DandeLION Season (Green Valley Shifters)
Dandelion Season
By Zoe Chant
© Zoe Chant 2019
All Rights Reserved
Table of Contents
Copyright Page
Green Valley Shifters
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Epilogue
Note from Zoe Chant
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Zoe Chant, writing under other names
Green Valley Shifters
This is book three of the Green Valley Shifters series. All of my books are stand-alones (they never have cliffhangers!) and can be read independently, but this book does reference some of the events in the previous books. This is the order the series may be most enjoyed:
Dancing Bearfoot (Book 1)
The Tiger Next Door (Book 2)
Dandelion Season (Book 3)
Bearly Tolerable (forthcoming)
Chapter 1
Tawny Summers eased the mail truck to the curb in front of Shaun Powell’s house, wincing and smiling at the squeal of the touchy brakes that broke the peaceful quiet of the small town of Green Valley.
Even squeaky brakes couldn’t dampen the day.
It was spring, and it was gloriously spring as if to make up for the late winter. Blue sky spread above trees glittering with early shades of green and lawns that were springing emerald from the ugly, dull brown that had covered them for so many months.
Cheerful birds sang love songs for each other from every corner, and somewhere not far away, children in the park were hollering happily about their new freedom from the indoors.
Best of all, it was Tawny’s last day of work. This was her very last delivery, in fact.
She would never have to drive the clunky mail truck again, or dread Christmas, or get trapped talking to Stanley for three hours about how badly the mail service had gone down since that new-fangled Internet started causing diabetes or whatever he had last read.
It was an ending without fanfare. Her replacement had been training for two weeks, and everyone kindly said they would miss her on her route, but otherwise, it had been a day like any other.
Tawny opened the sticky truck door and swung down to the pavement.
It even smelled like spring, and Tawny inhaled happily.
Starting tomorrow, she would be wrist-deep in soil, planting the greatest garden she had ever had. She’d spent every evening for the last month planning every inch of her little plot, ordering seeds and researching varieties. Several trays of tiny green sprouts were crowded on her kitchen table and the piano under desk lamps, waiting for their new homes in the ground.
The only work she had to continue to do was teach piano on weekends to help stretch the retirement checks a little bit further.
The last package was strapped in the very back of the truck, and Tawny’s knees protested climbing up to get it.
The last package, she reminded her knees.
Tawny frowned down at the address label. There was no return address, but the postage cancellation was from right here in Green Valley.
It was unusual for someone to ship something within the town. If it had been a different address, Tawny might have assumed one of the town seniors had gotten confused and accidentally shipped a gift to themselves.
But Shaun Powell, and his wife Andrea, were young and Andrea was not that much of an airhead.
It was Express mail, too, with a guaranteed date and time of delivery. Who would blow that kind of money to ship a box a few blocks?
It was a light box, for the size, and Tawny carried it easily down the path and up the porch to the house. She knocked on the door, and was surprised when it swung open under her knuckles.
“Shaun?” she called hesitantly into the dark house. All of the curtains were drawn and It smelled like fresh sweet rolls. That would be Shaun’s handiwork.
“Andrea?” Tawny called. After a moment, she added, “Trevor?” At six years old, it was most likely that Trevor had left the door open.
It disturbed her sense of order to have to leave her last package without a signature, but Tawny sighed and reached for her scanner, setting the box down just inside the door.
As she was bending over to scan it as delivered, the lights in the house suddenly flicked on, and a chorus of voices shouted, “Surprise!”
Tawny jolted upright and put a hand to her throat. “What?!”
“Happy retirement!” a familiar voice congratulated. Patricia, belly round with pregnancy, was sitting on the couch, and dozens of Green Valley residents crowded forward to draw Tawny into the streamer-strewn house as the curtains were flung open.
“We’re going to miss you!”
“Thank you for your service!”
“I’ve got big shoes to fill.” That was her replacement, an earnest young man with red hair.
“You never lost a single one of my letters!”
“Christmas deliveries won’t be the same without you!”
“You won’t miss the catalogs!”
She was buffeted with hugs, and Tawny had to blink back tears of emotional joy as Trevor came forward to lead her to a cake, frosted like a canceled postage stamp. The sweet rolls she had smelled were just one of the offerings on the loaded table; an entire neighborhood potluck had been laid out.
“You folks didn’t have to do this,” she protested as a paper plate of cake was pressed into her hands. “It’s not like I’m moving away or going anywhere.”
“You’ll always be an establishment of Green Valley,” Patricia told her, rising awkwardly to give her own encumbered hug. “We’re just celebrating how much we’ve appreciated you. And how happy we are that you’ll be enjoying a well-earned retirement.”
Someone put a paper crown on her, and there were gifts, to Tawny’s flustered pleasure. A ribbon-adorned wheelbarrow to replace her rusted one was filled with wrapped packages—most of them in official post office packaging.
She sighed theatrically. “You know it’s a federal offense to use this packaging for purposes other than its intended application,” she teased them.
She was sitting on the broad couch, carefully unwrapping what was clearly a spade covered in post office shipping bags from Shaun and Andrea, when the sound of a throat clearing made her look up at the doorway with an automatic smile.
A finely dressed stranger stood there at the door no one had bothered to close. He was a large older man, with broad shoulders under an expensive looking button-down shirt, and he had a close-cropped beard that was a much white as it was blond.
Even as Tawny had a naughty moment to wonder if they had hired a good-looking stripper for her party, he caught sight of her, and the glare melted from his face into s
oft astonishment.
Chapter 2
Damien Powell glowered at the mail truck parked in front of his son’s house. There was no sign of the mailman, despite the fact that the boxy thing was idling. He had to park across the street, and although he could not so much as hear any traffic in any direction, he still found himself practicing the rant that he wanted to deliver to the careless driver.
“Waste of taxpayer money,” he growled, approaching the door to Shaun’s house. “No wonder stamps cost so much.”
It was wide open, to his surprise, and the house was humming with celebratory people. A banner trimmed in official post office tape declared, “Happy Retirement, Tawny!” Another waste of federal money.
He cleared his throat crossly just as his gaze fell on the subject of the banner—and the subject of his rant—sitting on the couch in a post office uniform.
The woman was unwrapping a gift with long, careful fingers, and her beautiful face was carved with affectionate lines of humor and flushed with joy and embarrassment. A ridiculous paper crown was perched on her soft waves of silver hair, and her eyes were warm and brown.
Everything about her was utterly perfect, and every word of Damien’s carefully composed tirade vanished.
Inside, Damien’s lion gave a contented sigh. There she is, he said firmly.
Who? Damien demanded. He wasn’t used to feeling out of the loop.
Before his lion could answer, there was a boyish shriek of joy.
“Grandpa Powell!”
Trevor streaked from the crowd to throw himself at Damien, who caught him automatically and tossed him into the air.
“Oh, Dad! We forgot you were coming today.”
“I can see that,” Damien said gruffly.
Shaun was carrying a tray of warm cookies from the kitchen and Damien had a moment of sudden, irrational jealousy.
He was the one who ought to be bringing food for his mate.
Wait, what?
Our mate, his lion agreed.
How utterly unexpected.
“What did you bring me Grandpa?” Trevor was investigating every pocket that he could reach, little fingers tickling. “Do I get a present?”
“Is this your party?” Damien asked Trevor archly.
“They’re my cookies,” Trevor said slyly.
“Only very good grandsons who mind their manners get presents,” Damien said severely. He then slipped the electronic toy from an unmolested pocket and palmed it to Trevor, who squealed in delight and disappeared to unlock its mysteries.
He turned back to consider the woman holding court on couch. She was looking away now, talking earnestly with a little girl holding a paper plate of sweets in two careful hands.
Her profile was elegant, her posture perfect.
“I can introduce you around,” Shaun said dubiously, having added his platter of cookies to the spread.
Damien understood the tone.
These were not his type of people, with their country clothes and their noisy children underfoot. This was not his type of party, a potluck with paper plates. The party soundtrack was a child playing Chopsticks on an upright piano—but they had started on the wrong keys, and rather than finding the right notes, they were simply playing it over and over again incorrectly.
But watching his mate soberly take an offered sweet roll from the giggling girl made Damien unexpectedly want this to be his type of party.
“I’d like that,” he said gruffly.
Shaun raised a skeptical eyebrow.
Shaun looked like this was his sort of event. Gone were the business suits that he had worn for so long. Now he wore jeans and a t-shirt, and an apron from his bakery, emblazoned with a red stylized cinnamon roll. He needed a haircut, Damien thought critically. He was dangerously close to hairnet territory.
“Alright, then,” Shaun said agreeably, smothering his surprise. “This is Stanley.”
Damien regretted taking Shaun’s offer within five sweaty handshakes, three endless conversations about the price of farm supplies and pork, one skeptical child, and two giggling housewives who didn’t seem to care about the wedding rings they were wearing.
Shaun peeled one of the women off of him and finally led him to the distasteful potluck table where Damien’s mate was piling a plate with questionable offerings.
“Sorry about that. Gillian’s shameless,” Shaun was saying, but Damien had eyes only for Tawny.
She turned to look at them with a smile crinkling around her eyes as Shaun introduced him. “Tawny, this is my Dad, Damien Powell. Dad, this is...”
Damien moved smoothly forward and took her free hand in his own. “This is the lady of the hour,” he said, with all the practiced charm at his disposal. “Let me add my congratulations.”
Her hand was gentle and unexpectedly strong as she hesitantly accepted his handshake, and Damien didn’t want to let it go.
For a long moment, the chaos of the party around them seemed to be distant and unimportant. The only thing that mattered was here, in the most beautiful brown eyes that Damien had ever gazed into.
“Thank you,” she said, and her slow smile was friendly and shy at the same time. The color of her blush made her complexion look youthful, and there was a garden of life and energy in her eyes.
Then a playful scream and running footsteps penetrated Damien’s attention, and a small, unexpected form ricocheted off the back of his knees, driving him a step forward into Tawny and sending the plate of her potluck food spilling down her uniform blouse.
Damien stared at her, aghast and mortified, as he regained his balance.
She was covered in red meatball sauce, pieces of vegetable, a small puddle of ranch dressing, a selection chocolate-covered cookies, and an unidentifiable salad that appeared to be mostly composed of mayonnaise.
A child shrieked in laughter and Damien turned with a humiliated snarl.
“Enough roughhousing!”
It was a voice he usually reserved for boardroom conflicts and employees who failed him, all of his lion’s power and authority behind it.
It utterly silenced the party.
Damien turned back to his mate, and registered her blooming frown of disapproval just as a child somewhere behind him burst into noisy tears.
Chapter 3
Shaun’s father was the most gorgeous man that Tawny had ever seen, and she had to work very hard at not staring at him as Shaun led him around the house introducing him to half the town of Green Valley.
Not only was he tall and handsome, he had the most magnificent presence that Tawny had ever witnessed. She knew exactly where he was, even when she was taking a cookie from Clara and he was talking to Stanley behind her.
Listening to Stanley was more accurate, of course. Price of tractors being a government conspiracy was his latest rant subject, and Tawny breathed a sigh of relief when Shaun finally took pity on his father and dragged him away to meet someone else.
“They have meatballs at the table,” Clara told her in conspiratory tones. “But Trevor doesn’t like the sauce.”
“I shall have to try it myself,” Tawny told her. She settled the paper crown and rose to her feet, glancing around automatically to find that Shaun’s father was talking with Gillian. The woman was playing with her jewelry and fluttering her eyelashes at him despite the fact that he was clearly twenty years older than she was ... and she was wearing a wedding ring.
Tawny smiled at her own flash of irrational jealousy. She was too old to be thinking wistfully of handsome men anyway.
Clara ran off to play a chase game with some of the other children and Tawny went to find her own food.
The potluck table groaned under the food that had been brought. Tawny recognized Marta’s ubiquitous noodle salad, Stanley’s grocery store vegetable tray, and Devon’s meatball crockpot. Shaun’s sweet rolls and cookies were already well picked over. She took up a paper plate and began to load it with tiny portions of everything—she wouldn’t want to insult anyone by not tryi
ng their offerings.
She felt his approach, like the pressure before a storm broke, even before Shaun caught her attention and said, “Tawny, this is my dad, Damien Powell.”
She turned and met Damien’s eyes.
Despite her best intentions, she could feel her cheeks heat, and the rush of desire in her belly was unexpected... and unwelcome.
“Dad, this is...”
Before Shaun could give her name, Damien was leaning forward and offering his hand. “The lady of the hour, of course. Let me add my congratulations.”
His eyes were the same silver as Shaun’s, but bottomless.
Tawny smiled helplessly. “Thank you,” she said breathlessly, hoping her handshake wasn’t as weak as her knees felt. Everything seemed just a little surreal.
Then unexpectedly, he staggered forward into her as a toddler bounced off of him from behind. Tawny felt her loaded paper plate heave in her unprepared hand and she watched in slow motion as it dumped entirely over onto her chest.
She was frozen in horror and discomfort, cold salad and hot meatball sauce shocking through the thin material of her uniform blouse. Vegetables and cookies slid down her breasts and bounced off of her toes.
Before she could begin to process her embarrassment, Damien was turning to snarl at the tangle of children milling behind him. “Enough roughhousing!” he commanded, with enough force to silence the entire room.
Even though it was not directed at her, Tawny was not oblivious to the unnerving power behind his words, and she frowned as one of the children began to cry.
Damien seemed to realized his error at once. “Ah, don’t cry,” he said desperately, looming over the child. “It’s alright. You don’t have to... please just stop.”
The little girl, three-year-old Charlotte from the preschool Andrea taught at, only wailed more loudly.
Damien searched his pockets as if the answers might be there and withdrew a phone and a box of breathmints. “Do you want a Tic Tac?” he asked coaxingly.
Charlotte looked at him with widening eyes. She stopped crying, and instead shrieked at the top of her lungs, “Mommy, a strange man is giving me CANDY!”