“As long as he didn’t get pictures, no one will ever believe him. And with the things they can do with photo manipulation, no one would believe him anyway.”
I heaved a sigh of relief. I didn’t want to admit how much my instant, furious reaction had been worrying me.
“Okay,” I said. “If that little incident didn’t send him screaming into the wilderness, I will consider the possibility that someone like Shane Wills the grad student might be helpful as we attempt to raise up to eight snake shifter babies.”
“There’s no we in this. I’m merely the supportive whatever, remember?”
“Yeah, yeah. Sure you are.” I reached my hand over to run it along the side of his face. “So what are you doing out here, anyway? Not that I’m not glad to see you, but I thought you were on duty all weekend at the hospital.”
“One of the other ER doctors had a request in to see if anyone could switch out for a different weekend next month—I thought I’d take him up on it and come see how you girls are doing.”
Yeah, right. Supportive whatever, my ass.
“I’m glad you’re here,” I said aloud. “But you may have come out here for nothing. Dr. Jimson wanted me to bring Serena back in if she shifted. I should probably go do that now.”
“Why don’t you let me drive the two of you back into town?” Kade asked.
“But my car is out here.”
He shrugged. “Maybe we could come out again tonight and shift.” He looked at me with raised eyebrows. All too often, our shifting time spent together ended up with us back in our human forms having wild, passionate sex in the dirt.
“I think that sounds like an absolutely perfect idea,” I said. “Let’s go.”
He gathered up all the baby gear, and as we went down the stairs, I asked him, “Why are you so good with infants?”
“I have seven siblings of my own,” he pointed out. “I’ve been surrounded by cousins, siblings, nieces, nephews—there have been children around me all my life. “
“Until you moved to Texas,” I said, realizing something for the first time. “Did you move here to get away from your enormous family?”
We moved outside, and Kade deposited all of Serena’s equipment in the back of his truck.
“Not so much to get away from them,” he said as he opened the door to my backseat and began expertly unstrapping the baby seat. “More like get away from the constant surveillance that came with them.”
I nodded as if I actually understood what it might be like to have an enormous extended family.
Of course, with all the children who were likely to be coming into my life, it looked like I might be on deck to find out.
“Okay, we’re ready to go. Give her to me.”
When Kade gotten her settled into the baby seat, all strapped in and ready to go, she looked unbelievably tiny and frail. “What if she shifts back on the way into town?” I asked.
“Well, better a snake in the baby seat than a baby in the snake cage, I suppose.”
“What do shifter parents do?”
Cage shrugged. “Probably the same thing human parents do. Improvise a lot.”
I shook my head. “Okay. Let’s go.”
I had just stepped up on the truck’s running board when the door of the herpetarium opened, and Shane strode out.
He froze at the sight of me, but only for an instant. He drew in a bracing breath, then kept walking toward me.
Kade watched him, his head tilted in a way that made me think of his golden furred mongoose form, alert and listening, with one ear canted to catch anything that might come its direction.
Shane gave a respectful nod to Kade, but his attention was focused on me. “Can I talk to you for a minute before you leave, Lindi?” he asked, his tone diffident.
“Okay.” I stepped down, back onto the ground, and moved around to the front of the truck, where I stood with my arms crossed over my chest defensively. “I’m going to get the air conditioner running to keep Serena cool,” Kade said, and tactfully moved into the cab of the truck, where he could sit and watch without actually listening in on us—or at least that would be true if he were human. As a mongoose, his hearing was keen. He wouldn’t be missing anything.
I walked away from the running engine, closer to the herpetarium door. “What do you need?” I asked, trying to keep my voice neutral.
Shane looked over his shoulder toward Kade, as if trying to make sure he couldn’t overhear.
“Kade knows everything,” I said, careful not to give away Kade’s own shifter secret.
“Of course he does,” Shane murmured, before glancing up to gaze into my eyes. “Whatever it was that I saw,” he began, “whatever it is that you and the... baby?... juvenile?”
“Infant,” I supplied.
He nodded. “Okay. Infant. Whatever it the two of you are, I’m not going to do anything to hurt you. I am a scientist, but I’m not looking to get myself ostracized from the scientific community. I know that I would be a complete laughingstock. Treated like some cryptozoologist. I don’t want that, not at all. I do not want to ruin my career any more than you want me to ruin your life by outing you.”
I focused my narrowed gaze on him. My human senses couldn’t tell me much, so I allowed my eyes to shift, and my tongue. I flicked my tongue toward him to gather his scent and analyze it. I expected him to recoil, but he stood and watched me impassively. And not with the impassivity of a man fighting to avoid responding, but with the calm assuredness of one who had no fear at all.
This man was used to dealing with snakes. Apparently, one snake woman and her snake child didn’t faze him at all.
I tasted no deception on the air. There was a slight musk of human sweat, but it was the kind that came from work, not fear. Everything about him radiated honesty.
I let my senses shift back to human and nodded. “I appreciate that,” I said, stepping back toward the truck. I had gotten several feet away when Shane called out after me.
“Your father says that the baby’s a foster child, that she isn’t yours?”
“That’s true.” I sounded almost as wary as I felt.
“Then there are more of you? A lot?”
“Not anymore.”
Chapter 19
DR. JIMSON WAS DELIGHTED to see us back with Serena so soon. “That took even less time than I expected.”
“What does that mean about her stay here?” I asked. “Will she be able to come home soon?”
He pursed his lips judiciously. “Perhaps. We need to watch her in her human state for a little while, make sure she doesn’t have any troubles. She didn’t have any problems eating? The bottle didn’t confuse her?”
“I don’t think so.” I gestured toward Kade, who stepped in and took over the conversation easily.
“None at all,” he said. “She didn’t try to bite it or swallow it whole or have any of the typical shifter issues switching from one infant feeding form to the other.”
“Excellent.” The doctor beamed at Serena. “I can’t say for certain, of course, but I think you should probably be able to take her home sometime next week.”