Page 97 of Fierce-Dane

Shiloh was a bit more talkative and walked better with her new sneakers on her feet, along with socks. Sloane had gotten her sister some sandals at the same time.

When they were leaving the mall he’d seen a store with stuffed animals in it and mentioned that his daughter loved farm animals.

He wanted to see if Shiloh knew some of the animals and when she kept touching a stuffed lamb, he picked it up to buy for her along with a pig for Tyler and a horse for Tiffani. He figured if Sloane saw that she wouldn’t tell him no.

Shiloh was sleeping in the extra bed and they’d shut all the lights off but one by their bed. He nodded for her to go into the hall so they could talk privately.

“I’m so out of my element here,” she said. “I don’t know what I would have done without you. The minute she had that animal she all but fell asleep in the car. I wanted to bathe her. She stinks a little, but that might be from her bathroom episode. I thought I was going to gag.”

He laughed. “Stress will do those things. She needs a bath and her hair washed. You can do that in the morning. She’s on the thin side, but she ate well.”

“She ate more than me. Do you think she hasn’t eaten in a while?”

“Hard to say,” he said. “It could just be she didn’t have a lot to eat or she is fussy. We don’t know and I doubt Deb did either.”

Too many times those things got pushed aside with kids in foster care. He’d seen it before. Whatever food was put in front of them was what they got, and if they didn’t like it, they didn’t eat it.

“I don’t know that I would have realized she even had to go to the bathroom and might have pooped in her pants if you didn’t notice.”

“Tyler is a pro at holding it until he might explode. You’ll figure it out.”

He wished he could be with her more to help, but there was only so much he could do.

He had his family and children to take care of. A job to do. So did she.

“I’ll have to figure it out faster,” she said. “I didn’t even realize she was limping, but I would have noticed her toes. I can’t believe no one else did.”

“Probably not even looking,” he said.

“She’ll get better care with me, but it’s going to be interesting. I guess the next step is some sleep and then getting whatever else she might have at my mother’s apartment. I’m thinking not much.”

“Probably not,” he said. “But it might help you to go through their place. You could find some things of your mother’s that you want.”

“I doubt it,” she said. “I had even less than Shiloh, so be prepared for a pretty barren apartment.”

Sloane turned and returned to their room and he knew the conversation was done.

28

BE WITH FAMILY

“Don’t say I didn’t warn you,” Sloane said the next morning when the landlord let her into her mother’s apartment. She leaned in close so no one heard but Dane. “That stairwell smelled like a concentrated men’s gym locker room.”

He laughed. “Unlike women’s?”

“No,” she said. “Most women’s products end up covering that up.”

She looked around her mother’s bare apartment.

There was one beat-up old couch against a wall that she was guessing was Shiloh’s bed. A small galley kitchen on the opposite wall which consisted of a fridge that might be older than her, a stove that didn’t look like it worked, a sink that was stained with years of use but clean and a tiny scarred yellow countertop with a few cabinets.

Her mother worked changing the beds and cleaning the rooms at the hospital and she’d always been a neat person with what they’d had.

That hadn’t changed.

Neither had the places her mother lived.

She supposed this was all that could be afforded and shouldn’t judge, but it was bringing back memories she’d rather not have.

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