Page 82 of Tiger's Quest
“Goodnight, Miss Kelsey. We leave early in the morning, so get some rest.”
When I dreamed that night, it was of both brothers. They were standing in front of me, and Lokesh was ordering me to choose which one would live and which one would die. Ren smiled sadly and nodded toward Kishan. Kishan’s face tightened, and he looked away from me knowing that I wouldn’t pick him. I was still pondering my choice when the courtesy wake-up call startled me.
I packed up my bags and met Mr. Kadam and Kishan in the lobby. We drove in silence about ten miles to Kathmandu, the largest city and capital of Nepal. Kishan and I sat in the Jeep while Mr. Kadam went into a building to finalize paperwork for our trip through the Himalayas.
“Uh, Kishan? I just wanted to say that I’m sorry for acting like a jerk yesterday. If you want to fall in love with a goddess then, by all means, go for it.”
He snorted, “I’m not falling in love with a goddess, Kells. Don’t worry about me.”
“Well, still. I wasn’t being very sensitive.”
He shrugged. “Women don’t like hearing men talk about other women. It was rude of me to go on like that. Honestly, I only praised her beauty so much to get a rise out ofyou.”
I turned around in my seat. “What? Why would you do that?”
“Iwantedyou to be jealous, and when you weren’t, it . . . bothered me.”
“Oh. Kishan, you know I still feel—”
“I know. I know. You don’t have to remind me. You still love Ren.”
“Yes. But it doesn’t mean that I don’t care about you. I’myourwarp too. Remember?”
His face brightened. “That’s true.”
“Good, don’t forget that. We’re all going to have happy endings, okay?”
I reached a hand back to him, and he held it in both of his and grinned. “Promise?”
I smiled back at him. “Promise.”
“Good. I’ll hold you to that. Maybe I should get it in writing. I,Kelsey, promiseKishanthat he will get the happy ending he seeks. Should I define the parameters for you now?”
“Uh, no. I’d like to keep it vague for the time being.”
“Fine. Meanwhile, I will create a mental list of what constitutes a happy ending and get back to you.”
“You do that.” He kissed my fingers brazenly, holding them tightly while I struggled to pull my hand out of his grip.
“Kishan!”
He laughed as he finally let me go and then changed to a tiger before I could verbally chastise him.
“Coward,” I muttered as I turned back in my seat. I heard him growl softly but ignored him.
I seriously racked my brain for the next few minutes trying to find a happy ending for Kishan. At this point, my own happy ending wasn’t even a guarantee. The best I could come up with was finishing the four tasks, so the brothers didn’t have to be tigers anymore. I hoped that by the time we finished them, the happy endings would sort of take care of themselves.
Mr. Kadam returned and said, “We’ve received permission to take the Friendship Highway tour route to Tibet. It’s something of a miracle.”
“Wow. How did you manage it?”
“A high government official in China owes me a favor.”
“How high?”
“The highest. Still, we have to stick to the tour stops and check in at each place along the way so they can keep tabs on us. We leave immediately. Our first stop is Neyalam, which is about 150 kilometers from here. It should take us about five hours just to hit the Chinese/Nepal border.”
“Five hours? Wait a minute, 150 kilometers? That’s roughly ninety miles. That’s only eighteen miles per hour. Why does it take so long?”
