Tiger's Triumph (Veteran Shifters 4)

Pauline

Pauline was worried.

She had to be at work in half an hour, but she wasn’t getting ready. She was nowhere near her home or her job, in fact.

Instead, she was way on the outskirts of town, coming up to a road that would lead to a run-down house nestled far back into the trees.

She parked her car on the town road, long before the turn where it became obvious that she was driving up to the house. Then she got out, made her way through the tangled, scratchy underbrush until she was hidden by the trees, and shifted.

Feathers sprouted all along her sides, then spread to cover her body. The world sharpened: the smallest sound, the tiniest bug, all sprang into sharp detail.

With a running start, Pauline’s owl form took flight.

She cruised slowly through the trees, flapping hard to make up for the lack of an updraft here deep in the woods. It wasn’t long before she was at the house. She perched on a branch, peering down at the crumbling home.

Pauline’s cousin Marsha’s car was still in the driveway. But her bedroom window was dark. Pauline fluttered down a little further, until she could peek in the window. Empty. No one asleep or awake.

The kitchen was brightly lit, though, and through the window, she could see her cousin’s son Drew making breakfast. The gangly seventeen-year-old poured cereal into a chipped bowl for his brother Troy, who was six, and set some dry Cheerios onto his sister Valerie’s high chair.

The house was small enough that a quick circuit around it showed that no other rooms were occupied. Marsha wasn’t home.

So where was she?

Pauline had gotten into the habit of scrounging leftover food from the diner and giving it to Marsha’s family under the excuse that they couldn’t sell it, anyway, and otherwise it’d just go to waste. Drew had been working at the Safeway in town, and the small income had seemed to stretch just enough.

But Drew had been the only one showing up lately. Pauline hadn’t seen Marsha in a while, and she was starting to wonder if her cousin was all right.

So today, she’d given in and come by to check in her owl form, so no one would know. And she wasn’t reassured by what she saw.

Sure enough, as she watched, Drew got everyone fed and dressed, then hustled them out to the car, buckled Valerie into her car seat, and drove Marsha’s beat-up old Corolla down the road to their nearest neighbors, the Bowmans.

Pauline flapped after them.

Troy’s voice echoed through the woods as they piled out. “I don’t wanna stay with Mrs. Bowman anymore!”

“Ssh,” Drew said fiercely. “Mrs. Bowman is really nice to be letting you guys stay. We don’t have a lot of money to give her.”

“Can’t we just stay home?” Troy grumped. “She doesn’t have any toys.”

“That’s why you’ve got your Hot Wheels,” Drew pointed out, hoisting Valerie onto his hip and leading the way to the door, which was already opening.

“Hello, kids,” said Mrs. Bowman, sounding resigned. “Come on in.”

“Thank you so much, Mrs. Bowman,” Drew told her. “I’ll figure something else out soon, I promise.”

“I don’t want to leave you in a lurch, honey,” Mrs. Bowman said to him, “but George and I are real set on moving south this year. It’s too cold up here for my old bones. Arizona’s calling our name. We got the RV and everything, and come September...”

“I understand,” Drew assured her, handing Valerie over. “Mom’ll be home by then. Don’t worry about it.”

Mrs. Bowman jounced Valerie a few times. “Of course she will, honey,” she said finally. She didn’t sound convinced.

Drew forcibly propelled his little brother into the house, and fortunately the resentful expression on Troy’s face didn’t erupt into a tantrum. When the door shut behind the kids, he trudged back to the car, got into the driver’s seat...and sat there.

Pauline watched him take a deep breath, and then another. After a long minute, he finally put the car into gear, pulling out onto the road. Headed to work.

Where Pauline needed to be, too.

But she was weighed down by what she’d just seen. Where was Marsha? Was she coming home?

With a heavy heart, she winged her way back to her car. How could she just go to work, wondering if Drew and his siblings had been abandoned by their mom? How could she forget the way Drew’s thin shoulders had shaken, and just go about her day, serving customers with a smile?

She couldn’t forget.

But she had to go to work anyway, because losing her job wasn’t going to benefit those kids at all.

Damn Marsha, anyway. Why couldn’t she have asked for help?

Growing up, Pauline’s parents had always been disdainful towards Marsha’s family. They’d been poorer; Pauline’s mom had married a man with a decent job, and the lower-class relatives had been ignored whenever possible.

When Marsha had had Drew, Pauline had been captivated by her adorable baby cousin, but the damage had been done long ago. Marsha hadn’t wanted anyone she’d perceived as looking down on her to spend time with her baby. She’d refused any help that Pauline had offered.

Had that refusal finally resulted in some kind of consequence? Where was she?

Pauline resolved to figure out how to help these kids. Maybe her waitress’s income wasn’t much, but it would be more than Drew was making part-time at Safeway. If she couldn’t figure out where Marsha was, she could at least chip in somehow.

With renewed determination, Pauline went to work. She needed that paycheck if she was going to make a difference.

***

Carlos

Carlos had followed the signs from the airport, snug in his climate-controlled rental car. His immaculate suit was protected from the August heat.

He was starting to think he’d overdressed a bit.

Here around Glacier National Park, everyone was ready for the outdoors. He saw locals in baseball caps and denim, tourists in shorts and sneakers, everyone sun-kissed and maybe a little dirty.

It had been a long time since Carlos had spent much time out in the sun. He only got outside in snatches here and there. Every time he had a day off, he’d take a few hours to get out of New York City into the wild forests upstate, somewhere so sparsely populated that no one would notice a tiger and report a zoo breakout.

But those days off were few and far between, and it was only his tiger’s paws that touched the dirt. Otherwise, his days were spent in tall, glittering office buildings, or sitting in a cab, making a call or typing on a tablet until he got to the next meeting.