“Hey, lady in distress? You know it.”

  Jillian picked out a mermaid towel that said Sorry, I Can’t. I Have Important Mermaid Stuff to Do.

  “You sure do,” Vaughn said to Jillian, giving her a hug.

  She laughed. Val smiled. They were a cute couple.

  They picked up waterproof pouches for their phones, drivers’ licenses, credit cards, passports, and badges. They didn’t want to leave them in the car. They also selected fins, snorkels, flip-flops, and sun block. They were ready to have some real fun and do away with the bad guys.

  “We’ll have to bring Demetria and Everett to the shop if we get a chance to take them to the beach while they’re here.” Jillian was eyeing swimsuits, and Vaughn was pulling out several he wanted to see her try on. Red. Hot pink. Shimmering blue.

  Howard was watching them, and then he began to do the same for Val, just as she and Jillian had picked out rain jackets for him to try on. Only the swimsuits were a lot hotter.

  “What about this one?” Howard showed Val bikinis in emerald green, cobalt blue, and tomato red.

  “How about this?” She pulled out a long-sleeved black swim T-shirt.

  He eyed it and then her bust. “Yeah, that would fit nicely.”

  She smiled at him. “You would prefer a bikini.”

  “I prefer whatever you feel comfortable in. If you need protection from the sun, you wear that. I can wrap my arms around you in the ocean just as closely and with as much enjoyment no matter what you wear. Besides, I won’t have to growl at as many guys who would be ogling you in a bikini.”

  She chuckled and took the selections into the dressing room.

  He waited while Vaughn actually went into the dressing room with Jillian. That’s what Howard wanted to do with Val. He wanted that closeness that came with a mating.

  Jillian came out with three she’d decided to buy. “I couldn’t decide so Vaughn insisted I get all of them. Where’s Val?”

  “Still in the dressing room.”

  “I’ll see if she needs any help deciding.” Jillian went into the dressing-room hall. “How are you doing?”

  “Do you want to help me decide?” Val asked.

  “Yeah, sure.” A few minutes later, Jillian said, “Oh yeah, that one is perfect. And that one will work.”

  A few minutes later, Val carried out two bikinis—the emerald-green one and the cobalt blue—and the swim T-shirt. Howard eyed the suits, approving of both of them, and couldn’t wait to see her wearing them.

  “Redhead.” She held up the T-shirt to Howard. “I turn into a crispy critter when it’s sunny out and I’m in the surf or an outdoor swimming pool.”

  “That would ruin a good outing,” Howard said, having been there before. He tanned well, but he could also burn.

  “Believe me, after having been burned to a crisp once, yes! It does. And for a couple of days afterward. No sleeping, burning up, just miserable.”

  “Even though I don’t burn as easily, it’s happened to me a couple of times, so I know your pain. I hadn’t applied sunscreen often enough.” He reached his hand out to her to take the clothing.

  She hesitated to give them to him.

  “My treat. I’m trying to prove I’m the right one for you. I’m still trying to come up with a good way to make a proposal you can’t refuse.” He would do whatever it took.

  Val chuckled and handed him her clothes and appeared to like the way he was going about this.

  Howard paid for the items, then took her hand and led her out of the store, following the others.

  Then they returned to the cabins so the guys could get their board shorts. They changed into swim gear and wore their clothes over it. After that, Vaughn drove them to the beach nearest to the resort.

  They checked the whole area, laughing, smiling, kissing as couples, pretending to be Americans enjoying their vacation. They were also breathing in the scents of the sea, sand, and vegetation. Of fresh air, fish, and flowers, searching for jaguar scents. They were looking for the perfect location for Jillian and Vaughn to hide and observe the beach to watch for Benny or anyone else who might be selling drugs there today. Sea grape and coconut palms provided the perfect cover.

  “Just don’t stand beneath a coconut palm,” Val warned. “A falling coconut can do serious damage.”

  Howard was glad she’d mentioned it because he kept forgetting the wolves had never been here before.

  “We’re all set,” Jillian said. “Go play for a while, and then we’ll switch off.”

  “Will do,” Howard said.

  He and Val grabbed their towels, snorkels, and fins from the rental car and headed across the white sand beach. When they were close enough to the water, they spread out their towels next to each other. Hopefully, the towels wouldn’t go missing while they were playing in the water, but they could always chase down the suspects if they didn’t just take the towels and get in a vehicle and drive off. Val and Howard left their flip-flops, flippers, snorkels, and sunglasses on their towels. Howard was only too happy to apply lotion on Val, even though she was wearing a long T-shirt. She did the same for him, her hands rubbing the lotion all over his bare skin, making him hot and interested.

  She smiled at him and kissed his lips. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to stir things up.”

  “Can’t be helped when you’re rubbing your warm hands all over my body.”

  Then they walked across the hot sand to the water. The waves were gentle, the water clear aqua, darker the deeper it got.

  “I hope this works,” Val said. “I hate leaving the Greystokes to do all the sitting and watching while we’re playing though.”

  They raced out into the waves. It was invigorating to get in some playtime in between the rough times. Howard noticed Val’s wounds were healing, the same as his, but they were still visible.

  “We’ll relieve them in a bit. As team players, we all love to take the bad guys down. They’re as eager to wait there and watch for the bad guys, hoping to make another break in the case, as we will be when we switch places.”

  They splashed into the water, running deeper until they could swim and put on their fins and goggles. Howard and Val made sure they could watch Jillian and Vaughn’s location, lined up directly with their towels, in case anyone tried to harm their teammates. He was paying attention to the ocean currents too—to make sure he and Val didn’t drift down the beach—and watching the shore. With her head in the water, Val was keeping close to him, observing the fish swimming beneath them. Some came up to nibble on their legs. She pointed to them, looking thrilled to be here. With him.

  At least he thought so. Both jaguars and wolves loved the water. Jaguars especially, so they were in their element out here.

  She suddenly came up for air. He looked down at her, afraid something was the matter, though he didn’t see what it could be—unless she had another idea about the mission.

  Chapter 17

  Val couldn’t have been more delighted to try out this new working relationship with several partners and to have a mate while she did it. Still, she was serious about returning to her job as an Enforcer if she didn’t feel she fit in with the team. The rest of them had already worked together on several missions. Would she truly be able to contribute?

  If she returned to the Enforcer branch, would Howard come with her? She didn’t know, but she had decided that more than anything, she wanted him in her life. She wasn’t going to wait for him to propose to her in a special way. This was special enough—snorkeling together in the pristine waters of the jaguars’ playground, Belize, while watching for the perps.

  When she returned to the surface so suddenly, she was afraid Howard would believe something was wrong. He might not like her proposing to him instead of the other way around, but she suspected he would be thrilled. At least she hoped he would be.

  As soon as she reached the surface, the waves carrying them up and down gently, she grabbed hold of him and let him be her flotation device while she readied herself to ask the question. She’d never imagined she’d be doing this with a jaguar someday. Certainly never with one who was as brawny, interesting, funny, and clever as he was. Or here, in the Caribbean, the warm waters lapping at their naked skin.

  He kept her back to the beach while he switched his gaze from her to the beach, watching the situation there.

  “If having me with the USF doesn’t work out, for whatever reason, then I’ll return to the Enforcer branch. I don’t expect you to do that. You make a great USF agent, and I can see how much your team members love working with you, so I wouldn’t want to take that away from you,” she said.

  It looked like it was killing him not to respond, but he nodded, waiting for her to finish what she had to say before he did, and she appreciated him for it. In fact, that was what she loved so much about him. He was really attuned to her feelings, just as she was to his, and that made all the difference in the world to her.

  “So when I ask you if you want to be my mate—” she said.

  “Hell yeah, under any condition,” he quickly said.

  She laughed. “Don’t try to act like you’re Mr. Nice Guy and go along with everything I say. I know you better than that.”

  He chuckled. “Okay, let me put it this way: if we’re working as USF and as mates, we’ll have each other’s backs, as usual. Only…it will be a little different.”

  “We’ll be mated.”

  “Right. Because you love me.”

  “And you love me.”

  “So much. Now, if you work this mission and you really don’t feel like you can work with a team, that’s completely up to you. I respect your wishes. You have to feel right about your partners and about the job we’re doing. Otherwise, you won’t be able to do your best, and you and your teammates could suffer.”

  “What about you?” She wrapped her legs around his hips while he kicked to keep the two of them afloat, her hands caressing his shoulders.

  He settled his hands on her hips. “We’ll see. If you don’t want a partner as an Enforcer, I’ll stay with the USF. Though it will kill me, I have to admit. I’ll be like Vaughn is with Jillian, making a total nuisance of myself, texting or calling you constantly to see if you miss me. Or what you’re doing next. Or how things are going. Or when we’re going to be together again.”

  She smiled. She loved when he was being honest with her.

  Howard kissed her wet cheek. “That’s completely your choice. If you want me as a partner, I’ll make sure someone takes my place in the USF, and then I’ll join you.” He glanced again at the shore.

  “I wouldn’t want you to have to leave them when I can see how well you work with them, but I would want you as my partner wherever I work.”

  “A mate takes priority. I’ve worked both jobs, so I know something about them. I prefer being a USF agent because of the partners I have now, and with you on the team, it would be even better. If I’m an Enforcer with you as my partner? I’ll be just as happy. You’re the one who makes me complete. Not just the job. You. Yet, if you decide at some point you don’t want to work as my partner, I’ll let you have your space. As long as we can make up for it when we’re together again.”

  “Okay, then that decides it. I want you to be my mate. Will you be?”

  He shouted out with glee.

  She laughed, glad he wasn’t shy about letting others know how he felt. “I think all of Belize knows it now.”

  They looked around to see Jillian and Vaughn’s location, and she wondered if they’d heard them.

  “Hey, since we’re going to be mates, I wanted to ask you about being so distressed in the car when Izzie told us she was going to have a baby boy. I worried about you.”

  “I don’t know.” She kissed his chest. “I just felt bad all of a sudden about having bullied her to come with us—threatening to eliminate her if she didn’t. We didn’t know she was pregnant at the time. It just hit me when she announced she was having a baby boy.”

  “Okay. I’m glad that’s all it was. One of us had to convince her for her own good. Everything you said to her was true, and you weren’t going to eliminate her. If nothing else, I would have knocked her out and carried her through the rain forest back to our resort. You were the one who convinced her to return with us without either of us having to resort to violence. I was proud of you, and she was grateful to you.” He hugged Val tight. “No worries. Next time, I can be the bad guy.”

  She smiled up at him. “Thanks, Howard. I think with a guy, you would have more of an impact. With a woman, it worked out well with me taking on that role.”

  “See? We’re already a great team.”

  “Agreed. Why don’t you snorkel for a bit, and I’ll watch the situation on the beach and make sure we don’t drift,” she said.

  “I like the way you keep bumping me below the water. Go ahead and keep swimming, and when you’re done, we’ll switch off with the Greystokes.” Howard hesitated to release her, his hands still wrapped around her back, but then he leaned down and kissed her mouth, lowering his hands to cup her buttocks to press her against his arousal. She rubbed up against him, and he bit back a groan. “You’re killing me.”

  She smiled. “We’ll have to do something about that when we return to our place. All right. I’ll snorkel. I haven’t been down here in eons.”

  “I can’t wait.”

  They swam around for a good half hour, and then Val finally said she was ready to switch off with her teammates. She couldn’t believe she was actually calling them that, or that she and Howard had agreed to be mated jaguars. She couldn’t have been happier, except if they’d finish this business with Eric, Benny, and the rest of Eric’s henchmen.

  They wrapped their towels around them, wearing their flip-flops, with goggles and fins in hand, and walked through the sand to the parking lot. They were talking about what to fix for lunch—Belizean tamales wrapped in plantain leaves filled with seasoned chicken appealed to everyone. But they needed to throw on their clothes over their swimsuits and drop off their gear at the car before they took Vaughn and Jillian’s place.

  That’s when they saw three men talking together in the parking lot, wearing jeans and T-shirts and sneakers, not looking like part of the beach crowd. None of the men were Benny or Eric. But one of the men was passing a bag of something to another who was handing him cash.

  They might not be dealing drugs, but it sure looked like they were. Even if they had nothing to do with the jaguars, Howard and Val needed to do something about the men. The three men suddenly looked over at them as Val hugged Howard and looked up at him, smiling as if she had no idea what the men were doing. He glanced down at her and kissed her forehead.

  “There was supposed to be twice as much here,” one man growled, his voice low, but the jaguars could hear him.

  “My supplier’s stuff was stolen. This is the best I could do.”

  Supplier? As in Eric?

  Howard and Val heard movement behind them and saw Jillian and Vaughn hurrying to catch up to them.

  Dropping their beach gear, Howard and Val ran to intercept the men. Jillian and Vaughn pulled out their guns and hollered, “Undercover agents! Get down on the ground! Now!”

  Of course, all three men ran, but it didn’t take long for Val to reach one of them and trip him, making him sprawl onto the pavement. Howard and Vaughn took down the others, while Jillian kept her gun trained on the men. They were all human, and once the men were tied up, Jillian called the police.

  Then Jillian and Val searched the men for IDs. Vaughn took pictures to forward to Emmie to see if she knew them. She would be getting off her flight in a couple of hours, so they wouldn’t know until then.

  One of the men had a driver’s license on him, and Vaughn smiled at the name. “One of the guys on the list of debts.” He turned to the drug dealer and eyed the other guy’s passport. “Where’s the other man who was supposed to show up?”

  “BC? He set me up?” the drug dealer growled.

  “Yeah, him,” Vaughn said.

  BC? As in Benny Canton? That meant Benny had sent someone else in his place.

  * * *

  Twenty minutes later, the police arrived, arrested the men, and took everyone’s statements. Since the jaguars and wolves all had Martin as their boss, the officers verified with him that the agents were here on vacation.

  When one officer got off the phone, he eyed them with suspicion. “You work together and come down here on your time off to play together?” Gonzales sounded like he doubted that.

  “Sure,” Val said. “And Howard and I love it here so much that we just got engaged.” She hugged Howard tighter and smiled up at him. “So it’s kind of a pre-honeymoon trip.”

  “Congratulations,” the officer said. “Try to enjoy your vacation.”

  “Thanks,” Vaughn said. “We will.”

  When the police officers left, Val asked Jillian and Vaughn, “Okay, so do you want to get in some swimming and we’ll keep an eye on things now?”

  “We were thinking we would, but since we probably took care of any action going down here, we could just return to the cabins and have some lunch,” Jillian said. “We can swim later.”

  “Are you sure?” Howard asked.

  “Yeah, I’m starving,” Vaughn said.

  They packed their gear in the car, but when they arrived at Vaughn and Jillian’s cabin, they had a new problem. One of Jillian’s rental car’s windows had been smashed, and the door was wide open.

  “Hell,” Vaughn said as they all hurried to exit the car and check out the cabin.

  He reached the cabin first, the door wide open, and they heard someone still inside. Vaughn handed Val his gun and began stripping out of his clothes. Howard was removing his clothes too, but Val didn’t think Vaughn should be seen as a wolf out here.