Jaguar Fever

“No.” Bear looked around at the woods as if he was afraid someone might be listening.

Maya glanced around, her eyes narrowed as she watched for any movement other than the leaves fluttering in the hot, humid breeze. She’d never seen the man so anxious before.

Bear swallowed, his eyes on Maya, as if she’d been the one who’d invited all the jaguar gods to the gardens. He whispered, “He said there were four male jaguars. Four of them. One black.” He waited for Connor to acknowledge the sighting.

Connor looked down at Maya as if she was the cause of all the trouble. She shrugged and said, “Thompson must have been drunk.”

Connor nodded. “That would explain it.”

Bear looked from Connor to Maya. But when she just sweetly smiled at him, he nodded and said, “That was it. But he’ll be back. He asked when you were returning, and I told him.”

“You did fine, Bear.” Connor handed him a check. “We’ll see you next time.”

Bear gave a worried smile, then hurried to the truck and drove off with a wave.

Connor escorted Maya into the house before he began questioning her. “How the hell did Thompson see so many of our kind in the gardens?”

“Our cousins fought Bettinger when he came to see me.”

“If you hadn’t gone to the club in the first place, none of this would have happened.”

Ignoring that, she said, “I had no idea Thompson was skulking around in our woods when it all happened. It’s really late, Connor. I’m going to bed.”

Connor shook his head. “Hell. What next?” He plodded off to his bedroom and shut the door with a clunk.

Maya thought about Wade and David. They wouldn’t get in until sometime tomorrow afternoon. She already wished he was in her bed tonight. She glanced at the recliner where he’d slept. It seemed like so much longer than a week ago.

She peered out the kitchen window at the garden, which was peaceful tonight, and thought about her cousins fighting Bettinger in their jaguar forms. Watching the big cats fight in the garden, Thompson must have nearly had a heart attack. Served him right for spying on them. He wouldn’t be able to prove a thing of what he’d seen. Thankfully.

Not that the whole situation should have ever happened in front of the human. They were just lucky he’d been alone. At least she hoped he had been.

Grabbing her bag, she rolled it into her bedroom. She collapsed on her bed and pulled out her phone, then texted Wade.

We’re home. Missing you already.

She paused before she sent it. The message sounded too needy. Too personal. Too intimate. Too permanent. She erased Missing you already and tried to think of how to end it. She thought about mentioning Thompson, but that would only concern the brothers, and they were still in Belize City and unable to do anything about him.

See you tomorrow evening at the club. Night.

How to end it? Maya? Love, Maya? Too intimate. She sighed. She was overthinking it. Or TTYL, as in talk to you later. That could work.

She stared and stared and stared at the message as if it would tell her how to sign off. Hell. She signed it: Maya.

* * *

“We have our marching orders,” Wade said to his brother as he put away his phone before boarding the plane.

“Is Martin okay with us setting something up at the dance club?” David asked.

They showed their boarding passes to the airline staff. “Yeah. He doesn’t want Kat there, though. With her being pregnant, if something goes wrong, he’s afraid she might be injured.”

“Connor won’t want to leave Kat home alone, but he won’t want his sister in the fray, either.”

David and Wade took their seats on the half-empty plane.

“The good news is that Martin got hold of Maya’s cousins, Huntley and Everett. They’re arriving this afternoon. They’re going to help with our case,” Wade said.

David smiled. “Whose idea was that?”

“The brothers. Martin went along with it, but if he’d wanted to give them another case to work on instead, they weren’t buying it.”

“Good. So… are they meeting us at the club or taking care of Kat?”

As the plane took off, Wade leaned against the seat and closed his eyes. “They wanted to drop by the Andersons’ place, meet Kat and Connor, and bring Maya to the club if she’s willing.”

“Are you going to dance with Candy if she’s there?”

Wade opened his eyes and looked at his brother. “Now, how am I going to win Maya over if I’m chasing some human woman at a club?”

David smiled at him. “Just thought you were up for the game of trying to learn more about Bettinger since he’d given her his real name and asked her out. Besides, maybe if you danced with Candy, Maya would change her mind about seeing other guys.”

“Or be so annoyed with me that she would see only other guys.”

David shook his head and ordered a cup of orange juice from the hostess.

“Two,” Wade said, holding up two fingers.

“Have Huntley or Everett heard back from their sister, Tammy?”

Wade frowned at David. “Why? You’re not hoping to meet her, are you? She wouldn’t come to the club the first time because she was busy having a date with a human.”

“No. Remember what the brothers said? They were having her look into the situation concerning the missing jaguar from the Oregon Zoo.”

“Thompson,” Wade said, recalling the man who was searching for the stolen jaguar. “Hell. I forgot all about him. Connor will have a fit if the man bothers them when they get home.”

“At least Connor won’t allow Thompson to badger Maya any further. Maybe Tammy’s got some good news. If she’s found the stolen jaguar, that’ll be the end of that problem. Besides, surely Thompson wouldn’t be hanging around all this time while the Andersons were in Belize, waiting for their return. Don’t you imagine he’d be off somewhere else looking for clues?”

“Yeah.” Wade leaned his head against the seat. If Thompson had been a shifter, Wade would have liked him for his obvious concern for the missing jaguar. But because Thompson had targeted Maya, believing she had something to do with the stolen cat, Wade was ready to tear him apart if he harassed her any further.

As if he was afraid to ask the most important question until last, David finally said, “Did you hear from Maya yet?”

“Yeah.”

“What’d she say?”

Wade smiled at his brother.

“Well? Was she all gushy? Saying she missed you terribly? Or is there hope for me yet?”

Wade knew his brother was teasing him. He shook his head and drank his orange juice, but didn’t say. It was what Maya didn’t say that made him smile again.

When they arrived in Houston, they got a rental car and drove to their hotel.

Dumping his bag on the floor of the economy hotel room, Wade noted the two queen-sized beds with standard floral bedspreads, the television, writing desk, and black-out curtains for sleeping late. He checked his phone to see if he’d gotten any messages from Maya or Martin.

“I’m taking a shower, then getting some sleep,” David said, “before we have dinner and go to the club.”

“Just texting Maya to let her know that we’re here.”

Maya,

David and I arrived early. We’re staying at the Santa Anna Inn in Houston. Look forward to seeing you soon. Wade