Page 9 of Shelter for Tanna

“And he knows?”

Tanna nodded. “Yep. I told him and he still wants to take me to dinner.”

Daniel puffed his cheeks out and let a long breath escape his lips. “Boy, I hope he knows what he’s getting into.”

“He wants to know. Listen, you’d better go catch the bus. I’ll see you when I get off, okay?”

“Okay, Mom.” Leaning over, he gave her a peck on the cheek, then scanned his surroundings to see if anyone had seen before he gave her another smile. “See you after while.”

Tanna climbed into the wrecker and pulled out her phone. She hit the contact and waited while it rang, and in just seconds it was answered with, “Hello, doll!”

“Hi. I just talked to the sitter and she can stay with them on Thursday night.”

“Great! Okay, so we can go about this one of two ways. Either I pick you up, or you meet me there. If you’re a little shaky, I won’t be offended. Just being safe. It’s totally up to you.”

Tanna thought about her shabby little house, her yard with big patches of bare dirt, and her dinky little compact car. Oh, well, if the guy was turned off by that stuff, she didn’t need him in her life anyway. “You can pick me up. Twelve nineteen ForresterAvenue. Yellow house, white shutters.”

“Is six okay?”

“Six is fine. I can only stay out about two hours. Hope that’s okay.”

She heard him chuckle. “That’s fine. I think I can win your heart in about forty-five minutes, but an extra hour and fifteen wouldn’t hurt anything!”

“You sound pretty sure of yourself, firefighter!” she answered, laughing.

“I am! I can be extremely charming when I put my mind to it! Okay, Thursday at six, twelve nineteen ForresterAvenue. I’ll be there. And just dress casually. I’ll be in a tee and jeans. This is something that’s supposed to be fun, not stressful. Sound good?”

“Sounds great. I’ll see you then. Bye.” Tanna ended the call and sat there in the truck, mulling over the conversation. Forty-five minutes to win her heart?

He didn’t realize it, but he’d probably only need fifteen of those.

* * *

Braden scoured the internet. There was an enormous amount of information out there on Oppositional Defiant Disorder, and he wasn’t sure what was correct and what was just for sensationalism. From what he could tell, it was mostly about anger, outbursts, and being generally argumentative, with a lot of it being attention-seeking. Many of the things he read claimed that correction didn’t work well, but there had to be some things that would do the trick. He saw the word “redirecting” a lot, and decided maybe that was the thing he should be looking at.

But it was all too confusing, and one of the things he was sure of from what he was reading was a huge disparity in behaviors. Not all kids demonstrated all behaviors, and that made it hard to advise parents on things that would work for a particular child. From what Braden could tell, there was only one thing to do.

He had to meet Max and find out for himself.

“Whatcha up to, Monkey?”

Braden looked up from his laptop to find HotShot grinning at him. “I’m looking up something. Oppositional Defiant Disorder.”

His coworker shrugged. “Never heard of it.”

“Yeah, well, I never had either, but apparently…” He faltered, not sure if he wanted to go there with one of the guys.

“Apparently what?”

“Um, apparently someone I know has a kid with it.”

HotShot peered out from under his lowered brow. “This wouldn’t be that woman wrecker driver, would it?”

“Uh, yeah.”

“Uh-huh. Kid with special needs.”

“What’s wrong with that?”

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