Trusting the Tiger: BBW Tiger Shifter Paranormal Romance (4 page)

Toni cracked a weak smile. “He must be bad, if you’re willing to plan a work meeting to get him out of your hair.”

She hugged herself, looking so anxious and miserable even through her brave smile that Jack couldn’t hold himself back anymore. He wanted more than anything to gather her in his arms right then and there, sweep her away to his house deep in the forest, keep her safe – anything to banish that hunted look from her eyes.

He was under no illusions that sweeping Toni off her feet right now would more be more likely to scare her than comfort her. He made up his mind. 

“Look,” he began, stumbling over his words. “I’m really sorry about all this. This is meant to be your weekend getaway, and instead … well, it doesn’t seem like you’re having a great time. And you should be. Let me make it up to you.”

“Well, you got me a drink,” Toni replied with a straight face. They both looked down to where her Coke lay spilled on the ground, next to Jack’s beer.

“Right. And then I ran off and left you to be stalked by a weirdo from my past. So I owe you twice,” Jack offered.

“Maybe three times, if you count organizing this BMX thing that has stolen Felix and Lexi’s sporty little hearts,” Toni added.

“Two and a half,” Jack countered. “I provided the campground, but Karen’s one-hundred-percent to blame for the bikes.”

“Deal.” A smile – a real one, this time – twitched at the corner of her mouth, and she held out one hand. “Shake on it?”

They shook, both giving the action the mock seriousness it deserved.

“First things first, let’s get you to that first-aid station,” Jack decided. “Your fingers – hang on, was it the other hand?”

Toni stared at her fingers. “No, it was definitely this hand…” She flexed her fingers experimentally. “Wow, the marks have faded really fast.”

“Does it still hurt?”

“No, it’s … fine.” She frowned. “Weird.”

Jack gently took her hand and examined it. Five minutes ago, her fingertips had been a painful-looking red, as though she had touched a hotplate, but now there was no sign anything had ever been wrong. Toni’s fingers were unharmed, soft, delicate, and as beautiful as the rest of her.

With his shifter senses, Jack felt Toni’s heartbeat quicken. Her fingers started to curl around his own, and then she pulled back self-consciously.

Jack’s own body was responding to her excitement. He coughed, willing himself to calm down. Then inspiration struck.

“I’ve got it. With your niece and nephew up to their eyeballs in dirt bikes, your plans for the weekend are probably shot, right?” He took in her glum nod. “Then let me make it up to you. How do you feel about joining me on a picnic tomorrow?”

Toni looked up at him, and the tentative hope in her eyes made his heart swell in his chest.

“I’d … I’d like that,” she said, the words tripping over each other. “I’d
really
like that.”

The sun had crept toward the horizon as they talked, so Jack offered to help herd the twins back to the cabins once the bikes were packed away for the day. Lexi and Felix – he made a mental note to ask Toni about the names – hardly touched the ground the whole way back to the camping ground. They clambered up trees and jumped across rock piles. He couldn’t help but think that Toni would hardly have had a relaxing weekend if she had to look after the two of them the whole time. He left them madly waving to him from the cabin door, and turned to start the long walk through the trees to his own home.

There was no sign of de Jager, but then he had stalked off in the opposite direction to the cabins. If he was staying in the campground, he must have his own tent somewhere off the beaten track. He hadn’t been lying when he told Toni he doubted de Jager was up to anything, but even so, knowing how much the man had unnerved her, he pulled out his phone and rang the head ranger to let him know bad news was skulking around.

CHAPTER THREE

TONI

“You two are
filthy
,” Toni grumbled as Lexi and Felix stripped off their sweaters to reveal sub-strata of dirt. “Right, grab your shower kits, and let’s get to the showers before everyone else descends on them.”

“Not gonna!” crowed Lexi. Before Toni could so much as
tssk
the small girl began to shrink and twist inside her clothes. Her sleek brown hair shrank down and then seemed to stream across her skin. Moments later a lithe, chocolate-brown Burmese kitten wriggled out from the pile of clothing. Lexi the human might have been covered in muck, but Lexi the cat was spotless, her fur gleaming. She stretched out one paw and licked it smugly. <
See? No need to shower. I just leave the dirt behind!
>

“You mean you leave it all over the floor.” Toni sighed. Her eyes had automatically flicked to the window as Lexi began to shift, checking that the curtains were safely drawn and no one could see in.

She picked up the pile of clothes, shook the loose dirt from them, and then started to hunt around for a broom to sweep the mess out the door. “Felix, why don’t we…”

Too late. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Felix drop to the floor, but the cat that emerged from this pile of clothing was far less sleek than his sister. While Lexi had managed to shift out of her coating of dirt as well as her clothes, Felix wasn’t so lucky.

“Oh, Felix.” She sighed sympathetically. “Do
not
try to lick that all off yourself, you’ll make yourself sick. Come here. I’ll brush you down.”

He meekly jumped on her lap as she sat down with the brush. Toni secretly suspected that the boy could shift as well as her sister, but he liked being brushed more than he liked showing off. Lexi prowled around the room as Toni groomed dirt out of her brother’s hair.

Toni kept finding herself glancing nervously at the door. She was still on edge from her encounter with de Jager earlier, and Jack’s story about how he had deliberately hunted down all those soon-to-be-protected animals in Africa had only added to her bad feelings.

She shivered. Poor Jack. That event must have happened pretty early on in his career. To have someone deliberately, savagely sabotage your life’s work like that … it must have been horrific. But he had kept going. He hadn’t let de Jager scare him away from his passion.

Toni straightened her shoulders.
She
wouldn’t let de Jager get to her, either. Screw him. Anyway, she had far nicer things to think about. Things like…

Her mind instantly drifted back to Jack Silver. In less than half an hour, Jack had charmed her, deserted her, and come to her rescue. She was still confused, and a little hurt, by how he had run off, but the way he had come back to defend her the moment that creep had cornered her … it made her heart flutter.

He had been so concerned for her safety, and the children’s. Where even the thought of de Jager sent a shudder down her spine, thinking about Jack made a warm glow spread through her whole body. And ever since they had parted, in every spare moment her mind had started drifting back to memories of his eyes, his lips, his body – actually,
drifting
was a poor word for it. It was more like he was a whirlpool, and she was caught in the current. Even when they had been discussing that monster de Jager, she had felt her body leaning in to Jack, as though magnetically attracted.

Toni sighed. It had been so long since she last had a boyfriend, her body was clearly going into crush overdrive. And maybe that wasn’t a bad thing. Maybe a little picnic-based flirting was just what she needed.

Jack might be more interested in her as a worried park guest than a potential fling, but spending time with him would hardly be a chore. And the way he had reacted to de Jager that afternoon, if he turned up to make trouble, Jack would soon run him off.

Tomorrow was going to be a good day. She knew it. Well … she
hoped
it. Very strongly.

The dirt covering Felix was fairly dry, so it didn’t take her long to brush it out of his short hair, even if he did complain every time she had to roughly work out a knot. At last she stood up and grabbed the broom to sweep the mess out the door.

“All right, kittens, bedtime. You can sleep cat-form if you like, but we’ve got to make up your sleeping bags so it looks kosher if someone comes and knocks on the door – hey! Come back here!”

Two dark-brown streaks blurred out the door before she could shut it. Oh, damn, damn,
damn.
Those stupid kids – what if…

Shifters were secret. That was the number-one rule, the prime directive. You don’t let humans know shifters exist, you don’t let humans know
you’re
a shifter, and you
definitely
don’t shift in front of them.

And there were reasons for that. The sort of reasons that made the bottom fall out of Toni’s stomach as she grabbed a flashlight and darted out after the twins.

Thank god we’ve got the last cabin in the row
, Toni thought as she stepped under the trees. Leaving the flashlight off, she waited impatiently for her eyes to adjust to the darkness.

Tiny, reflective eyes caught the crack of light that shone out through their cabin’s curtains. Tiny, reflective eyes … halfway up a tree.

“Come back down here!” Toni hissed. “You know what your mom and dad said! You can’t behave here like you can back home!”

Lexi scrambled higher and Toni gritted her teeth.

As if
. At least with Lexi she knew it was just a matter of waiting. Felix might not be able to shift as tidily as his sister but he was a far more confident climber. She watched as Lexi jumped and scrambled her way to a higher branch. All she had to do was wait, and make sure she was underneath when Lexi decided she wanted to jump down.

“Felix? Felix, I swear, if you get more mud on yourself I will dump you in a tub and
scrub
you,” she muttered darkly.

There was no response. Toni shut her eyes and concentrated.

BOTH
COME BACK HERE, RIGHT NOW, OR WE LEAVE
FIRST THING
TOMORROW MORNING.>

Mind-speaking was a strain, but it was a more effective way of getting through kitten-brains than human speech. After a few moments a tiny dark shadow separated itself from the trunk of the tree and clawed at Toni’s knees to be picked up.

<
Hello, Felix. Lexi? What about you?
>

<
But nothing’s going to
happen> Lexi whined. <
Mom and Dad would let us…
>

“You know that’s not true,” Toni replied firmly. Ellie and Werther were loving, paranoid parents. They’d heard enough stories about shifters going missing to let their kids shift anywhere but the safety of their own home. Toni was already risking sisterly wrath by letting the kids shift in the cabin in the first place, but now…

<
And … I’m stuck
…> Lexi admitted in a tiny voice.

Toni sighed. “Just jump,” she whispered. “I’ll catch you.”

She held out her arms and grabbed her niece as she flung herself sulkily out of the tree. Both kittens firmly clutched in her arms, she went back to the cabin, carefully closing the door and curtains before Lexi and Felix transformed again.

***

Both of the twins decided to sleep in human form. Toni was not-so-secretly relieved. She tried to call her sister’s cell so the kids could say goodnight to their parents before they went to sleep, but it went straight to voicemail. Toni could feel herself gearing up to admit to her sister that she’d let the twins shift – and go outside! – and in her panic to
not
talk about that, ended up babbling to the machine about creepy big game hunters. She hung up, feeling like the most irresponsible sister in the world.

Surely she could handle one more night of this. The twins might be kitten-brained, but they weren’t stupid enough to transform while they were on the BMX course tomorrow. She could spend the day relaxing – with Jack…

Visions floated through her mind. Her and Jack, walking through the sun-speckled forest. Eating their lunch by the side of a lake. In her imagination, she didn’t get sweaty in the summer heat, and no ants made their way into the sandwiches. He would be wearing another tight t-shirt, and she would be wearing…

Okay. That could be a problem.

Toni thrust her cell at Felix as she rummaged through her pack. “Try your parents again, will you? And if you can’t get through, leave a message telling them goodnight. I’m sure your mom will get it.”

She waited another moment, frowning down at her selection of shirts, and then raised one warning finger. “I said ‘try your parents,’ not ‘play Angry Birds,’ Felix.”

“Aww…” she heard Felix moan as the tinny music turned off.

All the rummaging in the world wouldn’t change the fact that she had packed for a casual-to-schlubby weekend of camping. There was nothing in Toni’s pack that was even close to what she would normally wear for a – well, it wasn’t a
date
, precisely. It was a…

…hot man playing her personal bodyguard to apologize for a creepy guy annoying her?

Toni wasn’t sure there was a word for that.

She settled on a light blue wraparound shirt that, if it had seen better days, at least hadn’t seen
too
many of them. No rips, stains, or – and she wished she could say the same for the cabin floor – muddy pawprints. It would have to do. She paired the shirt with light capris and wound her hair into a bun at the back of her head, and convinced herself she wasn’t entirely dispirited by the result.

“Any luck?” she asked, turning to Felix. He shook his head. “Just going straight to voicemail still? Ugh, so much for Pride Telco’s one-hundred-percent coverage. I’ll text them. At least that might get through.”

Lexi and Felix insisted on adding their own messages, but eventually, all the lights in the cabin were turned off and the kids settled down to sleep. Silence fell across the camping ground.

Toni lay back on her bunk with a sigh of relief. Just as she was closing her eyes, she heard something rustle in the bushes outside. She held her breath, waiting for the noise to come again, but there was nothing.

It must have been the wind,
she told herself, and fell peacefully asleep.