She finally nodded and handed him her phone. “Okay.”
“Thank you.” He dialed his parents’ landline, and his father picked up.
“Dad, it’s me.”
“What’s going on? Why are you calling us from this number?”
Of course his father had noticed it was an unfamiliar number. “It’s a long story, but I ran into the ornithologist.”
“What? How? What happened?”
“I’ll tell you the whole thing tomorrow,” Simon told him, and his father harrumphed. “But I’m fine. We’re talking about her research and why she’s here, that kind of thing.”
“Hm, so long as you don’t tell her too much about why you’re there.”
He winced, glad his father couldn’t see him. “I’ll be careful.” He understood his father’s reaction, but he couldn’t exactly explain he’d found his fated mate and it’d be fine to tell her everything with Madison sitting right there.
“And don’t stay out too long. You know how difficult flying at night is for us hawks.”
“Yeah, I know.” Amazing vision during the day did not translate into amazing night vision, unfortunately. “It’ll be fine. Talk to you tomorrow.”
“Okay, first thing in the morning.”
He made his goodbyes, then gave Madison her phone back. “See, no warnings.”
“He sounded like he had a bunch of questions.” She put her phone back in her jacket.
He went back to stirring the soup. Judging by the smell, it was almost done. “He does. Just like you do.”
To his delight, she laughed at that. “You haven’t answered many of them yet.”
“Where do you want to start?” He stopped stirring. “If you give me a bowl, I can answer while we eat.”
She handed him two bowls. “Why aren’t you angry? Why do you want to stay and answer questions instead of going back home to warn everyone I know your secret?”
“And then what?” He carefully filled a bowl and handed it back to her. “If I left when you let me go after I shifted, you’d have called your scientist friends about what you’d seen.” He’d learned how to defuse situations, and while he hadn’t had to do it often at the museum, a simple conversation took care of a lot of things. “By staying and explaining things, you don’t need to question your sanity.”
And then there was the fact that the thought of leaving her hurt. He didn’t want to leave his mate all alone in the wilderness, even if she was well-equipped and had her tent.
“Also, this way, I get s’mores.” His grin widened when she laughed.
“I owe you so many s’mores over that net.” She moved forward, sticking a marshmallow on a skewer and holding it close to the stove. “You get dessert early.”
“I really would like to invite you to dinner.” His heart raced in his chest. If he was moving too fast, he could take the rejection. Probably. “I can’t promise a gourmet meal like canned soup, beef jerky and s’mores, but my lasagna’s pretty good.”
She made an interested noise. “Are you sure?”
“Of course.”
She took another sip of her beer, but wouldn’t meet his eyes. “Okay. Sure. Dinner at your place, tomorrow night.”
He managed to keep from cheering, but only because he was holding a bowl of soup. “Awesome.”
She pulled the marshmallow away from the stove’s fire. “What do you think?”
It was a nice golden brown, and while probably not perfectly gooey yet, he nodded. “Hit me.”
They both ate s’mores in between spoonfuls of soup, and Simon thought he’d never had a better dinner in his life. He could sit here under the stars with his mate forever. He’d surreptitiously moved his chair closer to hers, although considering her amused snort when he sat right next to her, probably not that surreptitious.
Her brow furrowed as they sat together. “I’ve been thinking about tomorrow.”
He hoped she didn’t mean she was reconsidering dinner, although if she wanted to grab lunch, he was fine with that. “Oh?”
“About my fieldwork.” She looked up at him, her mouth so close it would be easy to lean in for a kiss.
He swallowed the impulse. “What about it?”
“Well, I have to put up more nets, because the whole point of coming here now is to catch migrating birds. But you obviously want to fly around as well and I don’t want more shifters in my nets. I don’t want to stop you from living your life or spill your secrets.”
She sounded so worried, and it made him worry for her. “We’ll be fine. We already assumed we wouldn’t be able to go out for the next few weeks.”
“But you shouldn’t have to!” She gestured with the skewer, and the marshmallow went flying off into the grass.
“I hope the animals like s’mores,” he murmured, watching it land. “But don’t worry about it. We stay in and don’t shift every year when the ornithologists come. And when other scientists from the university turn up, it depends on whether they’re here for animals.” And to think he’d been arguing for the opposite only a few hours ago with the mayor. But he didn’t want Madison to feel guilty or upset. It wasn’t her fault. She didn’t know how her university’s research affected the shifters in the area.
Madison skewered a new marshmallow, still frowning. “So what you’re saying is that your freedom has been limited for years now? Because I know our department has been coming here since the nineties.”
He nodded. “Yes, we know. You’re early this year.” He watched her shoulders droop.
“I came early to have more time to prepare, since it’s my first year coming here. I hate this.”
Since the marshmallow looked plenty gooey but Madison didn’t show any sign of noticing, he gently took the skewer from her to make a s’more before it was too late. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make you feel bad. S’more?” He offered her the one he’d just made.
She took it with a smile. “And I didn’t mean to make you and everyone else feel bad. There’s got to be a
