Chapter 3

3

S IX MONTHS LATER

"You were a hard man to track down, Mr. Kennedy. Did you know that we've been looking for you for nearly two years?"

Logan stared hard at the woman, trying to figure out how to politely explain that he didn't want to be found. She had tired, patient eyes as she sat behind her cluttered desk. She gestured to a seat that Logan didn't take.

"Look, this is a terrible mistake, Mrs. Gravis." He shouldn't have taken the call in the first place. He should have burned the phone that social services had called him on and changed his identity again.

He couldn't remember how the case worker had talked him into coming, let alone agreeing to meet his brother's daughter, and the drive had given him plenty of time to regret making the promise. "You said that she was with a foster family. She should stay with them. I'm no kind of dad. I didn't even know that Steven had died, or that he had a daughter. "

Logan suspected that Mrs. Gravis had gone through this conversation before, because she didn't seem surprised.

"A lot of people think that, Mr. Kennedy, but it's almost always for the best to place a child with their family. We're here to offer any support that you need."

"Doesn't she already have that support?" Logan asked desperately. "Isn't it better not to uproot her and just leave her where she is? How could it possibly be better to give her to an uncle she doesn't even know?"

Mrs. Gravis stood, and her eyes looked even more tired and patient as she rounded the desk. "We have a lot of kids in the foster system that need her space. Our budget is not infinite, and many of our foster homes are only temporary. Franzi's already been in several homes, and she needs stability, Mr. Kennedy."

"Logan," he corrected.

But it was worse when she called him that. "Logan, it's a miracle that we found you, and I know in my heart that you are the best possible guardian for your brother's little girl."

"What if I refuse?" Logan asked stubbornly. "I only agreed to meet her. I haven't signed anything."

"If you won't take her, we've also recently found contact information for her next nearest blood relative, Clancy Kennedy."

"No!" Logan answered before his brain had even caught up with him. He'd severed his relationship with Clancy six months earlier, wracked with guilt about fleecing Tabby Swiftwater. Conning arena owners and speculative billionaires was one thing, but Logan couldn't stomach the guilt of taking the life savings of someone whose only flaw was being gullible.

Their quarrel had escalated to a complete falling out, and Clancy had cut Logan out of his racket altogether. Had he found another horse shifter to do shell games with? Or someone to sell him? As a mixed blood pony, Clancy didn't have the same sales value as Logan, but there was still money to be made as a human-smart horse, and livestock sales weren't Clancy's only swindle. There was no way Clancy had gone straight, or that he ever would, even if he got saddled with a little kid.

"No," Logan said again. "Not Clancy."

There was a little glint of triumph in the case worker's eyes. "Let's go meet Frances."

Feeling like he'd just been taken for a ride, Logan reluctantly followed her out of the office and down the hall.

L ogan's first impression of Frances Kennedy was that she was much tinier than he was expecting.

She was barely larger than a doll, sitting on the edge of a couch with her legs hanging over. She wore a pair of pink overalls over a white shirt with short puffed sleeves, both of them slightly stained, and held a small plastic pitcher. The playroom was filled with well-used toys. A dated plastic kitchen overflowing with plastic food and mismatched dishes stood in one corner, and cluttered shelves of kids books ran under the windows. A miniature metal shopping cart missing one wheel listed to its side, filled with taped-shut cereal boxes and empty milk cartons.

The girl looked up hopefully at their entrance, dark hair bouncing in loose curls around blue eyes, but she waited in place rather than running to greet them.

Little filly! Logan's stallion said, nearly swooning.

Even from here, Logan could tell that she was a shifter, though there was no way of knowing if she was a horse. Probably she was, because Steven had been, and their father, as well. Magical instinct gave that particular little shiver of recognition that every shifter got when they met another of their kind, but it wasn't specific. Most kids began shifting at the age of two, which was right when her dad had died. Had the loss stunted her ability? Had she been able to keep her power a secret, or had this complicated her placement with foster families?

Logan eyed Mrs. Gravis cautiously, unsure of how much to say or what to ask. He could tell that the case worker wasn't a shifter, and shifting was secret, for good reason. He couldn't just come out and ask, ‘Oh, by the way, has she turned into a horse recently?'

"This is your uncle Logan," Mrs. Gravis introduced cheerfully. "Do you want to come say hi, Frances?"

Frances ducked her head and pulled her feet up underneath her on the couch.

"You don't have to," Logan said, coming slowly into the room. He kept his voice low and gentle. He might not know about kids, but he knew how to handle sketchy horses and shy animals. "I'm happy to meet you, Frances."

She seemed to relax a notch at that.

"Your uncle is going to take you home with him," the case worker said confidently, avoiding Logan's quick glance. He'd promised nothing of the sort, but he didn't want to argue about it in front of Frances.

Did Frances's shoulders sag in disappointment? Did she want to stay with the last family she'd been with? Steven had been dead for two years, how many foster families had she been through?

"Franzi," she mumbled.

"What?"

She repeated the word again, even softer.

"Is Franzi your name?" Logan asked, coming closer to hear and squatting down so he wouldn't be so tall and frightening.

She stared at him with big, sorrowful eyes and nodded.

"I'll call you Franzi," Logan promised. "That's a pretty name."

That won him a ghost of a smile.

How did you converse with a four-year-old? Should he mention her father and talk about when they were boys? Did she even remember Steven? "I like your pitcher," he said desperately.

"It's a TEApot," Franzi insisted. "For TEA."

"Of course," Logan agreed.

"I make tea!" Franzi slid fearlessly off the couch and dashed to the play kitchen, where she rattled things around rather alarmingly, opening and shutting cabinet doors. There was a fake microwave that gave a tired little chime when it was opened and closed, and that seemed to be a very necessary thing to do over and over.

Franzi kept up a string of chatter as she worked, but Logan could honestly not pick a single sentence out of it.

"I'll go get the papers together," Mrs. Gravis said, patting his shoulder.

Logan didn't stop her, but sank down to sit cross-legged on the floor as he watched Franzi and wondered what he had gotten himself into.

She was definitely older than a toddler, but not quite a kindergartener, Logan guessed. He knew that she was four, but didn't really understand what being four meant. Was she potty trained? Could she feed herself? Would she roll off a bed? Did Logan need a crib for her?

"I've got a place in Billings." Logan wished he hadn't left it quite such a mess. "Would you like to come see it and decide if you'd like to live there?"

Franzi stared at him so long that he started to wonder how much she'd actually understood. Then she jerked her chin down in a decisive nod and handed an empty plastic cup to Logan. "It's HOT," she warned.

Logan pretended to sip and handed it back.

"Drink more!" Franzi commanded, and she wouldn't take the cup until Logan fake-drank at least a gallon out of the two-ounce vessel. "All gone!" she announced, and she took the cup. "I make more!"

Mrs. Gravis came back while Franzi made the microwave beep at least a hundred times making a new cup of tea.

Logan signed the papers in a daze, and took possession of two old suitcases. "This is all she has?"

"She's lucky to have suitcases," Mrs. Gravis said tartly. "A lot of our kids have to transport their things in garbage bags, and can you imagine how that feels?"

"She must have had clothes from Steven…" Logan realized as he spoke that it had been two years since Franzi had a father, and she must have grown in that time. Did she even remember Steven?

"Do you have a car seat, Mr. Kennedy?"

Logan stared at her in horror. "I didn't even think of that. I should have thought of that."

"It's okay, Mr. Kennedy. We have some loaners here that I can check out to you. We'll send someone out to your house in a few days to make sure you have a safe environment for her, and if there's anything you need, we have some start-up supplies for you. Do you need food?"

"Play food," Logan blurted. "She seems to like the plastic stuff in the pretend kitchen, and I don't have anything like that."

"We get lots of that donated," Mrs. Gravis said kindly. "I'll find you a box."

"Yes," Logan said faintly. "That would be great."

L ogan hefted the car seat up into the passenger seat and strapped it into place, following the tiny, nearly indecipherable instructions on the side. By the time he had stumbled through the steps for cinching and leveling, he was alarmed to find that Frances wasn't at the side of the truck where he'd left her. He startled away from the truck in a blind panic to find her wandering out into the parking lot. "Wait, Frances! Franzi! You can't go out there! Come back, right now!"

For a terrible moment, Logan was afraid that she would defy him and run away because he'd yelled, and he wondered how it would look to have to chase her down and whether she would scream and cry and kick.

"Okay," she said mildly, trotting back. She seemed perfectly happy to have him lift her up and Logan was struck by how light she was. How could there be so much person in such a fragile package?

And how could she mean so much already?

Her arms clutched around his neck and for one brief moment, she rested her cheek against his. Logan felt like he'd lost his heart.

Our filly! his stallion sang. Our herd! Then, because he was insufferable, he had to add, I told you so.

Shut up, you glue factory reject, Logan retorted, setting Franzi carefully into the car seat and trying to figure out where all the limbs and straps went. It was more complicated than a race car harness. Fortunately, Franzi knew how to sort herself out, although she didn't have the hand strength to actually attach the buckle.

Conversing with a four-year-old proved to be exhausting.

Logan could only understand about half of what she said as they made the three hour drive. Some words she articulated perfectly and some seemed to be complete nonsense. She merrily babbled about things they drove past and played pretend games of "I'm a princess!" and "I'm a"—probably not a roadmap or a kettle of liver.

Logan might not be able to ask Mrs. Gravis about shifting, but he could ask Franzi. "Honey, are you…are you a horsey?"

It was the first thing that completely silenced her since they'd left social services and Logan risked taking his eyes off the road to look at her.

"Not SUPOZE to be a horsey," Franzi said stiffly, staring at her hands.

Maybe Steven had trained it into her to keep it a secret. Logan didn't want to risk disrupting what little trust they had developed, so he dropped the subject. "Look, there's a cow!"

Franzi craned her head to see, and after a few more miles, she was back to chattering.

Logan slowly realized he didn't have to understand everything and stopped asking her to repeat things. All he had to do was nod, agree, and laugh when she seemed to think something should be funny, letting her words drone into background noise as he wondered again what on earth he'd gotten into.

He didn't notice at first when she went silent, and then he glanced over and found that she'd fallen asleep sitting upright, her head tilted back and her mouth slightly open.

The final miles to his shabby apartment were strangely lonely.

Logan unpacked the truck while she continued to sleep, and after staring at her in consternation for a moment, he finally unbuckled her and got her out of the car seat without waking her .

She snuggled against him with a sigh and Logan felt his heart give a little twang.

Shut up, he told his stallion preemptively.

I didn't say anything, he snorted back. But I told you so.

Logan's bed was a wreck, so he settled Franzi on the couch and found a blanket to drape over her.

He was fussing unnecessarily, tucking in the corners, when there was a loud knock. Maybe one of his unsavory neighbors had seen him come in and was being nosy. Logan went to the door and yanked it open, planning to ask them to keep it down.

Instead, he stared, the words dying on his lips.

Tabby Swiftwater was standing in the apartment hall with her hands on her hips, as irresistible as ever. "I'm looking for Clancy Kennedy," she said furiously. "He sold me a stolen horse."