Jade Tiger by Jenn Reese Read Free Book Online Page A

in the landscape. She'd never been to France. In fact, she'd never been anywhere except China and the United States, though she'd traveled extensively in the latter researching leads on the jade animals.
    But France felt different from America, even though the geography was technically similar. The hills just seemed greener, the sky bluer. And their little car would be drowned in an ocean of SUVs like Buckley's Explorer back in the States. The architecture, too, felt different. Shan saw cottages, rustic vineyards, and Roman ruins scattered along their way. The whole place just felt old . It reminded her of her childhood, when she had routinely sipped tea from cups that had been hand made centuries earlier. China's great history breathed in every fiber of silk and every move of her mother's hand.
    Shan's chest tightened. It did her no good to think of these things. Her mother was gone, along with the entire secret order of the Jade Circle. And if Shan didn't stay focused and recover all the animals, it would stay dead forever.

    The air grew steadily colder as they ascended into the Alps. They had only a few hours of fading sun to admire the frosted peaks of the mountains, but Shan plastered her nose to the window in the backseat to reap every last minute of the view.
    "Put the Rockies to shame, don't they?" said Buckley, grinning. His hair was too short to be mussed from the long day of travel, but the redness in his eyes betrayed his fatigue. Ian was driving again. Or was he still driving from his last shift? The day had collapsed into sleep-fogged memories of roads and gas stations and an endless display of scenery.
    "Yes," Shan said. "They're not even in the same league."
    "Maybe we'll have time for a little skiing while we're here," Ian said, far too cheerily for Shan's mood. "I used to ski quite a bit in my youth."
    "I was always more for the lodges than the actual slopes," countered Buckley. The two seemed tireless in their ability and desire to banter. "You get to meet more snow bunnies that way."
    The sun disappeared behind the mountaintops, but still lit up the countryside behind them, land that wasn't shrouded in the shadow of the great Alps.
    "I've never been skiing," said Shan. "I'll put it on the list."
    "Which list is that?" asked Ian.
    Shan sighed and leaned back against her seat. She massaged the muscles in her shoulder. "The list of things I'm going to do when I get my life back. Wait, that implies I once had a life. I should've said when I get a life, period." But she'd had a life once. In China.
    "You'll get that chance soon enough," said Ian. "With me and Bucks helping, of course." Ian kept his eyes on the road and his tone light, but Shan felt more conviction than levity in his statement.
    "Right," said Buckley, grinning. "We're your passport to success."
    "Right now, I'd just like you to be my passport to Chamonix. How close are we?" Shan asked.
    "Almost there, despite Buckley's two wrong turns," said Ian. "But I'll have to stop and ask someone for directions to Charles's lodge. The street isn't listed on our map."
    "I vote we stop somewhere with a bathroom," said Buckley. "I shouldn't have had that seventh cup of coffee."
    The traffic picked up as they neared Chamonix. Most of the other cars had skis attached to their roofs or hanging out their rear windows. Snowboards were almost as plentiful. Occasionally, a snowmobile skated up beside them on the snow-packed roads, or raced over the embankments.
    When Ian finally pulled the car into the lot of a small gas station and inn, Shan jumped out to pump the gas just as Buckley bolted for the bathrooms. Ian got out of the car more slowly, careful not to bump his badly-bruised head, and stretched near Shan.
    "You've put up with Buckley longer than most women," Ian said. He reached back into the car and grabbed the maps.
    "Probably because I'm not attracted to him," Shan said. "And his faults are easy to overlook in light of our current situation. Not everyone