A Summer in Paradise Read Free Page A

“I don’t suppose you have
the pole with you?”
    She smiled and his heart almost jumped
from his chest. She looked so familiar. Even the way she tilted her
head when she looked at them reminded him of someone—but
whom?
    Jarrod watched as the tempting little
morsel nervously toed the dirt beneath her right foot. He sensed
Duncan recognized her too as he stayed silent in the
water.
    “ No.” She turned and glanced
back over her shoulder before she looked back at him with a smile.
“But in the interest of being a good neighbor, I could run back to
the cabin and get it.”
    So she was the one who was staying in
the cabin. He looked her up and down and wondered what she thought
gave her the right to wash the shorts Duncan had stored
there.
    “ We wondered who was staying
there. The line cabins are usually empty this time of
year.”
    “ I know. That’s why I’m
staying there.”
    She knew? How did she know?
He didn’t recognize her as being anyone from Paradise, but then her
mannerisms were familiar.
    “ Yeah, we’d planned to stay
there until we saw the clothes on the line. Then we decided that
we’d spend one night under the stars then pack up and go
home.”
    “ Oh.”
    Was that disappointment he saw on her
face? “We didn’t expect to see such a beautiful woman out here
alone.”
    He expected the sickly sweet scent of
fear to fill his nostrils at his comment. Unfortunately, he
couldn’t smell anything with the wind at his back. She took a step
back, most likely out of fear. The woman may be attracted to them
and he could tell that she was, but she wasn’t stupid. Just the
implication that they could harm her had her putting space between
them—not that she could outrun them if they decided to give
chase.
    “ Don’t worry. We wouldn’t
hurt you.” Duncan shot him a look that threatened bodily harm
without his saying so. “We thank you for the offer of your
rod.”
    Ha! Jarrod had a rod for her. He fought
the urge to grab his cock and shake it at her. What was it about
the woman that stirred his blood so completely? He hadn’t even
gotten a whiff of her yet and his body raged for
release.
    “ I’ll just go back to the
cabin and get it.” She smiled. “Who knows? You might get lucky and
hook your own lines and then we could all fish.”
    “ Why don’t you do that,
sweetheart,” Duncan said as he heaved himself out of the water.
“We’ll just wait here and try to dig up some more bait.”
    Jarrod watched as she turned and
hurried away. “You know she’s not coming back, don’t you? She’s
probably getting dressed and ready to scurry down the mountain to
tell the good people of the nearest town that there are sexual
predators up here on the mountain.”
    “ No, she’s not. She’s coming
back.”
    “ I don’t know how you can be
so damned sure of that.” Jarrod shook his head. There was no way to
tell what the woman would do. “Neither of us could smell her. She
could be doing anything right now, including getting a
gun.”
    Duncan chuckled. “Can you imagine that
little girl with a gun?” He paused, a startled expression on his
face. “Do you think she could be our girl? She looks
familiar.”
    “ I doubt it.” Jarrod stared
toward the cabin, wishing he could see it through the woods. “Why
would she suddenly come back after all these years?”
    “ I don’t know.” Duncan
shrugged one shoulder negligently. “To see her sister,
perhaps?”
    “ Maybe, but why now after
all these years? Gemma’s been happily married for the last several
years. You’d think she would have come back for the
wedding.”
    “ Yeah.” Duncan sighed.
“You’re probably right.” He brought his knee up to his chest and
wrapped his arm around it. “We couldn’t get that lucky, could we?”
    Standing, Duncan made his way over to
their tackle box. “We could all fish if I made a few more poles out
of tree branches. They don’t have to be long. They only need to be
strong enough to pull in a