Sea Fever (7 page)

at her with dark-eyed intensity, like the brooding hero of some romance

novel. Regina shivered. It was perversely arousing. Annoying. People

were beginning to talk.

“Don’t you have anything better to do?” she demanded, keeping her

voice low.

By the door, a middle-aged couple hung with cameras and water

bottles perused the menu. Nick was under one of the tables, playing with

the cat.

Dylan studied her a moment. A corner of his mouth quirked. “No.”

“Someplace to go? A job?”

“I have a job to do here.”

“You’re not a lobsterman.” The lobster fishermen, the good ones,

were all on the water by five o’clock. It was after ten now.

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“No,” he acknowledged.

She set her hands on her hips and waited.

“Salvage,” he offered finally.

Her brows drew together. “You mean, shipwrecks? Like, Titanic

stuff?”

“What lies in the sea belongs to the sea.”

“I heard it belongs to the government.”

He shrugged. “Most exploration is done by private divers.”

“Grave robbers.”

The edge of his teeth showed in a smile. “Treasure seekers.”

Nick poked his head from under the table. “Did you ever find

treasure?”

He was stuck indoors, grounded, until Regina’s shift ended at three.

Antonia told Regina she was overreacting, but she didn’t care. She had

enough problems without worrying about Nick’s whereabouts ten times a

day.

Dylan reached into his pocket and pulled out a coin. Regina caught

the gleam as he flipped it to her son.

“Wow.” Nick’s eyes widened as he turned the coin over in his hand.

“Is it real?”

Dylan nodded. “Morgan Liberty Head silver dollar.”

“Cool.”

“Keep it.”

“No,” Regina said.

“It’s only a dollar,” Nick said.

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“And not in mint condition,” Dylan added.

“I don’t care what kind of condition it’s in. He doesn’t take gifts

from strangers.”

Nick thrust out his lower lip. “But—”

She pinned him with her I-mean-it-Nicky-now look. She didn’t want

her son romanticizing this guy. Even if Dylan did look a little like a

pirate, with that long dark hair and sexy stubble . . .

She pulled herself up. She wasn’t going to romanticizehim either. He

was just an island boy who’d gone away, no different and certainly no

better than any of the men she had considered and rejected over the years.

Men she hadn’t had sex with.

Shit.

“Sorry, kid,” Dylan said.

“Yeah.” Nick dropped the coin into Dylan’s palm. “Me, too.”

Regina sighed as her son stomped into the kitchen.

Dylan turned toward the door, stretching his legs into the room.

Long legs, Regina noticed. No socks.

“Who is that?” he asked.

Regina jerked her attention from his corded legs and followed his

gaze to the front window, where Jericho waited on the sidewalk. “Jericho

Jones.”

She gave him the islanders’ wave, lifted fingers, an almost-nod. The

vet shouldered his pack and disappeared around the corner of the

building.

“What does he want?”

“Nothing. A sandwich.”

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He came by once a day, or every other day. She slipped him food

through the back door when Antonia wasn’t watching.

“I meant here, on the island.”

Regina shrugged. “Maybe he can’t afford the ferry back to the

mainland.”

“Is that what he told you?”

“I didn’t ask. It’s your brother’s job to question people. I just feed

them.”

Dylan’s gaze narrowed on her face. “You are kind,” he said, almost

accusingly.

“Not really. The way our country treats its returning soldiers sucks.

He shouldn’t be living on the streets, he—”

“— could be trouble.”

“Look, he doesn’t bother the customers, and he’s not a registered sex

offender. That’s all I need to know.”

“And how do you know that much?”

She flushed. “Your brother told me.”

“Where does he sleep?”

“Jericho? I don’t know,” she said irritably. “Around. I don’t know

where you sleep either.”

“Would you like to see?” he asked softly.

Her pulse jumped. “N-no.” She cleared her throat. “No. It’s just . . .

The inn’s full up, and most places were rented months ago. Unless you’re

staying with your family?”

Dylan’s brows rose. “With the newlyweds? I think not.”

She wiped her hands on her apron. “What about your dad’s place?”

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His face closed like a poker player’s. “My father and I do not

speak.”

“But your sister—”

“Lucy was a baby when I . . . left.”

He had Margred’s habit of pausing before certain words, as if

English was his second language or something. Regina wondered again

where he’d lived and how they’d met. “All the more reason to get to

know her now,” she pointed out.

“You’re suddenly very interested in my personal life.”

“I—” Oh, shit. “I’m thinking about Lucy. She was Nicky’s teacher

for two years, you know. First and second grade.”

“I did not know.” He caught her eye and for a second looked almost

embarrassed, like the boy he must have been before his mother took him

away. “We do not have much sense of family.”

But that wasn’t true. Bart Hunter had been devastated by his wife’s

desertion. Lucy had turned down a post in Cumberland County to teach

on the island and keep house for her father. Caleb was a thoughtful and

devoted brother. Since his return from Iraq, he had even begun a painful

reconciliation with his dad.

“You mean, you don’t have much sense of family,” she accused.

He shrugged. “If you like.”

She didn’t like it at all.

* * *

The next morning, Regina sat on the toilet, counting the days in her

mental calendar, controlling panic.

Her period wasn’t even due yet, not for another— she counted

again— two days, she wasn’t late, she couldn’t possibly be pregnant.

Her throat closed.

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Well, technically, she could.

She could take a pregnancy test. Regina thought about walking into

Wiley’s Grocery and requesting a pregnancy kit from the Wileys’ teenage

daughter and shuddered. That would certainly liven up the discussion in

the checkout line.

Regina swallowed. Okay, no test. Not yet. Not until she could get to

the mainland, Rockland or someplace, to buy one. In the meanwhile, she

would count the days and pray and stay as far away as possible from

Dylan “No Family Ties” Hunter.

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Five

LIVING IN HUMAN FORM AMONG HUMANS was like being

dragged naked over rocks.

Dylan stood motionless on the wharf outside the lobster cooperative,

itching for the coverage of his pelt, craving the rush and freedom of the

sea.

His hands flexed and fisted. He had dallied in human form before,

sometimes for sex, most often alone on the island his mother had

bequeathed to him. But never for so long. Never surrounded by other

beings who claimed a share of his space, a portion of his attention. He felt

assaulted, abraded, by the constant human contact.

No wonder the old king, Llyr, had gone “beneath the wave,” the

polite selkie term for those who had withdrawn so deeply into themselves

and the sea that they lost the desire and ability to assume human shape.

The smell of diesel and oil, the tang of coffee, sweat, and cigarettes,

rose from the saturated planks, overlaying the rich brine of the ocean.

Fishermen came into the low wooden building to sell their catch, to buy

bait and fuel and rubber bands, to share complaints or gossip. Dylan felt

their glances light like flies against his skin, but no one questioned his

presence. He was accepted— not one of them, but still of the island.

He listened to their conversations, trying to fathom from their talk of

weather, traps, and prices what the demons could possibly want from

World’s End.

“He’s got no right to set traps on that ledge,” one man told another.

“So I cut his line and retied it with a big knot up by the buoy.”

His companion nodded. “That’ll teach him.”

“It better.” The rumble of an incoming boat underscored the threat.

“Or next time I’ll cut his line for good.”

Dylan smiled to himself. Apparently humans could be as territorial

as selkies.

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The engine behind him throttled down. Another fisherman, Dylan

thought. He turned. And froze, his casual greeting stuck in his throat.

The boat was the Pretty Saro. He recognized her lines even before he

registered the name painted on her side. And the fisherman was Bart

Hunter.

His father.

He was old. Dylan had seen his father before, of course, at the

wedding. But out of a suit, out in the sunlight, the realization struck with

fresh force.

Bart Hunter had always been a big man. Dylan had his height; Caleb,

his shoulders and large, square, workingman’s hands. But the years or the

drinking had whittled the flesh from his bones, weathered his face,

bleached his hair, until he stood like an old spar, stark and gray. Human.

Old.

How had Dylan ever been afraid of him?

They stared at each other across the narrowing strip of water.

They had barely spoken at the wedding. Dylan had nothing to say to

the man who had held his mother captive for fourteen years.

But before he could clear out, Bart tossed him a rope.

Dylan caught it automatically. Old habits died hard. He was eight or

nine when he started sterning for his father, hard, wet, dirty work in

oversized boots and rubber gloves.

Dylan tied the line, cursing the memories that dragged at him as hard

as any rope.

And then he turned and walked away without a word. “Don’t judge

me, boy,” Bart called after him. The words thumped like stones between

his shoulder blades. “You can’t judge me.”

Dylan did not look back.

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He climbed the road away from the wharf, the need to escape

swelling inside him, coiling in his gut, clawing under his skin.

He sucked in the cool ocean air in a vain attempt to placate the beast

in his belly. He burned with need, for a woman, for the sea, the two

hungers twining and combining, eating him up inside. He fought the urge

to run back and plunge off the pier, to merge with the dance beneath the

waves, the life lurking, darting, swaying, streaming, in the flowing moss,

in the forests of kelp, in the cold, deep dark. To blot out thought with

sensation. To wash the taint of humanity from his soul.

How did Conn stand it?

Within the confines of Sanctuary, the prince had held to his human

form longer than any selkie living. But he would not leave the magic of

the island. He could not risk aging.

Dylan gulped another mouthful of air. He was young by selkie

standards— not yet forty. He could spend weeks, years, on land and still

not approach his chronological age. At least he would not die from this

experience. Unless the frustration killed him.

He raised his gaze from the asphalt. At the top of the winding road,

the restaurant’s red awning gleamed like a sail in the sunset.

The slippery knot in his gut eased. There was one hunger he could

satisfy.

He went to see her only because it suited his purpose, Dylan told

himself as he passed the ferry road. His very public pursuit of Regina

provided him with an excuse to keep an eye on the humans’ comings and

goings, to listen to their gossip. If a demon did possess an islander,

chances were good that his neighbors would be discussing his strange

behavior over coffee at Antonia’s the next day.

And yet . . .

He wanted to see her. Looked forward to the wary light that came

into her eyes when he walked through the door, the challenge in her chin,

the annoyance in her voice. Liked watching her through the pass-through

into the kitchen, her quick, neat movements, her small, strong hands, the

impatient press of her lips. He smiled, picturing her. Always busy, always

in motion, like a bird at the edge of the tide.

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He pushed open the restaurant door, making the bell jangle. The

restaurant cat raised its head from its window perch, regarding him with

sleepy golden eyes.

Margred paused in the act of untying her apron. “Oh, it’s you.”

Dylan raised an eyebrow, nettled by her obvious disappointment.

Selkie or human, married or not, Margred had power, a purely female

magic that would always draw men’s eyes. But this time the sight of her

did nothing to blunt the edge in him.

His restless gaze moved past her to the kitchen. “Where is she?”