“I know you’re worried about your father not catching enough fish,” she said sympathetically. “It must be hard to watch him struggle to keep the boat going when he is this sick.”
Marcus shrugged. “My father is a tough old goat; he’ll be fine. I’m more worried about some of the other folks who depend on fishing to keep their families fed and a roof over their heads.” A distant look flitted over his face, as if for a moment he wandered through long-forgotten days, revisiting the path once trod by his own younger, more innocent feet.
“My mother left us when I was seven and my kid brother was five,” he admitted. “My father wasn’t much good at being a da; he absolutely sucked at being both mother and father. A lot of the fishing folk picked up the slack; the women made sure we had clean clothes for school, instead of a bunch of patched and outgrown rags, and that there was real food in the fridge from time to time, instead of just frozen dinners or big pots of leftover fish stew.
“Anyway, these are good people, most of them the same folks that looked out for us when we were growing up. If I can find any way to return the favor, I will. I’m not planning to stick around once my father doesn’t need me anymore, but I’d like to help out while I’m here.” He visually shook off his old memories, shoving them down deeper than the cold, dark waters they’d just been diving in, and favored her with one of his rare and powerful grins. “Besides, somebody has to keep an eye on you; otherwise who knows what kind of trouble you’ll get yourself into.”
Beka grinned back, vowing to get those fish back for him if she had to steal Kesh’s seal skin and hold it for ransom, like in the old tales. “Who, me?” she said innocently. “When have you ever known me to get into trouble?”
They both laughed, the unaccustomed activity making Marcus suddenly seem younger and less unyielding. Beka had a thought. Marcus worked so hard on the boat for his father, and never seemed to do anything for fun. Maybe she could repay him for his help by getting him to actually relax and have a good time for a change. Although she fully expected that the suggestion that he could have fun in her company would meet with an argument, to say the least.
She leaned forward a little, and hid a tiny smile as she caught him looking down the front of her bathing suit. At least she knew he was not completely oblivious to her charms. Such as they were. Perversely, that knowledge gave her the courage to make her suggestion.
“You’re an impressive diver,” she said. “You must have spent a lot of time in the water when you were younger.”
He nodded. “Kind of hard to avoid, growing up on the bay.”
“Ever go surfing?” she asked. “Because I have an extra board; I just thought maybe I’d thank you for all your help by taking you out on the waves some morning.”
His expression turned to stone, and their temporary camaraderie seemed to slide through her grasp like the fish that got away. Shadows filled his eyes as the past swallowed him up.
“I did surf, when I was younger,” he said, his voice flat. “I was okay at it. Not great. Even then, I was really too big to ever be supple enough for anything other than simply powering through the water. My brother Kyle, though, he was a wizard.” He shook his head. “You should have seen him; he rode the waves like he was a part of them, as if that board were just an extension of his body. I swear, some days it was as if the water were dancing with him. The sheer joy of it used to radiate from his whole being. Even the other surfers used to stop what they were doing just to watch, if they weren’t racing out into the breakers to try and imitate him. It was really something to see.”
“It must have been,” Beka said softly. “Chico told me he died. I’m sorry.”
Marcus grimaced. “It was a long time ago. But no, I don’t surf. I haven’t since Kyle was killed. After he drowned, the water just didn’t seem that friendly to me anymore. Hell, I went halfway across the world to work in the desert, just to get away from it.” He looked around at the ocean surrounding the dinghy, as if he couldn’t quite figure out how he’d gotten back there.
“Maybe it is time to make your peace with it,” Beka said, venturing a small smile. “Since you seem to be stuck here with all this water, for a while, at least.”
She tilted her head, thinking out loud. “I suspect Kyle would like it if you went back out on a surfboard, doing the thing he loved so much. I know you’ll probably think I’m just being a flaky New Age nut, but I’d bet that if you rode the waves with joy, the way you used to, you might even feel him out there, riding along by your side.”
Marcus was silent for a moment, and then he stunned Beka by leaning forward and kissing her with fervor. He wrapped one big hand around the curve of her shoulder and the other around the back of her head, pulling her in close as his lips pressed firmly against hers, both soft and rough at the same time. Heat blossomed between them, roaring up out of her core like a wildfire, fierce and magical and completely unexpected.
The kiss only lasted a minute or two, but it felt like an eternity of bliss. Beka felt strangely bereft without his arms around her.
“Wow,” she said, blinking rapidly.
Marcus gave her a wicked grin. “Sorry about that,” he said, clearly not sorry at all. “I just wanted to thank you for giving me a way to reconnect with my brother. I never would have thought of it like that.” He paused, and then added, his smile widening, “Not being a flaky New Age nut, and all.”
Beka rolled her eyes, pleased that her idea had gone over so well. And wondering what on earth she could suggest next to elicit the same reaction. Her heart still hadn’t stopped beating fast, and she thought her kneecaps might actually be trembling.
“Does that mean you’ll come surfing?” she asked.
“It means I’ll think about it,” Marcus said, back to his usual serious self.
And for a moment, it seemed as though he was going to lean forward and kiss her again, until a yell from off to their stern heralded the arrival of the Wily Serpent, with Chico waving wildly over the port side. Apparently they’d had a good day out on the water.
Beka rather felt that way herself.
TWELVE
“SO, YOU’RE GOING surfing with the fisherman,” Chewie said. Of course, his doggy snout was halfway into one of Beka’s specimen bags, so it sounded more like “Whrooworoomnn.” Still, Beka had no problem understanding him, more’s the pity.
“Maybe,” she answered, trying for a light tone. “He said he’d think about it. It’s no big deal. I just wanted to do something to thank him for helping me with the diving, and he hasn’t been out since his kid brother died.” She stuck her head into the small fridge to cool off her burning face and, while she was at it, look for something to eat. “I just told him to show up in the morning if he wanted to go with me.”
She was not going to think about that kiss again. Twice in five minutes was more than enough time to waste obsessing about something that was almost certainly never going to happen again. She definitely wasn’t going to tell Chewie about it. He’d never let her hear the end of it. But great Ziva, it had really been some kiss. She felt like steam was coming off of her, just thinking about it. Time to think about something else. Like the impossible task of figuring out what was poisoning the sea life in the trench where the Selkies and Merpeople lived.
“Get your nose out of there before you contaminate my samples,” she added. Chewie might be more dragon-in-disguise than actual Newfoundland, but he liked to add the occasional bit of drool to the act for verisimilitude.
“Touchy today, aren’t we?” Chewie said, sitting back on his haunches. “While you’re in there, see if you can find me a nice filet mignon, will you?”
Like much of the rest of the school bus, the refrigerator was more magical than mundane, and it could produce pretty much anything either she or Chewie felt like eating. Thankfully, it wasn’t nearly as temperamental as Barbara’s hut-turned-Airstream trailer, which had once produced nothing but cherry pies for a week. Beka’s residence was much more dependable;
probably because it had been changed from a hut into a bus by her predecessor, and simply had never dared to argue.
Beka pulled out a ham and cheese sandwich and put it on a plate, placing Chewie’s raw beef on another piece of hand-thrown pottery from one of her craft fair friends and setting it on the floor in front of him. She hoped it would divert him from the current topic under discussion, but no such luck.
“I can’t believe that after all these years without so much as a date, you actually have two guys interested in you,” Chewie said with his mouth full.
“Hey!” Beka said. “I had a date six months ago with that guy Herman set me up with.” Herman was the dwarf that owned the land the bus was currently parked on.
“That wasn’t a guy,” Chewie argued. “It was a half-tame fire elemental. You barely made it through dinner without him setting your hair on fire.” He shook his shaggy head. “I don’t understand why you can’t date within your own species once in a while.”
Beka set her sandwich down, her appetite vanishing almost as fast as Chewie’s dinner. “Right. Because most Humans are perfectly comfortable dating legendary witches who can change them into toads at the wave of a hand. Not to mention the insane responsibilities that come with the job, aging slower than Humans, and not being able to have children. Sure. Most guys are lining up to get a piece of that.”
Chewie just stared at her with big brown eyes. “This Marcus seems tougher than most Humans,” he said. “Maybe you are underestimating his ability to cope with the truth.”
“Ha,” Beka said. “I think you are overestimating his interest in me, outside of being a source of income for his father. He already thinks I’m a crazy, flaky hippie. Can you imagine what he’d say if I tried to tell him I’m a Baba Yaga?”
Depressed by the very thought of it, she sat down on the floor next to Chewie and put her sandwich on his plate. He breathed flames at it for a minute to melt the cheese the way he liked it, then swallowed the entire crispy, gooey mess in a single bite. The aroma of toasted bread and hot ham filled the bus; it should have made Beka hungry, but instead her stomach just churned and roiled like the sea during a summer squall.
“Well, you might have a point,” Chewie said, “but I still like him better than that stuck-up Selkie prince. Something about that guy puts my scales on edge.”
Beka’s mouth dropped open. “What do you have against Kesh?” she asked. “You’ve never even met him.”
Chewie gazed intently at his empty plate, not meeting her eyes. “I may have followed you down to the beach the other night. And, you know, overheard a little bit of your conversation.” He gave the plate a halfhearted lick and then ate it, too, making crunching noises that almost distracted Beka from what he’d just admitted.
“You spied on me?” she said, not believing her ears. “Don’t you trust me either?”
“Oh, be serious, Beka,” the dragon growled. “It’s not you I don’t trust; it’s that seal in man’s clothing. There’s something just not right about him. What kind of Selkie woos a Baba Yaga and doesn’t come to formally introduce himself to her Chudo-Yudo?”
Beka could feel her face turning as red as the ocean at sunset. “He’s not wooing me, Chewie. We’re just hanging out together. He’s a prince, for one thing.”
“And you’re a Baba Yaga. That trumps even a prince, you silly witch.” Chewie snorted, spewing bits of pottery crumbs over the polished wooden floor. “And he is so wooing you.”
“Well, I’m not interested, even if he is,” Beka said firmly. She wasn’t, was she? Yes, he was incredibly handsome and sweet and thoughtful. A girl would have to be crazy not to be flattered by his attentions. And she had always been more comfortable with magical creatures than with Humans, no matter that she’d been born one. So why wasn’t she interested?
Chewie seemed to see into her heart, the way he so often did. Such was the relationship between a Baba and her Chudo-Yudo. For better or worse.
“You like the sailor,” he said. “Even though he is Human. Even though you think he doesn’t like you.” He gave her a lick with his rough tongue; his version of a huge hug. Only wetter. “Good.”
No, Beka thought bleakly. Not good at all.
* * *
THE OCEAN WAS blue the next morning when Beka walked down to the waves, a vivid blue-green that made the sky seem pale and shy in comparison. Exuberant whitecaps raced into shore as if beckoning her to play, and there were already two or three surfers out amid the azure curls, racing each other to the crest of the biggest wave.
Beka would have been out sooner herself, but she’d waited a little longer than usual to see if Marcus would show up. He didn’t.
She was feeling a bit out of sorts anyway, tired and achy and a little nauseous, so she wasn’t moving quite as rapidly as she usually did. But being out on the water would make her feel better. It always did. Marcus or no Marcus.
A quick tug pulled the zipper on her wet suit the rest of the way closed, and she tucked her board under one arm as she headed over the damp, gritty sand toward the water’s edge. Time to get wet.
“Hey, wait up!”
Beka swiveled around to see Marcus loping toward her from the road, her spare board held under one muscular arm, and his tight wet suit molded to his tall, broad figure like a second skin. Her pulse sped up as if she were already riding the waves, and she couldn’t help the wide grin that spread across her face.
“I thought you weren’t coming,” she said as he came up to her.
Marcus looked unusually flustered, his wavy hair curling every which way and his breathing rapid, as though he had run to catch up. “Sorry,” he said, “I meant to get to your place earlier, but my da was having one of his bad mornings, and then we got into a fight when I insisted he wait for me to get back before taking the boat out.”
He paused to take a deep breath and gave her a crooked smile. “And I confess, I hadn’t really made up my mind whether or not I was going to come, right up until the last minute.”
Beka was just glad he was there, with a depth of feeling she chose not to look at too closely. “I see you found the board all right.” She’d taken it out in case he showed up, and then just walked away and left it leaning up against the bus when he hadn’t.
His hazel eyes twinkled, green and brown, with a hint of copper. “Your dog said it was okay if I borrowed it.”
Beka stiffened in shock. “Chewie talked to you?” She was going to kill that dragon.
Marcus let out a laugh, one of the first she’d heard from him. He already seemed more relaxed than usual, despite the dustup with his father, so maybe her plan was working.
“Well, he nudged the board with his nose and it fell on me. I took that as permission.” Marcus shook his head. “I wasn’t sure if he was supposed to be out, loose like that. Aren’t you worried about him running away, or someone stealing him?”
Whew. “Uh, no, not really,” she said. Chewie took his duties as guardian for the Water of Life and Death seriously; he rarely strayed far from the bus, even though the magical elixir was well hidden in a secret compartment, and locked behind a powerful spell to boot. He occasionally came for a brief romp in the water he loved so much, but he would never go far, or be away for long. Still, she couldn’t exactly tell Marcus that.
“He’s very well trained,” she said, figuring it wasn’t a lie if she didn’t specify at what. “And you’ve seen him—do you actually think anyone could take him if he didn’t want to go?” Marcus probably weighed at least 225 pounds, although all of it was lean muscle, without an extra ounce of fat. But Chewie outweighed him by twenty or thirty pounds, even so. And, of course, he was a damned dragon. But she couldn’t say that either.
The former Marine gave her a wry look. “You’ve got a point there. I was just happy he let me take the board without so much as barking at me.” He hefted the surfboard meaningfully. “Shall we see if I remember any of the things I used to know? I hope I don’t make an ass out of myself. It’s been a
long time.”
Beka smiled up at him. “Don’t worry; it’s just like falling off a bike.”
“I was afraid you were going to say that,” he said, but he grinned at her all the same as they paced down to the surf.
* * *
MARCUS COULDN’T REMEMBER the last time he’d felt this good. Years, probably. For once, he wasn’t looking over his shoulder for the enemy to sneak up on him, or fretting about his da, or trying to figure out what the hell he was going to do with his life next. The early morning sun filled the sky with light, and the reckless waves pounded away all the stray thoughts until there was only water and man and board, in perfect balance.
Or not, he thought, as an unexpected breaker surged sideways and knocked him off the board. Laughing, he pulled himself back to the surface, spitting out salty brine and heaving himself back up again. He’d never admit it to Beka, but this had been a brilliant idea.
He’d been afraid that his brother’s ghost would haunt him, out here in the misty spray, but instead, it was almost as though he could feel Kyle’s spirit joined with his, like an echo of kinder days, colored blue-green like the water, and golden like the sun-touched clouds overhead.
“Having fun?” Beka appeared next to him, paddling with him toward an incoming swell.
Marcus nodded, amazed as always by the way his heart lifted at the sight of her. Even now, with her hair pulled back in an untidy braid and dripping wetly over one shoulder, bright blue eyes squinting against the spray, she was more appealing than any glamorous movie star. There was something just so real about her. She still wasn’t his type, of course, but he had to admit, he was getting accustomed to having her around.
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