“Joseph,” he said, nodding toward the senior Nadel.
“Ken, I’d like to introduce our pod Alpha and my son, Emery, and his mate, Sean.”
Ken reached out without hesitation to shake hands with Emery and Sean. Emery introduced Sean’s parents, too. “Good to meet you all. Although I’m sorry it’s not under better circumstances. I’m Ken Oliver, Orange Pod Alpha. Please, come in, everyone.”
He closed and locked the front door after them, then led them through the building to a large private office. On the floor, with an older woman, sat the little girl on a blanket, playing with a toy car.
“And this is Isla,” Ken said. “My wife and mate, Holly.”
Holly smiled up at them. “Hi. Please forgive me for not getting up. I’m not as young as I used to be and I’d rather stay down here until I need to get up for good.”
Sean wasn’t sure if his dad had a death grip on his mom’s arm that kept her from sweeping in and scooping up the little girl, or she was just exercising extremely good self-restraint. But Ken walked over and knelt with only a slight wince next to the little girl. She smiled at him and held out a hand, which he took.
“Unca Ken,” she burbled.
He smiled, but it looked sad, as if he struggled to hold back tears. “I was best friends with Kelley’s father growing up. They named my wife and I Kelley’s godparents. When Isla was born, Kelley didn’t have any family other than her brother. So Kelley and William named us her godparents, too.”
He met Sean’s and Emery’s gazes. “I have nothing but the utmost respect for your father. My son is friends with Carter Hollingsworth. He’s the one who suggested this. He spoke very highly of all of you after…what happened a few months back.” He stood and motioned them to follow him to the other side of the spacious office, where they could talk without the little girl overhearing everything.
“No offense,” Emery said, his voice low, “and we’re not backing out, but why us?”
“My children all have children of their own, and plans for more, most of them. If Isla was older, I would have exhausted all avenues to place her with someone locally so as not to rip her totally from all she’s known.
“Frankly, her maternal uncle is an assh…A jerk.” He glanced at the girl as if hoping she hadn’t overheard him. “I strongly suspect the only reason he might want custody of her is because of the assets her parents leave behind. Kelley wasn’t on good terms with him, and William didn’t have any close family other than a few distant cousins. He was an only child, and his parents, uh…”
He glanced at Isla again and shook his head. “His parents were on vacation in December of 2004. Sri Lanka. They died in the tsunami when the hotel they were staying at collapsed. That’s why they were out swimming last night. William organizes a swim every Christmas in their memory. This year it was on Christmas Eve, because he had to travel for work Monday and wanted to spend the time with Kelley and Isla.” His expression grew sad and weary. “They were supposed to come to our house for Christmas dinner today.”
They all took a moment to watch the little girl before Ken continued. “I know that you and your family and your pod are more than adequately able to care for her, even without her parents’ resources, if it comes to that. As the named executor of their will, it is my prerogative to name alternate custodial parents for her. Also, it’s my prerogative to distribute the assets as I see fit. I might be forced to hand over their house or other monies to the uncle in exchange for getting him to agree to this arrangement without a fight. Hopefully, it won’t come to that. But we’re not overlooking any possibility right now.”
Sean and Emery both stared at the little girl. Sean wasn’t quite sure how to approach her.
Hey, I’m your daddy sounded flat wrong in his head.
Holly kindly smiled at them, as if sensing their unease, and waved them back over. “Come and sit down with her. I’ve been telling her about you both.”
Sean did first, sitting at the edge of the blanket. “Hi, Isla.”
She grinned at him.
In his life, he only had one other thing to which he could compare the emotions sweeping through him, and that was when he met Emery. This was similar to that, in a way, in terms of the force knocking him off his metaphorical feet.
The love he instantly felt for this little girl.
Their little girl.
Emery settled next to him. “Hello, Isla.”
The toddler bobbled forward onto her hands and pushed herself to her feet. Then she walked over to them, the car in one hand, her other fist jammed in her mouth, and offered the car to them.
“Isla,” Holly said, “this is Emery and Sean. They’re the ones we’ve been talking about. They’re going to be your new daddies. They’re very nice. They have a very large family who can’t wait to meet you.”
For the first time, a frown blew across the little girl’s face. She pulled her spit-covered fist from her mouth. “Mommy and Daddy gone to the Goddess.” She put the car in Emery’s lap.
“I know, sweetie,” Sean softly said. “I’m sorry.”
She sat between them and leaned over, her head in Sean’s lap. “Aunt Howwy said dat.”
He realized he’d quickly have to get good at deciphering Toddlerese. “I know.” It sounded lame to his ears, but he wasn’t sure what else to say. When he gently rested his hand on the little girl’s shoulder, she reached up with her spit-covered hand and grabbed it.
“I want Puppy.”
Sean didn’t know a dog was included in the deal and looked at Holly.
“Her stuffed puppy,” she clarified. “It’s at the house. We’ll take you there after we get all the paperwork done and we’ll help you gather her things.”
“Oh,” he said, feeling both relieved and a little bit like an asshole for feeling that way. “Okay.”
Isla turned faceup in his lap and nailed him with the full force of her grey gaze. Sure enough, she looked just like Emery in that way.
He suspected his mother was reaching the ends of her tether in terms of holding back. He carefully picked up the little girl so she was sitting in his lap. “Would you like to meet your new grandmothers and grandfathers?”
She popped the thumb from her other hand in her mouth and nodded.
He gave his mom credit for not shoving Emery out of the way and not ripping the little girl from his arms. Helen knelt on Sean’s other side and reached out to stroke the girl’s arm.
“I’m your Grandma Helen,” she said, tears in her eyes. “You can call me whatever you want.”
Isla eyed her for a moment. “Gwamma Hewen?”
Sean could never remember his mom looking so happy and so close to bawling at the same time. “Yes, Gwamma Hewen. And this is your Grandpa Sam. We’re Sean’s mommy and daddy.”
Isla’s gaze focused on Sam’s face, where he stood stooped over behind his wife.
Emery spoke up. “And this is Grandma Louise and Grandpa Joseph. They’re my parents.”
Isla turned to look at them, the thumb still firmly stuck in her mouth. Then she reached out her other hand, which was still a little damp from slobber from being crammed in her mouth earlier, and grabbed Emery’s hand. “Daddy.”
Emery nodded, Sean praying his mate didn’t start tearing up because he was close enough to the edge as it was.
Isla rested her head against Sean’s chest and let out a sigh. “Daddy,” she said again, this time directed at Sean.
“Yeah,” he softly said, glancing at Emery. “Although I guess that might get confusing.”
“We’ll worry about it later,” Emery said, his gaze focused on their daughter. “That’s the least of our concerns.”
Helen and Louise gladly took the men’s places while they hovered around the desk with Ken and the attorney to sign the paperwork.
“I should warn you,” Ken said with a wry smile, “she’s an extremely precocious little girl. Not just by shifter standards, either. I’ve never seen a dolphin shifter child as pr
ecocious as she is. Keep that in mind. She picks things up quickly. She tested off the charts last month in terms of intelligence.”
“So watch what we say around her?” Emery asked.
“Exactly. Kelley and William were considering bringing in a private tutor instead of taking her to a traditional preschool.”
The attorney had them go through the forms, Sean and Emery signing where they were told.
“I already made you all a reservation at the Hilton downtown,” Ken said. “Two connected suites with three bedrooms. We have a corporate account there, don’t worry. It’s taken care of for as long as you need them. We’ll get you checked in and then we can go over to the house.” He looked sad. “I haven’t been there yet. When we picked her up from my daughter, all we had was the bag they’d left with her for her stay for a few hours. My daughter fed her breakfast and we fed her lunch. She’ll be ready for dinner shortly, I’m sure.” He sighed. “We at least need to get you her essentials from the house until we can get the packing done.”
Sean felt even more glad that they had taken the truck, so they would have room for all Isla’s stuff in the back. “Does Isla’s uncle know what happened yet?”
Ken shook his head. “No. Very few people know, and they’ve all been instructed not to say anything to anyone.”
“What did happen? I mean, the details.” Sean couldn’t believe he’d just asked that in such a tactless manner, but he wanted to know.
Needed to know.
Needed to be one hundred percent sure Erik wasn’t behind it.
Ken sadly looked over at the little girl. “My youngest daughter was babysitting for them. She and several other women in the pod take turns babysitting for each other during hunts and swims when it’s not practical to take young children out. It’s too cold out there right now. The water’s not too bad for some of the younglings to tolerate shifted, but the air temps are too chilly to take the kids out in boats. It’s better to keep them on shore during winter swims.”
He scrubbed his face with his hands, looking even older. “They never came back. From what we know, they were swimming with some friends a few miles offshore, off Cocoa Beach. They were in deep water and hit a huge fish ball. By the time they finished with it nearly an hour later, no one saw what happened to Kelley and William. There were a couple of fishing trawlers out, but no one thought the boats had gotten close enough.”
He lowered his voice. “Their friends at first thought maybe they’d come in early because of Kelley not feeling good or something. But they never swam in. Their car and stuff were still there. After making a bunch of calls, I found out early this morning that a couple of dolphins were trapped and killed in a trawler’s nets, approximately in the same area. My only guess is that it’s them.”
“So you don’t even know for sure?” Sean asked.
“We’re ninety-nine percent sure. That’s why I haven’t told Kelley’s brother yet. That’s also why the hearing Monday morning is an emergency custody motion. We’ll finalize the adoption paperwork in a few weeks after I have a chance to find out how her brother will react. We have a friend who works at Sea World, head of their marine mammal stranding team. The bodies were sent there for a necropsy. Fortunately, he’s in charge of that. And since it’s a holiday, they’ll have a skeleton staff in the lab and it’ll make his job easier.”
He glanced at his cell phone. “In fact, I’m expecting a call from him any time now. He’ll be able to forge the test results to make it look like they were bio-dolphins, and will be able to confirm if they were shifters or not.”
“How?”
His expression turned grim. “Kelley was pregnant,” he whispered. “Four months along.”
Sean felt his stomach threatening to upend. “So…”
Ken nodded. “Exactly. He’s going to have them cremated and get the cremains sent to you to hold for Isla, in case she wants them in the future.”
“Of course,” Emery quietly said, his voice sounding hoarse and raspy.
Sean met his gaze, his hand seeking and finding Emery’s, fingers lacing together.
Emery squeezed.
Together, they turned and looked at their daughter. Both their mothers were already grandmothering the little girl, had her laughing and smiling and likely promising her the moon and stars.
Sean hoped that, at the very least, they’d be able to deliver stability and happiness to her life to make up for this rocky time and unfathomable loss.
Chapter Four
William and Kelley Shorlin owned a beautiful two-story home thirty minutes east of Orlando, in an exclusive gated country club community. Kelley was a CPA, and William was a structural engineer for a large firm in Orlando.
Had been.
Sean rode in the truck cab’s backseat, next to Isla in her car seat, as they all caravanned behind Ken to the home.
When Sean got Isla out of her car seat and stood her on the sidewalk, she raced up the front walk to the door and pounded on it with her tiny palm.
“I hope it doesn’t bother you that I might start crying,” Emery muttered to him.
“Only if it doesn’t bother you when I do it.”
Ken walked up behind her. “It’s okay, sweetheart, hold on.” He took out a key and unlocked the door. “I’ll open it.” He did, letting Isla race inside ahead of him as he paused by the alarm pad next to the door to disarm it with a small fob on the keychain.
He handed the keychain to Sean. “I don’t know what the actual code is, but the password for the alarm company if you set it off and they call is ‘flipper.’”
“Are you shitting me?” he asked before he realized he’d said it.
Ken sadly smiled. “You’d have to know Kelley. She has…had a great sense of humor.” That’s when Ken’s cell phone went off. He stepped into a room off the hallway and closed the door behind him to take the call.
Sean exchanged a glance with Emery and hurried into the darkened house. “Isla?” Sean called out.
They flipped on lights as they went, finally spotting her on her way up the stairs. Apparently, she’d scaled the baby gate at the bottom by herself. He stepped over it and hurried up after her, scooping her into his arms.
“Want Puppy,” she angrily said, reaching her arms toward the top of the stairs.
“Okay, sweetie. Hold on, we’ll find Puppy. Don’t worry.”
Emery was walking up behind him, everyone else gathering in the kitchen area and talking in low tones.
At the top of the stairs, Emery figured out how to open the baby gate there and let Sean pass without them having to climb over it. Sean put Isla down and she toddled down the hallway toward a bedroom. She tried to reach the light switch but couldn’t.
Emery flipped it on for her. She turned and headed straight for a child’s bed tucked into the corner, complete with safety rails on the side. Without hesitation she climbed onto the bed from the end and up to the head, where pillows and several stuffed animals lay.
She grabbed one, a black dog that looked like a Lab, and clutched it to her. “Puppy,” she said.
Then she burst into tears.
Emery and Sean exchanged a frantic look before hurrying over to the little girl and comforting her.
Behind them from the doorway, Holly gently tsked. “I suspected she’d get upset once back here,” she said. “She’s done incredibly well all day.”
Isla had ended up enfolded in Emery’s arms and clinging to her stuffed puppy. Sean stroked her hair. “What do we do?”
Holly crossed her arms over her chest. “Love her. That’s all you can do. Young children are very resilient. I’m sure in a few days she’ll be on her way back to her normal self once she gets to know you both and you get her settled in her new home.”
Sean suspected the woman knew more than she let on. He looked at her, and she nodded. “I was a school counselor for over thirty years,” she told him. “Elementary school. This is sort of my area of expertise. Kids, that is. If we were twenty years you
nger, we would have loved to have adopted her, but she needs parents who can keep up with her. It wouldn’t be fair to her for us to keep her.”
After a few minutes, Isla calmed down and started showing them around her room, telling them the names of her stuffed animals, and showing them her favorite clothes and toys. After awhile, her eyes began drooping.
Holly stepped forward. “I’ll stay with her up here. Why don’t you two go downstairs and talk to the others and figure out the next course of action. She’s going to need to eat before we let her fall asleep for the night.”
“Thanks,” Emery said.
They negotiated the stairs again and followed voices to the living room, where Sean stopped dead in the doorway. What he saw there threatened to rip his heart out.
The family’s Christmas tree, dark, with Isla’s gifts neatly stacked and unopened underneath.
“Oh, dude,” he whispered. In all the excitement, he’d forgotten it was Christmas, especially since they’d already had their family celebration.
“She never got to open them this morning,” Ken said. “I’m not sure how you want to handle that.” He coughed, and Sean suspected it was to cover the lump in his throat and how his voice threatened to break from emotion. “A lot of us didn’t celebrate Christmas today because we were out trying to find them.”
“The call you received,” Emery said. “Was that…”
Sean was glad he couldn’t finish the question. He didn’t want to hear it.
Knowing it was bad enough.
Ken somberly nodded.
“Fuck,” Sean whispered. After a moment of silence, he made his first parental decision. “Plug it in,” he choked out. “Someone, please, plug the damn thing in. It’s horrible all dark like that. Let’s get her down here to eat and open her gifts before she falls completely asleep.”
“I’ll go get her,” Emery said.
“Are you sure you want to do this now?” Ken asked.
Sean nodded. “Yeah. Let’s at least give her one happy memory today.” He walked over to the tree while his dad found the plug and got the lights turned on.