“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 the 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.