Catch of a Lifetime (33 page)

   "Good night, Michael. I love you."

   Michael murmured something. He always did.

Never clear and never loud, but Logan chose to think of it as a "Me, too." The pretense helped him sleep at night.

   So did the beers he picked up when he walked out of Michael's room. He headed down the hallway, through his bedroom without a glance at the bed he hadn't been able to sleep in, then onto his deck.

   Again.

   It was a damn familiar and painful routine.

   He sat on the decking and stretched one leg out in front of him, the other bent so he could rest his beer arm on it, dangling the bottle against his thigh, swirling the contents around after each swig.

   Six nights now. Six nights on his deck, staring out at the silvery water.

   Alone.

   Between Christine's—no,
Rainbow's
, he owed her that—illness and Angel's disappearance, well, Logan wasn't quite sure where to begin his penance.

   He'd have to see if he could track down Christine's family, though the effort would be futile at best. She'd been a free spirit and hadn't claimed any ties to anyone or anything—something they had in com mon since he hadn't liked claiming his. It was why he hadn't blinked when he'd read her note about Michael—it fit her perfectly.

   As for finding her now… She and Michael had lived so many places, according to Michael, that he didn't have a clue where to begin. And with that baseball cap for "frembrance," she obviously didn't want him to. Michael—and he—would have to remember her as they'd known her, not as she was at the end.

   Life was funny that way. You were born, you lived, and you died, with only the memories held by those you left behind living on.

   Water murmured against the pylons below as he raised his beer in the moonlight, toasting Christine and thanking her for finding him. For giving him his son. Promising her that Michael wouldn't forget her. Michael needed those memories just as…

   Well… just as Logan needed his.

   He rested his arm on his knee again, the bottle brush ing his calf. He hadn't thought about his parents in a long time. Made a point of not thinking about them, ac tually, but that wasn't fair to anyone, himself included. Who was he but the sum of his experiences? No matter how much he'd like to claim otherwise, he wouldn't be who he was today if not for where he'd been.

   Logan took a long swallow of the beer, remembering his family and how he'd wanted a normal life back then. How he still wanted one, but what, really, was normal?

   Take Angel, for instance.

   A part of him wanted to take her all right; the other part remembered that she was a
mermaid.

   And yet, in her world, she was perfectly normal. Things he found new and odd were commonplace to her. Yet she'd adapted to his world, had lived among hu mans, and no one had been able to tell the difference.

   
But she's a mermaid
, his subconscious argued.

   He knew that, yet he couldn't get her out of his mind.

   Did that mean he was out of his?

   
She has a tail.

   He knew that, too, but her tail didn't stop him from remembering how she'd looked in this very same moonlight, in his bed. The way she'd made him feel, the way she'd made love to him. How she'd laughed with Michael, and how Michael had played with her. It hadn't mattered to his son what she was; he loved her for
who
she was.

   Logan took another swig.
Who
she was…

   He'd found her journal and read the entries. An in vasion of her privacy, true, but after she'd sacrificed herself for their freedom, he'd wanted to find out who she really was.

   He remembered the look she gave him before Brutus had ushered them out of Ceto's theater. She'd been determined—even knowing what would happen. And when the whirlpool had hit…

   Logan leaned his head back against his house and closed his eyes against the memory, but it wouldn't go away.

   The dolphins had kicked against the current, until, at last, they slipped from its pull, exhausted and worn out, drained both physically and emotionally, knowing that they'd failed her. They'd
all
failed her.

   He'd thought about calling the Coast Guard to look for her, but, really, why bother? He certainly couldn't tell them they were looking for a mermaid, and no human could have survived that whirlpool. The official reports said it'd been spawned by a 6.2 quake. According to the ex perts, the epicenter was an uninhabited area of the ocean— one that included no pink coral buildings, no sneezing sea cucumbers, and no saluting crabs. No Angel.

   But Logan knew better.

   Had she survived? Was she still with Ceto? Was she a prisoner?

What the hell could he do about any of it?

   He stared at the moon. Bright and full, it cast its glow on the wave tops, seemingly on the exact spot where they'd gone below the surface.

   He had to go back out there. See for himself. Help her, if it wasn't too late.

   Then an elongated, graceful silhouette flew across the moon, pink wings glowing in the moonlight, and he got an idea.

   Logan jumped up and waved his arms. "Ginger!"

   The flamingo glanced over, then changed her course, fluttering to a landing on his deck.

   "Well, hello again, gorgeous. I don't think I've ever had a Human summon me by name. I hadn't thought your kind was into interspecies relations, but I'm told it can be kind of kinky." She circled her neck in that weird, back-scratching, leg-rubbing way. "So, what do you have in mind?"

   Not what she did. "Angel was out there. In Ceto's palace when the quake hit."

   The come-hither grin on the flamingo's face disap peared. "Yeah. I heard. Must have pissed the old witch off something fierce because Ceto rarely quakes the sea like that in the Triangle. It causes way too much interest and stirs up all those old myths. Ever since The Council started docking her for the cost of the cleanup, interest is the last thing she wants. Well,
that
kind."

   Ceto was not who he wanted to talk about. "What else have you heard? Is Angel okay? Did she survive? What do you know?"

   "Whoa. Hold on there, hotshot. What's it to you?"

   Logan's hand shot out to grab the bird by the neck,

but he thought better of it. "Prawns for the rest of your life."

   "Now you're talking." The flamingo tossed her head backward, then brushed it along one wing, giving him a look with just one eye. "So here's the skinny. Her brother—you know, the ruler of their world? She's with him in Atlantis. Rod takes care of his own. Unlike
some
people I could mention." She glared at him, then flipped her beak up. "So, there you have it. The chick is safe and sound, deep in the bosom of her family."

   "But how is she? Is she injured?"

   "Weren't you the one to tell her to take a long dive off a short pier? Why do you care?"

   Because he did.

   As simple—and as complicated—as that.

   And he didn't just care.

   He loved her.

   He… loved her.

   But he sure as hell wasn't going to let Ginger be the first one to find out.

   "Ginger, how is she?"

   "She's fine." The bird fluffed her wings. "Well, for the time being anyway."

   "What does that mean?"

   Ginger cocked her head to the side, and Logan could swear she arched an eyebrow at him—except flamingoes didn't have eyebrows. Or maybe they did, hidden under their feathers. Nothing would surprise him these days.

   "Ginger."

   Now she rolled her eyes. "Fine. She's fine. For now. Once they get done with her trial, however…" She shrugged her… shoulders?

"Trial? What's she on trial for? She saved our lives."

   Ginger swung her head around and straightened her neck to full height. "More like, what
isn't
she on trial for? That Mer broke so many rules, they went through six urchin spines writing the warrant. She'll be lucky to ever see the outside of a jail cell again—and she'll be lucky if that's the
worst
they do. A pity, but then, I guess what goes around, comes around."

   Ginger switched her weight atop her bony legs like a little kid needing a restroom, giving him another come-hither look from beneath her lashes. "Now, had she stacked her karma with good deeds like, oh, I don't know, doling out scallops, her fate might be different."

   He had no clue what the bird was talking about be yond "jail cell." They couldn't put Angel in jail. She'd sacrificed herself for Michael. That wasn't criminal; hell, she was a hero.

   "How do I get to Atlantis?"

   "And then there's—what? You want to do what?" The bird undulated her neck in a pink figure eight. "Atlantis? What? Did you suddenly fall head over fins in love with her? Oops, never mind. You don't
have
fins. My bad."

   "Ginger, how do I get there?"

   Ginger sighed. "You're crazy, aren't you? Do you know what happens to Humans who try to sneak into Atlantis?"

   He didn't want to know because that wouldn't change his mind. Besides, he wasn't planning to sneak in. "Ginger, where is it, and how do I get in? I want to provide testimony at the trial."

   The bird's head dropped to the deck with a
thunk
, then she shook it and raised it on a wobbly neck, as if the bones had collapsed. "Uh uh. I wouldn't stick my neck out for her, if I were you. You might want to con sider picking up and moving inland. Maybe find a cave to hide out in for the next few centuries, 'cause going there? That's suicide."

   "Would you tell me for a side order of scallops to go with those prawns?" Everyone had their price.

   And that was Ginger's.

   Her neck straightened and her eyes narrowed. "Daily?"

   "Once a month."

   "Once a week and you've got yourself a deal."

   "Done."

   And then she told him how to find the lost continent.

THE NEXT MORNING, LOGAN STOOD OUTSIDE A YELLOW AND red tent. They'd gotten a new one.

   A permanent one, according to the sign on the gate:
The Flying H Family Circus.

   
Family
Circus. The irony wasn't lost on Logan.

   "You really lived in a circus?" Michael held onto his hand, the baseball cap tilted back just far enough that he could look up without it falling off.

   "Yes, I really did." In another lifetime. And one he was now going to subject Michael to.

   But he didn't have a choice. He wasn't about to take him along to find Angel, and Rainbow… well, Rainbow had enough on her plate at the moment if he could even find her—and he didn't have time to look.

   His… parents were the best choice he had. He'd never starved, and Nadia had always been there with a big hug whenever he'd gotten hurt. She'd taken care of him when he'd been sick, asked how his day was. Right now, he'd have to be happy with that for Michael. God willing, this would only be temporary.

   "This looks cool. Let's go in." Michael was back to bouncing. Logan had missed that.

   He hadn't, however, missed the musty hay smell that greeted them when they opened the tent flap. Nor the Hungarian curses filling the arena where the net held the four fallen flyers while the trapezes swung madly above them. Good thing Michael didn't know Hungarian.

   "Can I do that?"

   "Not right now, Mi—"

   "Hey, you!" One of the flyers flipped over the edge of the net, his accent as thick as the sawdust below—and just as familiar. Goran was still at his old tricks. "No audience 'til four. You come back then."

   "Hello, Goran."

   His father was in his seventies, yet he still had the tightly muscled body of an athlete who practiced every day, hour after hour. Logan remembered it well.

   "Who are you?" Goran rested a foot on the ring and shoved his hands onto his hips, the same way he had when any of them had put the raising of the big top in jeopardy.

   "It's me, Goran. Lacko." God, that was a name from the past.

   "Lacko?" For once the guy was speechless, and the look of surprise added years to his face. "You came back?" He stepped over the ring and held out his arms. "You brought your child?"

   A lump settled in Logan's throat. Open arms. Just like that, Goran accepted him back with open arms.

   He nodded and met the old man halfway in an em brace that wiped out the years and much of the baggage Logan had carried with him for so long.

   "Lacko, your mama, she's going to be so happy." The gruff guy who'd demanded a lot from him stood there with damp eyes and a firm grip on Logan's shoulders. "We'll go to her, yes? With the little one."

   Goran tilted Michael's face up, the baseball cap hit ting the sawdust. For once Michael didn't complain.

   "Ah, this one. He looks like you. Full of mischief, but good. You were a good son, Lacko, eh? Now you're a good father, I think."

   The praise did more for Logan's soul than he would have thought. A good son. When he'd felt anything but, both before he'd left and afterward when he'd faced the world on his own.

   He'd been so ashamed of where he'd come from, yet now… This was what it was all about. Family. No matter if they shared the same DNA or not. Goran was welcoming him home.

   "Come. Let's go. These three, pah! They practice without me. They need it."