“That’s a masked civet. They’re nocturnal.” He looked up at her. “Are you ready for me to carry you?” He straightened slowly. “Or do I have to pull rank and give you an order? You’re limping.”

“I didn’t realize we were in the military.”

“Anytime we’re under a death threat, we’re under military rules.”

Her laughter rose to the forest canopy, blended with the continuous call of the barbet, a bird that seemed to love the sound of its own voice. “Are you making up rules as we go along?”

“It was quick thinking on my part. Aren’t you impressed?” He swung her into his arms. “I want to know a little more about your mother’s family. Did you meet your grandparents?”

“I don’t remember hearing of my mother’s parents at all. My brother spoke of our birth father’s parents. He said we went to visit them in deep jungle once. They gave him treats and my grandmother rocked me. But they died around the same time as my father. He was on a trip and he never came back.”

“And then your mother took you away?”

“I don’t honestly remember, I was so young. Most of what I know is what my brother told me. After my father died, my mother took us to another small village on the edge of the forest. She met my stepfather. His family was very wealthy and they had a lot of land, a lot of power where we lived. We were there for some time and then he moved us to the United States.”

Rachael looked around her, drinking in the scents and sights of the rain forest. It was truly beautiful with thousands of varieties of plant life in every color. Butterflies were in abundance, sometimes covering trunks of flowering fruit trees, adding to the explosion of color everywhere she looked. The forest seemed alive, leaves swaying, lizards and insects continually on the move, birds flitting from tree to tree. It was teaming with life. Termites and ants vied for territory near a large fallen tree.

“We lived in Florida on a huge estate. It was such beautiful and wild country in the mangroves and swamp. We had humidity and lots of alligators.” She brushed back his hair. “No one turned into leopards.”

“There were no big cats in the area? No signs of big cats?”

Rachael frowned. “Well of course there were rumors of panthers, the Florida panther in the swamps, but I never saw one. There are rumors of Bigfoot in the Cascades but no one actually has proof of Bigfoot. There aren’t any cats in my family.”

“Did your brother spend a lot of time in the swamp?”