Tempest Rising (11 page)

“Okay,” came my dad’s answer from his office at the top of the stairs. “Tempest—”

“Mark’s here.” I cut him off, not sure what he was going to say but certain it was about my birthday.

My dad poked out his head, still looking every bit the quintessential surf bum despite the fact that he was almost forty-five years old and the head of a very successful surfing gear and clothing line.

“Oh, all right then.” He gave me a meaningful look. “But come see me before you head up to bed.”

“Sure.”

I turned back to Mark, strangely unsure of what to do with my hands. Despite my annoyance, I wanted to wrap them around him, to hold him to me as tightly as I could until the clock struck midnight and whatever was going to happen, happened.

I settled for shoving them in my back pockets.

“Do you want a soda or something?” I asked into the suddenly awkward silence.

“Nah, I’m good.” Mark stretched out on the sofa, like he usually did at my house, and I perched in the corner—as I usually did. I reached for the remote control, but he stopped me.

“Come here.” Mark’s eyes were heavy lidded, intense, and I felt an answering warmth start inside me. Scooting closer, I went willingly into his arms.

His breath was coming hard and fast as he skimmed his mouth over my forehead and down my cheeks to my mouth. “I love you, Tempest.” He said the words against my lips, but I felt them in every part of me. His voice was soft, yet it held a conviction I couldn’t hope to argue with.

“Mark.” I didn’t know what to say, how to feel, with the intensity of his emotions laid out between us.

“It’s okay. I know you’re not sure you feel the same way. I just—”

In the hallway, the clock struck midnight. Heat worked its way through my body, a kind of sparkling warmth that lit me up from the inside. Was it the change or was it Mark? I didn’t know and in those moments, I didn’t care.

“I
do
love you. I love you so much, Mark.” The words burst from me, and as soon as I said them I wondered why it had taken me so long to get them out. Mark was everything I wasn’t—steady, sure, confident in himself and the world he lived in. I didn’t deserve him, but I wanted him and everything he stood for. For whatever time my mother’s legacy allowed me, I would take him.

I threw myself on top of him, suddenly unable to touch him enough. My hands skimmed over his shoulders, down his back, up his chest. I fumbled his T-shirt over the flat expanse of his stomach, relished the feel of his hot skin against my cold palms.

“Tempest!” He pulled me closer, glancing uneasily up the stairs as he did. “Your dad …”

I followed his gaze. The door to my dad’s office was firmly shut and I knew he wouldn’t bother me—at least not right now. Not on what might be my last night as a human.

“It’s fine.”

“I don’t—”

“Kiss me.” I didn’t care if I was begging. “Please, Mark. Just kiss me.”

And then he did, his mouth hungry and intense on my own. I wrapped my arms around his neck, plastered my body to his, and kissed him like the world was ending.

Kissed him like I would never get enough of him.

Kissed him and kissed him and kissed him until we both were hot and sweaty and more than a little breathless.

Mark pulled away first, his breath heavy and eyes dark. Setting me on the other side of the sofa, he reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a flat, gold box. I was gratified to see that his hand was trembling when he handed it to me—that I wasn’t the only one feeling out of control. I was so turned on and shaky that I felt like a snapper could not just knock me over, but bury me as well.

“What is it?” Was that my voice, I wondered wildly, all low and husky and sexy like that?

Mark’s eyes darkened to almost black, and I realized that yes, I was the one who sounded like she’d just rolled out of bed.

“Open it and find out.”

My fingers were clumsy as I fumbled the purple ribbon off the box. I didn’t know what I was expecting, didn’t know what I thought I’d see when I lifted the top. But nothing could have prepared me for what I found.

For a second, I thought the back of my head was going to blow straight off.

Shock ricocheted through me, had me dropping the box like it was a jellyfish about to sting.

Mark picked it up, looked down at the necklace inside, as if searching for what had set me off. “What’s wrong? Don’t you like it?”

What could I say? How could I not like it when any normal girl would be gushing like Old Faithful?

“Of course I do. It’s beautiful.”

And it was beautiful, absolutely stunning. I needed to reach for the box, needed to coo over the gift and let Mark fasten it around my neck. Needed to rush to a mirror and see how it looked.

But I could do none of that—not when I was shaking so violently I could barely hold it together. Not when my world felt like it had just caved in around me.

“Tempest?” Mark’s voice was concerned. “I can get you something else. It’s just that when I saw it, it made me think of you.”

I looked down at the gold collar. It was designed to wrap around my neck like a lover’s hand, the gold soft and supple and perfectly rendered so that the two ends almost met in front. One end was a beautifully crafted tail, dotted with purple and blue stones, which led into a flowing body that would wrap around my neck before the other end—which was a mermaid’s face and long, ruby-encrusted hair—came to rest in the center of my chest.

“How could I not like it?” I whispered sickly, even as I reached for the box. “It’s perfect.”

I lifted my hair out of the way, let him secure the collar around my neck before dutifully crossing the room to look in the closest mirror. Mark followed, stopping behind me with his hands on my shoulders as we both gazed at my reflection.

“Wow!” he breathed. “It looks like it was made for you.”

And it did. It really did. I stared at myself in the mirror and did my best not to scream.

I was afraid that once I started, I would never stop.

Chapter 8

After assuring Mark I loved his gift, I walked him out to his bike and watched while he drove away. I knew he was confused, knew he’d expected to take up where we’d left off after he’d paused to give me my present, but the feel of the necklace hanging around my neck killed all of the heat he’d generated inside me.

The second he was out of sight, I ran upstairs and ripped the thing from my neck. I wasn’t sure what bothered me more—that he saw through me well enough to see the mermaid part I thought I’d kept hidden, or that he’d been right: the mermaid
was
perfect for me—it looked absolutely fabulous around my neck. Like it was designed just for me.

I shuddered at the thought.

“Tempest.” My dad opened my bedroom door a crack. “I wanted to talk to you for a few minutes.”

“Not now, Dad.”

“But we might not get another chance. I wanted you to know that I’ll understand if you choose to go with your mother. I—”

“I won’t.” I walked over to stand in front of my mirror, started cataloging all the human attributes I still had.

“But if you do—”

“I won’t!”

“Tempest, please, listen to me.”

“I can’t.” I hated the tears that clogged my throat, but I couldn’t stop them—any more than I could stop time from moving forward. “I can’t think about it, Dad. I just can’t.”

He started to say something else, but must have thought better of it because in the end he merely nodded. “Okay.”

“Okay.”

His eyes met mine in the mirror. “Happy birthday, Tempest.”

“Yeah,” I choked out. “Thanks.”

“I love you.”

“I love you too.”

I waited for the door to close behind him, then flung myself across my bed in a fit of rage. I didn’t cry, not this time. The anger was too raw, too real, and for now I was all cried out.

A few minutes later my bedroom door opened again.

“Dad.”

“I’m sorry. I can’t just walk away and leave you in here when I know you’re scared and miserable.”

“I’m not—”

“Don’t kid a kidder, sweetheart.” He crossed to the bed and for the first time I realized he was balancing a tray with a teapot and two cups on it. He’d brought me hot chocolate—my favorite make-it-all-better drink from the time I was a little girl.

My heart cracked wide open and I threw myself at him, so hard I nearly knocked the tray right out of his hands.

He paused long enough to set down the chocolate and then his arms were around me, his chin resting on the top of my head as he squeezed me so hard I could barely breathe. But I didn’t struggle—for now, the pressure felt more than good. It felt perfect.

“I don’t want to go, Daddy. I don’t want to go. I don’t want—” My voice broke as he settled me on the bed and patted my back like he’d done when I was a little girl and had gotten hurt.

“Nobody’s going to make you go anywhere, Tempest. You know that. Your mother said—”

I snorted. “Yeah, and she’s just so reliable, isn’t she?”

My dad sighed, long and deep like he was in pain, but he didn’t say anything else. We sat there on the bed for long minutes, silent and still except for the rise and fall of our chests.

“Tempest, look at me.”

I didn’t want to, didn’t want to see the disappointment and the pain in his eyes. But I knew that tone. My father didn’t use it very often, but when he did, it meant he wouldn’t tolerate disobedience. Reluctantly I raised my eyes to his.

“Being a mermaid isn’t a punishment.”

“Yes, it—”

“No, it isn’t.” He talked over my objection. “It’s a gift, one that few people are ever granted.”

“Yeah, well, they can take it back. I don’t want it.”

“You don’t want it because you blame it for taking your mother.”

“Like you don’t?” The words burst from me. “She left you, left us, because of this thing.”

“No. She left because there were things she had to do, things she couldn’t do here on land. Things she had to be mermaid to accomplish.”

“What kind of things?”

“Important things. Private things.”

“Yeah, right. So private she couldn’t even tell her husband and family about them? And you believe that?”

“I do.”

I stared at him incredulously. “Why? She left you alone, with three kids to raise and no explanation. How can you believe in her?”

“Because I love her. And I trust her.”

“That’s bull.”

His eyes narrowed dangerously. “Watch it, Tempest. She’s still your mother—and my wife.”

“Is she? Really? Then where is she? Because I thought a mom hung around. Thought a wife showed her husband her face occasionally.”

For once my father was at a loss for words.

Finally, when I was sure there was nothing else to say, he murmured, “Maybe when the changes start to take place, she’ll—”

My laugh was bitter. “I have
gills
, Dad. I grew a tail last week. I can barely stand to be touched and I’m so cold all the time I feel like I live in a freezer. I think the changes are already here.”

“You didn’t tell me.”

I tried to ignore the hurt in his voice. “What was I supposed to say?”

“How about, ‘Hey, Dad, something strange happened on the beach today’?” His eyes sparked with an unfamiliar fury.

“Like it’s that easy.”

“Why wouldn’t it be? I thought we could talk about anything.”

I looked away. “Not this.”

“Why not this? Why not now? I’ve been trying to talk to you about it for weeks, months.”

“Because you’re not the one I’m supposed to talk to about this, remember? It’s supposed to be
her
. She was supposed to come back for me. She promised to come back for me.”

I was yelling now, the rage I’d kept bottled up inside for so long suddenly spewing out in all directions. “She promised to help me through this, no matter what I decided. And after everything she’s done, everything that’s happened, a part of me was stupid enough to believe that she would keep that promise.”

I looked around the room wildly, held my arms up in an all-encompassing shrug. “But she’s not here, is she? And I’m weak enough to still be hurt by that. You would’ve thought I’d have learned by now, but I guess I’m as stupid about her in my own way as you are in yours.”

The words echoed in the room, and as soon as I’d said them I wanted to take them back. Would have done anything to take them back. Because my dad had aged ten years in the space of five minutes and that wasn’t fair. I shouldn’t be taking my anger out on him—he’d lost as much as anyone else in this whole miserable situation. Stood to lose more still, and yet he was behaving so much better than I was.

“I’m sorry.”

He shook his head. “Don’t be.”