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Cool.
Shaking my head and pushing the thoughts away, I finish getting my son dressed. At four, Orlando is a bright, brilliant kid. He’s smart and happy and fun, and he’s feisty as hell. The school he’s going to is a special one for kids like him: shifter kids. It’s a place where he can feel safe and where nothing bad is going to happen if he accidentally shifts into his bear form. Everyone at the school is either a shifter or mated to one, so it’s a place I feel totally comfortable leaving him.
I load him up in the car and make the slow, winding drive down the mountains. Orlando and I have lived in my tiny little house pretty much his entire life. After I got pregnant, I realized I wasn’t going to just live with my parents and raise a kid. I knew that they’d let me, of course, but I didn’t want to be a burden. So, with the inheritance money my grandmother left me, I bought a little cabin in the mountains and the two of us have lived there ever since. My parents live close by in their own home.
Hell, even Cage’s mother was close until she passed away last month.
I glance in the rearview mirror at Orlando, making sure he’s okay. Even though he’ll never get the chance to know his dad, it makes me happy to know that he had a chance to get to know Cage’s mom. Betty was pleased as punch when I told her I was pregnant. I thought for sure she’d freak out and tell her son’s former girlfriend to get off her porch, but instead, she welcomed me into her home with loving arms and revealed to me that her son was a shifter and that chances were, my baby would be, too.
If I hadn’t had her guiding me, I don’t think I could have survived losing Cage.
Ten minutes later, I pull into Happiness Daycare. It’s not really a special or creative name, but something about it warms me inside.
“We’re here,” I tell Orlando.
“No.”
“Yep.”
“No.”
Whatever.
I turn off the engine, get out of the car, and grab his backpack from the trunk. Then I help Orlando out of the car. I squat down in front of him and look at my kid eye-to-eye. He looks so much like his daddy sometimes that it makes me ache.
It’s not that I wish Cage would come back for me.
It’s not that I’m sitting around, pining for something that was never meant to be.
Nope.
I’m totally not doing that at all.
“Hey, muffin,” I tell him.
“Mommy, I don’t want to go,” he says again. This time, his voice is lower, and my little guy looks really worried.
“It’s going to be okay,” I tell him. “It’s going to be fun, even. I promise.”
“How do you know?” He looks over at the building suspiciously, narrowing his eyes at it, and I choke back a little smile. I shouldn’t laugh at his nervousness, but he looks so cute when he wrinkles up his nose like that.
“Because I used to go to preschool,” I tell him. “Pretty much everyone does. And besides, there are other kids there.”
“Really?”
“Yep. And they’re like you,” I say, tapping him in the chest.
“Are they four?”
“There are three-year-olds and four-year-olds and even some five-year-olds, and they are all shifters.”
“Really?”
For the first time, he looks interested, and I realize that I should have led with that. Even though we toured the building, it was when there were no classes in session, so he hasn’t actually seen other kids in the building before.
“Yep. Let’s go.”
I take him inside and lead him up to the registration desk. I check in with the front desk before walking Orlando back to his classroom. We’ve toured the building before and he’s met his teacher, so we both know where to go. He’s just feeling pretty uncomfortable, which is normal, I’m sure. At least, I tell myself that it is.
