The plan is for me to do some job hunting and start hounding my rental insurance to pay for my stuff, and maybe look for a new apartment, but then... Murderbirds.”
“They really haven’t killed anyone in more than fifty years,” Teagan felt the need to point out. “They can be aggressive, and they can cause injury and property damage, but they don’t actually want to murder anyone.”
Ros gave him an unimpressed look.
“How very nice for them. I don’t want either of us to be injured and I sure as heck don’t want Tabbie’s family cabin to be damaged. Can we get them moved?”
Teagan found himself grinning at her words.
“We, huh?”
“Well, I’m not going to just stand by and make you do all the work if I can help. I can, I don’t know, hold nets or flap big sheets or something. And, the sooner we get this taken care of, the less likely it is that something bad will happen to the cabin.”
Teagan took a closer look at her, which was absolutely no chore when his true mate was a lovely as his was. He couldn’t stop himself from taking in the curve of her cheek, the fall of her long curly brown hair, and a plush, soft body he knew would fit perfectly against his own.
At the same time, he couldn’t miss the drawn tightness at the corners of her eyes or the way she’d squared her shoulders as if she was ready to take on the weight of the world. She was beautiful and resilient and at the same time, she looked so tired, and he knew that the last thing he could do was put more on her, whether it was the fact that he was a shifter or that the birds out front were not only endangered but a potential fire hazard.
“Hang on, honey, give me just a minute.”