Jaguar Hunt

by Terry Spear

  He couldn’t deny how much he needed her. The way she teased and played with him proved she wanted him, wanted this as much as he did.

  That he was important. That they were more important.

  She stroked his arms and smiled up at him, appearing perfectly content. “How about…two weeks?”

  Chapter 32

  Two weeks later, David arrived home from work after an unbelievable day, thinking about the close-to-home assignment he now had after marrying Tammy. He’d thought that they’d have a little marriage ceremony, as fast as they had thrown it together. He wasn’t waiting to marry her. But between her mother, Maya, Kat, and a dozen female Enforcers, they had put on a show to rival the Queen of England’s.

  Everyone came—her family and his; the JAG members who could attend, saying this was the event of the century as they never thought either he or his brother would marry; her Enforcer friends, including Weaver and Krustan; and Henry Thompson, so thrilled to get his jaguar back. Even Gertie Jessup and several more of Tammy’s neighbors helped fill the church pews to capacity and then the Arboretum for the reception.

  Glad it was a whirlwind affair and over and done with, he had moved right into Tammy’s home, vacating his apartment, pronto. He sighed as he unlocked the front door of the house and walked in, still not believing the assignment Martin had given him.

  Her boss and his were trying to keep them together while Tammy and David enjoyed their newlywed days. Which he loved—they were perfect for each other, and getting to know each other meant movies and dinners and lots of kitty-cat loving.

  But he hadn’t expected that to mean he’d get stuck with the kind of job he did. On top of that? He had to take Tammy to the theater tonight when all he wanted to do was kick off his shoes and the rest of his clothes, undress her, and spend a whole hell of a lot of quality time in bed.

  “You won’t believe what the boss assigned me to do,” David said, pulling Tammy into his arms as she greeted him at the door with a hug and kiss.

  “Hmm, I love you.” And she kissed him soundly back.

  “The feeling is totally mutual, honey.” He smelled her heavenly she-cat fragrance and sniffed at the air. His brows rose. “Steaks?”

  “Yep.”

  He kissed her mouth and hugged her tight. “I love you. How did you know I could use a steak when I got home?”

  “The boys called me.”

  He grunted. “Hell, so you already know Martin gave me the mission of training them.”

  “You’ll be good at it.”

  “Ha! They actually said they wouldn’t work with any other instructor. Can you believe that not only would they dictate terms to the JAG director, but that Martin would agree? Not only did I get stuck with training Alex and Nate, but the other twins, too.”

  She chuckled. “And you love it.” She pulled him into the dining room where she’d set out perfumed lilac candles, steaks, baked potatoes, soft rolls, and spinach.

  He eyed the huge bouquet of roses and the coupons attached to it as they sat down at the table. “What…?”

  “From Henry Thompson. Lifetime passes for the Oregon Zoo. He also sent some to the boys. And he’s paying their way to come see Aurelia after their training ends.”

  “Aurelia?”

  “The missing jaguar. Aurelia is Spanish for golden. That’s what the boys called her, and Thompson renamed her that for the zoo.”

  “Huh. I never thought of her as anything more than the missing zoo cat. As to the boys and their training, they’re doing their damnedest to make it as fun as it can be. I don’t know who’s learning more, them or me. Anticipating how to deal with their next antics and trying to stay on top and in charge is truly a challenge.”

  “I’m sure you’re doing a great job.”

  He smiled and then got serious as he buttered his potato. “The worst of it is that everyone in the branch knows what I’m stuck doing. I’ve had more people drop by to watch the training, as if it was a damn spectator sport.”

  She smiled a little as if she was amused.

  “The thing of it is,” he said, cutting into his steak, “the boys don’t think I’m giving them training that’s challenging enough.”

  She raised her brows and buttered a roll. “Truly? I would think that you would do a good job of keeping them busy.”

  “No,” he said. “Not according to them.”

  Her phone played the jaguar song, and she paused to get it.

  “Go on. I promise I will only eye your steak and not eat it.”

  She patted him on the shoulder. “Remember, I’m a jaguar, too. You eat my meat and you pay for it.”

  He laughed. He loved her.

  Tammy lifted her phone off the kitchen counter. “My boss.” She answered it and noticed David smiling an awful lot, like he knew just why her boss was calling her. Had Sylvan approved her leave so she and David could go to Costa Rica for their honeymoon? But now if David was training the boys, he couldn’t go right away. She sighed.

  “Tammy, I got a call from David’s boss, and Martin asked if I could spare you for an assignment,” Sylvan said.

  Wait, what happened to her leave?

  “He’s got four boys David’s training, and they asked for you personally to help. I said sure because you knew them and it would be a pleasant break for you, considering the last mission you were on. Plus, with you and David marrying, it would be nice for you to team up for an at-home assignment. After the training is complete, the two of you can go on your leave. I’ve already approved it. David’s boss has signed off on his, contingent on training the boys in the first phase of their instruction.”

  She swung her gaze to David. He knew! He grinned at her.

  “Uh, okay,” she said, eager to pay one big cat back. She was about to take David’s steak away from him, though he’d nearly devoured the whole thing. “Do I get hazard pay?”

  Her boss actually laughed. “You’ll be reporting for your new duty tomorrow. That’s all I had. Talk to you later.”

  She ended the call. “When were you going to tell me the rest of the news?” she asked David, sitting down to eat her dinner.

  “You’ll love the job.” David grinned. “Just like me. But it means we’ve really got to watch each other’s backs. They give their teachers gifts, too.”

  “Uh-oh.”

  “Yeah, for me, a box of condoms to replace those they took. They said they suspected I didn’t need them any longer, but that I could give them to someone who might.”

  She laughed. “Oh, yeah, I could see you asking who could fit them.”

  “I left them in one of the men’s rooms at work. Maybe someone can use them. They also bought me a new bottle of aftershave.”

  “Which you don’t need, either,” she said, digging into her spinach.

  “Right. I left it at work, too, for the other poor souls who could use a little help attracting a wild cat. Who knows what the boys might end up bringing you so that they can be teacher’s pet.”

  “Maybe a new tube of lipstick.”

  “Yeah, to replace the one they took from your bag. I just wanted to give you a heads-up. Oh, and I saw your brothers. They acted a little odd toward me. Not sure why.”

  Tammy shrugged as if she didn’t know. David wasn’t the only one who had a secret tonight.

  “Krustan dropped by the training today.”

  “Oh?” She knew from the smug expression on David’s face that he had come out on top of whatever the discussion had been.

  “Yeah, he had the notion you should have dated him. But more than that, you shouldn’t have hooked up with a JAG agent.”

  She sipped some of her wine. “Ah, like dating him would have ever happened.”

  “That’s what I told him.”

  “I bet he loved that.” She cut up some of her meat.

  �
��Not only that, but I forgot to mention to you that yesterday, my brother and both of yours cornered me during a training break about a firecracker of a female jaguar shifter who called each of them and chewed them out—”

  “I told you I would as soon as the mission was done. They had no business warning you about me. I had to wait until the wedding was over with, though, to make sure we got some nice gifts.”

  David laughed. “We guys have to stick together, you know.”

  They could stick together all they wanted, but the women were in charge tonight.

  “Now that the case is solved and the boys are under the JAG’s jurisdiction, and they wanted me to help teach them, I have a few choice words for them,” Tammy said.

  David was smiling. “About rifling through a woman’s things?”

  “Yes, even if they were trying to locate anything we might have had on them.”

  “And stealing our clothes in the jungle?”

  “Absolutely, even if they meant to protect us from the bad guys.”

  “Agreed.”

  As soon as David cleared the dinner dishes away, he took her hand and said, “Are you sure we have to go…”

  She knew he wanted to spend the night in bed with her. Which they would—after the show. “Yes. You promised. And you already ordered the boys to go, so you can’t pull out now. If only so you can make sure they attend.” Tammy pulled her keys out of her purse and handed the one to the Jaguar to David. His smile couldn’t have stretched any further. She shook her head. “You’d think you were ready to make love to her.”

  He hurried her out to the garage, ran his hand over the car’s top, and then took it down. “You’re the only woman for me.”

  But he sure looked like her car could be the second woman in his life. She had to laugh to herself about it. Men.

  When they reached the theater, she was thrilled to see Wade and Maya parking nearby. David looked dumbfounded.

  Tammy slid her arm around David’s. “There are Connor and Kat, too. And my brothers.”

  “Well, I’ll be damned,” David said. “That’s why they were growly with me today. I thought I’d done something wrong. What did you do? Shame them or bribe them into coming?”

  She laughed. “If anyone gets wind of you going to a theater production of Annie and they want to give you a hard time about it, they’ll think again.”

  Both of them raised their brows to see Sylvan arrive with a date in tow. He was even more dressed up than usual, even though the dress for these events in Texas ranged from formal to practically sloppy. Tammy blinked. “Well, I’ll be…”

  “Damned,” David said, finishing Tammy’s comment. They looked around to see if Martin was there as they entered the theater.

  Sylvan swung around to talk to them, the woman on his arm a jaguar shifter, but Tammy didn’t know her. “Great job, Tammy, David. Great teamwork. I have to say if the JAG director hadn’t taken the boys in, I would have recruited them.”

  “They’re great kids. I’m…surprised to see you here,” Tammy said.

  “Are you kidding? When so many from the Service were coming? Besides your wedding, this is the event of the season. Talk later.” He headed down the aisle to their seats.

  “Do you see Martin?” Tammy asked David.

  He looked around and waved as Martin came through the doorway. Martin wasn’t by himself for long. The boys followed him in.

  Tammy smiled. “The boys came.”

  “Yeah, when they saw the boss was here, they probably figured it was a good thing they made it. How in the world did you talk your brothers into coming? I can see Kat and Maya browbeating their husbands into it,” David said. “But since your brothers are unattached…”

  She chuckled. “I told them that hot she-cats like the theater, so they’d better get used to it. And if they paid attention, they might even find a single one at the show. Works every time.”

  “Maybe that’s why Martin showed up. Maybe they could try teaming up with a she-cat who is chasing down a missing zoo cat,” David said, holding her close.

  “Yeah, on a nondangerous mission.”

  “The next one won’t be a mission,” David said. “Strictly fun in the jungle—in Costa Rica.”

  “Do they have waterfall pools?”

  “Yeah, just for us.”

  “We’d better train those kids quick. But after the theater?”

  “Hmm?” David said as they took their seats next to Wade and Maya and Connor and Kat.

  “Tonight it’s time for another bubble bath.” She smiled as David’s face flushed a little while Wade chuckled. She rested her head on David’s arm. “I love a man who can enjoy a bubble bath with a she-cat.”

  “I love a she-cat that is all wild,” David said and kissed the top of her head as he settled down to watch Annie.

  Before the show started, she wondered… “You didn’t put the kids up to requesting me to help train them, did you?”

  He just smiled.

  She shook her head at that devilish look. “I love you anyway.” And she’d definitely get him back. Maybe with the teens’ help.

  “Good, because we have lots of unfinished business,” David said and wrapped his arm around her shoulders. Years and years of unfinished business, he thought. And all because of a zoo cat that went missing.

  Annie was singing her heart out on stage, but all he could think of was Tammy and his next move…another bubble bath and lots more loving. Though the notion of joining Tammy in another waterfall pool definitely had him thinking up ways to finish up the teens’ training ASAP.

  Acknowledgments

  Thanks to Loretta Melvin for her invaluable research, and to her, Donna Fournier, and Dottie Jones for being my beta readers. Thanks to Deb Werksman for helping to make the books even better, and Danielle Jackson for all her help in promotions. And thanks to the cover artist gods who wow me and all my readers with their gorgeous covers.

  About the Author

  Bestselling and award-winning author Terry Spear has written more than fifty paranormal romance novels and four medieval Highland historical romances. Her first werewolf romance, Heart of the Wolf, was named a 2008 Publishers Weekly Best Book of the Year, and her subsequent titles have garnered high praise and hit the USA Today bestseller list. A retired officer of the U.S. Army Reserves, Terry lives in Crawford, Texas, where she is working on her next werewolf romance and continuing her new series about shape-shifting jaguars. For more information, please visit www.terryspear.com, or follow her on Twitter, @TerrySpear. She is also on Facebook at www.facebook.com/terry.spear. And on Wordpress at:

  Terry Spear’s Shifters

  terryspear.wordpress.com/