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I clutched my chest. “What? No wish?”
“I don’t need anything,” he insisted.
No, lied. I narrowed my eyes. “Bull.”
“I swear.”
“I’m not accepting that.”
“Don’t.” He shrugged. “Doesn’t bother me.”
It did. I could read it all over him.
“You need a revamp, too. Just as bad as me. Maybe worse.”
The edge of his lip hitched up in a grin. “Is that a fact?”
“It is.”
“I’m not selling the rescue and moving to Paris or some shit, Thea.”
I laughed at the thought of Ben anywhere besides the middle of the woods. “Maybe you’re right. Maybe I’m the only sloppy one in this friendship.”
He shook his head, wrapping a hand around my waist. “You? Sloppy? Absolutely not.”
“It’s my birthday and I’m going to the diner looking like this.” I gestured down to my pitifully plain dress.
He laughed, pulling me closer against him. “You’re the least sloppy person in this town. If you’ve got your sights set on a husband and a family I’m behind you. If it’s Chase, I’ll deal with that too.”
I grinned up at Benny. My sweet Benny. My best friend. My other half. “I don’t know what I’d do without you.”
“Well, you’d have a birthday all to yourself to start.”
“Overrated.”
CHAPTER3
Ben
“Don’t worry,”I assured Len as he hefted the door of the metal cage up, knocking his visor down. “He doesn’t peck. Hard, anyway.”
Len turned to stare me down, the welding helmet shielding me from his withering glare. “I don’t want to be pecked at all.”
“Once the sparks are flying, he’ll back off.”
I flexed my fingers through the thick falconer gloves, ready to bat down the rough-legged hawk, if necessary. In the two months since a hunter had brought the hawk to me, he’d been a sweetheart, but if someone could aggravate an animal to attack, it’d be Len.
Len shot one last look at the perched hawk before turning his attention to the gate. The whirr of the welder scared the hawk off toward the opposite end of the cage.
Len finished the repair, tipping his visor back up. “That it?”
“For now. I have a grant to build a new enclosure that I should get funded in the next couple of months, but otherwise, everything is in decent shape.”
“Decent shape?” he asked with a frown.
“Nothing is falling off the hinges. Don’t worry.”
I helped Len gather his equipment, stopping to marvel at his handy work before leaving the enclosure. Not every animal rescue had a world-famous artist to fix their enclosures, but I’d turned to Len early in both of our careers. Back before I had the rescue fully funded and before Len had sold his art across the globe.
