The Hero I Need by Nicole Snow
True Stripes (Willow)
No, no, no, and also, no.
This is not how I imagined my life.
Red lights flashing on the dashboard like evil eyes, headlights dimming, the engine losing power!
Panic like a thrumming war drum in my pulse, tears in my eyes, and worst of all, none of it’s for me. I’m letting him down when he needs me most and it makes me sick.
This can’t be happening. Not here. Not now.
Not in the middle of Nowheresville, North Dakota. The farm fields and cute sleepy houses yawning on forever in the hills like a painter’s wet dream are too adorable for this. Too anticlimactic a backdrop for a disaster this big.
Ugh.
But let’s backup...
Once upon a time, I had plans.
Go to a good school and work my rump off. Travel internationally. Work with endangered animals—especially big cats, the first and (probably) only love of my life. Win accolades for my work, just like dear old dad.
Maybe get interviewed by National Geographic or at least land a few articles in hotshot science journals.
Talk to kids about the living wonders of every four-legged beast in the Felidae family.
Finally, meet Prince Charming somewhere underneath an African sunset with layers of light that show off the love in his eyes. All his dreamy, growly, infinitely obsessed-with-me goodness as he gets down on one knee and asks me to marry him.
Of course I’d say yes.
Then onto an awesome life with my best friend, taking time off from our illustrious careers to work on our picture-perfect family. Three smart, well-behaved little angels who’d grow up surrounded by Mother Nature, our third wheel, and who might even follow me in my work, just like I followed Dad.
Yeah, so, it’s funny how fate works.
I think God must have a soft spot for every Department of Transportation under the sun since he loves long, winding, entirely unpredictable detours.
Like the one I’m on now, holding in a scream and gripping the steering wheel until my knuckles go ivory-white because it’s the only thing I can do not to start pounding the dash like an angry little monkey.
Welcome to my detour of a life.
So far, all I’ve accomplished is school, resulting in one big fat unremarkable B.S. in Zoology. If I didn’t love animals so much, I might get hung up on the BS part.
But Dad stepped up and put me through my program, which I’m endlessly grateful for.
I just wish I’d known everything after graduation would be a one-way ticket to hell in a handbasket.
Oh, sure, my father had a comfy entry level field job lined up for me, but I’d been like, “Oh, no, Dad, you’ve done enough. I can take it from here. I’m a big girl.”
Why?
Because he understood.
He knew it was coming.
Unfortunately for me, I inherited just enough of the Macklin family pride to make it a driving force in my hamster wheel of a brain. So rather than take a cushy job where I would’ve been welcomed as the world-renowned rhino expert’s daughter—or have people sneering that I’d only gotten the gig because Peter Macklin is my father—I took a job at the Exotic Plains Rescue in Minot, North Dakota.
Mistake number one.
Seriously. North Dakota, where there are...not a large number of exotic cats roaming the wilds, unless you count the occasional cougar.
Or Bruce.
I glance in the rearview mirror nervously, wondering how he’s holding up in the stock trailer I’m pulling. He might be over five hundred pounds and host a mouth full of razor-sharp teeth that could shear the flesh off a Christmas turkey in one pull, but he’s as mild as a house cat.
Honest.
A cat who eats five pounds of raw meat for breakfast and will never see the inside of a litter box, maybe, but a big kitty nonetheless. He’s an adorable lumbering hunk of orange-and-black-striped sweetness, born and raised in total captivity.
I’ll spare you the lecture on how you can take the tiger out of the wild, but you’ll never rip the wild out of him. He’s as gentle of a giant as he can be, but that’s not the point.
I’m worried.
His front paw was so swollen this morning he wouldn’t put any weight on it. A quick check showed there’s nothing broken, but an infection could cripple him.
I fix my eyes on the road and try not to let my lip quiver for the hundredth time.
Easier said than done.
Bruce stole my heart the moment I met him. I’d been so full of myself then. So sure that my job at the rescue was my calling, or at least my launchpad. A delusional part of me even thought my rescue work in North Dakota could lead to something real, a door to the kind of fame Dad has in his work with rhinos.
Nope.
Within weeks, I noticed things that made me shiver. Little inconsistencies that didn’t add up. Owners who seemed to enjoy being evasive. Today was the straw that broke the camel’s back and gave me an ethical dilemma I doubt any fancy-schmancy philosopher ever thought up.
What the hell do I do with a ginormous contraband tiger who desperately needs my help?
The truck chugs again, and my attention goes to the dash lights. A grim reminder of just how little I’m able to give poor Bruce the help he needs.
The battery light, which was flashing off and on, stalls and stops on an angry eff-you red.
A second later, the headlights go out.
Boom.
Not just a flicker like before.
My heart sinks into my gut.
They come back after another jerking motion, but...
I don’t feel any sense of relief. Or hope. Or anything.
Even on high beams, the headlights are so dim I can barely make out the faded white line painted along the edge of the road. And it’s far too late after sunset to keep going safely through the darkness with no lights, even if these highways are so deserted they’re practically haunted.
Forget the fact that I’m breaking down on the side of the road with a stolen tiger for a second.
It’s worse than that—I’m sputtering out in the middle of flipping nowhere.
Just when I’m ready to swallow my own dried-out tongue, I see it.
Like some kinda miracle, a pattern of flashing lights ahead, catching my eye. Not the police, because that wouldn’t be the kinda miracle I need right now, but it looks like...a billboard?
Oh, yes. It’s a business, and if I’m lucky, it’ll be a quaint motel or rusty gas station or lonely truck stop.
I lay my foot on the gas pedal, hoping to juice enough power out of this baby to get me to the lights. They’re looking a lot more purple now, winking on and off.
Make that literally winking. I smile when I see the shape of an exaggerated cartoon face with one big happy winking eye.
Fate must have a sense of humor because it’s actually a cat.
This billboard was meant for Bruce and me.
I used to be a believer in those things, signs from above, good luck and synchronicity.
Whether I’ve lost my faith in fortune or not, I can’t deny how excitement fills me as the truck snorts onward like a stubborn horse, despite the fading headlights and the hateful red battery light. I’m stalling out completely just as I lurch into the parking lot that belongs to the purple cat billboard.
The Purple Bobcat.
That’s what the sign says the name is, a bar, I think.
A very closed bar by the looks of things.
Sigh. The only signs of life are a couple of tall area lights in the lot and the neon purple flashers on the billboard.
My excitement wanes as the truck rolls to a grunting stop and the engine dies in an empty lot.
Welp, so much for that miracle I ordered.
With a defeated sigh, I put the truck in park and try starting it again, but nothing happens. There’s a sharp click when I turn the key, and then dead silence.
“Holy hell, now what?” I mutter, stabbing at my belt buckle and popping open the door to climb out.
A minute later, I’ve got the hood propped open, frowning at the vehicle’s metal guts. It’s times like this when I wish I’d paid more attention when Dad would break down on Namibian dirt roads. Somehow, he always managed to doctor up the old field Jeeps and forty-year-old trucks just enough to get us back to camp.
But I didn’t inherit the Macklin knack for repairs.
I’m a zoologist, not a mechanic, but I have to try.
It was the battery light flashing, so maybe one of the cables is loose or something? Before digging around under the hood, I walk back to the trailer and step on the hitch so I can peer through the wide opening in the slats.
Bruce is flopped down on the same hay pile that was there when I loaded him. His glassy eyes shimmer in the darkness as he lifts his head and looks at me.
Yo, what’s the story, lady? Are we gonna get back on the road or what?I imagine him saying.
I smile, even though my heart aches. “Sorry, my dude, we aren’t there quite yet. Car trouble. This is just a brief pit stop, so don’t worry. I’ve got your back, furball.”
He yawns, showing off that insane cave of a mouth, then licks his paw like the overgrown kitten he is. Even in the darkness, I can see the rusty stains from his injury.
The same wound I’d discovered this morning.
The one I couldn’t ignore, consequences be damned.
Before I get angry for him again, I jerk myself away from the trailer and scan the highway, trying to see if there’s anything else nearby.
We haven’t gone far enough to be safe.
Not by a long shot.
Minot’s only about two hours away, and so are Priscilla and Niles, who are going to be very pissed off when they find out they’re missing a very valuable tiger.
“It’s gonna be okay, guy,” I whisper to Bruce again, then pull a few deep breaths from the night into my lungs, trying like mad to hold it together.
Back to the truck. It could be worse—I think. I’m glad I picked a well-lit place to break down.
The light from the parking lot shines into the engine, even if I feel like I’ve just opened the lid of a two-thousand-piece jigsaw puzzle. It doesn’t make sense.
There’s no rhyme or reason, no order to what I’m looking at. I feel like I need a mechanic standing over my shoulder just to make sure I don’t cross a wire and accidentally blow the whole world up.
Crud.
Recognizing the battery—because even a hapless zoologist knows what a battery is—I climb up on the bumper for a better look, then grasp the cables attached to the posts on the battery, one at a time.
They feel tight.
I mean, they don’t jiggle or fall off as I tug on them. The metal clamps don’t move either when I try to give them a twist.
Now what?
Now, I hope. Hope that maybe I’ve given it the golden touch, a simple adjustment to keep this baby running for another hundred miles.
Hope that I’m not completely whacked out of my head for betting everything on long odds.
I climb down, lean into the driver’s seat, and reach in to turn the key.
Nothing.
Just that single damning click too much like the guns you hear in movies when they’re empty.
With my brain on fire, I slump down, exhausted, planting my forehead against the seat. It’s still warm from my butt being stuck in it for hours, on a mission I’m so not made for.
Why couldn’t I have stolen a reliable vehicle? Why?
Oh, right. Because this truck and its trailer don’t have Exotic Plains plastered all over them in huge glaring letters like the rest that were at that sick joke of a sanctuary.
I try the key again, just for the hell of it. I’m grinding my teeth at another awful click-click-click when an epiphany strikes. Could there be a loose wire under the steering wheel?
Sticking my head under the column, I shove my hair out of the way and feel around, unsure what I’ll do if I find one.
“Car trouble?” a deep voice booms behind me.
The back of my head smacks the steering wheel in my rush to get up. Ow.
Pressing a hand against the stinging pain, I stand up, close my eyes, and say a quick prayer in my head.
The gruff voice isn’t Niles or Priscilla Foss’, but only God knows who they’d send after me if they’ve figured out Bruce is gone.
“Lady? You okay?” the stranger thunders again, this time closer.
“Yes! Never better,” I strangle out. Not easily with my heart pounding in my throat.
“Funny kind of better,” the voice growls to my back. “Looks more like you could use a hand.”
Hoping it’ll help, I gather my hair in one hand and lift it off the back of my neck, which is slicked with sweat in the humid night air, and finally turn around.
Holy Ohio.
I have to release my hair in order to tilt my head back far enough to see more than a massive chest covered with a black t-shirt sporting a picture of a purple bob cat. Mouth open. Teeth showing.
And it turns out that slab of a chest is attached to a mountain with arms and legs.
He’s tall, dark, shredded, and deliriously handsome.
I won’t call him muscular because it would be an injustice. Like calling Samson a bodybuilder.
This man looks like he could hoist Bruce over his head without breaking a sweat.
Moving my eyes up over shoulders that’d make Atlas seethe with jealously and a thick neck worthy of a bull, my gaze lands on a face. An amused one, with deep manly lines around flinty hazel-dark eyes.
This looks like a face that’s used to smiling, even if he’s rocking that scary-hot vibe like he invented it.
Only, right now, there’s a smirk carved on his chiseled face that says he might be insane enough to try lifting a full-grown tiger as a feat of strength.
Oh, crap.
Bruce!
If there’s one thing I can’t do—besides let this guy climb inside my head and eat crackers nice and slow—is let him catch on to the fact that I’m hauling around some very illegal cargo, and it’s alive.
“What kind of trouble are you having?” he asks, his eyes twinkling in the dim light.
At the moment, breathing.
Next up, peeling my eyes off him and finding the willpower to mutter more than a squeak in reply.
His jaw is square, his nose straight, his hair short, but not too short. And his mouth, that smile, it’s—
It’s officially too much to handle.
I huff out a loud breath to stop a heavenly fantasy from forming and get my thoughts back to hell. Because that’s where I’m actually at right now, blundering around an isolated parking lot in the middle of the night with a strange man and a not-so-well concealed monster in my trailer.
Fun times.
“The battery. Um, I think that’s it,” I rattle off, having to clear my throat to continue. “The light just started flashing while I was on the road, but then it stayed on and my truck up and died. Now there’s just...nothing. Not even the battery light. No power at all.”
He nods and glances around me like he’s heard it a hundred times, gazing into the cab of the truck before he makes a sympathetic grimace.
“Sounds like the alternator.”
“Oh, of course!” I say, just a little too eagerly because I’m that hard up for good news. “Uh, how’d you know?”
I wonder if his sympathy is for the broken-down truck or the fact that I’m alone.
I’m not alone, though, nor am I afraid. Hurt paw or not, Bruce is the best protector a girl could ever have. He’s been as defensive of me as I’ve been with him since day one.
Call it a twisted kinda love at first sight.
“Well, don’t know for sure till I take a closer look,” he tells me, “but what you described sounds like what happens when an alternator craps out.”
“An alternator,” I repeat, nodding as if I totally get what that thingamajig is.
“The alternator,” he corrects, amusement sparking in his eyes. “There’s usually just one unless you’ve got a real special ride.”
I nod again like I knew that. “I guess I’ll have to fix it. No big deal, right?”
“Replace it,” he says, reaching up to stroke the dark scruff on his chin. “You’ll need a new one, or a rebuilt unit, possibly, if we can dig one up for you.”
Uh-oh.
Something tells me all this talk about digging and fixing means I’m gonna be here awhile.
Not. Good.
“Where were you headed?” he asks.
“Wyoming. Close to Sheridan.” I flinch as soon as the word falls out.
It’s not quite a lie, but it was a half-baked plan at best.
Yes, there’s another big cat refuge there. A legit one with zero ties to Exotic Plains that I need to get Bruce to before infection sets into his paw.
But I sure as heck don’t need to be broadcasting it to a complete stranger. I don’t even know if this guy is an employee here, though his shirt is a pretty good hint he is.
“Hmm. I’d offer you a jump to charge up your battery, but that would only give you enough juice for a short hop. Not all the way to Bowman, which is a few towns over before you cross the state line.”
“It wouldn’t, huh?”
“Nah, but I know a damn good mechanic. He could probably replace your alternator tomorrow, if you can handle staying in this little town overnight.” He offers me an easy smile I wish I could return.
“Tomorrow,” I whisper, holding my breath.
He might as well have said next month or next year.
By tomorrow, Priscilla and Niles will definitely know I’m gone. They’ll have the hounds out in force looking for me and the wonderful creature they consider their property.
“Yep, he’s good at what he does, won’t take him long once he gets the part,” the stranger continues. “You got stock in that trailer?”
With my mind spinning with all the reasons why tomorrow will be a total disaster, I nod.
“Is it a two-inch ball with your rig?”
“Excuse me?” I bat my eyes, trying to unhear him talking dirty.
What ball? Did he mean bull? In the trailer?
His question ignites my greatest fears—like facing major jail time for stealing an exotic animal without ironclad proof I had to. Seeing him looking at me expectantly, I do the only thing I can.
“Yeah, it’s a bull,” I lie.
“Bull?” He cocks his head, adorably confused.
Isn’t that what he meant? If I had a bull? Or did he say ball? That wouldn’t make any sense.
Gah, I’m confused.
“That’s what I’m taking to Wyoming,” I continue, biting my tongue. “A bull.”
He looks at me like I’ve lost my mind.
I’m closer to a straitjacket than he knows.
“You misheard me. I asked if it was a two-inch ball on your truck,” he says, fighting back a chuckle. “The hitch, I mean. They’re usually a two-inch, but some are bigger. Two and five-sixteenths.”
Oh. Well, at least I’ll have plenty of time to relive this embarrassing conversation when I’m sitting in prison.
I’m a flipping zoologist and still don’t have a clue what he’s talking about.
“I don’t follow. Why do you want to know?” I venture.
“Because I have a two-inch ball on my truck. We can unhitch your ride, pull it out of the way, and then hitch my truck up to the trailer to get that bull moving.”
It’s official. My brain is a stress-fried omelet.
He might as well be speaking a foreign language.
“Come again?” I whisper.
“Miss, you sure you’re okay?” For a moment, he sighs, giving me a long look. “So I can give you a ride to Dallas. There’s a bed and breakfast here where you can spend the night. They also have an exercise area for stock when needed.”
“Oh, sure. Stock,” I whisper meekly. I’m too dumbstruck by the situation to even lie anymore when I know I’m about to be busted.
“You’re lucky you hit a rough patch here. This is cattle country. And horse country. Even a little bit of goat country, too, besides being pumpkin and oil country,” he says, chuckling at an inside joke that goes over my head.
His sense of humor, sticking pumpkins in there is just odd, but his laugh is nice. Wholesome and real enough to make me smile back through my rapid-firing panic brain. Or maybe I grin because I’m SOL and there’s nothing better to do than smile at a handsome stranger who’ll probably be the dude to call the cops on me.
He sticks out a hand bigger than my head.
“Grady McKnight. The pleasure’s all mine. I own this joint. I just locked up for the night and was about to head home when I noticed you.”
For some unholy reason, I shake his hand.
It’s warm, solid, weirdly comforting.
Just like him.
“Willow,” I breathe. “Willow Macklin.”
“Mighty nice to meet you, Willow.” He releases my hand and steps away. “Now, if you don’t mind, I’ll take a look at that hitch and make sure it’s the right size.”
I’m rubbing my palm on my thigh, dispelling the tingling shock left by his hand, when his last sentence clicks in my mind. The word hitch makes sense. And so does how close he’ll be to Bruce while looking at it.
Crap.
I can’t show my true stripes. Not like this. Not ever.
“No!” I shout, running toward him. “Actually, I do mind!”
