Chase, Zara - Tigers' Temptation [Impulse 2] (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting)

TIGERS’ TEMPTATION

Impulse 2

ZARA CHASE

Copyright © 2013

Chapter One

The child lay flat on his stomach, seemingly oblivious to Layla’s conversation with his mother. Layla tried several times to include him, but so far he’d not responded. She crouched down beside him and gave it another shot.

“How do you feel, Billy?” she asked.

Billy shrugged, remaining fixated on the old-fashioned snow globe he clutched in his hands.

“Answer the lady, Billy,” his mother cajoled.

“I’ve got hair again,” he said, still not looking at Layla. “And I don’t get sick anymore.”

“That must be good.” Layla smiled, her heart going out to the brave little guy. “Are you able to go back to school now?”

Billy pulled a face and nodded.

His mother laughed. “Billy has a little catching up to do. It didn’t seem worth getting him to study when he was ill because…well, because that was the least of our worries. We’re just so grateful that he’s gotten better.”

Layla, sensing she wouldn’t get anything more from Billy, resumed her seat beside Mrs. Grant. Unlike her son, she was only too pleased to talk about his miracle cure.

“But you can’t explain why he recovered?”

“No. His doctors are completely baffled by the changes in him, especially since they came on so suddenly. They’d told us to prepare for the worst, you see.” Mrs. Grant extracted a handkerchief from the sleeve of her cardigan and blew her nose. “We were led to believe that he had no more than six months.”

“He had leukemia,” Layla prompted. “Is that right?”

“Yes, acute lymphoblastic leukemia. The vast majority of children recover, but Billy didn’t respond to treatment. The chemo made him sick, and he just seemed to fade before our eyes.”

Layla touched the woman’s arm. Could there be anything worse than a mother watching her beloved child wither before her eyes and be unable to do anything to help?

“Billy’s our only child. I’d almost given up hope of ever conceiving. I was forty when I found out I was pregnant, and we were ecstatic about it. Billy was the answer to our most fervent prayers. I wanted a large family, you see, but it wasn’t to be. But that didn’t matter because we had Billy. He made up for all the waiting and hoping. All the despair and disappointment.” She sniffed. “And then, just after his sixth birthday, he got sick.”

“That must have been a terrible blow.”

“You have no idea.”
Actually I do.
“But the doctors were so positive that they could fix things. They kept quoting survival statistics at us, and so we figured they knew what they were talking about. Of course, they mentioned the few cases that didn’t respond to treatment, but Billy’s condition had been caught early and there was no reason to suppose he’d be one of those.”

“But it seems his body cured itself,” Layla said, smiling at the child.

“It’s happened before in one or two rare cases.”

“Which is why you blogged about it.”
And how I came to find out about Billy.
“You want to contact parents of other miracle survivors.”

“Well, wouldn’t you want to know if there’s a connection?”

“Absolutely. Any luck on that front?”

“Not so far, but if you write about this in your paper, perhaps someone might get in touch with you.”

“I’ve already explained, Mrs. Grant, I don’t actually work for a specific paper. I’m a freelance journalist. I specialize in human interest stories and find homes for them mostly in magazines.”

“Even so.”

“As a matter of interest, are there any marks on Billy’s body? Anything that might suggest what made him turn the corner?”

“Strange you should ask. There is one thing. Show the lady, Billy.”

Billy stood, pulled up his shirt, and showed Layla an almost invisible white scar up the middle of his body.

“Goodness, that’s strange. Does it hurt?” Billy shook his head. “And you don’t remember how it got there?”

“No, he doesn’t.”

Mrs. Grant answered for him when Billy took up his snow globe again and appeared to lose interest in Layla’s questions.

Layla held her breath as she asked
the
question that she’d been building up to. “Had you been away anywhere prior to Billy’s recovery?”

“Yes, funnily enough we had.” Mrs. Grant wrinkled her brow. “The odd thing about it is that I don’t remember anything about that vacation, not even where we went.”

Layla’s breath hitched. “But it was in the States somewhere?”

“Oh yes. I’ve never been abroad. Besides, what with the cost of Billy’s treatment, funds are short. Not that we resent a cent, of course.”

“No, of course not.” Layla really needed more to go on and turned to Billy again. “Do you remember where you went, Billy?”

The child shrugged. “It was hot, and it was by the sea.”

Which didn’t narrow it down much. “Doesn’t your credit card statement give you any clues?”

“No, but I don’t understand why it matters. I thought it was Billy you wanted to talk about. What does our vacation have to do with his recovery?”

That’s what I’d very much like to know.
“Perhaps nothing, but I like to be thorough. Are there no hotel confirmations in your e-mail, or anything like that?”

“No, nothing other than gas charges on our card, that’s what’s so peculiar.”

Well, that’s something
. “Which states did you stop for gas in?”

“Here in Georgia, and twice in Florida.”

“You presumably went to southern Florida, then.”

Mrs. Grant shrugged, seeming impatient now. She was a doting mother who only wanted to talk about her beloved child. Layla could relate to that.

“I really don’t see what difference it makes,” she said.

Nor did Layla, not yet, but she knew she was onto something. She’d tracked down four children who’d made miraculous recoveries from life-threatening illnesses following vacations that none of them could remember anything about. They all said the same thing. No resort charges appeared on their card statements and the only clue as to the distance they’d travelled was through mileage and gas receipts.

All of them purchased gas in various locations in Florida, which put the Sunshine State firmly in her line of sight. She had that tingly feeling in her spine that she got when a story came together. Pulitzer Prizes glittered just out of reach. Such an accolade would be the very least she could expect if she discovered how these kids were getting cured.

But that wasn’t why she was doing this.

Besides, the story wasn’t coming together. All she had was one more family suffering from a collective bout of amnesia. It was kinda spooky, but at least Mrs. Grant had confirmed that Florida was the key to it all, which fit with Billy’s being hot and by the sea. Not much to go on, it was a large state, but it was all she had. Layla was desperate enough to go down there and start searching, and not just for professional reasons. She had a very pressing, very personal interest in getting at the truth.

“Well,” she said, gathering up her bag and standing up. “Thanks for seeing me, but I’ve taken up enough of your time.”

Mrs. Grant stood as well. “Thank you for stopping by. You will let me know if anything comes of this, won’t you? If you find out anything more, I mean. You can imagine how curious we are to know what happened.”

“Yes, I certainly can.”

“Bye, Billy.”

Layla turned to ruffle the child’s spiky regrowth of hair at the same time as he threw his toy in the air. He missed his catch and it rolled into the corner of the room. Layla bent to pick it up, wondering what it was that had kept Billy’s attention for so long.

It was indeed one of those plastic bubbles that he could shake up to make it snow. Except this one was different. It showed two cats sitting beneath a parasol on a sandy beach and when he shook it, a shower of rain came down.

“Where did you get this, Billy?” Layla asked. “It looks like fun.”

“Don’t know.”

Layla glanced at the words inscribed along its plinth.
A souvenir from Impulse, Fl.

She inhaled sharply. Her search area had just been drastically reduced.

* * * *

“Hey, take a look at this.”

Mikael placed aside the report he’d been reading, stood up, and walked across the room to join Philo. As usual, his partner was glued to his computer screen, hair flopping across his face, a day’s worth of stubble peppering his chin.

“What’s got you so agitated?”

“Young Billy’s mom has been blogging about her son’s miraculous cure.”

“Yeah, you told me.” Mikael placed his hands on Philo’s shoulders and massaged. “You’re all knotted up. You spend too much time in front of this screen. I keep telling you, it’s bad for your health.”

“Perhaps, but it means I get a massage out of it, so that makes it worth it.” Philo looked over his shoulder and blew Mikael a kiss. “And we both know where that usually leads.”

Mikael kissed the back of Philo’s neck. “Anytime you need fucking, you have but to say the word. You know I’m always up for it.”

“It’s the middle of the working day.” Philo arched one of his elegant brows teasingly, causing Mikael to suppress a groan. His buddy knew exactly how to turn him on and, pathetic creature that Mikael was where Philo was concerned, it never took much.

“So what?” Mikael shrugged. “That’s never stopped us before.”

“I know you only want me for my body—”

“I
lurve
your body, even if your lack of stripes makes me ashamed of you.”

“I know, I’ve got a hell of a nerve calling myself a tiger.”

Mikael chuckled. “You said it, lover.”

“Anyone can be a Bengal like you.” Philo tossed his thick mane of long cream hair, darker stripes faintly visible as it fell back into place. “It takes brains and innovation to be born a rare white tiger.”

“Say it often enough and I might start believing you.” Mikael slid his hands beneath Philo’s shirt and rubbed his back, his fingers delving below his waistband and teasing the crack in his butt. “What did you want to show me, anyway?”

Philo let out a low, rumbling purr. “It’s gone right out of my head.”

“So much for the brains.” Mikael removed his hands and stared over Philo’s shoulder at the screen. “This isn’t the blog you showed me before.”

“That’s what I was trying to tell you before I got distracted. Billy’s mom’s had a visit from a journalist today, and she wants the cyber world to know about it.”

“Shit!”

“My sentiments exactly.”

“Who is this journalist? Should we be worried about him or her?”

“Her. And that’s what I was about to try and find out.” Philo’s fingers flew across the keys. “She’s a freelance and her name’s Layla Dubois. Pretty name.”

Mikael scowled. “I don’t like it when newshounds start sniffing around.”