Serena glared at her sister until her sense of humor got the best of her. She cracked a smile. “Okay, he is hot. But it’s not just his hotness that gets to me. I don’t see how we can have any future. Not with dad and the uncles aligned against us.”
“Dad isn’t going to give in,” Justine agreed.
“He’s too stubborn to admit he’s wrong,” complained Serena.
Justine flopped down onto the couch across from Serena who was curled up in the largest of their armchairs. “Tell me about it. He doesn’t want me to divorce Chris. But he doesn’t approve of our marriage. To be honest, I’m not sure what he expects me to do. But I hate still being connected to that asshat.”
“Beats me. But my advice is to finalize your divorce, whatever Dad says. That way if you meet Mr. Right...”
Justine snorted. “As if. Who would he be? Cousin Peter?”
“Nothing wrong with Peter. He’s an all around good guy and one heck of a fisher.”
“Who just happens to be our cousin about six times over. Our mothers are sisters, and our fathers are first cousins. Which makes Peter too close to being a brother.” Justine folded her arms. “Even Dad hasn’t proposed that match.”
Serena slumped in her chair. “I wasn’t serious! But honestly, Justine, if Dad wants you to marry a merman, you have to divorce Chris first. His stance is just crazy.”
“I know. But he’s on surer ground with you. He and Mom just want you to marry one of us.”
“Like Bock,” Serena said gloomily. “Anton thinks Dad must be feeling foolish about trying to set me up with a rapist.”
“Yup. Not that feeling foolish will make Dad change his mind. He just keeps getting more and more rigid. He’s never been the same since the evening he told Carlyle to go.”
“I know,” Serena said sadly. “And the worst part is that he’s going to lose Cyrus, Will and Peter. They are going to grab their girlfriends and leave – just like Carlyle. Or stage a revolt.”
“Don’t say things like that,” cried Justine. “None of our cousins would rebel against the king. Although they might leave with their fated mates. It would be hard on them, but it might be better than the alternative.”
“I know. Even if our cousins suddenly met mermaids they could love, what about the women they are involved with now? It’s not like their mates wouldn’t still be living on West Haven. Can you imagine the bad feelings between their clans and ours?” Serena shivered.
“I certainly can,” said Justine.
“Which leaves me and Anton where? Sneaking around.” Serena covered her face with her hands to hide the tears in her eyes.
“He will have to leave eventually,” Justine pointed out. “I know Bear Claw is going to break ground for the high school gym* as soon as the museum is ready for windows and doors. But after those two projects, what is there for Anton to do around here? We don’t exactly need another security guard.”
“Anton isn’t a security guard. He’s a cyber-investigator. Are you saying not to buck Dad since Anton and I are doomed from the get-go?”
“Pretty much.”
“I think he’s the one, Justine. I couldn’t leave the ocean for any man. But for Anton, I could leave West Haven.”
Justine stared at her in horror. “You don’t mean that.”
“Uh huh.” Serena pulled her little wooden bear out of her hip pocket and stroked it lovingly. The tiny love token warmed under her finger and strengthened her resolve.
“What’s that?” her sister asked.
“Anton made it for me.” She held the bear out on her open palm.
“It’s so cute.” Justine jumped up and bent to peer at it. “It’s him. OMG. It only has three paws. When did he have time to make this?”
Serena shrugged.
“May I?” Justine picked it up. “There’s so much detail. It’s adorable.”
“Can I have it back?” Serena’s heart settled back down once Justine replaced it on her outstretched palm. She closed her fist around the bear. “How on earth or sea could we get Dad to change his mind?”
“I’d tell you to work on Mom,” Justine said. “But I hate to put her in the middle.”
“She’s there already.”
“Do you think Carlyle keeps in touch with her?” Justine asked.
Serena shook her head. “Nope. Mystic Bay is too small. If Mom was getting birthday cards or such from Carlyle, it would be all over town in hours. As soon as Erica Sullivan sorted the mail, everyone would know.” Erica was a mid-level sorceress and ran the post office. She wasn’t above gossiping, but she had spread no rumors about their brother.
“He could call Mom.”
“And when Dad answered the phone?” Serena asked.
“She has her own cell.”
“Now she does. But she didn’t when Carlyle left. How would he know her number? Besides, there’s nothing furtive about Mom.” Serena tucked her bear away in her jeans.
“I miss him.” Justine returned to the couch.
“Yeah.”
“If you leave, sis, I’ll be alone.” Her sister made a face, but she wasn’t joking.
“You could come too.”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Anton~
“So how’s your mate hunt going?” Steve Holden’s deep voice was amused.
“Not good. Her folks object to my hairy bear ass,” Anton admitted.
“Not a lot you can do about that, Benoit. Does that mean you’re heading back to Denver? Because I got to tell you, the Anderson project could use your input. I could always air freight you a secure computer.”
“Not yet, Boss. Get Benhari to work on it. I called because I need an assist. I’ve been asked to locate Serena’s father’s greatest treasure and I could use a little help.”
“I do know a couple of shark shifters,” Holden offered.
Anton laughed. “I don’t think we’ll need sharks for this job.”
CHAPTER TWENTY
Sully~
“I’m glad you came yourself.” Sully wrung Roger Merryman’s hand and waved a hand at the bench in front of the chipped worktable. The shabby wheelhouse of the Nightingale helped keep the fishing boat looking authentic for the tourists.
“If you’re not happy with our arrangement, man,” Sully continued, “We can give things a tweak. We’ve done business a heap of years.”
Roger’s belligerent stance turned to frank puzzlement as he settled across from Sully on the stained cushions. “I’m perfectly happy with our supper tours.”
“That’s not what I hear,” Sully boomed. “Talk is that you and your brothers were in conference with Tom Peterson yesterday. Now, I’m not saying that Tom doesn’t run a fine charter service. He does. Besides he’s one of my mages. But his operation is a mite slick for the Crab Hut’s patrons.”
He spread his arms to encompass the Nightingale. “This is an honest to goodness fishing smack. We give the tourists that gen-u-wine West Coast fishing experience.”
The Nightingale retained both the appearance and the aroma of a vessel that had once plied the ocean harvesting salmon. Sully deliberately wore his greasy oilskins when he took tourists out to whale watch. They loved the illusion that they had hired a fishing boat to take them where the whales frolicked.
Roger scowled. “I know. We’re a good fit, Sully. Your crowd gobbles up our crab supper and comes back for seconds at the restaurant. Pearl and I don’t have any problem with that arrangement. The supper tours give our bottom line a good boost every summer. We’re good for the foreseeable future.”
“Yeah?” Sully fed skepticism into his voice and narrowed his eyes at his old friend. “So what did you and Cliff and Mark have to say to Tom that took two whole hours?”
“That’s just what I want to talk to you about, if you’d let me get a word in edgewise,” complained Roger.
“Sure. Go ahead,” Sully allowed himself to turn genial. “What’s up?”
“I want the council to run that damned hunter that’s
screwing my daughter out of town,” Roger sputtered.
“The black bear?” Sully affected surprise. “What’s wrong with him? Anton Benoit is a Marine hero. He saw action with Special Forces and he has medals out the wazoo. Plus he’s a personal friend of Ryan Rutherford. We don’t want to piss off those cougars until they break ground for the high school gym.” The Rutherfords were paying for this memorial to Cuthbert Rutherford.
Roger pounced. “How do you know so much about that darned hunter?”
Sully shrugged. “Wally checked him out. He had to. He was hanging around when Dyson Bock attacked Serena. Babcock took Benoit’s record out and shook it. No skeletons. Which reminds me, the council has a bone to pick with you, Merryman. You vouched for that scoundrel Bock – who turns out to be a totally different merman, and a wanted man to boot. What’s up with that?”
Roger’s green eyes were firing bullets. Sully reckoned he had pushed his pal just far enough off-balance. Time to ease up.
“I made inquiries,” Roger muttered. “The Massachusetts mer-people told me Jerome Brooks was a good guy. How was I to know the merman using his name was an impostor?”
“I thought you merfolk were telepathic? Why the heck didn’t you take him swimming?” Sully knew just how little swimming his buddy did nowadays. It was past time he got back in the water.
Roger turned brick-red. “I kept meaning to, but somehow he was never available when I was. But I knew the boys were taking him on patrol.”
“Way I hear it, your nephews told you flat out that they didn’t like what they picked up from Bock. You gotta learn to trust your boys, Roger. Not that they’re boys anymore, except for Scotty.” Sully sighed. “Jeez, wasn’t but a few minutes ago that Cliff was bragging on that kid’s birth.”
“Don’t let him hear you call him Scotty,” Roger said wryly. “He’s six-damn-teen and thinks because he has three chin whiskers he’s a man.”
Sully chuckled indulgently. “He’s tall enough, I’ll give him that. A fine looking young man. So what do your nephews say about this bear?”
“Zip squat. All I know is that they had to pull him out of the riptide last night and save his sorry, shaggy hide.” Roger pounded a big fist on the wheelhouse table. “Should have let the danged orcas eat him.”
“You don’t mean that,” Sully reproved him. “The mer-patrol is tasked with keeping our waters safe. I admit that during the winter they don’t get many chances to save lives, but it’s what they do. And Benoit is not just anyone. He’s a veteran with only one foot. Applied a field dressing to his own danged bleeding stump and hauled a wounded team member back to base in the bargain. That’s what they gave him his Bronze Star for. I’d have been ashamed of your boys if they had let him drown or become whale bait.”
“Hmph.”
“Serena seems taken with him,” Sully said gently. “What’s your problem with that?”
“Would you want your daughter to marry a hunter?” Roger spat. “And not just any hunter, a fricking son of a bear!”
“Owen Haverstock was a grizzly shifter. His mate was a fairy. They were both psychopaths. I can tell you for a fact in three danged flavors, no psychopath risks his ass in Special Forces, let alone bothers to save the life of a wounded buddy. Psychopaths don’t have buddies.” Sully didn’t bother mentioning his own service record. Or Roger’s.
“I still don’t want bear-grandkids,” Roger said. “The mer bloodlines are my responsibility. And all this whole damned younger generation wants to do is marry out of the mer-people. Bad enough I let Justine marry that blamed psychic. But now Will is sniffing around that Babcock girl.”
“Rinelle is a rabbit.” Sully used his beard to conceal his smile. “No hunter blood at all. And they don’t come better citizens than the Babcocks.”
“Never saw any Babcock even put a toe in the water,” moaned Roger. “What the heck kind of babies are they going to have? Why can’t those boys go looking for mermaids? I tell them it’s just as easy to fall in love with the right mermaid.”
“Love happens, Roger. I don’t see why Will and Rinelle shouldn’t have fine, healthy children. Would it be the worst thing in the world if they produced a litter or two of swimming bunnies?”
“It would be a scandal and a hissing,” declared Roger. “Not on my fricking watch.”
“Tell you what, Rog, if you don’t lighten up, all you’re going to do is drive those boys off-island. Instead of hybrid grandkids, or great nephews or whatever, you’re going to wind up with no kiddies at all. How would it be better for Will and Rinelle to move to Seattle or Portland and have their babies there?”
“They wouldn’t!”
“No? Ever wonder what Carlyle is doing? Who he married? If he is raising himself a whole shoal of mer-babies?”
Roger turned so purple, Sully feared he might stroke out on him, but after a lot of heavy breathing, the mer-king pulled himself together. “I’m ashamed to say it,” he declared. “But I’ll bet that sissy is panhandling on skid row.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Anton~
“I need to replace my knife.” Anton laid his chipped blade on the dark stone counter of Fairchild’s Art Supply.
The proprietor picked it up and examined both the elaborately carved handle, and the damaged edge and point. She tested it against her thumb. “What have you been using this on?” Moira Drake demanded disapprovingly.
Anton took the partially complete oyster shell out of his pocket. “I’ve carved stone with that knife, but this is much harder.” It was, it had snapped the carbon steel blade that he had used on moose antler.
Moira held out her hand. He reluctantly released the carving of his mate. Serena’s features were not yet fully picked out of the mother-of-pearl, but it still felt too intimate an object to hand off to this strange woman.
He took another whiff of the shopkeeper. She reeked of dragon and also of fairy blood. What was up with that? Hadn’t Serena told him that hunter-fairy hybrids were forbidden on West Haven? But this obviously pregnant dragoness had a shop on Main Street. She was a dragoness-made all right.*
Moira held the shell under a light. “Do you plan to remove the outer shell so the light shines through?” She ran her thumb over the soft pinks and mauves of the mother-of-pearl and turned it over to examine the natural back.
“I hadn’t thought about it. I just wanted to peel back some of the inner layers of nacre.” And reveal his mate’s true loveliness in pearly pastels.
“When you make a cameo, it’s traditional to also remove the dull, rocky, outer layers of the shell,” Moira said softly. “The periostracum. This would be even more beautiful if light could pass through the mother-of-pearl.”
Anton sighed. He was on his lunch hour. “All I want is to replace my knife so I can finish this piece. I don’t need to make the back pretty.” The magic would work as long as the image was there.
Moira didn’t answer him. Her fingers were tapping on her keyboard. She turned the laptop screen toward him and pointed. The website displayed rows of graceful women’s heads carved in relief. Each creamy white oval was ringed with a gold band and sported a hefty price tag. Anton whistled.
“This cameo is Roman,” Moira said briskly. “This one is Georgian. This one is Victorian. So’s this one. Only the Georgian one is oyster shell. The others are mussel. It’s softer and easier to carve. These three here are agate.”
“I’m not making a brooch, or a pendant,” Anton explained, feeling harassed. He looked around at the racks of oil paints and brushes uneasily. He wasn’t an artist, or a jewelry-maker, just a guy who was good with his hands.
“This is just a little something for myself. All I need, Ms. Drake, is a knife blade to replace this broken one. I already tried at the hardware store. Fellow there sent me over here.” Hardware stores he understood. Art supply was a strange new world he wasn’t ready for.
“I do carry specialized lines of knives,” Moira unlocked a case and set a black velvet box before him
. Rows of gleaming blades were tucked into slots.
The knives were beauties, but too frail for shell. “None of these is any good to me.”
She nodded. “I know. They’re not designed for shell work. Artists who work in shell usually start by using electric tools to make blanks. They carve with small drills. They only use knives to incise fine detail. And no one on West Haven is working in shell. So I don’t keep blades that hard in stock.”
“Huh.”
She smiled, green eyes twinkling. “Do you have a rotary drilling tool, Mr. Benoit?”
“Sure.” Back in Denver with his other power tools. A top of the line model. But he liked to whittle with a knife.
“You could use one to remove the back of the oyster shell and then cut yourself an oval. Rough out the head or whatever you’re carving with a fine point drill, before doing the hand work.”
He snatched his shell from her. “I might break this if I try to take the back off now. Ruin the magic.”
She raised perfect brows. “For-real magic, or just a feeling you have about this piece?”
This was so not a topic to discuss with a strange woman. He lowered his voice and croaked softly. “Real magic – bear magic. Can I order a knife through you?”
She patted his arm kindly. “You can. We’ll look at the catalog. I assume you will want a blade you can re-haft to your old grip?”
“If I can. Otherwise I want a wood or horn handle.” He would hate to give up his hand-carved grip. Not only had he whittled the handle himself, but he had used it so often it had worn itself to fit his hand perfectly.
His broken knife was still on the counter. “What about a repair instead?” she asked.
“Nothing to repair,” he said regretfully. “If the blade is reground it will be too weak to use on any material.”
She twinkled at him again. “I can fix it. Fairy magic. It will be as good as the day it was forged. Won’t keep it from breaking again if you abuse it by carving oyster shell, but it will be good enough for wood or horn.”
“What will that set me back?”
Beloved by the Bear: A Shifters in Love Fun & Flirty Romance (Mystic Bay Book 3) Page 8
