Sea Fever (23 page)

“I wouldn’t mind. But I didn’t mean that. The decision’s up to you.”

She smiled, an oddly aware, bitter little smile that lifted her face from

ordinary to arresting. “It’s always been up to you.”

* * *

Regina frowned and applied antibiotic ointment from the kitchen

first aid kit to Dylan’s scrapes. He sat on a stool at the dining room

counter, out of the way of the prep continuing in the kitchen. She had to

stand between his thighs to dot ointment on his cheek. He flinched as she

brushed an abrasion near his eye.

She winced in sympathy. “I don’t know how you did this,” she

grumbled.

He grinned at her foolishly, making her heart lurch. “Neither do I.”

“You sound disgustingly pleased with yourself.”

“I am.” He waited until his words caught her attention, until his gaze

caught hers. “I warded the building.”

“You . . .” Comprehension, relief, gratitude, all rushed in on her.

“Wow. That’s . . . wonderful.”

“I didn’t think I could,” he confessed.

Her heart tightened at the aching uncertainty in his voice. She

touched him lightly, unable to keep her fingers from lingering on the

tender skin beside his eye, below his jaw. “Well, you did.

Congratulations.”

He caught her hand and pressed it to his cheek. The stubble of his

beard rasped her palm. “You don’t have to do this.”

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She swallowed and tugged her hand away to feather ointment on his

broken lip, struggling to keep her tone light. “Yeah, I do. You took care

of me, seems I should take care of you.”

He touched his thumb to the side of her mouth, to her own cracked

and throbbing lip. His mouth was so close to hers, and his eyes were close

and dark and full of heat. “Now we match,” he whispered, and his words

and his look stopped her breath. Caught her heart.

She smiled crookedly. “I guess we do.”

But she knew better than to believe it.

She wiped her fingers on a napkin and reached for the top to the

ointment. However tempting she found this strange, addictive new mood

of his, it would pass. Sooner or later, Dylan would remember that he was

selkie and she was only the human incubator of a child who might one

day be useful to his people.

And then he would break her heart.

She dropped the ointment back in the box. “So, are you still going

down to the beach this afternoon?”

“I must.” Dylan hesitated. “The prince will expect a report.”

“Sure. No problem.”

Not his problem anyway. She’d made it clear her family was her

priority. Dylan had been equally up front about having other priorities.

Other allegiances. Now that he’d delivered on his promise to protect her,

she wasn’t looking at him to hold her hand or change her life. She didn’t

need him hanging around, getting underfoot, in her way, in her hair, in

her heart . . .

“Regina.” Dylan’s voice shivered through her, shaking her resolve.

“What is it?”

“Nothing.” She snapped the first aid kit shut and stepped from

between his thighs. “I’m fine. I don’t want to bother you.”

“Woman.” His low growl vibrated in her ear. “You have badgered,

pestered, distracted, and annoyed me since I met you. Why stop now?”

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A reluctant smile tugged at her lips. She stole a look at him and saw

an answering smile lurking in his eyes.

Sighing, she relaxed against his restraining arm. “Well, since you put

it so nicely . . .”

He laughed, attracting Antonia’s glance through the kitchen pass.

Regina lowered her voice. “If you’re going through town, could you

stop at Wiley’s? I need vitamins.”

“Pills?” Concern leaped into his black eyes. “Are you sick?”

“No, I’m pregnant. I need prenatal vitamins.”

“But you’re all right,” he pressed.

“Fine.” She was almost embarrassed now to have brought it up.

Since when did she need a guy to run her errands? “Well, I’ve had a little

cramping, but—”

“Have you called the doctor?”

She blinked, confused by his urgency. And more touched than she

could say. Although, of course, he had Selkie Baby to consider. “I gave

her a call while you were outside. She said a little cramping and nausea

were perfectly normal and to keep taking my vitamins. So—”

“What if I buy the wrong kind?”

She sighed. “Listen, never mind. I can—”

“No, I’ll do it. You need vitamins, I’ll buy vitamins. Prenatal ones.”

His tone was grim, his gaze almost panicked.

Regina couldn’t decide which was more adorable, his masculine

discomfort with his errand or his obvious determination to do the right

thing. Good thing she wasn’t sending him out for tampons. To tease him,

to test him, she whispered wickedly, “Or you could stay here and explain

to my mother why I need them.”

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His face paled beneath his golden tan. “Better your mother,” he

muttered, “than those squawking gulls in town.”

“At least you can charm the gulls.”

He raised one eyebrow. “I can charm your mother.”

He probably could, Regina thought, contemplating that dark,

handsome face. He could charm anyone. He’d certainly charmed the

pants off her.

“Not after she learns you knocked me up.”

He leaned closer, making her heart race. “You still find me

charming.”

Her breath went. “Ha.”

“You can’t help yourself.” His breath skated over her lips. His lips

skimmed her jaw. Desire drizzled like honey under her skin. “My power

over women is irresistible.”

She heard the laughter throbbing in his voice and under the laughter

something else, something deeper, something almost like . . . yearning.

She felt herself leaning, melting into him, and closed her eyes. “Your

ego is unbelievable.”

“Let me prove it to you,” he murmured, his hands circling her ribs,

his voice warm and seductive at her ear. “Let me charm you, Regina. Let

me love you.”

Oh. Her heart contracted sharply.

“Oh.” Lucy’s voice, high and mortified. “Antonia sent us to . . . I

didn’t mean to interrupt.”

Regina disentangled herself from Dylan. Lucy stood in the kitchen

door, with Margred behind her.

“You’re not interrupting,” Regina lied, heat creeping up her face. “I

was just giving Dylan an errand to do for me in town.”

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Margred arched her brows. “Is that what you were giving him?”

“I don’t pay you to stand and talk,” Antonia bawled from the line.

“Let’s clean those tables. We open in an hour.”

Margred strolled forward, as elegant carrying a rag and a bottle of

sanitizer as a sommelier with a folded napkin around a bottle of Grand-

Cru.

“Is that wise?” Margred murmured to Dylan. “To leave her . . .

now?”

“It’s safe.” Dylan looked over her head to Regina, directing his

assurance to her. There was a new confidence in his voice, she realized,

an energy she hadn’t heard before.

“I warded the building,” he said.

Margred inhaled. “I’m impressed. That was you?”

“Not only me. I thought . . . I felt . . . You?”

She shook her head, eyes wide.

Regina watched their byplay, lost.

Dylan frowned. “Then . . .”

Nick barged through the kitchen door, his sneakers squeaking on the

old wood floors, and fixed Dylan with wide, hopeful eyes. “Nonna said

you were going to the store. Can I come?”

Dylan glanced down. “Not this time.”

Regina winced. Ouch.

Nick hunched a shoulder in a boy’s gesture. “Okay. Whatever.”

Regina read his body language as easily as his heart: I didn’t want to

anyway. Better to pretend that you didn’t want something, than to hope

and have it denied . . .

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This was what she was afraid of, she realized. That her son would

fall in love as quickly as she had done.

“Maybe you could hold on to something for me until I get back,”

Dylan suggested.

Nick’s chin came up. He was interested, but wary. No fool, her boy.

“Like what?”

Dylan reached into his pocket and withdrew a silver coin. A Morgan

Liberty Head silver dollar. Regina had looked it up online. The thing was

worth a couple hundred dollars, easy. She sucked in her breath.

Dylan’s gaze clashed with hers.

She exhaled slowly, without speaking.

Nick examined the coin in his grubby palm and then looked up at

Dylan. “What’s this, like, a bribe?”

“If it was a bribe, I would have to give it to you,” Dylan explained.

“Which I can’t, because your mother would skin us both.”

Nick snickered.

“It’s a marker. Like a promise,” Dylan said. “You keep it safe until I

ask for it, and then I take you out in my boat.”

Nick’s gaze flickered to his mom. “Is that okay?”

She hugged her arms across her chest to hold in her expanding heart.

“It’s your deal, kiddo.”

“Okay. Cool.” His fingers closed on the coin. A smile cracked his

thin face as he stuck out his other hand. “Deal.”

Dylan nodded once, his large, dark hand encompassing Nick’s small,

dirty one.

This was her son, Regina thought, almost dizzy with emotion. Her

family, her life. She had never had a man in her life, never felt the need

for one.

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But now, watching Dylan shake hands with her son, she realized

how easily he could make a place with them.

And how much it would hurt when he was gone.

190

Fifteen

THE TEENAGER BEHIND THE REGISTER AT THE grocery

store blinked purple-lined eyes at the coins on the counter. “You can’t

pay with those.”

Impatience whipped through Dylan like wind through a sail. He

quivered, desperate to be gone. Browsing the pharmacy aisles had been a

nightmare. Too many labels. Too many choices. What if he guessed

wrong? He glared at the girl standing between him and freedom and

snarled, “Take the damn money.”

Her painted eyes widened. Her jaw dropped. “Dad!” she hollered.

Dylan ground his teeth together. So much for his ability to charm.

A man with a build like a barrel and a receding hairline rolled over

from the meat counter. “Problem here?”

“He—” The girl thrust her lip ring in Dylan’s direction. “Wants to

pay with that.” She sneered at the fortune in silver plunked on the

counter.

“They’re dollars,” Dylan said tightly.

American dollars. It wasn’t like he’d offered her Caesars or

doubloons.

Usually when he needed cash to buy propane or supplies, he sold a

few coins to a dealer in Rockland. But the past few weeks on World’s

End had depleted his currency.

“So I . . .” The creases deepened at the corners of the man’s eyes.

“Dylan? I heard you were back.”

Dylan regarded him blankly.

“George,” the man said.

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Dylan had gone to school with a boy named George. They’d shared

a classroom from kindergarten through eighth grade, shared gum and

homework answers and copies of Penthouse that George had smuggled

from behind the counter of his father’s store. Wiley’s Grocery. George

Wiley. George.

Dylan managed to unglue his tongue from the roof of his mouth.

“Good to see you again.”

“Yeah, you, too. Boy, you look just the same.” George shook his

head. “Just the same.”

Because he’d aged only half the time, Dylan thought, with an odd

lurch in his stomach.

George beamed at the girl with the purple eye shadow. “That’s my

daughter, Stephanie, who won’t take your money.”

She rolled her eyes. “Dad-deee.”

His friend George was a father, Dylan thought dazedly. An

overweight store owner with an adolescent daughter. Nothing human

endured . . .

“So, you want us to run a tab for you?” George asked.

Dylan scowled. “What?”

His old friend nodded at the pile of coins on the counter. “What you

got there is probably worth half my inventory. I don’t know exactly how

much, and I sure as hell can’t make change. So we’ll open you an

account, and you settle up when you can.”

Maybe some things endured, Dylan realized. Like a boy’s casually

offered friendship, long after the boy had grown.

He swallowed past a constriction in his throat. “That would be . . .

good. Thanks.”

“What are friends for?” George made an entry in a ledger; glanced at

the prenatal vitamins as he bagged them. “How’s Regina?”

“Fine.”

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Pregnant.

“Good.” George’s grin widened. “Women and the island, they get to

us all, buddy. You give her my best.”

Dylan walked out, purchase in hand and George’s good wishes in his