Heart of the Sea

by Sela Carsen

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  This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locale or organizations is entirely coincidental.

  Samhain Publishing, Ltd.

  512 Forest Lake Drive

  Warner Robins, Georgia 31093

  Heart of the Sea

  Copyright © 2007 by Sela Carsen

  Cover by Anne Cain

  ISBN: 1-59998-677-9

  www.samhainpublishing.com

  All Rights Are Reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  First Samhain Publishing, Ltd. electronic publication: October 2007

  Heart of the Sea

  Sela Carsen

  Dedication

  Without fail, to my family, whose patience knows no bounds.

  To Angela James, who, despite her protestations to the contrary, is a Nice Editor.

  To Dayna Hart, who held my hand while I speed-wrote the first draft.

  To the Crit Wits, who put up with my inconsistencies.

  To the Romance Divas, whose humor and knowledge help me grow as a writer and a person.

  Prologue

  “You will find all you need in the sea.”

  Ronan Burbank raised an eyebrow. Then he smiled at the old woman with the thick Scottish accent who had obviously crashed his party. He extricated his hand from hers.

  “Thank you very much, ma’am. I’m sure I will.” As the guards escorted her out, he gestured to his head of security. “Make sure you take her through the kitchen first. I’ll see if Harry can’t look in on her for a moment before you take her home.” The poor woman looked a little blue around the lips. Probably needed her medicine.

  Harry was actually Dr. Harold Kilhausen, noted cardiologist and head of staff at Providence General. The doctor was an avid sailor in the little spare time he had and crewed on the best yacht racing team that Burbank Industries sponsored. This party was not just the annual fête, but also a celebration of their latest win.

  Ronan enjoyed celebrating success. It felt good to bring everyone to his home. Burbanks had lived here off the south coast of Rhode Island for over a hundred years, building one of the massive mansions that were synonymous with turn of the century wealth. Ronan loved every stick and brick of the place where he’d grown up.

  This little portion of the coastline boasted an impressive cliff and the view never failed to soothe him. The old woman had accosted him as he stood alone on his balcony, enjoying a quick moment of quiet overlooking the ocean before wading back into the social fray. Now, as he prepared to return to his guests, he thought he heard a faint splash. He glanced out to sea again, scanning the water for a disturbance. When he saw nothing, he went back to the party.

  Chapter One

  It was cold! Meriel hated being cold and it was always fricking freezing in the North Atlantic, even in late April. She longed for home down in Tennessee and tried to remember what a summer’s night felt like. It was no use. Even under layers of blubber and fur, she was still human and still cold.

  Seven years had passed since she’d gone to the Burbank company party and fallen into the waters of Block Island Sound in Rhode Island. She should have died. There had even been days early on when she wished she had. But nope. Not her. She was cursed.

  No, seriously.

  Cursed.

  Meriel Byrne had turned into a Selkie.

  Seven years ago, she’d thought impressing her boss was important. Since then, she’d learned otherwise. Now, finding fish was important. Staying away from seal-eating killer whales was important. Fending off the damn real seals who wanted to mate with her was important!

  “Back off, fur face!” she barked at an importunate male. “I am not your girlfriend du jour. A) We’re in open water, not the rookery, B) it’s not mating season, and C) just yuck. Call me politically incorrect, but I don’t think I can go for the whole interspecies thing.”

  She grumbled to herself as she dove away from him. If she’d known how attractive she was as a Selkie, she wouldn’t have worried so much about shaving her legs when she was human.

  A lone halibut, separated from its school, swam past her. Lunch time. In a burst of speed, she chomped down on it and swallowed.

  If she ever regained her human form, Meriel swore she would never, ever eat sushi again.

  But she had no time to waste, even for lunch. Nose pointed south, she swam for the small, historic village of Misquapaug.

  Twisted it might be, but she couldn’t help herself. Every year, she had this urge to return to the place where the curse had changed her. And why not? It wasn’t as if she had anything pressing on her calendar. Just a lot of fishing.

  At the edge of the sound, she made her way around the inlet to an immense, turn of the century mansion. The house was even more impressive for perching at the top of a lone cliff. She’d been there once. It belonged to Ronan Burbank, heir to Burbank Industries, where she’d been low man on the totem pole in the finance department.

  Meriel sighed gustily. She’d had a massive crush on the man. At the company party, she’d been trying so hard to impress him, she stabbed her stiletto heel into the soft, sandy earth, then tripped and fell off the cliff.

  It was such an idiotic way to die. Except she hadn’t died. When Meriel hit the water, a curse she hadn’t even known existed kicked into action and she turned into a Selkie. It had taken her months to learn to make her new body work for her, but after such a long time, she was as agile in the water as any born seal.

  She bobbed in the surf, wondering if Ronan lived up in that big house now with a perfect wife and perfect children. Someday, she’d stop coming here and hurting for things she couldn’t have. But someday wasn’t today.

  A lone sailboat floating in the active waters caught her eye. The choppy sea frothed at the tip of every wave and a particularly vigorous gust of wind sent the blue and silver sail jibing wildly around the mast. That was wrong. Whatever lackbrain was crewing that craft needed to get his rear in gear or he’d sink it.

  The boat tipped hard and she realized why no one was at the helm. The solitary sailor was lying at the bottom in a haphazard array of limbs, either unconscious or dead. Meriel dove under the waves and shot toward the sleek little racing yacht, praying she’d be in time.

  She was almost there when the boat heeled over in the wake of a high wave and dumped its human cargo into the unforgiving sea. The cold must have revived the man enough for him to panic. Meriel darted over to him and grabbed his collar in her teeth, pulling until they broke the surface. The buoyancy of the water didn’t do nearly enough to counter the effect of the wind and tide. She struggled landward.

  “Idiot,” she said between clenched teeth. There was blood in the water from his head wound and the taint of it washed into her mouth. She wanted to gag, but then she’d lose her hold on him.

  “If you can’t sail, you shouldn’t be on the water.” She growled at him as she lugged his weight. The boathouse at the end of the Burbank dock became visible through the spray.

  “Finally. Hey, moron. I know you’re passed out, but if you can hear me, you need to get up to the house. This is the Burbank place and they’ll take care of you.”

  The man burbled, but it might have been the water rushing by. They reached the beach and Meriel nudged the man onto the sand, but he didn’t move away from the rising waves.

  “Come on,
mister. Get out of the water.” She smacked him with a flipper, but he didn’t move.

  “Great. Just great.” Meriel hated going on land. All the grace granted her by the sea fled when she touched the sand, but she didn’t have a choice. She hauled herself up on her flippers, then snagged the guy’s collar again and yanked him higher onto the beach. He didn’t move.

  “You’d better not be dead. I better not have just dragged my two hundred fifty pounds of blubbery ass onto land for no reason.” Panic crept into her voice and belied her words. He couldn’t be dead. Meriel didn’t do death. Even being a Selkie was better than being dead.

  She flipped him over and finally saw the face of the man she’d saved.

  “Ronan?”

  All the silly, immature feelings she’d once had for him came rushing back like the tide and vanished again as quickly. Now was not the time. He needed help and there was no one else around. She couldn’t even give him CPR in her current shape.

  “Help me!” she cried out to the wild sea. “It isn’t fair! You can’t take him the way you took me!”

  Except the sea could do anything it pleased. Magic of a kind she never dreamed about on land was the stuff of ordinary life under the waves. And it was magic that she desperately needed now.

  A sound reached her. The song of the finfolk—the magical beings of the water—pierced her ears and the spray of the surf carried enchantment. A single wave reached out and touched her flipper, leaving something behind.

  In the sea, it didn’t take much time for metal to corrode or become a resting place for other creatures, but the silver brooch that washed up on the shore glittered as if newly made. Another piece of ocean magic. The metal was twisted and hammered into a complicated design that looked Celtic, or perhaps Norse. The edges of the brooch were a series of complex knots surrounding a stylized seal. The seal was curved around a jewel so dark she thought it was black onyx. A ray of fading sunlight touched the surface and she realized the gem was a blue sapphire, its color so deep she could almost drown in it. She picked up the talisman with her teeth and laid it on Ronan’s too-still chest.

  “Please.” Meriel put all her heart into the prayer. “Oh please, let this work. Whatever curse I’m under, please don’t let it touch him, too. Mercy, I beg you.”

  “Mercy granted. For this.” The voice she heard was a chorus of sound. The gentle trill of a country creek, the roar of the ocean as it crashed violently against immovable rock. The swift rush of an icy river down a frozen mountain. Even the light bubbling of hidden hot springs that warmed the earth from beneath.

  “Make no mistake, descendant of Constance Byrne. Saving his life has entwined his destiny with your own.”

  She gasped in horror. She wouldn’t wish her life on anyone, but what was done was done. She couldn’t have let him drown.

  Finally, Ronan coughed and gurgled, a pint or so of Block Island Sound leaving his lungs and soaking into the sand. He rolled to his side, sucked in huge draughts of air and coughed up more water.

  “Thank God! You didn’t die.” She kept up a chant of gratitude as he coughed harder. The amulet slipped off his chest and he opened his eyes.

  Meriel heard a yell and a form appeared over the dunes. A man, waving and shouting at her. The last thing she wanted was for strangers to discover her, so she hauled herself behind a hillock of rock and sea grass. The man came down and shook Ronan’s shoulder.

  “Mr. Burbank,” he said, his Down East accent thick as winter fog. “Are you all right?”

  “What the hell?” Ronan’s voice was rough and harsh with the abuse it had taken. He rubbed his face on his sleeve.

  “What happened?” asked the man.

  Ronan sat up, his fingers closing around the brooch. He shook off the other man’s hand.

  “Did you see anyone?”

  “Might have. Thought I saw a woman standing over you.”

  “A woman? I thought it was… Never mind.”

  “Nice piece of jewelry you’ve got there, Mr. Burbank. Where’d that come from?”

  Ronan looked at the silver in his hand and shrugged. His voice was slurred when he said, “I don’t know. It was just there.”

  The older man looked around. Eerily, his focus seemed to settle right on the place where she hid and she crouched farther into the sand. Idiot, she chastised herself. Why didn’t you go back into the water?

  “Where’s your boat, Mr. Burbank?”

  Ronan lifted his chin. “Out there. On the bottom.” He drew up his knees and stared out at the sea. For a while, the man sat with him, occasionally casting glances over to the rocks where Meriel hid. The sky darkened with sunset and storm. The man left. Ronan stayed on the beach, unmoving, shoulders slumped.

  From her hiding place, she waited, shivering. Time had been unkind to Ronan. The man she thought could never rumple was now shabby in spirit. It showed in the sorry slouch of his posture, in the hair too long even for fashionable carelessness, in the rough bristle that coated his face. What could have happened since she last saw him to batter him so badly?

  Chapter Two

  Ronan finally stopped watching the sea when the first splatters of rain hit him. He might have a death wish, but he’d rather it was quick instead of something horrible like lingering pneumonia, so he rose. The brooch fell out of his hand, but he ignored it, consigning it back to the tide.

  Steep steps cut out of the sand and reinforced with wood led Ronan to his home, where he let himself into the kitchen. He walked through the darkness to his bedroom and sat on the edge of his mattress, not caring that he was still soaking wet.

  He tried to buck himself up. Burbanks had weathered the storms of bad markets and bad seas for generations. Burbanks didn’t give up. Burbanks didn’t commit suicide, although over the years a few tragic accidents had occurred with suspicious timing. But really, what else had he been thinking, going out on the little racing yacht as drunk as he’d been? He wanted to die.

  Until that seal caught him. Ronan peeled off his sopping shirt to examine the frayed collar. Teeth marks and rips…and a faint stain of blood. He felt his head gingerly, burrowing through the grime of salt and sand, until he encountered the lump. He checked his fingers. The wound had stopped bleeding, but it explained the hallucination.

  Because seals don’t talk. And even if they do, they don’t have Southern accents.

  God, he was tired. He looked around the room that had become his haven and his jail.

  Seven years ago everything had been beautiful. He’d had wealth, a thriving shipping company and an unsullied reputation. Now, his family was gone and his friends had abandoned him. Even the ones who believed in his innocence no longer came by.

  He felt dirty just thinking about it, so he stripped down the rest of the way and turned on the shower. Ronan stood under the hot stream without moving for a long time before he finally reached for the shampoo.

  After the girl died, it was like the Spanish Inquisition showed up. Totally unexpected. Between the police, the IRS, and the paparazzi that disguised themselves as legitimate media, the Burbank name became modern slang for “murdering loser”. His company started hemorrhaging money until he had to sell it off, piece by piece, while it was still worth something.

  Thank God for the boats. He’d stanched the flow in time to save one tiny portion of his business. The little workshop where he and his team built racing yachts was the only thing he lived for now. And the only way he’d been able to save it was by gutting the house to pay for it. Pieces of furniture, works of art he’d grown up with and taken for granted were sold away until the home he’d loved all his life became nothing more than a shell. He couldn’t even bear to live in it anymore, so he moved into the groundskeeper’s cottage.

  And how pathetic was that? He’d been Emory Charles Ronan Burbank IV, goddammit. Now he was nothing.

  He stepped out of the shower and dried off on the way to bed where he dropped the towel on the floor. Then he crawled into bed—the clock radio said
it was two thirty in the morning—and listened to the storm beat against the shore line.

  What had that seal said? “Thank God you didn’t die.” Well. Bully for him. A seal was glad he lived.

  Meriel waited until all was silent. She must have dozed a little because when she looked again, Ronan was gone. She didn’t know what had happened to him but it was past time she got out of there. Maybe if she left, went back to the sea and never came back, whatever fate she’d bound him up in would leave him be.

  The amulet glittered dully for an instant in the little moonlight available. Meriel picked it up again very carefully. This belonged to the sea and she was determined to give it back. But as she hauled herself back down the beach toward the surf, a sleek head rose from the water.

  “Iona!” Meriel was so surprised to see her friend and mentor she dropped the brooch. “You startled me. What are you doing in Rhode Island?”

  “Waiting to see if you do something foolish,” said the old seal. Iona’s accent was so deeply Scottish that even after seven years, it still took Meriel time to translate it into something understandable.

  “Too late. I already did my foolish deed for the day. It looks like I saved the wrong man and now I’ve bound up his life in my curse.” Meriel took another determined heave forward, but Iona blocked her way.

  “It may not be as bad as it seems.”

  “Or—based on the way my luck seems to run—it could be worse. I’m voting for worse, so I’m going to leave now. Get the heck out of Dodge. Go find a nice sunny beach somewhere and boil in my own blubber.”

  “Sounds nice. Except for the boiling in blubber part.”

  Meriel tried to feint a dodge to Iona’s right, but the Selkie wasn’t fooled.

  “What’s going on, Iona? Why won’t you let me back down to the water?”

  “You can’t come back, child. This is your chance.”