by Zoe Chant
Tiger’s Triumph
Veteran Shifters, #4
By Zoe Chant
Copyright Zoe Chant 2018
All Rights Reserved
Author’s note: This book stands alone. However, it’s part of a series about Marine veteran shifters in Glacier National Park. If you’d like to start from the beginning, the first book is Snow Leopard’s Lady.
Table of Contents
Copyright Page
Tiger's Triumph (Veteran Shifters, #4)
A note from Zoe Chant
More Paranormal Romance by Zoe Chant
Zoe on Audio
If you love Zoe Chant, you’ll also love these books!
Snow Leopard’s Lady | by Zoe Chant | Special Sneak Preview
Pauline
Pauline was worried.
She had to be at work in half an hour, but she wasn’t getting ready. She was nowhere near her home or her job, in fact.
Instead, she was way on the outskirts of town, coming up to a road that would lead to a run-down house nestled far back into the trees.
She parked her car on the town road, long before the turn where it became obvious that she was driving up to the house. Then she got out, made her way through the tangled, scratchy underbrush until she was hidden by the trees, and shifted.
Feathers sprouted all along her sides, then spread to cover her body. The world sharpened: the smallest sound, the tiniest bug, all sprang into sharp detail.
With a running start, Pauline’s owl form took flight.
She cruised slowly through the trees, flapping hard to make up for the lack of an updraft here deep in the woods. It wasn’t long before she was at the house. She perched on a branch, peering down at the crumbling home.
Pauline’s cousin Marsha’s car was still in the driveway. But her bedroom window was dark. Pauline fluttered down a little further, until she could peek in the window. Empty. No one asleep or awake.
The kitchen was brightly lit, though, and through the window, she could see her cousin’s son Drew making breakfast. The gangly seventeen-year-old poured cereal into a chipped bowl for his brother Troy, who was six, and set some dry Cheerios onto his sister Valerie’s high chair.
The house was small enough that a quick circuit around it showed that no other rooms were occupied. Marsha wasn’t home.
So where was she?
Pauline had gotten into the habit of scrounging leftover food from the diner and giving it to Marsha’s family under the excuse that they couldn’t sell it, anyway, and otherwise it’d just go to waste. Drew had been working at the Safeway in town, and the small income had seemed to stretch just enough.
But Drew had been the only one showing up lately. Pauline hadn’t seen Marsha in a while, and she was starting to wonder if her cousin was all right.
So today, she’d given in and come by to check in her owl form, so no one would know. And she wasn’t reassured by what she saw.
Sure enough, as she watched, Drew got everyone fed and dressed, then hustled them out to the car, buckled Valerie into her car seat, and drove Marsha’s beat-up old Corolla down the road to their nearest neighbors, the Bowmans.
Pauline flapped after them.
Troy’s voice echoed through the woods as they piled out. “I don’t wanna stay with Mrs. Bowman anymore!”
“Ssh,” Drew said fiercely. “Mrs. Bowman is really nice to be letting you guys stay. We don’t have a lot of money to give her.”
“Can’t we just stay home?” Troy grumped. “She doesn’t have any toys.”
“That’s why you’ve got your Hot Wheels,” Drew pointed out, hoisting Valerie onto his hip and leading the way to the door, which was already opening.
“Hello, kids,” said Mrs. Bowman, sounding resigned. “Come on in.”
“Thank you so much, Mrs. Bowman,” Drew told her. “I’ll figure something else out soon, I promise.”
“I don’t want to leave you in a lurch, honey,” Mrs. Bowman said to him, “but George and I are real set on moving south this year. It’s too cold up here for my old bones. Arizona’s calling our name. We got the RV and everything, and come September...”
“I understand,” Drew assured her, handing Valerie over. “Mom’ll be home by then. Don’t worry about it.”
Mrs. Bowman jounced Valerie a few times. “Of course she will, honey,” she said finally. She didn’t sound convinced.
Drew forcibly propelled his little brother into the house, and fortunately the resentful expression on Troy’s face didn’t erupt into a tantrum. When the door shut behind the kids, he trudged back to the car, got into the driver’s seat...and sat there.
Pauline watched him take a deep breath, and then another. After a long minute, he finally put the car into gear, pulling out onto the road. Headed to work.
Where Pauline needed to be, too.
But she was weighed down by what she’d just seen. Where was Marsha? Was she coming home?
With a heavy heart, she winged her way back to her car. How could she just go to work, wondering if Drew and his siblings had been abandoned by their mom? How could she forget the way Drew’s thin shoulders had shaken, and just go about her day, serving customers with a smile?
She couldn’t forget.
But she had to go to work anyway, because losing her job wasn’t going to benefit those kids at all.
Damn Marsha, anyway. Why couldn’t she have asked for help?
Growing up, Pauline’s parents had always been disdainful towards Marsha’s family. They’d been poorer; Pauline’s mom had married a man with a decent job, and the lower-class relatives had been ignored whenever possible.
When Marsha had had Drew, Pauline had been captivated by her adorable baby cousin, but the damage had been done long ago. Marsha hadn’t wanted anyone she’d perceived as looking down on her to spend time with her baby. She’d refused any help that Pauline had offered.
Had that refusal finally resulted in some kind of consequence? Where was she?
Pauline resolved to figure out how to help these kids. Maybe her waitress’s income wasn’t much, but it would be more than Drew was making part-time at Safeway. If she couldn’t figure out where Marsha was, she could at least chip in somehow.
With renewed determination, Pauline went to work. She needed that paycheck if she was going to make a difference.
***
Carlos
Carlos had followed the signs from the airport, snug in his climate-controlled rental car. His immaculate suit was protected from the August heat.
He was starting to think he’d overdressed a bit.
Here around Glacier National Park, everyone was ready for the outdoors. He saw locals in baseball caps and denim, tourists in shorts and sneakers, everyone sun-kissed and maybe a little dirty.
It had been a long time since Carlos had spent much time out in the sun. He only got outside in snatches here and there. Every time he had a day off, he’d take a few hours to get out of New York City into the wild forests upstate, somewhere so sparsely populated that no one would notice a tiger and report a zoo breakout.
But those days off were few and far between, and it was only his tiger’s paws that touched the dirt. Otherwise, his days were spent in tall, glittering office buildings, or sitting in a cab, making a call or typing on a tablet until he got to the next meeting.
He had a feeling his life was about to change.
Carlos had been feeling stuck for a while, now. The problem was, his entire life he’d been playing a game: get out of the run-down neighborhood where he grew up, get into college, get into the business world, make a hell of a lot of money.
Now, guess what? He’d won.
; He was standing victorious on top of a lot of prize money. And he kept going to work every day...for what? He had what he’d wanted.
The question was: now what did he want?
He had no idea. The closest he’d been able to come was something different.
And three—no, four, if Colonel Wilson counted—four of his oldest friends, good men he’d served with in the Marine Corps, had found something different out here in the wilds of Montana. So far up that Canada was about three blocks away.
Carlos was going to give it a shot, too. He was mentally labeling it Carlos’ Summer Vacation in the Great White North.
He figured if he hadn’t found a good, fulfilling purpose up here in a month or two, he could move on to something else. Bali, maybe.
Okay, probably not Bali. Maybe some kind of humanitarian mission, digging wells or building houses. Helping inner-city kids. Studying with Buddhist monks.
Something. Something more than money.
For now, though, it was Carlos’ Summer Vacation in the Great White North. He had friends to catch up with, mountains to climb, sunsets to admire, and forests to explore. And family to get to know.
He’d been to Glacier twice before, but once had just been briefly, for their old Gunnery Sergeant’s wedding. The second time he’d still only been able to get away for a couple of days—just long enough to help his old platoon buddy Nate with a problem that his mate, Stella, was having.
Together, they’d gotten her old stalker ex-boyfriend arrested, and hopefully put away for a good long time. Men who spent their time terrorizing innocent women and children didn’t deserve to see the light of day.
There was the turnoff. The car purred down a road that slowly got bumpier, until trees surrounded them, and Carlos pulled up in front of the house where two of his oldest friends now lived.
As he turned the car off, he was struck by a sudden attack of nerves. What the hell? He wasn’t in the habit of being afraid, and certainly not of seeing men he’d known for years.
Determinedly, he opened the door and strode up the walk to the house. Before he could press the bell, the door flew open, and he was looking at the smiling faces of two men he’d known since they were all dumb teenage Marine recruits.
“Carlos!” Ken Turner said, a broad grin on his face. “I can’t believe you’re actually here.”
“Why not?” he asked, coming forward for a backslapping hug. Ken was always exuberant with his affections.
“I would’ve bet you’d never leave the Scrooge McDuck lifestyle behind,” Ken said seriously. “Does swimming through rooms full of gold coins really get old? You can tell me.”
“You have a severely twisted idea of what it was I did all day,” Carlos told him, and turned to Nate.
Nate’s embrace wasn’t quite as energetic, but it was just as heartfelt. He tapped his fist lightly against Carlos’ shoulder and pulled back to look him over. “You ready for the retired life?”
“That’s what I’m here to find out,” Carlos admitted. “I’ll have to find something to do, or I’ll go crazy.”
“Plenty to do around here,” Ken said, and motioned him in. “Come inside, I think Stella’s making tea. And when you don’t want that, we have beer.”
Nate rolled his eyes and led the way back to the kitchen.
Lynn and Stella were waiting—Stella, Nate’s mate, had indeed made tea. Carlos took the offered cup with a smile, not deigning to look back at Ken. “It’s good to see you,” he told her. “No more problems with those wolves?”
She shook her head with a smile. She seemed more confident than she had been when he’d last seen her, standing taller, smiling wider.
Which made sense, because the last time he’d seen her, Nate had called him in to help scare off her ex, who’d been stalking her for months.
“You and Nate made a real difference,” she told him. “He was arrested and he pleaded guilty. He’s going away for quite a while.”
“Good,” Carlos said, heartfelt.
He turned to shake Lynn’s hand. He hadn’t spent as much time with Lynn when he was last here, but he remembered her being a solid, reliable woman. Her handshake was firm, and she said, “Welcome back,” in a low but musical voice.
Ken took up a position next to her, just barely touching. She must be a good grounding influence on him, Carlos thought.
“Happy to be here,” he said. “Ready to see the sights, take in the Park, all of that.”
“We got sights,” Ken said. “The Park is something else.”
“I remember.” He’d seen it briefly when he’d been here for Cal’s wedding; they’d all taken a quick hike through some of the fields and forests. But he was eager to explore it more. Mountains stretched around them, rising alongside the road as he’d driven in, and he could see how a man—even a shifter—could spend a lifetime here without running out of new territory to explore.
“How about dinner before we go on any runs through the woods?” Lynn suggested practically.
“Absolutely. My treat,” Carlos said. “As a thank you for putting up with me while I’m here. There’s a diner we went to before,” he pushed on, overriding any protests that the others were making. “Where Stella was working. I forget its name, but the food was excellent.”
“Oliver’s,” Stella confirmed. “Let’s go, then.”
***
Pauline
It had been an unrelentingly horrible day so far. After the bitter truths of the morning, Pauline had found it almost impossible to concentrate on work. She’d dropped a plate—she never dropped things—which had shattered in the middle of the room, leaving all the customers staring at her. She’d misheard two orders, which had cost her a tip from a tourist couple who were probably leaving a bad Yelp review right now.
Then she’d gotten chewed out by Ethel, the manager, which had made her feel like she was an irresponsible teenager instead of an experienced forty-five-year-old woman.
So when the big party came through the door and was seated at one of her tables, she groaned silently. Another opportunity to screw up had just been handed to her.
But when she ventured out with her notebook, she realized that it wasn’t a group of strangers—it was Stella, her former coworker, with her sister Lynn and their mates, and a man Pauline felt like she recognized, but couldn’t put her finger on how.
He was big, and Hispanic-looking, with warm brown skin and dark hair in an expensive-looking cut. He was one of those men who had eyelashes that women would kill for, long and dark and surrounding deep, liquid brown eyes.
And he was big.
It was the first thing she’d noticed, and she had to circle around to it again, because it was so apparent. Even next to Stella and Lynn’s mates, who were big enough guys, he was tall and broad. It was somehow even more obvious because he was wearing a very, very nice suit. It fit him perfectly, and it must have cost a ton of money.
Then he looked at her, and with the expression that came over his face, she remembered.
It was a focused, intent look. Not quite predatory, but there was a laserlike intensity to it. As though she was the only thing he could see.
He’d looked at her like that once before. He’d come in when Stella was having that trouble with her ex, as part of the troop of handsome men she’d had protecting her, just before she’d quit.
He must be friends with Stella’s mate, then. Visiting from out of town? He’d only come in the one time, before. Pauline knew because she’d looked for him, the next day, and the day after that.
And he hadn’t come back. She’d hardly been able to hold the details of his face in her head, because she’d been too caught up in that stare. She’d known, then, that she’d recognize it instantly if she ever saw it again.
And here it was.
Pauline almost tripped as she approached the table. She was having a hard time keeping her eyes on anything but that thousand-yard stare.
“Hi, um,” she stammered, “my name is Pauline, and
I’m going to be your server today—”
“Hi, Pauline.” Stella smiled warmly. She looked a lot happier, and a lot steadier, now that she wasn’t working at Oliver’s anymore. She’d always been a little twitchy, a bit forgetful, and she’d struggled a little with the attention that was necessary to keep orders straight. Ethel had always been on her case.
Now, though, she was relaxed, smiling, her shoulder brushing her mate’s arm as she leaned into him.
Pauline tried not to be jealous. It was good that Stella was happy, that she’d found a mate. It was certainly good that her awful ex was going to jail.
And if she got to go on fabulous vacations with her mate while Pauline was still working here as a waitress, well, envy wasn’t a flattering look on anyone. Pauline summoned up a return smile and said, “Good to see you, Stella. How are you doing?”
“Wonderful.” Stella glanced over at her mate—what was his name? Pauline couldn’t remember—and their gazes caught as they smiled at each other.
It was adorable. Adorable, Pauline told herself firmly. She was happy for Stella.
“Nice to meet you, Pauline,” another voice rumbled.
Stella, Stella’s mate, and anything to do with Stella dropped right out of Pauline’s mind like the bottom had fallen out of it.
The big man in the expensive suit was still giving her that look.
But now he was holding out his hand.
Pauline fumbled her notepad, caught it, then dropped her pen. It bounced on the floor and skittered away, and Pauline’s face lit up red as a fire engine.
“I see it.” The man slid out of the bench seat with a grace that was startling, given his size. He crouched, catlike, to retrieve the pen from underneath another table. When he rose to his feet to hand it to her, he towered over her by at least eight inches.
“Thanks.” Her blush was never going away. Ever. She was going to be red-faced for the rest of time. “Sorry. Clumsy of me.”
“Not at all.” He smiled for the first time, and it transformed his face. His eyes crinkled, and Pauline realized he must be at least as old as she was. He was handsome enough that he looked younger.
“How about we try that again.” He was holding out his hand. Pauline blinked, focused, and reached out—without dropping anything this time, hallelujah—and shook.