Page 41 of Trees Take the Long View

He seemed to have a lot more insecurities than I could credit. He was amazing, both as a person and at his job. His work was an important part of him, and I'd never ask him to change that. Just wanted him not to burn out, that's all.

I helped where I could, and was glad to. When there was nothing useful for me to do, I found a wild place I could walk or run, spending my time around nature and reconnecting in ways I needed to. There was always somewhere. I preferred a nice forest or thickly growing, healthy woodland, but even a little meadow or wild overgrown lot was something.

Sometimes I got to shift and explore that way, but mostly it didn't feel safe without someone to watch my back, or any real knowledge of the area and its risks. The fact is, if you're going to be in an area where you might run across non-shifters, you probably shouldn't shift until you know what's going on around there. If they don't know you're a shifter, they'll get scared, and you'll get scared because they might be armed and dangerous. And you can't communicate at all unless you shift back and flash them with your nudity, which leaves you vulnerable in other ways. It's just not a good recipe.

Speaking of recipes, I continued to cook when and where I could. So far it was still fun, a treat to have someone besides myself to make food for. Sharing this with him was special, and I enjoyed the hell out of it, especially because he seemed to think my simple, homey recipes were something special or out of the ordinary. He was so appreciative it made it even more enjoyable.

I didn't feel pressured about it or anything like that. If I didn't want to cook, we could do something else for food. There were options. But he was usually too tired at the end of the day to attempt any cooking himself, and I didn't really want either of us living off takeout and diner fare or instant foods, not long term. So I cooked when I could, and we feasted in our rented rooms almost every night.

I started getting paid for my help. Although I had some reservations about it still, it was nice to have it acknowledged that I was actually of some help to my mate, and of course it was nice to be able to pay my own way.

There were a lot of loose ends and unknown things in this job. Sometimes, like with the tiger, we reached some solutions and got to feel that things were mostly on the right path. Sometimes (like with helping our owl shifter veteran), it was only the beginning of a long road ahead. And some cases were deeply unsatisfying. I didn't always get to hear "how it ended" because so many things stayed in flux.

For instance the little girl we'd found was now in foster care, which wasn't a very satisfying ending for her. The family was now dealing with the system which, from what little I knew about it as a shifter, would probably add a whole new bunch of challenges to the children's lives, upheaval and perhaps even danger.

Apparently there had been neglect, and if children's services helped, then great: I was just pretty sure at this point in my life that it was a coin toss more than anything. One of my second cousins had had a brush with foster care, and it hadn't been pretty. She'd ended up running away and hiding with our pack till she was too old to send back—three years of hiding, afraid every day they'd find her. The system hadn't helped her a bit, just fucked up her already messy childhood even more. And not every kid had a pack to run away to if it was bad.

Of course if Melody's guardians had had their shit together, she probably wouldn't have been missing in the first place, but being in foster care seemed more like a punishment for the kid than the grownups.

So that wasn't very satisfying at all. Still, I asked Dean to give me updates on anyone we helped (or didn't manage to help) whenever he knew something. I was involved; I needed and wanted to know, even when it wasn't a happy ending.

And as Dean pointed out, if we hadn't found Melody, it wouldn't necessarily have kept her from ending up in foster care—unless she'd died of exposure or dehydration before someone else found her.

Overall, we did help, and there were happy endings. But we rarely saw anyone again, and it felt weird to try too hard to stay in contact. We were loners, on the move.

Dean worried about taking me everywhere, or as he put it, dragging me all over creation.

"I don't have a home or apartment right now. It just didn't make sense with travelling. If it's important to you, we'll find a place, temporary or permanent as you want. I know travelling will get a bit old after a while. You don't have to come along on every job."

"I'm enjoying it right now. I have restless paws, you know."

"So you keep telling me." He gave me a quick kiss. "I just don't want to wear you into the ground with all the traveling."

"You can wear me out another way, if you want." I waggled my eyebrows at him, and he laughed—but took me up on it.

#

I woke with a start.

"Sorry," said Dean. "The road's bumpy here."

"It's not that." I stretched, looking around, squinting. It felt rather decadent to fall asleep while he drove, anyway. "I dreamed something."

"Oh?" He glanced at me, alert. Dean was aware that my dreams sometimes meant something. Not always: but sometimes. He'd told me he didn't want to miss anything my subconscious or intuition shared, so now I always tried to tell him my dreams, if they seemed even remotely worth sharing.

I swallowed the dry feeling in my throat. I'd been looking forward to a nice relaxing road trip with my mate, no distractions, just the two of us, at least till we got to his next assignment. Now...well, we might be diverted, at least for a bit. In all likelihood, we'd need to catch a plane later because there wouldn't be time to drive in the end. And it was selfish of me to wish it wasn't so, especially since there was a good reason.

My gaze scanned the road, nervous. Was he here? Had I missed...?

"Tell me if you can," said Dean, his voice quiet and calm. "It's not about meeting your parents, is it?"

I snorted. "No. I'm sure that'll be fine."

He seemed less certain. Not that we'd had the time recently to even plan a visit yet. "Okay. What did you dream about? And why are you watching the road like that?"

"It was a—" I paused, trying to line it up in my mind. This looked almost... "It would help if the roads and gas stations didn't all look the same. We need to stop at one of them. Or rather, we do stop at one of them, and—"

"Something bad happens, or something good?" His hands tightened on the wheel. He was almost alarmingly willing to take advice from my dreams.