I hold in a sigh and lay my hands on her shoulders, gentle but firm.
“Two minutes, Willow. That’s what I’m gonna give you to fess up and tell me what’s really going on here, or we’ll both be telling it to Sheriff Wallace.”
“Okay, okay, I...” She pulls out of my grasp, rubbing her face, inhaling several deep breaths before she turns to face me again.
I watch her pull the hem of her oversized sweatshirt down over her black leggings, suddenly bashful.
“Clock’s ticking,” I remind her, pointing to my old-school watch.
“Okay! So, we’re not just roaming the highways for fun. We’ve only been on the road for a few hours. I’m taking him to a sanctuary in Wyoming. A good one. A legit one,” she rushes out. “He’ll be taken care of properly there. Not sold for his fur and everything else.”
Her voice cracks on that last remark. Unshed tears in her big blue eyes shimmer in the overhead light, but I refuse to let crying make her case.
“Yeah? And how’d you wind up being his chauffeur?” I ask, leveling my best court-is-in-session look on her.
She huffs out a breath, planting both hands on her hips. “I stole him, all right? That’s what you want to hear. I admit it, and I’m not sorry I did.”
Her feistiness is too real. I fight back a smile.
If she’s a crackpot, at least she’s an honest one.
“Look,” she says, pointing at her truck. “I have money. A credit card with unlimited spending and a debit card with more than ten thousand bucks in my bank account. I’ll give them both to you for your pickup truck. I’ll drive away and you can forget I was ever here.”
Now, I chuckle. Forget her and that illegal cat?
I think it’d take more than a few blows to the head to wipe that from my memory.
Of course, I don’t tell her that.
“What a deal. My sweet new ride that’s under a year old for a beat-up Dodge that doesn’t even run, ten thousand bucks, and a credit card I’d never tap if my life depended on it? Woman, I don’t think so.” She has no earthly clue who I am, and it’s not the kind of dude who’d ever agree to any of that.
“Please? You’re right about the clock ticking...in a few more hours, they’ll realize I’m gone. Then they’ll come looking,” she whispers it so darkly a chill rides up my back. “I need to get far away by then, over the state line at least.”
“Away from where?”
Willow hesitates, then lets out a sigh.
“Minot, okay? The more miles between us and that town, the better.”
“Only a couple of hours from here,” I say, rubbing my chin. “You’re telling me you only got this far before your ride clunked out?”
She throws her hands up in the air.
“I know!” Grasping her chestnut-brown hair with one hand, she lifts a long lock off the back of her neck, spinning it nervously around to brush her cheek, just like she had earlier. “I can get you more money. Enough so you can buy another new truck. Anything. Grady, please. I swear, I’m good for it. I’ll even throw in a reward for helping me.”
I’m not thinking about a reward, or money at all.
I make a good, honest living off the Purple Bobcat—the place I could lose if anyone finds out I had a damn tiger in my lot and didn’t report it ASAP.
Even if this place has always been a magnet for trouble, it’s never burned me. I’ve worked my ass into the ground, changing the clientele from the lowlifes who’d frequent it under the previous owner to good, hardworking townsfolk who just want a safe place to unwind.
Still, we’re located off a back road near the highway. The joint still gets its fair share of shady men and desperadoes wandering in. Some came looking for people I consider friends.
Good friends. Best friends. Brothers.
How many times have I helped bail out my buddies? Always the sidekick, never the hero, and that was fine by me.
I’m not a movie-star rescuer like Ridge, or a data hound ex-FBI dude like Faulk, but...aw hell.
It’s my turn, isn’t it? My time to step up and deal with the epic pile of crap Dallas brings in like it’s always been the price of living here.
“Fine,” I grunt out.
“Fine?” She clasps her hands together and holds them to her chest like she’s praying. Or maybe just winding up to bounce over and squeal in my face, which she does a second later. “Oh, thank you. Thank you, Grady!”
Before I know what’s happening, those slender arms are pinched around my chest, holding on for dear life, a look in her mellow eyes like I just breathed life into her.
Shit.
I’m stiffer than a board when she flounces back a second later, her cheeks cherry-red.
“Sorry about that. So how much do I owe you?” she whispers.
“Come again?” I growl back.
“I’ll have it sent to you ASAP, whatever it is! Twenty thousand? Thirty?”
My jaw nearly slaps the ground for the tenth time tonight.
Who the hell is this woman? Tossing out fat numbers like she’s made of money? If she’s some kind of secret millionaire...then why didn’t she hire someone to steal the cat for her?
I swallow. Hard. The groan I push back into my gut feels jagged on the way down.
Yeah, I’m gonna regret this in the morning, but right now, I can’t think of a better solution.
It’s almost two o’clock in the morning and I sure as hell don’t need someone showing up at my bar, looking for their stolen tiger.
“I don’t want your money and I’m not selling my truck,” I say slowly, watching as her face falls. “But I know a safe place where you can stay till your ride’s fixed. Then you can be on your merry way to Wyoming and we’ll both pretend this never happened.”
“Oh, you do? Where?” She glances around. “Here?”
“Definitely not here.” I walk over, unlatch the hitch, and lower the bulldog jack on the trailer so I can move her truck.
“Then where?” she asks, her voice tight.
I unhook the safety chains, taking my sweet time. Not that it delays any bit of this misery.
I almost can’t even force it out.
“My place,” I rumble.
Willow’s feet scuff the ground as she sways back a few steps.
“Oh, no, I couldn’t. I can’t. We—”
“What’s the alternative?” I’m searching my own mind for one and coming up blank. A contraband tiger is sure to cause a ruckus sooner or later, and it ain’t happening in my lot.
Her full pink lips flutter open a couple times and then clamp shut.
“Exactly.” Shaking my head at myself as much as at her, I say, “Wait here, I’ll get my truck and tow yours behind the building.”
I walk across the parking lot to my truck, still questioning if there’s really no alternative.
Honestly, I’ve got no love for letting a crazy chick and her tiger crash at my house.
My girls aren’t home and won’t be for a couple days yet, thank God.
Still, I really don’t need this.
What happens if the girls come home and these “guests” are still around?
My face burns behind my whiskers. I’ve got half a mind to step back into my bar and pour myself a few fingers of something potent to help me face this bullshit.