Moon Glamour by Aimee Easterling (books to read to be successful TXT) 📕

The male officer apparently agreed. “Still doesn’t solve the issue of custody. If this man isn’t the father, Harper has no parent in attendance. We’ll have to call a social worker.”

Harper flinched and the female cop noticed. “It’s going to be okay, honey,” she soothed. “Foster parents are nice. We’ll sort this out.”

The woman was trying to be kind, but Harper was already crying. Foster care wasn’t what I’d promised her. I’d promised her a real home and a real family. I intended to make that promise stick.

To that end, I shouldered my way into the huddle. The cop had moved her flashlight away from the paper but I pulled upon my wolf until I could read the dark squiggles on the birth certificate.

There was Harper’s name, the date, the location. Mom’s name and....

Now my smile was as wide as Tank’s had been. “How about we let Harper’s father decide?”

THE LAST TIME ACE HAD been called upon to act like a parent, he’d dropped the ball so fast it might as well have been greased and lit on fire. This time, though, he had an alpha pushing him toward us rather than away from us.

Or so I gathered by the way Ace fell all over himself to make things right.

“Of course this is my daughter,” he lied, causing every werewolf in the vicinity to wrinkle our noses at the stench of his assertion. Why my mom had listed him on the birth certificate was beyond me since he clearly wasn’t Harper’s father....

Although, considering the contrast as Ace’s strength faced off against Nick’s weakness, I wasn’t so surprised after all. Mom hadn’t felt able to leave Nick, but she’d wanted a better life for her children. And that was what we were about to ensure.

Unfortunately, the cops remained dubious. It wasn’t lost on them that Harper had run to me but hadn’t even recognized Ace until he started speaking. Luckily, my biological father appeared to be cannier than I would have expected.

“I wasn’t able to take care of Harper the way I wanted to, so I gave my older daughter custody.” He nodded his head at me, and Tank slid into the conversational gap.

“We have financial records to back this up. Athena has been paying for her sister’s schooling for some time now. Harper has spent breaks with her sister. Ms. D’Argent has clearly been acting in loco parentis.”

The male cop wavered. “A judge will have to make that determination.”

“Of course,” Tank agreed. “But until that time, doesn’t it seem like the best-case scenario to remand Harper into the custody of the person she clearly wants to spend time with? Her sister? The one her father has chosen to keep her safe?”

If Nick had been a werewolf, his teeth would have sharpened. He was losing the battle, but he wasn’t quite ready to concede defeat yet. “Perhaps you should let us discuss this between ourselves,” he suggested. I could almost see the dollar bills reflected in his pupils.

And the female cop nodded. “If the family is able to come to a consensus, that would be in the best interests of the child. Come on, Harper. Let’s give the adults a few minutes to talk.”

“HOW MUCH?” TANK ASKED the moment the officers were too far away to hear us. Then, being a lawyer, he clarified his question. “How much to testify in court that Harper is not your daughter?”

“She’s very important to me.” Nick’s voice was oily. And I should have flinched.

Because “very important” meant six figures at least. Maybe seven figures. And I had negative dollars in my bank account at the present moment.

Meanwhile, Tank glanced at me. A question. Was I willing to cede this financial responsibility? For a second, I found it hard to meet his gaze.

After all, I’d lost so much independence when I accepted Rowan’s money years ago. Had gotten swallowed up in a different sort of lopsided financial relationship with my stepfather, one he summed up with the farcical: “Family gives and family takes.”

From Nick, the statement had been a joke. But sometime in the past twenty-four hours I’d stopped worrying about being in debt to Tank. Money, I gathered, was easy for him. So was lawyering. And members of a pack took what was easily and willingly offered while giving from their own strength in return.

Tank was my pack and my family. I’d decided that. I trusted him not to hold this over my head.

So I lifted my chin and nodded. And rather than debt, heat flared between us. Tank was pleased by my willingness. Not so pleased, however, that he let Nick off the hook.

“I’ll be assuming responsibility for Harper’s tuition, of course,” Tank continued. “You will be expected to bow out of that facet of her life as well as all others.”

Tank’s voice was level, but for one split second his wolf rose huge and ferocious behind his eyes. The old scars and new wounds turned his face into a monster’s mask....

And Nick backpedalled so quickly he literally stumbled over himself. “I... You....”

My stepfather turned away from Tank to glare at me, his face red and his eyes furious. Of course Nick knew I was a werewolf. It was one more reason for him to resent me. But I’d always tried to keep my furry side under wraps around him. Perhaps that decision had been a mistake.

Because, after one split second, his glare turned into a cringe. No wonder when my inner wolf had risen to face him. When I didn’t even try to stop her as she sharpened my teeth and brightened my eyes.

Nick’s gaze dropped to the ground and stuck there. He wasn’t trying to prove his dominance over me at this point. He was just trying to protect his skinny neck.

First the stick...then the carrot. “Is this sufficient?” Tank tapped a number into his phone and held the device out to Nick. The gesture changed the mood