Sea Witch (15 page)

she’d be fine. But when I got back, she was...”

His heart lurched.
Oh, Christ
. She was what?

Dizzy
?

Unconscious
?

Dead
?

“Gone,” Lucy finished miserably.

“Gone where?” Caleb snapped.

“I don’t know, I—”

A flutter of blue on the beach below caught his attention. A woman’s

dress. Caleb’s gaze narrowed. A dark-haired woman in a blue dress,

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strolling across the wet sand. He clenched the phone. Something about

the way she moved . . .

“It’s all right,” he cut across his sister’s babbled explanations. “I

found her. I’ll call you later.”

He strode toward the door. “I’ll be in touch,” he tossed to Whittaker.

“I hardly see the need—”

Caleb shot him a look that shut him up fast. Public relations be

damned. He had to get to the beach. He had to get to Maggie before she .

. .

What the hell did she think she was doing?

He lost sight of her as he plunged down the porch steps, ignoring his

pain in his need to get a better look. Glimpsed her again from the top of

the narrow track that plummeted down the cliff face to the shore.

Definitely Maggie, he thought, studying her pale, bare arms, her wavy

dark hair.

He yelled her name.

The wind snatched his voice. It buffeted his face, kicking up

whitecaps out at sea and stirring the slippery clumps of grass dotting the

slope. Caleb scowled. He could drive a quarter mile down the road to the

nearest beach access. Or he could risk his footing, his dignity, and his

neck on the path.

He started the climb down.

Patches of loose shale and roots like trip wires booby-trapped the

trail. Every step, every jolt, jarred the screws and plates of his

reconstructed leg until he felt like the freaking Tin Man slowly shaking

apart. Halfway down, his boot slid out from under him. His leg twisted.

His knee gave. He slid, half on his ass, as his hands scraped gravel. He

grabbed at a scrub spruce to save himself and hung on a moment, getting

his breath and his bearings.

Maggie never looked up.

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As he watched, she pulled the blue dress over her head and shed it

on the sand.

His jaw dropped.

Underneath the gown, she was naked. Totally, completely,

gloriously exposed. He stared, a seething stew of worry and fury and lust

boiling inside him as bare-assed— bare everything—she sauntered to the

sea.

He worked enough spit into his mouth to swallow. Didn’t she realize

anybody could be watching? Not to mention that after this morning’s

rain, the water must be freezing. She could get hypothermia, damn it. She

could get dizzy and drown.

He slid a few steps toward her.

She didn’t seem to care. She waded into the churning surf, as naked

and relaxed as she’d been in the bathtub last night.

Caleb was ready to strangle her. He wanted her safe. He wanted her

home. Was it too much to expect her to wait a couple of hours while he

did his best to catch the bastard who’d attacked her?

Apparently it was.

The white caps curled and foamed around her calves. Around her

thighs, waist, breasts. Caleb caught his breath as a bigger wave rushed in.

Maggie staggered, spread her arms, and disappeared under the surface of

the water.

Cursing, he flung himself down the path. He stumbled around bushes

and over rocks and onto sand.

And froze, transfixed by the sight that met him at the bottom of the

cliff.

Maggie stood breast deep and bare shouldered in the sea. The sun

broke through the clouds, sparkling on the crests of the waves, the slow,

green roll of the water. Waves danced all around. She laughed and held

out her arms, her dark hair sleek against her head, her face shining with

water and sunlight.

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The ground shifted under him. His knees gave out like they had on

the path, even though the sand here was soft and level. Because leaping,

playing, arcing through the waves, their gray bodies smooth and

powerful, dolphins circled her, two or six or ten of them, close, so close

his heart stopped in fear for her, and wonder.

* * * *

What the fuck ... ?

Margred stroked the dolphins’ broad, flat sides, soothed by their

strength. And by their chatter. The muc mara had responded swiftly and

joyfully to her call, readily accepting her charge to carry her plea to the

prince.

Of course, she could not be sure how much of her message, exactly,

would reach Conn. Dolphins were intelligent and kind, less deliberate

than whales, less bloodthirsty than sharks, less easily distracted than birds

or fish. But they did not live in time as humans did, or even as the selkie.

They flowed as the sea flowed, and what they understood no one, perhaps

not even Conn or Llyr himself, knew.

She watched their leaping passage, her throat closing with gladness

and a terrible despair. They had come to her and comforted her. But she

could not follow them into the green coolness of the sea, into the rolling

waves, into the gold-veined darkness.

Her loss dragged at her like waterlogged clothing. With heavy steps,

she turned to make her way to shore.

Caleb stood at the water’s edge. The sight of him, solid and still,

lifted her spirits so that for a moment she forgot both caution and sorrow.

He shook his head. “I never saw anything like that.”

Caution returned in a rush. She tilted her head. “Have I made so little

impression, then, you do not remember me naked?”

He smiled, as she intended. But he was a hard man to distract. “I

meant the dolphins.”

“You must have seen dolphins before.”

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“Not come into shore like that, so close to a swimmer. Once, when I

was a kid, my mother . . .” He stopped.

His
mother
? Margred felt a spurt of excitement. His mother was

selkie. If he knew, if he remembered, perhaps she could confide in him.

“When you were a child . . .” she prompted.

He hesitated; shrugged. “It was a long time ago. I was four. Five,

maybe. She brought me to the beach. She didn’t very often. Dylan,

sometimes, but— Anyway, she was swimming in the deep water, where I

wasn’t allowed to go, when the dolphins came.” His sea green eyes were

deep and lost. “All these years, I thought I’d made it up. You know, the

way kids do, when they’re bored or lonely.”

Her childhood was shrouded in time. She could not remember

feeling bored. But she understood lonely.

She touched his arm. “Tell me about your mother.”

He looked away, a muscle bunching in his jaw. “Nothing much to

tell. She left us when I was ten. You should put some clothes on.”

Who is distracting whom now
? she wondered, amused and a little put

out. “Why?”

A glint appeared in his eyes. “Public indecency in the state of Maine

carries a maximum penalty of six months or five hundred dollars. You

don’t want me to arrest you.”

She tossed her head. “You might as well. You locked me up in a

house all morning.”

“I left you with my sister. Who was worried about you, by the way.

Why the hell didn’t you tell her where you were going?”

“She was not there.”

“You could have left a note.”

She had never thought of it. “I am not used to accounting for my

comings and goings.”

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“Better get used to it.”

Startled, she met his gaze. The glint had deepened. Become hotter.

More personal.

Her breath caught.
Well
.

She sauntered past him, aware his eyes followed her. Whatever other

powers she had lost, she could still compel a man’s gaze. She bent, giving

him another eyeful, and retrieved her dress, crumpled on the sand.

Behind her, Caleb cleared his throat. “What were you doing?”

For one mad moment, she actually considered telling him. But he

was half human, with no apparent awareness of his selkie side. Humans

could not encounter anything strange without attempting to understand it.

Master it. Control it.

“Swimming,” she said.

“Naked.” His tone made it not-quite-a-question.

“Your sister does not like me to get her dress wet.”

“You shouldn’t get your stitches wet.”

“Sea water heals.” She eased the dress over her head, pulling and

patting the material over her damp skin before she turned to face him.

“What do you think of the dress?”

“It’s a little tight on you.”

She glared.

His eyes crinkled. “You shouldn’t have come down here alone.”

“I was tired of waiting.”

“Which doesn’t explain why you were on the beach in the first

place.”

Dangerous waters
, she thought. “I told you last night. I was looking

for you.”

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His gaze sharpened. “So you remember some things.”

She touched her finger to his cheek and trailed it down his throat. “I

could hardly forget you.”

He caught her hand in a hard grip, imprisoning it against his chest.

“No games, Maggie. What else do you remember? ”

So serious.

And so sincere in his concern, in his desire to help her. The sincerity

moved her more than threats could have.

“What more do you need to know?”

“Why don’t we start with your name?”

That one was easy. “Margred.”

“Last name.”

She shook her head.

His mouth tightened. “Address?”

She stared at him blankly.

“You had to come from somewhere. You were born in Scotland, you

said.”

She was foolishly pleased that he remembered. “That’s right.”

“Do you have friends there? Family?”

“No family.”

“Anybody likely to come looking for you?”

She thought of Conn. “I . . . It’s possible.”

“Who?” The word cracked like an ice floe.

She recoiled. “I don’t remember.”

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Caleb drew in a quick, frustrated breath, and released it on a sigh.

“Look, Maggie, I can protect you. I want to protect you. But you need to

trust me.”

“I do,” she protested.
To a point
.

She pressed her fingers to her aching head. In truth, the attack last

night had come out of the dark, a blaze of hunger and pain, too quick to

defend against or identify. But she had not imagined that whiff of demon.

Expecting a mortal to take her side against an elemental was insanity.

Caleb could not protect her.

And she was oddly reluctant to see him fall, a human casualty of a

skirmish between Fire and Water.

He captured her other hand and held it against his chest. “Then let’s

make a deal. From now on, I won’t badger you for answers. And you cut

the sex-and-games crap and tell me when you honestly don’t remember

something and when you’re just not going to say.”

His offer was so unexpected she gaped at him, her mind whirling. It

could be days before the dolphins carried her message to Conn, days

before the prince responded. Until then, she was on her own.

Or not entirely on her own. She could feel the beat of Caleb’s heart

against her fingertips.

She lifted her chin. “We could try that.”

Caleb’s lips curved. He leaned down to brush her mouth with his, a

hint of pressure, a whisper of heat, promising, tantalizing. Her toes curled

into the damp sand in anticipation.

And then . . . nothing.

She opened her eyes. “What was that?”

He was still smiling down at her, all heavy-lidded, satisfied and

sexy. “A kiss. To seal the deal.”

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She slid her fingers between the buttons of his shirt, pulling him

closer. Seeking pleasure. Seeking to forget. “This,” she told him, “is a

kiss.”

His lips were warm and firm. She bit them, wanting more of him, his

textures, his flavors. He opened for her, and then his hands were in her

hair and his tongue was in her mouth and she was gasping, reaching for

him, the whisper of heat sparking and spreading, warming her from the

inside out. She wanted to crawl inside him and be warm all over, forever.

His hand fisted in her hair, making her wince. “I want—”

“Yes,” she said, ignoring the pain.

He kissed her again, harder this time. She wiggled closer, fitting

their bodies together. He grunted—in pleasure? in pain?—and staggered.

Through her wet dress, she could feel everything, the bite of his buttons,

the cold edge of his buckle. Him. She could feel him, hot and hard against

her. She wriggled again in pure delight, twining her arms around his

neck.

He half dragged, half stumbled with her a few yards up the beach to

the privacy of the rocks. Crowding her into a recess in the cliff wall, he