Page 32

Again, Tahnee tried to shut her brain up as quickly as possible.

Stop ruining everything!

For now, things were absolutely perfect. And for now, that was the only thing Tahnee wanted to know.

Chapter 6

The cold wind rushing in off the ocean should’ve pierced Robb to the bone, or at the very least left him feeling a little chilly… but instead, he felt warm through and through, like he was relaxing in front of a low, crackling fire. A soft, bone-deep warmth that left him feeling more calm, more contented than had since… well, ever.

And, of course, he knew the reason why. She was pressed up against his side, her damp hair tickling his cheek, the gentle sound of her breathing at the edge of his consciousness.

It had been difficult, dragging himself from bed – he’d wanted nothing more than to stay there forever with Tahnee, never leaving the bed again and shutting out the outside world. It wasn’t a feeling he was used to, and he knew that his sense of duty would get the better of him sooner or later… but still, it had been tempting.

And it had been a huge relief to realize that Hargreaves’s poison had worn off and his dingo was fully present inside him again, and was just as content about the situation as Robb was.

In the end, though, after a few attempts at getting out of bed that were derailed by just one more time, the rumbling of their empty stomachs had eventually won out, and Tahnee had declared that she absolutely refused to eat whatever was in the safehouse after their beans and spaghetti feast last night.

Robb hadn’t been entirely unable to blame her for that, and, given the fact that their powers had returned, they’d decided that it would be safe to go out for a walk and get something to eat.

Well, Robb had decided that it was safe. Tahnee, he was pretty sure, hadn’t been too concerned, if her breezy I don’t give a stuff had been anything to go by.

Coming up to the main drag, Robb looked around. “What do you feel like eating?”

“I’m not sure,” Tahnee said. “But I’ll know it when I see it.”

Robb was pretty sure that his stomach was going to devour itself if he didn’t get something to eat in the next few minutes, and he was about to tell Tahnee that when she suddenly perked up, pointing to a place a few meters down the road from where they were walking, the sea breeze rolling in and fluttering the ragged fronds of the palm trees.

“Fish’n’chips!” Tahnee exclaimed, practically dragging Robb into the small shop. “We have to eat fish’n’chips at the beach.”

Robb couldn’t say it was exactly his first choice for breakfast – but, well, he supposed it was technically lunchtime by now. And he was hungry enough that he didn’t feel particularly choosy about it.

And who didn’t love salt and carbs?

“Sounds good to me,” he said as they stepped inside. “Though I’m drawing the line at eating on the beach. It’s still way too wet.”

“That’s what he said. And I didn’t hear him complaining about it last night,” Tahnee said with a smirk, and Robb felt his eyebrow twitching, but decided to let it go. At least she’d agreed to not eat on the beach – well, she hadn’t technically agreed to it, but he hoped it was implied – and that was good enough for him.

And the food did smell pretty good.

A sudden impulse made him add, “Some other time, maybe. When the weather’s better.”

Robb really wasn’t a beach picnics kind of guy. As far as he was concerned, the ocean mostly existed for getting in a bit of whole-body exercise at best, and a place that required patrolling in case of shifter criminals committing a bit of water-based crime at worst.

But he thought that he might be able to learn to enjoy that kind of thing if it was with Tahnee. At the very least, she would enjoy it, and that was the most important thing.

And watching Tahnee enjoy herself was rapidly becoming Robb’s favorite activity. Maybe he’d felt that way ever since their first game of cat and mouse across Sydney: it had been a thrill to see how much fun she seemed to be having, even if at the time, her fun had been driving him crazy.

And, Robb thought, suppressing a smile, in some ways, I guess it still is.

Right on cue, his heart gave a little flutter – something he previously would never have suspected it was still capable of doing – as a surprised, pleased expression spread across Tahnee’s face, before she shifted back into her more usual teasing mode. “Well, if you promise that sometime in the future you’re going to lie on the beach in your tiny little budgie smugglers and hand-feed me chips, I’m not going to complain about it.”

He let that one go, too. Because he’d seen the honest pleasure on her face when he’d made the suggestion.

I’m getting to know your ways, he thought. You’re not all about the teasing and trying to rile people up. In the end, you just want someone to see you for who you really are beneath all those defenses you’ve put up around yourself. You want someone who’ll look after you and think about what it is that you want, instead of being the one who’s always looking out for everyone else and putting their welfare first.

It was odd, having a relationship with someone who was both his equal and his opposite. He’d spent so much of his life within the rigid hierarchy of the Agency, always interacting with people above and below him and acting accordingly, measuring his team’s metrics and ensuring that all incidents were responded to in the prescribed manner, that it was strange to have to think on his feet. Tahnee’s anarchic approach to life was about as diametrically opposed to his regimented existence as it could get, and it was taxing him just to keep up.

There was no handbook for the mate bond… and there definitely was no handbook for Tahnee. She was one of a kind.