Sea Witch (28 page)

parched for her, his mind restless as blowing sand, his spirit dry and

discouraged. She poured herself over him, her mouth lush and giving. Her

hands stole over him, under his shirt, over his chest, rousing him to life.

He grabbed at her. Smiling, she slipped through his grasp to his bed,

sliding backward until she lay against the pillows. He drank in the vision

of her long hair waving against the white sheets, her skin shining like

pearl through her open blouse, the white globes of her breasts. He forgot .

. . everything else. There was only now. Only her, her smooth thighs and

her warm smile and her great, dark, unfathomable eyes. He yanked at his

belt, tore at his shirt. She was rain, water, life, and he was dying for her,

his hands shaking, his touch feverish as he sank beside her on the bed,

reaching, touching, wanting—

She was so warm. So soft and pink and slick. He spread her with his

thumbs, loving the feel of her, ripe and wet, the sight of his tanned hand

working in and out against her silky thighs, her soft, dark bush. He bent

to kiss her, to drink from her, dizzy with her scent. Her sweetness. She

gasped and moved with him, under him, rising and falling like the sea,

and his blood pounded in his head. He was drowning, drenched in her. He

felt her crest around his fingers, against his mouth, as he suckled her.

She tugged his hair. He indulged them both with one long, last,

lingering lick before he dragged his body over hers—wet, quivering,

his
—and shoved his scarred knee between her thighs.

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Her hands pushed at his shoulders. “Your leg—”

He didn’t care about his leg. He didn’t care about anything except

being inside her as close, as deep, as far as he could go. He straightened

his arms, shifting his weight. She rose to meet him; strained to take him.

Theirs eyes linked. Locked. With one swift, deep thrust, he entered

her.

She gasped and shuddered.

So did he.

They plunged together, fused by sweat and passion. Complete.

Connected. Whole. He was part of her as he had never been part of

another being in his life. Her legs wrapped his. Her hair tangled his

fingers, a net of texture and fragrance. She tightened around him, a silken

fist, and he turned his face into her neck and spilled himself into her, gave

himself up to her, body and soul. She shuddered again, vibrating under

him, her nails digging into his shoulders.

The last shimmering wave retreated, leaving him beached and

breathless on top. Wrecked. At peace.

When he could breathe again, when he could speak, he raised his

head and said it.

“I love you.”

Margred lay stunned under him, trying to regulate her breathing and

her thoughts.

Caleb’s words curled warm against her heart.
I love you
.

Selkies did not do love any more than they did miracles.

He loved her?

What was she supposed to do about that?

What was she supposed to say?

“Thank you.”

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Wrong answer. She saw his eyes cool, felt him distance himself even

as his body still filled hers.

She moistened her lips and tried again. “You honor me.”

“No, I make you nervous,” Caleb said. “What are you afraid of?”

It was hard to be honest with him lying on top of her, lodged inside

her, studying her face with assessing green eyes. Hard to think with her

body still thrumming and moist from sex.

She wanted him again. Possibly she would want him forever. Maybe

that was why she was afraid.

“We are very different,” she said.

“That’s why we work. You told me once I lived in my head. With

you . . . I feel like I’ve found my heart.”

Whatever breath she had left escaped in a soft rush. “I cannot think

when you say such things to me.”

His eyes narrowed. “Maybe I don’t want you to think. Tell me how

you feel.”

“I . . . care for you,” she admitted. “More than I have ever cared for

anyone in seven hundred years of existence.”

His body went very still. “Seven hundred—”

“Years. I am immortal.”

“My mother wasn’t. You said she died.”

He told her he did not want her to think. But she could almost hear

his brain ticking like the clock in the hall. “Her life—her present life—ended. But because she returned to the water, she will be born again on

the tide and the foam.”

“And that was more important to her than her husband. Her

children.”

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Margred thought of pointing out that Atargatis had taken Dylan with

her, but his mother’s choice would hardly soothe Caleb’s feelings. “She

was selkie.” Margred defended her. “We belong to the sea more than we

can ever belong to another.”

“She stayed with my father for fourteen years. I thought they were

happy.”

Ah
. Margred bit her lip, the tiny pain an echo of the one at her heart.

The boy Caleb had believed he was the child of love, of a true union

between husband and wife. Atargatis’s desertion not only had deprived

him of his mother, but had tarnished his earliest memories and

perceptions of family.

He deserved better of her. He deserved love.

Or at least the truth.

“They were too different.” As she and Caleb were different, Margred

reflected with a pang. “Your father possessed a selkie. He never had her

love.”

A muscled worked in Caleb’s jaw. “You think I’m trying to possess

you?”

He already had more of her than she had ever given another, even

her long-dead mate. Her feelings for him filled her like a pregnancy,

crowding and pushing inside her. She felt swollen, stretched into

someone—-something—she almost did not recognize.

Doubt wrapped tentacles around her heart. Could she ever be what

he needed? Could she give him more than his mother had given his

father?

What would it do to her to try?

The fear in her chest tightened, squeezing the air from her lungs.

And what would it do to both of them if she failed?

“I think,” Margred said carefully, “that you belong here, in this

place. With these people.”

“And you don’t.”

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“I am selkie,” she repeated. Her words sounded thin, even to herself.

“The ocean is our element. Its magic is in our blood. We must return to it

or die.”

“You can’t return. What if you’re going to die anyway?”

His question quivered like an arrow in her heart. And yet it was the

wrong question.

She saw the instant he realized it, watched his eyes chill, felt his

body brace like a warrior’s for a blow.

“If you had your sealskin,” Caleb said quietly, “if you could return to

the sea, would you stay here with me?”

Would she give up all the seas and eternity to live on land with this

one man until they both were dead?

Her mouth dried. She did not, could not, answer him.

But that was all the reply he needed.

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Eighteen

"WELL, THAT WENT WELL,” CALEB SAID AS HE left the

polygraph examiner in possession of his office—the only space on the

island that hadn’t already been taken over by the state’s task force.

He lied.

Not for the first time that morning. But even with Caleb’s right arm

in a blood pressure cuff and finger plates wired to his left hand, even with

rubber tubes around his chest and a digital readout confirming the truth of

every word, there was no way the examiner was going to believe a story

about a seven-hundred-year-old mermaid being stalked by a demon.

Sam Reynolds stood in the doorway of the small break room that

housed the coffeepot and the copy machine. “Don’t worry about it,” he

said. “Three hours on the box would have my mother sweating like a pig.

You already passed my test.”

Caleb raised his eyebrows. “DNA results back already?”

The state dick snorted. “Who do you think we are, the FBI?”

“So why the sudden change of heart? Unless you’re grateful that I let

you sleep in my jail cell instead of on the beach.”

Reynolds shrugged. “You gave us the DNA sample. You

volunteered for a polygraph. If you were guilty, you would have told us

to pound sand. So either you’re thick-as-a-brick dumb or you’re

innocent.”

Caleb was not in the mood to be mollified. The woman he loved

wanted to leave him, he’d been shut out of the task force meeting that

morning, and the sergeant in charge didn’t trust him to direct traffic.

He rubbed the back of his neck with one hand, his gaze traveling

from the flashing copy machine to the stacks of paper lined along the

counter. “What are you doing?”

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Reynolds fed another sheet into the machine. “Copying your case

notes.”

Caleb cocked an eyebrow at Edith Paine. The reflection from her

computer screen—bright white cards against a brilliant green

background—gleamed in her glasses. “I don’t make copies,” she

announced. “I don’t get coffee either.”

“Good to see you keeping busy,” Caleb drawled.

Edith clicked on another card. “Don’t start with me. That phone’s

been ringing off the hook all morning. Every busy-body on the island has

been through that door. The summer people want armed escorts to go

swimming, and the home-owners want you to arrest the rubberneckers for

trespassing. ”

The vise gripping the back of Caleb’s neck tightened. “Whittaker?”

“Haven’t heard from him.”

Caleb frowned. That was odd. “Did he go to the mainland?

“And miss the excitement?” Edith sniffed. “Not likely.”

“He could be sick. I’ll check on him when I do patrol.”

The island was hard on those who lived alone. Visiting shut-ins and

the elderly was good community relations. And in this case, visiting

Whittaker gave Caleb an excuse to recanvass the area.

If he’s human, I’ll find him
.

“Who are you talking about?” Reynolds asked.

His questions jarred Caleb from his thoughts. “Local lawyer,” he

said briefly.

“Local blowhard,” Edith muttered.

“Well, if you’re going out, watch out for reporters,” Reynolds said.

“A Channel Six news crew came over on the ferry this morning.”

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Edith kept her eyes on her game. “They’re at Antonia’s. Regina

called.”

Caleb’s tension spiked. He’d just spent three hours lying on a

polygraph exam, and Maggie could blow it all in a five-minute interview

with a couple of tabloid headlines. MERMAID BEDEVILS LOCAL

COP. DEMON HUNTS OFF COAST OF MAINE.

Screw patrol. Maggie needed him, whether she admitted it or not.

News of a nude blond corpse on the beach attracted more folks than

a Rotary Club clambake.

Like a winter storm, the threat to their island brought the locals out

in search of food, company, community. When Caleb pushed open the

door to Antonia’s, a wave of noise rushed to greet him: babbling voices,

clattering dishes, the hiss of the grill. The smell of fish and onions, fries

and coffee, floated on the air.

Caleb scanned the packed booths, the line snaking between the

tables, the weathered faces around the room. New England faces, most of

them, with Viking eyes and Puritan mouths.

Where was Maggie?

Regina slapped two plates from the pass-through on top of the

counter. “One chowder, tuna on wheat, lobster roll with fries. Come get

your order or I’m giving it away to the next person in line.”

No waitress, then. No Maggie. Caleb’s gut cramped. Couldn’t she

stay put just once?

Eight-year-old Nick scuttled among the pushed-back chairs and

denim-clad legs, clearing tables.

Where the hell was she?

Regina caught his eye and jerked her head toward the kitchen. The

knot in Caleb’s stomach eased.

He took one stride, quickly checked as some asshole slid out of a

booth and into his path. White male, mid-thirties, blow-dried hair,

237

bleached smile. Not an islander, despite the vaguely familiar face. Caleb

made him for the Channel Six reporter before he opened his mouth.

“Chief Hunter?”

Caleb nodded warily.

That raised a stir and a flurry of questions. Somebody thrust a long

black microphone under his chin like the muzzle of a gun. Caleb’s jaw

set, but he didn’t reach for his weapon.
Veteran makes progress in

adapting to civilian life
.

“Do you think World’s End is still safe for tourists?” the reporter

asked.

Loaded question. Caleb would have preferred the gun. Conversations

stopped all over the restaurant as locals and summer people waited for his