Tiger Speed Dating: BBW Paranormal Weretiger Romance Page 4

  It was desire. It was an instant connection.

  And maybe, with a little more time, it could be love.

  If it wasn’t love already.

  Chapter Six

  There had been a car parked outside of the old cabin for the last three weeks. In a town as small as Cub’s Cove, Michael hadn’t failed to notice it. There hadn’t been any “for sale” signs on the property, and he didn’t think that the family would have passed off the property privately.

  Whoever was in the house had to be a member of Carlson’s family, and if that was the case, Michael wanted to have a chat with them.

  He pulled his car up onto the property, right into the spot where he used to park. Everything about the place was familiar. From the old trees with the thick bark to the cedar-chip gardens outside the front of the house, not much had changed.

  Nothing but the most important part.

  Michael made his way up the grounds and to the front door of the house. The gravel on the driveway crunched beneath his feet as he crossed the driveway to arrive at the front door.

  It didn’t feel all that long since Carlson had died, but Michael still missed him. A bond like they had was rare, and Michael wasn’t sure it could be replicated. Even in the short time they’d shared, Carlson had become a father figure to him.

  He missed the old man dearly.

  It was close to two in the afternoon, but the strange car was parked in the driveway, so Michael assumed whoever now lived in the cabin was home. He climbed the stairs of the porch and knocked on the door. For a minute there was silence, then Michael’s head was scrambling from the inside.

  The door opened seconds later, and he found himself speechless.

  Abby had answered the door.

  “Why?” she asked in a shy voice. “Um, well. I didn’t expect to see you here.”

  Michael’s mouth went dry. He’d had Abby’s number in his phone since the speed-dating event two weeks ago, but he hadn’t found a good time to call. Most days time got away from him, and by the time he tore himself away from his repair work to call her, he found that it was too late.

  And she’d never called. Not once. The more time went on, the more Michael felt like she wasn’t interested.

  Maybe she hadn’t felt the soul-bond like he had. The tug at his soul was inescapable, and it kept him up at night thinking about her. For humans, Michael figured it wasn’t the same.

  He wished it were different.

  “I didn’t expect to see you here, either,” he admitted, struggling to find words. He didn’t need to languish for long—Abby spoke up for him.

  “I’m sorry I didn’t call,” she blurted out. “I got your number, I really did, and I’ve been holding onto it, but it never seemed like a good time, and I’ve been over-thinking it, and—”

  “It’s okay.” Michael couldn’t help but smile. Abby had no reason to apologize. Making the first move should have been up to him. “I’m the one at fault here. I should have called you ages ago, but like you said, there never seemed to be a good time. I guess I’m pretty terrible at managing my personal time.”

  “So you came by to talk instead of call?” Abby asked. She looked flustered, but still gorgeous. The jeans she wore hugged her hips and made her thighs look fantastic, and Michael was having a hard time keeping focused.

  The tiger had risen to the surface and was clawing to get out. How was he supposed to tell her that these days, in order to keep himself in check, he had to take to the woods and prowl in order to get her out of his mind?

  “No. You see,” Michael ran his hand through his hair, “I used to live here.”

  “You what?” Abby narrowed her eyes. “This cabin has always belonged to my family. What do you mean, you used to live here?”

  So, she really didn’t know.

  “In the last few years, the man who lived here called on me to come repair some of the structural damage,” Michael explained. “I was new in town, and he offered me lodging while I got situated. At first, I figured it was because he was interested in the free labor I’d put in to compensate him for his generosity, but every time I tried to do something around the house, he nixed the idea.”

  Abby was watching him, listening to his story carefully.

  “And, well, I fixed the structural damage, but I came to understand that the man who lived here wasn’t looking for help so much as he was looking for a friend. And so I stayed and kept him company until he passed away.”

  “You lived with my grandfather?” Abby asked, aghast. “He never mentioned that he had someone living with him. I just thought… We all just thought that he was stubborn and spry and still able to do things on his own.”

  “Yeah,” Michael laughed. “He was stubborn, all right. But I helped out a lot and made sure he was always comfortable during his last days. The two of us, we got along really well.”

  Sorrow glinted in Abby’s eyes, and she looked at her feet. When she spoke, she did so quietly. “I’m sorry that we weren’t there to help you. I’ve felt so bad about not being there for him, but he never reached out to us to let us know his health was declining. We didn’t even know until it was too late.”

  “Hey,” Michael said softly. He reached out and curled a finger under her chin, lifting it until she was looking at him again. The spark he felt on contact trembled in his very core, and by the startled look in Abby’s eyes, he knew she felt it, too. “Let’s not get caught up on that, okay? I’m not here to scold you. I promise.”

  “Let’s start over,” Abby said. She tilted her head away and took a little step back. A beat of silence passed between them, and then she broke it. “Hi. What are you doing here?”

  Michael grinned. Restarting the conversation was cute. “I came around to see if you needed any repairs done on things in the house. I know firsthand that it’s not in the best condition.”

  Abby’s eyes lit up, and she smiled at him. The way her full lips curled and parted to expose the tiniest sliver of pearly whites melted his heart. If she were a shifter, Michael knew she’d have been able to smell his adoration on the air. It was thick and unavoidable.

  “Really?”

  “Really.” Michael nodded. “And I’ll do my best to keep everything looking original, too. No garish changes. All rustic and natural looking.”

  “Well, there are a lot of things that need to be fixed.” Abby stepped out of the doorway and invited him inside with a sweep of her hand. “Maybe we can talk about it over coffee?”

  Michael couldn’t have asked for anything more.

  He followed her into the familiar house and took a look around. Since Carlson had died, nothing had changed. All the carpets were the same, frayed at the edges and paled by time, and the old blinds and curtains from the seventies were still hanging by the windows. The difference was that Carlson had kept the curtains open and let the light stream through.

  Abby had them closed.

  How was it that a creature as gorgeous as she was would want to avoid the sun? Michael remembered the hurt in her eyes when he’d brought up her reasons for being in town, and he wondered what she was hiding. It had to be more than Carlson’s death, he thought.

  Someone had hurt Abby, and she was hiding away because of it.

  More than anything, Michael wanted to see her smile again.

  The two of them walked to the kitchen, and Michael took a seat at the wobbly kitchen table as Abby occupied herself by putting the kettle on to boil. As she worked, he watched her. Even in jeans and a T-shirt, she looked fantastic. Her brown hair was down, and although it wasn’t styled, he thought it was beautiful.

  Healthy, glossy, thick…

  Michael imagined running his fingers through it. Would she tremble in delight at his touch? Press against him, so close he could pick up on her scent, and then—

  “Do you take cream or sugar in your coffee?” Abby asked, stirring him from his thoughts. She was standing at the fridge.

  “Cream,” Michael said. “Lots of it.��

  Abby brought the cream to the table, and with it she brought a small bowl of sugar. The kettle started to whistle, and she made two cups of instant coffee and brought them over. Even the coffee cups were the same. Michael’s heart ached for the old man he’d lost.

  That they’d both lost.

  Abby settled at the table and for a while awkward silence settled between them. Michael had never felt so tongue-tied around a woman.

  The tiger in him hadn’t been so wild and unruly since his youth.

  “So,” Abby said. She spooned sugar into her coffee, but didn’t touch the cream. Michael helped himself to the cream, and soon the black coffee had turned a light brown. “Did you, um, did you like living here?”

  “I did.” Michael smiled. “Your grandfather and I used to go out in the woods together, did you know? I swear, that old guy loved it more than I did, and there are few things I love more than exploring the woods around Cub’s Cove.”

  “I always thought grandpa hated the woods,” Abby said. She wrapped her hands around her cup of coffee and let it warm her palms. “When we were kids, he used to always warn my brother and me not to go out exploring too far, because there were dangerous animals in the woods. We never listened to him, of course. Who did? We were just kids.”

  The way she smiled lit up the whole room, and Michael felt like he’d known that smile forever. He listened as she spoke, eager to soak up every word.

  “We played in those woods day in and day out when we were younger. My friends and I used to pretend we were adventurers, or sometimes fairies. That’s silly, right? All of those make-believe things that don’t really exist.”

  “Right.” Michael scratched at the back of his head. It was clear that Abby didn’t know anything about his world, just like her grandfather hadn’t.

  “Wait.” Recognition sparked in Abby’s eyes, and she leaned forward and squinted at him from across the table. Michael had to hold back a laugh. She was gorgeous, but she looked ridiculous trying to figure him out like she was. “You’re not… Oh God, what was his name again?”

  The way she screwed up her face as she thought was precious. Michael watched her, enchanted.

  “Michael Kage,” she said at last. “My grandpa mentioned him from time to time, but I always thought it was someone his own age. I never thought…”

  “That’s me.” Michael grinned. It was good to know that Carlson had been so fond of him.

  Abby lifted her cup of coffee and busied herself by sipping at it. Even with the cream added, Michael found it too hot. When at last she put the cup down, there was resignation in her eyes.

  “I can’t believe you lived here with him and I never even knew about it.”

  “You were busy with your books,” Michael insisted. Now that he knew Abby was Carlson’s granddaughter, little bits of her history were falling into place. “He understood. He has all of them displayed on his bookshelf, did you know?”

  “I saw.” Abby smiled, humble, but pleased with herself in a small way.

  “He told me all about you,” Michael said. “Every time you’d send one of your books, he’d boast about how you were making it as an author, and that you were chasing your dreams and he was so proud of you for it. He said that he’d known since you were young that you were going to make your living artistically—that he called you the Dreamer.”

  A blush reddened Abby’s cheeks, and Michael knew that it wasn’t from the coffee.

  “He didn’t.”

  “He did. He loved you very much.”

  In a small way, sharing what he knew of Carlson with her helped ease the pain of his loss. By the look on Abby’s face, the relief was mutual.

  There were tears in her eyes, but Michael knew from her scent that she was happy.

  He figured it was his place to break the mood before she broke down. Whether she was happy or not, he didn’t want to see those tears fall.

  “So, when do I start?”

  Abby snapped free from her thoughts and refocused her attention on him. With the back of her hand, she brushed away the unshed tears that had gathered in her eyes. “What?”

  “With the repairs,” Michael said. “I know from living here that this place needs them. Your grandfather never let me get anything done, but now that he’s gone I can really fix this place up.”

  “I… Well.” Abby frowned. “I can wake up early tomorrow morning if you want to start coming in, but the problem is, I’m not sure how much I can pay you. I haven’t published anything in three months, and my funds are starting to get stretched a little thin.”

  That wasn’t going to be a problem at all. Michael didn’t want money from her. “That’s no problem. I’ll put in the labor in exchange for a date.”

  “A date?”

  “You know, the kind where I take you out to dinner, or where we go on a hike, or really, anything that you could want. I’m not fussy.”

  For a moment, it looked like Abby was going to say no. Her eyes had widened slightly, and she stayed perfectly still, as though she were terrified. As a human, could she sense the predator within him? Michael didn’t know. He’d lived with his clan for so long that he’d brushed off learning about the common man and how they reacted in the presence of shifters.

  He never would have thought that he’d find his mate in a human.

  “Well,” Abby said at last. Her expression brightened, and Michael couldn’t help but smile in return. “It’s a deal.”

  They were the words he’d been waiting for. The yes he craved.

  He’d prove to Abby that he could be her perfect mate. For now she was blind to it, but in time she’d understand.

  There was no love like that of a tiger’s. No devotion as pure or as loyal.

  And no woman on the planet deserved his love more than Abby did.

  The only problem would be convincing her of it.

  Chapter Seven

  All that was left of Michael was the coffee cup in the sink, but Abby couldn’t shake him from her mind. It was as if he still stood in the kitchen, laughing with her about her favorite memory of her grandfather, or creasing his brow in concentration and gesturing with his hands as he went over the repairs he envisioned for the cabin.

  Had there ever been a man more captivating? Abby still wasn’t sure that he hadn’t stepped out from one of her romance novels.

  A man like Michael didn’t exist in the real world, after all, and certainly never the modern one.

  Abby’s favorite type of romance was historical, and she’d been writing it just as long as she’d been reading it. There was something so mystical about corsets and petticoats, and something so regal about breeches and waistcoats. Lords and ladies. Affairs. Class differences.

  But her publisher had been on her back about putting out new material. The historical market was dead, her representative had told her. If she wanted to keep her head above the water and be taken seriously in the modern market, she was going to have to do something new.

  And along had come Santino and Claire, two individuals in a contemporary romance who… Well. Abby still hadn’t figured them out yet.

  But when the door closed behind Michael and she found herself alone, something came over her she hadn’t felt in a long time. The burning desire in her chest that leeched into her lungs and infected every breath she took quickly spread down her spine and lit her whole body alight with the thing she’d been looking for for the last three months.

  Inspiration.

  With thoughts of Michael on her mind, Abby fled to her bedroom and sat at her desk to write.

  The blank page in front of her wasn’t intimidating. Santino and Claire’s story was on hold—maybe indefinitely. There was a new story in her mind, taking shape with every passing second.

  A story with a character with the most dazzling blue eyes and the strangest pale hair she’d ever seen. A man so gorgeous that he couldn’t be real.

  Abby had read a few paranormal romance stories, but she’d never really invested herself in one. Now, with Michael too perfect for real life, she knew that it was what she had to do. It was time for her to let go and indulge in the unreal, because at that moment it felt like her life was very much a fantasy.

  Her fingers flew across the keys as she wrote.

  The way Michael had touched her wasn’t like any touch she’d felt before. Not even from Tyler. There was a gentleness to his strength, like he was taking care not to hurt her—like she was the most delicate thing in the world, and that he knew he could break her if he let himself go.

  Michael was danger, and sex, and charm, and…

  Abby closed her eyes for a second as she remembered the moment on the doorstep where he’d curled his finger under her chin and had lifted her head so they could look at each other eye to eye. In that moment, all she’d been able to do was focus on his lips, and how full they looked for a man’s. The piercing blue eyes she’d been dreaming about since the speed-dating event were softened and emotional.

  Loving.

  Like he really cared, and like he’d always cared, even before they’d met. As though it was destiny that they’d cross paths at a small-town bar like The Stripe.

  Abby had never written about another living person before, whether she’d dated them or not. Most of the time, she felt there was something weird about it. Capturing a complex human being was complicated, and most of the time she found that doing so stifled her creativity.

  With Michael, it was different. With Michael, the words flowed.

  “Thank you, Michael Kage,” she whispered to herself. Words turned into sentences, sentences turned into paragraphs, and before the first hour at her computer was through, those paragraphs had turned into a chapter.

  Abby had been lost since Tyler had betrayed her, but now she was back on track and better than ever.

  And it was all because of Michael.

  * * *

  “I thought I was coming in this morning to do repairs. Is this really all for me?”

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