A Summer in Paradise (2 page)

She
had
smelled sweet, but Duncan wanted
no mistakes when they went after the woman that he suspected was
their mate. With her scent fresh in their minds, they had a much
better chance of finding her. He only hoped that no one found the
plastic bag he’d put her shorts in and hidden in the
cabin.

Even after all these years there was a
chance that they could find her using her scent alone, but that was
only if someone else hadn’t touched them and added their smell to
the mix.

They drove the truck into the mountains
as far as they could, then got out and packed the rest of the way.
It started to drizzle half way from the truck to the cabin and
Duncan sighed. He wanted this little weekend away to unwind and
regroup before they set of on their search. He’d hoped to
fish.

Just before they reached the cabin, the
rain stopped and the sun came back out, bathing the woods in
dappled sunlight. The sun, high in the sky, beat down on the forest
and made the wet leaves sparkle and helped the pungent odor of the
rotting vegetation rise into the muggy air.

“
I think I’m just going to
walk to the cabin, drop off our things and hit the lake right
away.” He swiped the sweat from his face with his forearm with a
grimace. “We needed the rain, but it could have brought cooler
weather behind it.”

Jarrod agreed with a nod. “I know what
you mean.” He turned his gaze forward and stopped dead in his
tracks. “I think the cabin is already occupied.”

“
Shit.” Duncan slammed his
fist into the large tree next to him. “Someone found the shorts.”
He pointed at a pair of bright red running shorts hanging from a
clothesline. “And whoever it is, washed them.”

Closing his eyes, he bowed his head and
rubbed the back of his neck. “I know I would remember her scent
anywhere, but I’d wanted those shorts to help us when we got to the
bigger cities.”

Now what the hell would they do? Washed
and hung out to dry, the shorts would be of no use to them and now
even their weekend was shot. They couldn’t very well stay in the
cabin. As a line cabin, it was fair game to anyone who wanted to
use it.

“
Well, hell.” He shot a
Jarrod a look. “How do you feel about spending the night on the
shore then heading back down in the morning?” They may as well
start their search early.

“
Why not?” Jarrod said with
a shrug. “It’s not like we didn’t want to find our treasure.” He
turned toward the lake. “I just hope this isn’t some sort of
fucked-up sign.”

“
Yeah.” Duncan sighed. “Me
too.”

Chapter Three

After cleaning the cabin from top to
bottom, Pearl slipped on her swimsuit, threw a towel over her
shoulders and headed for the lake.

The sun was out and the mid-morning
shower that drenched her laundry had left the day hot and muggy.
She glanced at the clothesline and smiled. It was a stroke of luck
that she found that pair of stretchy shorts in the cabin. She could
use another pair.

Though they looked familiar, she wasn’t
sure who they belonged to. She only hoped they wouldn’t mind her
using them while she was here. It would give her another pair to
wear while she washed her clothes instead of having to wear her
suit like she’d planned.

Packing light was a given. Most of the
space in her pack had been left for food, water and the little
water sterilizing packs she’d use in a few days when her supply ran
out. Her dehydrated meals wouldn’t last long either, which was why
she’d brought the collapsible fishing rod.

If there was one thing she knew how to
do, it was live off the land. Her adoptive parents had taught them
all how to do that. Just in case.

When she was a child, she never knew
what they meant by that, but she knew by the time she left
Paradise, dragging her baby sister with her. They’d spent weeks
hiding out in the woods, living off the land in their escape from
town all those years ago.

Her only regret was not forcing all of
them to go with her. Their parents wouldn’t leave and Gemma
couldn’t leave them.

Her sister suffered for staying. Though
Gemma refused to talk about it, Pearl knew what they did to women
during that dark time and she feared that her sister wouldn’t have
been left out, especially since she wasn’t really one of the clan.
As an adopted human child, she would have had fewer rights in the
eyes of the council than even the lowliest shifter female. Pearl
hated the thought.

Many times, she’d almost came back to
help take some of the focus off Gemma, but every time she thought
of Crystal and knew she couldn’t subject her baby sister through
the abuse that even she, herself, couldn’t escape.

She was almost to the shore
when she heard the low murmur of voices and stopped. Goose bumps
rose on her skin and she closed her eyes. Those voices sounded so
familiar.
It can’t be…

With a sense of déjà vu, Pearl moved
slowly closer, creeping forward, she peered through the bushes. She
covered her mouth when she almost gasped with shock. Her entire
body trembled with recognition as she knelt in the vegetation and
stared toward the shoreline. There was no mistaking them. They
hadn’t changed a bit in all these years.

Pearl glanced down at her too plump
thighs and sighed. If only she were a teenager again. If only she
hadn’t left. Fifteen years ago, she’d had a chance. Now she was too
old and definitely too fat for the two to even give her a second
glance. Tears filled her eyes as she watched the two sunning
themselves on the rocks where they half reclined, leaning back on
their elbows, their fishing poles lying forgotten next to
them.

“
Where do you think she’ll
be?” One asked the other. She wasn’t certain which was which. She
only knew that one was Duncan, the other Jarrod. No one had ever
introduced her to them. She had never told anyone of her guilty
pleasure of watching them sunbathe.

The years had changed them a bit in
that they weren’t totally naked like she originally thought. She
peered through the foliage and noticed that they each wore a
G-string swimsuit in a different color.

Both were tanned all over, just as she
remembered them, but at some point they had gained a grain of
modesty. Perhaps someone had brought children up here and caught
them with their pants down…literally.

Whatever the case, they were
just as handsome and positively
hot
as they had been all of those years
ago.

Neither of them had aged a day, but
then she really didn’t expect them to. They weren’t human. It would
be at least a hundred years before either of them would endure the
middle-aged spread she was already subject to and she was only
thirty-three.

She barely noticed when the two grew
silent. They just lay on their separate rocks, the sun beating down
on their perfect bodies as their fishing lines went
forgotten.

Pearl noticed one of the poles bobbing,
but didn’t pay attention to it until the rod jerked. She wanted to
say something, but covered her mouth before she gave her position
away.

The one she suspected was Jarrod,
jumped up and made a lunge for his pole before something gave it a
yank and jerked it from his grasp.

“
Son of a bitch!” He dove
into the water after it.

It was funny that he thought he could
catch it. It wasn’t a minute later that his friend did the same
thing. After a moment, they both surfaced, their eyes flashing
angrily. “So much for having fresh fish for dinner, Jerry,” the man
who was obviously Duncan said as he surfaced and brushed his hair
away from his face.

Jarrod wiped the water from his
perpetual five-day beard and shook his head. “How was I supposed to
know something would bite the hooks at the same time and take off
with our rods?”

“
I suspect our lines were
tangled and only one culprit is guilty of taking off with our gear,
but what the hell will we do for dinner now? I had a hankering for
fish.”

“
Well,” Pearl said as she
stepped from around the bush she’d been hiding behind.” “You could
always borrow mine. I only have the one, but we could make do.” She
didn’t know what gave her the courage to step out from behind that
bush. For all she knew, they could still be part of the
Tudra.
If they were, they
could force themselves on her. They could take her captive and have
their wicked way with her.

Cream coated her thighs at
the thought and she frowned. What had come over her that she was
turned on by thinking of these men taking her?
It’s because you’ve been half in love with them for the past
sixteen years, Pearl. Geeze. Grow up and take what you want for a
change.
Some inner hussy that saw the two
men she’d been lusting after for the better part of the last two
decades stood up and said,
you can’t rape
the willing.

Pearl took a deep breath, pasted a
smile on her face and hoped her inner self wasn’t serious. No girl
wanted a man to force her to do anything, but with these men, she
wasn’t so sure.

Her heart slammed in her chest when the
two men turned her way. She could see them scenting the air as
though trying to smell her, but the wind came from behind them, so
Pearl knew they couldn’t scent much.

Still, it wouldn’t help her.
As shifters, they could run a
lot
faster than she could. Besides, that was the least
of her worries. Pearl stood looking at the two men she’d been half
in love with since she was sixteen and hoped they’d
want
to chase her if she
ran.

Chapter Four

Jarrod stared at the goddess that stood
before them. Her one piece suit drew up on the hips, making her
legs look like they were a mile long. Her full breasts and curvy
body made his mouth go dry while making his cock harden.

Shifters weren’t stupid like
human males. They
wanted
a woman with meat on her bones. A thin slip of a
woman was weak and they would fear breaking her. Not so, with a
bigger girl. A bigger girl could handle a rougher ride—and Jarrod
had always liked it a little rough.

His eyes narrowed on her familiar face
and he fought the urge to reach down and feel his cock to be
certain she had elicited such a response. It had been too long
since any woman stirred his body as easily as this one
did.

“
That’s kind of you.” He
pulled himself out of the water, aware that the sunlight glistened
on his chest and shoulders as they worked to pull him out of the
water. He sat on the large rock he’d claimed earlier, Indian style,
to cover the fact that his hard-on was practically dwarfing the
banana hammock that the general store called a bathing
suit.

He looked out over the lake and his
stomach picked just that time to grumble. “I don’t suppose you have
the pole with you?”

She smiled and his heart almost jumped
from his chest. She looked so familiar. Even the way she tilted her
head when she looked at them reminded him of someone—but
whom?

Jarrod watched as the tempting little
morsel nervously toed the dirt beneath her right foot. He sensed
Duncan recognized her too as he stayed silent in the
water.

“
No.” She turned and glanced
back over her shoulder before she looked back at him with a smile.
“But in the interest of being a good neighbor, I could run back to
the cabin and get it.”

So she was the one who was staying in
the cabin. He looked her up and down and wondered what she thought
gave her the right to wash the shorts Duncan had stored
there.

“
We wondered who was staying
there. The line cabins are usually empty this time of
year.”

“
I know. That’s why I’m
staying there.”

She knew? How did she know?
He didn’t recognize her as being anyone from Paradise, but then her
mannerisms
were
familiar.

“
Yeah, we’d planned to stay
there until we saw the clothes on the line. Then we decided that
we’d spend one night under the stars then pack up and go
home.”

“
Oh.”

Was that disappointment he saw on her
face? “We didn’t expect to see such a beautiful woman out here
alone.”

He expected the sickly sweet scent of
fear to fill his nostrils at his comment. Unfortunately, he
couldn’t smell anything with the wind at his back. She took a step
back, most likely out of fear. The woman may be attracted to them
and he could tell that she was, but she wasn’t stupid. Just the
implication that they could harm her had her putting space between
them—not that she could outrun them if they decided to give
chase.

“
Don’t worry. We wouldn’t
hurt you.” Duncan shot him a look that threatened bodily harm
without his saying so. “We thank you for the offer of your
rod.”

Ha! Jarrod had a rod for her. He fought
the urge to grab his cock and shake it at her. What was it about
the woman that stirred his blood so completely? He hadn’t even
gotten a whiff of her yet and his body raged for
release.