“Store was all out of the regular kind. I’d give you a choice, but I’m afraid I’ve got to use too many of them, so you’re going to get an assortment.”
Wade chuckled. “Looks like a new fashion statement.”
David cast his brother an annoyed look.
She placed the bandages horizontally over the long gash.
David closed his eyes, looking tired and like the painkiller hadn’t kicked in yet.
The front door opened, and her cousins each carried a bag into the house.
“Hell, I forgot our bags are at the hotel room,” David said. “You’ve got to go back into Houston to get them and check out of the room.”
“Tomorrow,” Wade said. “Before we go to the airport, we’ll drop by the hotel and get our stuff. No sense in making a four-hour round-trip back to Houston.”
Everett let out a bark of laughter when he saw David and his bandage collage. Maya frowned at him. “Just think if it had been you.”
Huntley was grinning. “Remind me not to get injured when I’m visiting your place, Maya. Either that or I’ll have to remember to bring my own first-aid kit.”
Maya kissed the uninjured side of David’s forehead, making everyone quit smiling as if she’d put them in their place. “At least he’s man enough not to let it bother him.”
David offered them all a smug smile. But Wade was grinning the biggest, arms folded across his chest.
Everett headed for the kitchen. “Got anything to drink?”
“Who’s taking first watch?” Huntley asked.
Maya felt like she had joined the Service on a mission, watching for the bad guys, but instead of being in the jungle when it happened, she was at home—the first time she’d had to worry about such a thing out here.
“Jaguars?” she asked.
“What else?” Wade responded. “I’ll take first watch in about half an hour.”
Chapter 5
His brother looked torn between wanting to help patrol the area with the other male cats and wanting to stay inside with Maya. But Wade knew that with the way David’s head had to be splitting and the bandages arranged diagonally over his brow, shifting was out of the question.
Before Wade could shift and take first watch, Maya said, “As for the sleeping arrangements tonight, without Connor and Kat’s permission, I can’t allow anyone to stay in their bed. We don’t have a spare bedroom. But Connor and I both have separate offices. I also have a queen-sized bed if a couple of you want to share it. I can take the couch.”
“No worries, Maya,” Everett said. “My brother and I will sleep as jaguars on your living room floor.”
“Works for me,” Wade said. “I’ll do the same.”
Wade knew his brother hated that he couldn’t be just one of the guys. “I don’t think the bandages will stick to fur,” David said.
The guys chuckled.
She smiled. “No. You should leave them on until at least tomorrow. You can sleep in my bed if you want.”
David smiled so broadly that Wade was ready to sock him. The thought of sleeping in her bed conjured up all kinds of notions. All he could think of was being in the bed with Maya and finishing the moves they’d started on the dance floor. Shifters could have consensual sex with one another and not be mated for life, so it would be just another way to see if they were compatible and if the relationship could blossom into something more serious.
Since she’d wanted so badly to mix with others of their kind, he was fairly sure she didn’t want anything long lasting with him. Not yet. Which meant he had to give her some space. That was something he was having a difficult time doing. Maybe when he returned
to Florida…
He shook his head. When he returned home, he’d be thinking of every moment he’d already spent with her. And want to come right back to her—mainly to ensure some other shifter didn’t think she was available.
What was wrong with him? She was available.
Everyone watched David to see his response. Would he take her up on her offer?
“You can sleep in my bed alone,” she clarified and quirked a brow as if inviting a response.
“I’ll take the couch.”
Wade breathed a sigh of relief. He didn’t want to act all caveman and say David couldn’t, but he didn’t want his brother in her bed, smelling her scent on the sheets and leaving his own in her room.
For the three-and-a-half-hour flight from Houston to Belize City, Wade had every intention of making adjustments in the seating arrangements. “About the flight tomorrow… David and I have seats together in the middle of the plane. He can swap with you.”
She gave Wade a knowing smile. “What if David prefers sitting beside you?”
“What if David prefers that Wade switch seats with you, and you sit beside David?” David said, grinning at her.
“What if my seat is first class?” she asked.
“I’ll switch with you,” David said.
Maya smiled. “Ah, now there’s the truth of the matter.”
“If push comes to shove, Wade’s going to win this battle,” David said.
“So you’re going to be a gentleman and concede.”
“Exactly.”
“My seat isn’t first class.” She took Wade’s hand
and squeezed.
Both her cousins laughed.
She smiled at Wade but then asked about the Pattersons’
reason for being at the club. “So you were at the club to see someone involved in the jaguar smuggling?”
“Yeah, we were,” Wade said.
“How do you know where to go in Belize if you missed any intel you might have gotten at the club?”
“We had been at the club some hours before you arrived and were just looking for visual confirmation,” Wade said, glad he’d been able to take care of her when the situation got out of hand. “We know the location where the men have gone.”
“You said it was close to where we’re staying. Where exactly?”
“Four and a half miles from your cottages, due southwest,” Wade said.
She shook her head. “There’s so much uncharted territory that I still think we’ll be fine as long as we shift far from the treetop villas. Or even if we stick close to them. These men wouldn’t be after a jaguar frequenting a human-populated area, would they?”
“Most likely not,” Wade said. He thought again about Thompson, the man from the zoo, and wondered about the pictures on Maya’s site.
He pulled out his phone and searched for her website. He couldn’t believe she’d told the human she was a jaguar shifter and that her whole family were shifters, too. Not that he thought Thompson would believe her story—who would?—but still, Wade couldn’t fathom her saying that.
When he located the web page, he realized she was watching him. “Here, let me. You want to see me in my fur coat, right?” she said, flipping to the page he was looking for.
He studied her jaguar form—golden fur and white cheeks and breast—as she looked at him with that cat’s predatory gleam. He felt like he was seeing a flashback of her in the jungle when he looked at the picture of her crouched among the tropical plants—orchids, hibiscus, even a banana tree—in the high-ceilinged glass house with verdigris corners on its cathedral-style windows. In another photo that had him smiling, she was sleeping on a bench, looking like the photo session had worn her out.
Would others of his kind be affected in the same way if they saw her jaguar form and knew what she was? Hell, yeah. She was like a feral call to their past. But even so, they couldn’t tell that she was a shifter from just the photo.
Everett and Huntley crowded around to get a look.
Wade studied her feral gaze. “Hell, all he has to do is compare rosettes with a picture of his own jaguar, and he’ll know the truth.”