Read Online Linda Gayle by Surrender to Paradise - Free Book Online Page A

a slow circle, eyes widening. What the hell… Her shiver turned into a shudder. She’d yell for help, but once again, she was alone. Suddenly, she spied something—a stone statue, revealed as if the vines thickly draping the sides had just been pulled away. A broad face carved in blunt, geometric angles snarled at her from beneath a stony, snake-like crown. Huge, blank, oval eyes stared out at her, and rows of teeth filled the open, downturned mouth, as if the deity—for surely this was some sort of Polynesian god—was about to chomp on her.
    Lyric held her breath and wrapped her arms around her waist. Prickles of awareness danced over her nape. All around her, the jungle had fallen silent. Oh shit. This is bad. Not natural. The light had dimmed, and she had the sense of being in a very dark, very primeval place. A place she had no right to be. She turned to run—and nearly screamed.
    “Easy there, Miss Lyric.”
    “Henri!” She slapped her hand over her racing heart. “Oh my God, you nearly scared me to death.”
    The old man peered at her, faded fishing pole in hand. He was barefoot and in rolled-up, faded jeans, his button-up shirt, white against his darker skin, hanging loose. A smile curved his lips. “You gave me a start as well. Almost no one comes this way anymore.” He pointed with the fishing pole he carried toward the statue. “You come to see Kanaloa?”
    Barely daring to glance over her shoulder at the evil-looking thing, she shook her head. “No. I just ended up here by accident.”
    He chuckled then walked over to the tiki. “Long ago, this was Kanaloa’s island. He ruled the sea for all around. He is the god of the sea and of fisherman.”
    For whatever reason, some of the darkness had lifted from the place, and the birds were flitting in the fronds again. Maybe it had just been her crazy, overwrought imagination. Feeling braver, she stepped closer to Henri and stared at the vine-draped tiki. Gah, that really was a hideous thing. “He looks…evil.”
    Henri rocked back on his heels. “He is neither good nor bad”—he waved a broad hand—“any more than the sea is good or bad, you see? Like nature.” Still holding his fishing pole, he lifted his arms to encompass the thriving jungle around them. “All life comes from the sea, but the sea can be harsh, too. Deadly, no? And also beautiful.”
    She looked again at the gaping mouth of Kanaloa, trying to see the beauty and failing. “Hmm. If you say so.”
    “Well”—he tipped his head—“if you did not come to see Kanaloa, what has brought you this way?”
    “I wanted to ask you…actually, it’s about Kanaloa and those dolphins you were telling me about before.”
    He nodded and rested his pole against a palm trunk. A little blue lizard skittered away. “Ah, you have seen them?”
    “I have. They’re—they’re…”— two of the hottest guys I’ve ever seen —“amazing.”
    “Very friendly, oui ?”
    “I’ll say.” Her skin flushed with warmth as she recalled exactly how friendly they’d been. She kept her expression neutral. “I was wondering, in the legend, is there anything that might change them back to humans?”
    He tipped his graying head, smiling mysteriously. “ Oui . As you recall, it was love turned to jealousy that condemned them to their fate. Only unselfish sharing between them and a woman of pure heart can free them.”
    Pure heart, eh? Well, that left her out. With all the bitterness her breakup with Jack had left her feeling, her heart was about as pure as mud. She tried not to let her disappointment show. “Only a pure heart? Nothing else?”
    “They need a woman who will accept them for who they are.”
    “So…” She weighed her words carefully. “Say they find this woman, then they’re free forever, right? They don’t have to go back to being dolphins?”
    He raised one bushy, gray eyebrow, and his rolling French accent gained a harsh edge. “It’s not enough to find the woman. She must