Trusting the Tiger: BBW Tiger Shifter Paranormal Romance Read Free Page B

Excuse me.” He rose suddenly, kicking his can in his rush to get away. Beer splashed out onto the dry dirt.
    Toni stared after him, shocked. What had happened? Had she said something—?
    No, she realized dismally as she followed Jack’s unsteady flight away from her. He was running so fast he practically collided with a blonde woman. Toni recognized her from earlier that day: Karen, the woman who had organized the BMX tournament.
    Karen was petite and toned; her long blonde hair, pulled back in a perfect ponytail, shone like gold as it caught the sun. She was everything that Toni wasn’t.
    A lump of sour unhappiness lodged in Toni’s stomach. It was clear as crystal what had happened. Big, ungainly Toni Oglietti would always come second best to someone like Karen.
    Toni realized she was gripping her drink so hard the aluminum can was buckling. She took a deep breath and forced herself to relax. She’d met guys like Jack before. He probably hadn’t even been flirting with her, just being friendly. And if he dropped her like a hot potato the minute someone he liked better came along … well, yeah, that hurt. It hurt a lot. But it wasn’t like she would ever see him again.
    It’s just like all those assholes who come into the shop looking for someone to bitch at , she told herself. It says more about them than it does about you .
    Toni had just managed to make herself feel, if not entirely better, then at least not totally miserable, when a shriek cut through the air.
    “Auntie Toni! Auntie Toni, watch me-e-e-e-e-e!”
    Toni’s new-found calm went flying. She looked up and automatically flinched as a bicycle whizzed past her. Lexi, barely recognizable under her safety gear and a thick layer of mud, raced at top speed toward one of the jump ramps.
    Toni closed her eyes tightly. One of the many things she had not inherited from her family was their ability to enjoy acrobatic feats of insanity without being terrified someone was going to get hurt. She couldn’t even watch Lexi take the jump without feeling sick to her stomach.
    A small hand plucked at her elbow. whispered a soft voice in her mind – Felix. Then he said out loud, “You can look now, Auntie Toni!”
    Toni opened her eyes just in time to see Lexi hanging upside-down six feet in the air. Her stomach flipped as the slight figure sped earthward, somehow twisted right-side-up, and hit the dirt wheels-first in a skid of pebbles.
    She shut her eyes again. “Thanks, Felix. Your sense of timing is just so, so great.”
    Felix flung his arms around Toni’s shoulders. “Come on-n-n!” He giggled. “You know we have to trick you, or you’ll never watch us do anything .”
    < Besides > he added, < You know we’re never going to actually get hurt. Bikes are way easy .>”
    Toni sighed, but she couldn’t argue with that. As cat shifters, Felix and Lexi were almost magically athletic. Like everyone else in Toni’s family, the two of them had grown up with perfect control of their shifter and human bodies. So, as dangerous as the BMX tricks looked, Toni logically knew they weren’t in any danger.
    Not that any of that stopped her from silently freaking out when they jumped into activities like the BMX aerials. Logic took a back seat to what Toni liked to think of as “Auntie terror,” i.e., the fear of what her sister would do to her if anything happened to her children while Toni was looking after them.
    Felix tugged at her sleeve and pointed across the track. “Look! There’s Karen! She’s awesome. She showed me how to do a new jump.”
    Toni followed Felix’s pointing arm to where Jack was still talking with the slim blonde woman. Jack turned away just as she looked across, putting his back to her.
    Karen was looking up at him, her hair a cascade of perfectly, straight, perfectly shiny gold. Toni looked away, disappointment curling in her stomach.
    “I’m going to try it that new jump now!” Felix crowed, jumping on his bike and wheeling