Wild Blue Under

by Judi Fennell

  Who was he trying to convince?

  A shoal of silversides burst from a narrow tunnel in the wall behind the desk, heralding the arrival of a Messenger lobster. Sometimes the little fish were a bit too self-important. As was the crustacean who scuttled out with a slate held tightly in his pincers. Gods, could Dad ever get a break?

  “You should take a vacation when this is all over, Dad. Take Mom on that tour of the Seven Seas you’ve always talked about.” Thank the gods Charley took the slate. Dad didn’t need any bad news.

  “What’s it say, Charley?”

  Of course, Dad couldn’t let it go. It was his job and the reason the Mer world was lucky to have him on board.

  “Just what Livingston suspected,” Charley said, filing the slate in the middle of the ones she’d brought. “But they’re on their way.”

  Dad’s exhalation sent a herd of baby seahorses twirling through the seawater, up toward the mosaic-tiled ceiling.

  “Livingston? What does the Chief of the ASA have to do with this? What’s going on, Dad?”

  Dad shook his head and reached for the champagne bottle again.

  That frightened her. She’d never seen him drink like this before. Even when Reel had been “detained” by Ceto in her palace last year, Dad had been storming all over the place, tossing things port and starboard. But this, this was something else.

  Charley zipped over, taking her by the arm and steering her toward the door. “Everything’s fine, Angel.”

  Angel shook off Charley’s grasp. “I wasn’t born yesterday, Charley. What’s going on? What are you two so worried about? Does Mom know?”

  Dad looked up, his mouth a thin line. And a hundred new lines around his eyes. He really did need to retire.

  “Yes, your mother knows. And everything’s going to be okay now, urchin. Really.”

  “Now? Why now? What aren’t you telling me?”

  Dad glanced at Charley—a sure sign he was hiding something. She’d studied Human behavior enough to recognize it in Mers. And this was bad.

  Charley sighed and removed his glasses. “There’s been an attempt on your brother’s life, Angel. But Livingston’s with him, and The Council is going full-steam ahead with the investigation. We needed to get him out harm’s way.”

  “An attempt on his life? And you didn’t tell him?” She didn’t know who she wanted to throttle more, her father, Charley, or the idiot who’d dared take a shot at her brother. Dad had kept a huge secret from Reel, which hadn’t done either of them any favors—and now he was doing it again?

  She’d thought he’d learned his lesson—which meant… “Dad, did the gods forbid you from telling Rod about this?”

  Dad shook his head and straightened his shoulders. He swam over to his desk and rifled through the stack of slates. “Rod didn’t need the added worry, Angel. There’s nothing he can do here, and Lance’s daughter has to be brought back. It’s the perfect solution. We’ve got the top wrasse working on it. They’ll find out who it was and round him up before Rod gets back.”

  “Dad, this trip is supposed to be two days at the most. Don’t you think you’re cutting it a bit close? And he’s not going to be thrilled to find out you haven’t told him the truth.”

  Dad pulled out a slate. She was betting it was the one Charley had just shoved in there on the pretext of everything being okay.

  Right.

  “Sometimes a High Councilman has to do things he doesn’t want to, Angel.” Dad squinted at the slate. “Rod will learn that. It goes with the job.”

  Which meant the gods had set down the decree and Dad had had to follow it to the letter.

  “There’s a lot to be said for Humans’ independent thinking,” she muttered, her hand on the doorknob. Nothing she could say would matter a hill of seashells when going up against the gods’ decree.

  “What was that?” Charley put a hand on the door to prevent her from opening it.

  “Oh, it was nothing.” No need to add treasonous talk to Dad’s worries, but this was the reason she found Humans fascinating. Sure, they were ruining the planet with their greed and gluttony, but no one could tell them what to do and get away with it. They took tyrants down.

  But how in Hades did one argue with a god?

  Chapter 18

  Val pulled into a roadside diner an hour later, or maybe it was two—she’d lost track—arms aching, head pounding, stomach growling, and bladder screaming for a break.

  “Valerie, what are you doing?” Livingston popped open one eye from his perch on the backseat.

  “It’s called answering the call of Nature, Livingston. Perhaps you’ve heard of it?” She grabbed her wallet from her bag then unclicked her seat belt while Rod did the same.

  “Livingston,” he said, “find the nearest airport. We need to get to the coast quickly. And see what you can find out about JR’s plans. At the very least, I want to know if he’s been by here. We’ll wait for you.”

  The bird sighed, long and suffering. “Fine. But bring me a burger. All the fixin’s. Oh, and fries. Cheese fries.”

  Val opened the door. The rain had slackened to a deluge, and the low, gray clouds didn’t show signs of letting up. “You’re not eating cheese fries in my car.”

  The bird rolled his eyes as he hopped back onto the dash for takeoff. “Fine. But throw on extra salt. You Humans never add enough salt.”

  They heard him cursing—at both Humans and the weather—as he flapped away.

  The silver-sided diner was a throwback to the fifties, down to the clichéd, but atmospherically perfect, plastic red-and-white gingham tablecloth. A metal menu-holder with salt, pepper, and sugar—no artificial sweetener in sight—rested on every table beneath the windows, and the de-rigueur Elvis, Marilyn, and James Dean pictures shared wall space with vinyl LPs and vintage Coca-Cola paraphernalia.

  Val headed toward the counter, but Rod put his hand on the small of her back and steered her to a booth.

  “I thought we were in a hurry,” she asked.

  “We are, but it’s going to take Livingston some time to find out what we want to know, and with this storm, he could miss us if we leave. Besides,” he slid his hands to her shoulders and gave her a gentle massage, “you look like you could use a break.”

  She closed her eyes and enjoyed his touch on two levels: one being the fact that her aching muscles could use the relaxation, the other being purely feminine.

  God that felt good. He felt good. And she should know; she’d replayed the moments he’d held her in his arms and kissed her for far longer than she should have last night.

  She didn’t normally kiss strange men right off the bat, but there was just something about Rod, and being in his arms, held against that chest, his hair falling forward, his eyes intense and focused on her… She’d seen his eyes dip down to her lips.

  A shiver ran up her spine.

  “Did I hurt you?” Rod stopped the massage and every nerve cell in her body started protesting.

  A diner was not the optimum place to respond to protesting nerve cells, so she ignored them. Besides, if he’d kept that massage up, God only knew what would have come out of her mouth. A groan had already worked its way into her throat.

  “No, I’m fine. Thank you. That felt good.”

  They slid into the booth, Rod’s knees brushing hers. Each took a menu, but Val didn’t look at hers. She knew what she wanted—and it wasn’t on any menu.

  Okay, not what she should be thinking about now.

  She cleared her throat and looked out the window, focusing on the sheets of rain obliterating the view of the parking lot rather than watching his long, strong fingers turn the pages.

  Except… the window acted like a mirror.

  Oh, well. No one had to know that she watched those long fingers tap a fork on the tabletop, or that he sucked the side of his bott
om lip between his teeth as he read the menu. No one should look as good as he did after being drenched.

  While she looked like a bedraggled poodle, his profile was more chiseled than any of the movie stars she’d compared him to, and, even soaking wet, his hair was perfectly rumpled. The moisture made the waves shine, which brought out the green of his eyes even more beneath spiky black lashes. And then there was the drop of water that slid over his left cheekbone into the slash of dimple by the side of the mouth that had played way too big of a part in her dreams last night, with a few lucky drops making it onto his lips…

  “What can I get you?” Their teenaged waitress’s Goth makeup didn’t go with the whole bobby sox and rolled jeans theme, and the look she gave Val let her know the window trick hadn’t been quite as surreptitious as she’d hoped.

  “I’ll take a burger, no onions, and a Coke,” Val said, knowing what she really wanted wasn’t an appropriate answer—or feeling. She was here to get her inheritance, not run off with Rod. No more running anymore, remember? She’d made a decision and a promise to herself, and she was going to stick by it, hot guy or not.

  “Oh, and another burger, no onions, with an order of fries to go,” she added. They didn’t need to ride with seagull-onion breath.

  “Sure. And for you?” The girl’s eyes widened when she turned toward Rod.

  Ha. Now she’d understand about the window. Val felt vindicated.

  Among other things.

  “Is there no seafood?” Rod glanced at her, and Val wanted to smooth her hair but resisted. Really, it wouldn’t do any good and why draw attention?

  “Try the fish sandwich. It’s fried, but the closest you’ll get.”

  Turning a little green around the gills, Rod closed the menu. “I’ll have that.”

  “Sure,” said the waitress. “And to drink?”

  “Ice water will be fine.”

  Val made use of the facilities, wringing a few ounces of rainwater from her shirt. She returned to find a straw bobbing in the ice-filled soda fizzing at her place at the table and Rod wiping something white and grainy from his hands into his glass.

  “Rod, you can get another glass of water, you know.” She slid his drink sideways.

  “It’s fine, Valerie.” He grabbed her hand when she started to wave the girl back.

  Okay, she could go for that.

  “I knocked the salt over, that’s all.”

  “Did you throw some over your shoulder?”

  “What?”

  “You know, when you spill salt, you have to throw some over your shoulder for good luck, or whatever that superstition is?”

  Rod’s eyes narrowed, then he smiled and tapped a finger against the back of her hand. “Exactly. That’s what I did. We don’t need any bad luck.”

  “I’ll say.” She took a sip of her soda. Ah, nice and cold. Perfect for sitting across from a hot guy—especially while still holding his hand. “So, about our bad luck today. Can you please explain what’s going on? I’ve never heard of a government agency that has talking seagulls and mercenary albatrosses. Not to mention manatee spies.”

  Rod released her hand to reach for his water.

  Damn.

  He rolled the glass between his palms, the ice clinking against the sides. “The manatees aren’t spies. They’re informants.”

  “Isn’t that the same thing?”

  “Not in this instance. They don’t purposely seek out situations, but rather, keep us informed of anything out of the ordinary in their territory. They’re too passive for anything else.”

  Val took another sip of her soda, sliding her other hand beneath the table to pinch her leg.

  Ouch.

  Again.

  She couldn’t believe she was actually believing this, but then again, why wouldn’t she? She’d talked with Livingston. She’d dodged the falling fish. She’d seen the peregrines take aim at her car. And she wasn’t dreaming. Which meant something weird was going on.

  Hadn’t she been trying to escape drama by coming home?

  “Okay, so who’s ‘us’?” She fiddled with her straw.

  “Us?”

  “Yes. You said manatees keep ‘us’ informed. Who? Is there a king involved in all this?”

  “Ah.” Rod set the glass down and leaned back. His fingers thrummed the tablecloth. “Actually, Valerie, it’s a lot more complicated than that, and I’d prefer to wait until I can fully explain it.”

  “Why not now? We’ve got time.”

  “But we don’t have proof. Talking seagulls are just one of the many things you’ll find strange in my kingdom. Would you have believed me if I’d told you about Livingston without seeing him for yourself?”

  “Well, no, you’re right. I mean, coherent birds just aren’t possible.”

  He raised an eyebrow. “Unless he’s right in front of you. Then it becomes possible. Trust me when I say there are other things you will need to see to believe.”

  What could be more unbelievable than the birds? As far as the general public knew, birds flew, ate, messed up your car after a good washing, and made little birds, but the not-so-general public, however, well… if this was one of those things he was talking about, he did have a good point about waiting for proof.

  The waitress arrived, the tray of food perched on her hip, and she served Rod first.

  That wasn’t unbelievable. Val had felt the stares from half the women in the place. Okay, most of the women in the place. The window-reflection trick seemed to be a gender-wide phenomenon.

  “Is there anything else I can get you?” the waitress asked, her hip, sans tray, still cocked Rod’s way.

  “Thank you. This is fine.”

  The girl lingered until Valerie coughed.

  Rod lifted his sandwich, eyeing it as if he’d never seen one before. “You’re certain this is fish?”

  “Yep.” Or whatever passed for fish with the FDA these days.

  The look on his face when he bit into it was priceless. He grimaced and tried to swallow at the same time, with a little shudder for good measure.

  “I think I’ll order more fries.”

  She wasn’t surprised to see him put it down. Besides having had the taste frozen out of it—and subsequently fried out of it—a prince, if he was that, probably never had reason to enjoy the delights of greasy diners.

  “So. You’re a prince?” She nudged Livingston’s fries toward him.

  Rod picked up a couple and studied them. “For your purposes, yes, you could say that I am.”

  “That has to be the vaguest answer I’ve ever heard. I mean, either you are a prince or you’re not a prince. It’s like being pregnant. You either are or you’re not. You can’t have a different definition for different circumstances.”

  He laughed at that, his eyes crinkling at the corners. “All right then. It’s true that I’m the next ruler. We don’t use the prince designation, but it is the closest reference for you. When my father retires, I will become the High Councilman of The Oceanic Council.”

  She took a bite of her burger. Greasy and good. What could she say? She wasn’t royalty, and after years of making do with bologna, burgers could be considered gourmet.

  “So where does my father fit in with all of this?”

  “That, Valerie, will have to wait until we meet with the rest of The Council. They know more about him than I do.” He reached for a fry.

  “Lucky you.”

  “What?” The fry stopped halfway to his mouth.

  “My father. The man who, for some reason, decided to leave me something after all these years. No loss that you don’t know anything about him.”

  Rod set the fry down. “I don’t understand. He was your father.”

  “Was he? Really? That would depend on how you define a parent.” She took another bite of the burger.
She wasn’t going to let Lance Dumere ruin her meal when, God knew, he’d ruined enough of them already.

  “Running out when the going got tough, or whatever the reason was that he left, doesn’t qualify him in my eyes. My mom was my parent. She was there for me, took care of me, loved me, planned for my future, while he…” Val swallowed the lump in her throat and she couldn’t say it was that bite of burger. “He ran off at the first opportunity.”

  “Valerie, that’s not what happened. Your father didn’t stop looking for you until the day he died. You must have misunderstood.”

  “I didn’t misunderstand. I overheard my grandmother reminding my mom how he’d left her high and dry—in those exact words.”

  She’d stood behind the pantry door, reeling from the fact that Mom had spared her by telling her he’d died before she was born.

  She would love to believe she’d misunderstood. Love to think what might have been if the reason she hadn’t known him was because he had died. There would have been love stories and happy memories, but there hadn’t been. Mom hadn’t liked to talk about him, and Val finally knew why.

  No, she hadn’t misunderstood. What’s more, she knew it was the truth, because she had those same running-away tendencies in her own genetic makeup.

  That’s why she was here. Mom deserved for one of her dreams to come true, and it was only fitting that Lance Dumere finally made it happen.

  Valerie took another sip of her soda, her lips encasing the straw, and Rod tried to keep the tug in his gut from migrating to his brain… and other organs.

  He’d tried not to remember what that kiss had been like last night, only to blow it when he remembered today’s kiss. Sitting so close to her for hours in the small confines of her vehicle… They needed to end this journey for more reasons than just his inheriting the throne.

  “Let’s change the subject, okay, Rod? Something pleasant? Like what it was like growing up in a royal family with talking birds.”

  Gladly.

  Rod drank more ice water, willing that to those other organs.