Home > Tarian Silver Lion (New Tarian Pride #2)(2)

Tarian Silver Lion (New Tarian Pride #2)(2)
Author: T.S. Joyce

Talon nodded. “Yeah, I should’ve—”

“Nah, no worries. We have to be careful who we let in right now, though,” he said, standing. “I’ll head to the front gate with you.”

“I can go to!” Emerald said. Sweet daughter.

“No, you two stay. Enjoy your dinner. It won’t take me but a minute.” Talon put his plate in the dishwasher and murmured into the phone, “I’ll be right there,” and then ended the call.

“You don’t have to go alone, Dad,” Emerald said, her dark eyebrows furrowed.

Before he could reply, the door opened, and in walked trouble. Holy shit, the woman who had nursed him back to health, Rose, was here. He’d waited to see her again for three days, but she didn’t live with the Pride. He’d begun to think he would never see her again, but here she was, cheeks pink, straightened silver hair mussed from the wind, a blue sweater that made her pretty blue eyes pop like a spring sky.

“You look better,” she said, her eyes wrinkling at the corners with her pretty smile.

Well, now, he was definitely not going to limp when he made his way to the coat rack by the door. Grabbing his thick winter jacket, he tipped his chin toward the door she was closing. “Want to go for a walk?”

“A walk? It’s freezing out,” Rose said, her delicately arched brows lowering over those pretty eyes of hers. She had this smile on her lips, though. One that said that she would still be up for questionable ideas.

God, there was something about her. She was tough, sweet, and happy, and all the things that drew in a man like him.

He tossed a look at Emerald who was smiling like a lunatic and waggling her eyebrows. “That one doesn’t want me to go to the front gate alone. Apparently, I’m fragile now.”

Rose snorted. “Fragile is not a word I would ever associate with you.” She narrowed her eyes and studied him, then nodded once. “Okay, it’s a date.”

“Wait, a date?” he gulped out before he could stop his words.

“You should see your face right now. You look like I just proposed to you,” Rose said, laughing as she made her way back outside. “You’re driving.”

Stunned by this little tornado and her directness, he murmured, “Oh. Okay,” as he followed her out the front door and onto the porch.

It was cold as a witch’s heart outside, and he shrugged into his jacket quick. His whole body still hurt, but he would be damned if he showed an ounce of pain in front of a Tarian lioness like Rose. She was tough as leather. Leather women didn’t go for soft men. They went for men who were made of metal. That was if he was interested in her going for him. Which he wasn’t. Because he was good at being a bachelor. And better off alone. And…stuff.

He’d thought she’d meant she was going to let him drive her car to the front gate, but nope. She’d meant a snowmobile. Fantastic.

“You know, the last time I rode one of these I was being dragged behind it,” he muttered.

“It’s important to get right back up on the horse,” she said, tucking her whipping hair behind her ear. Gorgeous hair. Silver with darker gray streaks. Girls nowadays paid good money to have the silver look, and Rose had mastered it naturally. He bet it would feel great between his fingers. Oh good, he was turning into a creep now. Women like Rose were pure class. She didn’t need some lowlife—”

“Shot of whiskey?” she asked, handing him a flask from the storage on the side of her snowmobile.

“Okay, I was just walking behind you, thinking about how classy you are, and you want to shoot whiskey. That’s my kind of classy. Classy and badassy.”

Tipping her pointed chin higher, Rose’s eyes sparked with amusement. “I’ve never been called those two words together before. I like it. You’re a charmer, aren’t you, Talon?”

Ooooh, he liked the way she said his name. She damn-near purred the word, and for the first time in a long time, he wanted to kiss a woman just to shock her. Or maybe to shock himself, he didn’t know. Rose did something strange to his insides. She was like one of those heart defibrillator machines that shocked a man back to life. He’d been a damn corpse for years and, here he was, looking at this woman and taking his first breaths back in the land of the living.

But there were hard truths in his life.

One, he had nothing to offer a woman. He’d known Rose years ago when he’d lived in the Tarian Pride, and she’d been used to a well-kept lifestyle.

Two, he was an old grizzled rogue lion, grumpy sometimes and set in his ways, who had never been good with compromise or change, and women needed both.

Three, his insides were about as ugly as they could get right now. He’d gone through hell in that Old Tarian camp, and he didn’t know how to talk about it, or to feel better. He didn’t know how to make his lion less angry. No one could understand when he was this raw.

Four, he was leaving soon.

What right did he have to charm Rose? None at all.

So he offered his hand to help her onto the snowmobile. He had to push away the myriad of awful memories of being dragged behind one of these damned things. He swallowed his snarl and climbed on.

And as he started the engine and revved it, he said over the noise, “If I was a charmer at one time, I’m not anymore. I can’t do dates, Rose.”

“I know,” she said, sliding her hands to his shoulders to hold on.

“Do you?”

“Why do you think I’ve stayed away?”

That part he hadn’t understood. Still didn’t. When he’d woken up here in the big house, his nightmare in the Old Tarian Camp done, Rose had been sitting on the edge of the bed. She’d looked so worried. She’d been ever vigilant, nursing him back to the land of the living. She hadn’t left his side much for two days straight. He was hurt and couldn’t do a lot of talking, but she hadn’t seemed to need entertainment. She’d just changed his bandages, fussed over his healing, brought him food. Hell, she’d fed him when the bones in his hands were still shattered from fighting. And then after she’d gone to war with Ronin to rescue Emerald, she’d disappeared. “Why have you stayed away?”

She gripped his shoulders gently and said, “I know better than to fall for a man who is used to running.”

And in this moment, he respected her even more. Not only was she beautiful and fearless and strong…but she was wise as well.

Chapter Two

Truth be told, Rose had thought Talon would be long-gone by now. That’s the only reason she’d come back to New Tarian Pride territory. She’d waited until she was sure he was headed back to his real life before she came to check up on the Pride. And really, she was lonely. Or her lioness was lonely. Talon had done something to her insides in the two days she’d taken care of him, and she didn’t much like the hole he’d put into her chest when she wasn’t around him.

You’re a good woman, Rose. I remember.

Rose slid her arms around Talon’s middle as they sped down the road on the snowmobile toward the front gate. She should’ve left her hands on his shoulders, which felt less intimate, but her stupid lioness was practically purring just being around him, and it had been so long since she’d been warm like this. The good warm. The kind that emanated from another person’s body. She closed her eyes just to get lost in the feel of him. God, she was weak around this man. When he didn’t shove her hands off, she smiled behind her whipping hair.

When the snowmobile slowed, she eased her eyes open and looked around his broad frame at the front gate. There was a one-man check-in stand, and Gray was standing in front of it, arms crossed as he glared at a man leaned up against an old black Chevelle with two white racing stripes down the front.

“Whose car is that?” Rose asked.

“It’s mine,” Talon said in that deep timbre of his.

Whatever she’d expected him to drive, it wasn’t this. “But…when you lived here, you only drove old rusted-out pickup trucks.”

The chuckle that rumbled through him warmed her to her soul.

“I was in that pickup truck phase for a long time. I got out of it about ten years back.” He parked behind the check-in station and cut the engine to the snowmobile. “I bought an old rusted-out Chevelle instead and badgered Emerald into working on it with me every Sunday. Bribed her with dinner. It was our tradition.”

Rose couldn’t keep the smile from her face if she tried. “That’s a lovely tradition.”

Talon dismounted and gave her a wicked smirk, tilted his head toward the old muscle car, and offered her his hand. “Do you want to go for a ride in that old tradition?”

“Oh…well…” She shouldn’t do this. She should ride her snowmobile right back to her cabin and get back to fixing the damage the Old Tarian did to it the night they’d kidnapped her, maybe drink a beer, watch her favorite Alaska shows, and hit the hay. Early. Because she definitely wouldn’t be lying in bed, thinking about how it felt to have her arms around such a solid, burly man. Rose cleared her throat. “I can’t just leave my snowmobile here. I have responsibilities and—”

“Gray, can you take Rose’s snowmobile back up to the big house when your shift is over?”

Gray nodded and smiled big enough that Rose could see his dimples. Dangit. That was a yes, and when Gray waggled his eyebrows like he knew things about things, Rose traded her smile for a frown. There went her excuse. Now, how was she supposed to keep her heart safe from this…this…ramblin’ man?

Talon was wearing a silly grin as he said, “Don’t worry, Rose. It’s not a date.”

She swallowed a growl and stomped around the security bar that Gray hadn’t lifted yet and directly to the passenger’s side door of the very attractive vehicle. One yank on the door handle, and the driver enlightened her, “It’s locked.” She wanted to claw him. No shit, it was locked. Why was Talon still smiling like that? And Gray. Males were obnoxious. Rose lifted her chin higher and waited. Impatiently. They couldn’t see her foot tapping, but she was sure she was beating a divot in the snow with the toe of her boot.

   
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