was showing his alpha-ness even in his drugged state.
She didn’t expect Connor to offer a slow, easy smile that said he was impressed with the big cat’s reaction. Maya took a settling breath and stayed where she was until Wade shifted, slumping on his bare butt on the ground. Connor tossed his extra pair of pants on Wade’s lap. “Get dressed. We’ve got to get back to the resort.”
Poor Wade. He looked like a sloppy drunk who was trying to get a foot into one of the pant legs, the wrong pant leg, and wasn’t making any progress. Connor watched him for what had to be the longest amount of time he could stand, glanced up at Maya, then shook his head as if to say, “The things I do for you.”
Connor reached down to tug the correct pant leg over each of Wade’s big feet.
She tried not to watch. Really she did. The whole scenario was almost comical.
Thankfully, Kat had left the show to watch over the female jaguar nearby.
Connor cinched the drawstring and offered Wade a hand up. Wade didn’t appear to have the strength to hold on to Connor’s hand firmly enough.
“Fireman’s carry,” Connor said, not asking a question but stating a fact.
The significance was not lost on her or on Wade, as she could tell from his brief nod. Connor could have just grabbed him and thrown him over his shoulders, but he was giving him the respect of telling him what he intended to do first.
“Maya?” Connor said, glancing up at her.
She jumped down from the branch and stood next to him on the ground and rubbed his leg in a way of showing gratitude.
“Kat?” Connor added.
Kat grunted as the female jaguar rose to her feet, shook off the effects of the drug a little, and sauntered groggily away.
Then Kat and Maya led the way back to the resort while Connor hoisted Wade over his shoulders.
“Thanks,” Wade said, his voice dark and slurred.
“I owe you one,” Connor said.
They owed him more than that as he’d helped them out more than once. It was about all Connor could manage, considering how much he disliked another male invading his territory.
“Didn’t… know… Maya… sister,” Wade managed to get out.
“Save your breath,” Connor said, annoyed.
Maya wanted to hear what Wade had to say and gave Connor a quelling look.
“Thought… Kat… shifter… too.”
Connor snorted.
“Did,” Wade said as gruffly as he was able. “Couldn’t… have… two,” Wade said, forcing the words out.
Maya looked back to see her brother’s expression.
Connor frowned at her. “Sleep,” Connor said to Wade, his word a command. “We’ll talk later when I know the drug’s not speaking for you.”
Maya continued to move through the jungle on silent cat paws, Kat running beside her, believing Wade had succumbed to sleep. Until he said, “Not… drug.”
She caught Connor’s elusive smile.
Wade. Alpha male all the way. He wouldn’t let Connor command him or have the last word either, no matter how worn out he was.
She loved her brother. He could be as hardheaded as the rest of them, but he still had a heart of gold. And Wade, well, tonight she definitely wanted to keep him close.
When she reached the tree where she’d hidden her clothes, she jumped onto the branch, climbed higher until she was on the branch where her clothes were stashed, and then shifted and began to dress. She said in a low voice, “Go, take him back to the resort.”
Connor shook his head.
Stubborn man, but protective. He wasn’t letting her out of his sight until he had her back at the cottage. Kat wasn’t leaving her, either.
“I’m staying with him at my cottage,” she warned Connor. She would take care of Wade. She wanted to ask him so many questions… when he was awake enough to respond. She had to know where his brother was. She was certain Wade was just as concerned about David and his whereabouts.
“No,” Connor said.
She had expected Connor to say no, but she wasn’t going along with it. “Okay, so he stays with you and Kat?”
Connor grunted. “Hurry up, Maya.”
“I’m hurrying!” She pulled her shirt over her head. “Or Kat and I can bunk together, and you can sleep with Wade.”
Chapter 15
“Get real, Maya,” Connor told Kat.
She stifled a laugh. She could just imagine the two large men sharing a bed, fighting over the covers, and shoving each other away if one encroached on the other’s side of the mattress. She laughed this time because the image proved just too precious.
Dressed and ready to return to the cottages, she climbed down from the tree and looked at Wade’s sleeping face.
“Okay, so what is the plan?” she asked, as if letting Connor rule the roost, although he wasn’t. Not this time.
He didn’t say as they continued to walk through the thick vegetation until they saw the first of the cottages, Kat’s and Connor’s. Kat leaped onto their deck, shifted, and slipped inside the cottage. She reappeared wearing only a long pale-blue T-shirt.
The first thing out of Kat’s mouth was, “Is he okay?”
That got a disgruntled grunt from Connor. Maya was sure that wasn’t the question he wanted from Kat. Not when he was feeling somewhat unsettled about her interest in another jaguar.
Kat cast Connor an annoyed look and folded her arms. “You know, if you’re always going to be worried about me and other men,
“Hmm,” Maya said.
“Don’t say a word, Maya,” Connor warned as he made his way with Wade through the jungle to Maya’s deck.
“You know she has a point.”
He gave his sister a cutting look. She tilted her head to the side. “So you stay with Wade, and I stay with Kat, and we have an all-night girl party where we dish impossible alpha males.
“You’re not going to bed with Wade Patterson, damn it, Maya.”
She sighed. “I didn’t say I was.” Not that it was any of her brother’s business. “But I want to talk with him.” They climbed the steps to her deck. She unlocked the back door, and they walked inside. “We’ll be fine. He’s too sleepy to be any trouble.”
As if they hadn’t been there before.
Connor carried Wade up the stairs to her bed and dumped him on the mattress, rough enough to see if the guy really was sleeping or just playing possum.
Wade didn’t stir a muscle and appeared to be out for the count.
Connor turned his hard gaze on Maya. “You tell me the minute he wakes. All right?”
She nodded. She would, truly. But there was awake and there was awake. As long as Wade had a hint of
