Page 22 of Warlander Beast Cat

“Don’t want to quit,” he uttered honestly. “Get back to work, slacker.”

“Um, okay. I’m…gonna get back to…” Her words trailed off as she stared at him with those clear blue eyes that had lightened ever so slightly.

“She never asked me how my day was,” he said suddenly.

A slight frown drew her delicately-arched eyebrows down. “I don’t understand.”

“You said we’re friends, and you asked how you can help. Sometimes I need to say things out loud to someone who won’t judge me, so it’ll really sit in me. So it’ll change me. Sasha never asked me how my day was. I always asked her, and she would tell me, but she never cared about mine. That didn’t hit me until you asked me how my day was a little while ago. I’d never heard that word combination before today.” He inhaled deeply. “That meant a lot to me, so thank you.”

The blush on her fair cheeks deepened. “You’re welcome.”

“Hey, Cadence,” he asked as she moved to walk away. God, he wanted to keep her here another minute more.

“Yeah?”

“How was your day?”

The slow smile on her face did something deep to his heart. “It’s getting better and better.”

Kru straightened his spine and released a shallow breath as he watched her walk away. His heart was pounding so hard against his ribs. She was a tiger shifter. She could probably hear it, same as he could hear hers racing.

Chapter Seven

Cadence was running so late.

She was supposed to meet Kru at Bad Axe, the axe-throwing bar Kru loved. It was speed-dating night and she was nervous as hell.

She struggled the silver chain strap of her purse over her shoulder and grabbed her favorite leather jacket off the coat rack at the door of her trailer.

Outside, she jogged down the stairs and fumbled for her keys because she couldn’t remember if she had locked her car or not.

“About time,” Lucia Novak barked.

Cadence dropped her keys in the dirt with startlement. “What are you doing here?”

Lucia was leaning against the passenger’s side window of Cadence’s car. “What does it look like I’m doing?”

“Judging me?” she asked.

“Well, your shirt is a size too small, I wouldn’t have chosen that shade of lipstick, and it took you two hours to get ready which reeks of desperation, but no, I’m not here to judge you.”

Cadence narrowed her eyes. “And yet somehow I still feel judged.” She adjusted her plum-colored spaghetti strap shirt. “Is it really too small?”

“Not if you’re looking for a one-night stand. Your tits are on fire in that.”

“That is the point! I think.”

Lucia was wearing all black under a black knee-length peacoat, and her dark hair hung straight down her shoulders. The woman was gorgeous, but her unsettling bright-green eyes, lack of smile lines, and I-could-kill-you-for-funsies expression made it harder to see the beauty. “Kru has been waiting for an hour.”

“Wait, what? Waiting on what?”

“You.”

Cadence jerked her attention to Kru’s trailer at the edge of the woods. He’d set it up there to distance himself from the others, and now that she’d seen his animal, she understood. He was sitting on his front porch, and offered a little wave when she locked eyes with him. His truck was running, blowing exhaust out the back in the waning evening light.

“Maybe change the lipstick color,” Lucia muttered as she jogged past her.

“Eat a fart, Lucia,” she said over her shoulder. To Kru, she said, “I thought we were meeting at the bar.”

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