Page 43 of Tiger Betrayal

Her boss blew air out of his cheeks and said, “Carry on,” as he walked away.

Laramie kept randomly smiling for the rest of her shift.

Any time Stellan had to talk to Murph or pick up a set of keys for one of the cars from the keyboard behind her, he would lock eyes with her and turn her stomach into a swarm of butterflies.

Last night, they’d stayed at Dame’s in the RV. Stellan had slept curled against her back, and in the middle of the night, he’d fucked her slow, eyes on hers. It had been different than before. It had been slower, more intimate. Since seeing his animal, he’d turned so gentle around her. Anyone else? Oh, they were going to catch his mood, his quips, his insults. But her? She got yellow flowers just because.

She loved him already.

It was too soon, but her heart didn’t care about that.

Her mom had written in her journal about her father, When you know, you just know, and I knew from the very start.

Laramie understood now.

The last hour of work dragged on for sixty-nine years as she watched the numbers on the digital clock tick up. At last, six o’clock hit and she logged out of her computer and made her way to the break room to remove her work coveralls. Stellan came in just as she was leaving, removed his and then brushed the small of her back with his fingertips as he guided her out of the breakroom and toward the front door.

“Stellan?” Murph called.

A soft, inhuman snarl emanated from Stellan as he glared at his boss. “What?”

“A word.”

“I have to grab my flowers anyway,” Laramie assured him, heading for her workstation.

Stellan followed Murph to the back office and was back in two minutes. He led her out of the building and held the door open for her, then headed for his truck.

“Everything okay?” she asked.

“Yeah. Craig broke his hand yesterday and he called and told Murph he’s going to sue me for his medical bills.”

“Oh my gosh,” she murmured, stopping beside him as he held his truck door open. “But he hit you.”

“Yep.” Stellan held up a thumb drive. “Murph was just giving me a copy of the security footage in case Crotch Stain actually goes through with it and gets a lawyer.”

Relief flooded her. “Okay, that was cool of Murph.”

“It would be cooler if he was calling me in there to tell me he was switching my lunch back, but this works too.”

She snorted and climbed up into his truck. The drive to Memory Grove park would’ve been way faster, but Stellan insisted on feeding her on the way. He stopped at a sandwich place and grabbed them six roast beef sandwiches, chips, and bottled lemonades before he drove them the rest of the way to the park.

She’d been putting this one off for a special occasion.

Today felt special enough. Her little bouquet of yellow flowers was sitting in her lap, and she already had plans to press them and add them to her mother’s journal on the entry about her knowing from the start.

She pulled the journal from her oversized purse and flipped to the right page to study the grove of trees in her mother’s sketch. The trees from this picture were probably much bigger now.

Stellan parked and then grabbed the food as he got out. Excited, Laramie cradled her mother’s journal against her chest and followed him to a concrete walking path that led toward what looked like a duck pond from this distance. They explored for a while, but nothing looked familiar to the sketch.

“Sometimes it’s like this,” she explained. “Sometimes it takes me a while to find the right spot.”

What she didn’t tell him though was that on the second lap around the park, a feeling of unease started to fill her stomach. This place really didn’t look like the sketch, and really, there weren’t many trees in the entire park. Most was just flat ground and manicured lawn that housed groups and couples hanging out on blankets or feeding ducks that were waddling around. On the edge of the small park was a huge screen, like they did movie nights out here for the community.

Stellan kept looking over at her, but in all honesty, her panic was growing.

“Let’s eat and regroup, and then start looking at the trees over there,” he said, twitching his head toward a thin line of towering spruces.”

“I think the tree looks more like this,” she said, pointing to her mother’s sketch. Laramie looked up at him. “It’s cut down, isn’t it?”