“We’re okay, Kat,” Connor said, rubbing her head and speaking in a reassuring manner.
Easy for him to say. He was human!
Chapter 29
The plane’s passenger door opened in hot, muggy Houston. The floor of the plane rumbled while the door to the baggage compartment banged open and the baggage handlers began off-loading the luggage. They created such a racket that they reminded Kat of the advertisement showing gorillas handling the luggage.
Passengers began to deplane. That gave her heart another lurch.
At first, the air was oppressive with all those bodies packed together and all those people standing up, some hunched under overhead bins, waiting their turn to step into the aisle. But as they began to deplane, the air seemed more breathable. And that wasn’t good. It meant that before long only Maya, Connor, and one highly frustrated jaguar would be left on the plane with the crew.
She looked up at Maya who smiled warmly at her. “Did I tell you that you’ve enriched our lives immensely?”
With a twinkle in her eye, Maya appeared serious! Yet, Kat couldn’t believe she or Connor would feel that way. She suddenly felt a burst of heat overwhelm her, right before she was shivering under the blankets in her naked human form.
Connor scrambled to get her clothes as Kat panicked at trying to locate them also. She was human! She had her panties and bra on and her shirt half-buttoned when Maya cleared her throat and Connor rose, ready to block any crew member from seeing Kat.
“Can’t find her shoe,” he said to someone.
“Found it!” Kat said gleefully, grabbing for Connor’s hand as she scrambled out of her seat, now dressed, and pulled him down the aisle.
She was ready to bolt out of the plane, pulling Connor along, but she managed to keep calm. Once they were in the concourse, she was moving again at a quickened pace. She didn’t think she would shift again, but she wasn’t chancing it.
When they were outside in the dark, their bags in hand, they headed for the long-term parking lot. Kat couldn’t have been happier.
“I’ll marry you,” she said, looking up at Connor.
He chuckled, wrapped his arms around her, and swung her around, then set her down. “I’m glad, Kat. You don’t know how much so.”
“Yeah,” she said as Maya smiled at her. “How could I not? Who else would have stood by me so many times when I needed you? And yes, Maya made me this way, which is causing trouble galore, but I know eventually I’ll have it under control. At least I hope so. I’ve never been known to enrich anyone’s life. And you’ve both done that for me, too.”
“You really should have made him beg for the marriage,” Maya said, her golden eyes sparkling, the lights in the parking lot giving them a fluorescent green cast.
“I couldn’t make him suffer any longer.”
Connor wrapped his arm around her waist. “We were getting married, one way or another,” he said with no humor at all, just very matter-of-factly.
Kat ignored the jaguar god’s dictate, loving him just the same. “You knew I could change before it was too late, right? I admired the way you were both so cool about it.”
Maya and Connor shared looks.
“Oh,” Kat said, realizing at once that they hadn’t known how it would play out any more than she had. “Well, just the same, you both were terrific with making sure I didn’t panic.”
“We hadn’t any choice, Kat. Do you think Wade Patterson from Florida was the shifter we saw?” Maya asked.
“You’re not getting in touch with him,” Connor ground out.
Maya huffed. “I’m not part of your harem.” She patted Kat on the shoulder. “Kat and I are going to design a new website for our business, and we’re going to show a side interest—tropical plants that we have in our greenhouse and the jaguars that visit the jungles where the plants usually thrive. You know, like some nurseries have cats living in the gardens? We’ll feature a jaguar, though the jaguar won’t be around to scare off the customers.”
Connor gave both Maya and Kat a look that said he didn’t approve.
Maya shrugged. “It’s just marketing, Connor.”
“Yeah, just marketing,” Kat said, smiling broadly at Maya.
The jaguar pictures would be just of Maya, a subtle way to let the jaguar-shifter world know she was available, the best way to market for a jaguar mate, they both had concluded.
When they arrived at Maya and Connor’s house and gardens, Kat was in awe. Forests bounded the property, a small private lake was nearby, and the hot, humid greenhouse was filled with tropical plants that made her feel she was back in the Amazon, minus the howling monkeys, chattering parrots, and noisy bugs.
“We have sounds from the Amazon played in here while we work,” Maya said, as if she knew just what Kat had been thinking. “Customers love it when they shop for their garden rooms, too.”
“It’s lovely,” Kat said, taking in a deep breath of the rich humus-filled earth and floral fragrances.
Maya escorted her through the gardens—herb, evergreen, and deciduous—as well as the water garden, the floral garden, and the shrub garden. But Connor had quickly bowed out, carrying their bags into the house.
Kat wondered what he was up to when she smelled steaks grilling on an outside grill. Maya smiled. “He’s still in courtship phase. Usually, when we get home from the jungle, we get cleaned up, make sure anything that needs watering is taken care of, and cook something easy like frozen pizza. But it’s early morning and he wants to do something special for you, so he’s making steak and eggs.”
“Steaks,” Kat said, her stomach already rumbling.
“After all the strange food you had to endure, I’m sure he wanted to prepare something you’d like.”
Loving him for remembering how much she had wanted steak when she got back to the United States, she was thrilled.
Connor soon called for them to join him, and after eating a juicy grilled steak with cheese-and-chives-flavored eggs, hashed brown potatoes, and watermelon for dessert, Kat joined Connor for a tour of the house while Maya returned to the gardens to putter around.
“What do you think, Kat? Does this feel like it could be your home?” Connor asked. He barely let her see the rest of the house, including her favorite room, the special greenhouse sitting room where they could have meals if they wanted, and Maya’s master bedroom suite, before he took her to his own suite.
She studied the room, which was decorated in deep forest green and had a sitting area and an office off the main room. She almost expected to see a jungle-print bedspread and curtains. But everything was just solid forest green. Soothing and peaceful on a hot sunny day. Pictures of the jungle decorated the walls.
Despite his annoyance with his parents for abandoning them, she saw to her surprise that he had a picture of his parents and Maya and himself, the two of them about ten years old, framed in bamboo and sitting on his dresser. Connor definitely looked like a younger version of his dad now, strong of character, same blond hair and tanned features and muscled form, same penetrating golden jaguar eyes. Maya looked a lot like her mother, with long blond curls piled on top of her head, the same amber eyes that looked as though the woman was seeing straight into Kat’s soul, and a smile that met her eyes.
Kat couldn’t believe anyone could give up her children like that and wanted Connor to know she was the kind of woman who would stick with him for the long run.
“Yeah,” she said, snuggling up to him, “this feels like home.”