The Land of the Shadow by Lissa Bryan Page A

at her hip and blasted the gator three times in the head. It slumped to the ground, dead as Caesar.
    “I didn’t want you to use the shotgun and tear up the hide,” Carly said.
    God, he loved her. He felt a grin stretch his cheeks.
    She turned toward the house but called over her shoulder to the staring townspeople as she ran to check on her baby. “We have meat.”

Chapter Three
    After he hung the beast in a tree in the yard to drain, Justin checked on Dagny again, even though he knew she was all right. Kaden was still in the house with her, seated on the sofa with his head in his hands while Dagny busied herself at her play table, happily trying to hammer a square block into a star-shaped hole.
    Justin crouched down beside her, and she grinned before extending the block. Justin dropped it through the proper hole, and she blinked at him in solemn awe before picking up the block and examining it as though she were trying to determine why it had behaved differently in his hands. Justin kissed her on the top of the head and stood. Kaden still hadn’t moved.
    Justin sat on the edge of the coffee table. “Do you have something you want to say?”
    Kaden looked up at him, his face pale. “God, Justin, I’m so . . .” Kaden rubbed the back of his neck, a mannerism he’d picked up from Justin. “I know ‘sorry’ sounds so lame. I almost let your kid get eaten by an alligator.”
    “I’m not angry at you, Kaden,” Justin said, and Kaden’s head jerked toward him in surprise.
    “I thought the porch was safe! I thought it would be cooler for her while I took the garbage out. I swear—it was just a few seconds.”
    “Nowhere is safe these days,” Justin said. “And a few seconds is all it takes. When she was first starting to crawl, I put her down on the floor in the bedroom and turned around to get a fresh T-shirt out of the drawer. I turned back and she was at the top of the stairs. Nearly had a heart attack.” He stood and laid a hand on Kaden’s shoulder. “I think some kind of scare happens to everyone in a family with a small child at some point. If we’re smart, we learn from it. Okay?”
    “Yeah, I learned,” Kaden said, his tone low and fervent.   “Justin, I promise—”
    “Don’t promise. Show me.”
    “I will.”
    Justin considered for a moment. “You know, Kaden, no one expects you to be perfect. Back when I was in foster care, there was this kid I knew who almost ran himself ragged trying to always be perfect. He freaked out if he made the smallest mistake, even something like leaving his jacket in the kitchen instead of hanging it up. Kid was always as jittery as a cat at a dog show, and he probably would have ended up having himself a heart attack at thirty-five. But one day, his foster mother sat him down and said mistakes are part of life. They’re how we learn. And she told him that loving someone meant you didn’t stop just because they messed up. That’s part of being a family. Family means you forgive each other and move on as you grow together.”
    He stopped for a moment and met Kaden’s eyes. “We’re always going to be family, okay? I want you to know that. God knows Carly and I understand mistakes, because we make our share of them. So I want you to stop being so hard on yourself, okay?”
    Kaden nodded. “Okay. I’m sorry.”
    Justin gave him a small smile. “And stop saying that so much.”
    “Okay. I’m—” Kaden bit his lip.
    Justin grinned and gave him a light knock on the shoulder as he headed to the front door.
    “Are you going to cut up the gator now?”
    “No, I’m going to go check the fence line. Please watch Dagny.”
    “I will. I won’t ever let her out of my sight again.”
    Justin headed out into the yard where he spotted Carly standing on a footstool, debating with Miz Marson where to cut into the gator’s hide. She’d already been inside the house twice more herself, unable to fight the compulsion to make sure their baby was safe. He