The Tiger's Baby (Honeypot Babies Book 3) Read online

  I’d wait an eternity for Jason Edwards.

  “I don’t want you to wait for me,” he clarifies.

  Oh.

  So I’m being dumped.

  “It’s fine,” I say, trying to laugh it off.

  He doesn’t want me, but that’s fine.

  It’s fine.

  It’s not like we were that serious anyway.

  It’s not like this was a real relationship.

  It’s not like we were in love.

  But if that’s true, why do I feel like my heart is shattering?

  “Don’t cry,” he whispers. “Everything is going to be okay.”

  He licks my cheek, gently drying my skin and stopping my tears.

  I didn’t even realize I was crying.

  I didn’t even realize tonight was it for us.

  Then something hits me, an idea I can’t quite brush aside, and I push him away.

  “Wait,” I say. “Wait a minute. Wait. Going away like this, going on a mission or whatever, this doesn’t just happen overnight.”

  “No,” he agrees.

  “So you knew,” I whisper. “You’ve known for awhile. You’re leaving tomorrow and you’ve known for awhile and you didn’t tell me until now.”

  “Well,” he starts to explain, but I know I’m right and I don’t want to hear him. I don’t want to hear anything he has to say.

  He waited to break up with me.

  He waited.

  He could have told me before that he didn’t want to see me anymore. He could have stopped this non-relationship at any time. He could have given me time to prepare or given me a choice as to whether or not I wanted to continue fucking him until our time was up.

  He could have told me and he didn’t.

  He chose not to.

  He waited.

  “You fucking knew,” I say, rushing off the bed, stumbling in the dim light. My shifter sight is amazing in the dark, but my eyes are clouded with tears and I’m getting clumsy.

  I need to find my clothes. I need to get my clothes on and get out of here.

  “You knew and you decided not to tell me. Why? Everyone else probably fucking knows. Fuck, the whole damn precinct probably knows, but you didn’t feel like telling me?”

  “It’s not like that,” he says, but I don’t care. I can’t believe he did this to me. He waited until I couldn’t do anything. He waited until I couldn’t convince him to write to me. He waited until I couldn’t try to talk him into waiting for me.

  He waited until I couldn’t tell him I’m in love with him.

  I’m completely, totally in love with him.

  And I wanted to tell him.

  I wanted to.

  Now I don’t.

  Now the only thing I want is to get away, to escape, to get out of here right now. He’s saying something, but I don’t hear him. I finally give up on finding my clothes and walk outside naked.

  “You can’t leave like this,” he says, but I just don’t care. I shift quickly. My body changes from that of a young woman to that of a panda: a big, warm cuddly panda.

  And then I’m gone.

  And my heart is broken.

  Chapter 1

  Present Day

  Arielle

  Honeypot, Colorado is one of the most beautiful places in the world. As a former military brat, I can say it’s definitely in the top five. It might even be the most beautiful, but I’m biased.

  I love it here.

  My parents settled in Honeypot after years of moving around from place-to-place. They didn’t have much of a choice in the matter, of course. Military families rarely do. Although my dad loved his time in the service, we were all happy when he retired and we got to move to beautiful Shiftertown, USA.

  Honeypot really is its own special place. I can’t think of anything that compares to living in this quiet Colorado town. We’re close to the mountains and close to the forests and close to wide open places where we can shift and run and just be free.

  I love everything about the tiny town from the shifters who live here to the shifters who visit to the humans who occasionally stumble into town. I love the architecture and the layout of the town. I love the food and the festivities and the atmosphere.

  Honeypot is beautiful.

  And it’s going to be a beautiful place to raise a child.

  I might be about to embark on a journey of single-motherness, but in a place like Honeypot, that hardly feels like a burden. It feels natural to me. It feels right.

  I love all of the time I’ve spent in Honeypot and while I grew up in many different places, Honeypot is always the place I’ll think of as “home.” I’m happy my child is going to think of it that way, too.

  I’m sitting on my porch rubbing my belly, and I lean back in the rocking chair. My bare feet rest against the porch and I have a cup of sweet tea in my hand. I watch the sunset like this every night. I wouldn’t have it any other way.

  It’s going to be me and my little cub pretty soon.

  Me and my baby.

  Soon my little boy is going to be sitting on my lap in this rocking chair. Then he’ll be walking across the porch. Then he’ll be playing in my huge front yard.

  He’s going to love Honeypot just as much as I do.

  He’s going to love being a shifter in this peaceful place.

  The past few months haven’t been easy on me. Learning to cope with an unexpected pregnancy as an adult woman has been challenging. I didn’t plan on getting pregnant or having a cub anytime soon. Maybe I’m a traditionalist, but I always thought I’d have the man, the marriage, and the white picket fence before I got the baby.

  Turns out I just had the fence.

  It was only a week or so after Jason left that I found out I was pregnant. I’m always really good about tracking my periods, so as soon as I was a day late, I took a test. The little + sign wasn’t a surprise. As soon as I was late, I knew. I sensed it.

  I’m not one of those shifters who claims to be able to scent a pregnancy or who can tell someone is knocked up by their aura or their smell or whatever. That’s not me. All I know is that I had a feeling and it turned out to be right.

  I’m pregnant with the tiger’s baby and the tiger is gone. He didn’t even know about the baby when he left. He didn’t even know I’m expecting his little cub. He didn’t know and now he’s somewhere out in the world. Maybe he’s in danger. Maybe he feels alone. Maybe he’s just fighting to save the world. I don’t know.

  But I’m protecting his cub while he’s gone and I’ll continue to protect this little baby long after Jason comes back.

  If he comes back.

  As I rub my belly, I think about those first weeks after I discovered the pregnancy. I knew immediately that I wanted to keep my baby. Adoption didn’t cross my mind. As a social worker, maybe it should have. I’ve seen babies placed with some incredibly wonderful families. Couples who try for years to get pregnant, then decide to adopt a little one are my heroes. The idea that they don’t have to have a baby with their own genes to start a family makes me happy. It makes my job so much more worth it.

  Not that my job isn’t worth it.

  It is.

  But most of my job is dealing with hard, difficult issues and adoptions aren’t one of them. Adoptions just make me happy.

  Just like my own little pumpkin is going to make me happy.

  I rub my belly for a few more minutes, then decide to head back inside my little house. Owl, my cat, follows me inside. He’s a black kitten and just about four months old, but I love him. Maybe it seems crazy to get a new pet during a time like this, but the truth is that I miss Jason more than I should and Owl keeps me sane. He keeps me company and he makes me feel like I’m not completely alone in the world.

  Eventually, Jason is going to come back to Honeypot and I’m going to have to tell him the truth: he’s got a kid. He’s got a kid and he’s a dad. Maybe he won’t want anything to do with our baby, or maybe he will. I don’t know. I can’t tell.


  When I found out, I tried to contact him. To be fair, before he left he warned me that he’d be unreachable on his shifter mission. That was kind of the entire basis for us calling off the whole friends-with-benefits thing.

  He warned me not to wait for him.

  He told me he was going to be unable to contact me.

  He told me this was how it was going to be, but I didn’t listen.

  I tried to reach him anyway. I called the local National Guard office, but of course, they claimed they couldn’t give out information about deployed soldiers to friends or relatives: only spouses.

  Shit luck for me, but I’m not his spouse.

  I even reached out to Jason’s mom and his sister, Georgia. Neither one of them had any contact information, but they quickly figured out why I needed it so desperately. Luckily for me, Georgia loves the idea of being an aunt and Mrs. Edwards has gone crazy knitting things for the baby. She’s so happy to be a Grandma that even if Jason doesn’t want to be a dad, at least I know my baby will still have a family.

  My baby will still be loved.

  Owl and I go inside the house and I lock up. I’m not nervous living alone in Honeypot. How could I be? Honeypot is a safe place. It’s a haven. It’s a refuge. I’m not scared for my safety or my wellbeing or anything, really. The only thing I really have to worry about is whether I’m going to be able to hold off on my waffle and strawberry-milkshake craving until Bumble’s Diner opens.

  Still, I lock my doors. It’s more out of habit than anything else. My house is on the edge of town and I have a couple of neighbors, but no one terribly close, and no one who bothers me. My neighbors and I are all terribly polite to each other, but we leave each other alone and mind our own business.

  Sometimes shifters can be great that way.

  Other times, they can be nosy as hell.

  It’s not public knowledge who the father of my child is. The only two people I actually told were Georgia and Mrs. Edwards, and that was because they figured it out on their own. Besides, I figured they had a right to know about the new member of their family.

  I don’t know how dangerous Jason’s mission is or what he’s doing, but if he dies out there, if he dies while he’s away from Honeypot, I want his mom and sister to know they can count on me. They can be a part of this little guy’s life and they can always have this little piece of Jason.

  Fuck, I shouldn’t be thinking of him not coming back. I try never to think about that. He won’t be able to tell me anything about where he was or what he did or what he experienced. That’ll all be classified. I get it. My dad was a soldier, too. There were things he just couldn’t talk about, things he just couldn’t tell us. It comes with the job, but that knowledge doesn’t make me feel any better. Knowing Jason could be saving the world doesn’t make me feel better about him being gone.

  Is it so wrong that I wish he’d just hurry up and come back?

  Is it so wrong that even if he doesn’t want to be a part of our child’s life, I wish he’d come home?

  Is it so wrong that I just want to see him?

  Is it so wrong that I want to smell him?

  It sounds weird and creepy and I get that, but missing Jason Edwards is the most painful thing I’ve ever experienced and I’m tired of hurting.

  He’s not going to date me when he comes back. He’s probably not going to want to even see me. We weren’t serious when he left. Not really. Well, one of us was. Me. I thought I loved him, thought I was falling for him.

  Seriously, how dumb could I be?

  I really thought that maybe, just maybe, this thing between us could be something. We get along so well that I kind of figured we could build a relationship. I thought our friendship could be more.

  I was wrong.

  Jason was starting to get antsy in Honeypot. He was starting to get uncomfortable, unhappy. He was starting to want more than this small town has to offer. I could tell. He was having trouble with the long hours at work for awhile before he left. He was always talking about a career change, about maybe going somewhere else where he could be home in time for supper.

  I guess I just thought that if he was thinking about leaving Honeypot, he’d want to take me with him.

  I guess I just thought that if he wasn’t happy, maybe I could help him with that.

  Stupid.

  It was so stupid.

  “Well, kitty cat, it’s just you and me,” I say. I fill up Owl’s water and food dishes before making myself a glass of chocolate milk. Then I head upstairs to start getting ready for bed. I have to be at work tomorrow bright and early and I really don’t want to struggle in the morning.

  The last few weeks of my pregnancy have been tough on me. Even my supervisor has started to notice. She keeps offering to give me time off or asking if I need to cut my hours a bit, but I always tell her no.

  I appreciate that she looks after me, but what I really need is a distraction.

  My baby is going to be here in three months and I’m either going to be facing parenthood alone or I’m going to be facing it with Jason.

  I have no idea what it’s going to be.

  And I have no idea what would be better.

  Do I want to raise my kid alone where he might ask questions about his dad and why he doesn’t have one?

  Or would it be better to raise him with a dad who might not want to be a part of his life, but who’s there out of obligation?

  And how am I going to handle it if that’s the case?

  How am I going to handle any of this?

  “You can do this,” I whisper to myself. I brush my teeth, wash my face, and climb into bed, but sleep eludes me. Every time I close my eyes, I see Jason’s face, and I don’t want to fall asleep. I just want a few more minutes to look at him. I just want a few more minutes to imagine things ended differently.

  I just want a few more minutes to pretend they didn’t end at all.

  I want to pretend he’s here with me, but I’m only hurting myself.

  Chapter 2

  Jason

  Honeypot, Colorado.

  “Welcome home,” I mutter when I see the sign. Honeypot was once my favorite place in the world, but six months away will change you. It’ll tear away who you thought you were and show you a side of yourself you didn’t know existed. Maybe it’ll break you. Maybe it won’t, but it will definitely alter your personal view of the world. Six months away will change a person.

  It’ll change a place.

  Or maybe it won’t, I think, as I drive down Main Street. Everything looks exactly the same as the day I left, except that the leaves are falling now and the flowers are dying instead of blooming.

  Good.

  They’re dead like my heart.

  I can’t believe I’ve been gone so long and I’m just not happy to be back. It’s depressing, really. I’ve had so many experiences I’ll never be able to talk about. Isn’t that what classified missions are all about? There have been so many changes in my life, in my world, and I just want something consistent. I just want something I can count on.

  I want someone.

  The problem is that I had that once. I had that and I completely blew it. When I left Honeypot, I didn’t want to be selfish. I didn’t want to ask Arielle to wait for me when I didn’t know how long I’d be gone. It wasn’t fair, I rationed. It wasn’t fair to her and it wasn’t fair to me, right?

  Only, now that it’s time for me to come back, I wonder what the hell I was thinking.

  I should have been selfish.

  I should have been selfish and told her she’s mine and I want her. I should have begged her to wait for me, to save herself for me, to just be patient until I came back.

  I should have gotten on my fucking knees and cried her a river until she agreed, but I didn’t.

  I fucked up.

  And now I’m driving back through Honeypot, heading to my place, hoping it’s still in one piece. I’m driving back and I’m trying to think about anything but her.


  I’m trying to think about anything but the sweet little dark-haired shifter who stole my heart and became my whole world.

  I thought of her every fucking day I was gone.

  She was all I thought of.

  I thought of her and I loved her and I missed her.

  Damn, I didn’t know it was possible to miss someone as much as I missed Arielle. Isn’t that stupid? I was the one who pushed her away, but I missed her more than my heart could bear. Now I’m back and I don’t know whether to be terrified or excited to see her. I’m not sure whether I should be scared I’m going to bump into her or hopeful that maybe she’ll forgive me and we can move on. I don’t know what to think because the truth is, I’m a hot mess right now.

  I could use something solid.

  Someone solid.

  Her.

  I could use her.

  She was my rock for a long time. She was my peace and my haven. For months, we played together. We toyed with each other, using each other for sex. It was more than that for me, though. It was more than that and I blew it.

  Will she even want to talk to me now?

  Will she even want to see me?

  It’s been a long time since I was in town. It’s been a long time and people change. She’s probably changed. She’s probably moved on to someone better, stronger, smarter. She’s probably gotten herself a new guy: a nice one. She’s probably found someone who won’t abandon her the first chance he gets.

  She’s probably found someone who makes her heart flutter.

  And I hate that. I hate thinking that my sweet little shifter, the girl I love to go fishing and running and climbing with, I hate thinking that she’s found someone better than me because I know for a fucking fact I’ll never find anyone better than her.

  I pull into the narrow driveway that leads to my house. My home is in the center of a 20-acre plot of land. It’s not huge, but I’ve got plenty of trees and plenty of space and I’ve got privacy.

  Tigers like privacy.

  My sister promised to take good care of the place while I was away, and from what I can tell, she did a great job. When I pull up to the front of the house, I park outside and hop out of my truck.