Jaguar Pride (22 page)

He leaned down and kissed her mouth again, slowly, thoroughly, tongue to tongue, lips brushing and caressing. Then he smiled. “Better than talking on the phone now, wasn't it?”

She chuckled, and he rolled off her, then pulled her to lie against his chest. He could really get used to this—missions with Melissa, off-time with her, a home. He knew she wasn't ready to make any commitments yet. But he was fine with it. He aimed to show her just how much she needed him in her life, and how she couldn't live without him.

In the aftermath of their lovemaking, Melissa cuddled with Huntley, glad he'd come to see her and that he was staying the night.

He let out his breath in a satisfied sigh.

“What?” she finally said, feeling well loved and totally satiated.

“If you ever want to talk about anything… What I mean to say is that Genista and I never talked about anything important.”

“You said she wouldn't discuss missions.” Melissa yawned.

Huntley ran his hand over her shoulder in a light caress. “About anything important. Not just about missions, but about how she was feeling concerning us or life in general. Nothing. She never would open up. I don't want that to happen between you and me.”

“You mean if I think that we should live apart for a while, I should tell you that, and then—”

“Move in with me anyway,” Huntley said, and she heard the smile in his voice.

She chuckled. “Okay, so whose idea was it for her to move in with you in the first place?” That had Melissa more than a little bit concerned. Had Genista not been able to resist Huntley's persuasiveness, and in the end it didn't work out either?

“
She
did.”

Surprised, Melissa looked up at him to see if he was smiling or serious.

Appearing completely serious, he raised his brows and shrugged a little. “She had been living with her grandmother, and when her grandmother died, Genista sold off her grandmother's house. Since we were dating at the time—”

“You offered for her to move in with you.”

“No, she asked if she could stay with me until she could find a place. I said sure, thinking she would find her own place if she needed to, but then she didn't seem to want to. She never looked for one. In retrospect, I don't think she wanted to be alone after her grandmother died. But she really didn't aspire to be with me for the long term either. I think in the end she was ready to move on with her life and let me get back to mine.”

“Then here I come, looking for a place to perch for a short while,” Melissa said with a sigh.

“Yeah, but you're not moving on.”

She chuckled. “Why does that sound so much like you telling me what I'm going to do and not giving me a choice?” Even though staying with him was just what she chose to do. How could she not after everything he'd done for her during and after the mission? How he made her feel sexy and well loved, and she wanted to show him the same consideration? He was gorgeous, so virile, funny, and loving, and she had no intention of giving him up.

“Ahh, honey, I would never force a decision on you. I just need to know if you'd prefer a real home, maybe out in the countryside, or if a condo would work.”

She didn't say anything at first, just thought about a house on a lake with woods all around and how much fun that would be to take runs in the middle of the night in their spotted coats when no one was about.

“Or something else. Or just staying where we are now?” He sounded like she had already moved into his apartment, and he desperately wanted to do whatever was needed to make it work for the two of them.

She couldn't help but love him for caring so much. “A house in the woods on a lake. But that's my ideal place, not anything I would suggest for us to get—because you never know when I might decide I need to move on.”

He didn't say anything for a long time, then kissed the top of her head. “A house in the woods on a lake it is. And if you move on, the next wild she-cat I hook up with will surely like it better than my studio apartment.”

She smiled up at him. “Already planning for the next live-in girlfriend?”

He smiled down at her. “Trying to make sure
this
live-in girlfriend doesn't decide to up and move out on me.”

“I enjoy being with you, you know.”

“The feeling's one hundred percent mutual.”

She thought about what he had said when he first arrived at the room—that he didn't have a key to his room and wouldn't be able to wake his brother. For one, she'd felt the key in his jeans pocket when he had pressed his hot, clothed body against her. She hadn't said anything then because she was too wrapped up in the moment. And truly, his saying so had tickled her. But she wanted him to know she knew.

“By the way, in case you didn't realize it, you did too have your room key with you,” she said, her head pressed comfortably against his chest. They seemed to fit so nicely together this way. And she could really see this being forever.

He stroked her shoulder for some time, then finally said, “Well, I'll be damned.”

She chuckled. “Don't worry. I like it that you didn't assume I'd let you stay the night.”

He laughed and then they settled down to sleep like two big cats curled up together in perfect bliss, and she knew being with him was just so right. She was glad he hadn't slept in the same room with his brother.

***

Before dawn the next morning, the hotel phone rang next to Huntley's ear, and he needed a minute to register what was making all the racket. Four in the morning?

He lifted the receiver and grumbled, “Hello?”

“Hey, got a call from Jackson,” Everett said.

“What?” Huntley and Melissa, looking sleepy and well loved, scrambled to sit up. “Our Jackson, as in Timothy Jackson the poacher?”

“Yep, one and the same. Get dressed. He's really upset he missed meeting with me the other day to sell me the two cats. He knew I wanted them for a special project. He said the man who was to sell them to me disappeared and he feared he'd met with foul play. And then Jackson said his cats were stolen. But he's getting me another cat. This one has cubs. It won't be a mated pair, but he's going to give me a real deal.”

“Jaguars?” Huntley growled.

“No. A puma female and two cubs.”

“Hell. Okay, where are you meeting him?”

“At the park where you and Melissa were taken. He wants to meet me at that same beach.”

“Wait, why there? You're just a buyer. Why would he want you there?” Huntley was getting a really bad feeling about this.

“It's a good place for him to transport them. He said he had trouble with the transfer of the jaguars due to unforeseen circumstances, so he couldn't meet up with me at his usual location.”

“The compound where we got rid of his henchmen and freed Avery,” Huntley said.

“Has to be.”

“So why the beach?”

“I know the location since I have been there ‘watching' the courting jaguars. I know my way around the jungle. I'm sticking to the story that I have no way to capture the animals or to transport them out of the rainforest without getting caught. He wants assurance that I had nothing to do with the raid on his place.

“He said it was important to keep good connections with buyers, and he didn't want to lose my goodwill. So he wants to take me from the beach to the location of the cats, and then from there, we'll ride in the boat to another location where I can arrange to have the cats picked up if I'm agreeable.”

“It sounds like a setup to me,” Huntley said, watching Melissa as she hurried into the bathroom, naked and beautiful.

“Right. But I suspect he's hedging his bets in case I'm legitimate. He's a greedy bastard. I told him it would work for me, and once we were at the new location, I would make arrangements to have someone pick up the cats and me. He would be long gone by then. At least, that's his plan.”

“When are we supposed to be there?”

“At dusk. It'll take us that long to drive back to the park and then hike through the rainforest to reach the beach. He'll take me to where they have the cats after that.”

“You're not going alone.”

“Hell, no. I'd better have my two favorite guard cats with me. Hidden in the foliage, of course. When we spy him, they're going to take him out.”

Huntley shook his head. “Still sounds like a trap to me. Like he knew you killed his man and then had something to do with the dead men at his compound and the theft of the jaguars. He's getting you into the rainforest alone, so he can learn from you just what went down.”

“That's what I figure. But he's greedy too. If there's any chance I could be a legitimate buyer, he doesn't want to screw it up. On the other hand, if he suspects I'm on the side of the law, he'll plan to eliminate me. I already called Martin and the Whittaker brothers. They got Avery and Kathy Carrington on a plane going home, but aren't returning until tomorrow themselves. So they canceled their return flights and will join us for the show.”

“As cats?”

“Yeah,” Everett said. “Everyone else gets to have all the fun. I let Martin know what's going on. So we meet up with the Whittaker brothers, take a tent and field packs, you all change in the rainforest, and I go for a long hike as a regular old human.”

“Did Jackson ask if you were coming with anyone?”

Everett said, “Yeah. He warned me to be careful. Did I have some men with me, just in case I have any trouble due to the high water in some areas? That kind of thing. I told him I always go to the rainforest alone. Having others with me kills my being in tune with nature. He didn't say anything after that, just said he'd see me then.”

“Either he believes you're lying, or he assumes you're a nutty biologist. After what happened to his men and the cats, I'd guess that he believes you're in on it somehow. I'm surprised he would even contact you or believe you'd meet him then.”

“If he suspects I had anything to do with it, he probably figures I'll meet with him because I'm after him next.”

“Right. Okay, let me get dressed. We'll see you, grab a bite to eat, check out, and hit the road.”

Melissa came out of the bathroom wearing just a towel, looking damned sexy, and he was ready to eat her all up. Huntley growled low. “On second thought, we'll meet you downstairs in half an hour.”

She gave him a small, very wicked smile, and slipped the towel off her sweet, naked, slightly damp body.

After breakfast, Everett drove them back to Corcovado National Park. Luke and Jason Whittaker met up with them at the resort that they'd stayed at before. It was good that it was the rainy season, because the place was still half empty. But Melissa worried about the logistics of the situation, and she couldn't help feeling anxious about being shot again. However, a thick fog coated the whole area in a blanket of gray. Visibility in the rainforest proved difficult enough, but with fog, it was even worse.

Which could be good for the cats.

“What if Jackson has men watching for any sign of you and he sees you with three men and a woman?” Melissa asked, as they unpacked what they didn't need for the rainforest at the cabana.

“He might have men at the park entrances,” Everett admitted, tying on a pair of hiking boots.

“He didn't ask you which one you would be coming in at?” Huntley asked.

“I figure he'll expect me to come in through the one closest to the beach. Since that's
not
the one we'll be entering, we should be fine. I doubt he'll have enough men to watch all the entrances,” Everett said. “He doesn't even know what I look like.”

“He could have paid a park ranger to call him when you showed up and gave your ID.”

“True.”

“And asked if you had any men with you,” Melissa warned.

“Okay, so I go in alone. Some of you go in beforehand, and some of you follow me in afterward,” Everett said. “How will that work?”

“Sounds like a better plan. Melissa and I'll lead the way. I doubt he or his men would suspect us of being with you because of Melissa. Then Luke and Jason can follow behind you.”

They all agreed that the backup teams would come in about fifteen minutes apart.

So that no one would think that she and Huntley had anything to do with poachers and stealing big cats, they would play up the couple in love as they made the long hike through the muddy jungle. He liked the way she kept hugging him and kissing him, and he stopped to give her a thorough kiss like he really meant it and wasn't playacting in the least. Despite all his muscle and hard agent training, he was cute.

All the vegetation dripped from the recent rains, which had subsided for now. The team had opted for leaving the tent behind because they couldn't give it to Everett to carry once they all had shifted into their jaguar forms. Besides, the fog created enough of a gray screen to make them practically invisible when they changed.

After moving off any human-created trails, Melissa and Huntley found a nicely isolated spot in the middle of the rainforest and stripped in the thick mist.

“Don't take any unnecessary risks,” Huntley said, pulling Melissa into a tight embrace.

She held on to his naked body, pressing herself as close as she could. “Ditto, you know.” She frowned up at him. “When we get back—”

He smiled down at her. “We're getting a place together.”

She tried to smile, but she was just too worried about him, his brother, the other men, and the cats.

Huntley leaned down and kissed her. “This is a hell of a mission.”

Then she smiled up at him. She'd never dropped her clothes before shifting, then hugged a fellow agent before they went into danger. “Be careful.”

“Always.”

She kissed him back, wishing they'd already taken down Jackson, freed the cats if he really did have them, and were back home having hot sex in Huntley's studio apartment.

Reluctantly, she pulled away from him, the first time ever that mission wasn't the only thing on her mind.

After shoving their clothes into a field pack, she and Huntley shifted. He grabbed the pack with his teeth and jumped onto a high tree branch. There he shifted and secured the pack, before shifting back into his jaguar form and jumping down to the muddy earth.

Then they headed toward the main entrance to locate Everett so they could watch his back while listening and looking for signs of anyone who might be coming for him.

Before, Melissa and Huntley were fairly secure with the knowledge that nobody would bother the two lovebirds. Not when they were humans. No one would know them. Not unless the two buyers, Carlos and Pierre—or Carlos's henchmen—ended up coming to the rainforest. Everyone else who might know they had anything to do with the case was dead.

But now? They were two courting jaguars—looking suspiciously like the two that Jackson had caught earlier. Another pair like that would be extremely unlikely. So what would Jackson think if he came across them? That whoever had killed his men had returned the cats to the rainforest.

They hadn't gotten very far when all hell broke loose. Four shots rang out in the vicinity of where she guessed Everett had to be. Before they could move in that direction to help protect him, someone fired at Melissa and Huntley. A tranquilizer dart smacked a tree inches from Huntley. Both of them leaped away from the direction of the man who'd fired and had run some distance into the thick foliage when another tranquilizer clipped ferns only half a foot from Melissa.

Her heart skipped beats as she and Huntley made their way back around to where the one shooter had to be. One advantage they had, a really
big
advantage, was that the hunters would never expect the jaguars to hunt
them
. It just wasn't in the big cats' nature to do so. Though if it had been Avery and Kathy, they would have fled the area just so he could keep her safe. But not Melissa and Huntley. They lived for missions like this.

They moved cautiously, listening for any hint of men in the area, anyone moving through the brush like men normally would. The birds and monkeys and bugs were making a ruckus, but even so, Melissa could hear if a man moved through the brush. All was quiet now. No weapons being discharged. No sound of anyone crying out in pain from having been wounded. No roaring from any jaguars letting them know they were all right. Or men calling out to do the same. Or anyone on cell phones nearby, signaling what was going on.

Everyone was in hunting mode.

As much as Melissa wanted to stick close to Huntley—to ensure that she knew he stayed safe—she had to move away from him, keep her distance, and travel silently through the rainforest, hidden from his view so that the two of them couldn't be ambushed at the same time. Someone began talking some distance from her, trying to be quiet, but she heard the man's low, gruff voice and headed in his direction.

She couldn't see Huntley, but someone else moved through the tangled vines, sloshing in the water and mud, fast—away from her location. The farther she went, the wetter it got. The rains had created a perfect swampy habitat for caimans and crocs, the soupy water rising several inches up her legs now. She headed for the person speaking, watching for signs of anyone else hidden nearby and for any movement in the water. A howler monkey swung from one tree to another, catching her eye. He'd seen her stalking and hunting, which shook him up. He screamed a warning to his own kind that danger was on the prowl nearby.

But then a cat screamed—a cougar's blood-curdling human-like scream, as if in a horror flick—and Melissa's skin tingled with unease. The cougar was about a hundred yards away, if she could guess the distance despite the thick vegetation. Whoever had been talking on the phone had grown quiet.

Between the fog and the vegetation, only a couple of feet were visible as she continued to move in the direction she'd heard the man talking. She heard splashing, and she turned and listened. Then she saw a crocodile floating nearby, only its eyes above water, watching her. She moved away from the crocodile, not believing he'd go after her, but she could never tell.

After wading another twenty or so feet, not seeing or hearing anything but insects buzzing, birds twittering, and butterflies, she heard something else…cat snarls? She lifted her head and listened.
Cubs.

Jackson had told Everett he'd caught a cougar and her cubs to sell. But he would have tried to draw Everett into the swamp and then questioned him about his involvement with the jaguars stolen from Jackson's compound.

Everett hadn't gotten hold of Jackson and asked him where the cats were that he wanted to buy, or what had happened to the man that was supposed to meet him. Had Jackson's man called Jackson and told him he was going to speak with Everett? If so, did Jackson know that Everett was probably the last one to see his man alive?

Well, the JAG agents had pretty much figured out Jackson had set up a trap for Everett.

When she heard the cubs crying, even though she knew better, Melissa couldn't help herself. Their woeful cries drew her toward them. But where was the mother?

Then she saw a burlap sack hanging from a tree branch and two little cubs squirming inside, crying. Had to be cougar cubs, which made her think of the ones they had rescued earlier. She couldn't free the cubs out there in the swampy area—something might prey on them. She had to locate the mother and free her.

She was fairly certain someone was watching the sack of cubs, waiting for someone to go after them. That observer wouldn't expect a golden jaguar to come for them. Though the observer might believe the jaguar was a female that had responded to the sound of cubs crying due to maternal instinct. A she-cat's need to foster the abandoned cougar cubs. She'd heard of a big cat killing a baboon, then discovering an infant crying nearby. The cat had actually nursed the infant. So anything was possible.

A footstep in the squishy mud alerted her that someone was to her right. She dashed into the large leafy understory and came around to attack the man, but he'd taken off into the swamp. She could sort of run in the water by leaping through it until it got too deep, and then she had to dog-paddle.

Whoever it was splashed away, trying to swim through the mucky swamp.

When she saw him, he turned, and the horror on his face meant he knew she wouldn't let him live. He brought up his rifle and fired as she leaped at him. As close as she was to him, she thought he would have hit her. Probably would have, if the rifle hadn't misfired.

Thank God for small miracles. She landed on him, shoving him into the swamp. He struggled with her, trying to move her forelegs off him, but then he quit trying and she was certain from the way he moved about that he was going for a knife. If she could just hold him down long enough, he'd drown before he could cut her. She felt a slice of pain in her right foreleg, but didn't give up, didn't move off him, and waited until he quit struggling. She got off him and he floated to the surface of the water, and then she saw movement in the water. Another crocodile. But where was the mother cougar?

Leaving the man to the crocodile, she swam away from him and headed back to the tree where the cubs were suspended from the branch. Then she made circles around the area, looking for the mother cat until she found her in a sack tied to another tree. She was quiet, and Melissa assumed she'd been tranquilized, but the cubs hadn't been this time.

Now what was she to do? She couldn't move the mother cougar, and she couldn't move the cubs. She returned to the cubs and jumped into the tree, hoping Huntley was all right. That his brother and the Whittaker brothers were all right as well.

She licked at her bloodied wound. Not too deep, but she'd need to clean it up once she was out of there. She wanted to roar for Huntley, to let him know where she was, but she couldn't without also letting the poachers know she was there. So she lay down on the branch and guarded the cubs like she'd done with them before. Only that time they'd been on dry land and not hanging in sacks over swampy land. And this time she was alone, praying that everyone else was okay.

***

Huntley heard the cougar scream and the cubs snarling, and he knew beyond a doubt Melissa would head their way. He was chasing his own prey—the man who had shot at him and missed. Huntley heard something moving in a tree nearby. The fog clung to the trees and earth, making the visibility nonexistent for anything any distance away, but the man couldn't see him either. The poacher couldn't hear the jaguar like the cat could hear him, though.

Huntley moved around the tree to come in from the back in case the shooter was ready to hit him with another dart.

And then Huntley saw him, his rifle ready, waiting for the jaguar to move into his sights.

Huntley jumped into the tree, let the man see an up-close and really snarly view of an angry jaguar, and then killed him with one swing of his paw, breaking the man's neck and sending him flying into the muddy swamp below.

Now Huntley had to locate Melissa, and then he was going back for his brother. He roared for Melissa, and way off in the distance, he heard her roar back for him. Thank God. He ran through the shallower areas of the swamp-covered land, had to paddle some, and saw a damn fer-de-lance swimming toward him. They were so aggressive that it wouldn't hesitate to attack, but neither would Huntley. Then it veered off and went on its way as if it suddenly realized the jaguar wasn't one to mess with.

Huntley continued to swim as fast as he could. Though jaguars were powerful swimmers, able to go against strong currents and long distances, they couldn't paddle very fast. Then he saw a dead man floating in the swamp and a rifle next to him. Melissa's handiwork, he was sure. A crocodile had already taken a bite out of the man's leg. Huntley continued on his way when he saw a sack hanging from a tree, no movement in it, and as he looked higher, perched on a branch was Melissa, his beautiful golden jaguar.

He leaped into the tree and nuzzled her as she practically purred to him. Then he shifted and saw her bloodied leg. It wasn't cut badly, but she still was bleeding a little and he wanted in the worse way to carry her out of here and take care of her wound. “If you're all right here, I'm going back to make sure my brother and the others are okay. Can you hold out without us for a little while longer?”