“And?” She was dying to know what he would have done about it.
He shrugged. “I might have taken you out for a drink, maybe dinner, but I never would have gotten too close. Developing feelings for a human would be risky business, and I couldn’t afford it.”
“You would have wanted more than a drink.”
He gave her a dark smile. “With you, I couldn’t want less.”
“But you had vowed never to turn someone.”
“Yes. I wasn’t comfortable with the idea of living a double life—as strictly a human in front of a woman I loved and, behind her back, as a jaguar-shifter with a sister cut from the same spotted cloth.”
She still couldn’t believe any of it, yet what had just happened had happened. She couldn’t deny it any longer. Used to dealing with matters that didn’t exactly go her way—the loss of her men on the mission, Roger leaving her, foster homes that hadn’t worked out—she’d make the most of this new change in her life. Somehow.
Kat took a deep breath and exhaled. “Now what?”
“Now we need to get you to Texas and hope to God you don’t shift somewhere along the way and create a real situation.”
She groaned, not having considered that new wrinkle in her life.
“Sorry, Kat.”
This nightmare was growing. “If we get to Texas, what then?”
“Then? We’re a family. You’ll live with us.”
“And I have no say?” All of a sudden, she felt as though she had lost total control over her life, and at a time when she thought she had just gotten it back!
“You can’t… live on your own, Kat. It’s too dangerous. If anyone learned what you were, they’d lock you up, study you, believe you were some alien race. No jaguar would be safe once you were discovered. There aren’t that many jaguars left in the wild. Can you imagine what kind of a sensation you’d be? They’d eventually find Maya and me. Although we’re careful, some have seen us with our jaguar pets—Maya with a jaguar, or me with Maya when she’s shifted into her jaguar coat.”
Kat hadn’t thought of that. In the back of her mind, she just thought they wanted to keep her because she would be like them. Not that she would need to be with those of her kind—for protection and companionship.
Yet she had read a lot about jaguars and their behavior, and they didn’t live as a family—at least not for long. The male stayed with the female during courtship and mating, but after the mother birthed her cubs, he was out of there, by her choice. Each male serviced a number of females, their territories overlapping his bigger one. Would she be considered part of a harem? No way, José.
“But jaguars don’t take a mate permanently. Any old jaguar will do. Just like a domesticated cat. Just like dogs,” she said. She had always figured that when she settled down and married a man, like she had planned with Roger, it would be forever.
“We’re human, too, and I promise if you decide to be my mate, I won’t stray.”
“What about others? You can’t be the only ones.”
That was a horrible idea. What if they were the only ones of their kind? Then Maya would have to turn a man, too, if she could. But what if he turned out to be dangerous?
What was Kat thinking? What if she became dangerous? What if she couldn’t control what she was, got hungry, and went after the neighbor’s dogs—or kids, even? Although she reminded herself that she had vowed she wouldn’t eat a monkey or colorful parrot, so she must have some control over being a feral beast.
“No, we aren’t the only ones. But with jaguars as elusive as they are, finding others of our kind is close to impossible.”
“That’s why Maya asked if I had a brother.”
Connor glanced back in the direction of the screen door. “She’d better not contemplate it.”
Kat harrumphed under her breath. “Yeah, one of us is bad enough.”
Connor turned back to study her, compassion in his eyes. “I’m sorry, Kat. I wouldn’t have done this to you, but I intend to make it up to you any way that I can.”
Frowning, Kat chewed on her lower lip. “What about the other jaguar? Roaring in the jungle. It was a male, wasn’t it?”
“Yeah. I hadn’t been marking our territory well enough since we came back here this time.”
“Because of taking care of me—because I was so sick.”
“You were our first priority.”
“So… is he a regular cat or a shifter, do you think?”
Maya called out from the hammock. “It doesn’t matter, Kat. Taking care of you is what’s important to us now.”
Kat could barely keep her eyes open, but she had to take care of one little thing. “Can I brush my teeth?”
Shaking his head, he smiled. “You’ll get used to the transition of eating raw meat as a jaguar, then shifting into your human form.”
He helped her to the washstand where she brushed her teeth with the spare toothbrush and a generous amount of minty toothpaste.
Then he carried her back to bed where Kat closed her eyes, unable to keep them open any longer. “Maya needs a mate, doesn’t she?” she whispered to Connor.
“We don’t have to worry about that now. Sleep and we’ll talk more in the morning.” He leaned over and kissed her forehead. “’Night, Kat. If you get the urge to shift, wake me. Please. You can’t roam through the jungle alone. The rain forest is too dangerous for you.”
She took a deep breath, nodded her head ever so slightly, and then, unable to stay awake, she slipped back into the world of dreams.
Connor stared at her for what seemed an eternity, unwilling to leave her side. He kept worrying she would shift again and take off, unable to help herself. But now she knew something about them and what she was. If she shifted and needed to stretch her legs as a jaguar, he hoped she would wake him and wait for him to go with her.
Glancing back at the screen door, he couldn’t help admiring his sister for wanting only to take care of Kat, ignoring her own needs to investigate the male jaguar and see if he might also be a shifter. He knew Maya would want to check him out.
He caressed Kat’s arm. She shouldn’t have run like she did. She still wasn’t well enough to expend that much energy.
He looked at Maya’s bed but couldn’t force himself to retire to it. Not without worrying that Kat might shift and leave again, and he couldn’t help being concerned about the other male jaguar. What if he was a shifter and he found Kat alone in the jungle? Their mother had said their father would never stay with her. It didn’t matter that she was the only shifter he had ever found. He couldn’t stay with one woman, period. Kat didn’t deserve a man like that.
Connor snorted and folded his arms. Hell, he wouldn’t be like his old man.
Maya slipped into the hut and rubbed Connor’s back. “She’s sleeping. Go to bed. I’m sure one or both of us will wake if she tries to leave again.”
She hugged him, then returned to her hammock on the porch.
Connor wasn’t taking any chances. He climbed into the small bed with Kat, pulling the wispy curtains around them as though they were a prince and princess in an Arabian Nights tale. Intent on making sure she wasn’t going anywhere without waking him first, he covered them with the light bed linen, closed his eyes, and tried to think of anything except how sexy she felt snuggled against his body.
Chapter 14
Sometime in the middle of the night, Kat grew restless. The first thought that came to Connor’s mind was that she was shifting into a jaguar. He wrapped his arms around her and pulled her close, spooning her, while recognizing that he might be holding a big cat in his embrace at any moment instead of a soft, silky-skinned, naked woman.