The leap party was a very cheerful affair. There were mountains of food – potato salad was definitely not in short supply, half a dozen barbecues going, each of which was surrounded by several men, enthralled by the fire and meat. Games and competitions had been set up for the kids, and everyone seemed to be in a good mood. Well, almost everyone.
Her cheetah growled. Marta didn’t exactly look thrilled by the barbecue or her fellow leap mates. She was sitting away from everyone with a haughty look on her face. She sneered when she caught Hester’s eye.
Hester was trying to watch everyone covertly, getting a feel for which of the jaguar leap members – if any – had tried to poison her. It wasn’t easy to concentrate; the good mood was infectious, the sun was bright and warm, and Hester was a little tired from her nearly sleepless night. Well, how could she sleep knowing that Antonio was right on the other side of her door? She wasn’t made of stone! Knowing he was so close was far too big of a temptation. She was amazed she made it through the night without dragging him into her room and begging him to take her to heaven. Perhaps it had been too long since her last boyfriend, but then, none of her boyfriends had ever got her quite so hot as Antonio.
Hester spotted Valentina. Her beast bared her fangs. The young jaguar looked relaxed and happy as she moved between her leap mates, saying hello. She certainly wasn’t acting like a devious poisoning harpy, and she probably wasn’t. Hester just really wished she could be. Grrr.
Valentina caught sight of Hester, and her cheeks turned pink before she hurried away out of sight. The eyes of many young male jaguars followed her progress. Well, it beat the sneer her mother sent her.
Daniel was also sitting apart from the rest of the leap and appeared to be drinking himself into a stupor. Roberto and Antonio were currently deep in conversation, though Antonio constantly glanced in her direction to make sure she was still there, or possibly just still alive.
All the other kidnapped females were there with their respective kidnappers. Mary and Tomas were sitting together and smiling shyly at one another. Hester had strained to listen, but she couldn’t hear anything from Mary’s room all night other than a few snores.
Sadie and Lorenzo were talking, or perhaps arguing, or perhaps talking – Hester couldn’t tell, but the two of them were standing very close to one another and whatever their topic, it seemed important and intense.
Hester perked up as Diego led a wan-looking Laurel over to her table.
“Hey, how are you?” asked Hester leaning over and taking her hand.
Diego growled at her in warning and Hester gave him a growl in return.
“I’m okay,” she said with a small smile, “my stomach hurts a little from the stomach pump, but I’m fine.”
Hester tried to talk to her, but it wasn’t easy with Diego constantly fussing over her. He was trying to get her to eat, trying to put sunscreen on her, trying to get her to move and sit somewhere out of the sun. She batted away his concerns with infinite patience. Seriously, if it were Hester, she would have already snarled at him by the time he was trying to put sunscreen on her eyelids.
Laurel picked at her food. “I’m never eating chocolate again.”
Hester frowned. “Oh, you can’t let one poisoned box of chocolates put you off. Don’t say anything you’ll regret later.”
Laurel rolled her eyes at her and laughed.
“Gah!” Hester and her cheetah let out a sound of surprise as something small, warm and sniffly bounced up onto her lap.
“Looks like you’ve got company,” smiled Laurel.
A young jaguar shifter stared up at her from her lap. He couldn’t have been more than two years old, but his golden eyes already told her he was a shifter.
“Shoo!” tried Hester, completely unaccustomed to dealing with cubs.
His nose appeared to be running, and her dress was designer. She tried to push him off her gently – she didn’t really want to hurt him – but he had to be part barnacle or something because he wasn’t going anywhere.
Laurel completely failed to hide her titters of laughter, and even Diego who was preoccupied with fretting over Laurel, couldn’t help but let out a few snickers.
The little jaguar let out a few garbled words and reached forward to give her a hug.
“Oh, ah, um, okay!” mumbled Hester.
“Looks like you’ve found a new boyfriend,” teased Laurel.
“What?!” snapped Antonio towering over the table, his eyes blazing.
“I’m being attacked!” whispered Hester as the cub settled his head in the nook of her shoulder and he stroked her hair.
“That’s little Marco,” said Antonio, disapproval lacing his voice.
Reluctantly, Hester settled her arms around Marco, fearing he may fall off her. He was so warm and smelled so fresh and fit so well on her lap. Okay, he was adorable; she’d give him that. He was all big gold eyes, chocolate brown hair, and chubby cheeks. Yeah, maybe she could see why so many women wanted one of these. Her cheetah let out a small almost longing mewl.
“Aren’t they cute together?” said Laurel.
Any thought she had that this was some kind of tactic employed by Antonio to encourage her to stay in the leap was dismissed the moment she saw his face. He was struggling not to be irritated by the cub. He didn’t like it that the cub was on her lap, and didn’t like Laurel’s taunts that he was her boyfriend. He was actually jealous of a baby! Her cheetah howled in mirth.
Antonio forced a laugh out and reached down to disengage Marco’s grip on her. The cub let out a yowl of discontent as Antonio carried him back over to his mother.
“He’s precious,” said Hester as Antonio returned, partly because she believed it and partly to needle Antonio.
“Humph.” He tucked into a burger and kept a wary eye on the cub who now appeared to be having a tug of war with one of his brothers.
Laurel said she needed to go to the bathroom, and in spite of her many objections, Diego would not let her go alone.
“What did Roberto say?” Hester asked when they were alone.
“You shouldn’t worry about that.”
“Spare me and tell me.”
Antonio sighed. “There were three sets of prints on the box of chocolates.”
“Which would account for me, Laurel and Hilda but no one else.” Hester deflated a little; it was perhaps asking a bit too much for her would-be poisoner just to leave evidence pointing in their direction.
“The chief wants to take fingerprints from you to rule you out.”
“Whether it’s worth it,” she muttered.
“Oh god, he’s coming back,” grumbled Antonio.
Hester looked round to see Marco making his way back to her, arms outstretched. His mother was laughing as Marco reached Hester like a heat seeking missile.
“What can I say, I’m irresistible.”
Antonio scowled. “How open would you be to me climbing up on your lap?”
“Only one way to find out,” she growled flexing her claws.
Too late, Marco clambered onto her lap and started hugging her again. Antonio gave the cub a sour look and Hester blew Antonio a kiss.
“Practice maybe for when we have our own kids,” he taunted in return.
Hester narrowed her eyes, and Antonio chuckled.
Before she could throw a scalding retort at him, Maria joined them, beaming at the sight of Marco curled on Hester’s lap.
“Enjoying the barbecue?” she asked.
“Sure,” replied Antonio. “Now what’s this about you dating a bear shifter called Roman?”
Maria almost choked on her lemonade.
*
The next morning, Hester was still in a good mood, and when Maria asked if she wanted to walk down to collect the mail with her, she automatically said yes. Didn’t question why Maria was asking, or complain that it was too early. She got dressed – after her enormous breakfast – gave Antonio, who wasn’t invited, a smug smile and set off with Maria. She guessed Maria was trying to ease her into leap life by having her do the more mundane everyday jobs. But she wasn’t going to argue that it wasn’t worth it because she would be going home soon, she just got on with it. Plus, she liked spending time with Maria. She reminded her of her mother – if her mother weren’t uptight or act like a crazy stalker from time to time. Though, admittedly, she didn’t know Maria that well – maybe she was a little nuts, too.
The barbecue had been kind of nice. Not something her coalition ever did. No, they had fancy dinners at the country club. They were filled with finger food, gossip, and stick-up-their-butts cheetahs. Their get-togethers weren’t fun like the leap barbecue had been. The barbecue went on into the night, with a huge bonfire and music. It was a real party that no one wanted to end. Indeed, the older members continued the party well into the early hours. Everyone always wanted the coalition parties to end early – usually the cops insisted on it. The leap was more like a family than anything else.
“Walk a little slower,” puffed Hester, having trouble keeping up with the sprightly human. “The chorizo omelet and the cinnamon bun you made me for breakfast were delicious, but I am kind of full and starting to feel like a beach ball. I don’t suppose you can make breakfasts that delicious in diet-sized portions?”
Maria slowed her pace. “You have nothing to worry about – you could do with a little meat on your bones.”
Her cheetah preened – she would. When shifted she was lithe and lovely, in her human form, eh, not quite so lithe.
Hester snorted. “Bah, I’m all meat. You’re just trying to make me too fat to run away from your son.”
Maria guffawed before sobering and slanting an annoyed look Hester’s way. “Speaking of my son, I can’t believe you told Antonio about Roman.”
“What is there to tell? You said there was nothing going on.”
“Well… there isn’t.”
“All I really told him is that the guy has a crush on you – which is true.”
“I… ah…” Maria flushed, wanting to deny it but also wanting it to be true.
“But if you wanted something to happen with him…”
“I don’t… at least, I don’t think I do.”
“No one said you have to be lonely,” said Hester, her tone as gentle as if she were trying to soothe a skittish deer.
“I’m not lonely, I just… I don’t want to replace my mate.”
“Don’t. Don’t ever try to replace him. Roman wouldn’t thank you for it, and it wouldn’t make you happy. My mother has spent years trying to replace my dad, trying to mold her new husbands to be like him and it always ends badly. But, you can have something new with Roman.”
“I don’t know.” She gnawed on her lip.
“Well, you never know until you try.”
Maria shrugged and called out hello to a teenage boy, just entering a small hut on the edge of the compound. He was lugging a large bag that he had somehow managed to balance on a tiny scooter all the way up from town.
She introduced Hester to Ben whose current job was to collect the mail from town and sort it.
“The post office doesn’t like to come out here, so we came to an arrangement to just collect it ourselves, and everyone collects their own post from here,” she explained.
“I’m sorry, Maria,” said Ben, “I haven’t had time to sort through it yet.”
“Not a problem, I am early today. How is your mother?”
Maria inquired after Ben’s whole family while Hester wandered through the cabin. There were pigeon holes for the different families and households, and some had mail stuck in there already, probably from previous days that just hadn’t been collected.
“Hey, Ben!” Valentina bounced into the cabin, stopping short on seeing Hester and Maria – particularly Hester.
Her cheetah let out a growl, but Hester tried to appear blank.
Ben didn’t notice her hesitation. Nope, he blushed and started stammering at the svelte jaguar shifter.
“Hi Valentina,” he replied shyly. “I haven’t sorted today's mail yet.”
Valentina wouldn’t make eye contact with Hester. Boy that must have been some slap she landed on her. Pussy grumbled her cheetah. She wasn’t even bruised – her perfect face had returned to its normal perfectness already!
Maria smiled at her, but that seemed to embarrass Valentina more.
“It’s fine, Ben, I’ll just take whatever came yesterday.”
Ben scrambled to get it, almost tripping over his feet in the process, eager to please her. Hester watched him pull out a few letters from their slot and quickly hand them over. They looked like junk mail – the usual, letters encouraging people to take out magazine subscriptions, come and shop at our going out of business sale and so on and so forth. Though, one actually looked like a real letter – there was a big company logo on it and everything, but it hardly seemed worth the trip. No wonder most of the holes still had mail in them waiting to be collected. The leap members probably didn’t get bills in the same way ordinary people would. The compound bills for electricity and other utilities would be paid as a whole from the proceeds of the leap businesses.
“Thanks,” mumbled Valentina, “I’ll see you tomorrow.” She practically ran out of the cabin.
“Yes, see you tomorrow,” called Ben after her.
Maria gave him a sweet, understanding smiled and he turned bright red before returning to his mail.
Hester shrugged. As long as the woman stayed away from Antonio, she didn’t care how agitated she was.