Page 29 of Tiger's Little Waif

She watched Dan stiffen when he saw that she was not alone at the table. His strolling pace became a more aggressive stride, and he did not look quite as confident as he had a moment ago.

He stopped on the other side of the table and took a wide-legged stance. Despite her determination to get through this, when he crossed his arms over his chest, Shaw felt that same old tickle of shame and intimidation, like she deserved the scorn in his face.

He did not greet her or apologize for beating her at their last face-off. As usual, he was in a hurry and probably expected her to hand over her best friend without an argument.

“Where’s the tiger, Shaw?”

Instead of answering him, she looked at Marshall, determined to make her Papa proud of her in the face of this asshole who thought he still had the right to dictate her life.

“Why do you need her tiger?” Marshall asked as he rolled his shoulders, drawing Dan’s attention to the fact that her Papa was nearly twice as big as her ex.

“Who the fuck are you? I’m here to speak with my wife.”

“Ex-wife. The divorce was finalized more than a month ago,” Marshall said.

“Shaw, who is this asshole?”

Again, she did not answer Dan, but looked to her Papa for him to respond.

“I’m her man now. And you don’t see the tiger unless I say so. She won’t speak to you unless I say so. She certainly won’t go anywhere with you unless I allow it. Now what the fuck do you want from my woman?”

Shaw watched as Dan mulled over Marshall’s words, his scowl deepening until it was the same expression he had worn just before he had attacked her the night before she’d gone to the Council. She tried, but couldn’t suppress a shiver.

Then, like he’d flicked some inner switch, his face smoothed and grew sad. “I miss you. I can’t get along without you. I was hoping we would be able to work things out so you could move home, and we could get married again.”

She blinked, stunned at the change in personality more than his words. There was no way she would ever go back to him, and he couldn’t possibly be so deluded as to think she would

And yet, when she did not immediately throw herself into his arms, he seemed genuinely annoyed, and as the seconds ticked by with her silent defiance, his anger visibly grew. This time, he directed it at Marshall. “You can’t have her. She’s mine. She’s always been mine and always will be mine. She made a vow, till death do us fucking part, and she’s going to keep it.”

Shaw could almost hear the threads of Marshall’s temper snapping, but all he did was stand up and move around the table, putting himself between Dan and Shaw like a wall. “If that’s all you came to say, it’s time for you to leave,” he growled.

Dan had always been a decisive man, a controlling man, a cold man who never compromised once he’d made up his mind, but until that moment, Shaw had never thought of him as a stupid man. Not until, facing a man who stood a full foot taller, and outweighed him by at least a hundred pounds of pure muscle, Dan decided to throw a punch.

Marshall stepped lithely aside, letting Dan swing stupidly wide and nearly fall onto the picnic table, carried by his own momentum. Their gazes locked for an instant; she didn’t know what he saw in hers, but she sure saw the hot embarrassment in his, and he knew it.

In the next instant, he pushed off the table and threw himself at Marshall, who again stepped aside, his lip curling with disgust at these pathetic attempts to engage him, and Dan fell to the ground. That just seemed to light a fire under his anger, and as soon as he was back on his feet, he came at Marshall with both fists swinging. Marshall evaded them so easily, it was almost as if he wasn’t moving at all. He seemed to stand motionless, disinterested, as Dan flailed around him like a toddler having a tantrum, until at last, he decided to deal with this The next time Dan lunged, Marshall let him in, picked him all the way up and then pivoted so gracefully that she couldn’t help but admire the way his body moved. He dropped to one knee as he slammed Dan onto his back on the ground and pinned him there.

As Dan kicked and grabbed futilely at Marshall’s massive hand, the bigger man leaned in and spoke to him. His words were too soft for Shaw to hear, but by the time he finished, Dan lay frozen on the ground, his expensive Italian suit grass-stained and rumpled.

“Kodiak, take her,” Marshall rumbled before he went back to talking to Dan again.

“Come on, Little girl,” the security chief said as he took her hand and helped her rise from the picnic table.

“What’s going on?” she asked as they walked out of the small clearing back the way they had come.

“I think Marshall is trying to spare you from seeing him act like a beast. At least, that’s what I would do if Emory were in this situation. But if he had hurt you, I would have just killed him so he could never bother you again.”

Shaw didn’t know how to respond to that, so she just nodded and kept walking. She took a deep breath and relaxed, secure in the knowledge that her Papa would take care of Dan and her RBX would never again bother them.

“I have to ask something,” Kodiak said as they continued walking.

“What?”

“What does RBX mean?”

Shaw giggled as Harrigan approached them. “It means rat bastard ex. But I’m not allowed to swear, so Marshall shortened it.”

Kodiak nodded and smiled. “Seems appropriate. Was he always such a headcase?”