The two women sized each other up. To Tyr’s relief, no claws came out and no eyes were scratched. Paula put out a hand, and Cela, after a pause which suggested she was trying to figure out what to do with it, took it and received a handshake.
“Thank you for the things you gave me,” Cela said shyly.
“I hope you’re settling in okay,” Paula said. “Terry didn’t tell me what happened, and you don’t have to either. I have some more for you in the car.”
“Oh, you don’t have to—” Cela protested, retrieving her hand.
“Hon, don’t worry about it. It’s all old stuff that I’m getting rid of anyway. I’ll ask my other mom friends in town if they have anything sized for babies.” Paula was clearly used to shifters by this point, because she barely glanced at the baby animals running around her feet as she said it.
“You are all so very kind,” Cela said.
Tyr decided to sweep her out while things were still friendly. “Cela, how do you feel about leaving the babies with Lissy and Austin? Like we talked about, if you’re uncomfortable, I can do your shopping and you can stay here.”
Cela looked down at the kids. Lissy was teasing Aven with a torn-up piece of cardboard box, while Austin cuddled Ayra close to his chest. Looking up to see the adults watching, he scowled as if his teenage cynic cred was on the line—but he still held the baby owl very gently.
“I think it’ll be fine,” Cela said.
The box store where everyone in Autumn Grove bought almost everything, at least if they didn’t feel like the half hour drive to the nearest larger town, was the Big Mart. It was located on the highway at the junction of the Autumn Grove turn-off, about two miles from the Tender Sprout.
It would have been possible for Cela to walk, Tyr thought, or (theoretically, anyway) shift into a griffin and fly to the strip of woods behind the box store. But he didn’t want to send her alone on her first outing. Anyway, he was looking forward to her reaction when she saw the inside of the store for the first time.
He wasn’t disappointed.
“This is amazing.” Cela gazed around in wide-eyed wonder. Tyr soon began to wonder how many hours it was going to take to get across the store, because she had to stop and stare at the contents of every shelf. But her delight was so pure that he didn’t care; he could have watched her admiring middle American retail for the entire day if that was what it took. “Can we—I don’t know what to buy, Tyr! There’s too much.”
“Better call me Terry when we’re out in public,” he reminded her. “That’s the name I use in the human world. And you know better than I do what you need. If there’s something you can’t find, let me know and I’ll help you look for it.”
“But there’s so much to choose from!” she protested. Soon, however, she had settled down to gathering items off the shelves with single-minded dedication.
Most of it was baby stuff—diapers and associated paraphernalia, jars of baby food which prompted a whole new set of exclamations as she examined the options, cans of formula and bottles. All of it made Tyr think wistfully of his own kids’ long ago babyhood.
He remembered to grab some food items off the shelves as they went by. His bachelor kitchen full of sugared cereal and frozen pizzas wasn’t going to cut it now that he had a new mom and two babies in the house. He loaded what space there was in the cart with milk, fruit, bread, and packaged meat.
“Anything for you?” he asked Cela as she gazed in mingled wonder and dismay at a colorful rack of toys. “Uh, those are for dogs, by the way.”
“Really?” She took down a large squeaky donut. “Aven would love playing tug of war with this.”
“Maybe we should go shop in the actual kid section for toys. That might not be child safe.”
Cela put it back, but looked in worry at the heaped cart. “Are you sure this isn’t too much?”
Not only was it not too much, but Tyr’s griffin was nearly molting in the excitement of being able to provide for their mate. It was all Tyr could do not to give in to his animal’s impulses and buy out the entire butcher department along with half the kid stuff in the store.
“It’s the least I can do,” he told her. “If you like, you could think of it as my responsibility for you as your guide in the human world, which your covert should have provided for you. Since they didn’t, I’m filling the gap. And as your mate, of course?—”
He broke off when her gaze dropped.
“Tyr ...”
“Terry,” he reminded her. “I know. It’s complicated.”
“So complicated,” she agreed with a faint smile.
“Would you like to look at baby toys?”
They picked out some toys for the kids and added them to the loaded cart. “I realized you’ve dodged this question every time I’ve asked it,” Tyr said, once again firmly resisting the mutually destructive urge to put his hand on her arm. “But I can buy things for you, too. You said you needed underwear?”
Taking the cart on a spin through the ladies’ underthings brought a whole new spark of wonder to her eyes, as well as giving Tyr a vivid mental image of Cela wearing each and every one of them. She chose the cheapest package of cotton underthings. Tyr decided not to press fancy undergarments on her, trying to ignore the mental image of his griffin hopefully holding up a pair of skimpy purple lace panties with its beak, but he did toss in a second package of the ones she had chosen. “If we’re gonna buy them anyway, we may as well make sure we buy enough,” he pointed out. “Iwasmarried after all. I know you ladies go through these things.”
