by Susan Hayes
Kismet Cove
Riptide
Rory Frazier is destined to be the next leader of Kismet Cove, a secret colony of seal shape-shifters known as selkies. The catch? Rory can only claim his birthright if he and his blood brother Evan Sinclair find a suitable mate.
Jessica Jones has come to Tofino to reclaim her life and move on from the grief of her mother’s death. Jess just wants time alone and space to heal, but kismet has something else in store. After a rogue wave sweeps her out into the frigid Pacific Ocean, Jess is rescued by two handsome men who heat her blood and help to heal her wounded heart.
Time’s running out for Rory and Evan. They need to present the colony with their chosen mate and tell Jess the truth about who they really are. When their secrets are finally revealed, will their newfound love survive, or will the emotional riptide tear the three of them apart forever?
Genre: Ménage a Trois/Quatre, Paranormal, Shape-shifter
Length: 82,648 words
RIPTIDE
Kismet Cove
Susan Hayes
MENAGE AMOUR
Siren Publishing, Inc.
www.SirenPublishing.com
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A SIREN PUBLISHING BOOK
IMPRINT: Ménage Amour
RIPTIDE
Copyright © 2013 by Susan Hayes
E-book ISBN: 978-1-62242-819-9
First E-book Publication: April 2013
Cover design by Harris Channing
All cover art and logo copyright © 2013 by Siren Publishing, Inc.
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED: This literary work may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, including electronic or photographic reproduction, in whole or in part, without express written permission.
All characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is strictly coincidental.
PUBLISHER
Siren Publishing, Inc.
www.SirenPublishing.com
Letter to Readers
Dear Readers,
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Regarding E-book Piracy
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This is Susan Hayes’s livelihood. It’s fair and simple. Please respect Ms. Hayes’s right to earn a living from her work.
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DEDICATION
This one is for Corey. I miss you, little bro.
And as always, for my parents for believing in me & for my bestest bud Karen for all her support & patience.
RIPTIDE
Kismet Cove
SUSAN HAYES
Copyright © 2013
Prologue
“Jessica Jones, at least take off your shoes before you go into the ocean!” Jess was almost to the water’s edge when she caught her mother’s tone and decided she better obey. She was only six, but she’d already figured out that when her parents used that tone, it was wise to listen to them.
She kicked off her shoes and headed straight into the waves, shrieking with glee as the undertow pulled the wet sand right out from beneath her feet. Within seconds her parents were on either side of her and she was swinging from their hands as they headed into the deeper water. Their clothes were soaked and the water was far from warm, but all three of them were laughing as they played in the waves.
It was her daddy who spotted the seals first, pointing to the two gray heads that were hard to make out against the green-gray water. Both seals were watching them intently, and Jess squealed in excitement and waved to them.
“Do you think they’re friendly?”
“No, baby.” Her mommy’s voice sounded sad as she lifted Jess up onto her shoulders so she could see the seals better. “I don’t think they’re likely to be at all friendly.”
“So they’re not like the seals in the story then?” Her favorite bedtime story was about a pod of magical seals that would come and play with children whenever they were summoned out of the sea.
“Not like the stories I tell you. Those are about special, magical seals.” Her mommy nodded to the two heads watching them intently. “Those two are just ordinary seals, and I bet their breath stinks of fish!” Her mommy punctuated her last words with a tickle to Jess’s tummy and Jess shrieked with laughter, the seals forgotten.
Jess spent her days on the beach, only coming back to the cabin to eat or take the naps her mom insisted she have no matter how much Jess protested. Her days were full of sunshine and fun and the seals had been nothing more than a distant memory. She didn’t recall their visit until near the end of their vacation, when once again two sleek gray heads popped up out of the water to watch her playing on the shore. She was playing tag with the incoming waves, trying not to let the water touch her feet as she streaked up and down the beach. Her parents were both up at the cabin, so Jess had to wear her life jacket. She hated the way the awkward, orange outfit rubbed at the back of her neck and made it hard to move, but her parents insisted. If she took it off she’d be made to stay away from the beach for the rest of the day as punishment, and there was no place on earth she loved more than the beach.
When she spotted the seals, she squealed with glee and waved, calling out to them between giggles as she dashed out of range of another wave. This time the seals seemed to respond to her and swam closer to the shore. Jess stopped her game to watch them as they halted just ten short feet away from where she was standing. She’d never been so close to a seal before, and she couldn’t help but wonder if their gray-and-black-spotted fur felt as sleek as it looked. She took a tentative step toward the pair, expecting them to disappear. Instead one of them rose up out of the water and waved a flipper at her.
Just like the seals in Mommy’s stories!
All the rules about Jess not going into the water alone were forgotten as she took another step, and then another. Soon the waves were up to her waist and her life jacket was making it hard to stand as it wanted to float up to the top of each incoming wave. The seals were still there,
just out of her reach. Jess took another step and then overbalanced as another wave rolled in and knocked her off her feet, leaving her swimming, her feet unable to touch the bottom. Salty water was in her eyes and she scrunched them tightly closed, waiting for the stinging to stop. When Jess opened them again she shrieked in surprise when she realized the two seals were right in front of her, both of them watching her with huge, dark eyes.
“Do you want to play with me?” Jess asked, reaching out a wet hand to the nearest seal. As her fingers grazed the sleek fur on its head, the seal ducked into an oncoming wave and disappeared.
“Come back!” she cried tearfully, disappointed that it was gone.
Seconds later the seal returned, grabbing the thick pad of her life jacket in its jaws and tugging her further away from shore. Jess laughed at this new game and used her arms to steady herself, already feeling the undertow tugging at her feet as they moved into deeper water.
The larger of the two seals made a short, barking noise and rose up higher in the water as if looking at something, and then it barked again, more urgently this time. It sank its teeth into the other side of Jess’s life jacket and started tugging at it. The motion of both animals pulling at her sent Jess off-balance and she tumbled face-first into an oncoming wave. She came up coughing and spluttering and tried to tell the seals not to be so rough, but then another wave caught her and she was underwater again.
This time it took longer for her get her head above water, and by the time she could breathe again fear had replaced all of her earlier joy.
She wailed for her mommy, and when she heard her mother screaming her name, Jess tried to turn around and swim back to shore, but the waves were too big and she couldn’t make her limbs work properly.
“Jess! I’m coming, baby!” Another wave came and Jess managed to hold her breath this time, and when she could see and hear again, she heard her mommy yelling at the seals.
“Don’t you dare touch her! Leave her alone! Just leave the both of us alone!”
Jess heard splashing behind her and then her mommy had her in her arms, dragging her away from the seals and back toward the beach. The seals fled, diving into the crest of a wave and vanishing beneath the surf. Jess watched them go, holding tight to her mommy, tears rolling down her face as she tried to give voice to her fright.
“I know, baby. Hush, it’s all right. You’re safe now.” Jess let the words soothe her and as her fear ebbed she fell into an exhausted sleep.
Her parents never mentioned the seals again, but that was the last year they visited the cabin in Tofino. In all the vacations they took over the years, Jess’s family never went near an ocean again.
Chapter 1
24 years later
“Jess, are you even listening to me? Hellooo in there!” Vivian waggled her fingers in Jess’s face, snapping her out of her reverie. It had been years since Jess had even thought about the cabin in Tofino, but since visiting her father earlier today, it was all she could think about.
“What? Yes, I’m listening,” Jess lied, hoping Vivian would let it slide. No such luck.
“No, you weren’t. You had that blank stare you get when you’re off plotting with your muse somewhere and have left this plane of existence behind. I know that look. When you get it I could probably set you on fire and you wouldn’t notice.” Vivian grinned. “Maybe next time I’ll try that and see.”
“I’m pretty sure setting your best friend on fire is against the friendship code of conduct,” Jess retorted with a smile. It was impossible not to smile when Vivian did. Her friend’s perpetual sense of joy was contagious.
“It’s nice to see you smile. I was starting to think you had forgotten how.” Vivian wrapped an arm around Jess’s shoulders and hugged her. “You doing okay?”
Jess was tired of being asked that question. She’d heard it so many times in the months since her mother had died. There were days she wanted to cry and shake her head and scream that no, she wasn’t doing okay. She was so far from okay she wasn’t even on the same planet as that concept. Instead she would just try to smile and tell whoever was asking that she was hanging in there. She lied to everyone else, but she had never lied to Viv.
“Not even close to okay.” Jess took a deep breath and then added, “I went to see Dad today.”
“That couldn’t have been easy, no wonder you’re feeling lousy. What did he have to say?”
Jess laughed bitterly. “He’s worried about me.”
“Now he’s worried? Where was he when you needed him?” Vivian’s eyes narrowed and her smile faded to a sneer.
“It wasn’t his fault, Vivian. As much as I would love to blame him for leaving me to cope with everything alone, he isn’t…” She stopped and corrected herself. “He wasn’t her husband anymore.”
“He is still your father. He could have checked in at least once in all the months he was off sailing around the tropics with Fluffy and the wonder twins.”
Jess couldn’t help but snicker. “You really need to stop referring to my stepmother and her boobs as separate entities.”
“No, I don’t. At least not until she gets those insane implants removed. I bet she didn’t even need a life jacket while they were out sailing around. Those babies are built-in buoyancy!”
Both women fell into a fit of giggles that had more than one patron of the coffee shop staring at them with raised brows. By the time Jess had her composure back, she felt much better than she had when she’d left her father’s place just an hour before.
“So what did your dad want? I know you didn’t just go over there to visit out of the blue.”
“He had something for me,” Jess said with a shrug. “It was a package, and a letter from Mom.”
“She gave it to him to give to you?”
“It’s not like she had many options, Viv. She must have arranged it before she got too sick…” Jess trailed off as she caught up in bitter memories of the hellish months that had come after her mother’s initial diagnosis. With her health failing by the day, everything had taken on a surreal, nightmarish quality. Jess had wanted to seek alternative treatments and second opinions while her mother had just smiled and got on with what she called, “tidying up the loose ends of a life well lived.”
In the end it had just been the two of them because her father had been sailing around the Bahamas on his honeymoon, completely out of contact. It had been the hardest time of Jess’s life.
“So what was in the package?” Vivian’s question dragged Jess back to the present.
Jess gave her dearest friend a half smile. “I’ll get to that, but there’s a bit more to tell you first.”
“Just because you’re a crime novelist doesn’t mean you’re supposed to build up the suspense in your day-to-day life.” Vivian stuck her tongue out at Jess and laughed. “So, spill it! What’s the deal?”
Jess took a deep breath and let the words all tumble out of her in a rush. “Mom asked Dad to give me the cabin out on the west coast, you know, the one we all used to go to when I was a kid. He’s agreed to it, and he’s having the paperwork drafted up to make it legal. That was what he asked me over to talk to me about. He didn’t know Mom hadn’t discussed it with me.”
“So he’s giving you the cabin? That’s great!” Vivian squealed and leaned over to hug Jess again. “You are in dire need of a get-away, and that would be perfect! When are you going and how long before I can come and visit?”
“Trust you to cut straight to the heart of things.” Jess laughed as she tried valiantly not to spill the last few drops of her coffee. “It’s tempting, but I’m not sure I should go right now. I would need to give notice at the apartment and figure out how I’m going to get everything I own from Toronto to Vancouver Island without losing my mind in the process.”
“Oh, that’s easy. You don’t move everything. That place has been in the rental pool for years, right? So it’s already furnished. You don’t need to move everything across the country. All you need is a s
torage locker.” Vivian beamed at her. “I’ll help, and we’ll have you packed up in no time, I think you should go, and the sooner the better.”
“So even my best friend is trying to get rid of me now?” Jess teased. “What would I do without you? If I go, that is.”
“You wouldn’t be without me, not really. The wilds of Tofino have the internet, don’t they? We’ll Skype, and I’ll come out to visit once you’re settled. Tofino is a surfing town and I bet it’s full of hot surfer guys. Do you really think I’m going to let you hog them all? Not a chance!”
“Well, now that you’ve settled my life so nicely, would you like to hear what was in the box?”
“You know I do.”
“An old storybook my mom used to read to me all the time, and an animal fur,” Jess said and waited for Vivian’s reaction.
“What? Your mother was totally against animal cruelty. She was almost a vegetarian, for heaven’s sake. Didn’t she only eat tofu and seafood? Why on earth would she give you a box full of furs?”
“I’m not sure if it’s a single pelt or more than one. Whatever it is, it’s so brittle and aged I didn’t want to touch it in case it fell apart on me. From what I could see it’s a soft, pale-gray fur with dark splotches. It’s really pretty, and I have no idea what I’m supposed to do with it.”
Vivian’s expression softened. “You haven’t read the letter from your mom yet, have you?”
“No,” Jess confessed. “I didn’t want to cry in front of Dad.” She patted her jacket pocket. “I’ve got it here.”
