Jaguar Fever

Chapter 22

Wade couldn’t believe Thompson had seen Maya’s cousins in their jaguar forms. What next?

He kept Maya locked against his body, her head settling on his chest, their moves as one as the music continued to beat. He swept his hands over her back as hers wrapped around his waist, their scents mixing as they claimed each other, their body posture telling anyone who might be watching that they were a couple, together, in their own world, and unapproachable.

He understood her misguided need to push him away, to offer him a way to resolve the situation with Lion Mane, but he wasn’t going to allow her to do it. He wanted the shifter to know he was Maya’s protector, joined at the hip with her if need be. The bastard wouldn’t touch her again.

His phone buzzed at his hip, and he lifted it off his belt, checked the caller ID, and saw that it was her cousin Everett. “Hey, we’re at the club. Are you joining us?”

“We’re visiting with Connor and Kat. Connor said Maya isn’t answering her phone. Is she there with you?”

Wade rubbed her back, his body hard with need as she molded to him. “Yeah, she’s here.” Was she ever. In the flesh—hot, sexy, and all his, as far as he was concerned. Hell, he was ready to move into Connor and Kat and Maya’s house to ensure he didn’t lose Maya.

“Good. Keep her there with you until we arrive.”

“I’ll take care of her.”

Maya purred.

Everett didn’t say anything for a moment, then he asked, “Are you bringing her back here tonight?”

“We haven’t decided yet. We have some making up to do.”

Maya smiled up at him and shook her head.

The movement of someone big heading toward their table caught Wade’s eye. “Oh hell. Thompson’s here. If Connor didn’t fill you in on the latest news concerning what a particular zoo man has seen, ask him about it. Got to go, Everett.” He ended the call.

Maya turned her head to look in Thompson’s direction. He waved at them as if they were old buddies, pointing at their table, and Wade nodded.

The zoo man sat down on one of the free chairs.

“Great,” Maya said under her breath, her hands cupping Wade’s buttocks.

“Hmm, Maya, we’re really going to have to get a room. I’m not sure I’m willing to wait the two hours to get back to your place after we leave here.” The ruby-colored dress was just too provocative, along with her scent and the way she moved like a slender, sleek cat rubbing up against him. He took a deep breath and kissed the top of her head. “I don’t want you seeing anyone else.”

There, he’d said it. He had wanted it to be her choice, but observing her with other guys made him ready to have one hell of a catfight, and he didn’t think killing another man who’d had his hands all over her would encourage his relationship with her in a positive way.

“I don’t want to be with anyone else,” she said on a sigh.

Relief washed over him, and he smiled.

She quickly added, “It doesn’t mean that I don’t worry about… us and what will happen in the future. Or that I’m not anxious about whether I’m leaping into something that neither of us will be happy with in the long run.” She looked up at him, and he saw the worry in her golden eyes.

“Maya…”

She shook her head. “Kat told me I’m projecting my parents’ failure onto our relationship.”

Wade kissed her forehead. “It doesn’t matter. We are not your parents, and whatever happened between them has nothing to do with us.”

“That’s what Kat said.”

“Good. I like Kat. She gave you some sound advice.”

“I want to know the truth about our dad. Kat suggested maybe he hadn’t fathered us and that’s why he left when my mom was pregnant.”

“We can look into it.” Not that he wanted to learn anything she might be unhappy about, but he’d help her just the same.

“What are we going to do about Thompson?” she asked.

“That’s another matter entirely. What do you want to say? Stick to your shifter story?”

She rolled her eyes. “Isn’t your organization involved in keeping our status secret?”

“Truthfully, I haven’t a clue as to how to handle this. Come on. The dance has ended. Let’s go see what he has to say about us.” Wade escorted a very tense Maya back to the table.

He nodded at Thompson, who stood and raised his beer to them, his eyes drifting to Maya and her dress, a slight smile curving his mouth. Then he said to Wade, “I hope I’m not intruding.”

As if he really hadn’t meant to.

“Not at all. It’s good to see old friends.”

Thompson smiled a little at the comment, but then a frown marred his forehead. He sat down and leaned forward against the table as if he didn’t want the rest of the people in the club to hear. “I checked news reports to see if jaguars—male type—had been stolen from other zoos.”

“And you found?” Wade asked, his fingers threading through Maya’s as they sat across from him.

“None. But you already knew that, didn’t you?”

“That you’d been searching for missing jaguars or that you had found none? How would I know that? Besides, we’ve been in Belize for the past week.”

“Both of you?” Thompson said, sounding surprised. Then he narrowed his blue eyes at Wade. “Of course. A jaguar haven.”

“Which is exactly where they belong,” Wade said.

“And that’s why three big males were roaming through Maya’s garden center? Maybe even four of them?”

“They were?” Wade asked, squeezing Maya’s hand. She looked cool and collected, but her hand was cold and clammy in his. “I’m sure Maya’s customers would have reported it, and when she got home, she would have heard about it. Three, you say? Or four? So were the sightings reported? Since she’s mentioned nothing to me about that—”

Thompson skirted the question. “I know what I saw.”

“So it happened at night? Early morning? When we were gone? Before we left for Belize? I’m just trying to get a picture of it in my mind,” Wade said, studying the big man.

Thompson sat back on his chair and regarded Wade coolly but didn’t say a word.

Wade shrugged and took a swallow of beer, set the iced glass on the table, and considered Thompson further. “Okay, if you were there when the garden shop wasn’t open, you must have been trespassing.”

Thompson’s face reddened. “I want my cat back,” he said.

“Fair enough. Maya’s already told you that she had nothing to do with your stolen cat.”

Thompson tapped his fingers on the table, then lifted his beer mug. “They’re dangerous predators. Not a feral animal you can truly train. Sure, circuses give the illusion they have the wild cats coached to do as the trainer wishes, but in the end, the beast is never tamed. You’re fighting with fire when you let those big cats run loose. Someone’s going to get injured. Maybe killed.” He looked at Maya.

“You’re right, of course,” she said. “They’re dangerous. No one would have let a bunch of jaguars loose on their property unless they wanted to suffer the consequences.”

Thompson folded his arms, his eyes dark and troubled. “This is not something to joke about. I know you’re involved. If I’d had any doubts, I wouldn’t after what I saw.”

Maya lifted her tall glass and took another sip of her drink. “Why do you think I have anything to do with the jaguars?”

Thompson left out his breath. “They were serving as guard cats. One stood with you in the entryway of the back door of your home. They ran in and out of your place as if they belonged there. Hell, I was ready to run in and try to save you!”

Her lips parted a little. Wade couldn’t help but admire the man for having been terrified but still wanting to protect Maya.

Thompson waited for Maya to respond. She sat silently. Even Wade didn’t know what to say to that.

“You didn’t report it,” Wade finally said.

“No. You must have packed the cats up in your vehicles the next morning and taken off with them. There wasn’t anything to report that anyone would have believed.”

It wasn’t good that Thompson thought they had a bunch of jaguars at the garden nursery, but he didn’t have proof, and he hadn’t seen any of them shift.

Wade squeezed Maya’s hand. “There is no such thing as a trained jaguar guard cat. Maya and her family don’t own any jaguars, male or otherwise. That’s all we’ve got to say about it.”

Thompson shifted his attention from Wade to Maya. “You remind me of a lady I know—Bella Wilder. She loved wolves and we’re pretty sure she freed a wolf from the Oregon Zoo. I’d taken the female wolf to the zoo to protect her, and she was getting to know another red wolf when she vanished and a naked female—Bella—ended up in her place. Now, we’re friends, but I still believe she and her husband had removed the wolf and freed her into the wild.”

Wade didn’t look to see how Maya was reacting to the news. Just because some crazy woman who loved wolves thought to release one into the wild, it didn’t have anything to do with them.

“I’m beginning to think we have a similar situation here. Except wolves do run wild in Oregon. Jaguars don’t in Texas,” Thompson said.

David headed back to the table with Candy, his face dark. “Can I have a word with you alone, Wade?”

Wade was torn. He couldn’t take Maya with them. Why the hell weren’t her cousins here yet? He couldn’t leave her here alone. Thompson was studying them, analyzing the situation.

“I’ll be okay,” Maya quickly said. “You guys go take care of business. Thompson and I can just talk about plants or something.”

“We’ll be right back.” Wade kissed her cheek, gave Thompson a look that warned him not to upset Maya, then rose from the table. He squeezed Maya’s hand, then left the club to speak in private with Candy and his brother.

“What’s going on?” Wade asked Candy in the alley beside the club as David listened in.

Candy smiled up at him. “I called the buyer. He said we can meet him at another location tonight if you want to do some business with him.”

Wade had two choices—leave his brother to watch over Maya and try to take down whoever the buyer was on his own, or take Maya with them. He didn’t like either choice.

David must have been thinking along the same lines. “We can’t take Maya with us.”

“That’s right,” Candy said. “She can’t go along for the ride.”

Wade ignored her.

David cleared his throat and said to Wade, “Our friend Thompson could take her home.”

Wade knew what he was referring to. Thompson had protected her at the club before, and Martin had checked him out and determined he was one of the good guys. Wade still didn’t like the idea.

“It’s about our only choice.”

“The buyer won’t wait forever,” Candy warned.

“All right,” Wade said, hating to agree to this. But if they could take down the buyer, they had to do it. He wasn’t certain that Maya would go along with the plans, but he didn’t want her driving home alone, either. “Wait for me at the car. I’ll be right back.”

Wade stalked into the club and saw Maya watching for his return. He smiled at her, and as soon as he reached the table, he pulled her into his arms and said into her ear for her hearing only, “We’ve got a chance to meet the buyer.”

Her eyes widened.

“I don’t want you to drive home alone,” he said out loud.

“I’ll be fine.”

“I’ve got to take care of business. I don’t want you to be alone,” he said again. “If your cousins were here…”

“I could wait for them.”

“No, it could still take a couple of hours for them to get here.” He glanced at the dancers in the club. He was afraid Lion Mane might show up still.

“You need me to take her home?” Thompson asked.

Not looking really pleased but knowing how important this was, she finally let out her breath. “Okay, Thompson can follow me home if he doesn’t mind. We both have our own vehicles.”

Wade gave her a searing kiss and another hug, then reached over to shake Thompson’s hand. “Thanks. I owe you one.”

“I promise you I’ll see her safely home.”

“Thanks.” Then hating it, but pumped up about catching the buyer, he gave Maya one last squeeze and headed out of the club.

“Do you want one last dance?” Thompson asked Maya.

Yeah, with Wade. She looked up at Thompson. “Sure, but I want you to know we’re the good guys.”

“Good guys, how?”

“We don’t steal jaguars. We love them. We would protect them with our lives, but we don’t steal them.”

“I don’t understand. So you’re saying you bought them? Don’t you have to have a license to have them in Texas? Facilities to house them? They can’t be running loose like I saw.”

She danced with Thompson, her attention drifting to three men lurking at the edge of the dance floor, shifters. “Yeah, I agree. We don’t have any jaguars. Despite what you think you saw.” Before the dance ended, she said to Thompson, “We better go before there’s another fight.”

Thompson looked at the men who were lined up, eyeing her. “You’re still popular, I see.”

“I’m a wild cat. Didn’t you know?”

He smiled down at her. “As in shifter. Like you told me before.”

“Sure.” She took his hand and skirted around the men, trying to avoid them. Without David and Wade or her cousins to run interference, the shifters zeroed in on her.

“Wanna dance?” one of the men asked, trying to block Thompson from moving Maya out of the club.

“No, thank you.”

The man grabbed her arm. “Just one dance.”

“Let her go,” Thompson said, his words dark with threat.

The shifter released her. Thompson moved Maya quickly through the club. “They’re following us,” he said under his breath to her.

Not liking this, Maya picked up her pace. Thompson swiftly escorted her to her car. She stared at the tires, punctured, as if the rubber had melted against the hot pavement. Her blood iced with anger.

She glanced back at the club and saw the shifters hesitating at the doorway.

“Come on. I’ll take you in my truck, and your cousins or your boyfriend and his brother can take care of your car,” Thompson said.

She hated leaving her car, but she figured they could be in more of a mess if the shifters decided to play hardball with the human.

Thompson’s truck was black and featured a pack of beautiful gray wolves howling against the backdrop of a snow-covered mountain in a custom airbrushed paint job. He really was a wolf person. It amused her to think that he’d tangled with a bunch of big cats. She was never so glad to be inside a vehicle as when she climbed into the passenger seat of the truck, and he jumped into the driver’s seat, turned on the engine, and gunned the gas.

“Okay, tell me what this is all about,” he said.

She chewed on her lower lip.

Thompson glanced at her.

She folded her arms. “I’ve already explained.”

“That you’re a cat shifter and so are your brother and sister-in-law. So what about the rest of the cats I saw? Your cousins? Wade and his brother?”

“You really don’t believe that, do you?”

“No. I think you’re involved in something. But damned if I know what. I mean, jaguars aren’t trainable like that. Not so that they can serve as obedient guard cats.”

She frowned as Thompson took an exit she hadn’t expected. “This isn’t the fastest way out of Houston to catch the highway we need.”

“We’re being followed.” Before she could ask him anything further, he added, “I’m a hunter. I know.”