For the Taking

As this man was. He was studying her with serious intent. Oh, Lord, what had he seen? He was coming over to her, and there was definitely something about him… He was so big and broad and strong, utterly male from top to toe. Look at that long, sure stride! And those eyes! Even in the washed out, dusky light she could see how blue they were, as if filled with the ocean itself.

Filled with the ocean…

She had a strange moment of intuition, and he confirmed it with just one word.

“Thalassa.”

Her reaction came at gut level, making a mockery of her recent awareness of him. This wasn’t awareness. This was terror.

She scrambled to her feet, screamed and ran toward the headland, fifty yards away. Didn’t get far. Not against those long, powerful male legs. He caught up to her within yards and pulled hard on her shoulder to turn her around. His big hand was warm on her cold skin. He let it trail down her arm, and his fingers came within an inch of her breast, leaving an imprint of sensation there as they passed.

“Don’t run away, Thalassa,” he said. His voice was resonant and deep. “It is you. I knew it. I saw you with the dolphins. And look…”

He dropped his hand to point, and she saw at once what had convinced him. She hadn’t rubbed hard enough with her towel. Or else she’d stayed in the water too long.

On her outer thighs there were rough patches of scale, already beginning to flake away. Normally, her tail wasn’t like that. When properly formed it was smooth, silvery-green and glistening. But when she left the water at the wrong moment, as she had tonight, the scales were rough and white, and stood out strangely on her skin.

“Who are you?” she said in a voice that refused to work as it normally did. He had her cornered, with the sea at her back, the highest reach of the waves lapping occasionally at her heels, which were still tingling.

She saw a couple strolling along the beach, hand in hand, getting closer every second. She couldn’t run past them in a panic. If they tried to help her, how on earth would she explain? And the sea was no refuge. She already sensed that this stranger was far more at home there than she was. So she had to face him, confront him in a way that Cyria’s fearful directives had never prepared her for.

He was mer.

He had to be, to have known the name she hadn’t heard on anyone’s lips since Cyria’s death thirteen years ago. Lass registered his clothes—the rough, off-white sailcloth shirt, loosely covering his broad, smooth chest, and the close-fitting sealskin pants that ended, unhemmed, at the knotted swell of his calf muscles. She hadn’t seen clothing like this since she was eight.

He was mer, all right.

But who? Her father’s messenger? Cyria had always said that Okeana would come for them himself.

The stranger didn’t keep her in doubt about his identity for long.

“I am Loucan, son of Galen and now king of the Pacifican people. I have been looking for you for a long time, Thalassa.”

“To kill me,” she said. Her heart beat even faster. “You’re here to kill me, aren’t you?”

“No. I’m not your enemy.”

“Your father was.”

“Things have changed in Pacifica now. We are bringing the two factions together. I have no desire to harm you in any way.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“Then I’ll have to convince you. Thalassa, I know this must be a shock for you, after so long. Your father, King Okeana, is dead. You couldn’t have known that.”

Lass swallowed. “No.” But she wasn’t surprised at the news. He would have been an old man. In her heart, she had been mourning him for years, certain she would never see him again. “So how did you find me?” she demanded to know, the fear and anger surging through her again.

“It took a long time. But it started when I remembered your beautiful hair….”

Before he could reach her lustrous mass of waves, Lass ran from him, intent on destroying the very thing that led him to her.

Hours later, when he’d left her with his promise—or his threat—to return, and she was lying in her own bed with her now-shorn locks telling herself she was safe, her whole body still refused to stop shaking.

Lass’s hands shook again as she studied the pictures Loucan had spread for her on one of the tearoom tables.

Phoebe’s wedding to Kevin Cartwright was the more formal and traditional occasion, but Kai’s simple ceremony with rakishly handsome Ben was just as beautiful to Lass’s eyes. Both women looked radiantly lovely, with love and happiness sketched in every line of their bodies.

Pictures weren’t enough. She wanted to hear their voices, catch up on twenty-five years of lost time, hold them against her and hug them just as she used to when they were tiny.

How would she get through the day?

Looking up, she realized that Loucan wasn’t doing what she’d asked him to. Despite what he’d said a few minutes ago about bussing tables and tending bar, and despite his obvious intelligence and strength, she honestly wasn’t expecting him to be of much help. He seemed too powerful and too driven to have the necessary practical skills.

Susie had left the chairs stacked upside down on the tabletops after she’d cleaned last night, and Lass had simply asked Loucan to put them back in place. But he’d already done that, and now he was setting the tables, with the deft, experienced movements of someone who’d done this before.

His big hands flicked back and forth, unloading floral centerpieces, place mats, pepper and salt and sugar. The sight was incongruous, but apparently bothered him not at all. Evidently, he didn’t set much store by his image when he had a higher goal in view. Unwillingly, she was intrigued by what this said about the man who now ruled her ancestral home.

As he leaned over the tables, the fabric of his faded jeans tightened over his backside, emphasizing its compact, muscular shape. The sleeves of his T-shirt stretched taut around the hard bulk of his upper arms. Something softened and grew heavy inside her, making her deeply uncomfortable.

She quickly refocused on the photos.

He didn’t pause or look up, but he must have seen that she had been watching him, and that she wasn’t anymore.

“They’ve both married good men,” he said. “Men who deserve them. Because they’re great women, Lass. You’ll think so when you meet them again. Both of them are bright and loving and happy.”

“Oh, of course they are….”

“Saegar had a tough time, growing up. His guardian, Bali, kept him pretty isolated. He never spent any time on land until he met Beth—her father captured him and was planning to go public. Fortunately, that didn’t happen. And when Saegar fell in love with Beth, he made the decision to lose his tail.”

“He’ll never get it back.”

Saegar was one of the cursed among the mer people, able to grow his tail just once. His decision to shed it for the sake of his new love was irreversible. After living as a merman all his life, he must love his new bride very much to have made such a choice.

Lass’s chest tightened, as if an unseen hand was squeezing her heart. The idea of taking a step like that frightened her. There was no room for such a dramatic change in her own life. No room for love. Cyria had convinced her of that. Lass was happy here. She was safe, and she wanted to stay. She had promised Cyria that she wouldn’t go back. Pacifica held too many memories.

“Have they decided…” She stopped. Her voice was so scratchy it was barely intelligible. She cleared her throat. “Have they each decided where they’ll live now? If they’ve married land-dwellers, they won’t be returning to Pacifica, will they? Even if peace is fully restored there?”

“No. They’re all hoping to visit together very soon, but it’s not the same.”

She expected him to make more of an issue of it, but he didn’t. He had his back to her, setting the last of the tables, and she couldn’t read him. She knew he hadn’t come here just to tell her about her siblings. He wanted something from her. He’d told her that, and instinct told her to dread what it could be.

He obviously didn’t want to talk about it yet. Instead, he said in a matter-of-fact way, “I’m finished here. Tell me what you want done in the kitchen, and the gallery.”

“The gallery’s fine. Everything’s set up.”

“I liked some of the things I saw, coming through,” he said, following her into the adjoining kitchen. “Particularly those semiabstract paintings of the sea.”

Yes, those are my favorites, too.