The Hero I Need

Hell to the nope.

I tried calling Game and Fish, but that backfired in my face. Taking it any further by contacting others and waiting around could have gotten Bruce killed and me along with him.

“Need more meat?” a voice booms behind me like distant thunder.

I turn and shake my head at Grady, totally in Thor mode. When isn’t he?

“Something wrong, Willow?” he asks, no doubt seeing the stricken look on my face.

That’s a mammoth understatement.

I should be asking him the same question.

Ever since our outing to the illicit airstrip, I’ve caught him staring at me all day.

Probably questioning his sanity for helping me. Poor guy.

“It’s fine. He’s just a little restless. That’s to be expected, being in a new environment. It can take a captive tiger weeks to start feeling more at home. Also, he’s putting weight on his paw—that’s a good thing. Means it’s healing up.”

Grady nods. “Has Doc Walton sent you a text yet with the blood results?”

“I haven’t checked,” I admit. “There are so many messages and calls from the rescue and their minions...I haven’t scrolled through them to see if there are any others, but I will. I haven’t forgotten what you said about opening things very carefully.”

A chill crawls up my back and wraps around the nape of my neck.

For a second, my brain plunges into dire consequences.

What happens if I ignore Grady’s wisdom? What happens if I just slip?

“You amaze me,” he says.

Words that surprise me.

My head snaps up and I stare, drinking in his eyes, whiskey-dark in the shadowy barn and ocean deep.

“Why? Because I’m not checking my phone every five minutes like anyone else?” I give Bruce a parting wave and walk over to the storage room.

Totally hiding the way those innocent words of his make me blush.

“No.” He closes the door to the storage room and steps up beside me, watching Bruce tear into a giant chunk of red meat with a low snarl of delight. “I meant you’re amazing because of how at ease you are around him. He’s a hell of a cat, but he could swallow you alive. One nibble and you’d be missing an arm.”

“True enough, but we’re familiar with each other. He trusts me. All animals—domesticated and wild—are unpredictable. They’ve got one thing in common: patterns. Things to watch for and behaviors a person should know to expect. Just like people, Bruce senses fear. If he feels you’re afraid of him, he’ll think he’s king. But if he realizes you’re the one in control, the person who feeds and cares for him, then he’ll be pretty docile.”

“Docile,” Grady repeats. “You mean you’re telling me he just up and forgets he’s big enough to dismember an elephant?”

“Not just him. All animals. Even a bear in the wild attacks when he thinks he’s in charge, but when a person scares him first, he’ll run like the dickens.” I let out a laugh that startles him. “Not all the time, obviously, so don’t try it, but...yeah, that’s a general analogy.”

He chuckles and walks over, opening the door.

“Can’t say I fancy trying that shit with any lions, tigers, or bears,” he grumbles. “I’m gonna get off your butt and trust you know what you’re doing.”

“I do,” I say firmly.

Then I follow him out the door and wait while he locks everything up.

“Are you ever nervous? Did you ever handle anything that scared you?” he asks, still fumbling with the padlock.

“Not really. When you’ve seen it all with your dad, traveling to more wildlife refuges than I can remember before I was sixteen...it’s natural.” I huff out a sigh. “What does scare me is this mess that I’m in, and I’ve pulled you into. I never imagined it would run so deep, so convoluted. It’s one of those life punches we talked about earlier...a left hook that caught me unguarded, and I reacted on instinct.”

“You did what you had to,” he tells me. “It’s not like any of the black-market tiger shit comes with a handbook.”

“I’ve probably ruined my career.” It tumbles out, my throat burning as the words come. I hadn’t wanted to think along those lines, but he’s so easy to talk to, it just slipped out. “There I go again, huh? Dumping everything on you like you’re my shrink.”

“Nah. It’s nothing. I hadn’t thought about how this crap could impact your career, but if all goes right, it might not change anything. Hell, it could even open doors.”

“Oh, it’ll change things massively, Grady. All I ever wanted was to follow in Dad’s footsteps. With cats, not rhinos, but basically I’d love advancing to his level.”

Those big dark eyes of his cast me a searching look.

“He’s a world-renowned expert on rhinos. I wanted that with cats. Now, when people hear I was caught up with a black-market distributor, if and when the Fosses get busted...who would ever hire me?”