Catch of a Lifetime (23 page)

   And lies.

   Yeah. That. She'd lied to him.

   Her head fell back, and she closed her eyes. A liar. She'd been reduced to lying about who she was. Reduced to skulking around to find some way to wiggle into the job she wanted. Granted, Rod should interview her like he did everyone else, but she, too, should have gone about applying for the job like everyone else did— in ways not designed to break the rules and subvert tried and true Mer practices.

   She deserved everything she'd gotten—or hadn't gotten.

   She flung her arms out to her sides and fell back against the sand, the sun warming her, and she remem bered Mariana's suggestion about getting burned.

   The pain in her heart was more searing than any ray of the sun.

   Gods… Logan. How could it have gone so wrong?

   And Michael… She'd promised him she'd be there this morning, and now she'd made a liar out of herself with that, too. The poor kid had been through so much already…

   A wave came out of nowhere to splash over her, salty drops sprinkling her face. Ah, the irony of the Universe flinging her tears back at her.

   Okay, already. She got it. She should have kept to the original plan of observing and not gotten involved. It was all her own fault.

   So what was she going to do about it?

   Angel grabbed two handfuls of sand. Do? What
could
she do? Logan had made his point perfectly clear, and she was not a glutton for punishment. She wasn't going to do anything. That stupid conscience of hers could just take a permanent vacation some place cold. Like Antarctica. Angel didn't want to hear anything from it ever again.

   Yet here she floated, moaning and giving up. Was that really what she wanted to do for the rest of her life?

   Not really. But Rod certainly wasn't going to give her the job now, and what else could she do? She'd left her notes in Logan's guesthouse, and there was no way to fix this. Logan didn't want to listen; she'd lied to him and had—albeit inadvertently—bewitched him. He had a valid point. Several, in fact.

   And Rod was sure to point out—not that he needed to because she was certainly aware of that fact now—that if she could screw up something like this, something so important to her, so personal, what did it say about her ability to handle the big-ticket items like world peace and interspecies integration?

   No. She was done. She'd turn in her degree along with her aspirations and find something else to do. Salvage work maybe.

   At least her Human knowledge would be good for something.

C
OME
TO
P
APA
! A.C.'S PRIZED TEETH GROUND AGAINST EACH other in anticipation—and this time he didn't give a fly ing fuck that a few broke off. Breakfast was about to be served.

   "AAAnngggeeelll!"

   Of
course
the pup had to be yelling underwater. A.C. wanted to clean out his ears. Too bad they were on the dorsal side of his head and he couldn't reach them. Hades. Didn't the pup have anything else to say? Another tone he could use?

   If only he could surge in and grab him, but A.C. was still a few yards too far out, and the water was becoming too shallow for him to be able to function properly. And if there was one thing a Hammerhead liked to do, it was function properly. He was a veritable killing machine created by the gods. He hadn't missed any prey yet.

   Except that Mer…

   Yeah. Much as he hated to admit it, the fact that Angel had gotten away did count as a miss. Couldn't have that. He had a 100 percent EVA. Earned Victim Average. He'd put a lot of effort into it.

   A.C. strummed his pectoral fin against the sandy bot tom. How could he get Angel?

   "AAAAnnnnggggeeeellll! I wanna come with you!" The pup splashed a few more yards into the water.

   How handy was that?

   "Hey, pup. I mean, kid." A.C. tilted his head side ways so the words would resonate above the water. Hammers were definitely
not
made to talk like this, but when you wanted something badly enough, you found a way.

   "Who said that?" The pup stopped screaming. Finally.

   Another handy thing was the fact that Human vocal chords were located in the neck, A.C.'s usual target of attack.

   Although… Hmmm… Maybe he wouldn't eat him. Well, not yet anyway. If the pup—kid—cared this much about her, maybe she cared about him, too, and why
not
kill two parrotfish with one strike?

   Yeah. He'd use the
kid
as bait to lure Angel out of her royal air bubble. Wouldn't
that
be a bait and switch? Mers were all about protecting the young—even Human young. He'd seen some perfectly fine cruise-ship meals pass him by, thanks to those damn altruistic Mers turned-dolphins.

   Dolphins.
Blech.
Mammal, or a Mer who'd turned into one for whatever idiotic reason they came up with, the result was the same: perpetually smiling, happy do gooders. Made him want to puke.

   The kid stopped moving and put a hat on his head.

   Yeah, that ought to protect him.

   Not.

   "Angel?"

   "No. Me." A.C.'s mind was churning along with the anticipation in his gut. He knew what he was going to do. And it was going to be a
b-eaut
. Everyone would be talking about this catch.

   It really was a no-brainer to see why he was high on the food chain in every ocean. Instinct jumped in and saved him where indecision could have lost him this deal.

   "You're… a shark."

   Oooh, score one for the Human. "Yeah, I am. Problem with that?"

   "Sharks eat people."

   Only if they qualified as a meal. This pup was barely an appetizer. "Well, some do. But not all of us. And I can take you to Angel."

   "You can? Cool!"

   A.C. had absolutely no problem lying to him. A shark with a conscience was a skinny shark. Dead, even.

   Besides he
would
take him to her. Right before he ate both of them.

   The Human started heading in deeper. A little slower than A.C. would have liked, but it was progress—to both a gargantuan meal and one hell of a reputation. He didn't know the last time a shark had gotten a Mer.

   "You really know where Angel is?"

   Heh. He'd hooked the little sucker. "You betcha."

   And then the sucker stopped. Two more feet, and
his
two feet would be A.C.'s.

   "I dunno."

   Gods save him from creatures with a brain—which would be why he put up with Abby. What that shark could do with only two brain cells…

   "Look, kid. I can't hang out here all day. You comin' or what?" A.C. even turned a hundred-and-twenty de grees to make it look legit.

   "How?"

   "
How?" What did he mean, how? It was the ocean
. He was a shark. Was there really a question?

   "Yeah. How? I can't breathe water like you and Angel can. I don't wanna get drowned."

   Fuck. He hadn't thought about that.

   A.C. scanned the area. He didn't see any boats around. No one to see him hauling his prize through the water and decide
he'd
make a nicer prize.

   "Yeah. Okay. Whatever. You can ride on top. Climb on." The things he did for dinner. And lunch. And an appetizer… He'd savor every one of Angel's scales.

   "Okay. I'm comin'." And with that, two little legs splashed through the waves, right toward him. A.C.'s mouth started to water.

   The kid climbed aboard and grabbed hold of his dorsal. A.C. hoped none of the guys saw him acting like those stupid, Human-friendly dolphins, but then, they had no room to talk. They were just plain stupid. Besides, they were probably still asleep. Losers.

   Still, A.C. wanted to hightail it out of there, so he whipped his caudal fin sideways—and almost flung his appetizer off in the process. He slowed down so the kid could hold on for dear life—such a futile gesture— because there was no fucking way he was gonna lose his ticket to a tasty Mer meal. This was like taking candy from a baby.

   No. Make that,
making
candy from a baby.

LOGAN WOKE UP WITH A HELL OF A HANGOVER. AND he hadn't even been drinking—how was that for
fucking sucks?

   No, it wasn't a hangover. He was drained. Physically from one of the best nights of his life—
before
her reve lation—and emotionally… from, well…

   The damn revelation itself.

   She was a mermaid. A
mermaid
.

   He wouldn't have believed it if he hadn't seen it with his own eyes. He almost wished he'd touched her tail—

   No he didn't. She was a
mermaid
, for chrissake.

   Mermaids were myths. Legends. Sirens. They lured ships onto rocks and sailors to their deaths by promis ing nights of deadly delight. Which she'd proved in that damn kitchen.

   He
knew
something weird had been going on. He didn't attack women. No matter how gorgeous they were.

   And yet, he'd
slept
with her. Was he out of his mind?

   He had to be. She had to have cast some spell over him to make him fall—oh, shit.

   Logan threw the covers off, one half of his brain call ing him all sorts of idiot for even thinking what he was thinking, the other half terrified she
had
actually done something to him.

   He looked down.

   Normal. Thank God.

Tired and worn out, but normal.

Je
sus.

   Logan dropped his head back on the pillow, his arms flopping to the sides, his hand curling into an indenta tion he found on his left. When he realized what he was doing, he yanked it away.

   She. Was. A. Mermaid.

   Logan ran a hand over his face. He needed a shave.

   Hell, he needed a lot of things. A shave, a shower, a drink, and a trip out of town. Not necessarily in that order.

   
Michael.

   Logan closed his eyes, groaning. How was he going to tell Michael about Angel leaving?

   How was he going to tell Michael about
Angel
?

   
Uh, son? Remember when I said mermaids don't
exist? Well, I was wrong. They do, and they're every bit
as sensuous and desirable as the legends say.

   Yeah. Not kid material.

   Seriously, what was he going to tell Michael?

   Kicking the rest of the sheet off, Logan groaned his way to sitting. He dropped his hands between his legs, resting his elbows on his thighs, chin to his chest, and took a deep breath.

   And another.

   Somehow he was going to have to explain to his son that the woman he'd come to care about was gone. Logan wasn't sure if that "he" referred to Michael, or to him.

   Logan stood up. It didn't matter who it referred to. She was gone. It was over—and there was a mer maid swimming somewhere out in the water off the coast of Florida and he was the only one who knew about it.

   As if anyone would believe him anyway.

   He turned on the shower, the quick hiss of the cold spray hitting his skin with the brutality he needed to really wake up and get out of this fog. So, okay, he wouldn't be telling anyone he'd seen—slept with—a mermaid. Life could go on just as it always had. As it had before she'd shown up.

   Ignoring the fact that the shampoo in his shower was the same one he'd stocked the guesthouse with—he was
not
going to remember what she'd smelled like—Logan poured some onto his palm, then rubbed it into his hair— a little too vigorously.

   
Good job on the ignoring…

   He took a breath. Life
would
go on as it had before she'd shown up.

   Except life
wasn't
the same, and she
had
shown up—

   And he'd gone and fallen in love with her.

   His eyes started to burn. Shit. He'd gotten shampoo in them.

   Logan ducked his face beneath the spray, gritting his teeth against the pain.

   In his eyes. The pain in his eyes.

   
Yeah, right.

   Okay, so what? Yeah, it hurt. He'd never been in love with anyone before, not even Christine, and now, when he did go and fall in love, she was a freaking
mermaid?

   Talk about fucked up. And he'd thought the circus was bad. Wouldn't his parents just love to get their hands on her? The perfect sideshow.

   Hell. That damn prediction of Nadia's. She'd actually been right.

   But so what? There could never be anything between him and Angel. She was a
mermaid
.

   Maybe if he said it enough, it'd start to make sense.

   Blinking his eyes, Logan turned off the shower and grabbed a towel, scrubbing his face with it, trying to stop the pain.

   If only it were that easy with his heart. How the hell did you fall
out
of love?

   He wrapped the towel around his waist, tossed back a few aspirin, then headed to his closet. However you fell out of love, he was going to do it. He wanted Normal. Not the sideshow. Not a scientific anomaly or a legend come to life. Normal. Was that too much to ask?

   Apparently it was, and now he had to tell Michael.

   He was probably looking forward to that less than trying to get last night out of his head.
All o
f last night.

   Logan pulled on his shorts and grabbed a button-down off a hanger, folding the sleeves back on his forearms as he walked down the hallway to his son's room. Ten o'clock. They'd both overslept. No surprise why he had. But, Michael? Actually, that
was
surprising.