Sea of Secrets Anthology

by J E Feldman

  He shifted in his seat to get a better look at her. “I’m surprised you’re so calm.”

  “Is there any reason I shouldn’t be?” She arched her back and neck, stretching. He heard a light pop and relief flickered across her face. “I know I’m not some seasoned world traveler, used to jet-setting across the Pond whenever I feel like it. Still, from what everyone tells me, a ship like this is more like a floating hotel than anything else.”

  “Aye, that ‘tis.” Not that he’d know anything about jet-setting, actually. He’d never heard of a Selkie who’d been willing to venture into Tuireann’s airy domain. The mere thought of being miles above the sea, with only cold metal under his feet, made him shudder. “A cruise is a bonny way to travel, to be sure.”

  She shrugged and another joint popped. “See? Nothing for me to worry about.” She cracked her wrists as expertly as if she were her own chiropractor and grinned at him. “By the way, I love when your Manx accent comes out like that.”

  He rolled his eyes. His brogue always became most pronounced when he was upset. Guess there isn’t any chance I can disguise my own uneasiness. Might as well make the best of it. “I dinna ‘ear any accent when I spake, ‘owever, Lass, ye’v an adorable Texas drawl. Yer da may be wantin’ a translator when he meets yer.”

  Her gaze fluttered back to the tablet in her lap. If he hadn’t been watching so intently, he might have missed the way her lower lip trembled until she caught it in her teeth, or overlooked the mist-bright shimmer of tears that rimmed her thick dark lashes.

  Way to go, Sean. How many times had he been warned that his quirky sense of humor could backfire on him when he least expected it?

  He flexed his hand, feeling the cool sleek silver band settle into its accustomed place on his ring finger again. He whispered and Tuatha power responded, sending thin questing tendrils toward Moira, for he sought only to reassure.

  The ring blazed into fiery heat, as power surged into it from a new direction—the ocean that lay just beyond the waiting room’s giant double doors. A wave of desire jolted him, as unexpected and unbidden as if he were hitting puberty again.

  Stop! He directed his thoughts past the ring to its maker. She’s not ready. Not yet.

  The ring muttered and subsided into silvery silence as power receded like an ebbing neap tide.

  He shifted in his seat, manspreading a bit while he willed the unwelcome hormonal surge to dwindle, as well. So far he’d resisted the temptation to make his and Moira’s nascent relationship physical. He’d been raised to be a gentleman. And she deserved the opportunity to make a fully-informed choice, not borne of passion or starlight or a single romantic meeting on a South Padre Island beach. And especially not under the influence of her father’s potent Tuatha magic.

  After all, that was the whole purpose of the cruise they were about to embark on. To give her the gift of her full heritage. Starting with the father she had never known.

  “He will love you the moment he claps his eyes on you.” Sean brushed Moira’s knee gently, feeling for her fingers where they clenched her device. “You can be assured of that.”

  She turned away. Her glorious riot of fiery curls cascaded in front of her face but not before Sean saw the telltale tracks of her tears proving they’d broken through her emotional dam.

  “All my life I’ve wondered about him. Who he is. Why he was never around when I needed him.” She swiped the back of her hand across her nose, then turned to face Sean. Her eyes were pure grey now, stormy and cold. “I take it back. I never needed anything from him. I just thought I did.”

  Poor lass. “Every little girl deserves to know her father when she’s growing up.” He kept his voice carefully soft, neutral.

  “Well, if he thinks I’m going to waltz up to him and pretend I have some sort of warm fuzzy feeling for a complete and total stranger who’s never bothered to lift a finger, not even a Christmas present or a birthday card for the past twenty-three years of my life, he’s got another think coming.”

  Sean took a deep breath. She had a point. Her father really could have been much more involved in his daughter’s life when she was growing up. Just because he was estranged from Moira’s rich, selfish, snobby mother didn’t preclude him from making an effort to care for his child.

  Of course, Manannan mac Lir didn’t see himself as abandoning Moira at all. He’d convinced himself he’d provided for her in the best, most definitive way possible.

  He’d pre-arranged her marriage.

  She’d been barely a week old when Manannan had spoken the words and made the pronouncement that sealed her engagement. And as far as he was concerned, that was more than sufficient to prove how much he loved his baby daughter. After all, she was a princess, and that’s what all princesses wanted, right? To grow up and marry a handsome prince?

  Sean’s gaze dropped to his claddagh ring again.

  Sure, ‘twas a grand plan His Highness Manannan mac Lir, immortal King of the Sea, had devised. The only fly in the ointment was that Manannan hadn’t ever considered anything as modern as consent when he highhandedly decreed that his daughter would marry whomever he chose, even if he chose a half-human, half-seal changeling. Besides, how would he realistically have obtained consent from an infant and a seven year old?

  A horn blared from the harbor. Soon it would be time to board, and begin the transatlantic voyage from Galveston, to ports in Miami, Nassau, New York, and Dublin, before eventually landing at Douglas, Isle of Man.

  They’d be shipboard for over two weeks. His heart raced just thinking about that much time with the girl he’d fallen in love with. Hair the color of fire, eyes like the sea, a heritage she’d barely begun to discover.

  But even with that blasted claddagh ring on his finger, and the crystal-clear instructions from the King he’d worshiped and served since childhood, Sean was uncertain.

  He’d fallen for her the moment he saw her. She said she loved him, too.

  But after all this…was he really willing to marry her?

  Moira giggled as she attempted for the third time to lift a chow mein noodle to her mouth using the slick round chopsticks the shipboard restaurant provided. “I am so not good at this.” It slid back to the plate and wriggled into the pile of noodles as if it were sentient.

  “A devious plot that’s called part of the dining experience.” Sean posed with his chopsticks in the air like some cigar-smoking film star out of the Golden Age of Hollywood. “Experience the culture, savor the culinary delights, and never realize that you’ve barely eaten a half cup’s worth of nutrition because it’s taken you twice as long as usual to get the kung pao from your plate to your taste buds.”

  “Right.” She chased another noodle around the circumference of the plate. “I suppose they want us to eat very small portions so the supplies last for the duration of the cruise.”

  “They won’t run out.” Sean leaned in, grinning. “In case you were worried.”

  She gave him a faltering smile. “I wasn’t.”

  “You were.” That roguish grin grew, and his eyes danced. “Go on. Admit it.”

  “Well, maybe a little. It’s a long cruise.”

  “Long enough we can try every one of the restaurants. The best part of traveling by ship—the food!”

  “My mother always said the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach. Should I worry that you’ll fall madly in love with one of the sous-chefs?”

  He reached out and took her hand in his strong, deft fingers. Warmth flew from her fingertips to steal her breath from her lungs, send her pulse skyrocketing. The chopsticks vibrated in her grasp.

  “I’m already madly in love with you, Moira Lynn Selkirk. No room in my heart for anyone else.”

  She let the chopsticks clatter to the plate. She was hungry for something else. “Want to go walk on the deck in the moonlight?”

  Lighter on his feet than anyone else she’d ever known, Sean was up and next to her, pulling her out of her chair and into his gentle
embrace. “And give up the chance to let some Mongolian Barbeque-er steal my affections? I’d like nothing better than to walk with you in the light of the beautiful moon.”

  She closed her eyes and tilted her face for a kiss.

  A tap on the nose, rather than the smooch she was expecting.

  “Hey!”

  Sean still had her firmly with one arm around her waist, but the other pointed at the table next to them. “But there’s no moonlight. Clouds are rolling in and we’re due for a squall by midnight.”

  “You’re kidding, right?

  “Nope.” He reached in his jacket. “Luckily, I scored us tickets for a show that starts soon. Right after … ”

  She took a step back, easing out of his comfortable hold, and narrowed her eyes. “What now?”

  He scooped up the little dish holding their fortune cookies. “Can’t forgo dessert. Especially when our fate and future are contained within these delectable pieces of … ” He stopped, tilted his head like a cocker spaniel. “What are these made out of, anyway? Pastry? Dough?”

  “I’m not really sure.” She fished one out. “Maybe batter, like a crunchy pancake?”

  “Whatever they are, I’m expecting great things from this.” He took the second cookie and set the dish back down. “Ready? On the count of three. One, two—”

  She cracked hers before he finished the count and slid the slender piece of paper out, then let the brown pieces of whatever-it-was fall into her plate on top of the forlorn chow mein.

  “Hey! No fair!” Sean held his cookie, still unbroken, on his open palm.

  “I haven’t looked at it, yet.” She waved it in the air. “You can still go first.”

  With an exaggerated eyeroll, he held his cookie high and ceremoniously broke it in the middle. While the paper fluttered to the table, he shoved first one half, then the other, into his mouth.

  Now it was Moira’s turn to roll her eyes. “I suppose you need me to read mine first, since you’re too polite to talk with your mouth full?”

  Sean nodded vigorously and pointed to suddenly-emerging chipmunk cheeks.

  “Here goes.” She squinted at her fortune. “Five, seven, twenty-five, thirty-five, and forty-nine.”

  His Adam’s apple bobbed. Grabbing his napkin, he held it to his mouth and cleared his throat. “Must be predicting how many children and grandchildren you’re going to have.”

  She smirked at him. “You get to change all the dirty diapers.”

  “Never mind.” He waved his finger in a circle. “Come on, turn it over.”

  “Every woman deserves to be treated as if they were the daughter of a King. Few women are.” She dropped it as if it burned her, and rubbed her fingertips on her napkin. “That’s . . . weird.”

  He groped for his water glass. “Cheery.” He gulped the liquid, crunched an ice cube. “Not sure I even want to look at mine, after that.”

  “Don’t be a spoilsport. It’s all random, you know. No one puts any stock in these. They’re just fun little sayings.”

  “Righto.” His gaze flicked down to the fortune, still on the table. A muscle twitched in his cheek.

  “You have to pick it up to read it.”

  He stood up and reached for her hand. “Let’s go watch the show in the lounge. If we’re lucky we can still get a table near the stage.”

  “Okay.” She rose to her feet as gracefully as she could, balancing on her unaccustomed stiletto heels in spite of the barely-perceptible motion of the cruise ship. Casually, she reached down to nab the fortune he’d left behind.

  “Don’t do that.” He scooped it up and shoved it in his pocket with a grimace.

  “You’re no fun!”

  “Fun is overrated. Let’s blow this popsicle stand, Your Highness.”

  He crooked his elbow and escorted her out of the dining room as if she were the fairy-tale princess referred to on the fortune cookie fortune.

  Pity she still felt more like the frog.

  The curved halls of the cruise liner disoriented Sean. Which way were the interconnected cabins they shared? Which way was the musical revue show they’d planned to see?

  After opening the fortune cookie and holding the Tuatha-imbued slip of paper, he wasn’t even sure he knew which way was up any more.

  Moira laughed, a warm pleasant sound, snuggling next to him and clasping his arm as if her life depended on it.

  Considering what he’d sensed, dark residue clinging to his fortune, perhaps it did. He’d seen the words. Today is the last day of the first of your life.

  He tried to return her embrace, bask in the heat she radiated, but his arms were stiff and frost edged his veins. She had shown such blithe disregard for her message. How could she not perceive that it referred to her legacy, her inheritance?

  Then again, she seemed immune to the effects—well, most of the effects—of the magic that wove around them, the invisible cords that bound them together. And she’d never once referred to their midnight swim where she’d come into the fullness of her own power and puissance, shifting into her salt-water-enabled mermaid form.

  Had it even happened? Or had it been merely a dream of his, born of exhaustion and desire and one-too-many glasses of ale?

  The last day.

  “Isn’t the lounge this way?” She broke away from his side to peer down a hallway that looked much like a half dozen others. “I see a bunch of people heading there.”

  With his senses heightened, alert, he followed the crowd to the cruise Comedy and Crooners Lounge. Surely with a name that innocuous, he could shake off the heebie-jeebies?

  No such luck. Even crossing the threshold to the Art Deco styled room sent chill bumps creeping along his arms. If he had hackles in his human form he’d have raised them.

  Before he could change his mind about a walk on the deck, Moira led him to a table for two, situated directly in front of the stage. An opalescent vase held a vivid red oleander blossom. She slid gracefully into the nearest chair. Her lips curved into a gentle smile as she reached out to touch a petal. “Galveston is behind us, but a piece of her came aboard.”

  “Don’t touch that!” His tone came out sharper than he’d intended, more like a parent scolding an errant child than a concerned friend.

  She slanted him a look. “I’m not hurting anything. Just admiring it.”

  “It’s oleander. Poisonous.”

  “I wasn’t planning on eating it.” She folded her arms, an aggrieved expression on her face, as he edged gingerly onto the chair across from her.

  He flagged down a waitress, who flashed a practiced smile as she handed him a patent leather folder with a list of drink options.

  He didn’t need to open it. Not with the way this evening was going. “Irish whiskey. Neat.”

  Moira’s jaw was set as she glared at the empty stage.

  He nudged her elbow with the folder.

  “I’ll just have water, thanks.” Moira fussed with her updo, giving a little huff when a slender strand refused to stay tucked into its bobby-pinned position.

  She’s so cute when she does that.

  “My treat.” He took her hand.

  “Just water,” she repeated.

  The waitress nodded and left.

  “I had no idea everything would be a la carte.” She sighed, and some of the tension slid off her shoulders. “Although I don’t expect you to pay for everything. I’ve got plenty of money in savings.”

  He rubbed his forehead. “I suppose I should be grateful you’re not some gold digger out for everything you can get from me.”

  She fiddled with an earring. “That would be my mother, not me. She’s very disappointed I’ve fallen in love with a professional beachcomber.”

  “At least you admit I’m a professional.” His uneasiness started to lift. Maybe he’d seen omens where there was nothing but algorithm-driven drivel, or mantras poorly translated by some poor laborer in an overseas sweat shop.

  The lights flickered twice, the time-honored sig
nal for audience members to take their seats. He adjusted the other chair so he would be next to, rather than across from, the most entrancing woman in the room. This close to her, he could breathe in the floral, fruity scent of her shampoo. Yum.

  He sat again, stretching his arm to encompass her slender shoulders.

  She scooted her seat away, just far enough to make her point.

  Guess I’m not forgiven after all.

  He dropped his arm. “Sorry.”

  A little huff was his only response.

  If the cruise ship catered to canines as well as humans, he’d be bedding down in the doghouse. He glanced at his watch. How long would she give him the silent treatment? Even on a vessel the size of this, it would get really old, really fast.

  As the lights dimmed a final time, he spared a quick glance around the other tables. Common carnations filled their centerpieces. Their table was the only one with the showy, deadly bloom.

  He rubbed his neck. Maybe he did have hackles after all.

  A row of stage lights popped on. “Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to our show.” A cultured baritone voice boomed through hidden loudspeakers. “Our featured performer is the lovely and talented headliner, our cruise line’s newest star, our very own Reagan O’Malley.”

  Those instincts of Sean’s crystallized.

  Reagan.

  The Morrigan.

  What was she doing here?

  Sean willed his racing pulse to stop galloping as spotlights on swivel stands danced through the audience. The rush of adrenaline waned while the stage lights waxed. He closed his eyes and counted to ten, opening again in time to follow the glowing orbs as they found their final focus on the small raised platform, illuminating a middle-aged man with a sleek, throwback pompadour. The emcee’s veneer-enhanced smile glinted, impossibly whiter and brighter than his tuxedo shirt bib. “But first, an up-and-coming comedic star. Give it up for Duncan Delaney!”

  A young man in a suit two sizes too large crossed the stage and took the microphone from Smiley Tux-Guy. His eyes flitted from one audience member to another. His tongue swept across his lips and sweat glistened on his forehead.