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I have enough chaos in my life, and sure as hell don’t need more—especially not the kind that comes in hilariously illegal black-and-orange and could overpower a hundred men.
Maybe it’s divine punishment for my three unbreakable rules.
One, I’ve sworn off critters of any kind long ago, no matter how much the girls begged.
Two, I’ve also walled myself off from drama. And I’ve been pretty successful at keeping it out of my life in a talkative little town that loves gossip more than it does its famous rodeos.
Finally, I’ve always given a big hell no to romance, and that’s how it’s gonna stay.
Half the ladies in Dallas see that as a challenge.
They think I’m one more rock-hard, closed off caveman who traded his badass card for a dad card, and every last one of ’em are wrong.
Many have come calling with flirty smiles and lipstick so bright it burns the eyes.
All have failed.
When I say I’m a bachelor whose life begins and ends with his girls, his bar, and his best friends in that order, I fucking mean it.
Shame some women still don’t get the message.
Gotta admit, before today, I did a pretty good job of obeying my rules like gospel.
As I climb the stairs to my room, I cringe because the cracks are forming, annoying and unwelcome as a hairline fracture.
Even if it’s just for a day, Willow and Bruce are threatening my resolve with critters and drama.
Thank fuck the romance rule is solid as marble.
A shiver stabs me then, so fierce I roll my shoulders.
Willow’s face flashes through my mind like lightning—damn her—for the first of many times this restless night.
3
Tiger Fight (Willow)
Even though the clock beside the bed said it was after three when I’d climbed between the sheets that smell like freshly cut flowers and sunshine, by seven o’clock, I can’t stay in bed a second longer.
I’m too worried.
My mind keeps spinning in all directions simultaneously.
Priscilla and Niles Foss must know Bruce and I are gone by now, along with the laptop. I’d snatched that, too.
A damning indictment of everything wrong at Exotic Plains.
That’s what I want to believe, anyway, if I can find someone who can break through the password encryption for proof, hopefully.
And I’m going to need plenty of rock-solid proof to save my own butt from a prison cell when—not if—the law steps into this.
Right now, I’m running on pure jittery instinct. Too wound up to sleep and too worried to try.
I climb out of bed, make it up real quick, and then tiptoe into the bathroom.
Once I’m showered and dressed, the reek of adrenaline gone, I head for the barn to check on Bruce.
He’s still sleeping inside the trailer Grady backed into the barn through the big sliding metal door, but I can see paw prints. He was up during the night, pacing, without putting much weight on his injured front foot.
I should’ve waited until this morning to feed him, but I hoped if I could get some food into him last night, then he’d sleep like the huge baby he is.
The ache in my heart makes me look away.
This is way out of the ordinary for him. Other big cats wouldn’t adjust nearly as well. They’d be pacing all the time, anxious and growling and afraid, hurt paw or not.
But Bruce? He takes it in stride, trusting the situation as long as I’m with him.
Trusting me.
One more reason why I can’t let him down, not for anything.
He’s such a unique animal. Personable, tender, and entirely gorgeous. Even his markings are a living masterpiece, from the layered orange and creamy white fur to the charcoal-black stripes cutting through his coat in sharp, slashing intervals.
He groans in his sleep, opening a lazy eye, glancing at me for a second before he’s out like a brick again.
“Sleep, big guy. Just a little longer until we sort this crap out,” I whisper.
Huffing out a worried breath, I walk to the gate that separates the center of the barn from other areas around the old, empty farm.
No exaggeration, the building is put together like Fort Knox. Even while I’m terrified my luck could run out any hour, I have to admit I couldn’t have picked a better place to crash-land for the night.
Or a better stranger to crash into.
Grady and his fortress of a barn are a double miracle.
The center of the building, where he backed the trailer in, is a large space that runs the length of the barn with big, heavy sliding metal doors. On both sides of the area are walls of cement blocks, broken up with metal gates every five feet for entrances into cement block stalls.
There’s also a sweeping storage room, which is where I left the ice chest, my next worry.
It’s got just enough meat for one more feeding before I’ll have to scramble for Bruce’s meals. Next to the storeroom is a set of stairs leading to the loft overhead.
