by Terry Spear
“Around,” Connor said skeptically.
Kat folded her arms and said to Connor, “Wade asked if I wanted to meet up with him when he visited the rain forest and said he would take me to where you stayed. I did check him out. I found a number of pictures of him—some when he was wearing a suit, some in his jungle khaki attire. They all revealed a friendly sort who liked adventure. I admit I admired his enthusiasm for the unusual and the way he seemed grounded in a real job, too.”
“Like you?” Connor asked.
“Yeah. But everything began to unravel when he didn’t meet me at the café at the appointed time.”
Connor shook his head. “I don’t know this Wade Patterson.”
Maya could tell her brother didn’t like that Patterson had known anything about them or their connection to jaguars. But the inflection in Connor’s voice and his expression revealed more. He didn’t like that Kat had been meeting with this man alone.
“Are you finished eating?” Connor asked, sounding annoyed.
Kat nodded.
“Was there any other reason you came here?” Connor pried.
“What do you mean?” Kat responded, sounding defensive.
Connor rose from his chair, looking more like a grizzly than a jaguar, and closed in on Kat like the predator he was. He lifted her into his arms, pressing her close to his body in a posture that was all too telling that she was his and no one else’s, and carried her back to his bed.
“Wait,” she said, clinging to him, “I want to brush my teeth.”
He turned around, headed for the washbasin, and set her on her feet. Then she retrieved a toothbrush and toothpaste from her backpack. After she brushed and brushed and brushed, she finally relinquished the toothbrush and toothpaste, and he carried her back to the bed.
“I believe,” he said quietly to Kat, although Maya could hear because of their highly attuned cat hearing, “there’s more to your coming here than you’re letting on.”
Maya could have kicked him when he acted so intimidating toward Kat, but to Kat’s credit, she didn’t back down from him. Once he set Kat on the bed, their gazes collided and locked as if ready for battle. Maya heard their accelerated heartbeats and hoped this was only a bit of getting to know you better and not that they really didn’t like each other at all.
“Like you were nearly killed here a year ago. Like you were having nightmares. Like you might still be on a mission,” Connor accused.
Maya wanted her brother to back off, but she wanted to know Kat’s motives, too. With her back stiff, her nerves on edge, and her lips clamped tight, Maya cleared the dishes and listened.
Kat lifted her chin and looked Connor straight in the eye. “My mission was to personally thank you for saving my life.”
“And?” he pressured.
She pressed her lips together, then took a deep breath and said, “Yes, I have nightmares still. Sometimes facing your fear can help to put it in proper perspective.”
“You’re not on a military mission, then?”
“No,” she said, sounding irritated, but whether with Connor or the Army, or both, Maya couldn’t tell.
“She’s too weak to move anywhere,” Maya warned, trying to get them off this other business. She wanted them to get along, not be annoyed with each other. But most of all, she didn’t want her brother thinking it was okay now to dump Kat off at a resort.
Both Kat and Connor glanced at her as if they’d forgotten she was there.
“A couple of days, Maya,” he said, giving her a dark look. “Then we’ll see.”
Maya could tell her brother didn’t trust her where Kat was concerned. Maya prayed that she had already done the deed of turning Kat and that Connor wouldn’t be able to stop the process. And that he wouldn’t be too angry with her.
She glanced at Kat. And that she wouldn’t be, either.
Chapter 7
After eating, Kat was feeling much better, relatively speaking. At least her head was no longer filled with fog, and she could remember what everyone asked her. Connor was cleaning the burned frying pan while Maya worked on the plastic dishes and asked her all kinds of questions.
Kat had been amused that Maya had questioned her about whether she had a boyfriend. Connor hadn’t touched the subject. But he’d listened to every word she’d spoken, watched her every move, and if she didn’t know better, she’d think he was listening to the inflection in her voice, trying to determine her hidden agenda. She didn’t have one!
She sighed. She didn’t owe either Maya or Connor an explanation about her personal life, but Maya was becoming a fast friend. And although she never had anyone to use as a sounding board before, she wanted to talk about her ex-fiancé for some reason.
“I was engaged,” she said, watching the two of them for a reaction.
Connor’s scrub brush stopped in midair, and Maya’s hand stilled on the dish she was wiping off.
“Oh?” Maya said, her tone encouraging.
Kat was fairly certain Connor was dying to know the details, too, but he was trying hard not to show it. He had gone back to scrubbing the pan, but much less vigorously than before.
“Roger was a major in the Army, working on the same mission behind the scenes.”
She was surprised when Connor gave her an incredulous look, and then his expression became one of condemnation. “Behind the scenes,” he growled, not hiding his annoyance at the way her ex had treated her.
“It was the mission. What wasn’t part of the plan was that my men would all die and I would be so severely wounded.”
The muscle in Connor’s jaw ticked as he studied her. He looked like a thunderstorm building in the jungle—sudden, dark, and dangerous.
“Roger couldn’t cope with the prospect of having a future wife who was that unstable.”
“Unstable,” Connor said, raising a brow.
“Nope, not good for any kids that we might have someday had. I don’t blame him. Well, maybe a little bit. If he had been shell-shocked during a mission, I would have stuck it out with him. Through sickness and health.”
Connor looked her over with the predatory appearance of a feral animal, as if he wanted to take her for his own.
He was gorgeous and sexy, his body rippling with muscles every time he moved since he wore no shirt again. A pair of light-colored khaki pants and boots were all that he had on for now. His skin was a tawny golden color and his hair just as golden, like Maya’s. And both had the most beautiful amber eyes that appeared as though they could look into her soul, read her every intention, and understand her to the marrow of her bones.
She loved his sexy voice, too. Growly at times, deep and dark and fathomless, but it also had a masculine purring sound to it. She loved listening to him talk, even when she’d been so out of it that she couldn’t make out his words. Just the lulling sound of his voice, lilting at the end of sentences as if he had been asking her questions.
He had been so tender and caring. She even remembered his kissing her—when she’d wanted him to kiss her—fearing she would die before she could thank him for saving her life the first time. He’d been so gentle and unassuming. Oh, he could deny it, but she sensed his deeper interest in her.
But now that she was better, he seemed impatient and gruff. She wasn’t sure what was going on with him. Did he like her or not?
She shrugged as if it made no difference, although it did and she was having a hard time hiding her feelings. “Roger stuck it out with me for a while, figuring I’d return to my former self. But I had flashbacks of the killings and night terrors so vivid that I beat on him in my sleep, trying to make the bad go away.”
Connor cast her an elusive smile. Standing next to the washbasin with a soapy scrub brush and a frying pan caked with burned fish remnants, he had an appealing quality about him. Any man who would clean a frying pan that was that much of a mess had to have some good in him.
“Hey,” Kat admonished him for giving her such a smug smile. “If I slept with you
and began beating on you in the middle of the night, I bet you wouldn’t stick around, either.”
“Try me.”
Connor looked dead serious. Maya appeared genuinely astonished, but then she quickly looked away, attempting to hide a smile.
Even Kat’s mouth gaped before she could recover. “You wouldn’t say that if you were in a deep sleep and I slugged you.”
“I bet we could come to some kind of arrangement that would mutually satisfy our need to sleep.”
The wicked gleam in his eyes said he wasn’t thinking about sleep.
“Yeah, right.” Kat quickly changed the subject. “When are you returning home?” She hoped they weren’t delaying their own trip home for her sake. If they were, no matter what her condition, she would be out of here so she could let them get on with their plans. All they needed to do was point her in the right direction.
“We’ll be leaving you off at the resort, then we’ll go home from there,” Connor said, his voice taking on a businesslike tone. It was clear he wanted her out of their lives. Pronto.
Feeling like a party crasher, Kat figured his attitude was because she had messed up their vacation to such an extent. How could they have had any fun out here when they were spending so much time caring for a sick person they didn’t even know?
But Maya looked crestfallen. And Kat felt terrible about it. Maya seemed genuinely to like her, and Kat could really use a friend like that. She had left the Army and now was totally free—no permanent job, no home, just a few Army friends who didn’t know about her final mission. But they lived so far away that she might not ever see them again. She sighed. After this trip to the jungle, she had planned to set down roots, unlike with the military that had moved her around so much. Or foster care.
Kat smiled at Maya, ignoring Connor’s gruffness. Maya was as tanned as Connor, in as great shape, really pretty, and Kat’s petite height. Despite Connor’s male posturing, Kat would not be intimidated. He could go prune his plants, for all she cared. Kat and Maya could have an all-girls’ night out. Or whatever else Maya liked to do.
“Let me know when would be a good time to visit you at your home in Texas, Maya. I’m… in between jobs right now. So I want to take the time to travel a bit before I start the job hunt all over again and try to figure out where I want to settle down.”
“Then you’re coming home with us,” Maya said, chin up, arms folded, defying Connor to say no.
Connor glowered at his sister but didn’t say anything.
“I’d love to,” Kat said, assuming then that Maya owned half of the nursery and the home and also had to have half raised the cats. “I won’t stay long, just a couple of days. But… I’d really enjoy that.” Of course she meant to visit after she went to the resort and did everything else she had planned to do before she got lost in the jungle and came down with a fever. She really had hoped subsequent pleasant trips to the Amazon would help to get rid of her flashbacks.
Maya beamed, but she didn’t dare look at Connor.
Connor growled something about leaving it alone, which Kat didn’t understand. Then he left the hut, and Kat figured he was going to get away from the females who were wreaking havoc with his ability to exert his male dominance over all.
She really liked Connor, despite his need to show a gruff aloofness now that she was getting better. She couldn’t help it. All along, he had been kind, tender, and caring. So she didn’t believe he was truly a beast in disguise.
Maybe he had issues, like a girlfriend who had dumped him recently, or maybe he felt Kat had messed up his well-ordered life. But she didn’t intend to be a bother in Texas. She’d just visit with Maya a little and then be on her way.
“Are you hungry still?” Maya asked, offering another banana. “We need you to get your strength back so we can leave. But not before we go to the falls. And I was wondering if you’d like to swim with the pink dolphins.”
Loving the idea, Kat smiled. “I’d love to see the dolphins. But I’m stuffed, thanks.”
She wanted to take pictures and videos of the jaguars while they explored the jungle, hopefully while it was still light out, so she could remember them always as they had protected her in the Amazon and so she could write the article about them as she had planned.
But then she thought about her guide, Manuel, who had left her, saying he would lead men he’d been concerned about away from her when they had heard them in the jungle, and then she’d never seen him again. What if he had been one of the men in the jungle earlier, searching for her?
“Maya, I’ve been thinking.”
Maya turned to face Kat, her expression concerned.
“I wonder if the guide I had was the one who was wandering through the jungle, maybe trying to find me and take me back to civilization.”
“We’ll take you wherever you wish to go,” Maya said abruptly.
“All right.” Kat got the distinct impression that Maya hadn’t trusted the man. Maybe because he’d abandoned her.
And Wade Patterson? What had happened to him? Kat vowed to learn what she could about both men as soon as Connor and Maya took her to the resort.
* * *
The next day, Kat felt well enough to go to the falls, although she was still weak and would need Connor’s assistance in getting there. She hated being indisposed and having to rely on Connor. She hoped the waterfall would not be too far away, but she wanted to clean up in the worst way.
Connor and Maya had left her alone for the first time that she could remember, some business to do with the cats, they had said. But while she was brushing her teeth at the washbasin, she heard Connor arguing with Maya in the jungle near the hut, probably not wanting to go too far away and leave Kat alone for very long. They most likely thought they were speaking softly enough with all the other jungle noises surrounding them and the way the vegetation muffled sounds, but she heard.
“Maya, you know it’s too dangerous for her to visit with us at our home in Texas.” Connor’s voice was low and concerned… and annoyed.
The cats, Kathleen thought. Was he worried she wouldn’t be cautious enough around the cats? She wasn’t the one who’d forced the male jaguar to place his head on her lap in the tree and keep her there, or the female to do so afterward. Sure, she would be careful around them. She hadn’t had much of a choice the first time she had encountered them. But she would have kept out of their path if she had been able. She sighed. She hadn’t seen any sign of them for days—well, partly because she had been so out of it that she hadn’t known who or what had been watching over her.
She stood at the window, looking out at the imposing jungle. Not even the slightest of breezes stirred the thick foliage. The rich smell of the jungle, the decaying leaves and wet plants and earth, and the smell of fish from a nearby waterway wafted in.
“I know what you’re thinking, damn it,” Connor continued. “I’ve known ever since you saw Kathleen exactly what you’ve wanted to do. You can’t do it. It wouldn’t be fair to her.”
“But you like her,” Maya said. “I know it. You were dying to know what happened to her when she was wounded. You didn’t eat, couldn’t sleep, and we even left here early because you were so disconsolate.”
“Maya…”
“No, let me finish. You were like that for months after our return home. I know you too well, Connor. As soon as we returned here, what did you do? Went straight back to the place where she’d been wounded, and then you didn’t come back for hours. I worried about you because you’d been gone so long, and there you were, just staring at where she’d been.”
“Enough, Maya.”
“Then you found her again. I can smell the way your pheromones are pumped up whenever you’re around her. I see it in your eyes, the way you look at her, and the way you’ve cared for her. Even the way you don’t care for her connections with other men. You can’t deny the strong attraction you have for her.”
Kat closed her gaping mouth, her heart pounding furiously. She ha
d felt his kindness and how caring he had been. He had never shown her any gruffness at all when she was ill. She couldn’t believe that he had been so concerned about her when she had been wounded that he hadn’t wanted to stay here any longer last year. So she couldn’t understand why he was reacting like he was now, wanting her to leave and never visit Maya.
Connor didn’t say anything. Too shocked that Maya could read him so well? Stunned that she would figure him so wrong? What was Connor’s response? Kat was dying to know.
“She can’t stay with us. That’s my final word,” he growled.
And in that instant, Kat thought that he was just like the jaguars he had raised. Just like a human who looked like his dog, except in this case he was a blond jaguar with a growly side to him, and amber eyes and a muscular body that suited the big cat as well. Yeah, if pet owners looked like their pets, he certainly did. So did Maya. Like one big, happy jaguar family.
What was bothering Connor so much about her visiting with Maya further? Kat didn’t plan to start any kind of a relationship with him, despite how much she admired him for all that he had done for her. Or that she loved the way he cared about his sister. That he’d hunt for them and clean and… well, if she was looking to settle down, she wouldn’t have looked any further.
But as far as going to their home, she just planned to visit with Maya.
Maya didn’t say a word. Kat didn’t want to get between the two, but she hoped Maya would stand up to her brother. No one had any right to tell her who she could and couldn’t visit with. That tugged deep at the heart of Kat’s own dark past.
“Maya, damn it, you know I’m right,” Connor said finally.
Kat could envision him pacing across the jungle, waiting for Maya to capitulate. And Maya standing her ground, undaunted. But then she finally spoke.
“I think…” Maya said slowly with a hint of a smile in her voice, “it might be too late.”
