Making Waves (4 page)

A few weeks ago

“So my mom didn’t lie? There’s no such thing
as Santa?” Five-year-old Michael Hardington turned his big, brown,
puppy-dog eyes on his father. “That’s why he never comes to my
house?”

Logan stuck the fishing rod in its holder and
wiped his forehead against his bicep. The late afternoon sun
blistered the deck of his boat, the
Mir-a-Mar
. “Look,
Michael, I’m sorry, but, yeah, there’s no Santa.” Why the hell
would Krista do this to a kid? No, wait. Make that, why would
Rainbow
do this to a kid?

Rainbow
. Christ. It was a wonder the
kid wasn’t completely screwed up. Here’s hoping it wasn’t too late
for normalcy to work some magic. Well, as normal as a single guy
with a kid could be.

A single guy with a
surprise
kid.

At least Krista hadn’t named him Snowball like every
pet she’d ever owned. Given the latest bout of weirdness, he was
surprised she hadn’t. Surprised and damned glad.

“Mike.” The boy’s fists clenched against his
sides.

“What?”

“I like Mike. Michael sounds like a baby.”

Logan swallowed. His son as a baby. Something his ex
had taken from him. “Okay. Mike it is.”

“So what about the Easter Bunny?” Michael ran
his fingers over the brass reel—No,
Mike
ran his fingers
over the brass reel.

And… hell. That wasn’t sea spray in the kid’s eyes.
Logan rubbed his own eyes. He didn’t know how to do this. How to
raise a child. Relate to a five-year-old. To his son.

His son.

Logan sat on the bench and adjusted Michael’s
baseball cap—just in case it was sea spray—wondering how he was
supposed to deal with this mess. Lie to him and have the kid
question if his mother had ever told him the truth? Have him wonder
why he’d never gotten any gifts, why he wasn’t worthy? Or, should
he tell him the truth and help him lose his innocence?

Great choices—all thanks to his flighty and
irresponsible ex-girlfriend.

“Look, Michael—Mike. Those are just stories.
Made up so kids will go to bed early on holidays and to get them to
behave. They don’t exist. Parents bring the gifts.”

“Nu-uh. Rainbow didn’t. And you didn’t
either.”

Ouch. The kid didn’t pull any punches.
“That’s because I didn’t know I was a parent.”

“Now you do.”

“Right. Now I do.” What the hell he was going
to do about it was a whole other story.

Damn her for doing this to him. To Michael.
Mike
. The little boy should’ve known he had a father. Logan
should have known he had a son. She should have told him.

And not with a note flapping against the
kid’s shirt while he stood on the front porch holding a threadbare,
stuffed toy raccoon and a pillowcase filled with a tattered
selection of children’s books and the sorriest lot of clothing
Logan had ever seen.

If Rainb—no, Krista, dammit!—hadn’t run out
on both of them, Logan sure as hell would have sent her away. Far
away.

Jesus. Once again, he let someone get too
close and he was paying the price.

“So?” Mike cocked the rim of the cap
backwards, those puppy-dog eyes narrowing.

At least this price was his son. Six years
later than he would have liked to have known him, but still... “So…
what, Mike?”

“So do I get presents now?”

Logan had to hide the smile. Two days of
normalcy did seem to be working. He’d even managed to convince Mike
that a boat was no place for Rocky, the toy raccoon. “Well, sure,
but Christmas isn’t for another four months. And Easter’s after
that. You’ll get presents then.”

“Not for my birthday?”

“Your birthday? You know when your birthday
is?” Wonder-Mother had neglected to mention that little detail in
her note.

Logan, this is Michael. He’s ours—yours and mine. I
can’t do this anymore. I’ve done almost six years. It’s your turn.
You can afford it, Mr. Hot Shot Money Whiz. Plus he has to go to
school and you know I don’t do well with authority.

Or her birth control, obviously. Or
responsibility. Or sharing important facts like a
pregnancy
—

“… tomorrow.” Mike tapped the fishing
rod.

“Your birthday is tomorrow?” Shit. Krista
just loved surprises. No wonder she’d neglected to mention it.

“Yep. I’m gonna be six.” Mike opened the reel
and several hundred feet of line went running into the ocean. Logan
didn’t have the heart to stop him when he was enjoying himself.
“And I get to go to school so I can learn to read and write so I
can get a job and make lots of money. I’ll buy a big house someday
so Rainbow won’t have to keep looking for hand-me-outs and soup
kitchens. I’m gonna take real good care of us when I grow
bigger.”

The little guy puffed out his scrawny chest
and his eyes sparkled with an intensity a soon-to-be-six-year-old
should only have for a new Matchbox car or baseball glove. Not for
making a living.

Logan wanted to cry.

“All right then, sport.” He flicked the rim
of Mike’s baseball cap and cleared his throat. “Presents it is.
What do you want for your birthday?”

“A mermaid.”

A mermaid. Logan shook his head. Leave it to
Rainbow’s
son to want a mermaid.

He patted Mike on the back and headed over to
the bait box. “Hate to break it to you, Mike, but mermaids don’t
exist either.”

***

Angel Tritone swam as fast as she could, but
the pull of water from behind her was strong. Hades, Harry was
fast.

Too fast.

She couldn’t risk a look back or he’d
overtake her before she got close to that boat up ahead.

She called on every reserve of energy in her body
and poured it into her tail. Just another few feet and Harry
wouldn’t dare approach her. Not that close to a Human fishing boat.
Hammerheads were prize catches.

She snorted. And Mers weren’t?

She swam as close to the surface as she dared
so Harry’s tail would cut like a sailboat above the waves and bring
the Humans to Hammerhead Hunting Mode if he followed her in. Harry
would be running for his life and he knew it.

It was either his or hers and Angel knew
which one she’d prefer.

Especially since he’d made her abandon all
her tools and notes to the bottom of the sea to get away from him.
With no coral reefs below to catch them, all her hard work and the
treasured tools of her trade were going to drift. She hadn’t even
had the chance to check the strength of the current to be able to
find them later, and there wasn’t a fish in sight she could ask to
help her. Harry was going to pay if anything happened to those
notes. Her career would be over.

Tremors passed over her tail. Or her life
would be. Harry was getting closer.

Angel dug deeper for an inner core of speed.
One more surge and she’d be home free.

She kicked and—

Something pierced her tail.

Godsdammit, that hurt! She fluttered her
flukes, trying to shake away whatever it was, but that threw off
her rhythm and slowed her down. She looked over her shoulder. Harry
hung thirty feet below her to the left, his tail flicking from side
to side.

“This is precious, princess.”

“Don’t call me that, Harry.” She shook her
tail harder, but the pain didn’t stop. She couldn’t see anything on
it. She twisted from side to side.

“Why not? It’s your title.”

“One I don’t use. What’s the sense, since I’m
like fourteenth in line anyway?”
Flutter, flutter
. What
was
that thing?

“Right. Which makes this little scenario
utterly perfect.”

“What are you talking about?” She gave her
tail a good
whump
, hoping that’d do the trick. She didn’t
know why Harry hadn’t moved in on her yet, but she wasn’t going to
take her eyes off him. She crossed her arms over her designer sand
dollar top, tugging the braided seaweed ties back in place, and
shook her head to keep her hair from floating across her face. As
usual,
that
didn’t happen.

Harry grinned. Considering the grin stretched from
one eyeball to the other across that rectangular face of his, it
was just plain eerie.

“You’re hooked, princess. Some Human finally
hooked a Mer. Brought you off your throne in one quick flick of the
wrist. How ironic.”

Hooked.

Of course and oh shit.

Angel doubled over on her tail, her fingers
searching through her amethyst scales for the hook. This so wasn’t
good. No Humans could know Mers existed or they’d be out in full
hunting force. She could not show up on the end of a fishing
line.

She looked around for
anyone—any
thing
—to help her, but Harry had sent every
creature fleeing for their lives. Great.

“Harry, help me. Bite the line.”

“Now why would I want to do that? Besides, if
I’m that close, I should just bite you.”

Oh, yeah. She hadn’t thought about that.

“But, hey, if you’re offering— ”

“Never mind.” Frantically combing her scales
with one hand, Angel swished the water around her fins with the
other. This so wasn’t good. She had to get free.

Hooked. Her. It was ironic, really, but not
the way Harry meant.

Snagged on the end of a Human fishing line…
She’d come out today to study their fishing techniques, not get
caught in them.

If she could only find the line, maybe she
could break it. She had to try.

She swam in a circle, staying near the top of
the water, searching for the line. Ah, there. At the tip of her
fin.

She swished her fin toward her, reaching out
with one hand to follow the line to the hook when—

Her tail got yanked backwards and someone
started reeling her toward the boat.

-2-

Oh no, oh no, oh no, oh no…

Angel started paddling her arms in the
opposite direction and kicked her tail in long strokes, ignoring
the pain as hundreds of scales ripped from her to iridescently
sparkle in the water, and a thin line of blood ribboned from the
wound over her shoulder.

Harry picked up the scent. She saw it in his
eyes. They rounded forward, his mouth opening enough for her to see
those teeth…

He swished closer.

She was dragged backwards.

Death or discovery, her future hung in the
balance.

“Harry, please, bite the line. I know my
brother will give you a reward for saving me. For protecting the
Mer race. You’ll be a hero.”

“Aw, cut the crap, princess. We’ve been that
route—Vincent got squat when he saved your brother. What use do I
have for a reward? Now, a big hunk of dinner? Yeah, that’ll satisfy
me much longer than any treasure your people could offer.” He swam
closer, one side of that head angled toward the line of blood still
streaming from her tail.

“Harry, you can’t eat me. It’s against the
law. When word gets back, they’ll hunt you down. You know my
brother. He’s the High Councilman. He’ll never let you get away
with it.” She twisted to the left, hoping to unhook the barb, but
all she succeeded in doing was opening the wound more, digging the
steel in more.

Harry stopped. His bottom set of teeth came
out to gnaw on the skin by his upper jaw, leaving a mangled jumble
of flesh where it’d once been smooth.

Eww. That could be her.

“Harry, I’ll put in a good word for you.” Not
that it’d do any good, but still… she couldn’t just float here and
wait to be eaten. She twisted the other way, hoping to loosen the
hook, all the while fighting the backwards drag on her tail.

Harry wanted representation on The Oceanic
Council, but when sharks had had it in the past, the
chondrichthyes
hadn’t been able to keep their jaws to
themselves, destroying the harmony in Atlantis. She didn’t see her
brother letting them back onto the governing body again anytime
soon.

“You’re right about your brother,
princess
. The guy’s worse than a remora for
stick-to-it-ness. Besides, if I let the Humans have you, think how
much better that’d be for me,” Harry said. “For sharks.”

Angel flapped her tail up and down, her
powerful muscles churning the water and stalling her retreat, but
the hook didn’t budge. “What do you mean?”

“If they get one look at you, they’re going
to forget all about studying sharks, or hunting us. Mers would be
much bigger fish for them to catch. Not to mention how many more
Humans there will be combing the seas. Hmmm… lunch.” He scratched
the side of his head with his tail fin. “Yeah, I think I’m going to
let that happen. And I’ll hang out here just to make sure.”

His mien was morbid as the grin stretched
again from one end of that rectangle to the other without a single
shard of laughter in his cold, black, dead eyes.

Angel looked around. The
oculina
reefs
were too far away. Harry would intercept her before she reached
them. Plus, the coral hadn’t recovered enough from
selinos
of Human misuse to hide a full-grown Mer.

Son-of-a-Mer. She should have brought a
weapon, but it was one more thing to carry, and today had been all
about observation. She hadn’t been planning to engage anyone, Human
or
shark. Plus, as a member of the royal family, she
shouldn’t be in danger.

Godsdamn Harry. She had no hope of
out-swimming him in her present form, and the bastard knew it.

The line went slack, thank the gods, but she
let herself continue to drift toward the boat while she planned.
She’d seen Humans hunting before. They could keep at it for hours.
Marlins, sailfish, great whites… they’d all succumbed to the lure.
Maybe she should shift to dolphin form. Humans had laws protecting
dolphin hunting, so this fisherman would have to let her go.

But hammerheads liked dolphin. Actually, they
liked pretty much anything, and, with this injury, she wasn’t sure
she could win a race against Harry.