Updrift (17 page)

“There’s my family’s cottage.” He pointed to a small house partially hidden behind a grove of trees at the top of the hill they’d just climbed. Kate could hear the close, dull roar of the ocean, the sound predictable and rhythmic, and as soothing as a lullaby. She realized how tired she was, which made sense when she figured out how long it had been since she’d last slept. Not since before her last day at work, before meeting Gabe in Griffins Bay, before swimming several hours to reach the place they were now. An entire lifetime had passed since she had climbed out of the covers of her bed in her apartment two mornings ago. Gabe yawned and leaned down to whisper in her ear, “Yes. I’m tired, too.”

The cottage was set back on a jagged high cliff and offered expansive views of the ocean to the north and east sides of the island. Upon reaching the house, Gabe led them across a patio winding around to a back lawn, where they paused to admire the ocean and stars from the home’s exquisite elevation.

“The view is stunning. Is this your parents’ place?”

“Along with a few other Blakes. My family owns it.”

“It’s heaven.”

Gabe gave her hand another squeeze and led her into the house. “I want to show you what I was talking about on our way here, see if I can make us both feel something related to your pulse and blood pressure.” Anticipation mixed with panic froze its way down her spine.

She found the cottage more traditionally appointed than the house in Griffins Bay, as well as smaller. A cornerstone had a date from two centuries earlier chiseled on it, and she guessed the place had never been significantly reconfigured, except for the evidence she saw of two nearly seamless additions. She recognized Carmen and Michael’s decorating sensibility, although they’d used deeper colors and heavier fabrics, which gave the rooms a warm intimacy lacking in their open, sunny beach house.

As she studied her surroundings, she caught Gabe’s unvoiced opinions on the cottage, including how happy he was to be here.
This is where I’m most relaxed and free.

“The library is like that for me.”

Gabe led them down a hallway to a corridor sitting room stretching along the back of the house and overlooking the water, and then into a small but opulent bedroom. The walls were wood-paneled, interrupted on one side by a stone fireplace and on the other by a doorway to a bathroom. Windows lined the back of the room, she presumed to take advantage of the ocean view. An enormous bed, covered in plush, inviting linens, anchored the remaining wall.

Kate leaned her head on Gabe’s shoulder. “This is so perfect,” she sighed.

*

No
, Gabe thought,
what was perfect was being here, alone with Kate, everything out in the open between us
. He pulled her by her hands backward to the bed, and then caught her to his chest as he fell on the covers. He shifted them both on their sides. “Now, about that trick I wanted to try.” He brought one of her hands to his chest and wrapped his other hand around her wrist.

He watched her and tried to reflect what he sensed back to her. He noticed the subtle increase in blood pressure from the last time he’d checked, each pulse echoing dimly throughout his own body with a dull thud causing a small shiver of desire to course through him.

Kate inhaled sharply. “What is that?”

“I can tell when you’re about to ovulate. The closer you are, the more intensely we’ll want, um, well, to be together,” he stammered. They both laughed and blushed.

“You know, that’s practically obscene.”

Gabe grinned. “You wanted to know. And truthfully, it’s a relief to tell you. It’s like this force of nature very few of us can ignore. When we commit to someone, this is how it starts.”

Kate became pensive. “So, if I’m about to ovulate, I might get pregnant.”

“Chances are about a hundred percent,” he told her flatly.

Kate arched a brow. “Sirens don’t use contraceptives?”

He winced with self-reproach. “Not at first. It’s part of how we bond.”

He felt her dismay and caught her thoughts, over her job, her apartment, her parents, and the consequences a pregnancy would have. Maybe she could expand her blog into something to generate income, and she could create a few more choices for herself than what she might have with her office job. The idea kind of appealed to her, which thrilled him.

“We’ll figure everything out, Kate. I promise.” His confidence fed hers as he’d hoped, and he felt her apprehension drain away.

“Okay. We’ll figure it out.”

Gabe rolled them into the covers. Then, warm and dry and completely fatigued, Kate’s eyelids drooped. “I’m so tired,” she apologized, yawning.

“That’s going to get a lot worse.” He grinned wickedly but he helped her fall asleep. When her eyes had closed and she breathed evenly, he let his own exhaustion overtake him. He drifted off into a sound, anticipatory sleep.

Several hours later, he woke her.

Her pulse crashed through him now with deafening urgency, every beat gripping him in a flood of craving he could barely control. “Kate,” he called quietly, willing her eyes to open. They did, briefly registering his desire before his mouth hungrily overtook hers. His yearning surged through both of them like a tidal wave, inexorable and elemental, jettisoning all that was not their union. He felt her immediate response, registered how his taste and warmth filled her senses, saw their intent as a shimmering, pervasive presence around them.

Their supple bodies twisted and strained together, their hands moving fervently over each other. With effort, Gabe held himself motionless when Kate tensed in initial pain. He kissed her tenderly for several long seconds, until she moved against him again. “Gabe,” she whispered in his ear, her voice bruised with longing as she pressed herself more tightly to him.

His joy overflowed then, his heart releasing a torrent of warmth and love that coursed through them both in an unbroken current, permeating every cell and traveling the length of every nerve. The rest of the world floated away as they immersed themselves, at long last, in each other and nothing else, every kiss a prayer answered, every touch urgent with desire too long withheld.

Anna was in her sea cave tending a bed of mussels when her daughter, Penny, found her and shared her bizarre story. Something about a man named Will planning to jump to his death, and how he’d drawn dozens of their women to witness him. Everyone was floating at the base of Carey Rock, according to Penny. Her description of the man tugged at Anna’s memory, and she swam with her daughter back to the waiting throng of mermaids to investigate.

The waves would have carried Will into the face of the cliff, not out to sea as he speculated, an erroneous belief intuited by all of them watching him from underwater, Anna included. They all knew his body would have been smashed to bits in a matter of seconds without their intervention, which they were eager to provide after an entire afternoon spent watching him and drinking in his delicious, rich sentiments. As it was, he fainted well before he hit the water. He never saw the creatures who softened his fall and kept his body from annihilation, not that they would have allowed him to remember them.

One of the women had noticed him standing at his perch near the time he arrived there, and, as the day wore on, others gathered under the water’s surface to watch too. His feelings radiated forcefully off him, creating a yearning they were not supposed to indulge in but by the time Anna joined the fray, she was too late to interrupt. His allure had intensified during his all-day stand at the edge of his rock. The women now sang to him, to ease his anxiousness, and to invite him to join them in the water.

I will love him
, Lydia announced.

No, I’ll be the one
, Bridget argued, and then others spoke up, each vying for primary custody. They squabbled playfully as they waited.

Perhaps we could share him
, one of them suggested, their prolonged attendance urging them into a frenzy Anna believed was dangerous. Their interest had progressed far beyond simple caprice, and none of them had any real experience keeping humans alive in the water.

I came to see about all the commotion
, Penny told her.
I saw your face in his memory and came to get you.

As Anna gazed at the figure above, she felt his scattered thoughts and became convinced she had met this man before. When he jumped, she heard his wife’s name, Dana, and then she remembered.

Sisters,
she apologized to the siren women around her,
this is the husband of the sister of John Blake’s wife. We cannot have him for ourselves.

They emitted a collective sigh of disappointment. They pleaded,
just for a while, Anna.
We’ll keep him safe. Go to Cara and John but in the meantime, we will keep him alive. And warm.

Anna hesitated as she thought through the logistics of her new responsibility, which was to find the sirens connected to Will. He really was better off here while she went to Griffins Bay.
Keep him unaware too, please
, she requested. They all nodded, too enthusiastically for her taste, but then she thought of the human saying,
Beggars can’t be choosers.
Indeed. She swam off toward Griffins Bay.

Carmen worked at her desk when Anna arrived, with Michael seated across from her reading a scientific journal. She got right to the point. “A group of us caught Will Fletcher, Dana’s husband, making a suicide jump off Carey Rock this afternoon. He’s unharmed, and they’re keeping him at sea while I’m here.”

Carmen and Michael leapt to their feet. “Who has him?” Michael asked.

“The Seward clan. Well, the women in the clan.” Michael bolted toward the door.

“Wait!” Carmen pleaded. “Anna, you told them to keep him safe, right? To take extra care?”

“I did.” She was uncertain though, which, she saw undermined her credibility.

“Michael, someone has to go to John and Cara, and someone should probably collect Dana…” Carmen trailed off.

“And someone needs to make sure Lydia and Bridget don’t literally drown Will with their affection,” Michael asserted, still poised to leave.

“You’re right, of course. Go get him, if you can wrestle him free, and take him to Shaddox. I’ll fetch Cara and John, and at least one of us will chase Dana down. I’m thinking we’ll probably all bring her back.” She stared over everyone’s head a few more seconds. “Yes. We’ll bring Dana to the island, you bring Will, and we’ll figure out…
something
…together.”

“I can go with Michael to spring Will from the Sewards,” Anna offered.

Michael’s smile was full of gratitude. “Thanks. I’ll take all the help I can get.”

Cara called Dana to find out where she was, and Dana was immediately suspicious of her. “What’s the matter?” Cara wished she’d taken care to sound less freaked out.

“Before I answer, where are you? Have you heard from Will?”

“I’m at my hotel in Dallas. And no, I haven’t talked with him today. Why?”

“When do you get back to Philly?”

Dana consulted her itinerary. “Noon tomorrow. What’s going on?”

She struggled to think of a plausible lie. “I need to consult with you about something.” She knew she sounded lame.

“So, go ahead and tell me what’s up.” Cara remained silent for too long…“Cara, you’re worrying me.”

“I’d prefer to talk to you in person,” Cara hedged until inspiration finally struck. “Can I meet you at your house?”

“That’s it. Tell me what’s going on right now.”

“You don’t need to worry about anything. Anything at all. I just, sort of, have some ideas for a new business, and I…have an immediate opportunity. And I want to go over it with you. And Will. I already talked to Will this afternoon a little bit.” She thought this last lie might help rope Dana in. It did.

“Oh.” Dana sounded mollified. “Well that’ll be fine. I’ll call my office and tell them I won’t be in until Friday and we can have the afternoon. I’ll be glad to help you out.”

“Great!” Cara gushed, which Dana apparently disliked.

“You really don’t sound right, Cara. Do you have to buy a building by the end of the week or something?”

“Something like that. I’ll let myself in and wait for you tomorrow. I’ll see you then.” She hung up.

* * * *

John had his assistant clear his calendar for the rest of the week. Cara called Alicia, and, citing a family emergency, requested she keep Everett overnight, which she agreed to do. The plan was first to intercept any suicide message from Will, and then intercept Dana, herself. They could have flown and avoided the time commitment involved in a road trip but they expected to keep Dana as mentally compromised as possible when they brought her back and didn’t want an audience for that effort. Cara offered to drive.

“We’ll know more when we get to the house,” Carmen opined once they were down the road. “I mean, if he left a note, we can maybe figure something out by reading it. And then we can have Dana make any necessary arrangements for them both to be gone, ideally without too much fuss.”

“What’s happening with Will?” John inquired.

“Anna and Michael—and Lydia and Bridget, who insisted on, oh, let’s call it
helping
—are taking him to Shaddox. He’s going through delirium tremens, more easily than most, since the Seward women have him pretty well sedated. He has absolutely no idea what’s going on, which I suppose is a good thing.”

Cara couldn’t contain her curiosity any longer. “What are we going to do with them both?”

“Don’t tell any of Sewards,” Carmen replied, “but my sense is their marriage could and should be fixed. I think we’re going to try some standard, old-fashioned hazing to try and get Dana and Will back together.”

John’s gaze was thoughtful. “We could take them to see Xanthe.”

Cara was confused. “Who’s Xanthe?”

“She’s a kind of diplomatic counselor for our people,” John informed her. “She judges in matters requiring stronger resolution than we can achieve on our own. She’s dangerous, occasionally terrifying, and she resolves conflict like nobody’s business.”