9. Deirdre

9

DEIRDRE

D eirdre felt as if she was moving through her day like a puppet on strings. A puppet being mastered by a very slack performer, because she kept catching herself staring at nothing, trying to think of nothing, because everything she thought about hurt.

Aaron was fractious. Bingo howled in protest every time the surgery collar was put on him, but refused to stop licking his stitches and chewing on his cast if she left the cone off. Then the toilet in the upstairs bath got clogged, though Aaron wouldn't admit to putting anything down it.

"No, mommy! Nudding!"

When she came back downstairs after clearing it, Bingo had once again gotten stuck in the legs of a chair with his cone of shame and was yelping in fear as it dragged around after him.

Deirdre felt torn to pieces by the chaos…and strangely distant at the same time.

She dropped Aaron and the dog off at the hardware store to go to the school for her second job, barely acknowledging Dean, or the worry in his face. Her hours were flexible on the off season, but she had a mountain of things to catch up on before the semester started again in the fall and she hoped that her current state of distraction would prove useful for the drudgery of filing and digitizing old paper records.

It didn't.

She found herself going through the steps mechanically, but having to backtrack frequently as she input the information in the wrong fields or typed common words wrong.

She was a disaster, Deirdre recognized at last, cradling her head in her hands.

It wasn't just that she wanted what she knew she couldn't have. It was the guilt of wanting it, when she should be happy with the life and home that she had. She didn't even know this man, had only gotten one single glimpse, and now it felt like she could never be content again.

It was the stuff of soap operas, badly written, horribly acted, and with low-budget filming at best. She should have streaked gothic makeup around her eyes and a secretly rich dead twin sister with a sordid past.

Deirdre had to laugh at herself, and it was a choked, humorless laugh. She deleted the record she'd just mangled and closed the file box. She could try again when her head was more clear. She logged the hours she'd worked on her timecard (hoping that she wouldn't have to redo it all !) and called it a day.

Once she got home, she decided to surprise Dean with a nice meal, as if that could possibly make up for meeting her mate , but she found herself staring into the pantry without inspiration. Why did they have an entire case of a brand of beans that none of them liked? The box of bread cubes was two years expired .

She pulled a few things out and it was obvious that there were crumbs and lost boxes in the back. It seemed critical to pull everything out, sort the things that they'd never use, and wipe off the shelves.

She was halfway through this task when she heard Dean fumbling with the back door and realized exactly what time it was.

Deirdre started explaining even before the door was open. "I'm sorry, I cleaned out the pantry instead of making dinner," she all but sobbed. "I've got a load of stuff for the secondhand shop and the soup kitchen and?—"

"His name is Juan," Dean said.

"Who?"

Dean put Aaron down, scolding Bingo to stay back when he wanted to frolic and lick the willing toddler, and dug into his pocket for a slip of paper.

It was the back of a receipt from a bakery in Madison, with a hand-scrawled note:

Pair of gloves

Pack of gum

Not sure of prices. Left $20.

A loopy J filled the bottom of the shiny paper.

J for Juan. Juan. Her one .

But there was only one letter written down on the slip. "How did you know his name?"

"He came back to find you."

Deirdre sucked in a breath. She wanted to ask a hundred questions. What was his voice like? Was he as kind as she knew he must be? What did they talk about? What had Dean told him? Did he know that she was married? Why did that fill her with dread? She should be glad that he knew. Because that was the end of it. Surely?

Deirdre had no idea what her face was doing, but she ought to give Dean some kind of answer. "Um… "

"He's coming to dinner."

She did have an answer to that. "Are you insane ?"

"Maybe," Dean admitted. "But I saw your face when you told me about him. And I saw his face when he talked about you. And I saw your face just now when you learned his name. I may not know a lot about magic or how shifters work or much about anything that isn't a machine, but I believe you when you say he's your mate, and I would never forgive myself for keeping you from that kind of happiness."

Tears welled up in Deirdre's eyes and she blinked hard, not sure what else to do. "Oh, Dean."

"You're not supposed to cry," Dean said coaxingly. "Please don't cry. You'll be all blotchy and swollen when your new boyfriend comes over and he'll think I was mean to you."

"He's not my—Dean!" Deirdre wept in earnest then. "How could I do that to you?"

"You're not doing it to me , you're doing it for you . You'd always regret it if you didn't, and the last thing I ever want is for you to resent me. Go wash your face and let's throw together some spaghetti for supper. We can talk about things like grownups and decide what to do all together. We all have a stake in this."

Deirdre gave him a fierce hug and Aaron bolted away from Bingo to throw himself around their knees. "SPETTI!"