Page 100 of Fierce-Dane

They were in public housing. She expected there were criminals living here and many with those who had things to hide.

“I appreciate it,” she said. She pulled her card out from her business. “My cell phone number is on the back. My email is on the front or you can call the spa if you think of anything. I don’t think it’s going to matter, but I’m trying to wrap my head around a lot of things. I’d like to know if I have to worry about Shiloh’s father somewhere.”

“I don’t think so,” Casey said. “If your mother is to be believed, she doesn’t know who the father is.”

“What?” she asked. “How is that possible?”

She’d never known her mother to date or even been around men much.

In the cult you weren’t allowed once the leader was done with you.

The few years living with her mother when they left, there were never any men around. Her mother was livid if she or Sabrina talked about a boy or even dating.

Just another reason she had to leave and be able to experience life without it being through someone else’s lens.

“Your mother didn’t drink or do drugs that I knew of, but she said that she was out one night at a party with some friends. Things got out of control and she woke up the next morning in the spare room and didn’t remember much. She didn’t know a lot of people at the party either.”

Shit.

“So she could have been drugged and raped?” she asked.

“Maybe,” Casey said. “But other times she talked about a guy she was dating before she moved. It went back and forth. I often wondered if things were made up but never questioned her on it.”

“Which is no help to me at all,” she said. “I only want to know so I can protect Shiloh.”

“I think you’ll be fine. A lot of men in my experience don’t care if they’ve got a kid coming or not. Or if they know, they don’t do anything about it. There was never any support coming in that I knew of.”

“They didn’t have a record of that either at the county.”

This was just going to have to be something she’d have to set aside for now and get all her legal work taken care of.

“I hope you can keep in touch with some updates on Shiloh. I’m going to miss her and hope she does well.”

“I will,” Sloane said. “I promise.”

She and Dane gathered the rest of what Shiloh wanted and hit the road.

She had to put this behind her to just be able to breathe.

29

BROKE THE ICE

“So what is going on with Sloane?” Mel asked him when he picked the kids up the next day.

“What?” he asked.

“I asked what was going on,” Mel said. “Don’t you think I should know? The kids know about her. I’ve been trying to help out when they bring her up.”

“Do they bring her up often?” he asked. Tiffani did once in a while but not much. It’s not as if his daughter was ignoring the fact, but just had some questions like what they did for fun or if she could go back and get a pedicure soon.

He was thinking of doing that and sitting there for it. But Sloane didn’t do pedicures so it’s not like it’d be her doing it and he’d have to sit there with her staff wondering what was going on.

That would be even more confusing in his mind for his daughter.

He shut the door and moved out to the front porch to talk to Mel while the kids were inside.

“Her mother passed away suddenly last week.”