Hollywood Tiger: BBW Tiger Shifter Paranormal Romance (Hollywood Shifters Book 3)

by Chant, Zoe

  “It was Greek that hooked me,” Dennis said as he wove down the narrow, winding road between discreetly hidden Hollywood houses. “On one of those tiger cruises. Lucked into a concert by Domna Samiou. She talked about the roots of the music, some of it more than two thousand years old. My buddy JP unearthed some CDs his father had collected on tours with his orchestra. For a while there I wouldn’t listen to anything newer than five centuries old. God, what an obnoxious ass I was.”

  “I think obnoxious assery pretty much goes with the territory when you’re a teen. What’s your favorite kind of music now?”

  “No single favorite. But the types I like best go with dance. Lately I’ve been listening to some Georgian, and a year ago when I saw a Chhau celebration, I started hunting down recordings,” he said.

  “I’d love to see both,” she said as he turned onto Hollywood Blvd. “What’s the oddest to Western ears that you’ve ever experienced?”

  “That would be the whistlers of La Gomera.”

  “Where is that?”

  “What we call the Canary Islands. Silbo Gomera. Coolest music I’ve ever come across.” He parked. “Hungry?”

  “Starving.”

  As Mindy walked into the heavenly smell of Lebanese cooking, she was aware of a sense of impending loss. It had nothing to do with the restaurant. She knew what it was. She didn’t want to leave Dennis.

  She forced herself to imagine what he would do if he woke up in the middle of the night with a dog in his bed. Best bet? The dog catcher and a metal cage, her second worst fear every time she risked changing. Worst case scenario, he finds out she’s also human and, what, turns her over to some creepy government agency to stick in a lab and study? That was her first and worst fear.

  She suppressed a shiver as the hostess led them to a table. The place was crowded. Mindy caught snatches of others’ conversations, and suspected from the quick glance that Dennis cast from side to side that he was thinking the same thing as she: avoid talking about Haskell and the sting.

  That meant personal talk. If she took over the conversation, she could steer safely away from danger zones—like her own secrets.

  “You’ve mentioned these friend you grew up with,” she said after their drinks came. “Tell me about them.”

  He grimaced slightly, his dimples deepening. “What’s there to say? We were pretty typical kids. Boring. I’d rather hear about you.”

  “Which would be ten times more boring because my only experience with other kids was pretty much confined to classroom, playing field, organized events. And of course steps and halves coming and going. I moved too often to learn how to make friends,” she said, lobbing the conversational ball right back at him. “You can’t possibly bore me.”

  “Well, we were a bunch of little devils, when I think back,” Dennis said, looking away as though sorting his words. “The ways boys usually are. We lived in a small town, so we did small town stuff. Watched a lot of TV, or played outside. Whole town was our playground, and the empty land beyond. When we weren’t dirt bike racing, we were heavily into anime, specifically mecha. In fact, that’s pretty much what got cameras in our hands—we wanted to make our own adventure films . . .”

  He reminisced, mostly about trouble they got into, keeping her in a ripple of laughter. But while she laughed, little clues kept niggling at her—Mick. Russian grandparents. Terrible teenage filmmaking disasters. Could his Mick possibly be the huge filmmaker Mick Volkov? No way.

  That house in the Hollywood Hills—could that belong to Mick Volkov? No, it was a nice house, but no film director mansion, and anyway, hadn’t Dennis said something about the owner’s fiancée? Mindy was very sure she’d seen something on one of the talk shows about Mick Volkov getting married recently to Number Four.

  So that detail didn’t add up. She kept listening, but some of her enjoyment faded, and she was glad when the audience quieted down as the first performers came out. She did not want to be paranoid, and she had been trained not to put two and two together to make seven. Still, she hated the thought that he might be bragging or scamming her—another Jerome Haskell.

  That’s it. I’m paranoid because he’s too good to be real, she thought as they were served delicious Hafleh Beiruti. They’d even decided to share the same dish, like some long-settled couple.

  She was glad when the performers began playing, precluding any but occasional bits of conversation. The food was delicious, she noticed with the periphery of her attention; while it pleased her taste, and the music bathed her ears, all her other senses sensitive to every subtle alteration in Dennis.

  Five numbers in, the belly dancers appeared. They began dancing, and Dennis leaned over so close a lock of his hair touched her ear as he whispered, “How do they rate?”

  Mindy’s heart raced, and even though she was still fighting that sick sense of paranoia, she couldn’t keep her gaze from the curve of his lips, or touch of ruddy candlelight on the gold strands in his hair and the outline of his strong cheekbone. Her thighs tightened against the spike of heat inside her, and she forced her voice to coolness. “The one second from the right is the best at technique, but if you’re shopping, I’d say the one at the far right is the prettiest.”

  A quick glance from eyes that reflected the candle flame, and he said briefly, “I like your dancing better.” And as the dancers bowed and left the stage, he turned to signal for the check.

  When the waiter brought it, she pulled out her purse and said firmly, “Here’s my half.”

  He didn’t hassle her, but laid his bills on top of hers.

  The lights came up for the intermission, so they left, walking out into the balmy air and brilliant lights of L.A. at night. The drive back to her car was accomplished with light chat about nothing much—the latest films, favorite restaurants, easy stuff. He seemed distant, almost absent, and she discovered that she had become attuned to the subtle changes of timbre in his voice. She could feel him withdrawing, and she had to hold down the puppy inside who wanted to break free and curl up beside him, sniffing all over to discover what was wrong.

  Her car sat lone in the library lot. He pulled up beside it and he got out to open her door, saying, “We’ll be in touch. Thank you for today,” he added, his voice deepening to that resonant note that sounded so sincere. Felt so sincere.

  “Thanks,” she managed, her throat constricting. She shut her car door and refused to look back at him as she started the Honda and drove away.

  By the time she reached her apartment, she had a plan. She threw down her purse, retreated to her room, curled up in her big armchair and called her middle step-sister. Mindy and Tania had never been close—Tania was everything Mindy’s mother had wanted Mindy to be: tall, thin, with straight strawberry blonde hair, and blue eyes.

  Last year Tania had married a mid-level news executive at NBC. Tania knew all the gossip in the news world.

  “Tania? It’s Mindy.”

  “Look, Mindy, now is not a great time. We’ve people coming over, and you know it takes me forever to —”

  “This will only take a minute. I need to pick your brain, as you know everybody in the news world.”

  “Well, not everybody,” Tania said, with a smug undertone. Like most people, she always had time to dispense advice, or gossip. “What, or rather, who?”

  “Do you know the name Dennis O’Keefe?”

  “The Dennis O’Keefe, the photojournalist? Are you kidding?” Tania’s voice rose. “Where do you bury your head, Mindy? Just last year he and one of our guys, along with a bunch of Brits and Danes, won the European Press Prize for that expose of human traffickers running out of a fake Doctors Without Borders office—” She stopped herself. “How do you know him?”

  “We ran into one another. At a thing.”

  Tania’s voice dropped. “Well, run in the other direction. If he gives you a second look, that is. “

  “Why? Is he an asshole?”

  “No! If anything, the total opposite, so I hear.
He’s charming, and fascinating, and supposed to be hot in the sack, but he’s a total hit and run. You remember Melani Welch? Dated her once and moved on. Melani! Who was still modeling for Schiaparelli at age thirty!”

  “Is that all?”

  “He’s a complete maverick. He turned down megabucks, Mindy, a dream package offer from Fox News. Dave even tried to lure him to NBC. All he said was, he hates bosses, suits, and ties.”

  “Well that doesn’t sound so bad.”

  “If you like guys who throw away money in the bank, just so they can hare off and watch natives picking flies at the butt-end of nowhere because he feels like it. A guy like that is never going to settle down.”

  “I guessed that much.”

  “Are you interested in him?” Tania’s voice dropped a note. “Mindy, as your friend, and sort-of relation, I feel I should say that if you have a hope of catching his eye, you will seriously need to drop thirty pounds—”

  “Thanks, Tania. I don’t want to keep you. I know you have people coming.”

  “At least twenty-five pounds, Mindy, really. And don’t think I don’t I sympathize! If you think it’s easy for me to keep myself from bloating past a size two, you can guess again—”

  “Bye, Tania, thanks. Say hi to Dave.”

  Mindy hung up, and curled up in a ball with her chin on her knees, aware of a sense of intense relief. As if the relationship with Dennis could go anywhere. It would have been easier if he’d turned out to be a total phony—oh, who was she trying to kid?

  This was going to hurt no matter how it played out.

  “Friends with Mick Volkov,” she said out loud.

  She turned her head toward her full length mirror—and caught sight of her hair, which had still been wet when she and Dennis left for the restaurant.

  Total poodle.

  She groaned.

  * * *

  In the library parking lot, Dennis stayed long enough to see Mindy safely off. She wouldn’t look at him for some reason, but that meant he could watch her. A spark of delight lit inside him at the sight of that little wriggle of her hip when she got into her car. She was even cute putting on her seatbelt, with those graceful hands, and that cloud of hair . . . And then she drove off without looking back, and his gut tightened.

  Shit. It felt like she’d reached inside his ribs and yanked.

  Mate.

  Shut up, he told the tiger. I’ve got the brain. I’m the boss here. Granted, sex with Mindy was mind-blowing. But the world was full of women who liked mind-blowing sex, right? And she didn’t even try laying strings on him, which was exactly the way he liked it.

  That whole mate thing was nothing but a pretty name for baggage. And Dennis O’Keefe did not do baggage.

  He drove back up the hill, and prowled around JP’s house, picking up and putting down things while he waited for Agent Sloane to get back to him.

  He’d taken this gig on a whim, because his old unit mate Greg Ling had called him just after Mick’s wedding, when Dennis had been stuck in Sanluce, feeling out of sorts while his broken leg finished healing.

  It wasn’t the leg that caused the crappy mood, Dennis had known even then. Shifters heal fast. It was that left-behind sense now that both his best buddies had managed to find their mates. A year ago, none of them had even believed all that hearts and flowers stuff about mates. Well, Mick half-believed because his grandparents, who had raised him, were as tight a mated pair as you could find.

  Poor Mick had fooled himself into mistaking the rush of attraction for finding your life mate, crashing and burning three times before he got it right. And even JP, who had felt exactly the way Dennis did, had done a 180 a month ago and was now completely wrapped up in his opera singer.

  The tiger stirred inside him. Dammit! Dennis hammered his fist against the door frame, then whirled around and glowered at the glittering city lights of L.A.

  He knew he could call either Mick or JP, but all he’d get would be hearts and flowers blah-blah about how perfect their women were. How amazing the bond.

  He’d already seen their sincerity. He’d even sensed the bond in the way the couples looked at each other, but that was after they’d settled it all out. How did they know? It would be so easy to fool yourself—and anyway, supposing Mindy really was his mate, Dennis was not at all sure he wanted the yoke of a wife any more than he could stand the yoke of an office job at some magazine or studio, and a boss telling him what stories to go after.

  He grimaced and kicked a harmless footstool. What an asshole he sounded like, even to himself. He should look at it the other way: what decent woman, what awesome woman (like, say, Mindy) deserved to be stuck singing the Empty Bed Blues for months on end while he was in Moldova, or Guam, or the South Pole, chasing stories?

  Wasn’t the ready go-bag behind his parents’ divorce?

  He flopped back on the bed and punched up his dad’s number.

  “Dennis! Long time no hear. How’s the leg?”

  “Great. Listen, Dad, got a minute?”

  “Sure. Hang on.” Various clanks and thumps, then he was back. “Cooking up a vat of chili. Then I freeze it in bowls, and I’ve got instant meals for a week. Don’t have to think about cooking. What can I do for you?”

  “You and Mom weren’t mates, were you?”

  A brief silence, and then his dad said cautiously, “Not in the sense I think you mean, no.” Of course Dad wouldn’t talk about shifters over the phone. Too many years of dealing with sensitive material in the military world.

  “But you got married anyway.”

  “Yeah—we liked each other fine. You know, Sanluce is a small town. We grew up knowing each other. No surprises. She was great fun. Knew I was going into the service the way my dad had, and was cool with it. Then there was the, ah, connection with your Uncle Thomas.”

  Dennis thought of his mom’s brother, a wolfhound shifter. Mom now lived at Uncle Thomas and Aunt Kuniko’s ranch, taking in abused and abandoned animals.

  “Right,” Dennis said. So Mom had been attracted to Dad because he was a shifter? Okay, she’d grown up knowing about shifters. And if you knew, it really was pretty cool. But if anything, his situation with Mindy was the opposite. Supposing they did get serious—and supposing by some miracle she was even down with him traveling—what was she going to say if she came over unexpectedly one day and found a tiger?

  “So you weren’t mates, and it didn’t last,” Dennis said.

  “We’re still friends,” Dad said.

  “But you got a divorce.”

  “Well, actually, we never got around to filing the papers. And we’re okay with that. You know we get together once in a while, and my insurance is important for her, at our age. Where’s all this coming from? You think you’ve found someone?”

  “I don’t know. I’m not sure I want to know.” He felt the tiger stirring again.

  “Not one of us, then.”

  “Right.”

  “Okay, here’s what I understand. Whether or not they’re one of us, they feel it, too. You both do. And the rest works out.”

  “Got it. Thanks, Dad.”

  “I made extra chili if you happen to be sick of L.A.”

  “Maybe when this gig is over. We’re kind of in the middle of it right now.”

  “Well, I’m on leave for another month, so don’t be a stranger.”

  “I won’t. Thanks.”

  They rang off, and Dennis tossed his phone onto the bed, which was still rumpled. He picked up the second pillow and buried his face in it. God, it had her smell—the most elusive, amazing perfume ever made. He’d have to sneak into her place and find out what it was called.

  He dropped the pillow and sighed. They couldn’t be mates, then. She obviously didn’t feel anything. She was fun and generous and hot in bed, and a terrific listener, and smart and funny and hoo-boy she could swing those hips. And she was easy to talk to, but other than unimportant crap like musical taste and the like, she didn’t talk about hersel
f. All these great things added up to the best casual date ever, but every time he tried to take one step closer it was like he came up against a glass wall.

  So . . . not mates. Just a nuclear-powered attraction.

  Easy come, easy go, tiger. You were wrong, but it’s okay.

  The obvious course would be to ride it out as long as it lasted, and then move on.

  So why was he so depressed?

  Chapter Eight

  The phone went off by Dennis’s ear.

  He shot upright, fumbling for it as he tried to remember where he was. Shit-fire, where the hell was the light?

  He knocked unseen things crashing to the carpet before he found the phone. Greg Ling. Adrenaline shot through him as he sat up in bed. Guest house. JP’s.

  “Yeah?”

  “Dennis, Torvaldsen has been sitting tight for days, and we couldn’t get near. But now he’s suddenly on the move. I’ll try to stick with him, but be on the watch in case. Whatever is happening is today, I’m sure of it. We lose either of them, we’re hosed.”

  “Fuck.” Dennis raked his hand through his hair as his dream came crashing back around him: Mindy and he, running through the mountains high in Tibet, only he was a tiger, and she—

  He found the damn lamp, flicked it on, and the shadows jumped back, taking the last of the dream with him.

  “Dennis? You awake?”

  “Yeah. What do you want me to do?”

  “Stick to Haskell like glue.”

  “What about the money? He’s going to keep pressuring me to write him a check without a contract.”

  “Amanda says, if you have to give him a check, do it, but as late as possible. She said she can bounce funny money around the world, but at most we’d have twenty-four hours. Today being Sunday definitely plays in our favor.”