Raven’s Instinct (A Day Care for Shifters #6)

32. Alan

32

ALAN

A lan didn’t need a shred of supernatural ability, instinct, or the lingering connection from the totem to know that something was deeply wrong. Kendra went white as a sheet, her pupils dilating as she listened to the person at the other end of the line.

He wasn’t sure if he accidentally squeezed Amy, or if Amy was independently aware of Kendra’s distress, but she cried, “MAMA!” and tried to struggle out of Alan’s arms.

Kendra hung up the phone without answering and then stared at it for a moment before she dropped it into the trash can.

“Kendra? What is it? Kendra?”

She staggered back to the gate. “It’s Charlie. He wants custody. He could get it. I live in a van. I lied on my application to Tiny Paws. I can be at the Canadian border in six hours. He couldn’t stop me. I could probably find under the table work on one of the big Alberta cattle farms. I shouldn’t be telling you this. You can’t be culpable.”

“Kendra, you’re panicking. There’s no way that Charlie could get custody now. You’ve been Amy’s sole provider for two and a half years. He knew you were pregnant. There has to be a sunset clause on paternal rights.”

“Six months,” Kendra said. She had probably done all of the research herself the moment she left. “But he can claim I ran out on him without telling him and demand a paternity test. It would be a he said, she said. And I don’t look like a good mom.”

“You don’t look like a good mom. You look like a great mom.”

“My daughter spontaneously turns into an owl. I cannot let child services shadow me to make sure. They’re going to say my rig is unsafe. They’re going to say I’m unfit.”

“We’ve got a whole department for this,” Alan told her, juggling an increasingly agitated Amy as he tried to get Kendra calmed and rational again. “I can get you any legal help you need. They’d be shifters, who would understand your complications.”

“You don’t understand these complications!” Kendra shouted. “You don’t have kids and you can’t understand them at all!”

Alan flinched, glancing back into the playroom. Tara and Franzi were both staring at them with wide eyes. The rest of the remaining children—there were only a few left—seemed unconcerned. Addison, sitting with one of the babies in the rocking chair, met his gaze with worry and gave him one of her half-shrugs that meant she was asking if she needed to intervene. Alan was surprised how much unspoken vocabulary he had picked up with the rest of the staff.

He really did belong here. And Kendra belonged here, with Amy.

“Mama!!”

“I don’t have kids,” Alan said patiently, waving Addison off. “But I know that you’re running scared and I don’t want you to do anything reckless. If you bolt, you’re giving them a case. You have nothing to fear. He can absolutely not cut you out of her life.”

“But could he get shared custody?” Kendra asked fiercely. “Would I have to give him half of Amy’s time like he had any part in making her beside a genetic donation?”

“I don’t know,” Alan had to admit. “I don’t know how the law works in this area, but I have friends who do, who can give you good advice, before you fly off the handle and muddy the waters.”

Kendra was breathing hard, like she had just run laps. “I don’t know what to do,” she confessed.

“MAMA!” Amy hollered, and she stepped up her struggle with Alan until he vaulted over the gate so that he could gather Kendra into his arms, crushing Amy between them. This satisfied the little girl, and she giggled happily and patted his face. “Papa.”

Kendra burst into tears.