Page 6 of Tiger Betrayal

“You can call him Murph. Everyone calls him Murph.”

“Yeah, he told me that.” She rocked up onto her toes and back down. “Sooo, it was nice to meet you.”

“I shouldn’t tell you my name.”

“You shouldn’t?”

No, because he was bad news. “But you’re going to find it out.”

“Right. Because we are going to work together.” She let off another shy laugh. She didn’t have the confidence he expected from someone who looked like her.

“You’re weird,” he said.

Her face fell and she ducked her gaze. “Yeah. See you on Wednesday. I mean if you’re working.” She gave him another tiny wave and made her way to her car.

Shit. He didn’t like the churning of his insides as she got into her Eclipse.

He followed her and knocked on her window. She looked startled again and rolled it down.

“Why do your eyes look like that?” he asked, studying the moisture in them.

“It’s just been a long day,” she said thickly. “I started a job, I panicked at a job, I quit the job, I had to mentally prepare myself for another interview, I got the job, and now some hot guy is calling me weird, and I get it. Really, I do. You aren’t the first person whose called me that, or even the tenth. It’s just been an overwhelming day I guess.”

“Okay.” Stellan was genuinely scared that the water in her eyes was going to make it to her cheeks. “Bring a lunch on Wednesday. The vending machines only work half the time.”

“Oh. Okay.”

“Okay.” He clapped his hand on the open window. “Bye.”

“Bye,” she murmured.

And he walked away before she could cry because girl tears were the worst and he couldn’t tell between the happy kind or the not-happy kind.

And now he stood here confused watching her car pull out onto the main road, wondering why the hell he had this overwhelming urge to talk to her more.

Chapter Three

What was Laramie thinking?

It was three p.m. on Tuesday, and here she was with a hamburger meal for a stranger. She still didn’t even know his name.

In her defense, she’d been on a mission to get herself a hamburger meal, and that was it. She’d gone to a place she’d heard was good, it had all the five-star reviews and was supposedly the best burger around Salt Lake City. And while she’d been sitting there, she’d thought how much she wished she knew someone here to share this with. And then she’d thought of the wild-eyed stranger who got her a job yesterday, and she went up to the register and ordered another one.

And then she’d driven three miles to Whiny’s Tire Shop and parked directly next to the stranger’s white pickup truck.

All of the hangars were open today, and every lift had a car on it, and inside, the bustle of work was mesmerizing. These boys knew exactly what they were doing.

The tall hot one with the eyes that looked like they were made of spun gold was barking out orders and working without skipping a beat. He was so smooth, and fast.

He hadn’t noticed her pull up, and that was great. He’d already called her weird.

Laramie bit off the cap of the pen with her teeth and poofed it out onto the passenger’s seat, then wrote across the brown paper bag, Thanks again.

She glanced up at the hangars and he was still busy. Perfect. She opened her door and got out. In a rush, she put the burger meal on top of the hood of his truck, near the driver’s side windshield wiper, and then slipped back into her car. As fast as she could, she put it into drive and pulled out. She checked her blind spot to make sure no one was zooming through the parking lot, and when she turned back around to hit the main road, she had to slam on her brakes.

The man stood directly in front of her. She barely stopped in time.

He cocked his head, and his unsettling gold eyes looked like they were glowing from within. Perhaps a trick of the sunlight.