Page 7 of Brazen

He looked up at me and giggled. “There’s no bird poop inside!”

“Mouse poop?”

“Mouses are afraid of high places.”

I sighed. “You’re probably right. But I meant we have to be careful showing people how amazingly fast and fearless you are.”

He cocked his head, the bubbles not even tipping off his wet hair. It was like a dollop of meringue.

“I can’t help being so fast.”

“I know. It’s tough being so incredible, isn’t it?” I slid to my knees and rested my forearms on the edge of the old tub.

“I don’t climb to the top of the jungle gym at school even though I want to because I’m nice and don’t want to make the other kids feel bad. Bobby Sanchez and I like the swings better.”

“That sounds fun.”

“Mommy?”

“Yeah?” I reached for the shampoo bottle.

“How come I’m so ‘credible? I mean, Remy in my class is pretty ‘credible, too. She smells special. Like cookies Miss Edna makes. But she says she doesn’t like to climb things. She likes to paint pots.”

“Pots?”

He nodded. “Yeah, her mommy makes things with clay, just like in art class!”

He’d only been in school in Cooper Valley a few weeks, but he had settled in well. I’d hated to take him away from California, but the job here opened up. Fortunately, he mentioned different boys and girls all the time.

“That sounds fun. But you’re incredible because…”

I trailed off. Someday, I was going to have to tell him his father was a wolf shifter and that he probably was one, too.

But not today. Even though he was showing more and more shifter abilities, I couldn’t tell him he was part wolf. Or he had one in him. Or… I had no idea what it was exactly because I didn’t understand it myself. I didn’t have anyone to ask.

I wanted him to be normal or whatever JT’s normal was. But if he was seen doing something crazy at school? I wasn’t sure how I’d explain it.

Ted, my ex and JT’s father, had made a huge deal about nobody knowing about his kind. I definitely wasn’t supposed to know, so he’d sworn me to secrecy. He’d said if it got out, his kind would be hunted and either captured for study or killed. Supposedly, that had happened in various times of human history.

I had to protect JT from that because that scared the shit out of me.

I didn’t know enough about what it meant to raise a shifter, let alone a half-shifter, because I wasn’t one. Having JT toss tires and climb rafters, that was doable. Kinda. But what came next? What if it wasn’t something I could control? Like hitting the ball too hard at T-ball? What if he turned into a wolf? JT would have more and more questions that I couldn’t answer.

But I’d be damned if I ever called Ted for answers.

He didn’t know about JT, and that was the way I intended to keep it. He’d made it perfectly plain to me when he ended things that humans didn’t belong in his world. The motherfucker said he’d found his “fated mate” or some bullshit like that as the reason for dumping me. Basically, he wanted a she-wolf and not a human.

He’d probably thought he was being kind when he gently explained that we were never meant to be long-term. That he couldn’t have children with a human because it would dilute the bloodline, and the children–or as he called them pups–might never shift.

I’d had guys dump me in the past, but this? This excuse was the craziest one of all.

That was the night I was going to tell him I was pregnant but didn’t in the end.

It was the night I left Indianapolis. Left my job as a mechanic on Ted’s IndyCar racing team.

I could’ve gone to work on any other crew. I had connections, but that would have kept me in the same circles as Ted since he was a team driver. It was a small community, and a pregnant woman on the pit crew would get noticed. Plus, I didn’t ever want to see him again.

Instead, I’d taken a sabbatical from pit crew work and moved to Costa Rica, where my dad had retired, to have the baby. But when JT was two, his nanny started freaking out over how fast his skinned knees healed, and she started talking. Pretty soon, everyone in Playa Hermosa had heard her telling stories about JT and wanted to see the miracle baby, so we left.