by Sandra Cox
I wave a hand over my head and keep walking.
He can’t have seen me with his back to the door, but before I can push through it, he reaches behind and pulls it open. Startled, I dart through. My head down, I try for inconspicuous.
“See you, Piper.”
His awareness of me catches me off guard. I don’t know what to make of it. He’s the prince and I’m the frog—or dolph-girl. I nod and pick up my pace. The girls smile in a friendly fashion. Maybe, I’ve misjudged them, never given them a chance.
Again, I have the uncomfortable feeling that his gaze follows me. As soon as I’m out of sight, I pick up my pace.
“Piper, wait.” Footsteps sound behind me.
Crap.
Why can’t he and Holly leave me alone? I want to shake my hair free, lose the nerdy glasses and clothes, and jump into the ocean, free to be myself. What can he possibly want with me? I’ve gone out of my way to be invisible and he’s surrounded by girls.
“Where are you headed?” He catches up with me easily. I’m five-eight and have long legs. He’s six-two and has longer.
I stop, muttering sea curses under my breath. He and his sister so unnerve me.
I hunch into my shapeless shirt. I’ve had way too much human interaction today. It’s giving me a headache, all sorts of uncomfortable feelings surface. I desire peace and the sea to counter the raw and edgy.
I shift toward him. “What do you want, Tyler?” I muster what patience I have left. It’s time for me to patrol the waters.
He shoves his hands in his pockets and rocks back on his heels. His expression amused. “You’re an intriguing little thing. I’ve never had this effect on a girl before.”
Little thing? Maybe to someone six-two.
No one has ever bothered to look beyond my nerdy surface. Now, in a short period of time, both he and his sister are probing.
I know why Holly is. My lack of interest in her brother fascinates her. And I think I know why Tyler is interested, too. It’s my own damn fault. I was careless about my voice and it’s come back to bite me.
A light breeze ruffles his thick tawny hair. High cheekbones emphasize chiseled bone structure. My gaze drifts to a very kissable mouth before I jerk it back to those oceanic blue eyes that give me a drowning sensation.
His expression goes from amused to thoughtful. “I was wondering if you’d like to go on my boat Saturday.”
“You have a boat?” The boy continues to surprise me.
“Yeah. My mom said if she didn’t know better she’d swear she and dad spawned a fish.” His eyes crinkle with laughter, inviting me to share in the joke.
Mine narrow. The comment hits too close to home.
“Why?” I fist my hands on my hips. “Why do you want to take me on your boat? Is this some sort of joke or locker room bet?”
He frowns, as if taken aback. Definitely not used to hearing no from females, especially dowdy ones.
Recovering, he drawls, “I have a theory I’m trying to prove.”
“Which is?” I narrow my eyes and angle away from him.
“That a girl lurks beneath that getup.” He reaches for my glasses.
I slap his fingers hard enough to make him back up and shake his hand.
“Ouch. Why’d you do that?”
“The sun hurts my eyes.”
“It’s behind a cloud.” He points out the obvious.
“You have every other girl in school, isn’t that enough?” I storm, panting.
“Apparently not.”
Chapter 3
I hurry to my truck with more speed than grace. Big, rusty and ten years old, it doesn’t elicit any vehicle lust among the other students. It’s a gas-guzzler, but it serves its purpose for trips down the coast. Hunching over the wheel, I mutter as I drive. “It was the voice.” Mortification assails me. I’ve never slipped up since I started the charade four years ago, when I went through puberty. That’s when my voice and eye color changed. Who’d have thought dolphin and human DNA would mix to give me the voice of a sea siren? The blowhole on my back I’d been born with. Luckily, from a distance it looks like a birthmark.
Lowering my voice from its normal melodic tone to a deeper alto is second nature to me, or was till I looked into a pair of sea-blue eyes.
Grinding my teeth at my loss of control, I rip off the offending barrette. My hair flies around my shoulders as I shake it free. Tension rips through me. I’ve spent too much time on land breathing in smog-filled air. I desperately need the soothing waves of the sea, the song of the whales and the swaying, jewel-like glitter of coral on the ocean floor.
I’m on my way home before I remember Gramps mentioning yesterday he was almost out of oatmeal. I do a U-turn, stop at the local grocery store, and then head home again.
Finally. I turn off the paved lane onto a dirt road. At the top is a cliff with the best view in California.
Eight minutes later, I kill the motor and just sit there, my arms resting on the steering wheel.
I toss my glasses on the seat, the better to enjoy the view. They are oversized, pink tinted, and do a good job of hiding my unusual turquoise eyes. The problem is they distort my vision.
Waves lap below. I’ve gotten home later than usual. Lights across the bay have already begun to glisten like stars. My taut muscles loosen. I will never lose my fascination for the ocean. It’s my existence. I can’t imagine living anywhere but here.
I take one last look at the isolated outcrop we live on before getting out of the truck and entering the cottage. The aromas of spaghetti and garlic bread waft around me, tickling my senses. My mouth waters.
Gramps stands at the stove in jeans and a plaid shirt, a plain white apron wrapped around his lean middle, stirring a pot.
A wave of love engulfs me. This man is my family. He looks like an aging tree, tall and stooped with a shock of white hair. He worked the coast as a salmon fisherman until the salmon were nearly decimated from overfishing. Now he takes the occasional tourist junket out. With its location, Gramps could sell our cottage and live the rest of his life like a king, but not only does he love it, the location is paramount to me.
I come up behind him and hug his ropy waist. “Sorry I wasn’t home to take care of supper.” I lay my cheek against his back.
“What, you think I can’t cook?” It’s a standing joke between us. Cooking isn’t either of our fortes but Gramps is far better than I am. He glances at the clock. Five o’clock. Suppertime at the Dunn household. “Sit down and eat before you dart out to save the world.”
I know better than to argue, especially the way my stomach is growling. “I’ll set the table.”
I hum as I put out plain white plates on the little table. The kitchen is homey, all pine and yellow paint, with white curtains at the window. Encompassed in the warmth of the room, I momentarily forget my need for the sea.
Gramps pauses to listen, a look of pleasure on his face. I have no need to disguise my voice here.
I fill our glasses with iced tea. Moments later we eat, my fork loaded with slippery pasta. I break a piece of hot bread apart. Steam, tinged with the aroma of herbs, rises and tickles my nose. I shift and glance up.
Gramps pauses; his gnarled hand circles his iced tea glass. “You look so much like your mother,” he says softly.
“Tell me again, how you found her,” I urge. I’ve heard the story a hundred times, but since I’ve lost her, I never tire of it. She and my dad were killed in a car wreck when I was four. There’s some mystery surrounding their death. Dad was speeding and took a curve too fast. Gramps maintains he would have never driven that fast with my mom in the car without a darn good reason.
I miss my parents. It breaks my heart that my memories of them are fading. My clearest recollection is swimming beside my mother, her hair rippling in the water like silk, her body as supple as a seal’s, laughing and chattering like an otter.
I shake myself back to the present
and focus on Gramps.
A faraway look in his eyes, he leans back in his chair, takes a deep breath, and begins. “Richard and I were out fishing. The night before there’d been a terrible storm. We found her clinging to the side of the boat.”
My mind drifts while he tells the story, remembering the parts he’s leaving out. That mom was a lab rat. She never knew where the lab was or whom it belonged to: the government or a private investor. She was either stolen or an orphan. They altered her germ line by adding dolphin DNA. The germ line that was passed on to me.
Without thought, I rub the blowhole between my shoulder blades. I focus on Gramps.
“She was fourteen and your dad was seventeen. They looked at each other and that was that. I don’t know who fell in love with her first, Richard or your grandma. We raised her like one of our own. The only one who never considered her a family member was your daddy and he married her.”
“And they were happy,” I prompt, my elbows resting on the table, my chin in my hands.
“I’ve never seen anyone happier.” He rolls pasta on his fork and pops it in his mouth. He chews and swallows before saying softly, “We were all happy.”
Poor Gramps. I know he misses Grams and his children. Grams died five years ago. She went to sleep one night and never woke up. I reach over and squeeze his hand. “You still got me, Gramps.”
He rolls his hand over and grasps mine. “I sure do. You’re the joy of my life. I’m a lucky man.” He drops my hand. “Now finish eating and get out there and save the ocean world.”
“Why do you think they picked Mom?” I asked around a mouthful of pasta.
He taps his fingers together and looks into the distance. “I don’t know. But if I was to guess, I’d say at some point they saw her swim when she was little more than a toddler. Whoever did that to her would have wanted someone with an affinity for the ocean.” The faraway look in his eyes disappears and he slaps his palms against the table. “Get going, girl.”
I wolf down my food and carry my dirty dishes to the sink.
“Leave them. I’ll take care of it.”
“Thanks, Gramps.” I hurry to my little room at the end of the hall and step out of my offending clothes. Under them, I’m wearing a bright turquoise two-piece. I take a quick look in the mirror. Satisfied, I trot out of my room and down the hall. “Bye.” I let myself out the door and jump off the deck into thick blades of grass that tickle my feet.
A few yards behind the house is the edge of the cliff. I wrap my toes around the rocky ledge and push off. The wind pulls at me as I bullet through the air. The water barely splashes when I hit it and go straight down. I pull into a ball, turn in a circle then stretch out my arms and cut through the water. It ripples around me, warm and smooth as a lover’s caress. I push to the surface and chuff to blow water out of my crescent-shaped blowhole, before diving back down. My eyes adjust to the clear dark water. My hair floats out around me.
Multi-color coral catches my eye. Entranced, I circle it. Water ripples. I whirl sharply. That’s when I see the fins.
Chapter 4
I turn right. A dark fin circles. I turn left and see another, and another. The circle closes around me, coming closer and closer. A gray shadow dives beneath me and shoots toward the surface.
I wrap my arms around the friendly dolphin and giggle in delight, bubbles dotting the water. The other dolphins circle and dive around us. We frolic, playing hide and seek between the glittering coral reefs. A school of bright yellow fish glides by. Startled, they scatter.
We swim around a mile out when the dolphins begin to chatter, making whistling sounds. I listen, then hear it too, a pod of blue whales heading toward the shallows, no doubt following krill.
I have to get the whales turned around before they hit the shoal. I swim toward them. My dolphin friends trail behind. The whales’ song becomes stronger. If the situation weren’t so dire, I’d enjoy listening to them. This group is happy. When they finally come in sight, I swim back and forth in front of them. Their massive bodies dwarf me. They slow and watch me curiously.
The dolphins chatter, their fins swinging from side to side, swishing cool salty liquid. In response, the lead whale lobs the surface. The wave knocks me up and out of the water. I land with a loud splash.
The dolphins circle me chattering in agitation.
I shake myself and head back toward the whales. The whale that caused the small tsunami noses me in apology. I pat him and swim past, careful of his tail.
The dolphins continue to chatter. The whales respond, roll on their sides, turn around, and swim back toward the ocean.
I blow bubbles out my mouth and manage a credible chatter. The dolphins chirp back at me.
The rest of the night passes uneventfully. Around one-thirty, I remember my English Lit paper. I take one more cruise around the bay then head home.
It takes me two hours to write the darn thing. I proof it and slip into bed. The alarm beeps insistently less than three hours later. “Nooo.” I pull the pillow over my head, already drifting back to sleep.
“Honey, it’s time to get up. If you don’t, you’ll be late for school.” Gramps raps his knuckles against the door.
“Coming.” Resigned, I unbury my head.
His footsteps disappear down the hall.
I stretch like a cat, get up, stumble to my tiny bathroom, and throw water on my face. With short, impatient strokes, I gather my hair back before I throw on my clothes. With great reluctance, I put on my glasses. I grimace in disgust at my appearance. I look more like a mouse than a dolph-girl. Oh well. Even Superman had his mild-mannered, nearly invisible counterpart: Clark Kent.
My mood lightens exponentially as I open the door and smell the seductive scent of pancakes and fresh-brew. Of their own accord, my steps hasten to the kitchen.
“Thanks. This looks wonderful.” A stack of pancakes on a plain white plate, orange juice, and a steaming cup of coffee sit on the table. I slide into my chair.
“Eat up.” He stands at the stove. Batter pops and hisses as he ladles it into a cast-iron skillet.
My stomach rumbles. Gramps doesn’t have to ask me twice. Swimming the sea burns an unbelievable amount of calories. I have the appetite of a football player and never gain an ounce.
I suck down a fluffy hot stack swimming in butter and maple syrup, grab my books, and head for the door.
“Have a good one. Did you get your homework done?” Gramps scoops flapjacks out of the skillet and sits down to eat his breakfast.
“Sure did. You have a good one, too.” I blow out the door and hop in my truck. The engine rumbles to life. A white puff of smoke sputters out the tail pipe as I head for school.
I chug into the parking lot and have the satisfaction of seeing Fahrenbacher blanch as I pull alongside his sleek black 350Z, my wheel base inches from his own. He jerks the wheel sharply and the car swerves to the right, almost into another parked car.
He waves his third digit at me.
I bare my teeth and pull my old truck directly in front of him to snag a parking spot. There will be reprisal, but even Clark Kent occasionally forgets his meek disguise.
Bam. I slam the door on my old truck. I have to slam it for the latch to catch.
Fahrenbacher parks his car, jumps out, grabs my shoulder, and yanks. His fingers close around a handful of cotton fleece. I leave my sweatshirt behind and beat a hasty retreat. Luckily, my disguise is intact. He has a hundred pounds on me. I’ve put off taking self-defense classes because I don’t have any extra time. I’ll have to rethink that.
I nearly step on the person in front of me getting through the door. I glance over my shoulder. Fahrenbacher glares at me, his face red, hatred in his eyes. He mouths, “You’re going down.”
“Loser.” I mouth back.
He lunges.
I scurry to my class and sit down as the bell rings.
Fahrenbacher sticks his head in the door and starts f
orward. The English teacher looks up from the roster. “Mr. Fahrenbacher, do you want something?”
He shakes his head, frustration on his face.
“Then I suggest you get to your class.”
He stares at me, his face an ugly purple, before he storms out.
I don’t realize I sat next to Holly until she leans over and whispers. “What did you do to God’s gift to women?” She wears a fitted white cami over an ocher, fitted tee that brings out the highlights in her hair. A light floral fragrance tickles my nose.
“Beat him to a parking spot and nearly scratched his sports car.” I speak out of the side of my mouth.
Miss Sweeney looks at me, her eyebrows lift. I open my notebook, pull out a pen, and put my industrious-student-ready-to-soak-up-all-knowledge expression on. Her attention shifts. “Good morning, class.”
Since it’s first hour, she gets a half-hearted response, along with several barely concealed yawns.
The weight of a stare that isn’t Miss Sweeney’s causes my head to swivel sharply right. My glance collides with intense blue eyes.
Our gazes lock. Energy crackles. He breaks contact long enough to look at the doorway Fahrenbacher disappeared through before he shifts his attention back to me and raises his eyebrows. The boy doesn’t miss much. Neither does his sister for that matter.
I shrug my shoulders.
“Ms. Dunn.”
My head swivels toward the teacher.
“What is the oldest known piece of significant literature in the English language?”
I clear my throat. “Beowulf.”
She gives me an approving smile. “That’s right, Ms. Dunn.” She goes into lecture mode and I slouch down in my seat. I can feel Tyler’s stare. My skin quivers. It’s like a touch. I ignore him—or at least try to—focusing my attention on the instructor. The problem is my reaction to him is more than just physical. I’ve come to realize Tyler Carlisle is more than just a pretty face. The more I’m around the guy, the more I like him. He’s so sweet and funny. I straighten. I’m pretty sure I’ve been staring at the teacher with a dopey smile plastered on my face.
