Tropical Wounded Wolf: BBW Wolf Shifter Paranormal Romance (Shifting Sands Resort Book 2) Read online

  For some reason, she could not get the picture of him out of her mind. Not just his juicy shoulders and ripped body, but the planes of the cheek that she'd gotten a glimpse of, the ruffle of his hair, and… something about the way he held himself. Like he hurt. Maybe not physically, but…

  Mary ached for him, then shook her head and changed into her swimsuit. She didn't even know him!

  Chapter Four

  “Aren't there any jobs that aren't at the guest center?” Neal asked, trying not to sound whiny or ungrateful, though he honestly felt both. “Isn't there an urgent need to clear vines off the waterfall hiking trail or wrestle sharks on the other side of the island or something?”

  It had been getting harder and harder to dodge the blonde with the big hat over the last few days. He always knew where she was, and he was beginning to suspect that she was actively looking for him. Already he had feigned illness to avoid being assigned to the waitstaff as she was heading for the dining hall, and had shirked pool deck cleanup twice when he realized that she was there swimming laps. He knew he was in danger of being perceived as a slacker, and avoiding Scarlet as well was turning navigation of the resort into a complicated challenge.

  Travis, looking over the duty roster, made a noise of sympathy. “Unless you're secretly a certified electrician…?”

  Neal had to shrug a negative.

  “There's nothing left to do at the cottages I'm renovating until the wiring is in, and I won't be able to start in on that until tomorrow.” Travis, a lynx shifter from Alaska, was apparently certified in every kind of construction and also drove the boat that ferried guests from the mainland when they didn't come by small plane to the airport on the other side of the island.

  Neal was certified in plenty of things, but he wasn't sure how being able to set explosives and shoot the wings off a fly from a mile away would make him useful at the resort. He’d earned EMT certification, but that didn't distinguish him from half of the resort staff, and any certification he had would be expired after ten years of captivity anyway.

  “You could take the day off,” Tex suggested with the drawl that had earned him his nickname.

  Neal stared at the bear shifter bartender as if he'd grown horns.

  “If you don't want to, I could use the day off,” Bastian said with unexpectedly wistfulness. Neal was a little surprised – he knew Bastian liked to do his lifeguard duties in dragon-form, but Neal realized he had no idea what else he liked to do, or why he might need a day off to do it. As far as Neal knew, he spent all day, every day, on the beach, with one jeweled eye on the pool.

  “I’m not qualified as a lifesaver,” Neal said regretfully. The woman who was haunting him seemed to avoid the beach, staying to the pool and well-groomed grounds around the guest center. The beach might actually be a safe place to spend the day.

  “Want to be?” the dragon offered cheerfully. “Costa Rican requirements aren't all that difficult, and I'm authorized to approve you if you can pass the swimming test and listen to me drone a bit in a crash course about waterfront safety.”

  Neal accepted gratefully; his swimming skills were strong, so passing didn't concern him.

  Much later, gasping for breath, lungs burning and eyes watering from the saltwater, Neal decided that he should have been concerned.

  “Nice work,” Bastian said without irony after the final lap. “I'll have Scarlet print you up a certificate in her office, and you can take over lifeguard duties for the afternoon.”

  Neal clung to the edge of the dock for a moment before heaving himself up. “I passed?”

  “Oh,” Bastian said, slightly sheepish. “A while ago, yes. I just wanted to see how much you could do.”

  “I'm going to kill you when I can move my arms again,” Neal said, cheerfully exhausted. On the upside, he hadn't thought about his mate once since the test had started.

  He would have gone straight for the buffet, starving from the exertion, but his unerring compass for the woman's location told him that she was already there, so Neal limped himself to the staff quarters instead, and collapsed on the picnic table in the sun.

  Just as he was considering sneaking into the kitchen and braving Chef's wrath to steal food directly, Breck appeared with a plate of food and a bottle of water. He didn't even feign bringing it for himself, but put it right in front of Neal.

  “Well done on Bastian's brutal test!” he said admiringly, fanning himself.

  “Saw that, did you?” Neal figured Breck was just teasing him. The head waiter flirted with everyone, men and women, but no one seemed to take it very seriously.

  “The two of you, swimming around at the dock in those little shorts? Wouldn't have missed it for the world!” Breck winked and Neal was too tired to glare back.

  “Congratulations on your certificate,” a gentle voice interrupted them, and Neal sat up respectfully in his seat and stopped shoveling food into his face.

  “You heard about that, too, Mrs. Atheson?” he asked sheepishly, looking at the petite older woman who was smiling at him.

  “It was a perfectly lovely show,” the ocelot shifter said with a saucy wink. “A number of us were watching from the pool deck.”

  Neal blushed.

  Then he realized that she was holding a small piece of luggage.

  “You're leaving,” he said in surprise.

  Like the gazelle, she had spent longer in Beehag's zoo than Neal had, and she had very few belongings.

  “Amber and Tony have bought a house in Maryland that has a mother-in-law apartment attached, and they’re anxious to have me move back to the States. Tony has gotten the visa all sorted through his agency.” She settled beside him on the picnic bench. “There are no more leads here to help me find my husband, and let's be honest, if he's even alive at all, it's unlikely he will come back to this island. If he does, Scarlet assures me she will send him my way.”

  “She will.” Neal could say that with conviction. However temperamental Scarlet was, she was deeply honorable.

  “More than that, I'm finally ready to be back out in the world,” Mrs. Atheson said softly.

  I'm not, Neal couldn't say out loud.

  He only leaned over and let Mrs. Atheson enfold him in a motherly hug.

  “Thank you for all of your help,” she said, and near his ear, whispered, “You'll be ready sooner than you think, too.”

  Neal gave her an extra squeeze, and insisted on carrying her light bag up the last steps and out the resort entrance to where a Jeep was waiting to take her to the airstrip on the other side of the island.

  Neal struggled with her departure, keeping a brave face over the stumbling uncertainty that he felt. Breck made no bones about crying as he hugged her goodbye, but Neal kept a stony face, not wanting to admit the empty hole that remained as the Jeep sped away. It was a gap made more keen by the impossible nearness and imposed distance he was keeping from his mate.

  She was so close, he sensed, and part of him wanted to find solace in her touch. The rest of him wanted to save her from his poisoned brokenness.

  Chapter Five

  The pool alone was worth the grueling journey, Mary decided again. She had come to that conclusion her very first day at Shifting Sands, and every morning discovered it all over again.

  The frightening foreign airport, the tiny cramped airplane ride, and the terrifying winding drive from the airstrip were all small payment for the delicious cool laps she could do in the stunning pool. Very rarely did she have to share the water with others, who seemed to prefer the beach or lying in the sun on the deck as humans or animals. There were never any raucous children running around to spoil the peace. The space was long enough that she could lose herself in the stroke and kick, and feel graceful and athletic, as she never did out of the water.

  The palm trees made dappled shade that she could rest in at the edges, or she could choose a sunny spot to tip her face up to.

  She got a massage the first day, and a pedicure and a haircut the second.
The Spanish-accented woman who ran the spa, Lydia, offered to groom her in animal form, but Mary demurred; that felt a little intimate.

  The staff as a whole was welcoming and friendly. The few times she’d seen Scarlet, the woman had gravely asked if she was enjoying herself, which Mary could always answer with enthusiastic affirmative. The handsome head waiter, Breck, even flirted with her unexpectedly, skirting the very edge of too much attention to keep it easy-going rather than outrageous. Her housekeeper even apologized for the unseasonable amount of rain they were having, as if it were something they could control.

  If it hadn't been for the mysterious pool cleaner who haunted her thoughts, Mary would have believed it was an absolutely perfect vacation.

  After the first glimpse of him, she hadn't been able to erase him from her mind.

  She couldn't quite stop herself from fantasizing climbing out of the pool and into the arms of the mysterious man she'd seen cleaning the pool. As she did her lazy laps, she lost herself in the idea of those strong arms wrapped around her, her mouth finding his as they slipped under the salty ripples of the water.

  She continued to spot him nearly every day, always hurrying away from her with a loping stride that she wouldn't have been able to catch if she’d tried. She was beginning to think that he was avoiding her. She suspected that he felt the same pull she did, but sensed it made him uncomfortable, rather than intrigued. She still couldn’t quite bring herself to believe it, but more than once she’d caught herself wondering, Could mates be a real thing after all?

  It grieved her to think she was causing him discomfort, and she wanted to catch him, to say that she would never make him sad or unhappy, and that she was sorry she seemed to be causing him distress. She wondered if there was something she could do to help him, even – she could still feel the pain that crackled off of him.

  She felt like one of her own students, enslaved to her own crazy adolescent hormones, and she could not stop fantasizing about him: about what it would feel like to kiss him, to slide her hands over his shoulders, to feel the weight of him on her when she lay in her wide bed.

  Finally, three days into her vacation, she spotted him across the pool deck.

  “Oh!” she said out loud, stopping in her tracks.

  There he was, close as life, bending over a bucket of supplies by one of the lounge chairs; Mary would know his silhouette and the burst of his red hair anywhere, and she had a moment of near-terror.

  She knew that he would find an excuse to leave at any moment, and it would have been easy to let him go. At any other time in her life, she would simply have lingered in the doorway a little longer, and watched him escape from her again.

  But she was here, being brave and courageous, in a foreign country by herself. She wasn’t sure if it was the hot weather or the glamour of Shifting Sands itself, but she even felt like a more powerful shifter here; all of her senses were sharper than they'd ever been, and they were all focused entirely on him.

  She gathered all of her resolve and walked decisively across the tiled deck, weaving around the chairs and tables on the deck without removing her eyes from him.

  “I'm sorry,” she said automatically, when she was finally at his side, and abruptly, the bravery that had carried her across the deck vanished. She was left feeling like a stammering fool, awkward and unappealing in her plain blue swimsuit and cheap flip-flops. She was keenly aware of the few other guests enjoying the late afternoon sunshine on the deck, including a sleek, manicured woman wearing almost nothing, and the bartender who was strumming a guitar at the bar behind her.

  “I'm sorry,” she repeated. “I don't mean to interrupt you, it's just that... I... ah...”

  He was looking at her with hazel eyes like saucers, as unable to look away as Mary was. He was more gorgeous up close than he was fleeing from her across a pool deck or down a path, built like an athlete, with wide shoulders under his resort uniform shirt, and narrow hips in khaki shorts. Agile hands were clenched, white-knuckled, around the bucket handle.

  All of the hurt she had sensed from him was there, intense and bone-deep.

  “Oh!” she said in wonder. “You feel it too!”

  Because, laid over the hurt was something else – the heat and lust and a depth of connection that Mary had never even dared to hope for.

  This is our mate, her deer told her with no hesitation, pleased and excited.

  Mary had always wondered if a destined mate could be real, and hadn't dared to hope that her odd attraction to this stranger could be such a thing.

  Meeting his eyes dissolved any doubt she might have had. She could feel a resonance between them that defied description. Magic seemed to crackle around them, and she reached out an automatic hand to touch him in wonder.

  He flinched away, and the spell shattered.

  His face shuttered, settling into an off-putting scowl, and he stood, towering over her. “I don't know what you're talking about,” he snarled at her.

  Then he turned on his heel and walked away, leaving Mary feeling utterly lost.

  Chapter Six

  Rejecting her was the hardest thing that Neal had ever done – watching her heart break into little pieces while he denied the pull of their mating bond was like being shot. He was worthless, terrible, the worst kind of jerk... and the biggest coward that had ever had the misfortune to walk the face of the earth on two legs and on four.

  He sank down onto a picnic table seat, steepling his hands on the back of his head. He wanted to tear something into pieces, or burn something to the ground. His mate was hurting, and he couldn't do anything to protect her, because he was the one who had caused it.

  What had happened to him?

  At one point, he'd been part of one of the most elite teams in the military, a sharpshooter and explosives expert with a reputation for being fearless and unstoppable. He'd been confident with women and complicated missions alike.

  Now he was reduced to doing odd jobs at a fancy tropical resort and failing even at that: fearful, prickly and unfit for any friendship, let alone the company of his own destined mate.

  Why did she have to come here, of all places? Couldn't they just have been another unlucky couple who never had the grace to meet?

  Something tickled at the side of his neck, a whuffle of air and short whiskers, and Neal snapped around to find that the gazelle had come closer to him than he had ever seen her, big eyes and mobile ears all focused on him. Familiar tension ran in every muscle along her neck. He saw that same tension in the mirror every day.

  “There was a time you wouldn't have been able to get within a hundred yards without me noticing you,” he told it dryly, letting his fists fall open with effort.

  The gazelle only blinked in reply. There was a time she wouldn't have come within a hundred yards at all.

  “I'm pretty awful at being a human being anymore,” he continued conversationally. “Maybe I should have stayed in Beehag's zoo.”

  The gazelle snorted and Neal swore she actually rolled her eyes.

  Even suggesting it sarcastically gave Neal chills and sweats. He could still remember the cold feeling of the bars as he pressed against them, and the hot electric shocks that had been applied when he had tried to stubbornly remain in human form. He groaned and rolled his shoulders back.

  “She's better off without me,” he said firmly. “She doesn't need the mess that is me in her life.”

  Ears twitching, the gazelle dropped her nose to the hand that Neal had made into a fist again and touched it tentatively.

  As far as Neal was aware, it was the first touch that she had tolerated since her release, and the honor of that penetrated his shell of self-pity.

  He held his breath, not wanting to startle her away again.

  “Neal.”

  The moment was broken by a completely unwelcome voice, and the gazelle was bounding away before he could even move to reassure her.

  He was all prickles and anger and fury as he turned to face Scarlet.
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  The resort owner was dressed in a pressed khaki suit with a skirt to her knees, and her hair, redder even than his own, was pulled in a tidy bun at the back of her head.

  “You missed another staff meeting,” she said, not sitting.

  He stood up, not comfortable being shorter than her, but towering over her by half a foot did not seem to intimidate her in the least. She only gave him a flinty emerald gaze, her chin uplifted as she waited for his explanation.

  “I'm sorry,” he ground out, knowing he sounded anything but.

  Unexpectedly, her face softened to pity, and she gestured him to sit as she did the same, with all the confidence of a queen. Neal stubbornly remained standing, not wanting her pity.

  “Neal,” Scarlet said more gently. “You came to us under unusual circumstances, and you've worked hard to make yourself a place here.”

  Until this last week, Neal would have agreed with her. He didn't give her the satisfaction of a response.

  “You've also been invaluable with the other refugees from Beehag's estate,” Scarlet observed, which wasn't something that Neal had realized she knew about.

  He continued to offer only the stoniest of faces.

  “Most of them have been reunited with family and returned home now,” Scarlet went on, unfazed by his lack of response. “And I'm not blind to the fact that you've played a large role in preparing them for that transition.” She gestured across the lawn, and Neal noticed that the gazelle had not fled far, and was still standing in earshot, head upright.

  “There's a limit, though.” Scarlet's voice took on an edge. “To my patience, and to yours.”

  Neal braced himself.

  “Shifting Sands is not your home,” she said, like ice.