Riptide [Kismet Cove] (Siren Publishing Ménage Amour) Read Online Free PDF

headland. Tucked away from the worst of the ocean’s pounding, the waves here were milder, surging up the sand to break gently and then flow back into the ocean.
    Above the high water line stunted trees clung to the sandy soil, their trunks growing at odd angles and their branches twisted by the constant wind. It was a far cry from the concrete and steel of Toronto, but there was something about this place that called to Jess’s soul. Her mother had been right to send her out here.
    “I just wish you were here to share it with me, Mom,” Jess murmured. She stayed out on the deck until the chill bite of the wind finally drove her back indoors, and she laughed at herself for standing outside in her pajamas.
    Feeling restless, Jess dressed quickly and headed back outside. She hadn’t had a chance to explore yet, and she was dying to get out for a walk before the weather forced her indoors again. Her writing may be going well, thanks to the enforced solitude, but Jess was feeling the first twinges of cabin fever.
    In the short time she’d been inside, the weather had already started to shift, and Jess could see a fresh band of dark clouds hurtling toward shore, darkening the skies as it rolled in.
    Jess headed down to the gazebo, her booted footfalls echoing loudly on the wooden walkway that had been built from the deck all the way down to the hot tub and its enclosure. She’d only been down here once since her arrival. The hot tub was the height of luxury, but she’d quickly learned that any benefit of a heated soak was lost racing pell-mell back up to the cabin in the freezing rain.
    “Next spring I’m going to see about getting the walkway covered,” she mused to herself and then nearly tripped over her own feet as she realized what she’d said. Spring? She hadn’t really been here long enough to decide if she was going to stay, had she? Looking around her, the scent of the ocean in her nose and the wind tugging her hair free of its braid a few strands at a time, Jess realized that she might just have been here long enough to know that she wasn’t going to leave. This felt like home.
    Smiling to herself, she walked around the gazebo and headed out onto the headland, picking her way carefully over the rocks once she left the security of the walkway. The waves were coming in hard enough to throw spray, and she could feel the salty mist clinging to her face and hair as she made her way further down. When Jess got down close enough that the air was full of spray and the waves crashing around her were loud enough to drown out every other thought in her head, she stopped and found a relatively flat spot to stand and watch. The wind whipped around her and the breakers crashed against the rocks as heavy foam surged and swirled between the jagged gaps. A glance at the beach told her that the tide was on its way out, the high tide mark at least a foot further inland from where the waves currently ended.
    The wind threw up a wall of spray as another wave hit, and Jess laughed as she wiped the salt and water from her face. If the spray was reaching this high, it was clearly time to go. She had no interest in getting any wetter than she already was.
    As she turned to go the sun vanished behind the oncoming clouds, and Jess shivered as the last bit of warmth was drained out of the day. She made it a single step back up the rocks before the wave hit her.
    Jess’s world vanished in an instant, replaced with a roaring in her ears and an icy blackness that blotted out all of her senses. Cold pierced her down to the marrow of her bones and she opened her mouth to scream, only to have it fill with more of the terrible cold. Panic rapidly escalated to terror as she tumbled and thrashed in the alien darkness. She struck out blindly, half clawing, half swimming as she fought to move against the suddenly terrible weight of her own clothes. Her lungs were burning by the time she managed to get her head above water, and she had just