Chapter 6

6

T abby felt like an idiot, and at the same time, she was relieved to finally have answers.

When she had considered magic, maybe? as a possible explanation for Better Behave's disappearance, she had been thinking about witchcraft, not werewolves. (Werehorses?) Shapeshifting was nonsense, like love at first sight and free rides. Portals seemed more likely.

But now the world was upside down, and she'd just watched a little girl turn into a long-legged foal. It explained so much. Except…

"Why'd you do it? Why'd you screw me over?"

It was really hard to think of Logan as a jerk who would steal her entire life savings when he was cuddling a tearful little girl with trusting eyes. But the guilt in his face was unmistakable when he looked up over Franzi's curly head. He didn't try to deny his part, or excuse it.

"Money. You had it, we needed it."

Fury burned in Tabby's throat. "Did you think that maybe I needed it, too? Did you think that maybe I had a mortgage to pay, and bills and the bad end of a divorce that left me with even more debt than regret? I spent every fu—" Logan's niece was staring at her and Tabby swallowed the rest of what she was going to say. "You owe me a horse, Logan Kennedy."

Logan's arms tightened around Franzi.

He couldn't possibly think that Tabby meant her .

Tabby was stung that he might think she'd threaten a little kid. But blackmail was a thing, and Tabby should know. "I'm sure that child services would love to know about your checkered past," she said firmly. "I've got a dossier on you and your cousin that cost me a pretty penny. I still need a high-end horse. I have a bill of sale for you, and I expect to get my money's worth out of you, Mr. Kennedy."

Logan blinked at her in confusion. "You want me…to be a horse for you?"

"That's what I bought," Tabby said firmly. "I don't have any use for you as a man, but I have plenty of need for a good horse." She recognized the fib as she said it; she could think of several uses for Logan in human form, but she blustered on with a stream of consciousness as the idea occurred to her. "I have an empty place above the barn that's finished. You can do some basic labor around the ranch and help me fix up the outbuildings, and I'll let you live there in exchange for that. No stipend for your expenses and utilities aren't included, you're on your own for food and childcare and power. You can pay off your rather large outstanding debt by being what I bought in the first place."

Franzi was getting restless in Logan's arms and he released her. She seemed to have forgotten her earlier terror, and went to poke through the boxes of toy dishes and food that Tabby had scattered. She righted the boxes and busily started setting up a kitchen .

"You can't prove anything," Logan said smoothly, getting to his feet. "No one is going to believe that I can shapeshift into a horse if you tell them."

"I imagine that there are people out there who would be very interested in my story, and that you wouldn't love to suddenly be the center of their attention," Tabby bluffed, standing as well. Who would she tell? Cryptid-hunters? There were some popular video channels on the topic, like Molly Flash . She'd always figured they were impossible fantasies created by people trying to make a buck by being sensationalist.

Now she wasn't so sure. She pressed on before Logan could respond. "Maybe you can keep your secret, but I bet that's a lot harder now that you have a four-year-old. Do you want to always be watching over your shoulder, wondering when the press will descend, or would you like to raise your niece on a nice ranch just outside of Nickel City where an extra horse or two won't be noticed?"

"Tea?" Franzi tugged at Logan's arm and directed him to the couch where he obediently sat.

"I'd love a cup of tea, kitten," he said dazedly. Franzi skipped back to her makeshift kitchen and poured a cup of invisible liquid into a plastic flowered teacup. Tabby took a seat in the battered recliner. It seemed like the kind of chair you shouldn't ever look at with a blacklight but Tabby's knees were still shaking with shock and she didn't want to look weak by collapsing when they gave out.

"HOT!" Franzi cautioned. "Hot!" She blew on the plastic cup dramatically and handed it gingerly to Logan, who made a show of carefully taking it and pretending to drink.

A second cup came cautiously to Tabby. Unwilling to be outdone, Tabby took it with profuse gratitude and tasted it. "Hot!" she agreed. "Delicious. Can I have more sugar?"

Franzi gave a delighted giggle and nodded, dashing off with the cup to scoop pretend sweetener into it.

"Perfect," Tabby declared. "Now about our agreement…"

Logan met her eyes over his plastic cup and his gaze flickered between Franzi and Tabby.

Tabby was wise enough to know that if circumstances had been just a little different, he would be gone. By the time she came back with authorities—even assuming she could come up with a story to tell them—he would be long gone, under an assumed name in another state. It had taken her six months and a really expensive private investigator to track him this far, and if it weren't for Franzi, Logan would be on the run again, covering his tracks even better than before. But she had something he wanted—a place to raise a filly-shifting girl in safety.

"What exactly do you want me to do?" Logan asked. He gave his cup back to Franzi, who was bouncing in place as she waited. "All gone!" He leaned forward a little and gave Tabby an artfully smoldering look. "Does it have to be as a horse? I have other talents that could be…exploited."

Tabby wasn't immune to his dashing good looks or the intensity of his attention, but she only scowled at him. "Maybe we should go back to the original plan where you were going to be gelded."

Logan drew back and made a show of crossing his legs.

Tabby wondered how much she ought to explain. "I board and train horses and teach lessons at my ranch, but I...I recently had to start over from scratch. I bought you as my personal horse to qualify in jumping shows in order to build my branding and attract new clients. No one hires a trainer if they don't have a horse to show off. "

Logan chuckled. Franzi shyly brought him another imaginary cup of tea and he gamely pretended to drink it. "It's a good thing this isn't real tea," he whispered to Tabby when the little girl had collected the second "all gone!" cup and gone back to the makeshift kitchen to make a new pot.

"Would you be peeing like a racehorse ?" Tabby whispered back. She worried at once that she was too crude, but she was still high on adrenaline and punch drunk on pretend tea. She was also fully aware of exactly how hot Logan was, even without the added glamor of being a magical shapeshifter.

Fortunately, Franzi seemed oblivious to any tension between them, and she was content to continuously refill their cups, even as the novelty of the game ran thin for the grownups.

"Tell me more about shapeshifting," Tabby demanded as she pretend-drank her fourth cup. "Is it a phase of the moon thing? If you bite me, will I turn into a pony?" Oh no, now she was thinking about Logan biting her, and it wasn't an unpleasant idea. Tabby hoped that her flush wasn't obvious. "I mean, I'm guessing it's genetic. Was your mother a horse?" It came out sounding more insulting than she meant because she was flustered.

"My father was," Logan said. "A warmblood, like me. My mother was a circus trick-rider."

"Something I imagine was easier with a shapeshifter horse husband," Tabby observed, sipping more imaginary tea.

Franzi scolded her. "It's HOT! You have to ask for sugar!"

Tabby went through the song and dance of blowing on her tea and getting a scoop of sugar.

"You can't catch shifting through bites," Logan assured her .

Tabby felt a stab of disappointment, and she wasn't sure if it was because Logan wasn't offering to nibble her, or because this wasn't a chance for her to suddenly be a— "What do you call yourselves? Werehorses?"

"Shifters," Logan explained. "We're shifters."

"Are there a lot of you? Are you all horses?"

"HOT!" Franzi told Logan, giving him a cup and waiting for him to blow on it and drink it down.

"Not a lot, no. We recognize each other when we meet, sort of a magical tingle that's part of our instinct, and I'll meet…maybe another shifter every week or month, depending on how many crowds I'm in. It's a numbers game. Depends on the density of humans."

Tabby tried to figure out how many people she met in a week. Not that many, working long hours every day on her ranch. She didn't get out much, and usually preferred horse company to human anyway.

"We aren't all horses," Logan went on. "You find all kinds, but it's impolite to ask, so I'm not really sure what's out there. I knew a guy who was a bear, and…ah…dated an otter shifter once." He patiently gave the cup back to Franzi and ruffled her hair.

Tabby told herself she was jealous of the otter shifter for being magical, not for dating Logan. Logan had probably dated scads of women, and maybe even a few guys, and she didn't care a bit.

Franzi's next delivery came with plates of plastic food, which Tabby gamely play-ate while she tried to figure out what else to ask. "I'd ask if you have references, but I already know all of them," she said thoughtfully.

"How did you find me?" Logan asked. "I thought we were—I was—better at covering my tracks."

"I hired a private investigator. I guess that people who make fake IDs have a price, if you know who to pay. I also asked around at the police department with both of your names and all the ones I found for Clancy."

"Shi—oh, heck, that's probably how child services finally tracked me down."

"Sorry," Tabby said sheepishly. She reminded herself that she shouldn't feel bad for ruining his life after what he'd done to her.

"I'm not."

"Not what?"

"Sorry."

Logan was looking tenderly at Franzi, who had taken the plates back to the table where one of the boxes had been designated a sink and was merrily washing all the dishes.

Tabby didn't know much about kids, but she thought that Logan was doing a pretty amazing job of being a brand new dad, and it was embarrassing how much that affected her. She swore she wouldn't be soft for a sob story, but Logan didn't seem to be trying to use it for leverage.

"So, what are you going to do?"

"I'd been thinking about getting certified as a mechanic anyway," Logan admitted, and he looked adorably abashed. "Maybe it's time I settled down and did that. Your place is an easy commute from Nickel City, which ought to be big enough to have an apprenticeship available. I could do that during weekdays and help you out on the weekends. I just…don't know what to do with Franzi."

"Isn't there a day care for shifters or something?" Tabby suggested.

"No, of course not," Logan scoffed. "There's no such thing."