Joining the Jaguar: BBW Paranormal Jaguar Shifter Romance (5 page)

Jolene opened the door for them. She looked haggard and red-eyed. "Thank you both so much for coming," she said, giving them a shaky smile.

Jake caught her in a quick, warm hug. "Hey. She's gonna be fine. Doc's here now," he said gently.

Jolene's shoulders shook, as if she was swallowing down a sob. "Emily's through here," she said, leading them a small bedroom decorated in pink and purple. Emily was curled up small and pale in her bed, her forehead damp with sweat. Jolene watched anxiously while Sarah examined her.

"She's gonna be fine," Sarah finally said. "It's the flu. She should be through the worst of it in a few hours."

"So I don't need to take her to the hospital? I would have taken her already, but we can't really afford—but if she needs
—
" Jolene's voice was shaking.

"We'll take care of her. She'll be fine." Sarah hesitated, looking at Jolene's anxious, tear-stained face. "I'll stay for a couple hours, okay? I'll give her some IV fluids, and that way I'll be on hand if anything changes."

"Oh, I can't ask you to
—
" Jolene started.

Sarah sighed. "I'm awake anyway. And tomorrow's Saturday, I can catch up on my sleep then."

"Thank you so much. Seriously, I don't know how to ever thank you," Jolene said.

"Bake me a cake some time. And if you've got a couch I could crash on
—
"

"Yes, of course," Jolene said immediately.

"I'll stay, too," Jake said.

Sarah startled a little at the sound of his voice; she'd been so focused on the kid, she'd almost forgotten he was here. Emily, who'd been exhausted and apathetic through most of the examination, opened her eyes. "Uncle Jake!"

"Hey, kiddo," Jake said. He crouched down beside the bed and stroked a few sweaty strands of hair back from her eyes. Emily gave him a tired smile. "Can I see the big cat, Uncle Jake?"

"Yeah, sure. Just for you." Jake gave her a smile. He closed his eyes for a moment. The change was so rapid and fluid, Sarah could hardly see it happen. One moment it was Jake crouching beside the bed, broad-shouldered and gorgeous, and the next, he was the jaguar.

"Kitty!" Emily called gleefully.

She reached out a hand. The jaguar nudged his big head against her palm and held patiently still while Emily petted his sleek fur.

Sarah watched them a little incredulously. In his jaguar form, Jake was enormous and powerful. His head came up over her hip, and when he moved, she could see the muscles shifting beneath his skin like steel cables. 'Kitty' wasn't exactly the word that came to mind. But Jake was patient and careful with the kid, and when she slumped back against the pillow, exhausted, he laid his big head beside her shoulder and purred loudly until she finally dropped off into a peaceful sleep. After that, he followed Sarah to Jolene's living room, where he shifted back.

"'Kitty', huh?" Sarah said with a grin.

Jake grinned. "What, did you think I went around scaring kids in my spare time? I like children."

"I can tell. You're good with her," Sarah said.

"She's a good kid. And they haven't always had an easy time of it, her and Jo."

God damn it, this was awful. It'd be so much easier if she could keep thinking of him as a smug jerk. He was already gorgeous, firmly out of her league, and completely unattainable—did he also have to be a caring alpha who was great with kids?

Sarah flopped back on the couch with a groan, swinging her legs up over the armrest.

"Nice pants," Jake said with a smile.

Sarah winced. Right. She was still wearing her pajama pants, with their faded pink pattern of cutesy daisies. Why hadn't she changed into something a little more professional? Why did she have to keep showing him her worst sides?

She closed her eyes for a moment.

"Why are you doing this?" Jake asked quietly.

She frowned at him. "Because that kid's got a fever, and someone needs to make sure she stays properly hydrated?"

"No, I mean—well, that too. You could have just sent her to the hospital, you know. Most doctors would have. I mean, all of this. Working in Brooksville. All those house calls you do. You're brilliant. You could've gotten a job at a teaching hospital in one of the big cities."

Sarah blinked at the unexpected compliment. "That's not what I wanted," she said. "There's a hundred doctors just as good as me in any big city. Out here, I can make a difference. Look, you know Jolene can't afford an overnight stay in the hospital. All I wanted was a job where I can help people, and I can do that here."

"You're a good person," Jake said quietly.

"What about you?" Sarah asked. "How on Earth did you end up with a pack like that? I've never even heard of so many different kinds of shifters working together. Jaguars aren't even pack animals!"

Jake shrugged. "To be honest, it just kind of happened. I grew up here," he said. "But then I went away for college for a few years, and when I came back, the bikers had gotten their claws into Brooksville, and everything was... different. Gangs, violence... I'm sure you've heard the stories. So I just started pushing back a little. There's not that many shifters willing to mess with a jaguar. And that's when I met Vince. He'd just left the Army back then
—
"

"Vincent was in the Army?" Sarah interrupted. It was hard to imagine. The more she'd gotten to know the huge bear shifter, the more she'd come to realize that despite his intimidating size, he was one of the gentlest men she'd ever met.

"Yeah. It's a long story, and not really mine to tell," Jake said. "He wasn't in a great place back then. Anyway, we ended up becoming friends, and then we started working together to get the criminals out of our territory, and things just kind of happened from there. The wolf shifters... The bikers didn't want them forming into a pack, because they'd be afraid a real wolf pack would be trouble for them. They'd tolerate lone wolves, but... well, wolves just don't do well without a pack. And there wasn't an alpha among them. So they ended up joining me and Vince, and I guess I ended up their alpha by default. I mean, someone had to take care of them. After that... we were already a pack made up of a jaguar, a bear, and a bunch of wolves, so there didn't seem a reason to keep anyone from joining just for being a coyote, or a lynx."

So he'd seen a scattered bunch of people in need of help, and he'd united them, given them a home, and in the process, made the whole town a better place. Oh God, she needed to stop talking to him. The longer they talked, the more she ended up liking him. And of course it didn't help that he was sitting back in the armchair with his legs slightly spread, his jeans bulging just enough at the crotch to remind her of what she knew lay beneath the fabric...

Sarah tore her eyes away with an effort.

Thankfully, that's when Jolene reappeared from Emily's room, and she could finally get back to focusing on Emily before she could make an even bigger fool of herself than she already had.

Her eyes threatened to fall shut when she finally sat down on the couch again. Jake looked exhausted, too. Maybe some conversation would keep them both awake.

"Do you have any family?" she asked.

Jake's face tightened. Sarah winced internally. Good job. She'd picked the first random topic that came to mind and immediately managed to land on a sore spot.

"The pack's my family," Jake said, with unconvincing lightness, deflecting the question. But then he took a deep breath. "My parents are alive," he added abruptly. "They're not… Don't get me wrong, they're not bad people. They weren't cruel to me, nothing like that. They just never much cared for me, either."

He shrugged as if it didn't matter to him, but Sarah could see the tension in his shoulders as he went on. "I don't know why they ever had kid at all. I guess my father thought he needed an heir. But then they realized you can't jet around the world with a baby in tow, so they mostly left me with my nannies and went off to Monaco or Paris. I wasn't ever what they wanted."

Jake sighed, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees. "I'm sorry. This all sounds way more terrible than it is when you say it out loud. I've never talked about this with anyone before. I've got my pack now, that's all the family I need. These people have stood with me through thick and thin. They're always there when I need them, and not because they have to, but because they choose to stand with me. That's what matters."

Jake smiled. "I couldn't love Vincent more if he was my brother by blood, and with all the kids around, it's like having a whole bunch of nieces and nephews." He nodded towards the bedroom where Emily was sleeping, his face softening.

Sarah felt an ache blooming in her chest as he spoke. He made it sound so lovely, this huge warm family drawn together not by blood but by love; she'd never been part of anything like that, but she felt she could understand why just talking about it made his face light up with joy.

"What about your family?" Jake asked.

Talk about a loaded question. Why had she ever gotten them onto this topic? But now that he'd been so honest with her she couldn't be any less honest in return. And he was looking at her with so much genuine interest, she suddenly felt she could tell him everything without fear of being judged.

"I never knew my dad," she said. "I guess he didn't have any more use for a baby than your parents did, but they certainly didn't have the money for a nanny. My mom always liked to drink a little more than she should have, but it got pretty bad by the time I was in high school. Let's just say there was a reason I applied to a med school on the opposite coast of where I grew up. She's doing better now," she added hurriedly. "She went through rehab, got married again. She's pretty busy with her new family. She calls me on Christmas sometimes, when she remembers."

Sarah shrugged, embarrassed. Jake was right, this kind of stuff sounded worse if you said it out loud. But Jake was still looking at her with that warm, kind look on his face, no judgment or pity in his eyes.

"Tell me a funny story about your pack," she said, to break the tension.

Jake grinned, willing to let himself be distracted. "All right. I've got plenty of those," he said.

The both of them talked through the dark hours of the night. Jake was incredibly easy to talk to. Being alpha of the pack meant he knew everything interesting that happened in the town, and he had a wealth of stories to share. But he listened when she talked, too. She told him about the years she'd spent working in the emergency room, told him things she'd never told anyone before.

When they finally fell silent, both of them tired and worn after the long night, it was a comfortable, familiar silence, the kind she'd only ever had with close friends. She felt as if she'd known him for years.

She reminded herself to be careful. During their entire long talk, he'd given no indication that he was interested in her as anything more than a friend, and the last thing she needed was to lose her heart to him more than she already had.

But deep inside, she knew it was already too late. Just the sight of him made her heart beat faster. She wanted him like she'd never wanted a man before in her life, and her heart clenched miserably at the thought that she'd never be with him again.

By the time the sun came up, Emily's fever had broken, and she was sleeping a deep, restful sleep. Jolene, beaming and grateful, made them an enormous breakfast of pancakes and bacon. Jake smiled at her when she tucked in with enthusiasm, offering the last piece of bacon off his plate.

They said goodbye in the parking lot with a handshake that lasted maybe a little longer than it could have. But no, probably it was only her imagination that Jake hesitated to let go of her hand.

***

After that night, Sarah couldn't seem to stop thinking about Jake. She dreamed of him more nights than not, woke up wet and aching with her hands between her thighs, and brought herself to an overwhelming climax thinking of him.

She thought of trying to find someone else, to get him off her mind, but the idea didn't appeal to her. She didn't want anyone else.

She threw herself into her work instead, working longer and longer hours. There was always something that needed to be done, after all.

One night, somewhere around the end of her third month in Brooksville, she left the office sometime around nine. It was dark already, and the bulb in the porch light was out. She fumbled with the key in the darkness.

Someone grabbed her from behind. Strong arms wrapped around her, trapping her arms against her chest and squeezing her hard enough to steal her breath. A big hand pressed a foul-smelling cloth over her mouth and nose. She screamed, muffled through the cloth, and stamped her heel down hard on her attacker's foot. He grunted in pain, but his grip on her didn't let up.

His arms tightened so hard she was worried he'd crack her ribs. It squeezed all the breath out of her, and when he finally loosened his hold, she dragged in a desperate breath filled with the sharp smell of chloroform. Her eyes dropped shut. She collapsed in his arms.

***

Sarah woke up in a small, windowless room, curled up on a thin mattress pad. A single bare bulb high up in a corner cast a dim yellow glow. The bare concrete walls were damp, and the floor felt icy cold.