Page 44 of Tiger Queen

The intern hopped out of the truck. “I looked at the binder. It’s super thorough! You’ve only been here a week?”

I shrugged. “Trying to get everything caught up.”

“Maybe you should have gotten the internship at ECAP, not me.”

“Maybe so.”

“Good thing she didn’t!” Anthony chimed in. “Then we wouldn’t have gotten our hands on her!” He winked at me.

“Just sending them off like that, huh?”

We turned to see Jake approaching. He rested a shovel over his shoulder and was wearing a shirt for once.

“That’s the idea,” David replied. The two EPAC guys glanced at each other.

Jake stopped ten feet away from the rest of us and gestured with the shovel. “Dad would’ve hated this. All of it.”

“Jake…” Anthony said.

“Dad’s not here,” David declared. “We’re in charge now. Which means we have to make the tough decisions.”

“You mean you’re in charge,” Jake shot back. “If you had asked my opinion I would’ve told you we shouldn’t dismantle dad’s legacy…”

“Your dad was Carl Haines?” the EPAC intern suddenly cut in like his opinion mattered. “His legacy is one of animal abuse. Illegally breeding and selling tiger cubs all over the country. Allowing family photos with tigers so drugged-up they can barely sit up straight. I’m glad—”

The bald man put a hand out to stop him from saying more.

The wind rustled the trees all around us. The moment was pregnant with tension. Behind his sunglasses it was impossible to see what Jake was thinking, but I knew it wasn’t anything good.

“You’ve got the cats you came for,” he finally said. “You can get the hell off our property now.”

We all breathed a sigh of relief as he stalked back into the zoo.

20

Anthony

I hated confrontation. I liked it when everyone got along together. Which was bad because my older brothers were always fighting. It had been that way since we were kids. David liked to be in charge, and Jake hated taking directions. It had only gotten worse after we had left the zoo.

When Jake showed up a few days ago, I was optimistic about everything. I thought maybe dad’s death would help us all bond. Mend old wounds.

Yeah right.

I stood there while David and Jake argued about the big cats we were giving away. Like a mouse trying to avoid two larger animals fighting. Thankfully it was only an argument and it resulted in Jake walking away, but I could see the stress and strain on David’s face afterward.

The EPAC truck drove off, and then it was back to work.

I had learned over the years not to get in either of my brothers’ faces immediately after a fight. The two of them were similar in that way: they needed to be left alone to stew after a fight. They would both eventually listen to reason, but only after they had been inside their own heads for a while.

I went back to the house and got on my laptop to do some programming work. When I came here I thought I would be able to coast by with my day job, but a new project had been dumped on my plate and it was taking more time than I expected. I was lucky to have a job that allowed me to work remotely, but juggling that and the zoo work was taking up every free minute of my time.

Not every free minute, I thought.

The memory of what Rachel and I had done in the medical office made me smile. I normally waited a long time before sleeping with a girl, but there was something about Rachel that made it more difficult to wait. I couldn’t stop thinking about her.

It was probably because she was super fucking hot.

There were times when she was cute, like when she fed the animals and winced at the sound of bones being crunched. There were times when she was beautiful, like when the evening sun shone in her blonde hair while she was working in the cages. But most of the time, the only way to describe her was hot. She was the kind of girl that belonged on a poster in a teenage boy’s bedroom, with intense eyes and sharp eyebrows above a supermodel’s face. A button nose and lips that were both wide and full.

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