through his body. For a disorienting moment, he didn't have any idea where he was, and then he remembered. He was in Derek's spare bedroom, and this was his first full day taking care of Derek's kids.
Light showed in a strip under the door. There was no clock in the room, but he tapped his phone and checked the time. 3:50 a.m. Either there was an intruder who had turned on the lights, or someone in the household was an even earlier riser than Dan himself.
He got up and put his pants on, not bothering with the prosthesis. He went quietly out into the main part of the house. If it was an intruder, he didn't want to give himself away.
The living room was very quiet and dark. The light was coming from the kitchen, where he heard soft clinking and then a voice muttering quietly.
Dan arrived in the doorway and found a smallish woman with her hair pulled back in a dark ponytail, bent over and rummaging through a cabinet.
Ah. This must be Derek's mate Gaby. He hadn't actually met her yesterday. She had come home while he was out with Derek in the barn, being shown the animal-related chores, and by the time they were back in the house, Gaby was upstairs taking a nap. According to Derek, she worked extremely early hours at the bakery these days and was sometimes in bed as early as 7 p.m.
"Where did I put that pastry cutter?" Gaby muttered under her breath. "Come on, it's gotta be here somewhere." She straightened up, still carrying on her inner monologue. "I can always ask Mom where the—AAAAAAAA!"
Dan jumped back. "Sorry!" he said hastily.
Gaby clapped a hand over her mouth. She held very still. Dan started to open his mouth. Gaby shook her head vigorously and pointed a finger toward the ceiling. Confused, Dan stood still too, and then he heard a faint, wailing cry from upstairs.
"Uh," he said sheepishly. "Sorry."
"I'm the one who woke her," Gaby said. She swiped a hand across her hair, smoothing it back into the ponytail. She was small but very intense. "Do you always sneak around? I'm guessing you're Dan. Derek told me about you." Her gaze dropped to the stump of his right arm. Her eyebrows went up a little, but she didn't say anything, which was almost worse than if she had.
"Uh, yeah," he said, feeling intensely self-conscious. The baby was still crying upstairs. "Listen, I'll get that. I think it's my job now. Okay?"
Gaby hesitated, then nodded, but as he went upstairs, he was aware of her quiet, padding footsteps following him. He liked that about her. He wouldn't have wanted a stranger picking up his baby unsupervised the first time, either.
Derek's tour of the house yesterday had included the upstairs, but in the dark Dan had to pause for a moment, even with acute shifter night vision, to remind himself where everything was. The wailing came from a bedroom to his left with an open door. At the end of the hall, the master bedroom door was cracked open. From behind it, there was rustling, and Derek groaned sleepily, "I'm up, I'm up."
"Don't worry about it," Dan said quietly, not wanting to wake up the other kids. "I'm on it."
"He's on it," Gaby echoed, sounding a little baffled, as a drowsy-looking Derek appeared in the bedroom doorway in boxers and a football T-shirt.
Dan went into the baby's room. A nightlight shaped like a butterfly glowed dimly in the corner. By that light and his own night vision, he found his way to the crib. Lulu, in a white onesie covered in blue flowers, had kicked off her covers and was thrashing and crying.
"Hush, baby," Dan murmured. He had a moment of low-key panic when he wasn't sure if he could pick her up one-handed, or if he trusted himself to pick her up that way without dropping her. But then it passed. He had handled belligerent drunks one-handed. He'd learned to shave and brush his teeth and take the lids off of jars. He could handle one not-very-big baby.
He dipped a hand under her and scooped her up, bringing her against his shoulder. It worked beautifully. He used the stump of his other arm as a light prop for extra security, but didn't really need it. It was years since he'd held a baby, but his body still knew exactly what to do. He cuddled her against his shoulder, and her crying settled down