Swept Away (Wildfire Lake Book 3) Read online

  “When I was old enough, I followed their lead and became a nomad, searching for healing. I mean, I didn’t know that’s what I was looking for, and I sure as shit fell into my fair share of potholes, but the universe eventually guided me toward spirituality and amazing people who have helped me heal from the abandonment.

  “I’ve traveled all over. I love seeing different countries and meeting amazing people. I’ve been studying spirituality and meditation for about five years. What started off as a need to heal and find meaning turned into my passion. Since the best way to master anything is to teach it, I’m on this retreat to help other people find peace and purpose and to deepen my own experience.”

  “So, you really walk the walk,” Laiyla says.

  I laugh, because, to be honest, I don’t know what I’m doing. “Every day is a struggle. I have to constantly bring myself back to my practice, as in, twenty times a day. It’s never a straight path, and I often find myself slipping into negativity, fear, even anger. But what I’ve learned over the last five years has drastically improved my life, my outlook, and my happiness. I’ve come to believe without question that everything happens for a reason and wherever we are in life is exactly where we’re meant to be. I’ve cultivated patience and acceptance and compassion—for myself and others. I’m legit terrified of where I’d be without the grounding beliefs I’ve developed over the years.”

  “Wow,” Laiyla says, nodding like she gets it. Then she starts asking all the rapid-fire questions she and KT have already answered. “Biggest dream?”

  “Maybe the whole Eat, Pray, Love thing. Someday, I’d like to touch every country with information and practices and tools that could help others.”

  “Boyfriend?” KT asks. “Or girlfriend?”

  I smile and shake my head. “I’m like you,” I tell KT, “a sexual nomad. It works for me. I don’t want to be tied down, partly because I know my journey isn’t finished, partly because I’m not thrilled over the possibility of being abandoned again.”

  I finish up bandaging the last large cut on KT’s body and sit back on my heels. “That will have to hold you until we can get you to a hospital for real stitches.”

  The roof of the cabin rattles, and we all look up and tense until the gust passes.

  “One thing’s for sure,” Laiyla says. “I never expected to spend my birthday like this.”

  KT and I swing our attention to Laiyla. “Today’s your birthday?” we ask in unison, then look at each other and say, “It’s yours too?”

  Laiyla laughs at the spontaneous choreography, but then sobers. “How old are you?”

  “Twenty-three,” KT and I say in unison again.

  A familiar tingle starts in the pit of my stomach and grows into velvet butterfly wings filling my torso. It’s a sign. A sign I was meant to meet these women. I don’t know why yet, but I’ve seen the higher powers in the universe work more than a few miracles, and there’s no doubt, this is one of them.

  KT looks at me and Laiyla in turn. “Are you guys shitting me?”

  Laiyla and I shake our heads, and while KT and Laiyla continue to find this unbelievable, I grin.

  “This is proof of divine intervention,” I insist. “This is how the universe or spirit or God—it doesn’t matter what you call it—shows us our path. There is no way all of us ended up trapped in this room together by accident or coincidence.”

  Laiyla and KT look at each other, gauging the other’s reaction to this claim.

  “I know you’re both skeptical,” I say. “Most people are. It’s difficult to accept that there is an unseen higher power at work for the greater good. One that yearns for us to be the best version of ourselves, but I hope you’ll continue searching once this retreat is over, because the more you look, the more you see.”

  KT picks up her water bottle and holds it up. “Here’s to looking for miracles in all the wrong places.”

  Laiyla and I laugh and tap our water bottles with KT’s.

  “And we should pinky swear,” I say, “that we won’t ever lose touch with each other after this is all over.”

  We all smile and join pinkies much the way we locked elbows just hours ago in the storm, using our combined strength to lead ourselves to safety.

  In unison, we agree. “Pinky swear.”

  1

  Xavier

  Eight years later

  God, I love Wednesdays. It’s the best day of my freaking week.

  I stand sideways at the deli’s sandwich counter, one hand resting on the Glock at my hip, the fingers of the other tapping restlessly against the Formica. I glance at my watch, then toward the front of the store and out the window to the sidewalk.

  “Don’t worry,” Sadie says as she wraps my order. “It’s a ninety-minute class. You’ve got plenty of time.”

  I turn my gaze back to the middle-aged woman behind the counter and grin. “Caught.”

  I’ve never been exactly sneaky about my preferred Wednesday lunch spot—on a bench outside Chloe Hart’s yoga studio, Wanderlust, where she instructs a hot yoga class. She recently remodeled the studio she purchased from the original owner a few months back and took both the building and the business to the next level. My favorite part was her idea to take out the wall of the largest yoga room, the one facing the street, and replace it with glass. The name of the studio runs along the lower third of the wall in a loose scroll script.

  “Boy, I didn’t catch you.” Sadie tapes the paper on the sandwich. “I figured you out the day she unveiled that glass wall next door.”

  Sadie slides two sandwiches across the counter to me.

  “What’s this?” I ask, hooking my fingers into the neck of my body armor. “I only ordered one.”

  “Chloe’s been coming in for a very specific sandwich, going on a month now. She taught us how to make it, so we let her name it. That’s the Green Goddess,” she says, tapping one of the sandwiches. “Maybe you two can actually eat lunch together for a change.”

  I smirk. “Guess I should have thought of that a while ago.”

  “Guess you should have.” Her barb holds no heat, and she’s looking at me the way my mom used to when I did something she considered sweet.

  “She’s sort of a picky eater,” I say. “What’s in this?”

  “She’s not picky at all.” Sadie plants one hand on the counter and the other on her hip. “She’ll eat just about anything, but she chooses to eat healthy whole foods, which is one of the reasons she’s got that mouthwatering body you spend your lunch hour staring at every Wednesday.”

  I’m surprised to feel a twinge of heat sting my neck. “I don’t stare.”

  “What else would you call it? Ogling, gawking, rubbernecking, stalking?”

  I search my mind for an appropriate description, which means I have to toss out crave, lust, ache, fantasize… “I…appreciate.”

  Sadie laughs. “It’s got bean sprouts, radishes, cherry tomatoes, bell peppers, avocado, and arugula.”

  “Aruga-what?”

  “It’s a salad green, like broccoli or cabbage, and the dressing is made with green onion, basil, lemon, and olive oil. Not only is it fantastic, it’s become one of our best sellers to the post-yoga crowd. She’s brought in a fresh customer base for us, and she’s even going to work up some other recipes that suit her groupies.”

  My brows shoot up. “Groupies?”

  “Xavier,” she says with a hint of admonishment, “you’ve known her since she got to town a year ago. If you can’t see that she’s got one hell of a following, you’ve been using your eyes too much and your brain not enough.”

  She arrived eleven months and three hundred and sixty days ago. Yes, I’m counting.

  “I know she’s got friends in town. I mean, everyone knows and loves her.”

  “I’m talking about her cult following, the wealthy mommy set and the worn corporate climbers who crawl out of their hillside mansions before or after work so Chloe can guide them back to energy and peace.”
r />   I stare blankly at Sadie for a beat too long.

  “There’s more to Chloe than her looks,” Sadie says. “If you haven’t noticed, maybe that’s the reason she won’t date you.”

  My head tilts. “Who says she won’t date me?”

  “Only everyone in town.”

  Fucking beautiful. And I thought my fellow cops were the only ones talking shit about me continually striking out with Chloe, a claim I either categorically deny or deftly sidestep.

  I lean on the deli case and glance around to make sure no one is within earshot when I open up to Sadie, who really is the town’s surrogate mom to anyone without one.

  “What am I doing wrong? I’m nice to her. I appreciate her. We’re great friends. We don’t have a lot of obvious stuff in common, but we have the same sense of humor, love spending time together, always have stuff to talk about. I even started working my ass off in CrossFit, thinking I might not be fit enough for her.”

  Right now, I’m ready to glom on to any insight into the only woman who’s turned down every offer I’ve ever made, and I sure as shit can’t talk to any of my work friends about it. The cop brotherhood is as brutal as it is fierce.

  “Women really do want to be loved for who they are as a whole.”

  “Whoa, who’s talking about love? I’m talking about a date.”

  She gives me a dismissive look and shakes her head. “God knows I was never as beautiful as Chloe, but I had it going on in my day, and the guys that made inroads with me were the ones who took the greatest interest in me outside of sex. That girl is a business whiz. An entrepreneurial inspiration. A generous and beautiful soul who draws people from every walk of life. Do you know what her memberships cost?”

  “What memberships?”

  Sadie rolls her eyes, shakes her head and shoos me away like a fly. “Go ask her.”

  I head toward the register, pausing to pull a Red Bull from the cooler. My mind is tripping all over itself to try to understand what Sadie’s told me, but I feel like my brain has been replaced by a block of concrete.

  I consider this is where the term blockhead originated.

  “Sadie,” I call toward the deli, “do you happen to know what she likes to drink?”

  “Kombucha.”

  Oh, for God’s sake. “Was that English?”

  Sadie comes out from behind the counter and opens another cold case two doors down. “Kombucha.” She pulls out a healthy-sized brown glass bottle with a colorful label. “It’s a fermented tea with lots of health benefits.”

  I take the bottle and eye the vintage-style label skeptically. “Sounds and looks like snake oil if you ask me.”

  “I didn’t ask you. In fact, you asked me.”

  Sadie returns to the deli, and I’m left there, staring at a drink I can’t pronounce, realizing that even after a year of trying to take our friendship to the next level, Chloe is as much a mystery to me as this concoction I’m holding.

  The early June day is a perfect seventy-six degrees, and after I pay at the register, I take my brown bag around the corner to the bench that sits under a wooden arch supporting colorful bougainvillea vines.

  This Wednesday midday class is my favorite, because when Chloe’s finished teaching, she comes out to chat with me over lunch. When we’re both busy, I know I’ll at least get to see her on Wednesday.

  Today, I’ll have to miss out on our chat, though. I’ve got a massage scheduled with Trish, a bodywork specialist who works out of Wanderlust. I’ll have to settle for drooling over Chloe as she teaches.

  I shift on the bench, searching for a comfortable position. My back feels like coiled wire, partially from work, partially from CrossFit, and I consider seeing Trish more often.

  Across the narrow side street, just twelve feet away, Chloe stands in front of a mirrored wall, facing the street, issuing instructions to the others in the room. As her students stand tall and bring the instep of one foot flat against their other leg, creating a sort of figure four, I check out Chloe’s outfit.

  I stopped trying to figure out women’s clothing a long time ago, but Chloe’s got the sexiest workout clothes I’ve ever seen. She prefers the low-waisted leggings to the high-waisted ones most women wear, and she’s also partial to sports bras with all sorts of stylish colors and cutouts and straps. Honestly, they look more like a cross between lingerie and bikini tops. I’m certainly not complaining.

  Today, her color of choice is pink. A middle-of-the-road pink, or maybe a little on the purple side. All I know is that without a pattern on the fabric hiding what’s beneath, I see every luscious dip and curve, every inch of exposed smooth, tan skin and taut muscle. And that navel piercing teases my gaze to the ripples of her ab muscles.

  My radio on my shoulder chatters with nonsense calls, and I turn down the speaker. I’m off duty for the next hour and a half, giving me enough time for lunch and massage.

  When I worked in San Francisco, I’d be lucky to shove a few bites of food into my mouth before we were dispatched to the next call. Even after a year in this county, it’s still hard for me to call this work. Patrolling anything less intense than the streets of San Francisco feels like a fucking vacation. That was fun at first. Manageable midway through my first year, but now it’s mind-numbing.

  If it weren’t for Chloe and Piper, this small-town bullshit would be unbearable. But if Piper gets through this summer without any behavior problems and Chloe’s still got me caged in the friend zone, I’ll submit my transfer request back to San Francisco.

  I pull out my phone and text my goddaughter. How’s your day going?

  She’ll be out of school for the summer in a week. “God help me.”

  I take a bite of my sandwich—a real sandwich, unlike the sandwich in the bag for Chloe—with roast beef, cheddar, mayo, mustard, oil and vinegar, and whatever else is in the garden they drop on top, and wash it down with Red Bull. Across the street, Chloe wanders the rows of students, stopping every so often to finesse someone’s posture or take up the posture with them to act as a role model.

  When she faces the street again, she looks over at me. I raise my Red Bull, and she grins, then crosses her eyes and sticks out her tongue, making me laugh. An instant later, she’s the picture of professionalism, focused on her students.

  As I finish the first half of my sandwich, Chloe leads her students into one of the more advanced poses. I don’t know what it’s called, only that it takes an intense amount of fitness and skill. There are various levels to the pose, from beginner to ultra-advanced, and her students follow Chloe until they hit their limit. One other woman in the class is able to follow Chloe all the way to the height of the pose, standing on one leg, the arm on the same side of her body out straight, her opposite leg stretched up behind her so she’s doing the splits in the air, her opposite hand holding the ankle of the extended leg.

  In this pose, all her muscles stand out in relief—quads, hammies, abdomen, arms. It’s ridiculously impressive. But I only marvel at the skill until her body steals my attention and drives my mind in a completely different direction. Her breasts push against the bra-like top; her skin glistens with sweat and glows from the one-hundred-and-five-degree heat in the room.

  Oh, yeah. My mind goes somewhere very different—straight to Chloe stunningly naked, hot and all over me. I don’t care where—bedroom or the back of my truck—it makes no difference. I’ll take Chloe Hart here, there, anywhere, as Dr. Suess would say.

  I put the rest of my sandwich away, hungry now for something very different.

  My phone pings with a return text from Piper. Fine. Doing advanced functions in calculus. Then to study hall. If I don’t die of boredom, can we go shooting this weekend?

  Love to. I text back. Clear it with your mom first.

  Soon, the lights go out in the yoga studio, which signals it’s time for my appointment with Trish. I collect my things and stroll into the lobby of Wanderlust. Through the glass wall, I watch Chloe wander through the room of now-rest
ing clients, laying a cold towel on each person’s chest before tapping some kind of scented oil on their inner wrists.

  She smiles at me through the glass, and I point to the sandwich bag, then to her. She blows me a thank-you kiss.

  I don’t see Trish, so I head into the massage room on my own. I know she’ll come in when she’s free. The lighting is already dimmed, and soothing nature sounds surround me. I’m more than happy to strip out of my gear and sigh in relief when I’m naked.

  Naked and within yards of Chloe.

  It’s really a theme between us: so close, yet so far.

  I slide under the sheet facedown and rest my head on my crossed arms. I’ve been bouncing between morning, swing, and graveyard shifts to cover for vacations, and my sleep schedule sucks, which is why I drift off while I’m waiting for Trish.

  “Men. I envy how fast you can fall asleep.”

  I’m immediately awake, or I think I am. But that sounded like Chloe, not Trish. And the boner now uncomfortably pressed against the table confirms I was indeed dreaming of Chloe.

  “Hey,” I mumble, “sorry.”

  Trish gathers the sheet low on my hips, then pumps oil into her hand from the bottle strapped at her waist and spreads it on my back. It’s warm, as are her hands, and I sigh. She usually starts me out with stretching, but this totally works too.

  She puts pressure into her palms and slides the heel of her hands from my scapula down to my hip. I groan in pleasure.

  “I’m so jacked up,” I turn my head and rest my cheek on the table. “Bixby’s cow tried to push me into oncoming traffic yesterday.”

  She laughs. Giggles, actually. The sound raises gooseflesh along my spine. I push up and twist to look at her. She steps back, oily hands in the air, still giggling.

  Turns out I’m not going crazy—it’s Chloe, not Trish.

  I instantly realize I’ve got two-thirds of the perfect situation—me and Chloe in a room alone, and I’m naked. All I’m missing is the her-naked part.

  I rest on one elbow and smile at her. “What trouble are you mixing up, girl?”