Tropical Bartender Bear (Shifting Sands Resort Book 3)

by Zoe Chant

  Laura was wrapped in a thick towel and handed a bottle of water.

  She was stiff from the long wait in the cool night air, and her whole body protested the workout that had come from holding herself in place while being dragged back to shore.

  Everyone had questions, and Laura truthfully answered what she could, not bringing Fred into the conversation, and keeping a wary eye out for him in the crowd.

  Tex was never far from her side, and she was glad to lean on him.

  “Your hat,” Bastian said, handing Tex what was left of it.

  “It’s all chewed up,” he said mournfully. “I’ve had that hat for fifteen years!”

  “Give the otter a break,” Laura said, feeling defensive of the creature who had been so good to them. “What happened to it? The otter, I mean.”

  “Gizelle wrapped it up in a towel and took it up to the pool deck,” Bastian said. “Muttering about her human being scared, too, and something about long swims and water that wasn’t wet. You know Gizelle. About half of it is nonsense.”

  “And half of it isn’t,” Tex said thoughtfully, fingering the hole in his hat.

  Laura swayed on her feet as a wave of exhaustion broke over her, and Bastian immediately noticed. “You guys have been through a lot. Do you want some dinner?”

  “Breakfast, actually,” said Breck, indicating the dawn breaking on the horizon.

  Laura’s stomach rumbled distinctly, but she said, “A shower. I’d really like a shower first.”

  The crowd dispersed, back to their drinks and what was left of the bonfire, and let Tex and Laura climb the stairs from the beach up to the pool deck alone.

  Chapter 26

  Tex was unsurprised to find Scarlet waiting for them at the top of the stairs, her critical gaze taking careful stock of their condition. Gizelle was sitting cross-legged on one of the lounge chairs, a towel cradled in her arms. The sunrise was gaining strength, and casting glowing orange light over the white deck.

  “I presume the boat was lost,” Scarlet said without preamble.

  “Bastian dragged the biggest piece back, but I’m afraid it’s not terribly seaworthy,” Tex told her, too tired to be intimidated by her non-nonsense air. “Everything was lost.”

  “Except you, I’m glad to see” Scarlet said gently, her nod including Laura. “Insurance will cover the rest. I presume it was not merely an… accident.”

  At Tex’s side, Laura suddenly went stiff, and Tex looked to see Fred, standing at the foot of the stairs from the bar deck.

  They were both watching him when he caught sight of them, and the expression of disbelief and anger was so brief that Tex actually doubted he’d seen it.

  Laura had no such doubts.

  “If you want answers,” she told Scarlet furiously, “ask him!”

  Fred managed to look innocent and slightly offended at the same time. “What do you mean, Jenny? Are you okay? What happened?”

  “What I don’t understand,” Laura said, voice heartbroken, “is why. Why would you try to hurt Jenny? Why would you try to hurt me? What did we ever do to you?”

  Tex was still watching Fred’s face, held back from roaring across the tile to smash the man into the ground only by Laura’s hand on his arm.

  For just a moment, Fred looked shocked and angry, but it was so swiftly masked in hurt innocence that Tex might have been fooled if he hadn’t been watching for any sign of guilt.

  Before he could do more than growl, there was a streak of fur, and the otter that Gizelle had been holding bolted towards Fred, shrieking in fury.

  Fred stepped back, nearly tripping on the first step up to the bar deck.

  The otter chittered and growled and seemed bigger than an otter ought to be.

  Gizelle dashed after the creature, and knelt a short space away from it, gazing intently at it. “Use your words,” she scolded gently. “Remember yourself!” She ignored Fred completely.

  Tex was still trying to figure out how to attack Fred without stepping on the otter or mauling Gizelle on his way, when the otter shimmered, seemed to hiccup in form.

  It was the most painful shift that Tex had ever witnessed, as if otter and human were fighting for control of the form. Fur stretched, limbs took unnatural shapes and lengths one at a time. Finally, it became...

  “Laura?”

  He had to check to see that Laura was still standing at his side, mouth open in shock.

  “Jenny!”

  Then his mate was leaping into the chaos, weeping and throwing her arms around a mirror image of herself.

  “You’re not dead, I couldn’t feel you anymore, I thought you were gone.”

  “Couldn’t,” Jenny said, awkwardly. She was swaying, as if exhausted and not sure how her own limbs worked. She picked up a hand, which Tex realized still had short webbed fingers and claws and inspected it thoughtfully. “Lost.”

  Gizelle looked at Laura warningly. “She’s not very found yet,” she said.

  Tex was not looking at Fred anymore, captured by the drama unfolding.

  “I’m not sure if this simplifies or complicates matters,” Scarlet said mildly at his elbow.

  Fred turned as if to flee, and Tex caught the motion out of the corner of his eye. He moved without thinking, crossing the space between them and grabbing him by the back of the neck. His bear wanted to crush the loathsome man, bite his windpipe, and maul his smug face, but Tex reined him back, satisfying his blood lust with a simple shake that left Fred gasping for breath.

  Laura wrapped her towel around Jenny’s naked shoulders and drew her to one of the lounge chairs. “What happened?”

  “She needed help,” Jenny answered, in a sing-song voice that Tex knew wasn’t hers. “I saw a place for me.”

  “Was it Fred?” Laura asked, desperately. “Did he booby-trap my car so that you got hurt?”

  Jenny cocked her head at her. “Booby-trap?” She considered. “Yes. And another car, long ago.”

  Laura sucked her breath in. “Our parents?”

  “They had things he want. Things he valued. Mo-ney?”

  “There was no money,” Laura scoffed. “We were paupers.”

  “There was!” Jenny said, more strongly now, more like Laura would have, Tex thought.

  It was very disconcerting, seeing two of them together, features so familiar and dear. It was even more disconcerting watching Jenny struggle with her otter companion.

  “What happened to it?” Laura asked, incredulously.

  Jenny seemed to rally herself. “Fred very carefully managed it away for us, so it looked like it was just bled away on the market, or lost to taxes, but it was really going into his accounts. And he didn’t tell us about the life insurance at all. But I caught him, and I figured out what he’d done.”

  “Your laptop. He blew up your laptop after he saw that I’d accessed your accounts.”

  Laura’s mirror nodded firmly. “He’d do that,” she agreed.

  “And the boat,” Laura said, “He blew up the boat after I told him that I had everything I needed on the cloud. I was just talking nonsense, but he thought I’d figured out what you had figured out, and was going to expose him.”

  “I had enough on him to send him jail for a very long time, and we would have been very rich indeed. Mom and Dad’s life insurance policy alone would have set us both up for life. We were millionaires, Laura. We just didn’t know it.”

  With a moan, Jenny’s eyes rolled up into her head and she slowly shifted into an otter who took two wobbly steps and fell at Laura’s feet.

  Chapter 27

  Jenny was alive! She was real, and whole, at least in body, and she was somehow now a shifter. What’s more, they were apparently much richer than Laura had ever realized was possible. She gathered the dazed little otter up and cradled her gently. “Are you okay?” she asked plaintively. How cruel would it be to get her sister back, just to lose her so soon?

  Gizelle stepped forward with the towel she had the otter wrapped in previous
ly. “There isn’t much room in one mind,” she said cryptically. “But your sister is still there.”

  “I won’t let him get away with any of it,” Laura promised her armful of unconscious otter, wrapping the towel gently around it.

  Tex gave Fred another shake, only needing one arm and a grip at the back of his neck to make him plead for mercy.

  “Enough!” Fred croaked.

  Laura could only imagine the restraint that Tex was showing, given the fury on his expressive face.

  She could relate!

  “I loved your Dad like a brother,” Fred explained to Tex sullenly. “But he got everything that should have been mine. He was a shifter, I wasn’t. He got your Mom. He got two beautiful daughters. He got the partnership at the firm. Sure, I got rid of them, but I raised you two like you were my own after that, or I would have, if you hadn’t gone haring off after high school. I set Jenny up at our firm when she graduated, and her thanks for that was getting a partnership offer that should have been mine.”

  “If they offered her a partnership, Jenny earned it,” Laura snarled.

  Fred ignored her, continuing his confession. “I knew that she was onto the insurance money before I got her text that she was going to be bailing you out again. I thought I could get her out of the way, and do with Laura what I’d failed to do with Jenny. She would confess her masquerade once it got hard to maintain, and I’d protect her and she’d be the grateful daughter I deserved.”

  “Then why did you try to poison me with rattlesnake venom?” Laura demanded. “This is not the way to earn a daughter’s love, not that any of this was.”

  Fred spread his hands innocently, and this innocence was more believable than his earlier show. “I had nothing to do with that. I didn’t try to hurt you until you gave me no choice.”

  Laura didn’t want to believe him, but the latte was such a different attempt than the others that Fred had confessed to. And however twisted his motives, he had followed them.

  “Where would I even get rattlesnake venom?” he asked. “It’s not like they sell it in the gift shop!”

  “Then who did?” Tex growled. Laura could tell that it was taking all of his self-control not to flatten the odious man.

  “It was probably my cousin,” said a new voice. Laura turned to see the man in sunglasses from the mainland bazaar she’d overheard mentioning Shifting Sands. He was walking up the steps from the beach with Bastian.

  “Who are you?” Scarlet, Tex, and Laura asked together.

  “I saw you on the mainland asking questions about the resort,” Laura added suspiciously.

  Bastion explained, “He pulled up in a boat and demanded to see Scarlet.”

  “My name is Sid,” the stranger explained, and his smile showed fangs that were just a little sharper and longer than they should have been. “My cousin Maryanne works here. I’ve come to bring her home.”

  “Who the hell is Maryanne?” Laura asked incredulously. “And why should she want to poison me?”

  “We don’t have a Maryanne on the staff,” Scarlet said with a frown.

  Sid ran tired fingers through his hair. “She’s probably under an assumed name. She’s… not entirely right in the head. She has a habit of lying about who she is, fabricating these involved personas to be, fixating on people who are kind to her. She’s a rattlesnake shifter, which makes her little fantasies especially dangerous if they get disturbed.”

  “Marie,” Tex said, in a strangled voice. “Marie thought I was her hero.” It was hard for Laura to blame her. He was the best-looking guy at the resort, during a world male beauty pageant, and he was sweet and gentle and perfect.

  Scarlet frowned. “She said she was a genet. From France.”

  “We’re from Arizona. She’s been missing from the home she’s supposed to be in for about six weeks, and needs to be on her medication again,” Sid said apologetically. “I’m really sorry for the trouble, I hope you weren’t hurt, ma’am.”

  “I wasn’t,” Laura assured him, still mystified.

  “You have some kind of proof of this?” Scarlet asked. “I am unlikely to release a member of my staff to a stranger on the weight of one person’s word.”

  “I have paperwork from her doctor,” Sid assured her. “I can give you the number of her facility.”

  “Please take her,” a familiar voice begged.

  Laura looked at the side entrance of the pool deck to find that Juan Lopez was approaching, looking wild-eyed and nervous as he came through the arch of greenery. “She’s completely nuts! I can’t get her to leave me alone! Ever since I put that damned fire out, she’s following me around with goo-goo eyes, talking about destiny and heroes.”

  Laura smirked. It couldn’t have happened to a more deserving jerk.

  Scarlet was rubbing the bridge of her nose. “Well, this certainly explains everything, even if it does introduce some new complications.” She gave Sid a hard look. “Presuming your paperwork checks out, I will release Marie - Maryanne - to your custody.”

  “Thank you, ma’am,” Sid said humbly. “I would, ah, appreciate it if we could leave the authorities out of things. She forgets that she’s poisonous, sometimes, and doesn’t understand consequences.”

  “There is a report on file with the civil guard for the initial incident,” Scarlet said candidly. “But they tend to turn a blind eye to what happens out here. If they pursue an investigation, I shall simply tell them that it turned out to be a… misunderstanding.”

  Sid nodded. “I think that’s an accurate summary,” he said wryly. “She really doesn’t understand what she’s doing.”

  Scarlet was already turning away from him. “You, on the other hand,” she said in icy tones to Fred. “You are a problem.”

  Fred was glaring sullenly at the ground. Tex helpfully tipped his head up. “It’s good manners to look at a lady who’s talking to you. I could escort him off the resort,” he offered suggestively.

  “As tempting as it is to walk him off the cliffs, we will let the civil guard deal with him. I’m sure he’ll be extradited to the US for his crimes there.”

  Tex looked disappointed, but brightened when Scarlet suggested, “Truss him up in the meantime. I don’t take attempts on my staff’s life lightly.”

  Laura wasn’t sure when she had gone from guest to staff, but hearing Scarlet say it let a knot of tension unravel in her chest.

  “Juan? Juan darling?” Marie’s - Maryanne’s - false French accent was light and airy above the island sounds of surf and rustling leaves. “Where aaaare you?”

  Juan groaned and bolted for the stairs. “You haven’t seen me!” he shouted as he fled.

  Maryanne did a double-take when she walked through the side door. “Sid!” she cried.

  “I’m here to take you home, Maryanne.”

  Maryanne pouted artistically. “But I was having so much fun!”

  “You almost killed someone!” Sid protested. “Again!”

  “She didn’t get hurt,” Maryanne whined. “It was all just pretend.”

  Sid rubbed the bridge of his nose, much as Scarlet had earlier. “I told you that you can’t spit in people’s coffee. It’s bad! Let’s go home, kitten. I’ll help you pack up.”

  “Oo,” said Maryanne. “I’ll show you my room!” Her French accent was completely gone. She took Sid’s hand willingly and tripped off with him towards the staff housing.

  Chapter 28

  Tex growled at Fred to stay, and cowed him enough to obey while he ducked into the pool’s mechanical room and found the duct tape. “I’m afraid all we have on hand is pink duct tape,” he said without apology.

  Fred gave a token struggle as Tex trussed up his wrists, thought about it, and did his ankles, too.

  “Hey, I’ve got rights,” Fred protested. “This isn’t constitutional! You can’t leave me like this!”

  “We’re not in the US,” Tex reminded him. “But you’re right, I can’t leave you like that.” Another piece of duct tape went o
ver Fred’s mouth, and Laura laughed out loud.

  “That will do,” Scarlet said, not disapprovingly. “I’ll send Graham down to watch him.” She turned away from his wiggling protests to address Laura. “You are, of course, welcome to stay as long as you need. Your sister will need some time and help to come to terms with being a shifter, and this is a safe place to do that.”

  “I can work,” Laura said automatically. “I’m happy to help at the spa, or make beds, or do laundry.”

  “We can come to an arrangement in a day or two,” Scarlet suggested. “Get a good night’s — a good morning’s sleep. Eat and have a shower. Gizelle can watch over Jenny while you rest.”

  Gizelle bobbed her head up and down vigorously and stepped forward to take the little bundle. “I won’t let the darkness burn her,” she promised.

  Laura gave her a quizzical look, then reluctantly passed her the towel-wrapped otter.

  As Gizelle trotted off to… wherever it was that Gizelle stayed at night, Scarlet frowned at Tex. “You head to bed, too. We’ll be seeing most of our guests off today, and everyone will get a little well-deserved break.” She strode off up the stairs towards the restaurant.

  Tex suspected Scarlet would not be getting any immediate rest herself.

  “Well, handsome,” Laura told Tex, “Let’s go to bed. You made certain suggestive promises on what was left of the boat that I expect you to make good on.”

  Tex tried to tip his hat to her, and his fingers found the otter-chewed hole. “I could find the energy for that,” he agreed as they slowly climbed the stairs, headed without consulting each other towards Tex’s room in the staff house.

  “We’ll get you a new hat,” Laura promised. “Jenny said we’re millionaires, remember?”

  “I thought you hated the hat,” Tex said. “This would be your chance to get rid of it.”

  “It’s grown on me,” Laura decided. “And you wouldn’t be you without it.”