Her Tiger To Take (4 page)

The rest of it would just have to wait.

After taking care of a few work emails, Tiana
spent the afternoon exploring the little town of Eirene. Nick had
picked a lovely place to call home. The town was surrounded by
thick pine woods and nestled against tall mountain slopes. The area
was perfect for allowing him to stretch his tiger.

The town proper was a beautiful collection of
quaint wood and stone buildings. Main Street was dotted with a
combination of tourist shops and local businesses, like Nick’s
diner. The lamp posts, sidewalk trees, and the wires stretched over
the road were wrapped in silvery decorations and little white
lights for the winter holidays. She imagined the street would be
beautiful at night when all the lights were flickering and the snow
reflected back the sparkles.

The air was crisp and clean. The noise from
passing cars was muted. Despite there being excellent skiing
throughout the area, the town didn’t seem to be tourist heavy, but
it wasn’t empty, either. There were plenty of people on the
sidewalks, going about their daily business, and enough tourists to
keep Eirene healthy and prosperous.

The place felt nice. Comfortable.
Peaceful.

Easy to see why Nick had picked Eirene.

She wandered into a little antique shop and
perused the merchandise. The shop was half a block from Nick’s
diner and almost without conscious thought, she moved toward the
large front windows to stare at the restaurant. It was quiet at the
moment, still a few hours away from dinner. She could tell Nick was
inside, as she easily sensed him at this distance.

Despite her resolve, she wasn’t sure what to
do next. How did you convince someone to love you? Especially when
they were determined not to.

The bell over the shop door rang and Tiana
glanced away from the diner long enough to see who’d entered.
Nick’s waitress—Jane—stomped snow off her boots and glanced around.
When she spotted Tiana, she headed right toward her.

Ah, hell. Tiana hadn’t counted on having to
deal with a jealous human woman with her sights set on Nick. She
should have expected it. The man was gorgeous. Probably every woman
in town wanted him.

“I’m Jane Emmerson,” the woman introduced
herself without preamble, extending her hand.

“Tatiana Loban-Gupta. Most people call me
Tiana.” The woman’s handshake was firm but not aggressive.

“It’s nice to meet you. What do you want with
our Nick?”

Tiana raised her brows at the “our Nick”. “I
want to marry him,” she said, returning the woman’s bluntness.

“Does he want to marry you?”

Tiana pressed her lips together before
answering. “I think so. But…he’s got some baggage that’s made him
reluctant to get involved.”

“Yeah, I know all about baggage.” Jane
motioned her away from the window, to a small table at the back of
the shop. “You drink tea?”

Tiana nodded.

Jane motioned to the store’s proprietress, a
lovely older woman with short dark hair, porcelain skin, and a
comfortably plump figure. “Two cups, please, Mindy?”

“Coming right up. Milk and sugar?”

“Yes for me,” Jane said.

“Yes, please,” Tiana echoed.

Once they were settled with two steaming cups
of a rich Earl Grey in front of them, Jane leaned back in her seat
and studied Tiana. Tiana didn’t flinch or shy away from the
scrutiny. She was busy sizing up the other woman herself.

“You intend to take Nick away?” Jane finally
asked.

“If he wants to live here, we can live here.
I like the town; what I’ve seen of it.”

“What do you do for a living?”

“I’m a marketing consultant. I mostly work
with small businesses looking to grow.”

“Based out of a big company?”

“No. I work for myself.”

“Does that mean you can live anywhere you
like?”

“So long as I have an Internet connection and
there’s an airport within driving distance. Can I ask you
something?”

Jane made a go-ahead motion with her
hand.

“Why ‘our’ Nick? He’s lived here…five years.
This is a small town. Why would you accept a stranger into your
midst so easily? What did he do for you?”

Jane smiled. The expression softened her
otherwise world-weary face. Until that moment, her dark eyes were
hard and unyielding. But now she looked…kind. And very pretty.

“We’re all strangers here, you might say,”
she finally answered. She looked toward the front window. “You know
the island of misfit toys? From that old Christmas cartoon?”

Tiana shook her head. She hadn’t watched much
TV as a kid and had never really developed the habit as an adult.
Her family had always been more about spending time together doing
things—camping, hiking, board games, travel, trips to museums,
hunting. Her parents believed there was too much to do in life to
spend a lot of time in front of a television.

Jane shrugged. “Well, you might not get the
reference then, but this town is a bit like that island. Lot of us
came in broken. We found a home here.”

“What broke you?” she asked quietly.
Suddenly, the woman across from her seemed more vulnerable and
Tiana’s curiosity spiked. A town of broken people seemed exactly
the kind of place Nick would settle.

Jane sipped her tea before answering. With a
sigh, she said, “Oh, it’s a clichéd tale. Bad man. Pregnant, single
girl, too young to know what do to with herself. When I found out
my son was on the Autism Spectrum, I got my shit together enough to
leave his father. Didn’t want my boy to take the beatings I was
getting just because he couldn’t communicate.”

She set her cup down very carefully. “So I
moved around a bit, taking odd jobs, trying to find ways to help
Ben. Finally got in touch with a cousin in Kansas City who was a
speech therapist. I was mostly just looking for suggestions, but
she said if I could get to her, she’d work with Ben. I couldn’t
afford the therapies he needed otherwise, so I up and moved us.
Again. On the way there, my old banger car crapped out on me just
outside of town.”

“And you haven’t left since?”

She laughed. “No. I worked until I could
afford to buy another cheap car, then continued on my way. I was
pretty desperate for the help my cousin was offering. But by the
time I’d made enough for the car, I’d gotten to know the people. I
loved it here. Ben’s needs took precedence, though. I got to Kansas
City and my cousin started working with him immediately. We had to
home school him initially, but eventually we got him into school.
After four years, working my ass off to keep a roof over our heads,
I saw huge improvement in my boy.”

Her smile made Tiana’s heart ache. So much
love there.

Jane took a deep breath and refocused on
Tiana. “All that time, I couldn’t get this place out of my heart.”
She waved at the shop, but the gesture seemed to encompass the
whole town.

“When did you come back?”

“Seven years ago. When my boy was ten and
communicated at close to age level. He’s real high functioning. The
speech was our biggest issue. Once we could discuss moving, he got
behind the idea. He…he had one good friend, but his friend had just
moved a few months earlier—parents wanted to live closer to family.
Ben was sad to lose his friend, and eager to make a change. He was
ready to come back here. So was I.”

She leaned back in her chair and that little
soft smile came back. “He’s so freaking smart, my Ben. He’s off to
college next year. I can’t believe it’s that time already.”

Tiana watched Jane’s motherly pride shine
through, and it overwhelmed her. She really wanted to experience
that love herself. Her own family had been so close, so full of
love and laughter, and arguments and fights and fun. She wanted
that same kind of closeness in her own family—with a husband and
children and all the chaos. All the love.

She just had to convince Nick they could have
that together.

Jane picked up her tea again. “So, that’s my
story. I was here about two years before Nick arrived, and I’d
settled in like a local. When Nick rolled in, we recognized one of
our own. He bought the diner from the previous owner, who wanted to
retire, and he’s been a fixture ever since.”

“And that was that? You just took him
in?”

“Yeah. Well, Nick did a bit more for us, too.
But we would have accepted him no matter what. Like I said, we
recognized a kindred spirit.”

“What did he do for you?”

The bell over the door jingled and a young
woman walked in with a toddler in tow. She waved at Jane and the
shop’s owner before moving toward one side of the shop where some
old toys were shelved. The toddler squealed in delight. Tiana
grinned at the little girl. When she looked back, Jane was watching
the two with the same sort of fond expression she got when talking
about the town.

“You really love it here, don’t you?” she
asked.

Jane raised her brows. “First home I’ve ever
had. Best home I’ve ever had. These people are like family. And I’m
protective of family.” On the last sentence, her smile dropped away
and she held Tiana’s gaze.

“I’m protective of family, too. Believe me. I
understand.”

“You want kids?”

“More than I can tell you.”

“They’re hard. Every stage is tough.”

“I know. I have six siblings, four younger
than me.”

“Not the same as having a kid of your
own.”

“Fair enough. I’m prepared for the
tough.”

“You’re young.”

Tiana smiled. “Not that young.”

Tigers aged a little differently than humans
and their life spans were much longer. It wasn’t unusual for humans
to misjudge a tiger’s age. At twenty-eight, she
was
young
for both species, but not a girl who didn’t understand how the
world worked. As she held Jane’s gaze, she realized Jane probably
knew “how the world worked” at a much, much younger age. Suddenly,
Tiana felt a pang of protectiveness for the woman, an urge to take
away any pain she might have experienced. The incongruity of that
would probably make Jane laugh.

“They are worth it,” Jane said in a soft
tone. “Kids. They’ll break your heart in so many ways. But it’s all
worth it.”

Tiana raised her mug in a toast. Jane
followed suit. They sat quietly for a few minutes, drinking their
tea.

Then Tiana said, “I don’t want to take Nick
away from the place he feels comfortable. I just want to share it
with him.”

Jane nodded. “Good. In that case, I won’t
warn him off you.”

“You would have done that?”

Jane stood, leaving a few dollars on the
table. “Of course. Why do you think I’m here?” She waved to the
mother, toddler, and shop owner, all standing around the old toys
now, then she turned toward the door. “Just don’t break his heart,”
she said on her way out of the shop. “None of us will take kindly
to that.”

Tiana remained where she was for a bit
longer, mulling over what Jane had told her.

Island of misfit toys.

That sounded…perfect.

Nick knew the minute Tatiana walked into his
diner. He’d felt her wandering around his town all afternoon, and
it was all he could do not to go after her and drag her back to his
house. Having a job to do, customers to make happy, helped. The
diner was a lot of work. There was always something he had to do.
But even that distraction wasn’t enough to keep his thoughts off
her.

He was the only one cooking tonight, so he
didn’t go out to her right away. Since he’d taken over the diner,
the place was rarely quiet during meal times. Finding this town,
this business, had been a blessing for him. And outside of that one
early negotiation with the alpha of the local werewolf pack, he’d
been able to live here quietly for all these years.

He was afraid to break that peace, terrified
his mind would snap like his father’s—just like all the other
tigers thought—if he did anything to change the status quo.

Tatiana was asking him to risk that. She
didn’t know what she was courting by shaking up his world. He
couldn’t face driving her down the same hole his mother had fallen
in to. If he let himself fall in love, he risked history repeating
itself.

As he cooked and plated up each order, he
reminded himself again and again, his caution was for Tatiana’s own
good. He’d just have to make her see that.

He looked through the order window and
spotted her sitting at the counter. She smiled and waved, then went
back to talking to the man sitting next to her. Charlie Sanchez was
a town fixture; a man in his nineties, he’d actually been born in
Eirene and always had plenty of stories to tell. When Charlie
grinned at Nick, Nick narrowed his eyes in warning. There were some
stories and rumors Nick didn’t want Tatiana hearing second
hand.

Charlie grinned around his dentures and faced
Tatiana again, giving her a little wink.

Nick growled quietly and went back to
cooking.

It was well past nine o’clock when he could
finally leave the kitchen. He stepped into the dining room to see
Tatiana sitting in a booth talking with two of his regular
customers, with Jane standing over them laughing at whatever they
were discussing. The two women in the booth spotted him before
Tatiana and they scrambled up.

“So nice to meet you, Tiana,” Rachel Maxwell
said. She glanced at Nick and grinned before saying to Tatiana,
“We’ll talk more soon.”

“Hi, Nick,” the second woman, Betty Alonso,
said as he reached the table. “Don’t worry, we’ll settle the bill
with Jane.”

They practically dragged Jane to the
register, leaving Nick alone with Tatiana.

“What did they tell you?” he asked, standing
over her, trying to ignore the way her scent invaded his head and
made him dizzy.