What would the Denalis do if they learned what she was up to?
* * *
Jade had driven by Rafe Denali’s house numerous times, watching for Rafe to leave so she could run into him wherever he ended up going. Accidentally. The palatial mansion was set back off the road, a long circular drive visible beyond the gates and providing a glimpse of the white stucco house with its ocean view, but not much more.
This was the first time she’d seen him leaving the estate. He was alone, driving a bright-blue Maserati with the top down, and she followed him to a farmers market and parked several cars away.
Wearing a pair of blue shorts, sandals, a pale-blue T-shirt, and mirrored sunglasses, he climbed out of his car. He didn’t look like he was a billionaire, except he had a hot car, but otherwise, he just blended in with the rest of the shoppers.
She hurried to catch up to him. She couldn’t imagine what he’d be buying. Wouldn’t he have someone else buy his groceries? If she were shopping, she’d get fresh corn and tomatoes.
He stopped at a colorful booth filled with flowers, a bright-red canopy shielding the bouquets and shoppers from the afternoon sun.
In all of the research she had done on Rafe, she hadn’t seen one thing that indicated he had a girlfriend. She let out her breath. Just her luck.
She hesitated, feeling jittery and uptight, but she had to run into him, making it look real and not faked, and then apologize. He’d smell she was a wolf and maybe get interested. God, how she hated this. But she had to do it for her son.
She drew closer, the crowd of shoppers helping to conceal her as she focused on the flowers as if they were her goal and not the hot wolf.
Just as she was getting closer to him, a fair-haired man wearing jeans, sandals, and a black muscle shirt approached Rafe. “Hey, getting something for Consuela?”
“Yeah, Derek. Not sure what else to get her. But I thought she’d like these.” He paid for the bouquet of red and pink roses, and the two men walked off.
Damn. If the breeze had been blowing in her favor, he would have smelled her, turned, and checked her out, at the very least.
She wasn’t going to get anywhere with this while he was with a friend—or whoever Derek was. But since it was the first time she’d seen Rafe leave his place, she decided to wait in her car for him to leave and see where he went next. Or maybe try running into him when Derek left.
She climbed into her car and rolled down the windows, then Googled Rafe on her cell phone. The site that mentioned him the most was written by a photojournalist named LK Marks. He seemed to be obsessed with Rafe’s lifestyle—how Rafe hosted charity events but seemed reclusive otherwise. A number of times, LK Marks mentioned that Rafe was one of California’s most eligible bachelors.
The last posting anyone had made concerning the billionaire was a week ago. So maybe the paparazzi were off chasing someone else for a change and Rafe was old news. Which was good news for her.
An hour passed. The breeze helped keep her cool, but she was annoyed that Rafe was taking so long to return to his car.
Then two hours passed. She left her vehicle and was searching for him when she spied him sitting on the veranda of a Mexican café, burritos on his plate and a glass of iced tea beside it. He was talking with Derek, a couple of packages on the table next to the bouquet of roses. So they must have gone shopping. She let her breath out in an irritated huff. She wasn’t cut out for spy work.
Now what? She needed to get Rafe alone. Unless she could take a seat near him and he caught her wolf scent and piqued his interest, but all the tables out on the veranda were full. She asked the hostess how long it would take to get a veranda seat. Approximately an hour. Across the street, there was a sandwich shop. She headed to it, figuring she could get a view of the Mexican café from there and watch until he left.
Twenty-minute wait there. Trying not to look obvious that she was watching Rafe, she quickly glanced over the menu and decided on a chicken and provolone sandwich. She was called to her table, and when she walked with the hostess through the restaurant to the outdoor seating, she saw where the woman was leading her. Perfect. Flowers obscured the men’s view of her, but she could peek through to watch them. She took her seat and thanked the hostess, then looked over at the men—but they were gone.
* * *
Early in the morning, Rafe Denali perched above the rest of the world, reclining on his poolside lounger and eyeing the aqua-colored Pacific Ocean, the foamy, white waves crashing against the beach with their usual unpredictable rhythm. A rainbow-colored hot-air balloon and a bank of puffy clouds drifted across the bright-blue sky, pushed by the ever-present salty sea breeze. Seagulls called out as they soared high above, and long-legged sandpipers ran across the wet beach as the water began to recede, looking for a meal. A few beachgoers had erected colorful umbrellas in blues and yellows and pinks, along with chaise longues or chairs, and were sunbathing or reading. A few were walking the beach. Life couldn’t be better. Rafe had needed a break after making another thirty-million-dollar sale, and what better way to do that than by sipping a mixed-fruit smoothie while visiting with his best friend, Derek Spencer—also one of the filthy rich and, like him, a wolf.
But he couldn’t relax completely. Rafe was certain that different men had been following him for the past week or so, watching his every move. He’d had one of his private investigators trying to learn what was up, but without success.
He knew those following him hadn’t been paparazzi looking to capture shots of him to show to the world, or sexy women looking to catch his attention—he was used to that. After all, he was an extremely eligible bachelor, at least as far as the unknowing public thought. He was certain that if human women knew he was also a wolf, his single, male billionaire status wouldn’t have as much appeal.
The problem was that the men following him were wolves—just as wary and capable of concealment and evasion in their human form as in their wolf coats. What had tipped him off was that the men hadn’t been carrying cameras when following him as humans. And when he’d caught them watching him at various restaurants or stores, they’d quickly looked away. But when he’d tried to track them, they’d always given him the slip. Sometimes, they left a bit of a telltale wolf scent behind, as if they’d used hunter’s spray for concealment but hadn’t quite masked their own unique scent.
Rafe took another sip of his smoothie. This was so different from when he’d lived with the pack of his birth. He had moved on, left that life behind, wanting something more. The power to make things happen in the human world, not just with a pack.
“Has your brother learned anything from the research he’s been conducting?” Derek asked.
“When he’s running his experiments, he doesn’t like to discuss the results—or, I should say, details—with anyone. Certainly not with me, since that’s not my field of expertise. Just like I don’t discuss the details of my real estate ventures with him.”
“I heard he was off to check some other leads besides testing lupus garou blood samples.”
“Yeah. He’s let me in on his other research so I’ll know where he is at all times. He’s studied children with progeria, a premature aging syndrome. He also investigated an eight-year-old girl who still had the physical maturity of an infant, having barely aged in all that time. Another case was that of a forty-year-old man who looked like a ten-year-old boy. A couple others: a twenty-nine-year-old man who appeared to be ten, and a woman who was thirty-four but looked like she was two years old. So the rate of aging was significantly different for each of them.
“Aidan had wondered if any of them were wolves, which was one of the primary reasons he checked into their cases, but he learned none were. Since lupus garous age at the same rate humans do until they are young adults, he really hadn’t believed they were our kind, but he still wanted to determine if any of their conditions were similar to ours.”
Derek finished his smoothie and set the glass on the table. “With all th
e research he’s doing, I think he needs a bodyguard. Knowing how to return us to our original wolf life spans could be dangerous in the wrong hands.”
“Agreed. I have a man watching his back, even though Aidan wouldn’t approve if he knew. So I haven’t mentioned it to anyone. Aidan doesn’t believe he’s close to learning anything.” Rafe studied a couple of bikini-clad babes running along the beach below his estate. He swore the women were plants, seeking to catch his attention. Most of the wealthy landowners up here were older. Truth be told, he was much older than them. But in human years, he appeared to be thirty. He was also looking for anyone who seemed to be watching him, but he didn’t see anyone like that here today.
What really caught his eye was a woman wearing a pair of white short shorts with what looked like a one-piece bathing suit underneath, though the back plunged so low that all he could see were the royal blue straps. What piqued his curiosity even more was how low the front of the swimsuit was cut. It was funny how sometimes a one-piece and a pair of shorts could be more enticing than a tiny bikini.
When she began wading up to her thighs in the surf, watching the sea, her golden hair whipping about her shoulders in the warm summer breeze, he sighed, reminding himself he couldn’t be interested in a human woman for any kind of permanent relationship.
“Enticed yet?” Derek asked, smiling, his attention focused on the scantily clad bathing beauties jogging along the beach.
Rafe finished his smoothie. “Are they different ones, or the same two who were out here yesterday?”
“Hard to tell. They have all the right curves, the tanned bodies, the skimpy bikinis. I think one was a redhead yesterday though. So you think it’s a ploy to see if one of them would appeal more to you?” Before Rafe could reply, Derek tacked on, “Given a choice, which would?”
“None of them.”
“Not even if she was a wolf?”
Rafe glanced at his lifelong friend. Tall, tanned, and muscular like him, Derek was much fairer, his hair blonder and his eyes amber. They didn’t exactly appear like the billionaire type. Not to mention they had a wolfish wild side to them. Both were wearing board shorts—his green with a blue ocean wave, Derek’s an orange-and-white floral—and they looked more like surfer dudes, except neither of them surfed. As a wolf, Rafe preferred swimming, hiking, running, boating, or climbing—freestyle.
In a gesture of feigned exasperation, Derek threw up his hands. “Okay, so most are interested in our money more than anything. Sometimes it’s important to just have fun.”
Rafe checked out the woman walking deeper into the water. He grew worried when he saw the telltale signs of danger. The surf was flatter there, looking like a road heading out to sea. The color was lighter than the surrounding water, the foam on the surface moving out to sea, instead of being drawn into the shore like the regular breakers. A rip current. Which could imperil the woman.
Instantly, Rafe bolted from his lounger and raced to his private stairs to the beach, wishing like hell he’d noticed the water before. His attention had been solely on the woman the last time he looked.
“Hey, where you going?” Derek asked, jumping up from his lounger and hurrying to catch up as Rafe ran down the stairs.
“To rescue the third woman this month who’s headed for trouble in the surf.” Rafe reached the electronically locked gate, threw it open, then sprinted across the sun-warmed sand.
A summer of storms and hurricanes had altered the landscape of the ocean floor along the Pacific coast, creating more rip currents, which had resulted in more lifeguard rescues in the area. Except they didn’t have any lifeguards here. That meant whenever Rafe took a breather from work and relaxed poolside, he watched the situation in front of his estate as if he were the local lifeguard. He couldn’t help it. If he saw someone in danger, he was compelled to lend a hand.
Rip currents typically flowed faster than any human could swim. If the woman he saw walking into the rip current was caught up in it, she could be pulled out to sea as much as half a mile or more before it ended. It wouldn’t pull its victim under; usually, those who drowned had attempted to swim against the flow, panicking in an effort to return to the shore through the path of the rip current, tiring them to the point of exhaustion. If she was a good swimmer and knew how to navigate horizontally to the beach, or remained calm and treaded water until the rip lost its drive, she should make it just fine. But he didn’t want to risk her safety.
He raced around the beachgoers soaking up the sun. No one seemed to notice the possible danger.
Rafe reached the incoming waves, bolted through the water, and heard his friend splashing behind him. The woman was up to her shoulders in the surf, and Rafe dove for her just as the current swept her off her feet and pulled them both out to sea.
Chapter 2
“Just remain calm,” Rafe said, his arm wrapped around the woman’s curvy body, hugging her close. Her breasts pressed against his chest as he let the rip carry them out. He had to remind himself he was just on a rescue mission, but that changed when he smelled her delectable wolf scent. Her soft, huggable body made his react instantly to the intimacy.
Her blond hair was wet and looked darker, cascading over her shoulders and sweeping up against him in the flow of the water, her dark-brown eyes taking him in, her pink lips parted in surprise. But no more surprised than he was. He suspected she was just as shocked that he was a wolf as that he had come to rescue her.
“Are you from around here?” Lots of people who went to the beach regularly died from rip currents. They didn’t realize the danger until it was too late.
“No, I’m from Amarillo.”
That explained her lack of knowledge about the currents. “On vacation?” At this point, he could have swum out of the rip current with her and then let go of her. He probably didn’t even need to swim out with her. But this was just too damn nice, so he kept holding her close and treading water as the rip continued to pull them out.
“Uh, yeah.”
“Alone?” he asked, sounding a tad too hopeful. Hell, women were always after him because of his wealth, so he was always putting on the brakes. With her? This was a completely different story. Mainly because she was a wolf. And intriguing. Well, and for an instant, she had needed his rescue. At least as far as he believed. He liked feeling needed—and not just for his money.
“Yeah.” She seemed so hesitant that he thought she might be concerned about his intentions.
He couldn’t blame her one bit. Even though he’d like to think his intentions were perfectly honorable, his wolfish half was enjoying the intimacy between them a whole hell of a lot more than he should have been.
Still, she wasn’t trying to get away from him, and she fit so nicely against him that he wanted to take advantage of the moment. He wondered why she would take a vacation here all alone though, his cagey wolf side instantly coming to bear. What if she was involved with the male wolves who were spying on him? Maybe she’d been sent to do a different mission up close and personal—not just watch from afar.
“My name is Rafe.” He didn’t want to give his last name in case she’d heard of his wealth. But if she was with the men who had him under surveillance, she already knew who he was. If she wasn’t part of that group, he didn’t want his wealth to influence her. It had a way of instantly changing the dynamics. Not only that, but no one except for his friend, his brother, and a few other wolves he did business with knew they all were wolves. He liked to keep it that way. Otherwise, he could see single she-wolves stalking him next.
“I’m Jade. Thanks for your help. Do you think we’re safe now?” The twinkle in her dark eyes and the soft smile on her shimmering pink lips said she knew he was holding her close for reasons other than her safety now.
“Almost.”
That earned him a bigger smile.
He smiled back. Well, hell, even if this whole thing was a setup, he had to admit he was enjoying the connection between them too damn much to care.
&
nbsp; “So…do you do this often?” She had a sweetly alluring voice that he enjoyed hearing over the gulls and breakers closer to shore.
“Rescue ladies in distress? You bet. But never one quite like you.”
“A wolf, you mean.”
“From Amarillo.” His body was reacting way too much to hers. He hoped she wouldn’t notice, though he suspected she was noticing everything about his body as much as he could feel her nipples pebbling against his chest. Not that she seemed like the kind of woman who scared off easily.
“I think the current’s strength is dwindling,” she said, but she still didn’t make a move to pull away.
“You might be right. Are you doing anything for lunch?”
Her brows lifted marginally. “I have a date with the Crab Shack.”
“Alone?”
She chuckled. “Yeah.”
“Mind if I join you?”
“What if someone else needs you to rescue him or her? I’d hate for you not to be here when disaster struck.”
“I’ve done my rescuing for the day.” He motioned to Derek, who was standing on the shore, arms folded across his chest, and smiling at them. “It’s Derek’s turn next.”
“Friend of yours, I take it?”
“Best.”
“Part of a pack?”
“Nah. Just my brother, Derek, and me. But we’re not a pack. You?”
“Yeah, but they’re back in Amarillo.”
“They’re not worried about you being out here all alone, getting into trouble in the ocean?”
“I’m sure they’d think I’d be just as safe playing in the water as I thought I’d be.”
“I take it you don’t have a mate. If you were mine, I’d damn well be out here with you.”
She laughed.
He waited for her to confirm she didn’t have one. He wasn’t getting mixed up with a mated wolf no matter how much he enjoyed being with her like this.
She was still smiling when she shook her head. But he swore her smile was a little pinched this time. He’d lived too many years not to be able to read people, though he couldn’t read her well enough to know why the mention of a mate bothered her.