Wet (Elemental 1)

by Rose Wulf

  Evernight Publishing ®

  www.evernightpublishing.com

  Copyright© 2016 Rose Wulf

  ISBN: 978-1-77233-793-8

  Cover Artist: Jay Aheer

  Editor: Amanda Jean

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

  WARNING: The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. No part of this book may be used or reproduced electronically or in print without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in reviews.

  This is a work of fiction. All names, characters, and places are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  DEDICATION

  This book is dedicated to my Evernight Family. So many of you have stepped up to offer words of encouragement, praise, and even friendship. You have truly touched my heart. Your support helped me find the strength to revise this book, and the rest, after the fiasco of the series being taken down last year. So it's in large part thanks to you that I can present this new and improved story to the world.

  Thank you, Evernight Publishing, staff and fellow authors alike. It's a joy to be a part of this family each and every day.

  WET

  Elemental Series, 1

  Rose Wulf

  Copyright © 2016

  Chapter One

  “Hawke, Blake.”

  Brooke barely had time to think, What a name, before the guy sitting in the desk beside hers pushed to his feet. Subsequently, that provided her with another perfect opportunity to ogle him. He was a good four inches past six feet tall, with dark, slightly shaggy hair and a strong yet angular profile above a lean and toned body. Hell, she’d dated a guy on the swim team a couple of years earlier who’d be jealous of that body.

  “Here,” Blake Hawke called obediently, his thumbs hooking into his jeans pockets. And he even had Brooke’s favorite kind of voice—she thought of it as ‘light masculine’. Definitely male, but not so deep or gravelly that he sounded like he was growling all the time. ‘Lighter’ just meant she could as easily hear him laughing, or talking with a smile.

  She was so lost in her mental cataloguing, she nearly missed the name of Blake’s assigned partner. Which, naturally, was hers.

  “Munroe, Brooke.”

  Doing her best not to stare at the balding man in the front of the room, or to let on that she’d been supremely distracted, Brooke rushed to her feet to announce her presence. Fortunately, he merely nodded, made a mark on his roll sheet, and moved on. Brooke resettled, releasing a silent breath, and nearly jumped out of her skin when Blake Hawke leaned toward her.

  “At least we don’t have to move,” he whispered, that smile she’d been thinking about projected in his voice.

  Brooke turned to offer her own smile as it dawned on her what he meant. Her name had been called immediately after his. And since their professor was using the first day of the new semester to assign partners, that meant Blake Hawke was her new partner. They’d be working together all semester. And that made her smile easier.

  ****

  “So,” Blake began on Wednesday morning, “are we supposed to exchange life stories or something?” He had one dark eyebrow cocked over his shining blue eyes to match his tone, and his lips were kicked up at the corners with mild amusement.

  Brooke shrugged. “Something like that, I guess.”

  It was the second day of class and, after spending the first pairing off his students, their professor had declared that it was time to get to know each other. He’d even taken the liberty of turning pairs of desks to face each other, so that the students were broken into their pairs as soon as they sat down. Which was fine for Brooke. She could handle a whole hour staring at Blake’s smooth face and gorgeous blue eyes. Though those eyes would surely make it hard to hear what he was saying.

  Blake shifted, leaning back in his seat and angling himself so that he could stretch one long leg out without kicking her—or anybody else. “All right, then … you want to go first?”

  After taking a deep breath, Brooke said, “I suppose I can. I’m twenty-two, this is my third year here, and I’m only taking this class because it qualifies as a substitution for another one that I need.” She paused, realizing too late what it sounded like when she said it that way, and quickly added, “Not that I won’t take it seriously, I promise!”

  Blake chuckled. “No worries, I understand. I’m only taking it because it’s required.”

  She smiled, laughing quietly, and nodded. “Fair enough.” She tried to figure out what more she should say and belatedly decided he might need to have a half-decent idea of her schedule. “I’m actually only taking two other classes, but I work a lot at a diner over in Darien, so I definitely need to plan ahead if we have to meet outside of class.” Or when. With group projects it was always a when.

  With only the faintest of grins, Blake inclined his head. “That’s fine. I actually live in Darien, so that could work for me.”

  “I do, too,” Brooke admitted. “It’s a heck of a lot cheaper, and quieter.” Darien was a small coastal town about thirty minutes directly west of the university. But with the university also being several hundred feet higher in elevation, as well as on the edge of another, bigger city, Darien may as well have been in another world.

  “Definitely,” Blake agreed with a laugh.

  There was an extended moment of awkward silence between them, and then finally Brooke said, “I don’t actually know what else I should say… Is there, like, something you wanted to know?” And was there a way she could sneak in ‘are you single’ without tipping her hand? No. Not only would it be awkward if he had someone in his life, but they had a whole semester to work together. Their professor had already made it clear he pretty much didn’t allow partner-swapping.

  Blake shrugged. “I can’t really think of anything. I’ll tell you a little about me, and we can just go from there if you want?”

  She smiled now and nodded. “Works for me.”

  “Well, like you I’m twenty-two, but this is my last semester. I’m taking a few more classes, and I work part-time as a lifeguard at the beach in Darien.”

  The minute the word ‘lifeguard’ left his lips, Brooke’s imagination was off and running. She could just picture him jogging down a sandy beach on a beautiful day, barefoot and bare-chested, donning the requisite fire-engine-red swim trunks of a lifeguard, his dark hair ruffling in the wind. And even though her imagination insisted that red wasn’t necessarily the best color for his skin tone, the image was striking. Mouthwatering. He’d be damn near irresistible if lifeguards were allowed to wear blue—which she was sure of, because he’d worn the same blue overcoat to school now both days.

  “I’m sure we can coordinate our work schedules when we need to,” Blake continued, unknowingly jarring Brooke from her distracting thoughts. “My supervisor’s pretty reasonable, especially this time of year.”

  Suddenly, the picture in Brooke’s mind shifted until Blake was running along a snow-covered beach, and she realized she was being incredibly ridiculous. Swallowing back her awkward laughter, she said, “Yeah, I bet January’s not the best time of year for beach traffic.”

  His grin was back in force. “Yeah, not so much. Most of us are really only on call right now.”

  As their conversation again fell silent, Brooke’s eyes drifted around the room and she caught a glimpse of another pair exchanging scraps of paper. Oh, right! Turning her attention back to Blake, she said, “I suppose we should exchange information, too.”

  Brooke looked up from the organizer she’d subsequently extracted from her school bag to see Blake unlocking a sleek, shiny black smartphone. She couldn’t help but feel a pang of envy. His ph
one might as well have come straight from a commercial, while hers was old, chipped, scratched, and just all around out of date. But she brushed it off, knowing she was behind on the technological times. Technology was expensive.

  It didn’t take them long to exchange the necessary information. And then it was time to resume making small talk, because their professor had made it clear he wasn’t letting them out early.

  ****

  Brooke looked over, still tying her apron around her waist, when her supervisor, who doubled as one of their bartenders, poked her head into the room. “Hey, Paula,” she called.

  The older woman smiled. “Hey. Wanted to let you know, you got a couple cuties at three. They just sat down.”

  “All right, I’ll be out in a second,” Brooke promised. Paula was nearly out the door before she added, “And don’t you dare go all Cupid on me!” Laughter was the other woman’s only response before the door swung shut once more.

  In under a minute, Brooke had managed to get all of her things thrown into the appropriate pockets and was making her way to her first table of the night. It was an odd time of day, and so the majority of customers were currently staking claims on barstools, which made it easy for her to spot the ‘cuties’ at her table. They were sitting calmly and talking, one leaning forward with an elbow propped on the table, and the other leaning back with his arm half-hanging off of the chair. Both were dark-haired, probably tall, and fairly well muscled from what she could see.

  Then she was standing before the table, professional smile easily in place, and launching into what she figured must be the world’s most over-used line. “Hey there, my name’s Brooke. You boys know what you want?”

  Both men had turned their full attention to her the moment she had appeared, and she realized that they both had nearly identical bright blue eyes. Eyes that reminded her of Blake. The man to her left smiled semi-flirtatiously, his eyes twinkling, and said, “I haven’t seen you here before, Brooke. You new?”

  “I’m new to the dinner shift,” Brooke offered, opting to play along for the moment. It wasn’t like she had other customers to worry about just yet.

  “Well, that explains everything,” he replied, still grinning. “Except for why I haven’t seen you around town.”

  Brooke allowed a small laugh to slip past her lips as she said, “Trust me, you’re not the first to bring that up. It’s just hard to find a lot of free time between work and school.”

  He scoffed, pulling his arm from the chairback in order to wave dismissively as he said, “Ah, school. I don’t miss it.”

  “Wish I knew the feeling,” Brooke admitted. A middle-aged couple had just stepped through the doors, so she knew she had to wrap up their conversation. Pulling her tablet from her apron pocket, she asked, “So, what can I get for you tonight?”

  The flirtatious one easily took the hint and proceeded to order his meal, and then she turned her attention to the other man, who had yet to speak. While neither man looked at all weak or lanky, the second man appeared noticeably stronger than his companion. It was in his broad-shouldered, strong-jawed build as much as it was in his expression. And he had a voice to match, she discovered when he calmly ordered almost the exact same meal.

  When she was done, Brooke flipped to another page and then easily maneuvered the tables and booths until she could greet the couple who had just taken a seat. They had claimed a booth in the middle of the restaurant, along the window-wall. It was the same booth they usually occupied when they came in.

  “Good evening, Mrs. Buchannon, Mr. Buchannon,” Brooke greeted sweetly. The Buchannons were practically local royalty, and though Brooke had only been living in town for the better part of two years, even she was friendly with them. They were incredibly wealthy, and incredibly generous. She had never met a resident of Darien who could speak a bad word about them.

  Katherine Buchannon smiled up at her. “Oh, hello, Brooke! Are you working the dinner shift now?”

  Brooke laughed and nodded. “Yeah, I had to switch it up this semester, since I got stuck with early classes.”

  “And how is school going?” Maxwell Buchannon asked curiously, his tone indicating genuine interest.

  “It’s going.” Brooke gave a frustrated laugh and brief shake of her head.

  “Are you close to graduating yet?” Katherine asked as she brushed a runaway wisp of faded blonde hair out of her eyes.

  “Not close enough. At this rate, I’ve probably got a year left after this semester.”

  “Well,” Maxwell began encouragingly, “continue keeping the faith, then, and you’ll do fine. It’ll all be worth it in the end.”

  Brooke smiled. “I certainly hope so. But enough about me. What are you in the mood for tonight?”

  ****

  “I am so jealous,” Georgia Clarke declared as she stepped up beside Brooke in the back room a short while later. Georgia was Brooke’s favorite coworker, and probably her only good friend. She was about an inch shorter than Brooke, nearly three years older, and had a whole lot more hair than Brooke ever would—at least in volume.

  Cocking an eyebrow at her, Brooke asked, “Why are you jealous, exactly?”

  Georgia lifted a perfectly manicured hand and absently twirled a strand of her red hair. It was a dark, maroon shade of red, but when Brooke had met her (nearly a year and a half before), her hair had been blonde. She wasn’t entirely sure that had been her real color, either. “You have two of the Hawke brothers at table three, that’s why,” Georgia declared with a fake pout. It might have had better effect, Brooke decided, if not for the gleam of mischief in her light green eyes.

  Brooke was halfway through rolling her eyes when Georgia’s words clicked in her head. “Wait, what? Hawke brothers?”

  Now Georgia paused, her hair falling from her loose grasp, and in a strangely shocked voice, she asked, “You mean you’ve been living here for nearly two years and you’ve never met or at least heard about them?”

  “Obviously not. But I met a Blake Hawke on Monday. He’s in my first class. We’re partnered up for the semester.”

  Georgia’s grin was instantaneous, and she planted her hands on her hips. “You lucky girl! Although Blake isn’t my favorite of the bunch, but they’re all gorgeous.”

  “So they’re, what, triplets?” Brooke ignored Georgia’s comment for the sake of her sanity. She didn’t know their exact ages, but the two at her table had looked to be fairly close to her own age, and she knew Blake was twenty-two, just like her.

  Georgia was laughing, and she lifted one hand to drop it on Brooke’s shoulder. “Oh, no, sweetie,” she said, her tone teasing. “They’re quads. The two at the table are Dean and Logan, and in addition to Blake, they have another brother named Nate.”

  “Quads?” Brooke repeated, shocked. Wait, she thought, giving herself a mental headshake, why does it even matter? So what if Blake has three nearly identical brothers? There was something seriously wrong with her head.

  Brooke was yanked out of her internal critique by a nudge from her friend. “I think that’s their food on the bar,” she said. “Go make friends. Maybe they’ll put in a good word for you with Blake.”

  This time, Brooke did roll her eyes as she started forward. “I’m not even going to mention it,” she replied, already moving toward the freshly prepared food. Behind her, Georgia laughed.

  Chapter Two

  “How was your first week of school?” Lillian Hawke asked as she handed a bottle of water to her first-born.

  “I’ve had worse, I suppose. I’m just glad I’m finally in the home stretch.”

  It was late Saturday afternoon, and since it was also the last Saturday of the month, the Hawke family was gathering for their traditional family dinner. Blake, like usual, was the first of his brothers to arrive, and since his father and younger sister were at the store, he had a few minutes alone with his mother.

  Lillian crossed her slack-covered legs as she settled comfortably on her favorite chair. She rubbe
d at an invisible spot along the cuff of her beige, long-sleeved blouse. “Before you know it, it’ll be over and you’ll be wondering what on earth you’re going to do with yourself next.”

  Blake grinned around the bottle he’d been about to take a drink from and pulled it down long enough to ask, “You mean like Nate?”

  His mother shook her head faintly, a smile tugging at her lips. “Precisely.” In the silence that followed her reply, as Blake took a long swallow of his water, the distant, familiar rumble of a motorcycle could be heard pulling up to the house. “It sounds like your brother’s here.”

  “I’m surprised,” Blake admitted, setting his bottle on the coffee table in front of him. “Nate’s usually late.” Muffled voices floated to them a moment later, indicating that the roar of Nate’s motorcycle had most likely covered the sound of another impending vehicle. “Sounds like Dad and Angie are home, too.”

  Lillian pushed to her feet, and Blake easily followed suit, hanging back and letting her lead the way down the hall.

  “—get anything good?” Nate was asking as the trio stepped into the house a minute later.

  “When was the last time we ate something that wasn’t good?” Christopher Hawke, their father, laughed as he shut the door behind them.

  Nate shrugged out of his leather jacket and hung it on the coat rack in the entry way before moving and tugging at one of the bags in his sister’s hands. “Let me see,” he said.

  Angela shifted away from Nate at the same time as she held out the bag in her other hand. “The stuff for tonight’s dinner is in this bag, not that one, Snoopy.”

  “Wait,” Nate replied, “I thought I saw brownie mix in that bag. Give it back.”

  “Nope.” Angela deftly dodged her brother’s outstretched hand and maneuvering around him. “Eric’s birthday is coming up. I’m going to make him brownies.”