“Awfully passive aggressive, there, kitty. You know, it’s Sunday, and I have no patients. I can sit here and talk at you all day. Wouldn’t it be nicer to have a conversation and a hot breakfast than pretend you’re just a jaguar who happened to be running around the wilds of Washington State?
You’re thousands of miles north of where any jaguar should be roaming.”
He tipped his head back, looking at her upside down, blew out a breath and raised a huge paw to scratch his ear.
Heidi pressed her lips together. She had learned enough growing up in a house full of men to know when one was just screwing with her.
He’d eaten the hunk of roast she’d left in his cage, so he didn’t have the aversion to raw meat her brothers had. If he was a rogue, and if he’d been living alone in the woods, he might be more wild cat than human.
What if... The thought made her eyes burn with tears. What if he didn’t know, or couldn’t remember what it meant to be human? Like a child raised by wolves.
“Come on, big guy. Talk to me,” she begged, fearful that her speculation might prove true.
In her family’s catamount line, children didn’t gain their ability to shift until puberty. Was it possible that other shifters were different? What if he’d been born a cat? What if he couldn’t speak telepathically?
She leaned forward, practically pressing her face to the mesh cage. “I can’t let you go if you don’t talk to me.” She gripped the chain links. “A cage is no place for a shifter, but you can’t go free. You don’t belong here. You’ll just get shot again by someone else. Someone who won’t care enough to call a vet. Someone who’ll tan your hide and hang it on a wall as a trophy. Do you want that?”
The jaguar rolled onto his stomach, lowered his head, and his ears went back in a sign of agitation.
“God, come on. You’re half human. You must know that.”
But maybe he didn’t. The Falke family went back many generations, but no one knew the origin of their species. Her ancestors, a pair of male cousins—supposedly the last two catamounts left alive after their secret had been discovered—fled Germany and wound up here. They had been two of the founding fathers of Leavenworth, but their lineage hadn’t been strong until now. Until her fathers had mated and produced seven healthy offspring. Now her eldest pair of brothers had three brand new babies. The Falke family was growing, expanding, gaining strength with each generation. But from where did they originate? Not even her fathers knew for sure.
Was this beautiful creature a new beginning?
“What the hell am I supposed to do with you?” Heidi opened the door at the base of the gate and shoved the platter of food through.
“Do with you. Do with you. Squawk.”
The cat flinched, his tail curling and slapping the floor in obvious agitation.
“Hush, Paco.” She stood and went to the cockatoo’s cage. “I think your squawking hurts his ears.”
“Big ears. Big ears.”
Heidi opened the bird’s cage, extending her arm so he could climb on. He bobbed his head and took a tentative step off his perch, but then hopped on and scurried up her arm onto her shoulder.
The jaguar still stared at her, not moving toward the platter of food. “I’m going to go catch up on some bills. I’ll check on you later.”
“Later, dude,” Paco said.
The jaguar hissed, which made Heidi laugh. But her humor quickly fled as she left the garage and headed for her office. At her desk, she pushed the pile of bills to the side and opened her laptop.
Tapping her fingertips, she waited for the computer to boot up, while Paco danced from foot to foot on her shoulder and plucked at strands of her hair.
She brought up Google as soon as the window loaded and typed in jaguar facts. Skipping over everything related to cars, she went to work reading up on the elusive, endangered cats.
The rest of Sunday was much like the morning. She brought the jaguar fresh water and cooked food.
The breakfast platter had been licked clean, except for the bone from the steak, which made her wonder about him. A big cat in the wild would have chewed that measly little bone right up with the meat.
She spoke to him, tried to coax him into communicating with her, but either he was the most stubborn male she’d come across, or he didn’t speak. From everything she’d learned about jaguars online, she knew to be leery around him. They were known to be sneaky, tricky, very smart and dangerous. They were also a huge part of Mayan myth, which she found interesting but of little use to her.
Most of it was of little use because the obstinate cat was not a typical jaguar. He was a shifter, a frustratingly mulish and mute shifter.
She was in Leavenworth, Washington with a two hundred and fifty pound jaguar she couldn’t hand over to any zoo, because somewhere along the way a genetics test could be run on him quickly and easily, just as Beth had done.
She guessed she had one more day before Beth gave in and spilled the beans. She was a good sister-in-law, but Heidi had no doubt where the woman’s loyalties were. She was the mate of catamounts.
That alone took more courage and devotion than most women possessed. She wouldn’t lie to her mates for long, even if it was only a lie of omission.
A big, huge, furry lie of omission.
Monday morning, Heidi had little choice but to figure out a solution to her dilemma. As she pulled into the clinic’s driveway, she spotted Shirley Taggart standing outside an SUV with The Leavenworth Echo signage all over it.
“Oh, no.” Beth leaned forward and stared out the window as Heidi drove past the reporter.
Shirley headed their way. Heidi had gone to school with the woman, ace reporter for the Cascade High Chatter and now lead reporter for the local newspaper. She was a nosey one who wrote good, sometimes groundbreaking news stories, but also a lot of gossip column type stuff.
Heidi’s stomach clenched. A reporter on her doorstep right now was not a good thing.
She stopped the Land Rover in front of the clinic’s door. “Say nothing.”
“Duuhhh.”
Heidi snorted. She didn’t have to tell Beth how dangerous this was. Not only to that jaguar inside the clinic, but also to their own family. She’d told Beth her thoughts on the cat, her fears he might not even know what he was. Beth had begged her to talk to Axel or her fathers, but Heidi hadn’t been ready. Now she would give anything to have her dads at her side to help her deal with this. Even Axel would be welcome, because he’d scare the shit out Shirley. He had in the past when it came to Falke.
“Go ahead inside,” Heidi said, handing Beth the key ring from the ignition that also had the clinic keys on it. “I’ll face the firing squad.”
Beth nodded. “Good luck.”
They opened the doors simultaneously and stepped out. Beth ran for the cover of the porch, while Heidi straightened her shoulders and put on a very confused expression as the reporter came toward her, micro digital recorder held out.
“Good morning, Dr. Falke,” Shirley said in a very professional tone that made Heidi scowl. They were definitely on first-name basis. “Could you confirm that an injured black panther is being treated in your clinic?”
Heidi changed her expression to one of surprise. “I’m sorry, but there is no black panther here, Ms.
Taggart.” There was no such thing as a panther. The term was a misnomer referring to black jaguars and black leopards. She snickered. “No pink panther either.”
“I saw the pictures.”
“Of a black panther?”
The reporter nodded and held her recorder higher.
“A picture of one in my clinic?”