Tropical Bartender Bear (Shifting Sands Resort Book 3) Read online

  But some part of her always knew, knew at least that it was bad news, and that she was being willful in her ignorance.

  Then, finally she’d heard too much, seen too much, and she knew she couldn’t continue.

  Getting out was harder than getting in, of course.

  She swallowed to remember John’s eyes, and his threat. “You tell anyone about this, and shifting won’t save you.”

  And now Jenny, Jenny was gone and there was no way it wasn’t related.

  Laura hadn’t smoked a cigarette in two years now, and she had never wanted one so badly.

  Hours later, when the cops finally knocked on the door, she had still not found anything to drink.

  “Ma’am, are you Jennavivianna Smith?”

  Laura blinked. “Jenny,” she said weakly. Jenny hated her full name.

  “Ma’am I’m afraid there’s been an accident. Your sister’s car was just pulled out of the water by Handle’s Curve.”

  Laura gripped the doorframe tighter. She’d known, of course. They’d probably cut the brake lines, or tampered with the steering or something. In the dark, in the spring rain… and Jenny wasn’t as good at driving as Laura was — she commuted by bus or train and didn’t even own a car.

  “No body has been found, yet. The search is ongoing.”

  Then it hit her. They thought that she had gone off the road. They thought that Jenny was standing here, and that her hapless, screw-up sister Laura was the one who had died. Laura gave a little moan of pain.

  The second cop reached out a hand to her and offered words of sympathy and support that Laura brushed off, not even hearing over the buzzing in her head.

  “Yes, thank you. I’ll be okay. I’ve got… friends, yes. I’ll be okay. Yes, please keep me updated.” She brushed them off as best as she could, going through the puppet-motions as she imagined Jenny might.

  They didn’t say a word that implied they might think it wasn’t an accident and Laura said nothing to suggest it, either.

  When she’d finally shut the door behind them, she leaned against it for a long moment. It had all been one long lie, from ‘I’ll be okay’ to ‘Thank you.’ But it had been easier than she guessed to put herself in Jenny’s shoes.

  Jenny’s phone showed a voicemail alert. Laura unlocked it with the code they’d used for bike locks when they were little and listened to it.

  “Marty thinks you should go to Costa Rica to represent the firm,” Fred said after a brief opening ramble about contracts and files. “You’re the one who got the old contract annulled and the new one ready in time. And you’re totally due a break. Give it some thought, and find your passport. The World Mr. Shifter finals are just next week, so we’ve got to make the airline reservations right away.”

  It was one of the few things that the sisters had in common — a weakness for ridiculous pageants. Mostly, it meant snarking together over pints of ice cream on the couch. A shifter pageant — was it just a gimmick, or was it actually a male beauty contest for shifters? And Costa Rica… she had always dreamed of going there.

  It suddenly occurred to Laura that Costa Rica was more than just a tropical destination — it could be her escape. She wouldn’t be able to maintain the facade of Jenny’s life very long; she could fit what she knew about contract law in a pen cap with room leftover. But she could start a new life in a foreign country where no one knew either of them.

  It didn’t take Laura more than a few moments to find Jenny’s passport — the whole apartment was ridiculously tidy and well-organized, and passports and important cards were thoughtfully filed at her desk. The same passcode that had opened her phone unlocked her laptop, but Laura couldn’t bear to look through it.

  With a deep breath, Laura called Fred back.

  She didn’t have to feign the tears that came as she explained why she wouldn’t be in to work. “My sister… there was an accident.” It was my fault, she didn’t say. And it wasn’t an accident.

  Fred fell all over himself trying to comfort her as she choked out the parts of the story that she could.

  “No, of course you don’t need to come in. We’ll give your cases to Julie, naturally. Don’t feel bad, take whatever time you need.”

  Painfully glad that Fred had not pressed her with any details about those cases, Laura hesitantly said, “The… the Mr. Shifter contest--”

  “You wouldn’t have to go, of course,” Fred said quickly, then seemed to stumble and reconsider. “But you could, if getting away sounds good. You know, a change of scenery. While you… ah… recover.”

  As if she could ever recover from this. The best Laura could hope for was escape from this. “A change of scenery sounds good,” Laura saved him gratefully.

  “I’ll get Marty to put everything in order,” Fred assured her. “We’ll get you the tickets right away, send you the itinerary. Do whatever you need to do.”

  “Thanks Fred,” Laura said sincerely. She tried not to think about how poorly she would be thanking him, abandoning Jenny’s job and fleeing the country altogether.

  “Anything you need,” Fred repeated. “Anything you need, you let me know.”

  “I will,” Laura lied. I need my sister.

  She pulled out her wallet after she hung up and stared at the photo on her license.

  The face — her face and Jenny’s - was so familiar. The name wasn’t hers anymore. Jenny’s hefty kitchen shears split the photograph, and the shreds of the card were cast into the garbage disposal. Laura’s credit card, already maxed out anyway, followed swiftly. Jenny’s passport would get her out of here, and she had enough information and identification to access her accounts through her laptop.

  Even dead, Jenny was saving her butt.

  Chapter 2

  The conference room behind the restaurant was stuffed to the seams. Tex wryly thought that if they were going to keep adding staff members, they would have to start meeting in the grand event room where they held exercise classes and weekly formal dances.

  Tex chivalrously stood when a strange woman in the Shifting Sands housekeeping uniform edged into the room and glanced around for a chair.

  “Merci!” she said sweetly, with a grateful smile. She sank gracefully into the offered chair.

  “Too bad we don’t have new French maid uniforms to go with the new French maids,” Breck, the headwaiter, hissed near his ear appreciatively as Tex backed up to the wall with folded arms.

  “I think she’s French Canadian,” Tex whispered back. She smelled like too much perfume.

  Not that Breck would care where she was from. Breck appreciated all women, and all men, for that matter.

  When Scarlet entered, the chatter died to a murmur and then turned into an attentive silence at her frown.

  “As you know, we’ve got a lot of new staff to welcome,” she said briskly. “We aren’t in preschool, so we aren’t going to go around the room and introduce ourselves, but do take a moment to look around and see who’s new and make a point of saying hello to those you don’t know. On your own time.” Her green eyes traveled appraisingly across the room, and Tex met them briefly.

  “The World Mr. Shifter finals will officially begin one week from today, but we’ll be getting new guests every day between now and then, and they’ll be doing a lot of the early interviews and photoshoots starting in two days. Travis?”

  Travis, a lynx shifter from Alaska who was in charge of repairs and maintenance, looked like he hadn’t gotten sleep in several days. The impression was probably accurate; he had been pulling all-nighters since the resort had gotten the news about the event’s last-minute change of venue, desperate to get enough of the housing into shape to house the influx.

  “All of the primary cottages are ready for occupancy, and the hotel has been brought back up to code. The hot water in the west wing isn’t working yet, but should be by tonight. The toilets...”

  Tex let Travis’ technobabble flow over him as he assessed the new staff. There were at least half a dozen new
housekeeping staff, two new kitchen assistants, two new waitstaff who would split time between the dining hall and Tex’s pooltop bar, a green-looking carpenter to work with Travis, and a second lifeguard to relieve Bastian. Even Graham, the stand-off-ish lion shifter in charge of landscaping, had been assigned a new helper, though Graham had already made it clear the young man would be do nothing but the most basic tasks, like lawn-mowing and hauling clippings. Tex suspected that he found the whole idea of an assistant deeply offensive, and the gardens had gone from immaculate to some new state of perfection, even while the gardener cleared vast new swathes of jungle encroachment back from the cottages that were being put back into use and tamed it into hedges of flowers and thick leaves.

  “You want us to move?” Bastian said unexpectedly, in response to something Travis said.

  Tex turned his wandering attention back to Travis, who squirmed and looked guilty, glancing at Scarlet for support.

  “It’s not that we’d have to,” he said defensively. “It’s just that the houses on the south cliffs are set up as a large private family manors, never made for individual rentals. It would take a lot of work to convert them into private rooms, and they’d be a hard sell the way they’re configured now, with shared bathrooms and living space. But they’re in fine working condition, and if the staff moved to those three houses, we’d free up twenty more rooms in the hotel.”

  Scarlet was nodding, paying no mind to Bastian’s disgruntled muttering about sharing a bathroom. “Let’s make this happen. I understand that it’s not ideal,” the withering look she gave Bastian was as much sympathy as he could expect out of her, “but our waiting list has never been this long, and this is a chance we can’t let escape us.”

  She glanced around the room. “Chef?”

  “Travis has the new freezer working,” the distinguished older man reported, “and it’s fully stocked. Our supplier on the mainland says there should be no problem filling the orders we’ve put in for the next few weeks, and I’ve got everything that can be made ahead ready to go.” He nodded at his new assistants. “I’m confident my team and I can get you meals that will do the resort proud.”

  He earned the tiniest hint of smile from Scarlet. “I’m glad to hear that. We’ll need to coordinate an extra trip to the mainland mid-week, from the looks of the order forms, but that shouldn’t be problematic. Tex?”

  Tex sat up straighter. “We’re well-stocked in everything hard, but the white wine shipment came in four cases short.”

  Scarlet frowned. “Four cases?”

  “I counted twice,” Tex assured her.

  “I’ll call and have words with the distributor,” Scarlet said, and Tex was glad that he wouldn’t be on the receiving end of that call. “We may need to pick some up on the mainland if they can’t get the replacement here by next week.”

  “We’ll have a better idea of how well stock is holding up pretty quickly,” Tex agreed. “Maybe they’ll all be red wine drinkers. Incidentals are in good order, plenty of napkins and tiny umbrellas, and the fruit shipment exceeded my expectations this week.”

  Scarlet continued through housekeeping, and then got a thumbs up from Lydia, the black swan shifter who managed the spa. Other than a few minor supply concerns, and Travis’ warning about overtaxing the septic system, they seemed ready for the oncoming crowd, and Scarlet seemed cautiously optimistic.

  “I’m really pleased with how well you’ve all stepped up and gotten everything together,” she told them candidly, and Tex was as surprised as he was proud; Scarlet was notoriously stingy with her praise.

  “We’ve got a busy few weeks ahead of us, and I know you’ll be asked to do more than usually do. It’s going to be crowded and we’re all going to be under a lot of scrutiny. I trust you can handle it, and that we will make this a pleasantly memorable event. Go make it happen.”

  The meeting broke up with high energy and cheer. Breck immediately introduced himself to the new French-speaking housekeeper.

  As Tex slipped out past Scarlet, she took him aside. “Gizelle wasn’t here.” It wasn’t quite an accusation.

  “She’s still not good with crowds, ma’am,” Tex said apologetically.

  Scarlet nodded thoughtfully. “She’s going to have a rough few weeks,” she said pityingly.

  “I think we all may,” Tex said candidly, earning a dry laugh from Scarlet.

  Except for the extra staff, Shifting Sands didn’t look any different. It still had that peculiar poised energy that Tex thought was due to the way the sun glittered off the tiles decks and mosaic-covered retaining walls. Photographers were already on site, taking light readings and doing test shots of the dramatic pool steps.

  Gizelle was sitting behind the bar, waiting for him and polishing silverware that was already clean, her salt-and-pepper hair obscuring her face. She scrubbed at each fork with a corner of her sundress, then held it up to the light critically. “Not much of a hoard,” she said critically, when Tex found her.

  “I’m not a dragon,” he reminded her gently. “I’m a bear. Bastian is the dragon.”

  “Bastian doesn’t think he is a good dragon,” Gizelle said airily.

  “Scarlet noticed that you weren’t at the staff meeting,” Tex told her, crouching down and taking the basket of forks that she handed him.

  “Scarlet notices things,” Gizelle agreed, unconcerned. “She notices the sky with no sun.”

  “There’s going to be a lot of people coming here in the next few days,” Tex warned her. They’d talked about the upcoming Mr. Shifter event several times, but he wasn’t really sure how much of it made sense to her.

  As far as anyone could tell, Gizelle had spent her entire childhood as a gazelle, a captive in the zoo of a sadistic shifter collector. She didn’t know her own name, or have any memory of parents or human shape before coming to Shifting Sands. She could have been twenty-five, or fifty; the white streaking her dark hair made her look ancient, but her face was unlined and innocent. She had a tendency to flee at the slightest hint of conflict, shifting into her gazelle shape and leaping high into the air. There had been several times Tex wasn’t sure how she avoided breaking one of her fragile-looking legs as she landed.

  Gizelle looked up at him, big eyes behind her wild, loose hair. “I know,” she said reluctantly. “Too many people are coming, so full of themselves, and there’s going to be photographers to avoid. But I’ll still help. Graham lets me rake sometimes, and Chef lets me wash the dishes. I broke a glass, to see how it would sound, but he told me I could still do the silverware.”

  Tex ruffled her hair gently, a privilege she didn’t allow everyone. “You’ll be fine. You want to go help Graham with that raking?”

  She nodded with a slow grin and stood up, padding silently away on dirty, bare feet.

  As Tex was giving the basket of forks a quick sift for anything unexpected, she popped back into the bar and warned him, “Some of the people are going to be bad. Listen through your nose!”

  Then she vanished again.

  Chapter 3

  Shifting Sands was everything the brochure promised, Laura thought, looking down at it from the entrance.

  Cottage roofs scattered through jungle greenery stepped down the hill before her, dipping down to a gorgeous crescent beach and a shimmering green ocean, waves lapping invitingly, even from this vantage. A few bigger buildings were artistically arranged to the south, and an enormous pool gleamed from a white tiled deck.

  The grounds were lush shades of green, with riotous flowers everywhere providing spots of color and a distinct, dreamy scent.

  “Excuse me,” an impatient accented voice said behind her, and before she could move aside, she was being elbowed aside by a man carrying a suitcase whose bland white suit did nothing to hide the fact that he was clearly a bodyguard.

  “Excuse me,” Laura snapped, moving back inside the entrance. It was a little more crowded than the brochure had suggested. The courtyard was filled with people waiting to check
in, and heaps of suitcases and travel bags lined the walls. They were clustered in groups — little flocks of attendants for each of the Mr. Shifter candidates, with their dark glasses and celebrity expectations.

  “We’ll need fresh linens every day, of course.” The woman’s American accent was strident and demanding.

  “Of course! We’ll do everything possible to make your stay pleasant and memorable.” Laura recognized the clerk’s silky, Spanish-accented tone at once. She’d worked in hospitality before; that was the ‘your coffee will be spit into twice daily, you bitch’ voice.

  Beside the American woman, a man was leaning on the counter. He was definitely one of the Mr. Shifter contestants, his shirt unbuttoned halfway showed plenty of tanned pecs and he caught Laura’s glance to give her an overly white-toothed, leering grin.

  “We’ll need breakfast delivered promptly at 9 each morning,” his assistant continued.

  “I’m sorry ma’am, food is only served at the restaurant. It is open 24 hours with a limited self-serve buffet, and has regular meals at...“

  “There’s no room service?” her voice escalated a scale. “What kind of fly-by-night resort is this?”

  The clerk’s voice remained steady. “I think you’ll find the breakfasts our chef makes are worth the early trip,” she said cheerfully.

  “What are the bar hours?” the Mr Shifter contestant asked in a lazy Californian accent. That clinched Laura’s guess that this was the American representation, and she was already embarrassed for her country.

  “Wine and beer are available in coolers at all hours, the staffed bar is open until midnight each night.” The woman pushed their keycards over the counter with a pamphlet. “You’re in cottage eight, here is a map that shows you the way; your cottage is circled in red. There’s a schedule of events listed here.”

  “You don’t have anything closer to the beach?” It was half whine, half kissing up, in a lightning fast swap of attitude as the assistant realized that she might need leverage with the clerk.