by Kit Tunstall
With her determination renewed, she crossed the last few feet to the sheriff’s office before opening the door. As she stepped through the doorway, she took a deep breath for courage and slipped inside the small office.
Small was right. It consisted of one room, with a single jail cell in the corner, currently unoccupied. She was afraid she’d found the sheriff not in, but there was a man seated at the desk in the corner, and he looked up at her as the door closed behind her.
For a moment, she forgot why she was there. His sheer male perfection stole her breath, and her eyes greedily gobbled up the sight for a moment as she appreciated the wide set of his shoulders, the perfect angles of his face, and the rich brown hair that invited her fingers to run through it. Or might have, if his expression hadn’t been so stony. The visible reminder of how unwelcome she was jerked her out of her feminine reverie, and she straightened her shoulders as she walked closer to the desk, not waiting for an invitation.
“Who are you?” he asked gruffly, but his voice was smooth as dark chocolate, with a touch of whiskey.
“My name is Shayla Dalton—”
His nostrils flared, and his unwelcome expression grew darker. “Dalton? As in Lila Dalton?”
She nodded, bracing herself.
“Get out.”
Shayla shook her head and planted her feet firmly on the floor as she stood in front of his desk, temporarily eschewing the chair in front of it. “No. I can’t do that.”
He scowled at her. “If you’re here because of Lila, you can just turn around and walk right out again. I haven’t seen her in months, and I want nothing more to do with her.”
She shrugged. “Lucky for you, Lila feels the same way. I’m not here about Lila though.”
His scowl deepened as he leaned back in his chair, crossing his arms over his chest. “What brings you to our island then, Shayla Dalton?”
With a deep breath, Shayla slipped off her jacket, which had been a necessity for the early morning boat ride, even though it was early summer. She laid it on the chair in front of the desk before folding down the corner of the sling so he could see the baby’s face. “Your daughter brings me here, Kade Lassiter.”
***
Kade was temporarily frozen in shock at the woman’s words. He wanted to reject them, but he found himself rising from his desk chair instead and moving around the furniture to get closer to the woman and the baby. “Let me hold her.”
The Dalton woman hesitated, clearly torn for a moment before she slipped the baby from the sling carefully, handing over the tiny bundle.
Kade could hold her in one hand, though he used a second one to support her. She was tiny and nearly lifeless, and a dart of concern shot through him. He brought her closer to his face, inhaling her scent from the crown of her head, and his bear rumbled inside him. She was theirs. She smelled like them. This baby was his daughter, and Lila hadn’t ever bothered to tell him she was pregnant. His bear roared, and it took all of Kade’s control to keep from surrendering to the urge to growl at the other woman standing before him, to direct his sudden rage for Lila toward her instead. “You’ve brought the baby. Now get off the island before the boat leaves.”
Her mouth dropped open, and her green eyes sparkled with dismay that turned to anger. “I’m not a delivery person dropping off your child. I’m in the process of adopting Aislinn, and I’m not going anywhere without her.”
“She’s mine, and I’ll take care of her. You can go now.”
The woman, who seemed small to him, though she was above-average height for a human woman, looked like she wanted to stomp her foot at him. She was clearly enraged, and though it should have provoked his temper, it simply brought a surge of amusement instead. He was quick to smother it, along with ignoring his bear’s interest in the woman before him. After Lila, he had no intention of getting involved with a woman again.
“I’m not leaving my niece. She’s sick, and I’m hoping your people can help her. Lila said you were into…strange things.” She looked discomfited as she said the words. “I’m not judging anything. I just hope you can help. The doctors at the Children’s Hospital in San Francisco have run out of ideas.”
He looked down again at his daughter, already feeling a strong bond forming with her. A surge of anger and dismay shot through him at the idea of the little one not making it. “What’s wrong with her?” For one thing, he could guess she wasn’t growing properly. She was tiny, and though she couldn’t be very old, she should have been larger than she was, especially with her shifter heritage.
“I’m not sure. She was born early, but really healthy. Aislinn weighed almost nine pounds, and she was alert, with good Apgar scores. For the first three or four days, everything was fine, though she lost weight, which is expected. The problem became obvious when she didn’t start regaining the weight. At first, she just maintained, but recently, she started to lose ounces that she can’t afford to lose. Her main pediatrician has diagnosed her with failure to thrive, and they did a genetic panel to determine if she has a genetic disorder, but everything came back normal.”
Kade stiffened slightly at that news, surprised everything had come back normal. There should have been markers or something about her DNA that alerted officials his daughter wasn’t quite human. He was relieved they hadn’t been able to detect her ursa sapien genes, but it was strange. “What have they done for her?”
The Dalton woman reeled off several things, her discouragement obvious as she reached the end of the list. “Nothing’s working. Even the high-calorie formula isn’t doing the trick.”
Kade nodded, having an inkling of what was wrong, but uncertain. “I want to take her to see my grandmother. Tula raised me, my father, and my six uncles. She might know what to do.” He wasn’t asking permission, and she seemed to realize that.
She nodded. “We’re ready.”
He pushed back a surge of irritation, realizing he was stuck with her, at least temporarily. He still had every intention of sending her on her way and keeping Aislinn, but now wasn’t the time to argue about that. First, they had to focus on the baby.
Chapter Two
Kade led her to a small cabin at the end of the street, set a few hundred feet off the main road. She followed behind him, trying not to feel resentful that he hadn’t returned Aislinn to her arms. She had to be sensitive and allow him time to adjust to the news that he was a father, and she should be happy that he was interested in the baby and wanted to hold her, but it left her feeling threatened instead.
The adoption was nowhere near final, though Lila had already signed the papers relinquishing her claim. Since Lila had put “unknown” for the father on the birth certificate, it should have been a smooth process, but now she had introduced Kade into the equation. It was the right thing to do, and it always had been, but when she was holding her niece, whom she planned to make her daughter, it was easy to forget the right thing and overlook Lila’s lies on the legal forms. Now, she had a feeling it wouldn’t be as easy as she had anticipated to adopt her niece.
A surge of dread filled her, sending a pang through her chest as she imagined how it would be to go back to her apartment in San Francisco alone. If Kade decided to keep the baby, he would likely be in a much stronger legal position than she was, since he was the biological father, and he had been denied knowledge of her existence until now.
Realizing she was mentally covering the same ground she had traversed before deciding she had no choice but to bring Aislinn to her father’s people, she shoved aside her concern for the time being and focused on Kade and Aislinn as they stepped into the cabin. She closed the door behind them before following him across the main room. The walls were rustic log, and it was on the primitive side, but certainly homey. “Your grandmother lives here?”
He nodded. “With me. And now Aislinn.”
She let out a ragged sigh, wanting to snap at him that she hardly needed the reminder that he planned to keep the baby, but decided to let it go. There
were more important things to focus on at the moment.
A second later, an older woman shuffled out of the hallway and into the main room. She was tall and solidly built, with a feminized version of Kade’s face, framed by steel-gray hair shot through with the occasional silver. She seemed to be stern, but then a gleam appeared in her eyes when she took in Kade holding the baby. “What’s all this?” The tone of voice was no-nonsense, but there was nothing unfriendly or cold about her words.
“This is Aislinn,” said Kade as he lifted the baby so his grandmother could see her. “She’s my daughter.”
Tula took the news well, her expression not betraying even a flicker of interest or surprise. “I see. She’s a scrawny little thing, isn’t she?” It was a rhetorical question, but her gaze homed in on Shayla’s, and the first hint of disapproval appeared. “I guess you’ve been the caretaker, so what have you done to the baby?”
“Grandma,” said Kade with a hint of warning. “She hasn’t done anything besides bring Aislinn to us when the baby got sick. Be nice.”
The old woman harrumphed. “It’s hard to be nice when she’s clearly related to that Lila woman. They have the same wavy auburn hair and green eyes, although this one’s a lot prettier. And obviously kinder,” she added in a slightly grudging manner, though her eyes twinkled.
Shayla started with surprise at that news. She had always considered Lila the pretty one. Her sister was tall and model-thin, and her hair naturally took to pre-Raphaelite type curls. She had a golden complexion, and natural sexual magnetism that seemed to draw every man in a fifty-mile radius.
Shayla was on the curvy side, a few inches shorter, and she didn’t have a golden complexion. Hers was creamy, but she always thought it made her look vaguely vampire-like. Her hair was a wavy, frizzy rat’s nest unless she spent hours taming it with styling products and tools, and she usually didn’t bother with all that. Clearly, Tula must be sight-impaired.
“The baby isn’t gaining weight.”
At Kade’s words, Tula looked at her. Her expression was neutral, and her voice was politer. “What have you been feeding the poor thing?”
“Formula, since breastmilk wasn’t an option.” She hadn’t even broached the subject of Lila pumping breastmilk for the baby, knowing her sister would have soundly rejected the idea. She wanted to forget Aislinn had ever existed, and she had been eager to sever all ties with the child, so she wouldn’t have been open to providing breastmilk for even the first few months.
The old lady made a scoffing sound. “Our kind can’t make it on human formula.”
Shayla’s brow rose of its own accord, and it hovered on the tip of her tongue to ask what the old woman meant, but she held back the urge. She told herself it was because she didn’t want to distract Tula from focusing on Aislinn, but she also acknowledged that a strong part of it was she didn’t even want to know herself.
There was something different about Kade and his people, and she was content not to know what that was, at least for the time being. Whatever it was, it had scarred Lila, making her turn her back on her own child, so Shayla was in no hurry to find out any truths, if they existed.
She followed behind Kade and Tula, having nothing else to do, as they went into the kitchen, and the old woman opened the refrigerator. She watched with interest and a hint of dismay as Tula removed a chunk of salmon and several blueberries from the refrigerator. Her brow quirked as she saw the old woman put it in a food processor, producing a pinkish blue paste within a few minutes. As Tula scraped it into a bowl and selected a tiny teaspoon from a drawer, she realized the old lady planned to feed it to her niece. She opened her mouth to protest. “Aislinn’s only seven weeks old. She can’t possibly eat that.”
Tula waved a hand in her direction, not looking up from the task she was completing. “Your kind couldn’t handle it, but ours can.”
She could either push for an explanation she didn’t want, or she could subside into silence. The idea of feeding a seven-week-old baby salmon and berries didn’t sit well with her, but at this point, she supposed it could do no harm. And if it helped, she’d be in line giving daily feedings herself.
Since the pediatrician could offer no hope or solution, what other option was there? She had come here with the intention of finding an answer, and perhaps Tula had it. She had to trust the old woman enough to let her try.
Since they lacked a highchair, and Aislinn couldn’t sit up anyway, Shayla watched with amusement as Kade sat at the kitchen table, arranging the baby in his hands, with one hand supporting the back of her neck, and the other keeping her in a semi-upright position. Tula spooned up a bite of the salmon berry paste, bringing it to the baby’s lips.
Shayla expected her niece to grimace or try to turn her head, but instead, the baby’s nostrils flared, and her mouth opened with more enthusiasm than she had displayed for days. The bite disappeared between her lips, and not a bit dripped out. There was slobber, but no food. Her niece had almost inhaled the salmon paste.
Feeling strangely boneless, Shayla collapsed into the nearest chair and watched the infant devour at least two ounces of the salmon and berries. It was like her niece was starving and had finally been offered real food. Was that what it really was? Had she been slowly starving on the human formula, because something was missing from it? And why was Shayla suddenly calling it human formula too? It wasn’t like her niece had been given goat formula or kitten formula. She’d been given human formula, because she was human.
But what if she wasn’t completely human?
Shayla quickly stifled that thought before it could lead her somewhere she didn’t want to go. Instead, she blinked her mind as much as possible and simply enjoyed the sight of Aislinn responding again and starting to move in random ways. Her arms were waving, and there was already more color in her cheeks.
For the first time in more than two weeks, Shayla felt optimistic about her niece’s chances. Ever since the doctor had delivered the dour news that he couldn’t discover what was wrong with the baby, and nothing seemed to be working to help her, she had been bracing herself for the inevitable moment when Aislinn just slipped away. Now, thanks to the Lassiters, the baby had a chance again.
It filled her heart with warmth, even as the thought nibbled at the back of her mind that she could still lose Aislinn—not to illness, but to the baby’s biological father. It was obvious he was already bonding with her, and he would probably be reluctant to let Aislinn go.
She couldn’t think about that now. Instead, she just had to focus on the moment and ensuring Aislinn regained health.
***
Shayla was having a difficult time sleeping, mostly due to the absence of Aislinn, who hadn’t been more than a few feet from her since the day she was born. Earlier in the evening, Kade had taken Aislinn with him to his room, giving her no chance to protest.
She guessed she was lucky to be in the same house as her niece, and she doubted she would have been if it hadn’t been for Tula’s hospitality. The old woman had shown her to a small bedroom at the back of the cabin, and it appeared it had once been a closet converted to a guest space. It was tiny, but it accommodated her needs for the time being. She would have slept leaning against the corner of one of the rough log walls if required in order to stay with Aislinn.
She was awake and alert instantly when she heard footsteps in the hallway. Judging from the impact, it was probably Kade. A quick glance at her watch revealed it was roughly around the time Aislinn would have her two a.m. feeding, though the baby wasn’t on a rigid schedule. She could have turned over and tried to go back to sleep, allowing Kade to get the full introduction to parenthood as quickly as possible, and as roughly too, but she missed the baby. That was absolutely the only reason she got out of bed, slipped on her shoes, and padded down the hallway to follow them after opening the door to her room with a tiny squeal of the hinges. It had nothing to do with Kade himself.
She found them in the kitchen, and her lips quirked with am
usement as she watched Kade trying to balance Aislinn in one hand while measuring out scoops of formula into a bottle with the other. She’d had lots of practice with the maneuver, but it was still foreign to Kade. She couldn’t help a small giggle when he misjudged where to put the scoop, and white powder cascaded down the side of the bottle, leading him to curse.
At the sound of her laugh, he whipped around, scoop and formula in one hand and the baby in the other. He was instantly alert, but it was such an incongruous sight that she couldn’t help another giggle. He scowled at her. “I’m happy to be a source of amusement for you.”
She forced away any signs of glee as she moved across the kitchen toward them. “Here.” Shayla wiggled her fingers. “I can make the bottle.”
“I need to learn how to do it,” he said gruffly.
She let out a long sigh before holding out her hands. “Fine, then let me take Aislinn while you make the bottle.”
With obvious reluctance, he handed over the infant before turning to the task of mixing her formula.
Shayla frowned slightly, surprised that Aislinn felt a little heavier than she had earlier. Could she have already gained weight in the last few hours? It seemed unlikely, but she decided not to question it too closely. It was a good thing if her niece had gained some weight, because the baby desperately needed it.
After moving to the kitchen table and sitting in a chair, she examined her niece, feeling like she hadn’t seen her for days instead of a few hours. She was encouraged to see a bright gleam in Aislinn’s eyes, along with more animation in her expression than she had shown for several days. She still had the hollowed-cheek look, but the dark circles under her eyes had faded significantly already. Aislinn was clearly thriving here already.