Jaguar Pride (2 page)

On the other hand, Melissa found crossing the river there awfully tempting. She attributed having such a reckless nature to her father, who had always encouraged her and her twin sister, Bonnie, to take risks, while their mother would have had a stroke if she'd known.

Melissa studied the water again, wanting to take the quickest path to the beach on the other side. The bull sharks were definitely feeding, their fins showing, then disappearing and reappearing. She thought she counted about eight. The problem was that the farther away from the mouth of the river she and Huntley got, the more trouble they could have with crocodiles and caiman added to the mix.

Huntley nudged her, urging her to move farther through the rainforest. She grunted at him. What did he think? She was a daredevil? Well, she was, to an extent.

Lightning briefly lit up the gray clouds and then thunder clapped overhead, making her jump a little. Then the rain started pouring down. As deep as the river was, they would have to swim, not walk across it like they could in the dry season. Jaguars
were
powerful swimmers, so at one point where the river narrowed a little, they finally made the decision to go for it, side by side, protecting each other's flanks.

Her heart thundering, she crossed the warm river. A small croc was resting on the shore, eyeing them. Another slipped into the water, and a bull shark passed them by. When she and Huntley finally reached the other side, they bolted out of the water and away from the riverbank. They headed through the rainforest again until they reached the beach along the coast.

For a moment, they just stood there, the rain pelting them as they listened for the sound of a boat engine or men talking. She smelled gasoline down the beach. Her heart began to beat faster. The gasoline smell had to have come from a boat. There was no sign of one beached anywhere, and she hoped that if the smell was from the poachers' boat, they hadn't already grabbed what they had come for and gone. She and Huntley loped toward the cove hidden by trees.

When they reached the edge of the beach and looked right, they saw a boat sitting in the protected cove. She felt a hint of relief and the thrill of the chase. If the boat was the poachers' transportation, they could escape with their “catch” without having to leave via any of the park entrances. She had to remind herself that others used boats to reach the shores for tours, so this might not be a poacher's boat.

No one was around. What if the boat was operated by a legitimate company taking a bunch of tourists on a guided tour? But she didn't see any markings on the boat indicating it belonged to a tour group or resort in the area.

She and Huntley drew closer under the cover of the rainforest, though it was pouring and dark. Still, if someone had a high-powered-enough flashlight, they could see Huntley and her. Well, Huntley's eyes mostly—they gave off a fluorescent color if a light was shined on them.

Then they heard something moving through the brush. She and Huntley stopped.

“Hurry up,” a man said, heading in the direction of the beach.

His words sounded promising as she and Huntley hid in the ferns, watching and waiting.

A light wavered through the dense foliage. The men had to be human, not shifters, or they wouldn't have needed the man-made light.

Suddenly, someone came out of the rainforest from a different direction. A man yanked up his trousers' zipper while he watched for his comrades. Dressed in a white shirt and pants, he stood out in the black rain that soaked him and everything around him.

“Any trouble?” he asked the four men as they broke through the vegetation and reached the beach.

“Carlton got careless, and the cat scratched him bad,” one of the men said. Two of them were carrying a burlap sack between them with what was likely their live bounty inside.

Cat. Which kind?

A second man was carrying another burlap sack, while the last man was holding on to his shoulder as if his injuries were severe, his shirt and fingers bloodied. He groaned in pain.

All of them had rifles slung over their shoulders and sheathed machetes hanging from their belts.

“Whaddya get?” the lookout asked.

“Puma and two cubs.”

Melissa ground her teeth, thinking at once of the puma and her cubs that she and Huntley had spied earlier.

“Hot damn.”

“Help Carlton into the boat, will ya? Where's Jackson?”

Jackson. The man—and his cohorts—that they'd come for. And he wasn't here?
Great.

“Taking a dump. Something didn't agree with him, and he's about an eighth of a mile back there.”

“And you left him alone?”

“Hell, he told us to get going. If you want to watch him doing his thing,
you
go back and do so.”

Melissa had no intention of letting these men remove the pumas from the park. But both she and Huntley hesitated to make a move. If they attacked now, Jackson could all of a sudden show up and shoot them both.

Then, figuring they had to chance it before the men got the cats in the boat, Huntley growled low, Melissa's cue to attack.

They had one attempt to get this right—while the men still had their hands full with carrying the sacks and the lookout was trying to help the injured man into the boat. The men had so many rifles and machetes between them that it was a dangerous move on the jaguars' part.

Huntley went after the two men holding the bigger cat. Melissa lunged after the lone man holding on to the sack with the cubs. The JAG agents wouldn't kill the poachers if they didn't have to. But the agents had to use an economy of movements and quick action to do this right.

Swiping his paw with his claws extended, Huntley struck the first man that he could reach in the head, knocking him out cold. Melissa used a similar tactic with the other man. Thankfully, by sweeping its paw, a jaguar could stun its prey, knock it out, or kill it. She and Huntley were trying hard not to kill the men, as much as she regretted her orders.

She immediately went after the lookout, who was panicking and struggling to get his rifle off his shoulder. The injured man looked dazed and didn't react. She coldcocked the lookout, then went after the injured man. Even if he couldn't fight well, she didn't want to chance it. Once she'd slugged him hard, and he'd joined the lookout lying unconscious on the beach, she turned to take care of anyone else.

Huntley was checking on all of the men to ensure they were really out and not playing dead.

She tore open the first of the burlap sacks with her teeth. Two sleeping spotted cubs. One of them she recognized as the same cub she had seen earlier. Melissa tore the other sack open and found the mother, tranquilized like her babies. She felt bad for them for having experienced this, but glad they would have a good outcome
this
time
.

Huntley had shifted into his attractive human form—that she was trying hard not to look at too much—and was examining each of the men's IDs, verifying the poachers' names before he called the park ranger. The agents had to move quickly before Jackson arrived on the scene.

“Wish we'd gotten Jackson, but we might still be able to. At least we got the rest of his men, for now,” Huntley said, pulling a cell phone out of one of the men's pockets. Huntley's dark blond hair was dripping wet, and his blue-green eyes were studying her as he called the authorities. He was as tall as her father, six feet in height, muscled, and well…just plain good-looking.

She grunted her approval, then dragged the momma cat in her burlap sack into the rainforest to hide her. By the time she had returned to seize the sack containing the cubs, Huntley was speaking on a cell phone in Spanish, relaying to the ranger station that some very bad hombres had been caught attempting to poach a puma and her two cubs. He read the men's names off their IDs, then tucked the IDs back into their pockets.

“The puma and her cubs are sleeping in burlap sacks in the vegetation nearby to keep them safe, but you can find the men and their boat at the following coordinates.” He proceeded to tell the ranger the location of the cove. “One other man, the leader in charge of the poachers, is named Timothy Jackson. According to his men, he's still in the rainforest.”

Huntley ended the call and disabled the boat by pulling the control box apart, removing a few things, and tossed them into the ocean, just in case.

Melissa was supposed to watch his back, and that meant any other delectable part he showed off. All his parts were remarkable, as toned as his muscles were, and though she didn't want to admit looking, he was very well endowed. She felt a little bit guilty, especially since he had a girlfriend and she had a boyfriend. Still, she was only human—well, and jaguar—so she blamed the interest on both. Besides, looking but not touching was acceptable, right?

She swore he was fighting a smile, probably flattered just a little that she
was
interested.

“I'd prefer to sink the boat with them on it,” Huntley said gruffly as he joined her.

She roared in agreement. A sunken boat would make a great coral-reef structure for fish in the future.

“It will take hours before anyone can arrive, unless they send a boat, and even that will take some time,” he said. “Maybe we can still get Jackson.”

Huntley shifted back into his jaguar form and quickly joined her. She led him to the mother and cubs and stayed there, watching over them and protecting them. The mother and the cubs would probably sleep through the night, long enough for the park rangers and police to reach this location. Melissa and Huntley climbed high into a tree, not wanting to face a very hostile mother puma that would be protecting her young and dangerous once she woke.

They listened for any sign of Jackson approaching. They couldn't see the boat or his men from there, which was why it was a safe place to leave the drugged cats. Either Huntley or Melissa could have gone searching in the rainforest for the bastard, but their training had taught them to stick together as much as possible while they conducted a mission in the wild.

They would stay hidden unless they heard Jackson reach his men. Then they'd pay him a visit and knock him out too. Otherwise, they'd wait until the rangers and police arrived to ensure the mother and her cubs remained safe, just in case any other poachers happened onto them. Not likely, but she and Huntley couldn't leave the cats' safety to chance.

A short while later, they heard movement near the cove. Melissa hated leaving the mother and the cubs alone. Huntley indicated with his head that she should stay with the pumas, but she couldn't let him risk his life in case Jackson saw him and fired a shot to kill.

She and Huntley leaped down from the tree, then stealthily made their way to the cove. A couple of tapirs were rooting around. No sign of Jackson. Disappointed, she and Huntley returned to the pumas and jumped back into the tree to wait.

The problem with the rainforest and all the creatures that lived within was that everything made a noise, and because of their enhanced cat's hearing, the JAG agents heard
everything
. So they investigated the cove five more times before they figured that Jackson had to have discovered what happened to his men, found he couldn't start the boat, and taken off on foot. According to the mission briefing, he had lived in jungles for much of his life, so she could see him being nearly as stealthy as them.

Three hours later, they heard men speaking in Spanish—police and two rangers—and surveying the area for any sign of the cats. When they searched the rainforest and found the sleeping cats, they took pictures and checked them over, never looking up to see the jaguars in the tree above them. In the dark, they wouldn't see the cats anyway unless they flashed their lights in that direction, but who would ever believe a couple of jaguars were watching them?

Ensuring that the three pumas were well, the men returned to the beach.

In the boat, they found cages, weapons, and tranquilizers—enough evidence to put the five men in jail. “The caller said there were six men,” one of the police officers said. He read the names of the poachers that she and Huntley had taken down. “But the ringleader? Jackson? He's not here.”

Letting her breath out in annoyance, Melissa hated that they hadn't caught Jackson too—and in the middle of a poaching job, the perfect scenario. She glanced at Huntley, who had narrowed his eyes and looked just as pissed as she felt.

Huntley hated that one of the men had gotten away. He wished Jackson had shown up. Huntley would have bitten the bastard in the leg and given him a nice bloody wound to deal with, which in the jungle could have nasty repercussions, at the very least. And it would have hobbled the poacher enough to prevent his escape.

He and Melissa would have to track Jackson down, and he would be armed and dangerous.

“The cat sure scratched them good,” the one police officer said, sounding glad the puma had paid the men back.

Except that not all the scratches were from the puma. Some were from two pissed-off jaguar shifters. The men were now marked. Maybe they'd see it as a badge of honor—they came out alive after facing the wrath of a couple of jaguars. The scars would also make the men easier for the police to identify in the future if they were caught poaching again. They couldn't easily hide the scratches from their families either—if they'd had no idea what the men were illegally dealing in.

Once the puma mother stirred and had checked out her cubs, she and the two of them headed away from the sound of the men talking.

Melissa and Huntley waited until the police had retrieved the burlap sacks, glancing around warily and probably worried that the puma and her cubs would still be in the vicinity.

As soon as the police left, Huntley grunted at Melissa, telling her he thought it was time to move on. She jumped down from the tree and he joined her. They tried tracking Jackson by smell, but he had to be wearing hunter spray to hide his human identity from his prey. Only this time, he was the prey, hiding his identity from a couple of angry predators.

After searching the area for a couple of hours, Melissa nudged at Huntley, indicating she wanted to take a break. They really needed some sleep if they were going to track the bastard down.

They headed to the location where they'd hidden their gear. Huntley jumped into the tree, grabbed their tent, and tossed it to the ground. Then he seized each of their field packs and did the same. Before he'd even jumped to the ground, Melissa had already shifted into her naked human form.

He admired her for getting started on the tent right away instead of waiting for his help. Well, he admired that and a hell of a lot more: her reddish brown hair curled about her shoulders and her sparkling green eyes that caught him watching her as he helped her to put up the tent. He
was
helping. Just a little distracted. But she always checked him out when they shifted, so it was only fair that he did the same. He couldn't help but be pleased when she revealed how much he appealed to her—mainly because Genista, his current girlfriend, had acted cold and distant the past few weeks, as if she was looking right through him instead of at him.

But Melissa had a guy. Oliver was totally lame, as far as Huntley was concerned. Something about the insurance salesman must appeal to Melissa or she wouldn't be dating the city cat, even though Huntley had wondered—just a time or two—what exactly she saw in him.

Inside the tent, Huntley slipped into a pair of boxers. Melissa pulled on a tank top, and again, he couldn't help but watch as the formfitting, stretchy top took on the shape of her pert breasts. She tugged on a pair of shorts, and then they curled up in their sleeping bags.

“Do you want to call Martin, or do you want me to?” Melissa asked.

“Be my guest.”

Melissa was good at her job, and she and Huntley worked well together. He couldn't help enjoying her spurts of being a daredevil. Like he was.

She pulled out her phone and called the boss, putting the conversation on speakerphone. She explained how they'd taken the men down, identified them, and then called the police. “It's mostly done. One of the men escaped before the police arrived.”

“Everyone's alive, right?” Martin asked.

“Yes, sir.”

As much as Huntley had wished for a kill order, he knew the JAG director wanted to allow the police to handle this in Costa Rica. Hopefully, between them and the park rangers, someone would catch Jackson before he escaped the peninsula.

“He's armed?” Martin asked.

“The rest of his men were, so I assume he is. We'll go after him once we've rested. He won't be able to sleep much in the rainforest without some gear. None of the men were wearing backpacks when we took them down, so he would have had to sneak in and grab some stuff from the boat, if they had anything tucked away there. He probably knows the park fairly well, but the tides are unpredictable and many of the trails and some of the roads are underwater. Do you still want this one alive?”

“Your call. If he sees any jaguars coming after him, he may shoot to kill. Just stop him any way that you safely can. I don't want either of you injured in the process, and I want this to look like an accident, and well, survival of the fittest, if you can't take him down any other way.”

“You mean, let the bull sharks and crocodiles finish him off?” Melissa asked.

“You got it. If you can't just take him down and get the police to take care of it, then that should be the plan. Call me when you learn anything.”

“Will do, sir,” Melissa said and ended the call.

Melissa turned over on her side to face Huntley. “If not for Jackson escaping, that would have been one of the easiest jobs I think I've ever been on.”

“Yeah, but it sure could have been a nightmare if any of those men had gotten hold of their machetes or turned their rifles on us.”

“I agree.” She sighed. “Do you think this will stop them from doing it again?”

He snorted. “As long as someone's willing to pay for stolen cats, no.” He let out his breath. “At least with these poachers, the one guy probably won't be doing any more of this. The puma got one of his eyes. Too difficult to move through the rainforest at night as it is, but with limited sight? Really bad news. He'd be a handicap for his partners. So one down. How many more to go?”

“It's sad, really. I heard that some American foundation and other organizations are sending money to help add more security to the park.”

“Good thing too. But when people are paying for the souvenirs or the animals themselves, sellers will take the minimal risk involved in poaching the animals.”

For a while they were quiet, and he thought about how years earlier these places were a real paradise for the wildlife. Even without poachers, the environment could be ruined by too many tourists visiting the reserve to see the wild creatures.

“You…weren't thinking of crossing the mouth of the river and swimming with all those sharks, were you?” he asked, not believing she'd even have considered such a thing.

She smiled.

“Good thing you weren't planning to.” He put his hands behind his head and looked up at the tent ceiling. “Like running past the college kids at their campsite.”

She chuckled. “You didn't have to run past them too.”

“Sure I did. You couldn't be the only one to give them a thrill.” He smiled. “We work well together as a team.”

“I agree. We do. I guess it's back to home base and see what the boss needs us to do next after we clear up this last problem. You're due for a break though, aren't you?” she asked.

“Yeah, long overdue. I was supposed to get one two missions ago, but it's been so hectic that Martin wanted me to go with you on this one, since I've been here recently.”

Melissa closed her eyes. “Well, it's been fun working with you.”

“This isn't over yet. And it might not be for a while. The guy's a hunter, been living in the tropics forever. His American parents were biologists working in the Amazon. He was born in Venezuela, and he knows the jungle life.”

With the flooding, some roads were underwater, the swamps had spread, and the rivers had expanded. Trails were also underwater in some areas, and everything was muddy. So, it wouldn't be an easy trek out. They could have managed it as jaguars, but they had to hike their gear out.

For four days, they followed Jackson's trails—where he'd crossed the swamps, where he'd pitched a tent—which meant he'd had the presence of mind to grab gear from the boat before he had run off. They finally located his scent trail where he'd exited the park. They'd been too late.

Irritated, muddy, wet, and tired, they arrived at the cabin resort bordering the park where they'd been staying. The place was mostly empty because of the rainy season. Of the ten units, only three were occupied.

Melissa cleaned up first while Huntley took care of their gear. It was just something they'd started to do. He'd let her shower first, and he'd clean their equipment. Then he'd shower, and she'd cook a meal. She was a hell of a lot better cook than he was.

While Melissa was making final preparations on the meal, Huntley called Martin. “No luck finding Jackson. He left the park, and we have no idea where he's gone now.”

“All right. Pack it up and return home,” Martin said. “The other men shouldn't be a problem for a while. Maybe some jail time will cure their need to poach. As for Jackson, I'll have some other agents try to track down where he might end up next. Your mission is done.”

Vastly disappointed, Huntley didn't feel like the mission was over. He had never let one slip away like this, not that they could help it.

“All right. We'll report in when we arrive home.”

“And you're due for a vacation.”

Huntley wondered if Martin was trying to tell him something. That he'd slipped up because he'd needed a break. He didn't want one now. He wanted to catch Jackson. On the other hand, a break
was
much needed. And sometimes taking one really helped him to think more clearly.

“Do you want to talk to Melissa, boss?”

“Yeah, put her on, will you?”

Huntley handed Melissa the phone, wishing he could work with her on another assignment. They were completely compatible, and it was nice working with a woman for a change. But he couldn't come out and say that to the boss. Not when Martin would begin speculating that something more was going on between them. Oh, hell, yeah, she was appealing as a partner—and nice to look at and smart and fun to be with when they could let down their hair a bit. But beyond that, neither of them was interested in dating the other, not when they both were seeing someone. And Huntley didn't want to come off as some Casanova when he was dating someone else.

“Hey, boss. Have something new for me to check out?” She glanced at Huntley and mouthed, “Food's ready.”

“I'll serve it.”

He headed into the kitchen and heard Melissa say, “A week? Sure, okay. Anything else? All right. Talk later.”

She rejoined Huntley and sat down to eat a meal of rice and beans, pork, and fried plantains—typical Costa Rican fare.

“Delicious,” he said, forking up another piece of pork. “You could be a master chef if you ever decided this life wasn't for you.” On their last assignment a month ago in Belize, she'd also made the most delightful native dishes.

She smiled. “Thanks. I don't think I'll ever want to give up the life of protecting our kind and cousins and taking down the nasties.”

“What about when you have kids?”

“Oliver's not interested in having any. Not that I am either. Makes it difficult for someone like me who's away so often. I'd…want to be home with them, raising them, if I had any.”

Huntley had wondered during their last mission how her boyfriend had felt about her teaming up with single, male jaguar shifters on some of these missions where they shared such close quarters.

He'd met Oliver once during a Golden Claws office Christmas party, and the man had looked way out of place. Couldn't be helped, really. Oliver sold life insurance, so not exactly a dangerous way of life. Most everyone serving with the JAG was a field agent with lots of training, all wild cats who could live comfortably in jungle habitats during operations and were used to the adrenaline rush in dangerous situations. He'd never heard of Melissa vacationing with Oliver in a rainforest or jungle environment either. Huntley suspected Oliver wouldn't want kids because he'd be the one stuck taking care of them when Melissa was away on missions.

“What about Genista? Is she looking to settle down and have some cubs?” Melissa asked.

The last time Huntley and Melissa had worked together, they had talked about their education, places they'd lived, that sort of thing. Nothing really this personal. It was different when he was with the guys. They talked about hunting and fishing, past missions, and the like. They often compared notes on who had the most dangerous missions. If they didn't heal completely with their enhanced healing, they'd most likely compare battle scars.

“She's like you, not wanting to give up her Golden Claws assignments. Not just yet.”

“I can understand that. We took years to train for a worthwhile cause. It's quite a challenge to think about staying home with a cooing baby or two—or more because of our jaguar genetics.” She shook her head and took another bite of her rice.

Melissa had checked out the tranquilized cubs to make sure they were all right, both while waiting for the police and after they had arrived. Earlier, when she had spied the mother puma and cubs, he had seen the way she had looked at the cubs—worried that they had lost their mother. Which had worried him too.

He wasn't sure Melissa was being totally honest with herself or with him. She seemed to have the mothering instinct and would have taken care of the cubs in a heartbeat if their mother had been killed.

Now with Huntley? That was totally a different story. He wasn't ready for fatherhood and had much preferred having Melissa take over with the cubs on this mission. He'd take down the bad guys. It wasn't a case of male chauvinism. Just that she had the natural instincts on how to care for the cubs, unlike him.

“So, I take it you've got a break in assignment. Planning on doing anything fun?” Huntley asked her.