Tiger's Triumph (Veteran Shifters 4)

Stella let her go with a stern instruction not to leave them out of the loop, and Pauline promised faithfully to keep everyone apprised of what was happening. They took a chattering Troy and a sleepy Val back to her house.

And when they arrived, Drew was sitting on her doorstep.

Pauline was out of the car before it completely stopped moving. “Drew!” She ran forward and bent down to hug him. “Is everything...”

“Everything’s okay,” he said immediately, standing up. “The interview went...really okay. The sheriff said there wouldn’t be any charges at all, and then she did what she said. Left me in the lobby and went to fill out some paperwork.”

Carlos got out of the car with Val in his arms, while Troy barreled across the yard to give Drew a big, sticky hug. “Eva has a Nintendo DS,” he informed Drew.

r /> “I know,” Drew said. “It’s pretty cool, isn’t it?”

Troy nodded vigorously. “She let me play for two whole hours.”

“Wow, that’s a long time, dude!” Drew said. “She’s way nicer than I am.”

Troy considered that. “Yup.”

Drew snorted a laugh, and scooped Troy up in his arms. “I’m glad to see you, kid.”

“Can we have dinner?” Troy asked, squirming to get down. “Pizza?”

“You ate with Stella and Nate and Eva,” Carlos said. “They told me.”

Troy opened his eyes wide. “There’s always room for pizza.”

Pauline started to laugh. “No pizza,” she told him. “But you can have a snack. Come on, let’s all go inside.” She went forward to unlock the door, and added, “And you can tell us everything that happened.”

Drew nodded.

They all went inside, and Pauline found some crackers and applesauce and milk for Troy, who loudly informed her that pizza would’ve been superior.

“That’s what there is, kid, so that’s what you’re getting,” Drew told him, and Troy settled in with only a little bit of a pout.

Val got a few crackers, too, which occupied her immediately, and Pauline and Carlos sat with Drew on the couch, where they could see the kids but were mostly out of earshot. “What happened?” Carlos asked him.

“Sheriff Dale made me tell the whole story, like, five times,” Drew said. “And she took all these notes, and she wouldn’t tell me anything about what she was going to do. And then she asked me a ton of questions about Mom and where she was, and about you guys and what you’d been doing, and all that.”

“I hope you told her the truth,” Pauline said.

Drew gave her a look. “Of course I did. I wasn’t going to lie after we went to all this trouble.”

After seeing him so subdued earlier, Pauline reveled in this hint of teenage attitude. “Of course,” she murmured. “Sorry. I wasn’t thinking.”

“And then she said I could go. I asked if we—the kids—could stay with you permanently, and she said she didn’t see why CPS wouldn’t approve you."

Fear gripped Pauline’s heart. “They wouldn’t approve me as a foster mom before,” she said.

Carlos took her hand. “Two things are going to override that now,” he said with confidence. “First, you’re the kids’ closest living relative. Second, your financial situation is about to be very different.”

“And my married status,” Pauline realized, smiling at him. “Oh, yes.”

“You guys are getting married?” Drew asked, looking back and forth between them.

“As soon as possible,” Pauline told him. “I can’t remember how long it takes to get a license in Montana.”

“We can get the ball rolling tomorrow,” Carlos said, leaning in to give her a quick kiss.

“Ew,” said Troy, who had finished his snack and was coming over to see if anything interesting was happening. “Can we play a game or something?”