Maya stared at her, trying to see the situation in a new light. She stopped short of saying “oh” and let out her breath instead.
Kat smiled at her. “He wished you hadn’t been Connor’s wife. He said it really hit him hard to learn you were Connor’s sister instead.”
Connor didn’t open his eyes, but he smiled a little.
Maya frowned at her brother. If he hadn’t been so overprotective, she might have met someone earlier. Probably everyone who saw them together had the same misconception. “What if… well, if we tried it, what if the relationship didn’t work out?”
“What if it didn’t?” Kat said. “It wouldn’t be the end of the world.”
True. Maya tended to think in terms of all or nothing. “What if I had kids?” Maya could see feeling like her mother, stuck with twins and no one to help out. No father to assist in raising them or love them.
“You’d love them to pieces. I’d become an aunt. Connor would be an uncle, and we’ll have that extended family you always wanted. And you could look for another mate. Your mother isolated herself from others of our kind. She didn’t want another mate, from what Connor says. Seize the moment. Make the most of your relationship with Wade. If it doesn’t work out, at least you can say you gave it your best try.”
“I don’t know.”
“You know, maybe your mother pushed your father out of the house,” Kat said, her words soft as if she was trying to cushion the blow. “Maybe your father wanted to stay.”
Maya shook her head.
“There are always two sides to every story.”
“Okay, so if he wanted to be with her, why didn’t he at least keep in touch with Connor and me? He never did. We were born, and he left.”
“He left after you were born or when he learned of the pregnancy?” Kat asked.
Maya hesitated. Would it have mattered?
His eyes still closed, Connor said under his breath, “When he learned of the pregnancy.”
Kat pondered that for a moment and then said, “What if they had agreed not to have kids and she’d broken the promise? Or what if you weren’t his kids?”
***
When Maya and her brother and Kat arrived home, they were dead tired, Kat especially. She went straight to bed. But Maya couldn’t help wondering if Kat was right. Was Connor and Maya’s father not truly their father? If he had learned her mother had gotten pregnant by some other man… oh God, what a mess. Then another thought hit her. Everett and Huntley wouldn’t be their cousins.
Connor had to have heard Kat’s question on the plane, yet he hadn’t said a word. Had Kat and her brother already discussed the issue? And he was afraid to mention it to Maya?
Her thoughts scattered when Bear, one of the men who worked for them when they were away, hurried to meet with her and Connor. His wary expression warned her something had gone wrong while they were absent.
He bowed his head a little, looking nervous as the other workers packed up their belongings and placed them in the pickup truck. “We had trouble as soon as Miss Maya left for the airport that morning,” Bear said to Connor.
Connor glanced back at the gardens. “Not another busted water pipe.”
The last time the water bill had cost them a small fortune.
“No, no. A man by the name of Thompson was asking about cats.”
“Cats?” Connor said, his face darkening.
Maya’s heart began racing. Connor had to know that Bear wasn’t talking about the wild kitty cats that meandered through their gardens.
“Jaguars.” Bear looked down at the gravel beneath his feet, as if he was afraid of mentioning the jaguar word to a jaguar god and goddess.
Connor and Maya suspected Bear and his family, who were originally from Columbia, knew they were jaguar shifters, but still, there wasn’t any way they’d come out and tell them the truth.
“The stolen jaguar from the zoo,” Maya reminded her brother.
“Oh, that.” Connor waved the notion away. “No problem. No stolen jaguars here.”
“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 Ev
erett. 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
He heard the shower end.
David walked out of the bathroom, drying his hair with a towel. “Did she respond?”
“That had to be the quickest shower you have ever taken.”
David usually used up all the hot water before Wade could take a shower when they shared a room. He wondered if David was afraid he’d miss out on hearing from Maya.
“I wasn’t very dirty,” David said with a gleam of amusement shining in his eyes.
“There was no response from her. She might be out checking on the garden.”
Wade headed for the bathroom, and David pulled his phone out.
“Don’t you text her, too,” Wade said, a warning in his voice. Before he closed the bathroom door, he saw his brother gave him an evil smile.
Chapter 21
That night, when Wade and his brother arrived at the club, Wade couldn’t help but look for Maya. Maybe he should have been more concerned about watching for Lion Mane, Candy, and whoever else might lead them to clues about the buyer, but Maya had been all he could think of since he left her at the airport yesterday afternoon. He half expected to see her and her hulking cousins, but there was no sign of her.
“She can’t be here yet,” David said, bumping Wade’s arm as he motioned to an empty table. The club was filling up fast. “Huntley and Everett’s flight wouldn’t have arrived that early, and then they still had the drive out to her place. She won’t be here for another hour or so.”
“We should have picked her up.”
“They wanted to meet Connor or Kat. They’ll be here.”
Wade hoped they’d all be more prepared tonight. Martin had checked out Houston and the surrounding communities for any other place that the buyer might go, but he’d concluded that as territorial as cats were, this was it. He’d also researched Thompson’s background and discovered he had been rescuing animals from hunters from the time he was ten years old. He was definitely one of the good guys where wild animals were concerned. If the zoo man had been a jaguar shifter, Martin would have already recruited him.
The music was playing and the drinks flowing while David and Wade spent more than three hours observing the crowd. Then Wade smelled Maya’s sweet fragrance and instantly stood up from his seat. Despite the mob, he glimpsed her headed in their direction.
He just gaped at her. She was wearing a sexy red minidress with a low-cut bodice showing off the swell of her breasts. Wade wished he could take off his shirt and cover her, feeling that she was way too exposed for this horde. Before he could greet her, Maya rushed between him and his brother, brushing against them the way cats would in greeting when they didn’t move out of her way fast enough.
They just stared after her before they followed her, Wade wishing she hadn’t left her sweet scent on his brother, too.
“Where are your cousins?” Wade asked, just short of tacking on a “damn it.”
“They’re late. They texted and said they couldn’t make it on time and would meet me here. Flight arrived late, and they missed their connection.”
“Your brother let you come here alone?” Wade took a seat next to her.
Maya’s lips parted for a second, her amber eyes darkening, and then she snapped her mouth closed. Looking around the room, she turned to Wade and said, “Get me a Singapore sling, will you?” Then she left the table, walked over to another where two men were eyeing her with interest, stretched out her hand, and asked one to dance.
Wade stared at her in disbelief.
“I wonder what that’s all about. Maybe she’s still serious about seeing other shifters.” David shook his head and waved for a waitress. “Two beers and a Singapore sling.” While he was placing the order, he saw Candy, and so did Wade. “Why don’t you dance with her?”
“I think I will,” Wade said, getting up from his chair. He was trying his damnedest not to look in Maya’s direction, wondering what she was so angry about, while he approached Candy. She flipped her hair off her shoulders and smiled up at him.
“I see your girlfriend is still dancing with others. Want to dance with me?”
He shrugged. “That was the general idea.” Wade meant to dance with Candy away from Maya, to question her in as subtle a manner as he could about Bettinger
, but he found his feet drifting in Maya’s direction. The guy with Maya kept putting his hand on her ass, and she kept moving it to her waist.
Wade was about to rip the man’s arm out of his socket when Candy tugged at his belt and said, “I’ve missed you since the last time. Where you been?”
“Hunting.”
Her eyes widened. “Really? I have a couple of friends who hunt.”
“What do they hunt?” he asked, getting interested. He was trying to focus on Candy and not on Maya, but it was killing him not to look and see if the asshole dancing with her was molesting her.
“Cats,” Candy said, smiling up at him.
“Really? I hunt cats. Lions, tigers, leopards, jaguars.”
Candy’s eyes sparkled with interest. She moved closer and whispered, “Ever capture one and want to… sell it to someone?”
“You know someone who’ll buy?”
“Maybe.”
“You said that Bill Bettinger had asked you to date him. Are you still seeing him?”
She shook her head. “I learned he’s got a wife and two kids. Bastard. If a guy’s got a wife, it doesn’t matter to me. I figure it’s her fault she can’t hold on to her man. But when he’s got kids, I draw the line.”
“What about Lion Mane?”
She narrowed her eyes at Wade.
“Aren’t they brothers? And he’s single?” Wade pressed.
“Why do you want to know about him?”
“I heard he’s a hunter, too.”
Candy stumbled. He smelled fear emanating off her beneath the flowery perfume she wore. “He’s… he’s dangerous.”
Bill Bettinger was dangerous, too. Or rather he had been.
Wade shrugged and glanced around the room to see where Maya had gone with her dance partner. Hell, now she was sitting at the two men’s table, ignoring him!
He ground his teeth. Candy looked at where he was glowering and laughed. “Looks like she’s found some place else to sit.” She pulled Wade back to his table, motioning to the Singapore sling, and said, “Oh, for me?”