Jaguar Fever

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?”

“It’s for Maya.” David grabbed it and headed over to the table where she was sitting.

Still unsettled about Maya’s behavior and what he’d said wrong to her, Wade took a seat beside Candy and ordered her a margarita.

“Is your brother also a hunter?” Candy asked.

“Yeah, he is.”

“Thought so.” She leaned back on the chair covered in leopard print. “It looks like he’s got Maya’s attention.”

Wade turned to see what his brother was up to. He was taking Maya to the dance floor, leaving her drink sitting on the other men’s table! On one level, he knew his brother was really in protective mode, taking care of her so the other clowns didn’t think they had a chance with her. That didn’t change how Wade was feeling about her.

Where the hell were her cousins? And why was she so mad at him?

“So, you want to split and go somewhere else… less noisy?” Candy asked.

Maya was having the worst night. She wanted desperately to dance with Wade, but first her cousins said they couldn’t make it to her place on time, and then her brother and she’d had a big fight over her coming to the club alone. She knew he only had her best interests at heart, but she also figured that if she helped Wade and his brother out on this case, maybe they could track down the buyer of the jaguar and Lion Mane.

That a buyer for jaguar flesh was still out there was bad enough, but Lion Mane was another story.

The only way she could think to make this work was to act angry and make a scene in front of Wade. It was killing her to do so. He looked so upset with her, like he wanted to shake some sense into her and murder the human she was dancing with. She was grateful when David came to her rescue and asked her to dance.

“Humans,” David said as he moved her across the floor, careful not to hold her too close and stir up his brother’s ire.

She didn’t say anything. Sure, the guys were humans, but she hadn’t wanted to dance with shifters. She’d noticed several eyeing her, a couple that she’d seen the last time, but no sign of Lion Mane.

She didn’t want to tell David the truth—that she was doing this so Wade would have a chance to learn something from Candy—and have him spill the beans to Wade.

“He’s upset,” David said quietly, studying her.

She looked down at his shirt. “I’m upset.” Looking up at him, she said, “Okay?”

“With Wade?”

She swallowed hard. David smiled. Damn it. She didn’t have to say anything, and David would know the truth. She glanced at Wade. He was watching her but sitting with Candy, who was looking smug.

As soon as Candy saw Maya look in her direction, the woman ran her hand over Wade’s hand resting on the table near his beer. Wade looked down at Candy, and she whispered in his ear. Maya wanted to jerk the woman off her seat and toss her to the floor.

When Wade shifted his attention back to Maya, she put her arms around David’s neck, moved closer, and kissed him on the mouth.

“Hell, Maya, what are you trying to do to me? My brother’s going to kill me,” David said, not appearing terribly upset about the consequences.

She smiled at him in the most wicked way. Of course she didn’t want Wade to kill his brother, but if she was going to make this real, she had to do something. Wade wasn’t taking the bait.

Then Wade was on his feet, dragging Candy along with him. His face was dark with anger. He was supposed to be dancing with Candy, not stomping across the dance floor to intercept her and David.

“Uh-oh,” David warned. “That kiss did it.”

Wade was going to ruin it. “Fine. Let’s return to the table.” She started to pull away from David.

“No, I don’t think so. I don’t know what your game is, but I’m letting Wade call the shots before I get myself killed over this.” David tightened his grip on her waist.

She rolled her eyes. “He loves you as a brother.”

David snorted. “When it comes to you, that notion goes out the window.”

The dancers moved out of Wade’s path as if they sensed the big cat’s anger.

When he reached Maya and David, Wade hauled Candy over to his brother, offering her arm to him. “She wants to dance,” he said, his voice dark.

Then he took hold of Maya’s hand and quickly moved her away.

“What the hell is going on?” he growled.

“You are screwing everything up.” She glowered up at him, tears in her eyes.

The tears undid him. Immediately his hard-set jaw and scowling features softened. He began to kiss her, and she half expected David to pull them apart and tell them to get a room.

But Wade’s kisses were not hot and molten like before. Instead, he was tender and caring, and she had the damnedest time not crying. “I missed you,” she said, tears in her voice and eyes as she slipped her arms around his neck and he pulled her close against his body.

“Strange way of showing it,” he said, kissing her hair, her cheek, her lips. Yet his voice was no longer growly, as if the cat in him knew she was back to being his.

“I’m worried about Kat and my brother, about Lion Mane going to the nursery with the intention of killing me, and them becoming collateral damage. I wanted to help you learn more from Candy if she showed up, and she did. She was near the front door when I arrived, then followed me in. I knew if I said hi to you in the way I wanted, we’d… we’d end up like this. You needed to dance with her and learn what you could from her. She needed to believe I was breaking up with you.”

Infuriatingly, he smiled and shook his head. “We can’t be breaking up with each other if you’re not seeing me exclusively.”

“You know what I mean.”

“I missed you,” he said softly against her ear, as if he didn’t care about anything but showing how much he wanted her, needed her in his life—as if anything else was half as important. “It was killing me not to make the two-hour drive to your place and pick you up. I wish your cousins had let me know they weren’t arriving at the airport in time to bring you.”

Getting back to the topic they needed to discuss, she asked, “Did you learn anything?”

He snorted. “That I can’t stand the sight of anyone else’s hands on you. That human was about to lose both his arms if he made any more moves on you.”

She gave Wade a tentative smile. “I meant about the case.”

“Candy knows a buyer. Maybe not the one we’re after. But maybe.”

“Good. Shouldn’t we still be fighting?”

“Hell, no,” he growled. “If my brother had kissed you back, he’d have been sporting a shiner and a broken noise.”

“He was only being protective.”

“I know. It’s the only reason we’re not going to have words over it.”

She sighed and ran her hand over Wade’s arm. “I don’t think I’ll be returning to their table, and I didn’t get even a sip of my drink.”

“I’ll get you three more, but you’re sticking by my side.”

She took a deep breath. “Wade, we have another problem. Remember Thompson? He saw my cousins and maybe you at the nursery garden… as jaguars.”