Seaborne (8 page)

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Authors: Katherine Irons

Tags: #Romance, #Paranormal, #Fantasy, #Chick-Lit, #Mythology

BOOK: Seaborne
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In the space of a minute, Alex had seized Caddoc by one leg, yanked him off his mount, and set the other sea horses into a bucking frenzy. The riderless stallion unleashed its horned tail, took a chunk out of Jason’s leg, and attacked another beast. Alex clawed his way up onto the plunging horse’s neck and swung the trident, using the staff to knock Tora and a man named Creon off their stallions. Jason, bleeding, but still on his horse, hacked at Alex with his sword.
“What are you waiting for?” Orion shouted to Morgan as he sprinted toward the chaos. “Go! Now!” Laughing, Heron and the rest followed the twins into the melée.
Morgan hesitated, but quickly decided that no one other than Jason seemed to be directing killing blows. He put two fingers between his lips, gave a shrill whistle and summoned the Samoan’s runaway stallion. He came, tail thrashing, eyes rolling, and mouth bared.
He was a magnificent creature, blue-green with red gills and yellow eyes. The bony plates that served as teeth were sharp and yellow, his wicked tail thick and muscular. A low, deep trumpeting sounded from the stallion’s wide chest, an indication of both his bad temper and his willingness to attack.
“Ahh,” Morgan crooned. “Shh, shh.” Seizing hold of a handful of mane and a trailing rein, he flung himself into the saddle. The stallion exploded under him, lashing out with his mouth, twisting and wriggling to free himself. Morgan held on until he could catch the other rein.
The fight now spread across the courtyard with sea horses abandoning their riders and heading for the open sea as Atlanteans struggled in hand-to-hand combat. Palace security shouted orders to desist and spread out to try to restore civility. Amid the confusion, it was almost child’s play for Morgan to guide his stallion after the runaway mounts.
Once they had reached the outskirts of the city, Morgan would cheerfully part with his reluctant transportation, but for now he welcomed the burst of speed. He might have a knack for enchanting other underwater species, but had no wish to be arrested for horse theft … not to mention the difficulty of putting up with his mount’s horrendous bad breath.
A thousand miles to the west, Claire lingered in her bedroom, staring out at the gray ocean and thumbing absently through one of her grandmother’s old photo albums. Raindrops pattered against the windowpanes, but it wasn’t the rain that had brought her up from the beach before nightfall. To her annoyance, Nurse Wrangle had called Richard, who’d arranged for an internist to stop by and check on Claire.
Annoyed, she’d submitted to only the briefest of examinations before sending the physician on his way. By then, returning to the pavilion today seemed hopeless. She tried to reach her father by phone to protest, but got only the answering machine. Either he was out, or he was sitting in his library and waiting for her to calm down before talking to her.
On impulse, she’d put through a call to the detective agency, hoping to convince Kelly to reconsider and continue the investigation. After all, if she was willing to pay him, what difference should it make to him if there were no further leads at present? She wanted to ask if he would see what he could find out about her adoptive parents. It was possible that by searching their backgrounds extensively, he might learn something about the woman who’d given up her child to them.
When she was small, Claire used to try to imagine what her mother had looked like. She’d stare into a mirror, wondering if her eyes or nose were like her mother’s, or if they’d shared the same color hair. Her biological father’s identity wasn’t something that she’d obsessed about. She had Richard; she didn’t really need another father, but she needed a mother desperately.
Today, especially since she’d waited for Morgan to return and been disappointed, she wished more than anything she had a mother to talk to. It was selfish of Richard to deny her knowledge that he must have. Finding her birth mother wouldn’t affect their relationship … it couldn’t.
Detective Kelly was out, and the receptionist couldn’t say when he’d return to the office, but Claire was able to leave a request on his voice mail. She ended by asking him to return her call. Nothing today, it seemed, was going to be easy.
But there was one thing she could accomplish. And that was to get rid of Nurse Wrangle. As soon as Claire could hire a replacement, she’d dismiss the Nazi woman in white. She called a private nursing agency that provided home service and was, once more, unable to reach a human. She left a message on voice mail for someone to call her back.
“No Morgan, no detective, and no new nurse. Strike three,” she muttered. “And … she’s out!” No, this was definitely not her best day.
The only run scored was that Mrs. Godwin had a dentist appointment and Nathaniel had driven her. Except for Jackie, who cleaned until five, Claire had the house to herself. Sighing, she turned the page of the photo album.
When she was eight, Richard and Nana had thrown her a wonderful birthday party. Her father had even invited three of her best friends from the city and provided transportation for them and their nannies and/or mothers to come to Seaborne for a long weekend. Nana, an avid photographer, had recorded every hour of the event.
Richard had arranged for a group of Native American dancers to perform, and the whole theme of the party was an American Indian powwow. There were games with lovely prizes, pony rides, a cookout, and a real buffalo skin teepee for Claire and the girls to camp out in overnight. Looking at those pictures brought back wonderful memories.
Two of the girls had drifted out of her life in later years, but Mary Remington and she had remained close. Mary was married to a junior diplomat and living in Brazil. Claire had only seen her once since the accident. Not that Mary hadn’t been supportive, but she had a job, a husband, and a two-year-old son.
Things I’ll never have
, Claire thought. Unbidden, a tear rolled down her cheek. She dashed it away. What was it Nana had always said? “If your eggs are broken, make an omelet.”
Claire’s eggs were broken, all right. Broken so badly that she’d never put her eggs back together again, and the only omelet she could make of them was bitter and worthless. Twenty years from now, she’d still be here, surrounded by cats, listening to Nurse Wrangle babble, and baying at the moon.
“I won’t be that empty woman,” she whispered. “I can’t.”
The photo album slid off her lap onto the floor. It fell facedown, and the pages crumpled. Claire tried to retrieve it, but it was just out of reach. Instead, she rolled her chair back to the nightstand beside the bed, opened the drawer, and removed a small plastic bottle of pills. She unscrewed the safety cap and poured a handful into her palm.
It would be so easy
, she thought. Everyone was out of the house but Jackie, and she’d soon be gone. A few swallows with water to wash them down, and all her problems would be over.
Another tear followed the first as she reached for her glass… .
CHAPTER 8
“C
laire!”
She froze. She’d thought she heard someone call her name. Not from inside the house, but outside.
“Claire! It’s Morgan!”
She tightened her hand around the pills, dumped them and the half-empty bottle into the nightstand drawer, and slammed it shut. She rolled to the window and unlatched the French doors that led to the wide balcony that ran along the front of the house.
It was still raining, not hard, but steady, tiny needles of rain striking her face and arms. Pushing the doors wide, she went out onto the railed balcony. Someone was standing at the edge of the bluff, a man.
“Morgan?” It was impossible. How could she hear him from her bedroom? But it had to be him. The wind whipped her hair and raindrops splashed her face, but she didn’t care. It made her feel alive. “Morgan, is that you?”
He waved. “Come down! Or should I come up?”
Her mouth went dry. What should she do? It would take forever for her to get out of the house. What if he got bored and left before she could cover the distance in her chair? Should she invite him up to her bedroom? Richard’s warnings echoed in her head. Yet, Jackie was still in the house, wasn’t she? It wasn’t as if she was inviting a serial killer into her bedroom.
She cupped her hands to her mouth. “Come up! Ring the bell! Jackie will let you in!” Was he coming? Had he heard her? Heart thudding wildly, she waited. Yes! He was. He was walking toward the back of the house.
Claire moved back inside, and shut the doors. Damn the water on the floor. But what did it matter? She wheeled herself over to her closet. He’d be up in minutes, and she looked a mess. Unbuttoning her blouse, she shrugged out of it and tossed it on the closet floor. Frantically, she looked for something to replace the damp top. A much–loved Celtic Nights tee caught her attention, and she pulled it down and yanked it over her head.
Downstairs, she heard a door close, then footsteps on the stairs. She hurried into the adjoining bath. There was time to run a brush through her hair and dab on lipstick. She took a breath, saw how pale she was, and used the lipstick to add a smudge of color to each cheekbone.
She was just exiting the bathroom when Morgan knocked on her open bedroom door. “Come in,” she said. Her voice sounded strained, as though she was trying too hard. She took a deep breath and smiled at him. “Welcome to my lair.”
One look at him, and her heart turned over once and soared.
Oh, my God
. He was real. He was here, and he was every bit as delicious as she’d remembered. Dark blond hair, a little damp, the same bathing suit, and a Boston Marathon T-shirt spotted with raindrops. He was here, filling her doorway with shoulders that wouldn’t quit and the muscular legs of a swimmer.
“I hope you don’t think I’m some kind of stalker. I had fun the other day, and I was disappointed when you weren’t at the—”
“On the beach,” she finished. “I was, but then the rain …” She took another breath. “And I had—” Don’t mention the doctor, idiot, she told herself. He can see you’re handicapped. “Anyway,” she finished lamely.
He grinned. “Yes, it is raining.”
So now he saw her in the wheelchair. Of course, he saw the chair on the pavilion before, but she hadn’t been in it. He might have guessed that she couldn’t walk, but now there was no doubt. He didn’t seem fazed.
“I guess you already figured out I’m … my legs …” She hadn’t been this tongue-tied since she was in the eighth grade, and a cute boy from Saint Andrews asked her to her first dance. “What I’m trying to say is …”
“Yes?”
He waited, gorgeous blue eyes twinkling. Yet, she didn’t have the feeling he was laughing at her. He was just a sweet guy, a beautiful ten right in her bedroom. She would have given anything for twenty minutes of being normal. Well, maybe thirty minutes. In the days when she could still make love, she’d always liked to start slow and gradually build up to fireworks.
“A boating accident.”
“Your fault?” Morgan’s question was matter-of-fact. No syrup. No pity. The way she preferred.
“The other guy. Drunk. Speedboat.” She smacked her palms together, and then threw them apart. “Pow!” She hesitated. “I woke up like this … and it’s permanent.”
“How long ago?”
“Two years. Please, I’m babbling. Come in.” She waved him to the adjoining sitting area.” Before she’d moved in, she’d had renovations done, opening rooms on either side to create a spacious living suite.
Morgan glanced at the bookshelves that lined one wall, floor to ceiling. “Do you mind?”
She shook her head. “No, look all you like.”
He walked over to the rows of books and scanned titles. “Obviously you’re a reader.”
“Mmm, was. Not so much now. I have trouble concentrating.” She hesitated, before going on with the gruesome details. “My skull was fractured. It left me with some difficulties.” She didn’t tell him about the memory gaps. This was an ark full of information to process.
She waited for him to flash an embarrassed smile, make an excuse about a pending appointment, and vanish. And who could blame him?
But he didn’t run.
“You like history?” He removed a leather-backed volume and opened it, carefully turning the pages.
“Guilty.” She smiled at him. “History major. Way back when.” She liked the way he handled the book. You could tell a lot about people by their behavior. He was a reader too. He wasn’t pretending. Even professional actors couldn’t fake the interest in his gaze.
She couldn’t take her eyes off him. It wasn’t that he was so handsome—well, he was that—but not in a movie star way, not like someone who’d just stepped off a modeling shoot. Morgan was real. Masculine. Obviously an outdoors type. He probably spent most of his time on a sailboat or biking. He had to work out too, but he lacked that artificially enhanced look of bodybuilders. He appeared to be the genuine article—all man.
Claire noted that he wasn’t quite as young as she’d thought the other day, maybe late thirties, but nice, very nice. And different, totally different than any guy she’d ever met before. No wonder she was having wet dreams about him at night.
She wasn’t stupid. She realized that this could go nowhere. She didn’t expect anything but friendship—but she was starved for that. No, worse than starved … dying of thirst.
“Would you like something to drink? I can have Jackie bring up—”
“No, thanks, I’m good.” He carefully replaced the book and scanned more titles. “You have quite the library here. Some of these are old.” He took down a small green volume. “You speak Greek?”
“Read.” She grimaced. “My accent is atrocious. I’m not bad in ancient Greek. Translating, that is. I don’t actually speak ancient Greek. No one does.”
“No?” He seemed to question that. “No one?”
Claire shook her head. “Nope. Scholars disagree on exact pronunciation. Languages change through the centuries—you can see that in American English … the way it differs from Old English. Words come and go. New ones are coined, and in four or five hundred years …” She chuckled. “I’m still babbling.”
He smiled. “You’re passionate about your subject, and you’re prepared to defend your arguments. I like that in a woman. Still, it’s hard to believe that ancient Greek has completely faded from human memory.”
“Pretty much.” She motioned to a leather chair. “Sit down. Please. And I have soda here. Cans.” She indicated the small wet bar and refrigerator against one wall. “Just regular. No diet—not that I think you need diet. And water. I always keep bottled water.”
Claire wished he’d come closer, wished she could touch that stray lock of hair that had fallen over one eye … wished she could run her fingers through his blond hair. He smelled so good, as though he swam in the ocean every day—clean and fresh and something more, something she couldn’t put a name to… . Almost unpredictable—wild, like the sea itself.
It didn’t seem possible that she’d been sitting here a few minutes ago with a handful of pills, considering swallowing them … considering … Considering taking her own life … suicide. Not that she would have done it. She was sure of that. She would have put the damned pills back in the bottle, whether she’d heard Morgan calling her name or not. Wouldn’t she? What kind of nut job could be thinking of ending her life one instant and—not ten minutes later—be wishing she had the working equipment to lure a guy into bed?
Morgan moved to the chair, but remained standing behind it, one muscular hand resting lightly on the top. “I was hoping you’d come down to the water with me. Maybe go for a swim.” He looked at her hopefully. “I know it’s raining, but if you’re in the ocean, does that matter ? You’re going to get wet anyway.”
But I don’t swim in the ocean. Never. I can’t even stand
, she thought.
I’d probably sink right to the bottom.
She could feel the warmth of his gaze on her, feel the intensity of it. She opened her mouth to say no, but what came out was “All right.” Suddenly, the logistics didn’t matter anymore.
Morgan moved toward her, held out his hand. It seemed the most natural thing in the world to take it. His fingers closed around hers, warm, strong, almost electric. A thrill passed up her arm, flooding her with excitement … with hope.
Maybe it was possible… .
“Where is he?” Poseidon thundered. “What do you mean gone?”
Alexandros and Orion exchanged glances. “We thought you knew,” Alex said. “He said he needed to get back.”
“To what he was doing,” Orion said. “He had important work. Following your orders.”
“And that was?” the king asked suspiciously. He couldn’t remember what it was that he might have instructed Morgan to do. Not that he was losing his grip. His mind was as good as ever. It was just that a king’s days were filled with decisions, commands, settling trivial matters, and nobles bickering when he had larger issues to consider.
He’d canceled a meeting with Zale and his treasurer to summon the twins to one of his smaller throne rooms. He meant to get to the bottom of this outrage at once. He wasn’t in the mood for insubordination. First the public shame of Morgan’s trial, and then a magistrate informs him that three of his sons have been arrested for attempted murder and a fourth—his heir—was being sought for questioning.
Poseidon hadn’t called the queen, but Korinna had inner radar that alerted her when any of her children were in trouble. She’d appeared almost on the twins’ heels and showed no sign of leaving. He didn’t want her here, but didn’t know how to get rid of her without appearing ridiculous.
“Counting ghost lobster traps, wasn’t he?” Korinna took a seat on his throne on the low dais. “Morgan was counting traps, I’m sure of it.” It was a primitive chair compared to some in his greater throne rooms, crudely carved of rose quartz that glowed with an inner fire.
Poseidon grunted his disapproval. She hadn’t broken any rules by commandeering the only chair in the chamber, but it put him out of sorts. This was his domain, where he often met with his closest male friends and advisors. His wives rarely came here, let alone took his throne, leaving him to pace back and forth a step below like a worried bureaucrat.
He glared at her.
Korinna favored him with one of her sweeter smiles. “I’m sure that’s what you sent him to do, dear.” She held up a string of pink pearls, a necklace that had come down to him from his great-grandmother. The pearls were much larger than normal, rare even in the finest collections and had been collected around the islands now known as Japan by the land dwellers.
“Could you fasten the catch on these, darling? I can’t manage it, and I wanted to wear these pearls with this gown.” She smiled up at him again, seemingly oblivious to his disapproval. “I distinctly remember that you were so concerned about the numbers of traps left abandoned on the ocean floor by humans that you wanted an accurate count. And you are so right. It’s terrible, the loss of sea life from those awful ghost traps. So many lobsters, even crabs, climb inside and can’t get out. They starve to death, Morgan says. Terrible.”
“Call one of your women to fasten your necklace,” he thundered. “I have more important things to do than fiddle with your jewelry.”
He wheeled on his sons. By Zeus’s hairy balls, both were in sorry condition, with eyes blackened, faces and bodies bruised. Orion had what looked like a sea horse bite on his arm, healing fast, but still black and blue with traces of torn flesh. “You’re telling me that Morgan had no part in this disgraceful affair?”
“Morgan?” Alex seemed to consider the question. “I don’t think so. I believe he had left by the time the guard arrived.”
“Three of my sons arrested for brawling! And when I summon you from the prison cell, I find you unrepentant and smelling of cheap wine.”
“Hardly cheap, Father,” Alex replied. “It was that Argentinean red that you acquired for your last—”
“Great Hera, no,” the queen interjected. “Didn’t that come off that sunken vessel? What was the name of that ship?
Madre
…”
“Stay out of this, woman!” Poseidon pointed at Alex. “I want a full explanation. Now!”

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