The Seer's Lover (The Seven Archangels Series) Read Free

nightmares—morphed into reality.
    Squawking birds searched for dinner. The sun tucked itself behind the horizon. The saltwater breeze mixed with the scent of the jungle, giving her unique adventure a sense of beginning.
    Ron Jones sat waiting perched on an old Jeep. He looked just like Dean had described him—the sandy, shoulder-length blond hair of a California surfer, swim trunks, and multiple hemp necklaces. She watched him take a deep drag from his hand-rolled cigarette and wondered whether he would begin all his sentences with, “Duuuude.” She’d have to tell her brother that time hadn’t aged his hippiness, only amplified it.
    Calise rolled her bag along the sidewalk. “Ron?” She extended her hand.
    He nodded.
    “Hi, I’m Calise. Dean’s sister. Thanks so much for picking me up.”
    He stamped out his smoke on a rock, tossed it aside, and reached for her hand. His sturdy handshake reminded her of a man accustomed to conducting business one day and doing manual labor the next. She liked him immediately.
    Ron put a brotherly arm around her. “My resort down in Mal Pais is perfect for you. You’ll have a bungalow all to yourself. We’re near the beach, and I’ve hooked you up with surf lessons for the day after tomorrow like you asked.” He tossed her luggage in the back of the Jeep. “How’s Dean doing anyway?”
    “His wife left him.”
    Ron’s head snapped around.
    She shrugged. “He and Max are better off. She was a monster.”
    “What?”
    Calise sighed. “I don’t mean it literally, but Liza was…” she hesitated. “I couldn’t stand how she treated my brother, like she was the mother ship her family had to orbit around. She worked seventy hour weeks to keep scum out of jail.” She stopped. “I shouldn’t bad-mouth her. But I’m glad they woke up one day and she was gone. She didn’t even leave a note. But Dean and Max are better off without her.” She sighed. “So tell me about Mal Pais. You came here with Dean, right?” she asked.
    “We came here together on spring break our junior year of college. We were both starting to think about law school. But I met my beautiful wife, Anna, on the trip.” Ron’s eyes glazed over just a bit. “She was on vacation from Brazil. My father loaned me the money to buy this resort, and we’ve been here ever since. I even offer guided horseback riding trips through the jungle if you’re interested.” He pointed in the direction of a guy carrying two large burlap sacks on each shoulder. “Here comes my guide now. Lucas, this is Calise.”
    For one long moment, the guide’s eyes raked over Calise from head to toe. His coffee-brown eyes twinkled ever so slightly.
    “Hi.” He started to give her a shy smile, and she caught sight of a dimple when he visibly shook off what Calise read as desire. After heaving the sacks into the back of the truck, he ran his fingers through his dark, wavy hair and averted his gaze altogether before he left to retrieve more grain.
    Calise found she was holding her breath. He was the most beautiful, sexy man she’d ever seen. Hotter than any Raul of her fantasies, Calise watched his tan body, rippling with hard worked muscles, flex with each step he took away from her.
    She tried to stay out of the way while Ron helped his guide load several more bags of grain. The guide didn’t look her way again.
    “All right, let’s get going. It’s getting dark. Calise, you can sit up front with me. Lucas is fine in the back.”
    She hopped into the Jeep, shut the door, and never looked back. They set out for the Howler Monkey Resort on roads she likened to driving on a plowed field.
    Calise didn’t have any of her “feelings” about Ron or Lucas. There were none of the waves of nausea she’d felt around her sister-in-law or the drug addict from the pharmacy. Nor was there the old perfect, drug-like calm she’d had with her ex-boyfriend in college, Shane. But even Shane seemed to have a power over her she