Holden grumbled to himself as he fiddled with the numerous straps that kept Finn in his car seat. The child turned his blue eyes up at his foster father and growled right back.

“You might think it’s amusing,” Holden told him, “but that’s only because you don’t have to mess with these awful machines. It would be much easier to just fly out and catch our dinner in the woods.” He buckled the last strap, handed Finn his favorite stuffed bear, and climbed into the driver’s seat.

He’d had plenty of practice driving, but he wasn’t sure he would ever get used to it. It was a strange sensation to guide a big machine around amongst other big machines and trust the other drivers, who of course, didn’t always do what they were supposed to do. Holden had driven past accidents before, and he wondered how humans could pay so little attention when they were responsible for something the size and weight of a car.

“Maybe when you’re old enough, I can take you outside and let you exercise your wings.” Holden glanced in the rearview mirror for a moment before returning his eyes to the road. He and the other men had been lucky that the babies seemed to favor their human forms. Having not been in charge of raising the younglings back on Charok, he couldn’t say if this was natural for them or a biproduct of spending their entire lives on Earth, but he was grateful, either way. Finn and the others were enough of a handful as they were, but it was something else completely when one of them sprouted a tail or extended a claw. That being said, the clan had agreed to watch each other’s children as much as possible—versus relying on a sitter—to avoid a scandal.

Finn gurgled to himself in response and mashed his gums against the ear of his bear.

“I wish you could know what it’s like to have fresh food instead of all this packaged crap you’ll see at the store. They shove all the vegetables in cans and the grains in boxes, but that’s only after they mix them with sugars and chemicals.” He shook his head as he turned a corner. “It’s disgusting, but that’s the way humans want it to be.”

Humans, in general, were unappealing. But the one he had seen the other night at The Parlor had been completely different. He’d noticed her early in the evening, but he hadn’t said anything to his friends. Holden preferred to study her quietly, glancing at her occasionally and never making his interest known. His eyes had constantly drifted back to her, and he couldn’t quite explain why. Even when she had gotten up and gone right past their table, he hadn’t said a word. She pulled at his soul, and for a moment, he had wondered if she had felt the same way when she’d stopped in the middle of the floor on her way to the restroom.

But it wasn’t until that drunken asshole attacked her that he had found himself taking action. Holden hadn’t even had a moment to think about it before he was on his feet and striding over, eager for blood. It had been far too easy to dispatch the thug, and part of him wished it had been more of a violent exchange. How he would have loved to sink his claws into the man’s flesh and make him feel pain for what he had done.

Things had changed, though, when the man had gone running out the doors and Holden could focus on the woman once again. He’d still been angry, but his worry for her had crept in as well. Maybe he had been too forceful, because she’d still looked absolutely terrified as she tried to speak with him. Holden hadn’t even thought to ask her name, and he’d been kicking himself ever since.

He pulled up to the grocery store and heaved a heavy sigh. “Here we go, Finn. I get to load you down with all the processed food you can imagine, and nobody will think twice about it. Except me.” He carried his son into the store and settled him into the cart, annoyed at the way it rattled as he pushed it down the aisle. “Seems like I spend more time strapping you into things than letting you run free,” he said with a frown.

Holden paused in the aisle of boxes he had come to know as cereal. He didn’t much care for the stuff himself; it was dry and powdery, and he couldn’t see what appeal it had. But if he was going to be stuck on this planet, then he needed to get used to every aspect of it.

As he scanned the brightly colored boxes, a silky voice spoke next to him. “If you’re looking for baby cereal, I’m afraid you’re in the wrong aisle.”

Holden turned to find the owner of the voice. She had long blonde hair that swung around her shoulders and vivid red lips. The woman lidded her eyes and stood with one hip cocked in what Xander had told him was part of the human mating ritual. He didn’t quite get it. “I’m not.”

“Oh, I’m sorry.” Her face flushed slightly, and she batted her long eyelashes. “I thought maybe you were looking for something for your little one. You must be one of the guys who actually knows what he’s doing with kids.” She cast a quick glance at Finn and then looked back at Holden.

He watched her for a moment, his brows furrowed as he tried to understand what she was saying. Then he remembered that the males of the species weren’t often the caretakers of the younglings. It happened, and Xander said there was more of a trend toward it now than there had been in human history, but it still wasn’t the norm.

Looking down at Finn, he wondered how that could possibly be. The child wasn’t his biologically, but he was part of Holden’s clan, nevertheless. He had made a commitment to care for the little one, and he would do everything in his power to follow through. If human males weren’t like that, then he felt sorry for the women who had to deal with them.

“Do you always do the shopping, or does your wife?” the woman asked.

Holden realized what was happening: he was being hit on. It was flattering, in a way, but he wasn’t interested in anyone who wasn’t his mate, the woman who could be his partner in life and in raising this child. He didn’t know anything about this lady, but he could feel she most definitely wasn’t the one.

“I do.” Holden answered, continuing past the woman, down the aisle. There was a mutter behind him, but he ignored it. Holden grabbed a random box from the shelf labeled Captain Crunch and turned down the next aisle.

When he had made his way to the back of the store, he stared at the plastic packages in the meat department with disgust. There was no telling how old the food was, but it was obviously not fresh. Finn babbled constantly to himself and was getting louder and louder, distracting Holden from trying to decipher the difference between chuck roast and rib roast. “Easy there, little one,” he crooned. “We’ll be moving again in a minute.”

But Finn continued, and he hopped up and down in the constraint of the cart seat.

Holden turned to see the boy pointing at something on the other side of the store. The child practically screeched with excitement, and Holden knew the other customers were beginning to stare. He didn’t want to call attention to himself, and he definitely didn’t want the impromptu help of strange women who thought him incapable of his fatherly duties. He grabbed Finn’s stuffed bear and waggled it in the air. “Here you go. Why don’t you talk to your bear for a minute?”

Finn quieted down for a moment, and Holden turned back to the shelves of meat. He was working his way through trying different cuts and different recipes, trying to find something that not only reminded him of the food on Charok, but would be acceptable to any humans who might decide to drop by. He’d made the mistake once before of cooking chunks of meat over an open flame. The smoke that had poured out the windows of his home had brought his neighbors running. Fortunately, they had laughed it off and chalked it up to Holden being a single dad who didn’t know any better. An older lady from down the street had offered to give him cooking lessons, should he decide he wanted them, and that had been the end of it. But that wouldn’t be good enough forever, and so Holden had persisted.

“La la la. La! La la! LA LA LA LA!” Finn was hollering at the top of his lungs, and he was once again pointing.

Holden was tempted to lean down and explain to the boy that it wasn’t nice to point. That was what he had seen other parents do, but it didn’t seem right. Finn had made it very clear that he had something to say, and Holden saw no reason to ignore him. “Alright, what is it?”

He turned around and bumped right into another shopper, stepping back instantly, and automatically apologized. “I’m sorry. I was talking to my son and I didn’t see you.”

“That’s quite alright.”

He recognized the voice. He’d only caught a snippet of it a few nights ago, and she wasn’t nearly as out of breath as she had been back at The Parlor, but there was no doubt it was her. Holden blinked and found the woman he had rescued at the bar standing right in front of him. She was pushing a cart full of fresh vegetables and bread from the bakery, and she wore her hair down. The woman had stared up at him with wonder once he had chased off her attacker, but now her cerulean gaze was set only on Finn.

“What a handsome little man you are,” she murmured. “Are you out shopping with your daddy?”

Finn grinned and clapped his hands, and then pointed at her once again. “La la!”

“How did you know my name was Leah?” the woman asked with a smile. It was only then that she happened to glance up at Holden, and the smile instantly disappeared. “Oh. Hi.”

“Hi.” Holden felt his body reacting the same way it had when he’d seen her before. He had wanted desperately to shift once he’d seen her and caught her scent, but it had been even worse once he’d jumped in to protect her. She brought out the inner dragon in him, and it was likely that she didn’t even know it. He sucked in a breath and willed his body to remain in its current form. It had been a fight to stay human ever since he had arrived on Earth, and he had a feeling he would have to sneak down to the basement later that night and let his body have its way for a moment.

“I’m sorry,” the woman—Leah—said as she turned to leave. “You just have such an adorable child, and I wasn’t paying any attention. I’m sorry.”

He was losing his chance, and there was no guarantee that he would see her again. He had her first name now, but he doubted that would be enough to track her down. Holden racked his brain, trying to remember what he was supposed to do next. He smiled and tried to look confident. “That’s alright. You can make it up to me by having dinner with me tonight.”

A wave of red crept up her neck, to her face, and all the way to her hairline. Leah flapped her hands at her sides and shook her head as she took a few steps backwards. “I can’t. I’m sorry.” She gazed at Finn for one final, long moment before grabbing her cart and hurtling down the aisle.

Holden stared after her, wondering exactly what he had done wrong. It was going to be a long time before he understood what women really wanted. “Come on, Finn,” he said soberly as he put a package labeled stew meat in his cart, and then grabbed a roast as well. “We’ll try something new for dinner.” When he reached the checkout, he saw the same cart Leah had been pushing abandoned at the front of the store. She had been so eager to get away from him that she hadn’t even bothered to buy her groceries.