But Grady stops pacing, pushes his hands behind his back, and turns to stare at me.
“For the thousandth time, Willow—I don’t want no damn reward.” He grabs his phone out of his pocket.
I leap to my feet, ready to do the same desperate snatch and grab as I did last night.
“Oh, no. Please, Grady, please don’t. Don’t call the sheriff. Please.”
I have to think fast. Searching for a way to convince him, I circle around his massive shoulders to face him.
“One paw! Just one freaking paw of Bruce’s is worth over a thousand dollars on the black market. Did you know that? His bones are worth over a hundred and fifty dollars a pound, and if they’re made into wine...it’ll sell for over thirty thousand dollars a case. It’s sick. His hide is worth twenty thousand dollars, and his eyes—”
“Wine?” Grady stops in his tracks, flaying me open with a look.
Here come those tears.
“Y-yes. Tiger wine is a specialty, highly sought for its supposed medicinal benefits.”
“What the fuck?”
“I know! That’s why I couldn’t leave him there. I couldn’t let him disappear to be killed and harvested or...who knows. I’m sure Priscilla and Niles are connected to the black market. There are just too many shady things going on there for them not to be. So please...please, just let me get my truck fixed and I’ll be off like a rocket! I promise you’ll never hear a peep from me again.”
He’s back to pacing the floor, much like a big cat does, slowly and angrily moving back and forth, turning his head to look at me every now and then.
Court is in session, and something tells me I did a bad job pleading my case.
But I bite my lips together, standing there, holding my own just like I would with a pissed off tiger in a cage.
Like Grady, they’re strong, silent when mad, and don’t like to be told what to do.
He stops in the middle of the floor. My heart freezes, because whatever he decides to do, I won’t be able to stop him.
My fate is in this stranger’s hands.
One way or another, I’m doomed.
He could turn me in. He could get Bruce confiscated. But he’s also the only one who can help me right now.
With those bourbon-dark eyes locked on mine, he squeezes his thumb against his phone and swipes the screen.
My heart goes crashing down in a flaming heap of loose knees and breathless prayers.
4
It’s a Jungle (Grady)
Willow watches me the entire time I’m on the phone, but I rip my eyes away.
I can’t look at her anymore.
Can’t let her tears affect my judgment.
Can’t put my girls in danger.
That’s the bottom line.
No woman, no corruption story, and no crazy-ass tiger is worth more than Sawyer and Avery. The things she’s talking about are fucking Twilight Zone territory.
Black-market bones, eyes, tiger wine?
Ludicrous.
Still, I don’t have the heart to turn her in and leave the tiger to state officials. Not yet, anyway.
This nagging pulse in my petrified lump of a heart says, Wait, you idiot. Help her.
So that’s why I press the phone against my ear, ignoring her longing looks and stalled breaths, trying to do my damnedest to save both of our gooses from being cooked for Christmas.
“Tomorrow?” I grunt.
My mind stops to clarify what Weston just said.
“Yeah, Uncle Grady,” he says. “Tomorrow at the earliest. I had to order the part from Bismarck and you know how it goes shipping things from there. Rain, sleet, snow, and timeliness don’t apply here in Dallas.”
Fuck!
Too bad he’s right. I keep the curse silent as Weston talks up the condition of the truck, how he spent time giving it an oil change and tuning it, then went looking for other issues that could trip any driver up.
“All right, man. Thanks. I’ll see you later.” I click off the phone and set it on the counter.
“So will my truck be done today?” Willow asks, hope gleaming in her wet, shiny eyes.
She’s stopped freaking out for now, after she realized I wasn’t calling the cops.
“No,” I say, as disappointed as she is. “Weston’s got your part on order, and he found a few other issues.”
“Oh.” She freezes and casts me that helpless look again. “Like what?”
“Bent tie-rod, for one. He can tell by the wear on the driver’s tire.”
“A bent what?” She shakes her head, giving me a skeptical stare. “Wait, wouldn’t I have known if something was bent?”
“How does it steer?” I ask, mainly because I’m trying to process what the hell I’m gonna do with this chick and her man-eater being holed up here longer.
“Fine, I guess. I never had any trouble.”
“Even turning corners?” I ask.
“Yep. It turns just fine.” Her face falls, and then she does the thing where she touches the end of one long lock of chestnut hair to her lips.