Healing in Paradise Read online

  He stood there, filled with impotent rage for the old woman he’d come to love like a mother and vowed that no woman would ever lose her mate to that type of insanity ever again.

  He looked at the others. “I don’t know about you two, but if she’s going to put us to work 27

  again, I’d at least like to have a full belly first.” He turned to Tilly and smiled. “Make a list of what you need done. We’ll get started on it as soon as we get back from lunch. Would you like to come?”

  “Oh, no thank you. I just had a sandwich a few minutes ago. You three go ahead. I’ll just wait here.”

  * * * *

  The diner was busier than Anna had ever seen it before. It was as though the entire town had been on vacation and someone returned daily. Every day the lunch crowd got larger and larger. Every day she saw new faces staring at her as though she were some freak. She tried to cover her face with her hair when she wasn’t working, but while at work, she must tie her hair back to keep it under control and from falling into the food she served.

  Don’t make eye contact. Don’t make eye contact.

  She chanted the words to herself as she served food to another table. “Here you go. One double cheeseburger platter, one meatloaf and mashed potatoes and one blue plate special, liver and onions smothered in gravy.” She set the plates down and turned to head over to the next table to take their order.

  The bell over the door rang and she turned to 28

  see if she’d seen the newcomers before or if it was someone else who had come to stare at her scars as she served. Her eyes widened as the three men strode in. The entire dining room seemed to shrink as the men walked through the door. The other people in the diner disappeared for a moment as the men drew every bit of her attention away from her job.

  She struggled to breathe as she watched them glance around the room. It was as though they sucked all of the oxygen from the very air. Their nostrils flared at the scent of cooking food. Maybe they smelled their favourite, or just maybe they didn’t like the smell of the blonde woman in the corner. Her perfume was strong enough to gag an elephant.

  Whatever it was, when their gazes met hers, they stopped moving. One of them even stilled in a half-seated position. Whatever their reasons for coming here, they obviously hadn’t expected her, so her theory of being a curiosity was out the window. At least where these guys were concerned. None of them expected her to be here.

  That much was certain.

  “Excuse me, Miss. We’re ready to order now.”

  Anna turned to the forgotten table and smiled.

  Order pad in hand, she approached the four occupants. “What can I get you?”

  After taking their order, she turned to the three 29

  men, intending to welcome them to the restaurant.

  After five days, she thought she knew all of the regulars and assumed the three men were new in town.

  “Welcome to the Beat the Clock Diner. How can I help you?” She wanted to say that the tallest one, the one with the short-cropped brown hair was the most handsome of the three with his well-defined muscles and the arrogant look about him, but she found she couldn’t choose between the three.

  The blond wasn’t classically handsome as she expected from the way he carried himself with such confidence. Usually, that kind of confidence came from knowing you were one of the beautiful people or extensive experience with life-threatening situations. She knew many fire-fighters and policemen with the same type of arrogance.

  Anna tended to avoid the type. They were too full of themselves for her liking. After a thorough investigation of his mannerisms and the cut of his hair and clothes, Anna determined he was ex-military or some other type of law enforcement.

  The other two had a different look about them.

  It was a confidence that also bespoke of military training, yet not. Perhaps they were paramilitary because they didn’t have the discipline of someone who had been a police officer or in the Army.

  30

  Anna didn’t know what it was, but something about all three of them stirred a place deep inside her she’d thought dormant. Ever since the accident, she hadn’t felt a fascination for anyone of the opposite sex. Now, as she stood here staring at these three men, she could feel the heat of their attraction deep in her belly. The heat flared out and she felt herself grow wet.

  Just as she started to approach the table to take their order, Sarah sauntered over and hugged the tallest of the three. “It’s good to see you again, Blake. Where have you three been hiding out?”

  “You know I would never hide from my favourite girl.” He smiled up at her as he snaked an arm around her waist to return her embrace.

  She slapped him on the shoulder. “Everyone knows your aunt is your favourite girl, so stop trying to flatter me. Besides,” she paused, then gave him a level stare. “You wouldn’t want me to think you’re serious.” She slapped at his hands as he attempted to pull her into his lap. “If you don’t stop that, I’ll tell your aunt.” She grinned. “You know I’m not above tattling and she will still take you over her knee, no matter how big you’ve gotten.”

  Though she didn’t remember moving, somehow Anna had grown close enough to see the laugh lines around his eyes. He looked as though he was in his mid-thirties, but she of all 31

  people, knew looks could be deceiving.

  Sarah glanced up, saw her staring and, like any good boss, gave her something to do. “Anna, go get these three flirts some water while I take their orders, would you?”

  “Yeah, and turn our order in to the cook while you’re at it. Maybe it’ll get done sometime today,”

  some jerk from the table she’d just left called out.

  Anna thinned her lips and hoped the cook dropped his burger on the floor before putting it on the bun for him. While she didn’t blame the man for giving her a verbal shove in the right direction, there were better ways he could have gone about it.

  Spurred to action more from embarrassment than anything else, Anna hurried to the kitchen, hung up her orders and went to get the water for the three men with whom Sarah seemed so familiar.

  As she returned with the water, her hands ached from holding the slippery glasses, wet from condensation. Her fingers arced around the glasses, her new skin stretching tight. Her hands still ached when she used them to grip tight, but what better therapy was there than hard work?

  She’d just leaned over to place the glasses on the table when the bell over the door rang. Anna looked up…and saw herself walk through the door.

  32

  Chapter Three

  With a gasp, she dropped the three glasses she carried right in the blond man’s lap.

  “Hoo, that’s cold!”

  The man’s shout of surprise brought Anna’s attention back to her duties and she gasped. “Oh, my goodness! I’m so sorry!” Her lookalike momentarily forgotten, she pulled a stack of napkins from her apron pocket, then tried to clean up her mess, starting with the gentleman’s soaked crotch.

  Her frenzied attempt to dry off the man’s lap slowly drew to a halt when she realized the entire lunch crowd had grown silent and watched, mouths agape while she practically gave the man a hand job in front of everyone.

  Blood rushed to her face and she burned with embarrassment. How would she ever live this down? Hell, half the town had just witnessed her groping the crotch of one of her customers. He’d 33

  enjoyed it, too, if the large bulge behind his zipper was any indication.

  Dammit! Anna closed her eyes and bit her lip.

  Who could blame her for any of this? She turned to look back at the door, certain her eyes had played tricks on her when she saw her double walk in. She fully expected to find that she had imagined seeing a woman who could be her twin waltz through that door a moment ago.

  Instead, when she spun around, she stared into a face just like hers, minus the hideous sca
rs. She gazed into eyes just like hers except they appeared just a bit lighter and full of laughter and compassion. If this other woman had seen any hard time at all, it didn’t show and it hadn’t been recently.

  She was a tall woman like Anna. Even so, two gorgeous men who towered over her flanked her.

  Each of them remaining silent as her twin studied Anna with an expressionless face. She didn’t look the least intimidated by the two men either. If anything, it was the men who seemed to defer to her. Perhaps they were bodyguards.

  The woman looked as though she’d been crying. Anna could do little more than stare with her fingers clenched and buried in her apron as the woman approached.

  “Anna?” Her lookalike paused, drew in a deep breath as she stopped in front of her and peered 34

  into Anna’s eyes. “Annamina McWerty?”

  Just as she started to shake her head, a long forgotten memory surfaced. She was young, very young and she stood staring through a second story window as a couple took a young girl with red hair away in a beat-up pick-up truck.

  “Nina! Don’t leave me!”

  Anna had cried that over and over as a feeling of loss filled her breast. The loss felt so great, she thought she would never get over it. It felt as though she had lost a huge part of herself. Perhaps she had. Perhaps this woman was her twin and someone had kidnapped them and separated them when they were so young.

  After years spent alone and her parents frightening her with tales of evil doppelgangers, Anna determined that it had all been nothing more than a strange nightmare.

  Now, nearly thirty years later, give or take, she stood staring at a woman who could be her identical twin, if not for the scars that covered one half of Anna’s face.

  Anna wiped her sweating palms on her apron.

  What was she thinking? Of course the woman was her twin. There was no other explanation. No wonder the entire town stared at her the way they did. She fought the urge to give them all an accusing glare. They had known. They had all known.

  35

  Another scene flashed through her mind. There were three of them. She frowned as she tried to remember. There were at least three. In her vision, she was in the middle. Her twin held one hand, another little girl held the other. No wonder her memories of her childhood were sketchy at best.

  What her parents told her, if they were really her parents, was all a lie. Someone had brainwashed her, caused her to block out these memories that seemed to surface now with such alacrity. Who would want to remember having their family ripped away?

  Another memory flashed and she was back at that second floor window, her face and hands pressed against the sun-warmed glass. “I love you, Nina! I love you, sissy.”

  Nina. The name more than one person had called her until they had gotten a gander at her scars and looked away.

  Her heart ached for so many years lost between them. They weren’t sisters anymore. They were strangers who looked alike. Anna stared into eyes so much like hers and watched as tears streamed down her twin’s face. She knew now. There was no doubt in her mind. She had a sister—a long-lost twin.

  That piece of her heart that had gone missing so long ago, followed by the pain that had traumatized her so much she had forced herself to 36

  forget because the pain of such a loss had been so great, too great, clicked back into place.

  As though her life was some surreal dream, Anna watched as her sister reached out and touched her right cheek. Finally someone who wasn’t so disgusted by the way she looked that they could touch her. Why had she had to come so far, go through so much to find this unconditional acceptance?

  “What happened?”

  Overwhelmed, Anna couldn’t answer. Instead, she succumbed to the tight feeling in her chest.

  This was too much, too soon. When her brain started to shut down, Anna let go and embraced the darkness as it enveloped her.

  * * * *

  Blake jumped from his seat and caught Anna just before she hit the floor. Shock filled him at the way she felt in his arms. His entire body clenched and grew hot as he stood holding her and looking down at her scarred face.

  Scarred or not, she was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. She wasn’t identical to her sister and he didn’t mean because of the scars.

  She was harder, tougher somehow, as though she had seen too much in her years alone. Judging by her scars, she probably had.

  37

  Studying her face, Blake realized he looked at fairly new skin. Her accident—and it had better have been an accident or someone would die—

  however it happened hadn’t happened very long ago. He wondered what trials she had gone through out there in the world all alone. Some thing, some inner protective instinct brought upon by his beast snarled with rage that his mate had existed all this time and had suffered such pain all alone.

  He glanced over at his companions. Ryder sat watching the girl, his hands balled into fists atop the table, his face etched with a strange combination of pain and joy. He sat still, his body tense and alert as though ready to spring to action at any moment to protect the precious package Blake now held in his arms.

  Ryder’s face appeared flush. He’d expected that. Yet, surprise filled him when he glanced at Tucker who appeared no less affected than he and Ryder. He should have suspected that, he supposed. He had been the one to give Tucker his DNA that brought him over to full shifter.

  He practically shook with need as he shifted his gaze to look down into his mate’s face. Mine! He stared down at her, filled with awe and a need to get her alone as soon as possible.

  At his age, the heat could hit hard and fast.

  Usually with no warning, the el calor or the mating 38

  heat, filled a males body with an intense need to possess his or her mate. After the age of one-hundred, it became a physical ache that grew stronger once they made contact with their predetermined mate or mates.

  Growing more intense with every passing moment, the el calor became something too painful to ignore. Try as they might to give their female time, to accept them without untruths between them, sometimes they just didn’t have the time.

  Sooner or later, if left unmated, the male would lose his sense of reality and his sense of right and wrong. The lines between good and evil blurred and, if left unchecked, the male could become the embodiment of all things he abhorred.

  Blake could feel some of those things already fighting to take control of his good sense. He shook off the desire to rip out the throats of every male who wasn’t his bond mate just for looking at the woman in his arms.

  His glance strayed to Tucker, fully expecting to have to tamp down a jealous rage when he saw the other man looking their way. Instead, he recognized him as another bond mate and staggered under the weight of Tucker’s return stare.

  “You should be ashamed of yourself, Blake.”

  He turned to Ryder. “And you, too. No one here has made a move to touch our mate, save her 39

  sister.” He paused as though the words surprised him. “How did I know that? How could I know,”

  he paused to thump his chest, “here, that she is my mate—all of our mates?” He held his hand to his chest. “Why do I feel so warm, as though my body burns from the inside out?”

  “It’s the mating heat.” Adam Greer stepped forward as his mate grew closer to Blake in an effort to get a better look at her sister.

  “We should take her to our house and call the doctor. This has been a shock to her.”

  “It’s been a shock to you as well, my love.”

  Nick stepped up beside her and snaked an arm around her waist, pulling her close. “The stress can’t be good for the baby.”

  “The baby is fine.” She glared up at her mate.

  “Stop treating me like spun glass. Women have been having babies since before the beginning of time.”

  Adam ges
tured to the door. “Take her home.

  She’s had a hell of a shock. We’ll pick up the doc and meet you there in a few.”

  “Where’s she—”

  “Staying?” Adam frowned. “Didn’t you know?

  She’s been staying with your aunt for the last few days. Your aunt is the one who convinced Sarah to hire her on.”

  Nina stepped closer, her scent so like his mate’s it was a wonder she hadn’t set off his inner alarms 40

  before today. Her eyes filled with tears as she reached up and touched the right side of her sister’s face. “She’s been through so much.” Her voice broke and she cleared her throat. “Whatever happened before, doesn’t matter. She’s home now.” She turned to face her two husbands. “If what the ancient documents said is true, we can now perform the ritual that will draw our people home.”

  “Yes, love,” Nick replied. “But we must make certain your sister is whole before you attempt to heal Paradise.”

  Nina scowled at him. “Don’t you think I know that? I’m pregnant not stupid.” She crossed her arms over her ample breasts and tapped her foot.

  “Stop treating me like a child.”

  Adam silenced them both with a wave of his hand, then turned to Blake. “Go. Take her home.

  We will follow in a moment.” He glanced at his mate. “Never fear, love. We shall see your sister healed—at least on the inside.”