Claimed After Divorce by My Brother's Best Friend novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: Pick-Up

Della collects the twins from school in front of every parent, and Gilbert cannot drag her off. The old Alpha serves her a summons for the council at the next full moon.

I told Polly I would be at the school gate at three.

I was there at two-fifteen.

The gate sat at the end of a brick path, and parents were already gathering along the fence with their coffees and their phones.

Dalton had driven me.

He parked across the street and stayed in the truck with the engine off.

"I'll wait here," he said. "You tell me if you want me closer."

He didn't ask me to explain why I wanted to do it this way.

I walked up the path alone.

Two men in dark coats stood by a black car at the curb.

I knew them.

They belonged to Gilbert's father, and they had carried groceries into my kitchen for years.

One of them saw me and straightened up.

"Mrs. Thatcher," he said. "We've been asked to take the children home ourselves today."

"By who?"

"The Alpha."

"This is a human school," I said. "The pickup list has two names on it, Gilbert's and mine. I signed that form with a school secretary in a yellow cardigan, and I'm going to wait right here for my kids."

He looked at the parents along the fence.

Three of them had stopped talking.

He didn't move, and neither did I.

At three o'clock the doors opened and the children came out in a noisy line behind their teacher.

Milo saw me first.

He didn't wave.

He dropped his backpack on the path and ran.

"Mommy!"

He hit me at the knees and I picked him up, and he smelled like crayons and graham crackers.

Polly came behind him at a dead run with her braids coming loose.

She didn't say anything.

She wrapped both arms around my waist and held on so hard it hurt.

"You came," she said into my coat.

"I said I would."

"Daddy said you were on a trip."

"I was at Uncle's," I said. "I'm not on a trip."

Milo leaned back and held something up in his fist.

It was a tiny tooth in a folded tissue.

"It came out Tuesday," he said. "Daddy says the tooth fairy skipped us on account of the emergency. Can you call her?"

I laughed, and then I had to turn my face away, because laughing was close to crying.

"I'll call her tonight," I said.

"Mrs. Thatcher."

It was the guard again, closer now.

"Please let the children go."

"No."

He put a hand on Polly's shoulder.

She flinched and pressed harder against me.

Every parent along the fence had a phone out.

"Take your hand off my daughter," I said, not loudly.

"The children are in the Alpha's custody."

"Then explain that to her teacher."

The teacher had walked over and was standing a step behind me with her arms folded.

"Is there a problem?" she asked the guard. "Because this mother is on the list, and you are not."

He took his hand away.

I heard the black car's door open on the other side, and another voice.

"That's enough."

It was Gilbert's father.

He climbed out slowly, a tall, stooped man in a grey overcoat with a cane he did not need.

He didn't look at me.

He looked at the phones along the fence, and he smiled at them.

"Family misunderstanding," he said pleasantly. "My daughter-in-law is upset, and she has every right. Della, why don't we all go home and talk?"

"The school can call Gilbert," I said. "He knows where I am."

Gilbert's car pulled up behind his father's just then.

He got out fast.

He started toward us with his face set, and then he saw the phones, and I watched him decide.

He smiled instead.

"Hey, kids," he said. "Look who came to see you."

Milo held on to my neck.

"I want to go with Mommy," Polly said.

Her voice carried across the whole front yard.

Gilbert's smile stayed where it was.

"Not today, sweetheart."

"I want to go with Mommy."

"Polly."

"Go home with your dad today," I said.

I knelt, set Milo down, and took Polly's face in both hands.

"Listen to me. I'm going to see you tomorrow, and the day after. I'm not going anywhere. Do you hear me?"

She nodded.

Tears were running down her chin.

"Say it again," Milo said.

"I'm not going anywhere."

Gilbert took each of them by the hand, and they went to the car looking back at me the whole way.

The old man waited until they were in.

Then he stepped close to me.

He didn't smile now.

He took a black envelope from his coat and pressed it into my hand, and the wax seal was still warm from his pocket.

"Appear in front of the Alder Creek council at the full moon," he said, very low. "That's twenty-one days. They will decide whose children those are."

"They're Gilbert's children."

"They are the pack's, girl," he said. "And you are a human nanny who has overstayed."

He called me human, and I let him.

I looked at the seal, then at him, and I kept my face still.

"I'll be there," I said.

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