Mermaid in a Bowl of Tears (Exit Unicorns Series) (49 page)

“He’s not got a name just yet. Lewis thought we might like to name him ourselves.”

“Is this his idea of a housewarming gift?”

“No, the poor thing’s been orphaned. Lewis tried to foster him with the other ewes, but they showed no interest. So he thought we might like to take him in.”

“He did, did he? And how are we to feed the little beggar?”

“Bottles, I’ve got the milk replacement powder.” She went to the sink and quickly whisked the powder into warm water.

“They need their feed the same temperature as blood,” she said over the rapidly escalating cries of the hungry lamb.

She turned, bottle in hand, testing the temperature against the inside of her wrist. The lamb, recognizing salvation when he saw it, tipped the box over in his panic to get out of it. He spilled across the floor, hooves clacking as he scrambled and slid his way over to the bottle. He butted his nose against the nipple, sending a warm spray of milk over his tiny black face. Then he settled to sucking with the desperation of all newborn creatures.

Casey shook his head. “I see I’ll not be able to let ye roam about freely here, ye’ll bring every disreputable abandoned creature ye stumble across back with ye.”

“Lewis said he’d die without anyone to look after him, what could I do?”

“
Pah
,” Casey infused the one syllable with a great deal of scorn. “He knew a soft touch when he saw one. He’d not have let the wee thing die. Ye just happened along at a fortuitous moment for the man, Jewel.”

“I’ve been had, haven’t I?” she said ruefully.

“Afraid so.” He sighed, “I suppose I’ll need to build a pen now, won’t I?”

Lawrence shambled past smelling rather strongly of Polo mints and Casey grabbed him by his grubby shirtsleeve.

“Ye might,” he said plucking the cigarette from the boy’s rolled cuff, “try hiding them a little better. Ye’d one behind yer ear when ye came in with the dog last night.”

“I’ll quit when youse do,” Lawrence said boldly, and Pamela had to bite her cheek to keep from laughing. This was the one place he had Casey over the turnstile and the lad knew it well, though he’d not dared to challenge him with it before. Which she took as a healthy sign he was getting comfortable and secure in the knowledge that he had a home.

Finbar, the following wave to Lawrence’s riptide, was now nose-to-nose with the lamb, both wagging their respective tails vigorously, despite the furrow of hair that stood high upon the dog’s back.

“Who’s that?” Lawrence asked, with the suspicion of one who viewed farm animals as merely cutlets, shanks and ribs.

“That would be the sheep that yerself an’ I are buildin’ a pen for this afternoon,” Casey replied gloomily. “Come on lad, an’ bring yer cigarettes with ye. I’ve a feelin’ I’ll need them before the afternoon is out.”

CASEY’S BIRTHDAY DAWNED in a breathless heat. Pamela awoke when he rose from the bed. The night hadn’t cooled off much and so the blankets lay on the floor, except for the one thin sheet that lay lightly over her bare skin. She stretched luxuriantly, feeling like a contented cat in a patch of sunlight. She turned her head to the side and encountered a twig, as well as the strong scent of greenery on the linens. She smiled to herself, and blushed at the memory of the previous night.

She’d awakened in the middle of the night to find Casey standing at the window naked, a soft glow of moonlight turning him silver. Despite the still of his body, she could feel his restlessness as though it were a separate entity pacing the room.

“What’s the matter?”

“Mmm,” he turned from the window. “I couldn’t sleep. I woke up wantin’ ye, but ye were so peaceful it didn’t seem right to rouse ye.”

“Come back to bed then,” she said, raising a hand in invitation. Due to the nausea of early pregnancy and his own fears of endangering the baby or herself, Casey had been enduring a state of deprivation that didn’t suit either of them.

He shook his head. “The night is fine, come outside with me where we’ll not wake anyone.”

“Are you planning on there being a great deal of noise?”

“Aye,” Casey replied and there was no mistaking the gleam in his eye, “I mean to make ye scream, an’ I’d just as soon the dog an’ the sheep an’ the boy didn’t come to investigate the reason why.”

“Think you can make me scream, do you?” she asked, arching a challenging brow at him.

He grinned smugly. “Ye know I can, Jewel. But if ye’ve doubts about my current ability to do so, perhaps ye’d like to accompany me outside.”

The air was still thick with heat, warm as bathwater on their skin as they stepped over the doorsill and into the night. Even the moonlight fell in a warm cascade over the trees, pouring a sleepy light onto the path they took down to the water.

The ground was warm beneath her as Casey laid her back amongst the soft mosses.

Heat sprang up on her skin at the touch of his hands. Night was the only time she was completely free of the nausea that plagued her during the day. Her breasts were swollen and extra sensitive to touch and when he put his mouth over one she shuddered, desire flooding her entire body, mouth dry with want.

There was restraint in his body, she could feel it in the way he held himself above her, upper arms trembling visibly.

“It’s okay,” she whispered, wrapping her legs around him to pull him close. Too close for hesitation. “You’re not going to hurt us.”

He slid inside her, with a sighing breath that sounded very much like the relief of a starving man. Consciousness of her surroundings slid away, the moon a soft blur of melted opal above her. He moved inside her with slow deliberation, careful and yet determined to push her to the limits of her desire. Which he did again and again, only to draw back at the crucial moment, leaving her panting, nails biting through the dark band of his tattoo.

“Have mercy, man,” she managed to gasp out, entire body slick with a fine dew of sweat.

“Aye,” he said, grazing his teeth along the arch of her neck, “I’ll have mercy—when ye scream for it.”

The smell of water and earth was heavy in her nostrils. Above her Casey moved one last time, his shoulders blocking out the moon. The last thrust took her beyond thought, to where everything seemed to rush away like flotsam before floodwater. She came back to her senses slowly to feel Casey removing his hand from her mouth.

“Happy?” she asked, suddenly embarrassed, thinking of how often Mr. Guderson walked the hills at night. Hopefully his rheumatism had kept him indoors tonight.

“Aye,” he said, and there was no mistaking the purely male satisfaction in his tone. “Though it wasn’t so loud—I just didn’t want ye wakin’ anyone else’s sheep.” She could see the flash of his grin in the dark.

“You’re lucky I don’t have the strength to hit you.”

“Ungrateful wench,” he said, then rolled off her, landing neatly on his stomach in the moss. The night around them was thick with quiet, as though even the birds and bugs had been defeated by the heat.

“Was it this hot the day you were born?”

“Aye, enough to melt tar. Though I’ve had plenty of rainy birthdays as well.”

“Were you born in the morning?”

He nodded. “Just as the sun came up, how’d ye know that, Jewel?”

“Makes sense, you’re always up with the birds. I imagine you were just as impatient that day to get started on things as you are every other morning.”

He laughed softly. “My da’ didn’t hold much with superstition nor things such as birth signs, but he said it was fittin’ that I was born under the sign of the lion as I’d come out roarin’ an’ mad, with the sun fit to boil out of the sky.”

She thought of the pictures she’d seen of him as a small boy, always tousle-haired, the camera catching him on the run, as though he’d never had the patience to stand for a snapshot.

“How long did you stay mad?”

“Da’ said I wasn’t happy until I got up on my legs and could run. Had scrapes an’ bruises all over me from tumblin’ over my feet ‘til I was about fifteen. How about yerself? What time of day were ye born?”

“Early evening, Rose used to say that was why I was secretive and quiet, that I had a twilight soul.”

“Twilight soul, I like that. It suits ye. I’ve always loved that time of day—not day, not night—just balanced there between the two worlds. Something so perfect that no matter how many times ye see it ye still can’t take it for granted. Like yerself.”

“Don’t make me cry man, or I’ll not give you your gift.”

“Thought I’d already had it,” he said, cocking an eyebrow at her.

“If you consider that a gift, then we’ve celebrated your birthday on an almost daily basis this year.”

He grinned. “Don’t worry yerself woman. I’ll love it, whatever it is, ye know I will.”

She sighed. “Gifts always seem inadequate. I want to give you intangible things, things that have no name but will keep you warm and safe everyday. I want to take all your troubles away from you and give you a quiet calm whenever you need it.”

“Ye do Jewel, yer love gives me all those things. This—us—is the best gift. I grow stronger the minute ye lay hands upon me. An’ yet that’s the time I’m more vulnerable than any other.”

He traced the fine bridge of her collarbone with one hand, eyes dark as the night around them.

“It’s this too,” she shivered as he ran his fingers down the length of her back, still damp with their combined heat. “The way that ye trust me. It makes me feel protective as hell, an’ yet it makes me want to cry at the same time. I feel a fool sayin’ these things but I know ye won’t laugh at me for speakin’ them, clumsy as my tongue might be.” His hand had come to rest over the slight round of her stomach, where the beginnings of their child floated in a primordial sea of blood and salt.

“Happy birthday,” she said softly.

He smiled, a sweet curve with a flash of dimple. “It already is.”

CASEY WAS LATE FOR DINNER. The day had been a long one, the heat close to unbearable, wearing upon everyone’s nerves, until even Paudeen’s half-hearted bleats seemed churlish and designed to annoy.

Pamela’s nausea was heightened by the still heavy air, and she paid for her night time adventures with a thick lethargy that made her feel as though she was moving through syrup for much of the day. Cooking all of Casey’s favorite foods did little to improve the heat in the kitchen, nor did the fact that the dishes were alternatively dried out or partially scorched by the time the man of the hour made his appearance over the doorstep.

He found his family in various stages of mutiny. The dog and the lamb in a tussle over a length of twine outside the doorway, Lawrence indulging in a forbidden cigarette behind the half-constructed shed, Pamela—flushed and miserable looking—taking something out of the oven that looked as though it had spent a season in the desert. He sighed, for better or worse
that
appeared to be dinner. Being that it was his birthday, he’d have to eat it and smile while doing so.

He kissed Pamela’s shoulder and sniffed at the thing that was dinner. “Smells divine,” he said, stifling a cough. The kitchen was noticeably smoky.

She merely glared at him and thumped the thing that was dinner down upon the counter.

“The lot of ye ought to be down by the water, it’s likely to be a sight cooler.”

“You think?” Pamela retorted sarcastically, dropping into a chair and fanning her face with a church circular.

“We,” Lawrence said, coming in the open door, “were waitin’ for youse to come home.” He popped a Polo mint into his mouth and set to chewing it vigorously.

“Hand over the cigarettes,” Casey said, sticking a hand under the boy’s nose.

“Don’t see why ye can puff away as ye please an’ I’m treated like a criminal for havin’ the one in five days,” Lawrence grumbled, digging two lumpy hand-rolleds out of his pocket.

“I’m grown, an’ if ye don’t quit smokin’ these—” Casey shook one of the cigarettes under his nose, “ye never will be.”

Lawrence opened his mouth to protest, but a shake of Casey’s head was enough to silence him. The boy was a quick learner. He dug in his other pocket and emerged with a small, untidily wrapped box, festooned with a yard of red ribbon.

“Will I give ye yer present then?” he asked, face bright with anticipation though his hands shook slightly.

Casey raised an eyebrow at Pamela in question. She nodded, “Dinner won’t suffer by waiting another minute or two.”

Lawrence handed him the small box.

“Ye didn’t need to do this laddie,” Casey said, voice rough as it always was when he was particularly touched.

Lawrence, eyes glued to the package, didn’t respond.

Casey opened it quickly, noting the boy’s impatience. There was a heavy silence as he gazed down into the box.

“Well what is it?” Pamela asked, impatient to see what Lawrence had been so excited about.

“It’s a watch,” Casey said, voice curiously flat.

It was a pocket watch, the fleur-de-lis design on its lid slightly worn with rubbing. Casey still hadn’t moved, so she took it from him and touched a finger to the tiny button. The lid sprang up, as though freshly oiled, to reveal a face with dark Roman numerals and four tiny diamonds at each cardinal point. A delicate, one-note version of
The Faerie’s Lament
stepped out upon the still air.