Page 1 of Tempting the Tiger

CHAPTER ONE

Grace McKenzie drove up the steep mountain road, holding the steering wheel in a white-knuckled grip. Why had she decided selling her baked goods to the shifter owned hotels in the area would be a good idea?

Because you need the money.

The voice of reason that had sat squarely on her shoulder for the past five years spoke smoothly in her ear. Every time she made a decision she waited for that voice. Only once had she failed to follow it—and ended up with an almost broken heart.

She refused to think about the asshole who had bruised her ego. He wasn’t worth the time or effort. Besides she had too much to do right now, at this moment, to think about what she could have done differently in the past.

The smell of cherry pies floated up from the back of the small delivery van. The wire shelves were stacked neatly with boxes of her homemade goodies, ready to grace the tables at the Wolf’s Den and the Lion’s Pride hotels.

This part of the United States was home to a large shifter population composed of mostly wolves, cats, and bears. When shifters had made themselves known to humans almost ten years ago, the government had thought to banish them in the harsh wilderness and allow nature to take its course. And it certainly had.

They had flourished.

Away from the rules and regulations—and the need to constantly hide their secrets—the shifter population had doubled in size and this northwestern part of the states was now home to some of the wealthiest individuals on earth.

Thanks in large part to the fascination humans seemed to have with shifters. Ironic, really when one thought about how the government wanted them all dead not so long ago.

Grace had to admit they held a large amount of fascination for herself. What woman wouldn’t think so? The media mostly betrayed them as superhuman and super sexy. And unwaveringly faithful. It was said when they married—or mated—it was for life. No cheating asshole losers in the bunch.

Or so she’d heard. She wasn’t friends with any shifters and had certainly never been intimate with one.

And she was not traveling the twenty-odd miles from town because she had hopes of hooking up with a shifter…so, okay, that was her secret, secret fantasy. That some big, burly shifter would take one look—or one sniff of her—and declare his undying love and they’d live happily-ever-after. She’d thought she’d want a bear, because, well, they were big and Grace certainly wasn’t a tiny woman. She looked down at the muffin top she sported and sighed. She was actually the thinnest she’d been in forever thanks to the long hours she’d been putting in to start the catering side of her bakery, but she could be called little by no means whatsoever. She was thick.

Yes, the sensational news shows on television made it seem as if shifters had only one mate, reminded faithful, and were the greatest thing since sliced bread.

Or, the other side of the story could be true. The one being bandied about town by The Group. They held firm in their beliefs that shifters were brainwashing women to keep them as sex slaves. The Group—that had to be the most unoriginal name of any organization Grace thought as she navigated around yet another steep curve.

The Group was a local band of humans who, according to the local gossips, had been terrorizing shifters for the last several months. They had also, rumor had it, kidnapped the mate of an alpha lion not too long ago. The woman had been rescued by her mate and The Group now had a few less members.

Grace had no desire whatsoever to be kidnapped, but it would be nice to know someone out there was ready to come to her rescue. Grace had been on her own since she was eighteen, fresh out of high school, and the foster system, with no clue what to do. Thankfully, she’d had a few people in her life who had taken an interest in her, like her home economics teacher. The woman had allowed her to stay after school and help set up the classroom instead of having to go home and face her foster family. The woman had also taught her how to make the sweetest, yummiest cherry pie, the staple of her bakery—Grace’s Goodies.

After high school, she’d gotten a job at a restaurant as a dishwasher. It was an upscale restaurant that didn’t hire chubby waitresses. But Grace hadn’t minded, not really. Well, she minded that she was chubby. She’d come to the realization after about the tenth diet she’d tried during high school, that the extra weight was just a part of her, something to be embraced like her brown hair and brown eyes. She was nothing extraordinary.

A fact that had been hammered home by her one and only boyfriend.

Do not think about him, Grace, she mentally scolded herself. It had been over six months since they’d broken up—after she’d refused to give him any money. It had been bad enough that he constantly demanded free food from the bakery and hinted more than once that he should move in with her so ‘they’ could save money on rent. But truth be told, she kind of enjoyed living on her own. Maybe it was because she’d had to live in houses full of strangers her entire life. Having a place that was hers, and hers alone, was very gratifying.

Grace had been abandoned as a child, dropped off at an orphanage. She’d been a sickly child and by the time she’d outgrown most of her problems, she’d been too old to adopt. She’d started living in foster homes when the orphanage had closed when she was eight. From eight to eighteen had been the loneliest years of her life. She’d lived with three different families and none of them had ever wanted to adopt her. Another case of being unloved and unwanted.

Before her thoughts could take her too deep down that melancholy path, the large circular driveway to the first hotel appeared. She pulled her small, white van to the back of the building and parked. Hopefully, all the pies had made it up the mountain in one piece. Splattered pie boxes had been the bulk of her very first delivery up the steep mountain road thanks to taking a couple of curves too fast. Grace had learned to drive slower—and fasten the boxes down with bungee cords.

She cut off the engine and made her way to the back of the van. Opening the door, she stepped inside.

Keair tilted his chair until it balanced on the back two legs, watching as his alpha and new mate ate breakfast in the hotel’s dining room. Seeing the lion shifter smile and laugh was totally new to him. Not that the man hadn’t enjoyed his share of women over the years, but not like this. Never like this.

“Makes you kind of sick to your stomach doesn’t it?” The comment came from the wolf shifter sitting to Keair’s left. Tarek was the pride’s security chief and enforcer. Keair had wanted the job but had instead been given that of second-in-command. After working with the wolf shifter for a few years, he understood why. The man was tough as nails and as about as unfeeling as a tree. He made carrying out the sometimes brutal decisions of justice the alpha had to make look easy.

Keair knew that wasn’t the case. He also knew the other man wasn’t quite as tough as he appeared to be. The alpha’s new mate had softened the wolf, just as she had him and his tiger. Or should he say, she’d made his tiger long for what the alpha had apparently found.

“It’s too much sweetness, that’s for sure.” He took another sip of his coffee and focused his attention on the large windows behind the alpha instead of on the happy couple.

“It’s a wonder he’s able to concentrate on anything. She’d got him wrapped around her little finger.”

Keair laughed at the disgusted tone the wolf used. “Yeah, and you’re twisted around her middle finger, cause she’s sure pulled the wool over your eyes, wolf boy.”

“At least I’m not her new BFF,” the other man shot back.