She managed to get her other boot off without losing it. She tucked it with her other clothes against the massive tree trunk, glad she was getting better at this, then worked on her jeans while he watched as if she were a stripper there to entertain him.
“Juan!” a man yelled from down below, and she realized that because of being concerned about the man in the tree and struggling to get out of her clothes, she hadn’t even heard the other man arrive.
Great. Now she had two of them to deal with.
“I’m busy,” Juan said and began climbing higher, as if he wanted to ensure he claimed her before his friend could.
“Did you find one of the women?” the man asked from the ground, and she wondered if he had found her size-six boot.
She couldn’t see him from where he was standing at the base of the tree, but she was glad he wasn’t climbing after her also—at least for the moment. Maybe she could shift before both of the men saw her naked.
She pulled off her panties and secured them with the rest of her clothes against the trunk of the tree and was ready to shift.
“Hey, Juan, what are you doing up there?”
“Going to have some fun.”
“I’m coming up, too.”
Kat frowned at the man climbing toward her, wondering why she wasn’t shifting as she sat butt-naked on the tree branch high above Juan.
Now! Do it now! What were the magic words? How had she managed before?
She scowled at the man and at herself for her ineptitude. Maybe she hadn’t been getting ready to shift. She would never get used to this business. Mortified that she wasn’t going to change into a menacing-looking jaguar and was instead showing off her naked body to a drug dealer, she wasn’t sure what to do next. Get dressed? Or keep waiting for the shift to happen and hope to hell it occurred before Juan reached her?
She could just imagine getting halfway dressed when the shift hit her. She would be a jaguar with one leg in her leopard panties. That would make her a real cool cat. Not.
Then the second man, who had managed to make it a little way up the tree, swore and gave a muffled cry.
Kat and Juan looked down, but Kat couldn’t see anyone as high up in the tree as she was, as leafy as the branches were, and because of the location of the man when he cried out.
Sounding afraid of what had happened to his friend, Juan called out softly, “Ramirez?”
But the other man didn’t say anything in response. Chill bumps pricked Kat’s arms and legs as she peered down through the vegetation, trying to see what had happened to the man.
“Ramirez?” Juan said again, a little louder this time.
Still no answer.
Juan switched his attention back to Kat, apparently unable to decide whether he wanted more to reach the naked woman or to check out what had happened to his friend. He wasn’t given any time to decide, though. A large male jaguar leaped onto the branch below Juan, then grabbed the branch the terrorist was on and joined him.
Both Kat’s and Juan’s jaws dropped when they saw the male cat. For an instant, the jaguar’s golden eyes shifted from Juan to Kat. He lifted his head a bit as if he was greeting her, then he turned his attention back to Juan. With one quick swipe of his powerful paw, the jaguar sent the man flying to the ground before he could swing his rifle off his shoulder.
Juan never made a sound. Not when the big cat struck him or when he was falling or even when he hit the ground with a thud.
Kat was so shocked that she couldn’t move. The jaguar was more orange in color than golden like Maya and Connor, but he was just as big and menacing as Connor.
The jaguar looked up at her, his whiskers twitching, his nose sampling the air and her.
She was naked. And he wasn’t just a big cat, she was certain. He was just like Connor had been when she first saw him as a jaguar and thought he was just a cat. This one had to be a man beneath the jaguar’s spotted coat, too. He was seeing her as a man sees a woman, or as she supposed a male shifter saw a female, naked.
She was grateful that the cat had taken care of Juan and probably the man on the ground. Especially since her shifter genes were so unreliable that she hadn’t been able to turn into a jaguar. But she wanted him to leave, to quit smelling her scent, to vanish before Connor returned and tore into him.
She heard Connor roar, and then Maya followed suit. They were okay. Kat gave a tentative sigh of relief.
The jaguar took another deep breath, then leaped from the tree, and Kat grabbed her bra. What would Connor do if he discovered the shifter had been with her in the tree? She wouldn’t have to tell Connor. He would immediately smell the big cat, see the dead bodies, and, if she didn’t hurry, find a naked Kat in the tree.
She was still trying to fasten her damnable bra without falling off the branch when Connor leaped onto one of the lower branches. She about had a heart attack, having not even realized he was in the vicinity. He did not look happy.
But since he was here and Maya had also roared, letting them know she was fine, Kat assumed the men were no longer a problem. Getting dressed and undressed on a tree branch was much more of a trial than she had thought possible, though.
Connor climbed branch after branch until he reached her, and then he shifted. “Hell, Kat. I leave you alone for a few minutes, and another damn male shifter comes after you.” He helped her fasten her bra. “Are you all right?” he asked, cooling his temper and kissing her bare shoulder.
Frowning at Connor, she yanked her shirt from where she had stuck it in the crook of the tree branch. “Of course I’m not all right. I can’t shift, damn it. Even when I think that I desperately need to get out of my clothes because I need to shift, I can’t do it. Then when I’m sleeping, I manage just fine.”
He kissed her cheek, then pulled her shirt over her head. “That’s why you’re naked.”
She cast him the most disgruntled look she could give him. “Of course that’s why I’m naked. What did you think?”
“That you’d shifted and killed a man, and after the male cat left, you’d shifted back.”
Hell, now Connor knew that she hadn’t shifted and had given the other male shifter an eyeful of one naked woman.
Attempting to change the subject, she asked, “Are they all gone?”
“Yeah.” He helped her into her panties and jeans. “Hell, Kat. He was up here when you were naked?”
They were not going around and around about this. “I thought I was going to shift, Connor. And he did kill the men who were trying to get to me.”
Connor grunted, then left her to finish dressing while he grabbed his bag and pulled his clothes out.
“Is Maya all right?” she asked.
“She took care of the guard at the car.”
Thank God they were both okay.
Kat began climbing down the tree with one boot on, heading for the other one on the ground next to the base of the tree trunk.
In her jaguar form, Maya was down below, pacing. She quickly greeted Kat, rubbing her whole body against Kat’s legs and nearly knocking her over. Then Maya jumped into the tree. Connor tossed Kat’s bag to the ground and then his own. He hurried to climb down to join Kat while Maya shifted and got dressed.
“What the hell did he look like?” Connor asked Kat.
Kat was staring at the two dead men, trying to figure out how the jaguar had killed them. He hadn’t left any bite marks. And no sign of blood was on either of the men.