Page 3 of Tiger Betrayal

“Um, I forgot my purse,” she whispered.

The man pinched the bridge of his nose and nodded once. “You’re killing me slowly right now.”

“I don’t even know you. I have to get my purse. My wallet is in there.” She strode past him, chin still as high in the air as she could manage, and by the time she walked past all of the other cashiers in the break room, none of whom had even said hi to her today, she realized she had forgotten the combination to her lock.

It was right there at the tip of her tongue. She’d been in a rush this morning when she’d been choosing the numbers though. Was it 1-0-1-0? She tried it. Nope. 1-1-1-1? Nope.

“Back up,” the familiar growly voice said, and she moved to the side just in time for him to punch the locker in, and yank open the door. The lock still dangled pitifully there, but her purse was exposed.

“You just…you just broke a metal locker,” she murmured in shock.

“I work out. Hurry up.”

Okay. She grabbed her purse and made her way out of the break room with the behemoth following her out. She couldn’t meet Rita’s eyes or any of the customers as Rita was rushing to ring them up. Oh, now she cared.

“The police are on their way,” Rita called.

“No they’re not,” the man said, walking backward. “You just pretended to call them.”

Laramie did glance behind her to witness Rita’s dumbfounded face. To her surprise, Rita didn’t correct him. What the heck?

“How did you know?” she asked.

“I have good hearing. No one was on the other line.” The man slid sunglasses over his eyes and strode in front of her, leading her directly through the sliding glass doors.

“You needed that job?” he asked.

“Bad. I just moved here and I’m going to get behind on my bills. I got that job out of desperation,” she admitted softly, hugging her purse close to her chest.

“How much were you getting paid there?”

“Thirteen-fifty an hour.”

The man stopped walking. “I don’t know where your car is.”

Laramie froze. She didn’t know him, and now he was following her to her car. “Look, I think I’m just going to leave now.”

“I’m not a danger to you. I’ve already had my Rabbit,” he murmured, poking buttons on his cell phone. “Hey Murph, do you still have that front-desk position open?” The guy looked out over the parking lot and rested his free hand on his hip while he listened to Murph’s apparent answer. “Cool, you have an interview at one. Oh, don’t give me that shit. It’s your slow time. You’ll be on your lunch. She’ll be there at one.” The guy hung up and told her, “Whiny’s Tire Shop over on Franklin, one o’clock today. Be five minutes early. Murph is a fair boss, but he’s a hard ass about people being late.”

Whiny’s Tire Shop? “I don’t know anything about tires,” she said, panicking as he walked away.

“They’ll train you, unlike this fuckin’ place. The job was listed two weeks ago. Pay starts at sixteen an hour. Don’t fuck it up.”

Wait, he was getting her a job interview for real? That paid higher than this one?

“My name is Laramie,” she introduced herself.

“I know. It was on your nametag,” he said over his shoulder without slowing.

He didn’t offer his name back. Just climbed up into a big pickup truck that was shiny white, like he’d just washed it.

She stood there dumbly as he pulled out of his parking space and drove away, and she waved at the back of his loud truck.

That scary-eyed man had made her quit her job before they could fire her. And taught her how to correctly flip someone off. And then he’d gotten her a job interview.

And he was a complete stranger. A foul-mouthed semi-rude stranger who could break through metal lockers.

Laramie looked down at her hand and practiced the flip-off, then looked around quickly to make sure no one was watching her. Stunned, she meandered toward her car.