“Well no, that’s not right. If you go, I have to go. Otherwise someone’ll hand you a cocktail and all my hard work is wasted.”
Teagan cleared his throat. “At some point you have to trust me to make good choices, right?”
Darcy fidgeted again with the strap of her dress. “I guess. I don’t think you’re there yet. Do you?”
“I think I am. I’m sober for good. I promise, I’m not even thinking about drinking,” he said.
“Then what are you so worried about?” Darcy said softly, beautiful dark eyes wide with concern. She went up on her toes and kissed the corner of his mouth, then framed his face between her hands to kiss him more lingeringly. She pulled back to study his expression, leaving her hands loosely clasped around his neck, fingertips gentle on his jaw.
She was so good to him. She had to want this too.
Teagan exhaled, trying to think of a good way to start. He’d been working on how he’d ask her this all week.
“I’m actually—so—I wanted you to come with me tonight because there’s... an opportunity.”
Darcy stared blankly at him. He was falling back on business speak, and he probably sounded like he was asking for a transfer into the special situations group or a new corporate revolver. But now that he was in it, there was nothing to do but to keep talking.
“I want you to meet one of our donors, Yuna Park,” he said. “Her latest husband is a small animal veterinarian, andhe’s retiring from practice to run a wildlife rehab outside of Beacon.”
Teagan swallowed hard, even though Darcy’s face said she still wasn’t following this to its conclusion. “They want to hire someone to run a volunteer program at the rehab center. For local teenagers. I said you might be interested, and they want to talk to you about the position.”
Darcy pulled back, her reaction leaning a lot further toward surprise and consternation than Teagan had hoped. She gestured at her cleavage.
“Jesus. You want me to go to a job interview in this dress?”
“It’s not a job interview, it’s just to meet them—”
“But you set this up? They know I’m coming? They knew about this?”
“I—yes, I talked to Mrs. Park a couple of times about it. But all you need to know about her is—”
“Give me a minute!” she shouted. “God. What even is this coordinator supposed to do? You know I don’t have any experience actually working with animals. Or kids.”
“I know, but—”
“What did you tell them? Did you tell them I did? Did you tell them I don’t actually have a degree yet?” Color was rising in her face.
“I told them you were enrolled in a degree program for wildlife science, but nothing else,” Teagan said, feeling buffeted by the vehemence of her reaction.
“How long have you known about this, again?” she demanded.
“Since last Tuesday?”
“Teagan! And you didn’t tell me about it? I’m going to probably fall all over my ass when I talk to them.”
Teagan bit down hard on the insides of his lips, trying tochoose his words carefully. “I wanted you to hear about the job from them, rather than me.”
“Why?” Darcy began to pace. “Not cool, Teagan. Not cool, springing this on me.”
“I wasn’t sure you’d want to do it if you heard about it from me first.”
“I’m not sure I do! If you work with migratory birds or endangered species, you have to get permitted by the stateandthe feds, there’s probably even more paperwork if you work with kids, and—I’m sorry, Teagan. I’m sorry. This is probably not going to work.”
“Wait, wait,” he said, beginning to tense up at Darcy’s agitation. “Please just hear it from them first. You don’t think it might be better than driving the damn snow truck?”
“I know I can drive the snowcat! I keep telling you, I need to have a job I can actually do. I don’t want to get arrested by the game warden because I didn’t fill out the paperwork right.”
“Please. Darcy. I just want you to consider it. Doesn’t it matter at all that you could stay here if you worked at the wildlife rehab?”
