Page 8 of York

My mouth opened and closed twice before I could find my next words. “How could she? When I didn’t even know you? She thinks we’re here to see a friend. I wasn’t about to tell her you’re her father if you were going to be a dick and slam the door in my face.”

“She’s never asked about me?”

“Not really. She hasn’t had a lot of time around other people’s fathers, so she hasn’t had a reason to ask yet.” She would be starting school soon—if I could get us the normal life she deserved. I had no doubt that other kids would get her to start thinking about that.

“Why now?” he asked.

“Because I finally got someone to tell me where you might be.”

“You’ve been looking?”

“I had feelers out.”

His gaze slid to the car again.

I couldn’t parse the look in his eyes, but I was at least pretty sure it wasn’t rage. That was the only reaction I’d been concerned about. I could understand confusion, disappointment, being upset, or even fearful. All of those seemed like healthy reactions to me. I’d gone through all those emotions myself when I found out.

I wish I could have come to him alone, had a sit-down, hashed all the details out. But there was no one to watch Denali.

“I get you need to process this. Do you maybe want to meet tomorrow?” I asked. His gaze cut back. “Maybe we could go somewhere that Denny would have fun—the aquarium or something like that—so she can be a little distracted while we talk.”

“She likes the aquarium?”

“She loves the aquarium.”

“We don’t have one close. There’s a zoo.”

“She loves all animals.” She’d been begging for a pet for ages. The second we got settled and safe, I was going to get her whatever she wanted.

“We could go there.”

“Okay. That works for us. Maybe… ten?”

“Ten,” he agreed, looking at the car again.

“Ten,” I agreed.

When he just stood there, too stunned to move, I turned and walked back to the car.

“We’re not getting out?” Denali asked when I climbed in the driver’s seat.

“Not tonight, munchkin. But guess what?”

“What?”

“Tomorrow, we’re going to the zoo with Mommy’s friend.”

“The zoo?”

That was all it took to make her forget about how long she’d been in her car seat, how much her butt probably hurt, how bored she was. Suddenly the world had burst wide open and she was talking all about the animals she hoped to see there—the giraffes and elephants and the much less likely elephant seals and manatees, given it was probably a subtropical zoo. But I wasn’t going to burst her bubble. When she got there and saw all the other animals, she’d forget all about the seals and manatees.

I used some precious data on my burner phone to look up local cheap motels that didn’t, you know, have bed bugs or reports of anything else creepy going on.

I hated motels. I’d much rather camp out in a tent in the middle of nowhere like I did before Denny. But that wasn’t an option anymore. So I had a system.

Once we got our room key, Denali carried my little cleaning caddy and I brought up a bag of bedding and trash bags. Then she putzed around the room while I gloved up and completely stripped the beds, checked for bugs, shoved the motel bedding into the trash bags, put our bedding on, then got to work scrubbing the bathroom.

“Remember my pink room?” Denali asked when, finally finished, I tossed the gloves.