Page 12 of Partridge in a Bear Tree

Ashley snapped her teeth shut on her first protest, which was that they had events booked for Christmas Eve. That wasn't true, though. She'd decided that the staff deserved their holiday evening with their families, and hadn't let anybody book anything that night. There were only a couple of people scheduled to work at all, and the pub would be closing early anyway. After an incredibly long moment of trying to think of a way out of it, her shoulders slumped. "It's their pub. I guess I can't really say no."

Penny was counting on her fingers. "Pete, Richard, Dave, Phil, and…your dad, Ashley? There are five Elder Torben brothers?"

"Phil is Aunt Carol's husband. She's the Torben. Her and Aunt Rachel are the two girls, and then there's, yeah. Four brothers. And I only have a brother and a sister, but everybody else has at least four kids."

Penny went back to counting on her fingers. "So you have twenty-one cousins?"

Ashley sighed. "Twenty-three, actually."

"But that's just on the Torben side," Laurie said. "Mom's got three sisters and they've all got two or three kids. Except Aunt Lily. She's just got Ollie, and moved to Australia."

"You havethirtycousins?"

And that, Ashley thought, was why she'd wanted to get to know Penny without the madness of her huge family around. Huge, both in number and in actual size: there were several cousins shorter than she was, but none of them was less than five ten. Penny, at barely over five feet, would actually disappear into the crowd. She said, "Lily and Mom's other sisters aren't coming, are they?"

"I don't think Aunt Lily is ever leaving Australia again," Jon said. "She moved there to get away from all of us, and since Ollie found his maaaaarriage partner at Steve's wedding she doesn't have to fly back to the States for any of that kind of thing."

Ashley bugged her eyes at him, and he bugged his back. Shifters weren't usually so careless about mentioning fated mates in front of true humans, but there weren't usually three shifters and only one human hanging around, either. When there was, the one human was often someone's mate.

Which, of course, Penny was. Ashley just hadn't told her that yet. Ashley hadn't told her anything, because she was a big wobbly coward, and now poor Penny was going to be overwhelmed with Torbens and run away to be a rock star without ever wanting to see Ashley again.

Ashley's bear gazed at her patiently until she stopped running in mental circles like that and sighed.Okay, fine, but really, nobody should be subjected to forty or fifty Torbens before a first date!

Then you should take your mate on a first date,the bear said calmly.

"I don't have time!" The words burst out, aloud. Both her cousins grimaced at her, clearly understanding she'd been arguing with her bear and had slipped up, but Penny, who had no idea what was going on, patted Ashley's arm sympathetically.

"You're right, you really don't. It'd be bad enough getting a charity event dumped on you?—"

Jon's eyes widened. "What? Oh, the swans thing? I heard about the fire at their venue. We're hosting it? That's great! Thanks, Ash! The Faire folk are going to be really relieved, they've been setting up for this for months. They've even got a celebrity guest. Do you know, uh, oh, what's her name." He dug his phone out, saying, "The professional wrestler with All-Arena Entertainment? Maggie somebody. Ross!" he said as his phone gave him the information he was looking for. "Apparently she's really into swan conservationism, who knew? I didn't even know they were endangered anywhere. Anyway, that's really great, Ash, you're gonna be the hero of the hour!"

Ashley very carefully didn't look at Laurie, who was beaming hopefully at her and wasn't even trying to take credit for thinking of having the pub host the suddenly-unhoused benefit event. Probably wise, because she would have tried flushing him down a toilet, or something. "I guess."

Penny, whose sympathy had gotten entirely run over by Jon's enthusiasm, gave Ashley another pat on the arm. Her hand was small and warm, and Ashley had the impulse to take it and kiss her knuckles, but that would have opened her up for so much teasing from her cousins, and she couldn't explain about the mate bond right then, with Penny standing right there. "Okay," she said to Penny, stiffly. "I guess I'm going to have to take you up on the offer for those tents, but only if you're really, really sure. It's a long drive and it's already getting late."

"It's fine, really." Penny smiled up at her, a bright generous expression. "The truth is I'm great in an emergency, and I was feeling weird and awkward about crashing your family's Christmas already, so if I can help then that'll make me less weird about it all."

"Please don't ever feel awkward," Ashley said quickly. "You have no idea how nice it is to have you here. Everything elseaside, there are so freaking many guy cousins. Any extra women make it better, and you're really great."

"Oh." Penny beamed. "You're great too. Look, it's already seven so I'll probably drive to Denver, go to sleep, and get the tents early in the morning and drive back. Will that be okay?"

"It will be," Laurie blurted. "It'll be perfect. It's amazing. Thank you so much. Ashley, I'll be here first thing in the morning to clear the lot, okay? I promise I won't make it any more work for you than it absolutely has to be."

Jon, obviously sensing he'd missed some things, cautiously said, "And I'll tell everybody the pub's closing at five on Christmas Eve, and do all the setup for the family reunion?"

Ashley flung her hands upward. "Okay, fine! You've got it all under control! That's great! Go…go do the thing!" She felt far more exasperated than she should, given that her cousins were doing literally what she'd asked them to, which was pick up the slack. But shehadn'tasked them to also add a ton of work to her schedule, either. Although she guessed a last-minute family reunion was her aunt and uncle's fault, not her cousins'.

Either way, they scattered like they felt like they were lucky to escape with their lives, and Ashley was left with Penny smiling up at her again. "If the charity's other venue was planning a big event, they've probably got a lot of the staff lined up already. If you can check about that and then text me whatever you find out, I'll get volunteers for—oh, I better talk to Gwen. Come with me?" She tilted toward the door, smiling hopefully, and Ashley, enthralled, walked after her in a daze.

CHAPTER 8

"It'll be okay," Penny promised over her shoulder to Ashley, who was following her with a slightly stunned expression. "The charity event and the family reunion both getting dumped on you is a lot. Are you okay?"

"I have no idea," Ashley admitted. "I could kill Laurie, but I probably can't kill my entire extended family."

"I mean, it'd have to be a whole Jonestown kind of thing," Penny agreed. "There are too many of them to knock off one at a time. Oh good, there's Gwen, right where I left her. Well, she wasn't in Bill's lap when I left them, but…" Her bandmate and her boyfriend were in one of the pub's booths, and if Gwen wasn't actuallyquitein Bill's lap, it was pretty close. "Okay, you two, cut it out, stop being gross, we have an emergency." She slid into the other half of the booth, gesturing for Ashley to join her, and felt a little thrill of delight as Ashley's arm brushed hers when they sat down.

That was full-on goofy crush material, being excited over little touches like that, and she had more important things to think about right then. Gwen turned worried attention to them, although her worry faded as Penny outlined the situation. "Oh.That kind of emergency. I thought you meant anemergency-emergency. Yeah, of course, we can do a pick-up gig or something if we need to call out the Fits for their volunteer services. I can get Ripley to come play second guitar if we want it to be more than just us. Do you need company driving back to Denver?"

---