The Baby Shift: Georgia
Shifter Babies Of America 48
Becca Fanning
Copyright © 2019 by Becca Fanning
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
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Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Also by Becca Fanning
Chapter 1
A cold breeze flitted through the room from the small crack in the window, leaving occasional cool caresses through the heat that emanated from the fireplace. It was a little chilly to have the window open, but on this unseasonably warm winter day, Es would take whatever fresh air she could get. She loved the cool, crisp scent of the winter breeze, the spice of the evergreen trees that surrounded her small house.
It wasn’t a large house, just a white two-bedroom home with cheerful blue shutters, but it was a home. It had been from the day Es had rented the house and moved in. It was older but well maintained and comfortable. It wasn’t where she had pictured herself settling down, but it was hers, a gift from the elderly town doctor that Es was determined to one day repay him for.
Esmeralda Garcia smiled down at her daughter, inhaling the scents of powder and baby shampoo. The scents of innocence. Sofia smiled back, a wide guileless grin, and kicked her feet in delight. The joyful movement, a celebration of life inspired just by looking at Es’s face, filled her with love until she thought her heart might burst, too feeble to contain the amount of emotion she carried for her child. The joyful kicks did not, however, make it any easier to get her daughter dressed and ready for the day.
“Be still, darling girl. You need your clothes on if we’re going to start our day.”
Sofia laughed and kicked all the harder. So much for reasoning with a five-month-old. Es smiled indulgently and finished wrestling clothes onto her daughter. She tugged a hat on her daughter’s head to ward off the slight chill that lingered, even of the warmer days of a Georgia winter.
Her life had changed so much in the last year. One year ago, when she had finally faced the fact that she might have gotten pregnant by the man who had blown through her world, breaking her heart in the process, she’d felt like her life had ended. That second strip showing on the pregnancy test had felt like an end to all her hopes and dreams.
And it had been. She just hadn’t realized that it also signified the start of new dreams, better than she ever could have imagined. Motherhood, however unintentional, had filled her with a purpose she hadn’t even realized her life had been missing.
Truth be told, the realization that she was with child had not been the biggest shock of her life. No, that shock had come three months ago when a werewolf passing through her town had known from Sofia’s scent that she wasn’t human. It had taken some convincing, but ultimately Dr. Jenkins had convinced her to move here and be a part of his shifter community. Amazing, she reflected that it had been only a short drive away from her home in Savannah, Georgia, and she’d never even known of its existence.
She had relocated, more to give Sofia her best chance than from any desire to leave her old life behind. Savannah had been a perfect blend of convenience and a relaxed southern pace. She’d traded the historic city streets for a small, rustic town that brimmed with shifters.
This place, much like her daughter, had been a balm for her soul that she hadn’t even realized she had needed. It answered some wildness in her, the restlessness that had always plagued her, with the wildness of its own that somehow meshed perfectly and left her content, even in her heartbreak. And, in her melancholy moments, it even helped her feel closer to the man she had loved so briefly and lost, the father of her child.
Had he grown up in a small shifter community like this, playing in the countryside? She didn’t know because he hadn’t shared that part of himself. She knew his favorite foods and favorite songs. She knew that he would feel restless all day if he didn’t get his morning run and that there was a scar on his left eyebrow that lent him a dangerous air, even when his face was relaxed in sleep. She knew that feel of his hands on her skin with a familiarity that still made her wake, restless, wanting, and alone, in the dead of night. That touch still taunted her in dreams that seemed so real that she could have sworn he’d come back to her.
But she didn’t know him, not really. The weight of the secrets he’d kept from her crushed the familiarity she thought they’d shared. The way he’d left with hardly a second to say goodbye seemed to hint at even more secrets than he’d let on. How could she miss someone she’d not even truly known so deeply?
She pushed away the heavy thoughts, the soul-deep longing, and finished getting her daughter ready for the day.
“Ready to go to Auntie Stephanie’s while I get some groceries, baby girl?”
Sofia cooed in what Es took to be agreement, and she set out to drop her daughter off at her friend’s house and then do some shopping. She would spend this Sunday evening prepping meals for the week so that when she dragged in from her job at the restaurant where she waited tables it would be easy to grab something to eat before spending her evening splitting her attention between Sofia and the online classes she was taking to earn a degree in computer software development.
Once the degree was done, she hoped to find a software development position where she could work from home. If she succeeded, she would be able to stay home with her daughter and make a much better living working remotely than she would be able to work at one of the locally owned businesses in the small shifter community.
But those were plans for a distant tomorrow. For today, she would be content to spend the day with Sofia, preparing for the week ahead.
Chapter 2
Matt Williamson tried in vain to take comfort in the fact that his year-long investigation looked to be coming to an end as he approached the small Georgia shifter community. He’d spent months two steps behind the criminals that had been developing and testing a poison that worked on shifters. Finally, in Florida, he had gotten a lead that would let him get to town before corpses started piling up. He’d found evidence that Ezra Anderson, a shifter who had poisoned werewolves in his Florida pack, had been getting his supplies from here. Finally, after an entire year spent arriving too late to help anything, evidence had surfaced about where the poison originated.
He should feel energized, filled with the thrill of the chase. Instead, he just felt…nothing. He would finish this case, keep the shifter community safe from this threat, and then wait for his next orders. He wouldn’t go home. He didn’t have one. He’d ceded that to the job long ago. He would just wait, watching others live their lives until the next job came along.
He hadn’t always been like this, tired and disillusioned. For years the job had been all he needed. It was a hard life, but a purposeful one. The enforcers were the ones called in when shifters were out of line. Death after death, almost all of them at his own hands, had left him weary and jaded, soul-deep tired. But he’d still felt a sense of purpose, still felt content to live at the fringes of a society that would loathe and fear him because of everything he did to keep them safe. When had that changed?
He tried to push the thought away, along with the inevitable heartache it would bring. He knew exactly when it had changed. It had changed with her. It had changed when he’d met a wom
an that tilted his entire world on its axis. He’d met a woman that captivated him, that made him forget the promises he’d made to himself about not letting anything, anyone, tie him down.
Then this case, this never-ending nightmare, had reminded him that even if he had forgotten the harsh reality of his job, his employers had not forgotten him. They’d called and he had come, like he always had. It was just the first time answering that call had shredded his happiness in the process. He hoped she hadn’t hurt as he did with their parting. It had been selfish, loving a woman he wouldn’t be able to keep.
Of course, once he’d met Es, loving her hadn’t been a choice. She’d captivated him from the start with her rich brown eyes and her mischievous smile. He’d lost his heart to her before he’d even realized it was in danger. They’d shared two amazing months before work had called him away. He’d told her he had to go, that he had something to take care of, promising himself that he would be back in a few weeks to pick right back up where he’d left off. He hadn’t promised her that, though. His job was too dangerous for him to make promises he wasn’t sure he could keep. And now it had been a year. She’d probably moved on, fallen in love—No.
He cut the thought off as soon as it started, unable to bear the thought of her sharing herself with someone the way she’d shared herself with him. That fear was what had kept him from calling her, though he’d thought of it a thousand times. Now he was afraid to contact her, afraid of what his volatile shifter nature would make him do if he knew that she’d found happiness with someone else.
It was the ultimate act of cowardice, hiding away from the knowledge that she’d continued her life without him. He hadn’t ever considered himself a coward, but he was happy to become one if it meant that he could hold, if not her, at least her memory. Some vague hope that he’d changed her as inexorably as she’d changed him.
With an effort, he pushed thoughts of her from his mind, only to have his breath catch in his chest as a woman with long dark hair, just like Es’s, exited a shop and disappeared around the corner. Foolish of him, assuming that any woman with long dark hair was the one he’d left behind. Still, he allowed the glimmer of hope that she could be here, near enough to where they’d met in Savannah. It would be enough to get him through the rest of this investigation, and he’d deal with the emotional fall-out afterwards.
Matt pulled his car into a parking space in front of the only local motel. Well, if four rooms in a row, five with the small office on one end, could be called a motel. Shifter communities didn’t get many visitors. Many of the ones his job brought him to didn’t have any rooms for rent at all.
He climbed out of the car, stretching his limbs from the long drive. He needed to get a little rest and something to eat, and then he would start investigating. The doctor’s office was the perfect place to start. He hoped to find a lead there. Besides, even if there hadn’t been any victims of the silver-laced arsenic in town yet, he needed to give the doctor a heads-up. He had a feeling that if there weren’t any victims, it was only a matter of time until they started piling up.
Chapter 3
Sofia had fallen asleep in the car on the way back from Stephanie’s house. Her friend always played with Sofia nonstop, tiring her out. Es smiled as she thought of how fast the friendship had blossomed between her and the woman that was as close as she’d ever come to having a sister. She smiled even more when she thought of how Stephanie loved Sofia as much as if she’d been a real aunt, not just an honorary one. Yes, she’d definitely been fortunate to have landed here after the emotional whirlwind that had been her pregnancy.
Es gently eased her daughter from the car seat and settled her in her crib before bringing the groceries in and starting meal prep for the week. She gave herself gladly to the mindless task. There was comfort in the familiar, in the repetitive motions that made up her day to day life. She worked in contented silence right up until it was time to start fixing lunch.
Sofia was always worn out from trips to Stephanie’s, but she should have woken up before now. When she stepped into her daughter’s nursery, her heart leaped into her throat. Sofia was awake, but she wasn’t cooing to herself as she usually did after her naps. Nor was she crying. She was whimpering softly, lying still with glossy, fever-sick eyes and a sheen of sweat covering her tiny body.
Es rushed to her side, feeling skin that didn’t have the warmth of a fever she’d expected. It was cold and clammy and pale. Sofia’s eyes tracked to hers for a brief moment before fluttering shut in exhaustion. Es quickly checked the diaper bag to make sure she had everything Sofia might need and then loaded her daughter into the car.
Dread pooled in her stomach as she drove to Dr. Jenkins’s office. Maybe, she tried to tell herself, this was a shifter illness. The equivalent to a common cold, something that would run its course. Nothing she’d learned about shifters thus far supported that theory. From what she’d understood, they didn’t get sick at all, but she lied to herself, all the same, clinging to hope that she knew was false.
She rushed into the doctor’s office, hardly noting in her eagerness to get her daughter seen that the waiting room seemed to be filled with shifters.
“Es! Did Sofia have an appointment today? We might need to reschedule. It’s been an unusual—”
“No, she doesn’t have an appointment,” she told Amy, the receptionist at the clinic. “Something’s wrong. I went to wake her up from her nap, and she’s sick or something.”
Concern clouded Amy’s usually bright face. “I’m sorry, honey. Have a seat, and I’ll let Dr. Jenkins know he has another patient.”
A few minutes later, there was no more denying the fear that had filled her from the moment she saw her daughter lying there, hurting and sick. Dr. Jenkins was as unsure as she was.
“I don’t know what it is, Es. I’ve never seen anything like it, but over the past few weeks, a lot of the shifters have fallen ill. We’re still working to figure out the cause.”
“Will…will Sofia be okay?”
He smiled encouragingly, but his eyes were haunted. “There’s no reason to believe she won’t be. So far, the worst symptoms have been lethargy and a loss of appetite.”
She calmed a little with that news. Still, this wasn’t normal. What could be making them ill? There was no way she would be able to sit at home, calmly waiting for an update on the doctor’s progress.
“Is there anything I can do here to help out? I would really appreciate a way to stay busy, and this way, I can keep up on the latest news without having to bother you too much.”
“Well, I guess you could help with checking vitals and getting information from the adults that have fallen ill. I have them coming in every day to monitor their condition.”
After a quick call to work to let them know she wouldn’t be in until Sofia was well, and a second call was to Stephanie to make sure she could watch Sofia and call Es the second she got worse if she did. Es rushed Sofia to Stephanie’s and headed back to the clinic to make herself useful.
After a crash course in how to use the equipment to take vitals, she submerged herself in work, praying that the time she freed up for Dr. Jenkin’s staff would lead to a cure quickly.
Chapter 4
By midafternoon, Es had finally done the last health screening of the day. What she’d heard so far supported what Dr. Jenkins had said. Although the shifters who’d caught whatever this was were feeling weak, they weren’t getting worse, or at least weren’t getting worse quickly. It gave her hope that there was plenty of time to find a cure.
She was cleaning the waiting room when a familiar voice made her freeze in place. Surely, it couldn’t be…She turned toward the doorway of Dr. Jenkin’s office, only to meet the gaze of a man that looked every bit as stricken as she felt.
“Es, I…” Matt reached a hand toward her, like he wanted to touch her but was unsure if it would be welcome. Her foolish heart lifted at the sight of the man that had the power to rip it in two all over again.
He was across the room in an instant, looking into her eyes as he reached a hand up to caress her cheek. She tried to ignore the calloused hand that cradled her cheek as though she was fragile, precious. Those hands had told that lie before. She couldn’t afford to believe in him again. Not when she was a mother now.
“What are you doing here, Matt?”
The second time she asked the question, it seemed to break the spell he’d been under. His hand dropped, and she saw the moment his expressive eyes became shuttered, just as they had the day he’d walked away and never looked back.
“I…I can’t say, Es. I’m sorry.”
A bitter laugh escaped her. “Of course, you can’t.”
“Can I call you before I leave town? I’ve…god, I’ve missed you.”
She tried like hell to keep the tears from coming to her eyes, but one rebelliously came nonetheless, traveling down her cheek and leaving a brush of cold in its wake. “I think it’s probably best if you didn’t, Matt.”
He opened his mouth to reply, but something in her face must have changed his mind. His eyes hardened, and he turned and strode out the door. She should have felt relieved that he hadn’t pressed the issue—she would have caved, if he’d asked again—but all she felt was regret and heartache. She couldn’t tear her eyes from him until he’d disappeared from her sight completely.
“Es…how do you know Matt Williamson?” Dr. Jenkins’s voice was cautious, slightly awed. She’d never hear that tone coming from him.
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