Moon Dance (38 page)

Hearing her say that was probably the
most amazing thing in the universe.

They both peered at the
screen. At first, it was blank, but then, as the phone connected, a
notification for a new text message flashed.

Cole selected it.

Deedee says you can call
her. Use this number
, it read. The number
followed.

“
Is that good?” said
Dana.

“
Very good,” he said. “If
she’s trusting me to have her number beforehand, it’s a good sign.
She’s making herself and her location vulnerable.”

“
Well, should we try to find
a way to trace that number, and then just go to her?”

“
No,” said Cole. “I’ll call
her. I think she’s going to help us.”

Dana nodded. “When? When do
you call her?”

He took a deep breath. “Now,
I guess. No reason to wait.”

“
Okay.” Dana sounded
nervous.

He dialed the number. “I’ll
put it on speaker phone so that you can hear, but let me do the
talking, okay?”

“
Okay.”

The phone began to ring.

They stared at it.

It kept ringing.

Dana bit down on her lip.

“
Hello?” said someone on the
other end of the phone.

“
Deedee?” said
Cole.

“
Yes,” said Deedee. “Who’s
this?”

“
It’s Cole. You said it was
okay for me to call?”

“
Yeah, I did. How are
you?”

“
Uh, okay,” he
said.

“
It’s been awhile, big
brother,” she said. “I heard you had trouble with Enoch
recently.”

“
A little bit,” he said.
“But then you’re not with him anymore either.”

“
No, that didn’t work out,”
she said. “I think I always knew that he and Angela were better
suited than he and I. But I stayed because of her. Still, we’re all
close, Cole, so don’t try to put me in the middle of
something.”

“
I’m not saying that,” he
said. “I’m calling about the children from the SF. Supposedly, you
have them. Is that true?”

“
Yeah, it’s true,” she said.
“What do you care about that?”

“
There was a little girl at
the eastern regional SF, and—”

“
Oh, you’re talking about
Dana Gray’s daughter. This is all about her, isn’t it? Shit, Cole,
I heard that whatever went down with you and Enoch was all mixed up
with that woman. Can’t you let it go?”

He took a deep breath. “I’m
talking about
my
daughter, Deedee.” It was strange to say it out loud, but it
too was pleasant.

Deedee was quiet. “You’re
kidding me.”

“
Not,” he said.

“
Oh, goddamn it, Cole, I
already placed her.”

“
Placed her?”

“
That’s what I do. I take
those kids, and I find them homes. Families who will take them in.
Last thing I heard, the little girl was just starting to get
settled in. You want me to rip her out of there, don’t you? Rip her
away from her new family.”

Dana looked at Cole in
alarm, but he shook his head at her. He gripped the phone tighter.
“You’ve got no call to give her to a new family. She has a family
already.”

“
The people who adopted her
want a child more than life,” said Deedee. “I work with families
who are so desperate for children that they’re willing to adopt
werewolves. It’s a win-win, because these are stable, loving homes,
and these kids don’t have to grow up in the SF anymore and be
taught that their werewolf nature means they’re
damaged.”

“
You know that I would never
teach that to a kid.”

“
What would you teach her,
Cole? What do you have to offer her?”

“
That’s not the point,” he
said. “The point is that she’s ours.”

Deedee sighed. “I don’t want
to go to those people and tell them that the child I promised them
is no longer theirs. They’ll be crushed.”

“
How do you think Dana
feels? Her daughter’s been given to other people, and—”

“
Oh, fuck Dana Gray,” she
snapped.

“
You don’t have to tell
anyone anything,” said Cole. “Tell me where Piper is, and I’ll get
her myself.”

“
Oh, I don’t think so. I’m
not exposing the kind of people that adopted Piper to someone like
you.” Deedee sighed again. “I’ll do it. I’ll bring Piper to you.
But only because you’re my brother. If you were anyone else, I
wouldn’t. And if I do this, you never ask me for another thing as
long as you live, Cole.”

He shut his eyes, exhaling
in relief. “Thank you. Thank you, Deedee.”

“
Swear it to me, Cole. After
this, we are done.”

“
Yeah,” he said. “Yeah, I
swear.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-
TWO

Dana
’s heart was in her throat as she watched the car pull into
the driveway. The sun and the trees were reflecting against the
windows, and she couldn’t see inside.

The car pulled to a stop,
and then a woman got out. Deedee. She had the same look as a lot of
the people from Hunter’s Moon Farm. Not in her dress, but in her
face and manner. She was wearing a tank top and jeans, and several
tattoos on her shoulder were half-exposed. She had sunglasses
perched on her nose.

She peered up at Dana, making a face
like something smelled bad. Then she walked around the car and
opened the back door. She leaned inside, working with the car
seat.

Dana wanted to run forward,
but she couldn’t move. She was rooted to the spot, staring forward,
waiting.

And then Deedee set Piper down on the
ground outside the car, and the little girl looked up.

Dana started crying.

“
Mommy?” whispered
Piper.

Dana ran for her, scooping
her up into her arms. She didn’t ever want to let her go. And she
probably wouldn’t have, but Piper started to squirm.

“
Too tight,” she pronounced,
trying to wriggle free.

Dana loosened her grip.
“Sorry, Pipers, Mommy just missed you.”

Piper beamed. “Kisses!” she
crowed, squinching up her lips.

Dana’s tears got even more
intense. She kissed her daughter. “Did you miss Mommy?”

“
Uh huh,” said Piper. “Wanna
walk.” She squirmed more fiercely.

Dana sighed and set her
down.

Piper scampered over the stone walkway
and began climbing up the porch steps.

Dana turned to Deedee. “She
seems okay.”

“
Yeah,” said Deedee. “They
get the kids out before any of the violence happens, so don’t
worry, she didn’t see anything. Kids are pretty resilient, you
know. If I hadn’t brought her back here, she probably would have
forgotten all about you.”

Dana was struck by the urge to hit the
woman. Instead, she balled her hands into fists and turned away,
following Piper.

Cole stood at the top of the
stairs to the porch, watching the little girl crawl up. He looked
stricken, and he wasn’t moving, just staring.

Piper looked up at him.
“Help?”

Cole looked at Dana.

She nodded.

He reached down and picked her up
carefully, moving her up the stairs.

“
Down!” said Piper. “Down,
now.”

Cole looked alarmed.

“
Put her down,” said Dana.
“She’s in a phase where she wants to do everything
herself.”

Cole put Piper down, and the
little girl toddled over to the front door. She reached up to grab
the knob. She could touch it, but she couldn’t turn it.

Dana hurried after her to turn the
knob.

“
No!” Piper screamed. “I
wanna! I wanna!”

And just like that,
frustration washed over Dana. She felt ashamed. After all, she’d
been back in her daughter’s presence for less than five minutes,
and she’d missed Piper like a piece of herself was gone, so
shouldn’t she have more patience now? She let go of the
doorknob.

“
Hey,” said Cole.

Piper turned, craning her
neck up at him. “I know you.”

“
You do?”

She nodded. “You Cole. You
took my Mommy.”

Cole cleared his throat.
“Well, kind of. Do you, um, want me to hold you up so that you can
reach the doorknob?”

Piper nodded.

Cole picked her up, lifting
her so that she was eye-level with the knob. The little girl turned
the knob and the door opened. Cole set her down. She clapped her
hands in delight. And then she ran inside.

Deedee climbed up onto the
porch. “What the hell is this place, Cole? It looks
abandoned.”

Dana went in after Piper, who was
running through the living room.

“
Piper, where are you
going?” Dana called.

Piper paid her no mind, rushing out of
the living room and into the kitchen.

Dana hurried behind her.
“Hold on, Piper. You need to calm down.”

“
Daddy,” said Piper. “Where
Daddy?”

Dana rubbed her face, her heart
sinking.

Deedee stepped into the
house. “We told her that her parents were gone. Now that she’s
here, she thinks that—”

“
I don’t need you to explain
to me what my daughter is thinking,” said Dana.

Piper’s face was crumpling.
“Daddy not here?”

Damn it. Dana knelt down
next to the little girl. “Baby, Daddy is… not coming back.” She
started to cry again, but these weren’t tears of relief. They were
tears of shame and sadness and grief. Seeing Piper miss Avery hurt
her worse than anything.

Piper’s chin trembled.
“Where Daddy?”

“
Oh, sweetie…” Dana wrapped
her arms around Piper.

But Piper didn’t like that.
“Let go! Want Daddy!” she wailed.

Dana let go, but then she
collapsed into sobs. Avery was gone. Gone forever, and she didn’t
think she’d quite known it until exactly this moment.

* * *

The comfort and sweetness
from before seemed completely gone, and Cole
didn
’t know what to do with himself. Dana
had lain on the floor and cried over Avery for what seemed like
hours, and he hadn’t even tried to comfort her. He told himself it
was because he didn’t think she’d want him to, but he wasn’t sure
if he didn’t just suddenly realize how much she’d cared about that
man.

And… well, damn it,
he
didn’t care about
him.

As for the little girl,
well, she wasn’t in a much better mood. She’d been cranky as well,
and she wouldn’t talk to Cole when he tried to talk to her. Not
that he knew how to talk to her. He was out of his depth. What had
he been thinking before when he’d told Dana that they could all be
together? He wasn’t sure he’d be able to do this. He had literally
no idea what was going on.

Deedee stayed. She said that Piper was
cranky because she needed a nap, and she convinced Dana to put the
little girl to bed, which at least stopped Dana from
crying.

There was still a bed in his
bedroom, and he sent the two of them back there. Ten minutes later,
he went to check on Dana, and he found her and Piper curled up on
the bed together, both asleep.

They both looked so
beautiful there. He stood and looked at them, still trying to
fathom the idea of being connected to the two of them. He was
terrified.

“
Cole.”

He turned to see Deedee.

“
What the hell are you
doing?” she said. “You can’t stay in this house. There’s no
electricity.”

He started back up the
hallway. “We’re not going to stay here.”

“
Where are you going to
go?”

“
I haven’t worked that
out yet, but I
will
work it out,” he said. “Don’t worry about
it.”

“
So, you’re asking me to
leave a child with you when you’re homeless?”

He stopped, back in the
living room. “God damn it, Deedee, why are you even still
here?”

“
I’m worried about that
little girl.” She folded her arms over her chest. “I don’t even
think Dana likes her.”

He glared at her. “She loves
her.”

“
I have a very bad feeling
about this.” Deedee started to pace. “I would never leave a little
girl in these circumstances, not normally. To be honest, I don’t
like doing it now. She was better off where I placed her, Cole.
Stable home, loving parents, safety.”

“
Stop it,” said Cole. “We’re
going to take care of her.”

“
How? You’re wanted by the
SF, and maybe that’s not that big of a deal, because Enoch will
knock out the rest of them within the next six months, but Enoch
will still be looking for you. You’ll be on the run, with a
toddler, constantly hiding. It will be a terrible life for a child.
You need to convince Dana to give Piper up.”