Page 18 of Shelter for Shay (Broken Heroes Mended Souls #2)
That last statement sucker punched Moose right in the gut.
He knew all too well what it was like not to be wanted.
Not to be valued or respected. And worse, not to be loved by the people who brought you into this world.
It was a shitty feeling, for sure. “Why don’t you send whatever you have on your dad and I’ll have some people I know look into it. ”
“I thought about hiring Katie Donovan’s PI firm to do that again, since she knows a little about him already, but with my mom’s medical bills and the mortgage, I just don’t have the funds.”
“Give me her contact information too. I’ll take care of it.”
“No, Moose. I don’t want you paying for that.”
One of his chickens made its way to his feet and rubbed up against his leg, as if it knew he needed a little TLC. He reached down and gave it a little pat on the side. His chickens were unique. Special. And they gave him more than some humans.
“Am I your boyfriend?”
“What does that have to do with anything?” she asked with a clipped tone.
Yeah, he sucked at the relationship thing. “Everything,” he said. “I’m here. I’m in this. With you. I want to help. And this matters to you. Therefore, it matters to me.” He sighed. “Can I ask you something?”
“Sure.”
“If I called you and said I needed help with the chickens because Sarah couldn’t do it, would you come?”
“Yes,” she said. “But that’s different.”
“Not really. You’d have to take time out of your life. Buy a plane ticket and spend time here alone. And time is money. Besides, it would be supporting me. Let me help. And if you want to pay me back, you can.”
“Are we arguing?”
“Kind of feels like it.” He chuckled.
“Well, every couple has a few of those,” she mused. “All right. I’ll send you Katie’s information and everything I have on my dad, which consists of a photograph and his name. Katie knows where he lives, but I never let her give me the details. I chickened out when it got real.”
“What is his name? You never told me.”
“Bradley Morrison.”
“You don’t have his name? What’s on your birth certificate?”
“Whitaker,” she said. “My mom said she legally changed my name after he sent the divorce papers and told her he was never coming back and wanted nothing to do with her or me.”
Moose rubbed the back of his neck. If that were all true, her dad was a fucking asshole. But something didn’t track. “Shay, your mom would’ve had to get a court order to change your birth certificate too. Unless your dad wasn’t listed on it.”
“He’s not,” she said. “My father is listed as unknown.”
Now that really didn’t track. He didn’t know the law, but he’d known someone who’d changed their kids’ names after remarrying and the new husband adopted the kids, but it would have required a lot to change the birth certificates.
And since the children’s father died, their mother thought it would be rude to wipe him out of their lives for good.
Even though her new husband raised the kids from a young age, she wanted to keep their biological father alive in their eyes.
“Send me your birth certificate too,” he said.
“Where are you going with this? Because it sounds like you’re questioning my mother’s story.”
He was questioning a lot of things, but he wasn’t sure how to voice them, or even if he should. “It’s not that, but some of what you’re saying doesn’t make sense. Did Katie have all this information the first time you hired her?”
“No. She had my dad’s name and his photograph.”
“She didn’t question the different names?”
“I didn’t give her an explanation. I just asked her to see if she could find any information on the man. I didn’t want to dig too deep and she found his location, but that was it and I didn’t even want to know that,” Shay said. “Do you think my mom lied to me about… about… I don’t even know what?”
“I really don’t know what to think,” he said.
“But if there was a name change, there’s a paper trail.
Also, since there was a marriage, and a divorce, with a child involved, I believe there would need to be the termination of parental rights by your dad.
Although, I’m not sure about that. But let me handle looking into all of this.
I won’t contact your dad, just gather information.
You’ve got enough on your plate right now with everything else. ”
“And you thought you sucked at this boyfriend thing.”
“Maybe I’m not so bad, but I did start our first fight.”
“At least it wasn’t an epic one and on the night before you leave,” she said.
He swallowed the knot in his throat. “I’m wheels up at zero six hundred. I don’t know where I’m going. Thor says we shouldn’t be gone more than a week, but sometimes that intel is way off. I’ll try to text or call, but I’ll definitely write.”
“I understand. Or at least I think I do.”
“I’ll be back,” he promised. “And when I am, I’ll be on the first plane to see you.”
“I’ll be here and, unfortunately, probably on jury duty.”
“Shit, that stinks,” he said. “Do you know when that trial is that you want to avoid?”
“Soon, but there will be other cases that I could end up on, so who knows. I just know I don’t want to be on that one,” she said.
“Yeah, I hear you.” He sighed, waving to his buddies as they shuffled from the door, down the porch steps, and to their vehicles. They didn’t need send-offs. They would see each other in the morning. “I don’t want to lose this,” he managed with a shaky voice.
“Neither do I.”
He closed his eyes again. “Say something else. Anything. I just want to hear your voice a little longer.”
So she talked. About the weather. About a book she was reading. About a casserole someone dropped off that she tried to reheat and burned half to death. About how she passed Margaret’s old school and it made her cry and how she didn’t feel weird telling him that.
And he listened. Until the bottle was warm in his hand and the sky was black overhead and the only light was the flickering porch candle and the glow of his screen.
When they finally hung up, he didn’t move right away.
He just sat there, listening to the wind in the trees, the occasional rustle of feathers from the coop, and the way his heart beat steady and sure for something that finally felt like home.