Terry Spear - [Shifter 02] (15 page)

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.

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.”

Wade couldn’t believe Thompson had seen Maya’s cousins in their jaguar forms. What next?

He kept Maya locked against his body, her head settling on his chest, their moves as one as the music continued to beat. He swept his hands over her back as hers wrapped around his waist, their scents mixing as they claimed each other, their body posture telling anyone who might be watching that they were a couple, together, in their own world, and unapproachable.

He understood her misguided need to push him away, to offer him a way to resolve the situation with Lion Mane, but he wasn’t going to allow her to do it. He wanted the shifter to know he was Maya’s protector, joined at the hip with her if need be. The bastard wouldn’t touch her again.

His phone buzzed at his hip, and he lifted it off his belt, checked the caller ID, and saw that it was her cousin Everett. “Hey, we’re at the club. Are you joining us?”

“We’re visiting with Connor and Kat. Connor said Maya isn’t answering her phone. Is she there with you?”

Wade rubbed her back, his body hard with need as she molded to him. “Yeah, she’s here.” Was she ever. In the flesh—hot, sexy, and all his, as far as he was concerned. Hell, he was ready to move into Connor and Kat and Maya’s house to ensure he didn’t lose Maya.

“Good. Keep her there with you until we arrive.”

“I’ll take care of her.”

Maya purred.

Everett didn’t say anything for a moment, then he asked, “Are you bringing her back here tonight?”

“We haven’t decided yet. We have some making up to do.”

Maya smiled up at him and shook her head.

The movement of someone big heading toward their table caught Wade’s eye. “Oh hell. Thompson’s here. If Connor didn’t fill you in on the latest news concerning what a particular zoo man has seen, ask him about it. Got to go, Everett.” He ended the call.

Maya turned her head to look in Thompson’s direction. He waved at them as if they were old buddies, pointing at their table, and Wade nodded.

The zoo man sat down on one of the free chairs.

“Great,” Maya said under her breath, her hands cupping Wade’s buttocks.

“Hmm, Maya, we’re really going to have to get a room. I’m not sure I’m willing to wait the two hours to get back to your place after we leave here.” The ruby-colored dress was just too provocative, along with her scent and the way she moved like a slender, sleek cat rubbing up against him. He took a deep breath and kissed the top of her head. “I don’t want you seeing anyone else.”

There
, he’d said it. He had wanted it to be
her
choice, but observing her with other guys made him ready to have one hell of a catfight, and he didn’t think killing another man who’d had his hands all over her would encourage his relationship with her in a positive way.

“I don’t want to be with anyone else,” she said on a sigh.

Relief washed over him, and he smiled.

She quickly added, “It doesn’t mean that I don’t worry about… us and what will happen in the future. Or that I’m not anxious about whether I’m leaping into something that neither of us will be happy with in the long run.” She looked up at him, and he saw the worry in her golden eyes.

“Maya…”

She shook her head. “Kat told me I’m projecting my parents’ failure onto our relationship.”

Wade kissed her forehead. “It doesn’t matter. We are not your parents, and whatever happened between them has nothing to do with us.”

“That’s what Kat said.”

“Good. I like Kat. She gave you some sound advice.”

“I want to know the truth about our dad. Kat suggested maybe he hadn’t fathered us and that’s why he left when my mom was pregnant.”

“We can look into it.” Not that he wanted to learn anything she might be unhappy about, but he’d help her just the same.

“What are we going to do about Thompson?” she asked.

“That’s another matter entirely. What do you want to say? Stick to your shifter story?”

She rolled her eyes. “Isn’t your organization involved in keeping our status secret?”

“Truthfully, I haven’t a clue as to how to handle this. Come on. The dance has ended. Let’s go see what
he
has to say about us.” Wade escorted a very tense Maya back to the table.

He nodded at Thompson, who stood and raised his beer to them, his eyes drifting to Maya and her dress, a slight smile curving his mouth. Then he said to Wade, “I hope I’m not intruding.”

As if he really hadn’t meant to.

“Not at all. It’s good to see old friends.”

Thompson smiled a little at the comment, but then a frown marred his forehead. He sat down and leaned forward against the table as if he didn’t want the rest of the people in the club to hear. “I checked news reports to see if jaguars—male type—had been stolen from other zoos.”

“And you found?” Wade asked, his fingers threading through Maya’s as they sat across from him.

“None. But you already knew that, didn’t you?”

“That you’d been searching for missing jaguars or that you had found none? How would I know that? Besides, we’ve been in Belize for the past week.”

“Both of you?” Thompson said, sounding surprised. Then he narrowed his blue eyes at Wade. “Of course. A jaguar haven.”

“Which is exactly where they belong,” Wade said.

“And that’s why three big males were roaming through Maya’s garden center? Maybe even four of them?”

“They were?” Wade asked, squeezing Maya’s hand. She looked cool and collected, but her hand was cold and clammy in his. “I’m sure Maya’s customers would have reported it, and when she got home, she would have heard about it. Three, you say? Or four? So were the sightings reported? Since she’s mentioned nothing to me about that—”

Thompson skirted the question. “I know what I saw.”

“So it happened at night? Early morning? When we were gone? Before we left for Belize? I’m just trying to get a picture of it in my mind,” Wade said, studying the big man.

Thompson sat back on his chair and regarded Wade coolly but didn’t say a word.

Wade shrugged and took a swallow of beer, set the iced glass on the table, and considered Thompson further. “Okay, if you were there when the garden shop wasn’t open, you must have been trespassing.”

Thompson’s face reddened. “I want my cat back,” he said.

“Fair enough. Maya’s already told you that she had nothing to do with your stolen cat.”

Thompson tapped his fingers on the table, then lifted his beer mug. “They’re dangerous predators. Not a feral animal you can truly train. Sure, circuses give the illusion they have the wild cats coached to do as the trainer wishes, but in the end, the beast is never tamed. You’re fighting with fire when you let those big cats run loose. Someone’s going to get injured. Maybe killed.” He looked at Maya.

“You’re right, of course,” she said. “They’re dangerous. No one would have let a bunch of jaguars loose on their property unless they wanted to suffer the consequences.”

Thompson folded his arms, his eyes dark and troubled. “This is not something to joke about. I know you’re involved. If I’d had any doubts, I wouldn’t after what I saw.”

Maya lifted her tall glass and took another sip of her drink. “Why do you think I have anything to do with the jaguars?”

Thompson left out his breath. “They were serving as guard cats. One stood with you in the entryway of the back door of your home. They ran in and out of your place as if they belonged there. Hell, I was ready to run in and try to save you!”

Her lips parted a little. Wade couldn’t help but admire the man for having been terrified but still wanting to protect Maya.

Thompson waited for Maya to respond. She sat silently. Even Wade didn’t know what to say to that.

“You didn’t report it,” Wade finally said.

“No. You must have packed the cats up in your vehicles the next morning and taken off with them. There wasn’t anything to report that anyone would have believed.”

It wasn’t good that Thompson thought they had a bunch of jaguars at the garden nursery, but he didn’t have proof, and he hadn’t seen any of them shift.

Wade squeezed Maya’s hand. “There is no such thing as a trained jaguar guard cat. Maya and her family don’t own any jaguars, male or otherwise. That’s all we’ve got to say about it.”

Thompson shifted his attention from Wade to Maya. “You remind me of a lady I know—Bella Wilder. She loved wolves and we’re pretty sure she freed a wolf from the Oregon Zoo. I’d taken the female wolf to the zoo to protect her, and she was getting to know another red wolf when she vanished and a naked female—Bella—ended up in her place. Now, we’re friends, but I still believe she and her husband had removed the wolf and freed her into the wild.”

Wade didn’t look to see how Maya was reacting to the news. Just because some crazy woman who loved wolves thought to release one into the wild, it didn’t have anything to do with them.

“I’m beginning to think we have a similar situation here. Except wolves do run wild in Oregon. Jaguars don’t in Texas,” Thompson said.

David headed back to the table with Candy, his face dark. “Can I have a word with you alone, Wade?”

Wade was torn. He couldn’t take Maya with them. Why the hell weren’t her cousins here yet? He couldn’t leave her here alone. Thompson was studying them, analyzing the situation.

“I’ll be okay,” Maya quickly said. “You guys go take care of business. Thompson and I can just talk about plants or something.”

“We’ll be right back.” Wade kissed her cheek, gave Thompson a look that warned him not to upset Maya, then rose from the table. He squeezed Maya’s hand, then left the club to speak in private with Candy and his brother.

***

“What’s going on?” Wade asked Candy in the alley beside the club as David listened in.

Candy smiled up at him. “I called the buyer. He said we can meet him at another location tonight if you want to do some business with him.”

Wade had two choices—leave his brother to watch over Maya and try to take down whoever the buyer was on his own, or take Maya with them. He didn’t like either choice.

David must have been thinking along the same lines. “We can’t take Maya with us.”

“That’s right,” Candy said. “She can’t go along for the ride.”

Wade ignored her.

David cleared his throat and said to Wade, “Our friend Thompson could take her home.”

Wade knew what he was referring to. Thompson had protected her at the club before, and Martin had checked him out and determined he was one of the good guys. Wade still didn’t like the idea.

“It’s about our only choice.”

“The buyer won’t wait forever,” Candy warned.

“All right,” Wade said, hating to agree to this. But if they could take down the buyer, they had to do it. He wasn’t certain that Maya would go along with the plans, but he didn’t want her driving home alone, either. “Wait for me at the car. I’ll be right back.”

Wade stalked into the club and saw Maya watching for his return. He smiled at her, and as soon as he reached the table, he pulled her into his arms and said into her ear for her hearing only, “We’ve got a chance to meet the buyer.”

Her eyes widened.

“I don’t want you to drive home alone,” he said out loud.

“I’ll be fine.”

“I’ve got to take care of business. I don’t want you to be alone,” he said again. “If your cousins were here…”

“I could wait for them.”

“No, it could still take a couple of hours for them to get here.” He glanced at the dancers in the club. He was afraid Lion Mane might show up still.

“You need me to take her home?” Thompson asked.

Not looking really pleased but knowing how important this was, she finally let out her breath. “Okay, Thompson can follow me home if he doesn’t mind. We both have our own vehicles.”

Wade gave her a searing kiss and another hug, then reached over to shake Thompson’s hand. “Thanks. I owe you one.”

“I promise you I’ll see her safely home.”

“Thanks.” Then hating it, but pumped up about catching the buyer, he gave Maya one last squeeze and headed out of the club.

“Do you want one last dance?” Thompson asked Maya.

Yeah, with Wade.
She looked up at Thompson. “Sure, but I want you to know we’re the good guys.”

“Good guys, how?”

“We don’t steal jaguars. We love them. We would protect them with our lives, but we don’t steal them.”

“I don’t understand. So you’re saying you bought them? Don’t you have to have a license to have them in Texas? Facilities to house them? They can’t be running loose like I saw.”

She danced with Thompson, her attention drifting to three men lurking at the edge of the dance floor, shifters. “Yeah, I agree. We don’t have any jaguars. Despite what you think you saw.” Before the dance ended, she said to Thompson, “We better go before there’s another fight.”

Thompson looked at the men who were lined up, eyeing her. “You’re still popular, I see.”

“I’m a wild cat. Didn’t you know?”

He smiled down at her. “As in shifter. Like you told me before.”

“Sure.” She took his hand and skirted around the men, trying to avoid them. Without David and Wade or her cousins to run interference, the shifters zeroed in on her.

“Wanna dance?” one of the men asked, trying to block Thompson from moving Maya out of the club.

“No, thank you.”

The man grabbed her arm. “Just one dance.”

“Let her go,” Thompson said, his words dark with threat.

The shifter released her. Thompson moved Maya quickly through the club. “They’re following us,” he said under his breath to her.

Not liking this, Maya picked up her pace. Thompson swiftly escorted her to her car. She stared at the tires, punctured, as if the rubber had melted against the hot pavement. Her blood iced with anger.

She glanced back at the club and saw the shifters hesitating at the doorway.

“Come on. I’ll take you in my truck, and your cousins or your boyfriend and his brother can take care of your car,” Thompson said.

She hated leaving her car, but she figured they could be in more of a mess if the shifters decided to play hardball with the human.