Tropical Lynx's Lover (Shifting Sands Resort 4)

“As if those weren’t warning signs,” Jenny scoffed. She immediately felt terrible and judgmental. This was why they always argued as children.

But Laura only chuckled with self-deprecating humor. “It’s true,” she agreed. “I was an idiot.”

“What - what did you do for him?” Jenny wasn’t sure she wanted to know.

“Sometimes I carried messages, sometimes I did odd errands. I went to the bank twice a week with a fake ID

they gave me and made withdrawals for them. Sometimes they’d have me go to the store and make very exacting purchases. I delivered packages that probably had questionable things in them once or twice.”

Jenny sucked her breath in. “Could you get in trouble?”

“Tony doesn’t think so. A slap on the wrist at most. Maybe a fine, certainly no jail time. Testifying against Blacksmith could get me off the hook entirely.”

Jenny swept her pile out the big double doors onto the deck and off into the tiny lawn below. “You’ve got everything figured out,” she said, as they put the cleaning supplies back and shut the cottage behind them. There was no reason to lock empty buildings here.

Laura took her hand reassuringly, and though Jenny thought she startled at the feeling of the webbing between her fingers, she didn’t let go. “You will, too,” she said confidently. “I’ll help you.”

Jenny had to chuckle at how backwards everything seemed to be.

And if she didn’t laugh, she’d probably cry.

Chapter 7

“Aren’t you supposed to start looking better as you catch up on sleep?” Bastian asked frankly when Travis stumbled down mid-morning.

Travis muttered wordlessly, not wanting to explain that he’d gotten very little in the way of sleep because he couldn’t seem to keep from lusting over someone else’s mate.

“You do look awful,” Breck agreed with Bastian critically.

“Don’t you guys have jobs to do?” Travis asked crossly.

“Already done with the breakfast crowd,” Breck shrugged.

“I put out the swim-at-your-own-risk sign,” Bastian said. “It was raining, earlier. No one was in the water when I left, and I got bored. There’s a big storm headed for us, probably hit us in the next few days. I’ve even heard a bunch of guests have canceled.”

Travis went to the fridge with an unappreciative scowl for the waiter and the lifeguard.

“A hurricane?” Breck asked.

“I heard it could be,” Bastian said. “They aren’t supposed to get as far south as Costa Rica, but it’s still a category four and will still be pretty strong when it hits.”

“You guys seen Tex?” Travis had to ask, retreating from the cool sanctuary of the fridge with a egg pastry of some sort and a pile of crispy bacon.

“He’s staying with Laura over in cottage six,” Bastian explained.

“Mates,” Breck said with a shudder. “The horror.”

Our mate is close by, Lynx reminded him, as if he hadn’t spent the night trying to forget.

Travis made himself eat the suddenly tasteless food, sitting on one of the tall kitchen stools. The house the staff had taken over had a formal dining room, but it had already been converted into a weight and exercise room, sparsely filled with the leftover resort equipment and some rusty hand weights.

Bastian and Breck argued good-naturedly about the boat they wanted to buy to replace the boat that had somehow been sunk the day before - Travis still didn’t know the story that went with that, but suspected it was quite a tale.

“What do you think?” Breck asked him abruptly.

Travis shrugged. “I have no opinion one way or the other,” seemed like the safest answer, since he hadn’t been listening at all.

“That’s cheating,” Bastian scoffed.