“I’m fine,” Wade said, heading for the door. “I need to take a shower anyway before I get dressed.”
David sighed. “You like to live dangerously.”
Wade opened the door, wearing only the towel around his waist, and raised a brow at Connor, whose eyes narrowed as he took in Wade’s scent. Even if Wade had been dressed, he couldn’t have hidden the smell of Maya on him—or of their lovemaking in the bed that was open to the view of the living room.
Connor glanced in the direction of the bathroom where the spray of the shower was going full blast. “We need to make some decisions here.”
He took a seat on one of the floral upholstered chairs while David sat back down on the couch and Wade sat opposite him on the other couch.
“Yeah. Maya says she wants to help with our investigation,” Wade said, not liking the idea. “Maybe you can talk her out of it.”
“Are you kidding? Both women are going to help us with this. Lion Mane is trouble for us. We can’t let this go. The other man? The hunter? Unless the shifter gets him involved in trying to take us down, he’s not a problem.”
“We don’t take civilians on a job,” Wade said, giving his brother a look. David nodded in agreement.
“All right, listen. We’re involved. Once Maya saved your ass and Kat and I had to come to your rescue, we became part of the team. Now… we can work together, or we can work separately. But we
“We don’t know that for sure. We don’t know his background, his real name, nothing,” Wade said, not wanting Connor and the two women involved. He did understand where Connor was coming from. But that didn’t change how Wade felt about it.
Connor stretched out his long legs and leaned against the chair back. “Fair enough. Since you’re the Special Forces hotshot jaguars, what do you propose we do? Serve as bait?”
“I don’t like that idea,” Wade immediately said.
“If Lion Mane—hell, I wish we knew the guy’s real name—but if this bastard wants to take Maya out, no matter what we do, she could be his next target,” Connor said.
“True,” David said.
Not liking where this was headed, Wade cast his brother a disgruntled look. David was supposed to be on
David shrugged. “Connor’s right. You know it, Wade.” To Connor, David said, “How about you stay here for the time being? I doubt he’d chance a confrontation at the cottages. Too many people around. Wade and I will return to our cabana and the place they were staying. We’ll look for the bastard, and if we can’t locate him, we’ll return with our luggage. You take the women on one of the tours in the area. Something where we can watch your backs. If he doesn’t try anything, then we’ll have to take him on back in the States. But if you and the ladies take a jungle excursion, he might attempt to get to Maya. And we could take him out then.”
“Too risky,” Wade said.
“There are several excursions,” Connor said, ignoring Wade’s comment, although he smiled a little at Wade, looking somewhat pleased that Wade was concerned about Maya and not willing to use her as bait. “They have cave tubing, kayaking, Mayan ruins exploration, caving, zip line, and horseback riding. Horses aren’t really fond of us. Zip line is no good because of Kat’s condition. Kayaking would be hard for you to follow us. Cave tubing might work or the Mayan ruins exploration. Before all this had happened, we’d planned on the cave tubing. We’ll have quite a bit of jungle hiking and trekking through the caves. But also a gentle tubing ride. It should be easy enough for you to watch our backs.”
Both men looked to see Wade’s take on it. He didn’t want Maya used as bait. Period. Too many things could go wrong.
Connor continued, “If this doesn’t work and we miss him here, then maybe we can check out the dance club that you all went to. Your brother said those involved in the smuggling were meeting there. What if we all went there? David said a woman he danced with knew the shifter Maya killed. Maybe if David could dance with the woman again, he’d learn more about the other shifter.”
“Yeah, we could try that,” Wade said. “Our mission is to stop Lion Mane from leaving here with the jaguar, though. If he’s hightailed it out of here, we’ll go. If he’s still trying to grab the jaguar, we’re staying, and we’ll leave when the situation is resolved.”
“In the meantime, where will you be staying?” Connor asked Wade.
“Here. At your resort. It would make sense not to split our forces.”
“Here,” Connor parroted.
“Someone needs to protect Maya. She killed his partner, Bettinger.”
Connor frowned. “All right. And David?”
“David is getting a separate cottage,” David said and sighed dramatically.
“We need to return to our resort and grab our bags. Before we come back here, we’ll make a last-ditch effort to find him before you go on the excursion,” Wade said. “Will you take care of things here?” He meant Maya, but he knew he didn’t need to get that specific.
Connor nodded. “Will you go as jaguars, or do you need to borrow some boots and a shirt?”
Wade hesitated to answer. He and his brother should stick together on the return to their resort in the event Lion Mane thought to ambush them. Just as he knew that Wade and David had visited Mylar’s place, he would be able to find Wade and his brother’s scent trail back to their own cabana.
They didn’t have any idea what Lion Mane was up to. If he was smart, he’d leave the area. But being part jaguar, he also would be territorial.
“We’ll run together as jaguars,” Wade said. “We’ll return here as soon as we can. If we catch wind of the men, we’ll hunt them down. That would be the best possible scenario.”
“All right.” Connor rose from his chair, as did Wade and David.
“One last thing.” Connor’s amber eyes narrowed on Wade. “What are your intentions toward Maya?”
The shower shut off and all the men looked in the direction of the bathroom, listening for Maya. She wouldn’t come out right away. She’d have to towel dry, then dress, and Wade suspected she wouldn’t leave the bathroom until her brother was gone.
Wade turned to Connor. “Honorable. She doesn’t want to see me exclusively, though.”
Connor’s brows rose in disbelief.
Wade shrugged. “She has father issues. You should know about them.”
Connor grunted, sounding like he had some of the same issues. “What about you? Do you want to see other women?”
Wade smiled what he was certain was his most feral look. “After being around Maya for any length of time? No way.”
Connor allowed a small smile. “Good. I don’t want to see her hurt.”
“She’s safe with me,” Wade assured him. “I’m not sure about the other way around, though.”
“You mean if she finds another shifter she likes better?”
“Yeah.” Wade didn’t like where this conversation was going. He scrubbed his hand over his whiskery chin. “We need to head out.”
“Are you going to say good-bye to Maya?” Connor sounded protective of her again. “She kept hoping she’d see you for the last several days. She didn’t say so in so many words, but she was worried about you.”
“I was keeping an eye on the three of you.”
Connor openly smiled this time and slapped Wade on the shoulder as if he’d suddenly been welcomed into the family. “I knew it. I never saw you. Never smelled you. You’re good at it. But I knew it just the same.”
David shook his head. “No wonder he kept saying he had to run farther south than where the men had been.”
When no one made a move to depart from the cottage and Maya apparently wasn’t planning to leave the bathroom while everyone was there, Wade said, “I’ll be just a moment.”
He headed for the bathroom and knocked once. Last time, he’d left without saying good-bye properly to her, and he had regretted the decision even though he’d told himself she was sound asleep and he didn’t wanted to wake her.
