Page 41 of Partridge in a Bear Tree

CHAPTER 22

Penny didn't actually shift for the entirety of the next two days, but a lot of the time, it felt like it. She did sleep a lot, and in between, she ate a lot. Ashley's mom, Holly, was a good cook, and her husband Jeff was an incredible baker. And when she wasn't sleeping or eating, she was practicing shifting.

The clothes she'd borrowed from Ashley were literally a lost cause, but she didn't lose any more. The partridge settled down some as she got used to shifting. Whenever being totally overwhelmed by it all started to creep up on her, Penny remembered Ashley's huge soft furry head pressing gently against hers, the bear's rich gentle voice calming her. It was like a blanket of reassurance she could draw around herself, making everything less panicky, even when Ashley had to go to work in the evenings. Penny didn't mind staying with her parents for a couple of days: everyone had been right about how much easier it became with some time to practice.

The partridge, unfortunately, remained dumb. Less panicky, but dumb. Penny read a lot about birds over the days she stayed with Ashley's parents. It turned out that 'bird-brained' wasn't really an insult at all: bird brains were unbelievably complex,their ability to navigate in the air as well as on the ground requiring a genuinely amazing cognitive power.

Partridges, however, were not known for their flight abilities. They were ground birds, and although her kind—red-legged partridges—could get into trees, they mostly didn't. They probably weren't dumber than any other average bird, either, but the truth was, Penny's partridge was not a shining example of its type. "Shouldn't that meanI'mdumb too?" she half-wailed at Ashley on the morning of Christmas Eve.

"Obviously not," Ashley said, amused. "We'll have to find you some other non-predator-shifters to talk to. Maybe it's not so much dumb as just…cautious."

Penny sighed. "It spent twenty minutes last night obsessed over the straw in your parents' Nativity scene."

Straw!the partridge said, suddenly alert.Good for nests!

For what felt like the hundredth time, Penny said,It's ceramic. Not good for nests.

The partridge cocked its head at her, one eye and then the other, exactly as it had done the night before, and in its mind, pecked at the straw before wailing,The straw hurts my face!as if this was a brand-new revelation.

Ashley tried very hard not to laugh as Penny mournfully repeated the investigation and conversation aloud. "The only reason it stopped last night was it thought the Christmas tree lights might be a fire, or the sun, or possibly?—"

A snack!!!The partridge provided an image of green and yellow bugs, about the same size as an LED tree light, and apparently its idea of the world's most delicious snack.Not mine,it said severely.Good for chicks.

Penny sighed. "A snack. It thinks they look like something chicks would snack on. You know, it might be dumb, but it's really focused on nests and safety and food. It might be a goodparent. Although I don't know how that would work, with me expecting to be on the road a lot."

Ashley rolled onto her back, dragging Penny with her. "You know…I'm not going on the road with you, right?"

Penny pushed up on an elbow, frowning down at Ashley. "Yeah, I mean, you've got a full-on job here…?"

Ashley sighed, relaxing. "Yeah. I do. And it's not that I mind the idea of traveling some, but I'm a homebody. I like to have my roots down. I know Bill's given up a lot for Gwen…"

"Has he, though?" Penny flopped down. "The way I understand it he was going nuts trying to run two businesses and even if Gwen hadn't come along he would have needed somebody to take over the pub. So that's not really giving it up for her. And Gwen says the brewery itself doesn't need as much day-to-day supervision, and that coming along with the band sometimes means he can use that as a chance to sell Thunder Bear beer to other places. So is it really giving all that much up? It's just a change. And, look." She kissed Ashley's jaw. "I don't want to ask you to give anything up either. The band is going to have to figure out where we want to be based if Gwen and I both end up moving to Renaissance?—"

Ashley squeaked and Penny pushed up on her elbow again, laughing. "Well, wouldn't that make the most sense? Your life is here and I bet even people in Renaissance need housecleaners."

"Or crime scene cleaners," Ashley mumbled.

Penny laughed again. "Again with the preferring not to have trauma. No, really, Ash. I may have to go into Denver for three nights a week so we can practice, but yeah, I'm thinking my home base should be here. Where you are." She gave the blonde woman a dippy smile. "With my mate."

Ashley squeaked again and pulled Penny down into a hard hug. "You should think about it, not make any rash decisions?—"

"Right," Penny mumbled into her cleavage, "because there's nothing rash about magically assured love at first sight or suddenly changing into partridges."

"—but I've been—" Ashley caught up to what Penny had said and fought down giggles. "Well, yeah. The shifter world isn't quite like the true human world, is it? Anyway, I've been worried since the first time I saw you, Pen. How was that going to work? I thought maybe I was wrong about the mate bond, because…how could it work?"

"It'll work just fine," Penny promised. "We'll figure it out."

"In that case there's only one more huge hurdle to leap," Ashley said into her hair. "The Ten Thousand Torbens Christmas Eve."

There were notreallyten thousand Torbens. Penny knew it. If they would all hold still for a minute, in fact, she was almost positive there were a very countable number of them.

One,the partridge said desperately.Seventeen. Ninety-two. Four.

Four,Penny agreed.Nineteen. Seventy-two.

Oddly enough, that settled the partridge down a little. So did Penny whispering, "That one's Jon," to herself. "That one's Bill, he's easy, he's got the pompadour. Well, and also Gwen's hanging on his arm, and I've known him for months now. That's Luke, he's the really blonde one. That's Laurie," she said with a dubious glance at the other long-haired Torben man who was right about Ashley's age. "Maybe I've got Jon and Laurie mixed up."

"They're the idiots," Ashley said fondly as she came over with a couple of beers and heard the last of that. "Jon's hair is darker and Laurie's mouth is fuller."

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