by Tawny Stokes
Cai offered his hand to my dad. “She’s being modest. Dani did it all on her own. She was brilliant.”
“Well, I’m happy to hear that you think that,” Aunt Dottie said, as she looked Cai up and down. “You’re one of Frank’s boys, aren’t you?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
She made a face. “I see.” Then she looked right at me.
“Well, have a great Christmas, Cai. I’ll see you in the new term,” I said, trying to deflect the conversation to something safe.
“You, too.” He smiled at me again, and I had to bite down on my lower lip. All I wanted to do was have that mouth of his on mine, and those hands anywhere he wanted. I could feel my face blushing, so I grabbed onto Dad’s and Aunt Dottie’s arms and steered them to the parking lot.
“Is that boy someone I need to be worried about?” my dad asked as we approached the car.
“No, we’re just friends.”
I slid into the back seat, while my dad and aunt got in the front. As my dad drove us out of the parking lot, I looked through the window at the campus. I couldn’t believe I’d just completed my first term at circus arts school, and that I would be performing in the show at the end of the year. It was a crazy four months.
And I couldn’t believe I had fallen in love.
We drove out of the main gate and past the guard shack. The guard waved at everyone as they drove by. I waved back and smiled, as I watched out the window as the sections of fence whizzed by. I’d walked along that fence. Then I saw flashes of orange and black through the wrought iron posts.
I gasped, putting my hand over my mouth, as the tiger ran alongside the road on the other side of the fence, trying to keep pace with our car. Giggles escaped my lips as Cai raced the vehicle. I couldn’t believe how bold he was being. Maybe he knew that no one else would believe what they were seeing. He was doing it for me. Only for me.
Aunt Dottie glanced back at me, then quickly out the window. I knew it the moment she saw Cai.
Pushing her large round sunglasses down onto her nose, she regarded me knowingly over top the rims. “I think we need to have a conversation when we get home, young lady. There are some things you obviously need to know.”
As I continued to watch Cai bound through the snow as we reached the end of the school grounds, I wanted to tell her what I already knew. All the important things. That I was good on the high wire. That I had a great best friend. And that I was completely head over heels in love with a beautiful shape-shifting boy named Cai Coppersmith.
What else could I possibly need to know?
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Acknowledgments
Writing doesn’t happen in a bubble, although sometimes it feels that way. I had love and support along the creation path. This book started years ago with the idea of a girl discovering a tiger was a shape-shifting boy and it morphed and changed from there. There were lots of people who had influence in some way on this book. I’d like to thank Laura Bradford who first heard this idea, LD Crichton who heard several incantations of it I’m sure, my daughter Shayla who probably hated hearing about it all the time, and my lovely editor Stacy Abrams who made the decision to give the story a chance.
About the Author
Tawny Stokes has always been a writer. From an early age, she’d spin tales of serial killers in love, vampires taking over the world, and sometimes about fluffy bunnies turned bunnicidal maniacs. An honour student in high school, with a penchant for math and English, you’d never know it by the foot-high blue Mohawk and Doc Martens, which often got her into trouble. No longer a Mohawk wearer, Tawny still enjoys old school punk rock, trance, zombie movies, teen horror films, and fluffy bunnies. She lives in Canada with her fantastical daughter, two cats, and spends most of her time creating new stories for teens. You can visit her at www.tawnystokes.net.
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