How It Started Read online

  Two, he was busy as hell and had no time to devote to a fling right now.

  Three, and most importantly, she was utterly human, and he was not.

  That last one was a doozy. Humans didn’t belong within a ten-mile radius of this Crew full of crow shifters, bear shifters, a dragon, and himself…a bald eagle shifter. And the last one of his kind. At least he thought so. He was adopted and who the heck knew what had happened to his biological parents? Not him.

  He’d always thought he would find another like himself, but so far, it was a bust. He’d felt very alone before he’d found this Crew of delinquents.

  He’d tried to be with other shifters, but had never built a bond. He’d even gotten desperate enough to try with a human once, but that was a terrible idea. Humans didn’t match or understand him. They couldn’t. They had different sets of problems and tended to get all pissy at the violence that followed a Crew. The shifter world was just different, and he’d known since he could understand what he was that no human should be put through that kind of life. They were too fragile. There were human mates in this Crew, and Amos saw the toll it took on them.

  He needed a mate who was a monster like himself, and tough as leather, or no mate at all.

  “You’re going to be late again,” Nuke called out across the trailer park the second Amos stepped outside of his door.

  “Okay, stalker, no I’m not.” He pulled his phone out of his pocket and waved it in the air. “I have the GPS pulled up already.”

  “You’re always late.”

  “No, I’m really not. You just feel the need to control everything,” Amos growled as he dropped his damn truck keys onto the heavily weeded front yard of his trailer. “Shit.”

  “Two complaints last week,” Nuke called in a voice that held a growl Amos didn’t appreciate.

  “Hey Siri,” Amos said at his phone. “Tell Nuke to go fuck himself.”

  “That’s not very nice,” Siri responded.

  Damn robots. If Siri was a boy, she would definitely tell Nuke to get his panties out of a twist, but since she was a robot girl, of course she had to argue.

  Amos rolled his eyes and stooped to snatch the keys, then made his way toward his new truck. They needed to make some money this week so he could pay his first bill on it.

  “Two complaints,” Nuke called.

  Fury ratcheted up through Amos’s body. “I’m trying, man. You know why I got those late complaints? Because you keep scheduling estimates I physically cannot get to in time. You aren’t supposed to double-book me! A boss is supposed to set his employees up so they at least have a shot at being successful. You want the complaints to stop? Learn how to schedule!”

  “I didn’t double-book any estimates—”

  “Then who did?” Amos snapped.

  A long, low rumble emanated from the dragon, but fuck it, Amos would rather get eaten by his friend than get ribbed by him like he was a child first thing in the morning. There came a time when a man had to put his foot down and train people on how they were allowed to talk to and treat him. That time was now.

  “The only currency I accept for apologies are lemon-filled donuts.”

  “I’m not apologizing for shit,” Nuke yelled.

  “Until you do, I’m not your friend today, Nuke!”

  “Shut. Up!” Divar yelled from inside his trailer at the end of the park. The bear shifter’s trailer door banked open and the behemoth stuck his face outside. His hair was all mussed and his eyes were the bright color of his animal. “It’s not even six in the morning, and you two are fighting like an old married couple. Again! You do this every day.”

  “Well, at the start of every day, he pisses me off,” Amos muttered, throwing his clipboard and sack lunch into the passenger seat of his truck.

  A noise caught his attention and Amos froze, listening. It was a car engine. Little four-cylinder fuel-efficient car from the soft purr of the engine. When he looked over at Nuke, the dragon had obviously heard the same thing. “Dangit, Divar, what did I tell you?”

  “Dude, you have to stop bringing random girls into Nuke’s territory,” Amos scolded him.

  “I didn’t.”

  Amos wrenched up his voice and mocked Divar. “Every morning. Every morning there is a new girl doing a walk of shame out of your trailer.”

  “One morning, you sack of beetle shit. One morning three weeks ago I had one girl over.”

  “Ho,” Nuke said, crossing his arms as he leaned back into his chair. At least the dragon had a little smile on his face now.

  Divar slammed his door just as a black Mazda made its way into the clearing. Sure enough, a woman with short black hair was driving.

  “Divar!” Amos yelled. “I’m running late. I’m not dealing with your girl problems!”

  “This one ain’t my problem!” Divar roared, and then a huge crash sounded from inside his trailer. Bear shifters had the gnarliest tempers.

  Muttering a curse under his breath, Amos stomped around the back of his truck and waved the woman to a stop before she could park in the grass. He made his way to her window and gestured for her to roll it down, which she did. “Whatever you’re selling here, we don’t want any. Turn around and head back where you came from.”

  “Amos?” the woman asked.

  He frowned. “Who wants to know?”

  She huffed a humorless laugh, and Amos got a strong scent of alcohol. “You don’t even recognize me? Nice.” Her words were slurring.

  He took a few steps back and studied her face. She did look familiar. “Uuuuh, ten years ago—”

  “Seven,” she corrected him.

  “You used to have blonde hair. You look…” He swallowed hard. Haggard? Rode hard and put away wet? Drunk? “You look different.” God, he did not remember her name. Bri. Brenda? “It’s good to see you again…Bethany?”

  “Blair! Geez!” Her voice was a lot screechier and more dramatic than he remembered from the three months they dated.

  “Well, this has been a fun trek down memory lane, but I’m running late for work, so whatever it is you’re here to—”

  “I know what you are.”

  Well, that shut him right up.

  “Amos?” Nuke called. “You good?”

  No, not really. He’d cared about Blair for a little while, before he figured out what a lost cause she was. He hadn’t thought about her in years, and this wasn’t a dream scenario for him to revisit the ghosts of his past. “Can I get a little privacy?” Amos asked.

  Nuke took a few seconds, but he went inside and closed his trailer door behind him.

  “I don’t know what you mean,” he said to her in a calm, careful tone.

  Her eyes were filling with tears. Why? “You’re one of those things,” she gritted out. He’d never heard such revulsion in a single word before. “I found out what you are. You know how? Your dumbass friends at the poolhall told me. They told me where to find you, too.”

  He hadn’t spoken to the crows in a long time. They weren’t his friends anymore. He backed away a few more steps. “I think you need to leave.”

  “Gladly, but first I wanted to give you your present back.”

  “What present?”

  Blair shoved her door open and the smell of alcohol hit him like tidal wave. She stomped to the back door and yanked it open. She pulled something out, and Amos muttered a curse as a small boy fell to the ground by the car. She yanked a back pack, and hard-shelled blue suitcase out, and tossed them beside the kid. “You left your son.”

  “What the fuck, Blair?” he yelled as he stooped to pick up the crying kid. He had to be six or seven.

  Blair was rushing to get back into her car, but Amos blurred to her and stood between her and the car. “You can’t just leave this kid here!”

  “Why not! He’s your kid!”

  “You were sleeping with half the damn town, lady. He ain’t my kid.”

  “Oh yeah?”

  “Yeah! He doesn’t even look like me!” he yel
led, jamming his finger at the scrawny blond-haired, dark-eyed kid.

  “Then explain to me why he changes into a fucking bird, Amos!”

  The rage left him completely and was replaced by utter shock. “W-what?”

  “Wait until you see what that little freak can do,” she snarled out in a shaking, rum-soaked voice.

  She got into her car, slammed the door, and threw it into reverse.

  “But…you’re his mom,” Amos said into her open window as he jogged after her.

  “Not on fucking purpose. I didn’t ask for this. I didn’t ask for any of this!” Blair rolled her window up and sprayed them with dirt as she peeled out. Her little black car disappeared down the dirt road and Amos stood there completely frozen into place, like his work boots had grown roots.

  The little boy sniffled behind him.

  Amos turned slowly. This wasn’t his kid. His eyes weren’t gold, they were dark. “Uuuuh, what’s your name?” he asked the boy.

  “Trevor.”

  Amos narrowed his eyes. “That’s dorky. What’s your middle name?”

  The little boy drew his knees up to his chest and wiped his damp cheeks. “My whole name is Trevor Hayden Pickens.”

  Amos blinked slowly. “We’re gonna call you Hayden, okay?”

  He nodded. Oh God, he knew how to do puppy dog eyes. The big ones that were all rimmed with tears and made a man want to hand over dog treats. Gross.

  Amos’s phone vibrated. It was his first estimate, messaging to tell him they were waiting outside of their house for him to show up. Crap.

  “Okay, buddy, we are going to figure this out. Okay? We will just…I’m going to go to work. And you can hang out in my trailer today, okay? Do you know how to stay alone?”

  He nodded solemnly.

  “Seriously?”

  “My mom leaves me alone all the time.”

  “Great.” Her scrunched up his face. “Really? How old are you?”

  “Six.”

  Maybe he should cancel, and call someone to pick up the kid. Who was he supposed to call? The police? Yeah, that would be great, drag the police up into the dragon’s territory and see how much control Nuke had. Okay, he could ask someone to watch him while he did his estimates, and then he could figure it out afterward.

  He looked to Divar’s trailer just in time to hear another huge crack as the bear shifter broke something else inside. Okay, Divar was a hell no. Nuke was also a no. His mate, Trina, was cool, but with the Pegasus shifter came the dragon. Now, Amos didn’t know much about kids, but he did know he shouldn’t leave one in the care of a dragon. He’d seen Nuke eat people before.

  “I’ll just bring you to work with me. Okay? And I’ll make some calls on the way and…and…”

  “Make someone else take me.”

  Amos squatted down, plenty far away from the boy in case the little crybaby’s tears were contagious. “We will figure it out.”

  “Are you my dad?” he asked in a tiny squeak of a voice.

  “Nope. Hell nope. No, no, no. Your mom was mistaken. I don’t have any kids.”

  This wasn’t his son.

  No matter what that awful woman had told both Amos and Hayden, he wasn’t his son.

  And Amos wasn’t his father.

  Chapter Two

  “I’m coming!” Leanna called out as she jogged to the door.

  The man she expected to find behind the door was Mr. Brown, here to pick up the order of letterheads she’d designed and printed for him.

  The man actually on the other side of the door shocked Leanna into stillness. “Amos.”

  He was pacing down the hall, and at her voice, he turned and said, “Oh thank God. I thought you weren’t here for a second.”

  “Oh, I’m always here. Did you have a problem with the business cards?”

  “What? No.” He frowned and ran his hands through his disheveled hair. “No, the business cards are great. Cartoon wiener on point. I have a huge favor to ask.”

  Okaaaay. Her curiosity was piqued. “What kind of favor?”

  “Boy,” he called out. “Uuuum…” He snapped his fingers. “Hayden!”

  A small blond boy, around six years old, was leaning against the wall by the exit door, clinging to the handle of a small blue suitcase. He approached slowly, his sneakers barely making a squeak on the clean hallway tiles. He was looking down at the ground.

  “Hi,” she murmured, kneeling down in front of him. “I’m Leanna.”

  “My name is…” His voice trailed off to nothing, and he wouldn’t meet her eyes.

  Something was wrong.

  Leanna stood slowly. “Is he yours?” she asked Amos.

  “No. No, no, no, some lady I knew a long time ago dumped him on me this morning.”

  “Okay, ‘dumped’ is not good language to use around him,” she admonished him.

  Amos’s eyes were full of pure panic. “I think he has to go to the bathroom.”

  Leanna inhaled deeply. “Okay. Hayden? Do you want to use the restroom in my office?”

  He nodded jerkily, so she led him inside and to the single-stall restroom door on the far wall. When he’d closed the bathroom door behind himself, she bustled back to Amos, who was still hovering outside her open office doorway.

  “What the heck is going on?” she whispered. “Where did you get a kid?”

  “His mom showed up this morning and I was late for a meeting and she was saying he’s mine and she doesn’t want him anymore, but Leanna, that ain’t my kid, and I went to the police station, but they wouldn’t take him. They gave me the number for Child Protective Services, but when I called them, they said they can’t send an agent out until tomorrow morning and I don’t know what I’m fucking doing.” He huffed out a shaking breath and linked his hands behind his head. “It’s not even safe to have him where I live. I took him to my first meeting but he said he had to go to the bathroom and I tried to take him to a gas station and empty him out but he got scared of the public stalls and then I tried to feed him and he said he doesn’t like powdered donuts and who the fuck doesn’t like powdered donuts? I need help.” He swallowed hard. “I need help,” he repeated.

  “Okay, calm down. What do you need from me?”

  “You’re a nanny, right?”

  “Oh, no, no, I don’t do that anymore.”

  “I’ll give you ten bucks an hour just to take care of him for today while I get through my estimates. I’ll be back at five. Probably.” He was backing away. “Six at the latest.”

  “Wait! I don’t do this anymore. I don’t nanny!”

  “It’s just one day!”

  She jogged after him. “Amos, you can’t just bring me a kid. I’m working.”

  “Fifteen bucks an hour.”

  “It’s not about the money! I don’t want to get attached!” Her admission echoed down the hallway. She locked her legs and squeaked to a stop.

  Amos turned to her, and his eyes bore straight through her. “What?”

  “I don’t want to get attached,” she repeated.

  He sighed and sauntered back to her, gripped her shoulders gently. “If I had anyone else to ask, that I trusted, I would. But I don’t. Twenty bucks an hour, and I’ll go with you to that wedding.”

  “W-what?” she asked.

  “I’ll go to that Crappledong wedding. It’s coming up soon, right? I can dance.”

  Leanna blinked slowly. “You’ll wear a tuxedo?”

  “Hell no, but I’ll wear a suit. And I won’t get drunk or boo the happy couple, or make gagging sounds during their first dance. I’ll be on my least-worst behavior.”

  She lifted her chin in the air. Well, now he had her attention. “It’s just for today?”

  “Yep.”

  She looked behind her at the open office, where she could see the boy sitting in the middle of the floor on top of his suitcase, his little hands clasped in his lap and his eyes on the pattern of her tile floors.

  “What happened to him?” she whispered.
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  Amos released her and shoved his hands into his pockets. “I don’t know. His mom showed up drunk this morning. Didn’t even say goodbye to him.”

  “She was driving him drunk?” she asked.

  Amos nodded. “Just yanked him out of her car and drove away.”

  “What a piece of shit.”

  “Agree. I just need some time to sort it out.”

  “Okay.” She stuck out her hand. “I’ll see you at five.”

  Amos grinned one of those heart-stopping charming-boy smiles and stuck his hand out for her to shake. “Six at the latest. Buddy,” he called out to the boy, “Remember what we talked about. Stay a kid all day, okay? No flying.”

  Leanna scrunched up her face. Huh? “No sneakers with your suit,” she called as he made his way to the exit. “Nice shoes or the deal is off.”

  “What kind of slobs did you date?” he asked, walking backward with a wicked smile on his face.

  “You have no idea,” she muttered as she made her way back to the little boy.

  “Hey,” Amos called as she reached the edge of her office tile.

  “Yeah?”

  “You look good today.”

  And then he gave a wink and disappeared, leaving her to wonder at the wreckage he’d just caused to her heart-rate.

  That.

  That’s why she’d kept her distance.

  Amos was dangerous.

  Chapter Three

  6:00 at the latest had turned to 7:15.

  From his experience, ladies got real pissed off if a man was even a minute late, so he took a moment to mentally prepare himself as he walked down the hallway to Leanna’s office door. There was a sticky note on the door, and he plucked it off and read it.

  Trev and I got hungry. There is a deli down the street called Pete’s Subs. Meet us there.

  At the bottom, Leanna had signed it, and right under her name was the letters T-r-e-V. The “e” was written backward.