Tropical Tails (Shifting Sands Resort Collections Book 4) Read online

  Tropical Tails

  Zoe Chant

  For all the readers who loved this island and didn’t want to say goodbye any more than I did.

  Contents

  Shifting Sands Resort

  Her Hellhound Bodyguard

  Fake Fur

  Steps

  Roots

  Run

  Treasure Sense

  Other Duties as Assigned

  The Storm

  Dance Lesson

  The Betting Pool

  Reunion

  Pickled Magnolias

  A Hoard of Their Own

  A Will and a Wedding

  Of Course

  Perfect Match

  Unreliable Senses

  Thank You from Zoe

  Shifting Sands Resort Complete Timeline

  The Dragon Prince of Alaska

  Fae Shifter Knights

  Shape Shifters: Vol 1

  Green Valley Shifters

  Sneak Preview of The Dragon Prince of Alaska…

  Shifting Sands Resort

  This collection of short stories and novellas takes place at a tropical luxury destination called Shifting Sands Resort, a clothing-optional haven for shifters only. The first several stories stand completely alone and give away none of the secrets that are revealed through the series; anyone may enjoy these humorous, romantic tales. Many of the subsequent stories include major spoilers, especially for the final book, Tropical Dragon’s Destiny, and will make much more sense if you read the series first. These stories fill in some of the gaps and lingering questions, expand and offer backstory for the characters you came to love, and give a tantalizing peek at things to come…

  Want to get started from the beginning? Escape to Shifting Sands Resort and buckle up for a binge-read that will take you for a wild ride with a thrilling conclusion.

  Her Hellhound Bodyguard

  This story requires an explanation!

  At the end of March 2020, two of my most popular series were poised on the brink of hellhound characters taking the stage, and fans were eagerly anticipating them. A reader posted in my Facebook group that they were waiting for ALL the hellhounds, and made up some spoof hellhound titles, including a Shifting Sands release. The timing was too good to pass up—I threw together a cover and a fake description for Tropical Hellhound’s Heartache, and posted them for April Fool’s Day.

  But the joke was entirely on me, because then I had to actually write it…

  (This story stands alone and does not significantly spoil any of the Shifting Sands Resort series. It occurs near the end of Tropical Leopard’s Longing, just before the epilogue.)

  “I’ll be fine,” Christy Ryan protested. “There’s no reason to change my plans at this point.”

  She was packing with one hand, holding her phone to her ear with the other. How many pairs of shorts would she need? The place was clothing-optional...did she really need any? She threw in her favorite pairs.

  “Someone tried to kill you, Christy! Kill you!” At the other end of the line, her sister Betsy was nearly hysterical. But Betsy was often nearly hysterical—it was hard to take that seriously. “Maybe you should go somewhere...safer. Or stay here!”

  “Am I really going to be safer if I stay here?” Christy asked. “It’s not like the police are going to offer me witness protection anywhere but in jail.”

  “You should have some protection,” Betsy said firmly.

  “I already packed condoms…” Christy said slyly.

  Betsy laughed weakly. “That isn’t what I meant.”

  “I know. Look, getting out of town is the smartest thing I could do right now. Things will cool off.” Christy hesitated over her shoes. Sandals, for sure, several pairs of heels; Shifting Sands Resort looked fancy. She threw in her favorite tall boots. Anything else that she needed, she could buy.

  “Maybe you should take a bodyguard,” Betsy said pointedly. “What if they follow you? You could have picked an easier mark, couldn’t you?”

  “It was an easy mark,” Christy said defensively. “It’s not my fault that Slippery Mick was going for the same prize.”

  “I don’t want to know,” Betsy sighed. “I never want to know. Just promise me that you’ll be careful. And I wasn’t kidding about a bodyguard.”

  “I’m going somewhere perfectly safe,” Christy assured her, sighing. She loved her sister, but sometimes she wished that Betsy was as adventurous as she was; she’d always wanted a partner in crime. “It’s an exclusive resort, on a remote island off of Costa Rica. I have to take a private charter from Mexico City to get there. I can’t imagine being safer! I’ll pick up a new burner phone on my way out and give you a call once I’m there.”

  Betsy didn’t seem particularly reassured, but she finally let Christy hang up and get back to packing in earnest.

  Lorenzo hated answering phones.

  There was no hell worse than having to ask the mumbling idiot at the other end of a crackling line to repeat their request, trying to wade through the carefully couched keywords to try to figure out what they were really asking for and answer them in the same code.

  No, their business did not coordinate assassinations, it was just a bodyguard service. Yes, they were all hellhounds. No, they were not cheap. Yes, they were that good.

  But you couldn’t just come out and say that directly with most clients. If shifters were secret in some countries, Mexico included, hellhounds were twice that, and there was a tricky balance between advertising services and protecting secrets.

  So Lorenzo was surprised when the woman at the other end of the phone very frankly answered his Spanish greeting with clear English. “I need a shifter bodyguard immediately for a vacation to Costa Rica. I’m at the Mexico City airport and my flight takes off in four hours. Can you do that or do I need to shop elsewhere?”

  It wasn’t worth pointing out that there weren’t very many services that were going to be able to satisfy that particular criteria.

  “We can make that happen, ma’am,” Lorenzo assured her in the same language. “I just need some details…” He wrote down her name and number, her flight information, and her destination—Shifting Sands Resort.

  Someone was in for a fluff assignment. “I’ll call you back with our agent’s contact specifics in ten minutes.”

  “Hey, Purebred,” John greeted him.

  Lorenzo ignored the jibe. “We got a job. Some rich broad is leaving on holiday and wants an escort ASAP.” He tossed the notes in front of his packmate.

  John frowned. “How long?” he asked, pulling up his scheduling software.

  “Ten days,” Lorenzo said.

  “You want a vacation?” John said unexpectedly.

  “Me?” Lorenzo scowled in surprise.

  “You’ve done your share of the scut work,” John said approvingly. “Think you can be away from the pack that long?”

  Was it meant as a dig?

  Ten days would have been a long, grueling time for most of the hellhounds to be separated from the pack that kept them sane...but Lorenzo wasn’t like most of the hellhounds and all of them knew it.

  Probably he was only being offered the job because he was the only one who wouldn’t come back strung out like a drug addict in withdrawal from the team if they didn’t send a pair. They could do the job for half the cost with Lorenzo.

  “Yeah,” Lorenzo growled. It beat answering phones.

  Christy applied her lipstick carefully, trying not to look like she was deliberately dawdling in front of the mirror, and willed her heartbeat to slow. Her suitcase was open on the floor next to her, her make-up kit on
the counter beside her.

  This bathroom was a quiet one at the very end of the terminal, past a whole section of gates that were closed for construction, and the light was terrible. It was also four in the morning.

  A gray-haired lady ambled in and met her gaze in the reflection.

  Christy glanced down at her open luggage in alarm, then calmed herself, her hand almost shaking too much to finish her lipstick. She was glad she had already finished her phone conversation.

  The woman shuffled further in and found a stall while Christy silently berated herself and finished slowly re-applying her make-up.

  It was just chance that Christy had recognized Mick’s hired goon at the gate, and suddenly, Betsy’s idea for a bodyguard hadn’t seemed so crazy. She’d turned on her heel and found the nearest ladies room hoping that the mercenary hadn’t seen her. At least her phone got reception...and data.

  She wasn’t sure that ‘shifter bodyguard’ was going to get her any hits, so she was surprised and relieved when Hellhound Proteccion came up directly in her search. Once she translated it, the carefully-worded webpage sounded exactly like what she was looking for. And fortunately, the man who answered the phone spoke English.

  So now she had a bodyguard coming straight to the airport to escort her to the resort and act as hired protection for the week, because she had panicked like a scared rabbit.

  And for once, her cat was not giving her any grief about it. Sometimes, it’s smart to go to ground, she urged. Better to be safe.

  Christy had a sense of her cat lashing its striped tail, not pleased by the bruise to their pride, and frankly worried.

  The expense was definitely going to cut into her profits. Christy reminded herself that this was a super exclusive luxury resort. Big money traveled here, and if she was canny, she could still make the trip worth it.

  She just had to survive it.

  Christy took a deep calming breath and went to pack up her make-up and close her luggage. She had to meet the bodyguard at her gate; she couldn’t exactly ask him to come get her in the lady’s room. She’d already been in here a suspiciously lengthy time.

  It was just happenstance that Mick’s merc was there, she told herself. It wasn’t likely that he was getting on the charter to Shifting Sands like she was. Probably, he had just been passing by the gate—the Mexico City airport was huge, and busy, an international hub. Even at four in the morning, there were pockets of bustling activity. He could be doing anything here. He was a freelancer, maybe he was someone else’s hire today.

  She could do this, she thought. No pepper spray, no knives, because of airport security. But she had her wits, and in not too long, she’d have an impulsively-hired shifter bodyguard. She couldn’t be safer.

  She zipped her spinner shut and extended the handle, lifted her chin, and marched out of the bathroom, to be instantly accosted by a tall, slim Asian man. She considered clubbing him with her purse, but instinct told her at once that he was harmless, and he only touched her arm to stop her.

  “I’m sorry to bother you,” he said, as if he genuinely was. “Do you speak English? I’m looking for a woman, an old woman, who went into the bathroom about forty minutes ago.”

  Had she been in there that long?

  “She may need assistance,” the man said anxiously. “Could you please tell me if she’s alright? I’m sorry to ask, but I’m worried, and our flight is soon.”

  Christy could not simply brush by him and go to her gate after that kind of plea, no matter how easy it would be to pretend she only spoke Spanish; she’d already decided on dark hair for this trip. She glanced at her phone for the time, and nodded. “I’ll go look,” she said gently. “I saw her, earlier.” But she hadn’t seen her leave, she realized curiously.

  The bathroom was deserted.

  Christy went back to the row of stalls and pushed each door open with a hesitant knock, but each of them revealed an empty toilet...and the last one had a puddle of clothing on the floor.

  She picked it up, carefully, and recognized the dull-colored sweater from the woman she’d seen in the mirror.

  Suddenly suspicious, she gathered the clothing and returned to the fidgeting man outside the restroom.

  “Oh dear,” he greeted her, his eyes flickering to hers with guilt and alarm. He didn’t look exactly surprised, and Christy took a chance.

  “She’s a shifter?”

  The man flinched and looked around, then nodded.

  Christy looked at her phone again as it gave a little vibration and saw a text from her new bodyguard. Their flight would be leaving soon, and he was coming through security now. She gave the man another appraising look. His shirt was high quality, but well-worn, with the soft lines of someone laundering it in a common machine and didn’t iron or starch it. His pants were off the rack. His shoes were cheap. The clothing she was holding was poor-class and thread-worn.

  Helping these people would gain her nothing. If anything, it could put her in more danger.

  She heaved a sigh. “What’s her animal form?” Christy asked crisply.

  The hope in the man’s eyes was some salve for her lost time. “A mouse,” he said quickly. “Thank you. Thank you so much. Her name is Gretta Asher. I’m Liam.”

  They shook hands briskly.

  “I’ll go see if there’s some small space she could be hiding in,” Christy offered.

  She did another circuit of the bathroom, crouched low, looking for places a tiny mouse might hide. Another woman in a MexicoAir stewardess uniform came in and gave her a look of horror while she stood up from bending over behind the trash can, where she’d been poking at a dark corner.

  Christy made a show of carefully washing her hands, and then came out to give Liam the bad news.

  “Maybe she slipped past me,” Liam said apprehensively. “I suppose it’s possible she went back to the group. She...gets confused sometimes. We had a nurse traveling with us, but we only have one more flight, and this was far as she was contracted. I’m so sorry to bother you.”

  “Are you on the charter to Shifting Sands Resort?” Christy guessed.

  Liam looked surprised and guilty, though Christy wasn’t sure why he would, since it seemed like an obvious destination once she knew he was with a shifter. “Yes,” he said cautiously.

  “Me, too.” Christy walked with him to the gate, and found a cluster of elderly women with sharp eyes and a very old man in a wheelchair who appeared to be insensible.

  “Did you find Gretta?”

  “Who’s this?”

  “Is she your new girlfriend?”

  “She looks single…” This old woman was eyeing Christy’s ring-free finger. “Pretty, too.”

  Christy was beginning to have second thoughts about Shifting Sands. If this was the kind of clientele…

  Someone behind her cleared their throat. “Christine Ryan?”

  Her bodyguard. Maybe he could protect her from the matchmaking of nosy old biddies.

  Christy turned to see a tall, scowling man in a beautiful suit that was half as handsome as he was, and fell directly into his fathomless eyes as her cat suddenly wrapped claws around her heart and cried, ours!

  It was supposed to be an uncomplicated job. Protect some spoiled rich woman heading to a tropical vacation with delusions of danger, get paid, go home.

  Lorenzo had not expected the trust bunny to be quite so tall or self-possessed. He definitely did not expect to find her surrounded by chattering seniors. And he really had not expected her to turn around and steal his soul in a single, green-eyed glance.

  Deep within him, he heard a sound like baying, as everything in his world was suddenly bright and focused.

  Ours. Our mate.

  It was as if everything fell into place at the same time.

  “I’m...Christy,” she said breathlessly, looking back at him with the same world-upside-down expression that he was probably giving her.

  “Lorenzo,” he answered in an exhale. “From...ah…” he look
ed at the staring circle of old women in consternation.

  “Is he going to kiss her?”

  “I thought she was Liam’s girlfriend,” one of them said in disappointment.

  “Where’s Gretta?”

  “Is that our flight?”

  A very harried man with short dark hair and Asian features checking the pulse of a man lying limp in a wheelchair looked up in alarm as the charter to Shifting Sands Resort was called for pre-boarding.

  “They’re missing a woman, about ninety years old,” Christy explained, still looking dazed. “Gretta. She was in the restroom, but...ah…” she lowered her voice considerably, “shifted. We haven’t been able to find her.”

  How was this woman even able to have a conversation? Lorenzo was nearly overwhelmed by his hound’s circle-turning, tail-wagging excitement. This was their mate!

  With effort, Lorenzo reined in his excitement and attempted to focus. “A missing person…”

  We can help with that! his hound said eagerly. Help her! Help her!

  “Ah, what kind of shifter?” he asked quietly.

  “Mouse.” The dark-haired man had been satisfied by his charge’s condition and came to greet Lorenzo. “I’m Liam.”

  Lorenzo shook his hand bemusedly. “Do you have something of hers?”

  Liam looked confused.

  “I’m a...ah...hellhound,” Lorenzo explained. Mostly.

  Now we are whole, his hound said triumphantly.

  Liam continued to look quizzical, but Christy immediately understood and her face lit up. “Finding people, that isn’t just fiction?”