For the Taking (6 page)

“It was in character,” Loucan said. “She retained her mistrust of land-dwellers and her desire to protect you until the very end.”

“Yes, she did.” Lass smiled. “She loved me. I never doubted that. It didn’t take the treasure she’d left me to prove it.”

“But there was no quarter circle? It’s made of a silvery metal, very distinctive, with some Pacifican
symbols etched into it. Nothing like that among the gold and jewels she left you when she died? There
must
have been!”

“No, Loucan. I’m sorry. There wasn’t.”

Hearing it in such simple words, he had to believe her, and she carried even more conviction when she continued, “Believe me, if I knew anything about it, I’d be only too glad to hand it over.”

“Because it would get me out of your life?”

“Yes.” She tilted her head to look at him. Their horses clopped along the hard, dry dirt road, sending little swirls of warm summer dust into the scented air. “
Would
it get you out of my life, Loucan?”

Her voice was a little lower and a little huskier than usual, and the dark felt hat sat low on her forehead, darkening her eyes. They were sea-toned, instead of iridescent green opal. In the bright light, the hair that curled just below the hat’s brim looked like flame.

Loucan shook his head slowly.

“No. It wouldn’t get me out of your life,” he said. “You know there’s no going back, Lass.”

“There is, if I choose! Once you leave—”

“No,” he repeated. “You want to stay in contact with Saegar and your sisters. For better or for worse, Pacifica is a part of your life again. I won’t pretend that it’s pure, unadulterated good news. Joran is still on the loose, playing his old games.”

“I’m starting to remember Joran….”

“He’s gotten even more dangerous now that he no longer has your father’s backing. He traced Phoebe through my search for her, and her life was in danger at one stage. We know he’s after the four sections of the key.”

“Why is it so important? What is it a key
to,
Loucan?”

“To Pacifica’s hidden archive of scientific knowledge. Your father locked it away when the unrest began. He thought it would only add to the danger. Joran believes—and maybe he’s right—that if he can control and make use of that knowledge, he can hold power. I can’t let that happen. He’s driven purely by ego, and he would lead our entire people to destruction.”

“Where are the other quarters of the key? You said my siblings had them? Surely that puts them in danger!”

“They’ve given them to me, and I have them hidden at sea for safekeeping. No one but me now knows where they are. I won’t risk Joran getting his hands on them.”

“If anything happened to you, they might never be found.”

“Better that than to risk them getting into the wrong hands. I want you to think, Lass, and I want you to go through Cyria’s things again. Could she have hidden your part of the key somewhere? Buried it or put it in a bank vault? Did she ever say something to you that in hindsight might have been a cryptic clue?”

“Loucan, I—”

“I’m not expecting you to come up with a miracle on the spot.”

“That’s good,” she drawled, “because I’m running a little low on miracles today.”

“In fact, let’s forget the whole thing for now. Let your subconscious work on it, and maybe it will
throw something into the light. Are we getting close to your musical creek?”

“Yes, the trail is to the right, just over this rise.”

She urged her horse on a little faster, and Loucan dropped behind, content to watch her rear view and leave further talking for later. When they reached the creek, she dismounted at once, led Willoughby down to drink, then turned him loose to graze.

“Milo, too?” Loucan asked.

She nodded. “There are fences running parallel to this trail on both sides. You can see them through the trees. Even if the horses do wander off, they can’t go far. I’ve got some treats in my backpack to make them come running.”

“Picnic time, then. Did you bring a blanket to sit on?”

“Uh, yes. Yes, I did.” She looked a little self-conscious. Goose bumps rose on her arms as if she was cold in her short-sleeved, pale blue T-shirt, and when she’d spread the blanket on a patch of dapple-shaded grass, he understood why.

It wasn’t meant for two…unless those two happened to be lovers.

Lass clearly didn’t know what to do about the problem. A lot of the women he’d known would have used the opportunity to flirt, but even if she knew how—and he doubted she did—she obviously wasn’t planning on flirting with him.

He thought back to yesterday’s kiss, and it disturbed him. In theory, those long, intense moments in each other’s arms should have played right in the direction he wanted. From the time when he first began his search for Okeana’s children, he’d hoped for a strategic marriage with one of the three Pacifican
princesses. Kissing Lass was the closest he’d gotten to realizing that goal.

And yet, although it didn’t make sense, he couldn’t help wondering if the unplanned kiss had been a huge mistake.

Without it, he might not have suspected just how innocent she was. Now that he knew, her innocence wasn’t something he could ignore. Coupled with the passionate sensuality of her response, it added up to a woman he could very easily hurt. An emotionally volatile woman who might not be able to contemplate the cool-headed political alliance he was looking for.

With the restless, questing life he’d led in his late teens and early twenties, Loucan had hurt women before. His ex-wife, Tara, had suffered, through his cowardly inaction, the kind of hurt that no woman every truly forgot. His guilt over that had been terrible. He’d questioned everything he believed, and everything about the man he’d become. In the end it was what had impelled him back to Pacifica.

There, he had sworn off the whole idea of love. He’d loved Tara once, but not enough to act in a way that might have saved their marriage. He didn’t want the same kind of power over a woman’s happiness a second time. He didn’t trust his capacity to give that much.

The last thing he wanted, therefore, was that Lass should fall in love with him, and he had no intention whatsoever of falling in love with her. He still wanted to marry her, though. He just didn’t know if he dared.

Hands off,
he decided silently to himself.
That’s the only way this can work. I can’t kiss her again.

“Did you want me to…? I—I mean, there’s room,” Lass stammered, drawing his focus away
from strategic questions. Her cheeks had gone pink once more. She shifted her firm, shapely backside six inches toward the edge of the plaid picnic blanket. The movement rocked her hips gracefully. “Please sit down!”

Loucan realized that he had been standing there for an embarrassing interval, staring down at the blanket without even seeing it. She must have thought he was waiting for an invitation to sit beside her.

He did so, and at once arrived back at square one.

This blanket wasn’t big enough for two.

Maybe it was the calculated decision not to—
definitely
not to—kiss her again, but he was suddenly very aware of just how easy a kiss would be. She had her legs curled to one side and her weight resting on the other hand. The only way he could sit comfortably was in a mirror image of the same pose. It brought his shoulder within a few inches of hers.

He could smell her, too. He could tell that she’d washed her hair this morning, that she was wearing sunscreen and that her cotton T-shirt had been line-dried in the fresh air. It was a very close-fitting top. The short sleeves just capped her shoulders, and below them her fair, tender skin stretched over smooth arm muscles.

If he moved his hand three inches to touch her fingers… If he leaned a little closer and she turned her head his way… Yes. He would reach her mouth and taste those warm, passionate lips again.

“Can I start with the mud cake?” he asked, in an iron-willed attempt to think of something besides her full, gorgeous mouth.

She laughed, eased the weight off her hand and sat up straighter. “If you were a child, I’d have to say
no, wouldn’t I? You’re not supposed to start with dessert. But, yes, let’s. I’m in the mood for chocolate, too.”

She was still smiling, and still pink-cheeked, as she used a pocket knife to cut the thick wedge of cake she’d brought. When she handed half to him, he carefully took it without letting their fingers touch, but this turned into a wasted effort. He’d accidentally smeared some of the thick, gooey frosting onto her thumb, and his gaze was trapped by the sight of her mouth and tongue as she licked it off.

The action was delicate, yet astonishingly sensual. The tip of her tongue darted forward to scoop the smear of frosting, then her lips closed over the spot and she sucked it clean. Finally she looked at it and gave it one last, expert lick, like a cat lapping at a saucer of milk.

If she knew I was watching her like this…

Maybe she’d sensed it. Taking a slow, careful mouthful of cake, she turned toward him and smiled. “Better to let it melt in your mouth than in your hand.”

Loucan shifted his focus just in time. “I guess it is,” he said, and took a bite, barely tasting it.

He didn’t understand it. He’d been attracted to mer women and land women before. What was different about Lass? The fact that she was such an intriguing mixture of both?

Or was it the lure of forbidden fruit?

He had just told himself categorically that he must not kiss her again, which meant, in the perversity of the male psyche, that now he wanted to kiss her all the more. He wanted her mouth and tongue to do to his skin—every inch of his skin—exactly what they’d
just done to that smear of chocolate frosting. With exactly the same skill, and exactly the same attention to detail.

He cleared his throat behind his fist. “Are Susie and Megan coming to work today?”

“Yes, thank goodness,” Lass said. “That’s the only reason I had time for a ride this morning.”

“And would you also have time to show me Cyria’s things when we get back?”

“What makes you think I’m prepared to do that?”

Lass lifted her chin and narrowed her eyes deliberately, although she was sure her attempts to act cool this morning weren’t fooling him. He was watching her. She knew he was. He had to be looking for signs of how vulnerable she was. He would remember the way she’d kissed him. That kind of response didn’t go away overnight, did it?

Even sitting as straight as a Victorian schoolmarm in a whalebone corset, she couldn’t get far enough away from him on this blanket. He knew what he did to her. The only thing she could do was to make it clear that her attraction to him didn’t make her vulnerable, after all. She wasn’t going to give him everything he asked for.

She expected him to argue, but he didn’t. “Are you planning to go through them yourself?” he asked instead.

Maybe he could read her mind. The mer weren’t psychic, but so far he’d been pretty good at reading her body language, and her emotional needs. On this occasion, there was no point in lying to him.

“Yes, when I get a chance,” she answered him. “Carefully. When I’m not tired. Or distracted. Otherwise there’s no point in doing it at all. If there was
any obvious information about the whereabouts of the key, I’d have found it before this. If Cyria did leave me a message, or a clue of some kind, it’s pretty well hidden.”

“Which means I’d have more chance of finding it than you would, since I’m far more familiar with mer culture, and with the symbols she might use.”

“I’m not showing you her things, Loucan.” Lass didn’t need any more opportunities for him to watch her emotional barriers breaking down.

“It’s your decision,” he answered.

“Yes. Remember that!”

She glared at him again, feeling like a mother bird trying to protect its nest from a marauding cat. She could chirp and flutter all she wanted, but in the long run she doubted that her behavior would change the outcome. He would prowl, undeflected, toward his goal.

They ate the salad rolls, the fruit, cheese and crackers, washing the meal down with strong coffee followed by fresh water from the stream.

“Tell me why you love this place so much,” he said, and she couldn’t see any danger or intent behind the question, so she told him.

“Not hard to understand, is it? The beauty. The peace. The fact that it’s unspoiled enough that we can drink the water from the creek and not get sick.”

“And why the gallery, and the tearoom?”

“I like selling beautiful things that people will treasure.”

“Like the green vase?”

She had to laugh. “Well, the woman who bought it obviously thought it was beautiful and worth treasuring.”

“True.”

“And I like serving meals that give people pleasure.”

“Yet you don’t trust people—land people—very much, do you?”

Her scalp tightened, and so did her mouth. “I should have known you weren’t just making casual conversation, Loucan. What point are you trying to prove this time? That I’m not truly at home here, so I should go back with you to Pacifica?”

“I wasn’t trying to prove a point. I was just making an observation.”

“A very pointed observation. Okay, yes, I don’t trust people. Can you blame me? Should I have a heart-to-heart talk with Susie over the scone dough one day? She’s started throwing out hints about how satisfying marriage can be, and how if you want to meet a good man you have to go out and find one, not just sit back and wait for it to happen. Should I tell her, ‘Well, actually, yes, I’d love to meet a man, only, you see, I grow gills and a tail when I stay in the water too long, and I’m not sure if he’d be able to deal with that.”’

“Susie and Megan are the kind of people you should tell,” he insisted. “People you trust.”

“But I
don’t
trust them! Not enough to be sure they’d react the right way. I’ve never met anyone I trust that much.”

“Because Cyria taught you not to.”

“That’s part of it. What about you, Loucan?” she asked desperately. “You were married to a land woman, once. Did you tell her that you were mer?”