Tiger Magic

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

“Put those down. It’s not what you think.”

“No?” Zoë raised her brows at Carly over the underwear. “I think it’s a pair of men’s sexy underwear on our kitchen floor. Or were you playing dress-up? And you didn’t invite us?”

The Randal next youngest to Carly, Janine Randal-Johnson, respectably married with a kid, said, “Those don’t look like something Ethan would wear.”

Carly put her hands on her hips. “And you’d know all about Ethan’s underwear how?”

“Janine’s right,” Zoë said. “These don’t look like the boulder holders of a man who wears suits in a hundred degree weather and knows every chichi restaurant in Austin. So who is he, Carly? And where is he? Upstairs?”

Zoë started for the stairs, carrying the underwear like a banner. Carly stepped in front of her, grabbed the underwear, and blocked Zoë’s way up. “No!”

“So, not Ethan,” Althea said. “Carly, good for you.”

“Oh, Carly,” Janine said, sounding sad. She alone of Carly’s sisters had thought Ethan a good catch.

“Would you pipe down?” Carly said. “No, it’s not Ethan. Ethan and I . . . broke up.”

Such a tame term for the volatile events of the last few days.

“Carly, why didn’t you call me?” Carly’s mother, Rosalie, went around Zoë and pulled Carly into a hug. “Did you have an argument? Honey, you can tell us.”

“She doesn’t have to tell us anything.” Zoë moved back to the kitchen, where she and Althea shared a double high five. “Ding-dong, the bitch is dead. By the bitch, I mean Ethan.”

“Zoë,” Rosalie said sternly. “This isn’t funny. Carly’s broken up with the man she was going to marry. She obviously met someone on the rebound. You need to talk to us, sweetie.”

“Couldn’t you have worked it out?” Janine asked. “I mean, Ethan’s filthy rich. Make him buy you a car or something. Better than that hunk of junk—please don’t tell me that’s the new boyfriend’s car.”

“Ew,” Althea said. “What did you do, pick up a guy at a pool hall? Please tell me you made him bathe. And that he didn’t use my good bath towels.”

“Will you all please shut up!” Carly yelled. She backed up, holding Tiger’s underwear close, one hand up, stiff, to stave them off. “I caught Ethan screwing another woman, and I threw the engagement ring at him. End of story.”

They stared at her, openmouthed, Zoë’s and Althea’s expressions changing from glee to stark surprise. Carly realized after a few heartbeats that they weren’t staring at her, they were staring past her, up the stairs, at someone else.

She swung around and saw him a few steps behind her, one of Althea’s precious towels tucked around his waist, the towel barely large enough to fit around him.

Moments stretched while Tiger stared down at them, and Carly’s sisters and mother stared up at Tiger.

“Okay,” Janine said after a beat of silence. “I’ll admit it. You traded up.”

How it happened that Tiger ended up dressed again and seated in the middle of the couch in the family room, Althea and Zoë on either side of him, Carly couldn’t remember. The time seemed to buzz by her like a fly against glass.

Althea and Zoë each held a large balloonlike glass of red wine, and her mother had poured herself and Carly each one as Rosalie cleaned up the kitchen and started prepping for dinner. Janine sat at the kitchen table looking on, but she wanted only bottled water after the long trip.

They’d returned from shopping early, Carly’s mother said, because they’d run out of money. That was just like Carly’s sisters. While Carly and Janine had both reacted to their father’s desertion by wanting to be careful, Althea and Zoë had compensated by living as largely as possible—traveling, shopping, being expansive and generous. They’d been older, though, when their father had gone, already planning their decorating business together as soon as they finished their fine arts degrees. Life had been good to them business-wise, enabling them to buy this big house and go on shopping sprees whenever they wanted.

In love, though, they’d not been as lucky. Althea had gotten married during college and divorced two years later, saying she didn’t want a husband who expected her to give up her dreams so she could wait on him hand and foot. Zoë had run through a series of boyfriends, none of whom had lasted long. Janine had, happily, married the sweetest guy—Simon—and now had a son who’d inherited his father’s sunny disposition.

Without exception, the sisters were interested in Tiger. He held a beer between his big hands, quietly watching, but not looking unhappy, as Althea and Zoë plied him with questions.

“So, where you from? Not Texas, I take it.”

“Nevada,” Tiger answered.

“What part?”

“Around Las Vegas.”

“Ooh, that sounds fun. How about a road trip there, Carly?”

“You just got home,” Carly said to Althea. “And give him a break.”

Zoë took up the gauntlet on his other side. “So, how did you and Carly meet?”

“Carly gave me a ride,” Tiger said.

“Then she really did pick you up.” Zoë laughed. “Great dye job on your hair, by the way. I might try it. What do you do for a living?”

Tiger contemplated a moment, then answered, “I fix cars.”

Carly let out her pent-up breath. He was telling the truth but in a way they wouldn’t question it.

“You didn’t do such a hot job on the one in the garage,” Zoë said.

“That’s not mine. We borrowed it.”

Althea looked at him in confusion. “Then where’s your car, Carly? If you picked him up?”

“I didn’t pick him up today,” Carly said. “My car got wrecked.”

“What?” All four Randal women shrieked, but not in synch. They demanded to know what happened, and Carly had to wait until they quieted before she gave them a truncated version of events, including Tiger being there when she’d caught Ethan. She told them that Tiger’s name was Bram, the first name that popped into her head for some reason.

Carly ended by saying she’d brought Tiger here today, where she thought they’d have a little peace and quiet. Her pointed look was met with oblivious stares.

“What a romantic story,” Zoë said, sighing happily. “A chance meeting, Ethan being a bastard, this guy scaring the crap out of Ethan.”

Tiger didn’t answer her, because he was looking over at Janine. “You have a little one.”

Janine brightened, as she did whenever someone mentioned her son. “Did Carly tell you? Yes, a little boy. He’s almost two.”

“I mean you have another little one.” Tiger pointed at her abdomen. “Soon.”

Another chorus of What? rang around the kitchen, and this one Carly joined. Janine blushed as red as Althea’s wine.

“How did you know?” Janine asked, stammering a little. “I’m about two months. I was going to tell y’all—I got the message when we were driving, but I wanted to wait until we were with Simon.”

Althea and Zoë abandoned Tiger to surround Janine with hugs, kisses, and exclamations of delight. Carly’s mom left the sink, gave Carly a quick hug on the way, and went to Janine.

“Congratulations, Janine,” Carly said, warming all over. Another addition to the family, another niece or nephew to cuddle. Janine deserved the happiness.

Carly saw Tiger watching her. She knew what was going on in his head—if she ran with him, she’d have to leave her sisters and Janine’s new baby. She’d likely never get to see the newest Randal-Johnson.

The lump in her throat was hard. Carly lifted her untouched glass of wine to her lips, tears stinging her eyes.

“Carly is also having a little one,” Tiger said.

Althea’s and Zoë’s voices shut off with a snap. All eyes turned now to Carly.

“Oh my God,” Althea said. “Ethan’s? What a mess. I thought you were on birth control.”

“I am,” Carly said, her body numb. “I don’t know what he’s talking about.”

Tiger rose from the couch and walked to Carly, putting his hands on the kitchen counter and looking over it to her. “The babe is mine. But it’s there. Only a day old.”

Carly tried to answer, but her mouth wouldn’t work. Tiger seemed to know things he couldn’t possibly, so she didn’t scoff at him, tell him he was wrong, that it was too soon to know.

She looked at the wineglass she’d raised and quickly set it down.

“If that’s true, you’d better get off birth control right away,” Janine said. “It could damage the baby, and you.”

“I’m not . . .” Carly stopped. She and Tiger had been having wild and wicked sex, making love more often in the last two days than she had with Ethan collectively over two years.

Shifter sperm, especially Tiger’s, was probably stronger than a human’s. Even if her birth control was meant to keep eggs from falling where they could be fertilized, she wouldn’t be surprised if one of Tiger’s sperm had found one and dragged it out of hiding.

The girls had gone back to talking to Janine, perhaps thinking Tiger was joking. Carly knew he wasn’t. Tears slid from the corners of her eyes, and Tiger reached out and brushed one away.

At five A.M., Tiger had silently slid open the window of the guest room, preparing to climb out, when he heard Carly’s whisper, felt her touch.

“No.”

“I’m going.” Tiger’s answering whisper held a hint of growl.

“And I’m coming with you.”

Carly. Tiger briefly closed his eyes. If he left her behind, she and his cub would be safe. Liam would protect the cub—Tiger trusted him for that at least.

And if he left Carly behind, Tiger might never see his cub. A fist around his heart tightened.

He remembered the glimpse he’d had of his son—a tiny mite wrapped in a blanket, with a thin down of black hair on his head, touched with the faintest brush of orange. The surge of pride and love Tiger had felt had never been equaled, nor had the surge of grief when they’d told him the cub hadn’t survived.

That Carly was pregnant, he had no doubt. He saw the glow inside her. A Shifter cub, not a full-blood human, not the offspring of the dickhead Ethan. The cub was Tiger’s.

“I’m coming with you,” Carly said stubbornly. “I have money, you don’t. I know how to travel and live in the world. You don’t.”

“I will run as a tiger, hunt.”

“Oh, sure, because no one will notice a Bengal running through the Texas flatlands. You have transportation? I don’t call that thing in the garage transportation.”

“Walker is waiting for me.”

Carly seized his arm. “Wait. What? You can trust him? How do you know he’s waiting?”

“We arranged it while you were sleeping.”

“That’s it. I’m definitely coming. I even packed.” She reached into the shadows beside the bed and pulled up a shoulder bag to go with her purse. “Let’s go meet Walker.”

Tiger stopped arguing—this was taking too much time. He would let Carly come with him until he could convince her to go back home. Play it by ear, he’d heard Connor say. How anyone could play an instrument with their ears, Tiger didn’t understand, but Connor had explained that the saying meant decide as we go along. Tiger was good at doing that.

Carly smiled her triumph when Tiger nodded, closed the window, and gestured for her to follow him out of the room and downstairs. Janine and Carly’s mother had gone home long ago, and Althea and Zoë were fast asleep in their respective rooms—Tiger could hear their quiet breathing behind the doors.

The house was dark except for a night-light in the kitchen. Althea hadn’t set the alarm so they could open windows to the softer air of the night, and now the door opened and closed without a sound.

Slinging Carly’s bag over his shoulder and taking her hand, Tiger led her down the walk to the street, keeping to the shadows of trees and shrubs. The night was pleasantly cool, the humid highs of the afternoon gone.

If Tiger hadn’t been planning to hide for the rest of his life, the walk would be pleasant. Carly’s warmth stretched to him from her hand, and the new life inside her called out to him.

Carly didn’t speak. She didn’t look back either, or cry. She was resilient, his mate.

At the bottom of the street and around the corner lay a twenty-four-hour convenience store. Tiger scanned the lot with its few cars, and the man who was crushing out a cigarette and walking inside. Tiger didn’t see Walker, but Walker, like Shifters, knew how to keep out of sight.

Tiger kept Carly in the shadows as he looked around, but he didn’t scent Walker. He smelled the musty smell of humans inside the store, the tang of exhaust as cars went by, the dregs of the man’s cigarette, and the sudden, sharp smell of fear.

Beside him, Carly gasped. “Oh my God, that guy’s robbing the store.”

Tiger looked to where she did, and saw the store clerk taking things out of the register with quick, jerky movements. The man who’d put out the cigarette was now holding up a long weapon.

Carly hissed in frustration. “And damn it, you crushed my cell phone.”

Tiger silently lowered the shoulder bag to the ground. “Stay here.”

“Tiger,” Carly whispered frantically as Tiger pulled on the baseball cap over his hair and started across the small parking lot. She didn’t follow though. She was that sensible.

Tiger kept to the sticky shadows of the building, walking through noisome trash until he slid inside the front door. The clerk saw him but made no indication.

Tiger moved noiselessly up behind the lanky man holding a shotgun. Why did humans like guns? Did they fear so much to fight close to?

He stood right behind the robber, who never heard or sensed him until he felt Tiger’s body warmth. Then the robber jerked, and the gun went off, but not before Tiger had grabbed the weapon and yanked the barrel to point upward. The clerk dove behind the counter, and the slug lodged in the ceiling.

Tiger jerked the weapon out of the robber’s hand and snapped it in two. At the same time he kicked the robber’s feet out from under him, sending the startled man to the stained floor.

The robber started up, a knife in his hand, so Tiger broke his hand. Screaming in pain, the man collapsed to the floor again.

Tiger broke the shotgun into a few more pieces and poured the bullets onto the man’s chest.

“You can call the police now,” Tiger said to the clerk.

The clerk climbed up from behind the counter and leaned on it. “Thanks, man,” he said, gasping. “I thought I wasn’t ever going to see my kids again.”

“Go home and hug them,” Tiger said. “You should work somewhere safer.”

The clerk shrugged, giving him a scared smile. “No choice.”

“There’s a bar just outside Shiftertown. Go there and tell Liam to hire you. Tell him Rory sent you.”

“Liam. Right.” The clerk was wide-eyed and terrified.

Tiger looked at the robber, who was holding his hand and spewing curses and threats. Tiger leaned down, carefully raised the man’s head by his hair, then thumped it against the floor with just enough force to knock him out. Then he walked out of the store.

Carly waited for him where he’d left her, her eyes wide with worry. “Tiger, don’t do that. You nearly gave me a heart attack.”

Tiger looked her over. “I think you are too young for them.”

“I don’t mean . . . Never mind. I hear sirens. We need to leave.”

“The clerk called the police. I think he will be all right, and maybe find a safer job.”

Carly studied him, one hand on her hip, which gave her the sexy, saucy look. “You know, if you go around saving everyone in the world, you’ll never stay off the radar. I mean,” she added hastily as he started to ask what she meant, “you’ll be found.”

Tiger frowned at her. “But those people would be safe.”

Carly drew a breath to answer, then she shook her head. “Tiger.” She touched his face, her eyes filled with something he didn’t understand. “What am I going to do with you?”

“Raise our cub.”

She gave him a worried look. “You can’t possibly know I’m pregnant. Janine, yes, if she’s already two months gone, but it doesn’t work that way.”

Humans, who’d invented everything from traveling to the moon to cures for deadly diseases, could sometimes be so blind.

Tiger pressed his hand to her abdomen. “I know. You hold our cub.”

Carly’s eyes filled with sudden tears. She pulled Tiger down to her and kissed him, the kiss slow, warm, and loving.

Tiger drank in the sensation of her lips and tongue, the taste of her, her warmth. He eased away, smoothing her hair.

“Walker is here,” he said.