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“Oh, you do? Where?” She glances around. “Here?”
“Definitely not here.” I walk over, unlatch the hitch, and lower the bulldog jack on the trailer so I can move her truck.
“Then where?” she asks, her voice tight.
I unhook the safety chains, taking my sweet time. Not that it delays any bit of this misery.
I almost can’t even force it out.
“My place,” I rumble.
Willow’s feet scuff the ground as she sways back a few steps.
“Oh, no, I couldn’t. I can’t. We—”
“What’s the alternative?” I’m searching my own mind for one and coming up blank. A contraband tiger is sure to cause a ruckus sooner or later, and it ain’t happening in my lot.
Her full pink lips flutter open a couple times and then clamp shut.
“Exactly.” Shaking my head at myself as much as at her, I say, “Wait here, I’ll get my truck and tow yours behind the building.”
I walk across the parking lot to my truck, still questioning if there’s really no alternative.
Honestly, I’ve got no love for letting a crazy chick and her tiger crash at my house.
My girls aren’t home and won’t be for a couple days yet, thank God.
Still, I really don’t need this.
What happens if the girls come home and these “guests” are still around?
My face burns behind my whiskers. I’ve got half a mind to step back into my bar and pour myself a few fingers of something potent to help me face this bullshit.
The timing works, though.
Barely.
As long as my nephew can get her truck running tomorrow, she and her murder-kitten will be gone before they get home. Gone before anyone ever learns about this.
Besides Weston, no one ever needs to know I lost my frigging mind and took in two strays who could kill me.
Plus, I’ll still have a solid day to figure out what to do about Sawyer and Avery. My heart aches at the thought of them.
This is the longest we’ve ever been apart, but with Aunt Faye gone for the summer, a week of summer camp was my best option to keep the bar running full time in its busiest season. Joyce was a godsend, helping keep an eye on them as much as she could before camp started, but I can’t ask her to watch the girls day and night.
Or Hank, once my brother-in-law.
He helps too much as it is.
At ten, the girls think they’re old enough to stay home alone.
Nope. Not for the long hours I’m gone working at the Bobcat. I let them come with me now and again well before bedtime, but I don’t want them raised in a bar, watching their old man keep this town fueled up on two-for-one specials and Bingo Fish Fry nights.
The life of a single dad sucks.
It’s harder than I ever imagined, and scarier, too.
But it’s my sole responsibility to make sure my girls have everything they need and grow up right, blossoming into good, happy people. I wouldn’t give it up for anything.
Every square inch of my heart, my soul, and my love belongs to my girls. And maybe part of love is taking a weird detour or two to protect our lives, which is exactly why I can’t have a stolen goddamn tiger at my bar.
I’ll text Weston as soon as I get her to my place.
Then I’ll buckle up and deal with getting the Tiger Princess out of my life fast.
It doesn’t take long to pull her truck behind the bar, where no one will notice it, and then to hook mine up to the trailer.
My property is only five miles away from the Bobcat, and it doesn’t take long to get there, or to back the trailer into the old barn. I try not to think about what’s inside.
For once, I’m damn grateful my dad was a practical man who went for brute efficiency over style. The walls of this building are more than rustic, made from heaping concrete blocks back when my father tore down an old North Earhart Oil building.
In the old days, he and old man Reed—the oil company’s head honcho—were close friends, always making crazy deals for land access and supplies.
Most of these schemes worked out well for our family, including the barn. It was built stronger than some Army barracks. Even the hog pens on the outside are concrete, designed to withstand time and the elements, and they’ve done it beautifully.
After unhooking the trailer and parking my truck, I run a hose into the barn to fill up a water trough while Willow gets her hellcat settled.
Bruce.
She told me that’s the giant’s name.
He’s even larger and more menacing than the first glimpse suggested. I’ve never seen a tiger up close, and have to admit, he’s a magnificent animal—if you ignore the fact that he’s an exotic predator capable of snapping your head off in the blink of an eye.
