The timing works, though.
Barely.
As long as my nephew can get her truck running tomorrow, she and her murder-kitten will be gone before they get home. Gone before anyone ever learns about this.
Besides Weston, no one ever needs to know I lost my frigging mind and took in two strays who could kill me.
Plus, I’ll still have a solid day to figure out what to do about Sawyer and Avery. My heart aches at the thought of them.
This is the longest we’ve ever been apart, but with Aunt Faye gone for the summer, a week of summer camp was my best option to keep the bar running full time in its busiest season. Joyce was a godsend, helping keep an eye on them as much as she could before camp started, but I can’t ask her to watch the girls day and night.
Or Hank, once my brother-in-law.
He helps too much as it is.
At ten, the girls think they’re old enough to stay home alone.
Nope. Not for the long hours I’m gone working at the Bobcat. I let them come with me now and again well before bedtime, but I don’t want them raised in a bar, watching their old man keep this town fueled up on two-for-one specials and Bingo Fish Fry nights.
The life of a single dad sucks.
It’s harder than I ever imagined, and scarier, too.
But it’s my sole responsibility to make sure my girls have everything they need and grow up right, blossoming into good, happy people. I wouldn’t give it up for anything.
Every square inch of my heart, my soul, and my love belongs to my girls. And maybe part of love is taking a weird detour or two to protect our lives, which is exactly why I can’t have a stolen goddamn tiger at my bar.
I’ll text Weston as soon as I get her to my place.
Then I’ll buckle up and deal with getting the Tiger Princess out of my life fast.
It doesn’t take long to pull her truck behind the bar, where no one will notice it, and then to hook mine up to the trailer.
My property is only five miles away from the Bobcat, and it doesn’t take long to get there, or to back the trailer into the old barn. I try not to think about what’s inside.
For once, I’m damn grateful my dad was a practical man who went for brute efficiency over style. The walls of this building are more than rustic, made from heaping concrete blocks back when my father tore down an old North Earhart Oil building.
In the old days, he and old man Reed—the oil company’s head honcho—were close friends, always making crazy deals for land access and supplies.
Most of these schemes worked out well for our family, including the barn. It was built stronger than some Army barracks. Even the hog pens on the outside are concrete, designed to withstand time and the elements, and they’ve done it beautifully.
After unhooking the trailer and parking my truck, I run a hose into the barn to fill up a water trough while Willow gets her hellcat settled.
Bruce.
She told me that’s the giant’s name.
He’s even larger and more menacing than the first glimpse suggested. I’ve never seen a tiger up close, and have to admit, he’s a magnificent animal—if you ignore the fact that he’s an exotic predator capable of snapping your head off in the blink of an eye.
Yeah, flesh-ripping teeth and claws aside, he’s not half bad.
I’ve never seen anything devour a hunk of meat like the tiger does, either.
She takes a red, raw roast out of the cooler we’d transferred from the back of her truck to mine. I nearly have a heart attack when she struts over and lays it down in front of him, like serving dinner to a king.
The beast doesn’t go for the meat till she steps back and tells Bruce to eat.
Oh, he eats it up, all right.
Every fucking morsel.
In about two hulking chomps.
“I’ve never seen a barn like this,” she says as we exit the building a short while later. “It’s so sturdy, almost like it was made for him.”
“Amen to that. Don’t know if I’d feel safe keeping this boy behind nothing but wood,” I tell her, closing the solid steel door and securing the outside latch. “My father built this place years ago. Designed and built it, I should say.”
“What for?” she asks with a giggle. “Doomsday?”
I snort because that’s exactly the running joke whenever people see it.
“Nah, my dad wanted to raise pigs originally, but my mama told him any pig that got her vegetable garden would be a dead one. Pigs are notorious escape artists, so my father got the supplies from our local oil company and built himself hog Alcatraz.”
She snickers, batting her soft-blue eyes in a way I’m careful to ignore.
I’m not letting those manic pixie stranger good-looks do more damage than they already have.
“But there aren’t any pigs now?” Willow asks as we head for the house.
“Nope, that was over when I was young. My folks died in a car accident shortly after I joined the Army. The pigs were sold by my brother, and when I came home, I didn’t want to be a pig farmer.”
That’s close enough to the truth.
She doesn’t need to know I couldn’t pig farm, even if I wanted to try it. Didn’t have the time, not with Brittany’s illness and the girls.
“Is that when you bought the bar?”
I answer with a nod, though technically I hadn’t bought the bar till a few years ago, well after Brittany was dead and buried along with my parents.
Luckily, between the Army pay and my inheritance, finances weren’t a dream killer.
Some days, when I struggle to balance the girls and work, I wonder if I should’ve chosen something else. If it wasn’t for Aunt Faye, I might have. I hadn’t realized just how much I depended on her watching the girls till she’d left this summer.
Just a couple months. I thought it’d be fine. Simple and easy.
Right.
We step on the front porch and embarrassment strikes. I’m not a messy dude, but even after strict military training, I’m not the neatest person born, either.
Between my aunt being gone, and the girls leaving for camp, the place isn’t in the best shape. I’d planned on cleaning it before they come home, and still do.
It’s like I’m waiting for a miracle. Mary Poppins to drop out of the sky and take care of the girls till Aunt Faye returns—which won’t be till school starts, probably, over two months from now.
Whatever. I’ll figure it out.
Ideally after I sort out this crazy tiger chick dilemma.
“Wow!” she says with a gasp that yanks me from my thoughts. “Such a beautiful home. It reminds me of the big old farm houses you see on TV all the time. You’re not Netflix famous, right?”
I shoot her a glare of disbelief. “Do I look Netflix famous?”
“Sorry. Bad joke.” She flushes and shakes her head, her bottom lip dipping into her mouth pensively.
“Forget it. I’m the one who’s sorry for being on edge,” I whisper, dragging my door open. “There’s a bedroom off the kitchen you can sleep in.”
It was a back porch once, but I’d turned it into a bedroom and bathroom for Brittany in her final days. Climbing the stairs was too much for her then.
Pushing those dark thoughts away, I click on the overhead light in the living room.
“This way,” I tell her, leading us through the house.