Skin Deep

by Marissa Doyle

  The boy shifted and frowned, as if he had caught her thought.

  “Easy, there,” Rob murmured, pausing and glancing at his face. She reached out and took the boy’s hand. He sighed and relaxed.

  Rob pressed his lips together and went back to work.

  * * *

  Garland had set the table in the dining room and built a fire in the fireplace there as well. The light gleamed on the cherry dining table and the antique brass candlesticks, and she reflected on how cozy it was as they sat down to dinner. Derek had never wanted to eat in here when they were alone. He’d preferred a tray in front of the TV so he could watch the financial talking heads on CNBC. She’d usually ended up in the kitchen by herself, reading.

  The stroganoff was delicious. Wow. A compassionate, caring doctor who made house calls, wore cashmere sweaters, and was a wonderful cook to boot. Was Rob Mowbray too good to be true?

  He topped off their wineglasses. “Did Captain Howe call?”

  “Not yet. I guess that means there weren’t any leads from the Coast Guard.”

  “No.” Rob frowned down at his plate. “Did his behavior seem strange to you this morning?”

  So she hadn’t imagined that. “Yes, very. He couldn’t seem to get out of here fast enough, once he’d seen Aragorn. And did—”

  “Once he’d seen who?” Rob’s fork, heaped with stroganoff, stopped in mid-air.

  Drat. So much for not saying stupid things. “Oh, I, uh…Alasdair sort of reminds me of Viggo Mortensen in Lord of the Rings, so I…you know…” She tried to shrug nonchalantly.

  Rob’s fork continued to his mouth, and he chewed in silence.

  “Anyway, did you hear Captain Howe swear under his breath when you were talking about Alasdair? I wonder…” She paused and took a sip of wine, choosing her words carefully. “I wonder if maybe he knows him from somewhere, and wasn’t happy to hear he’s around. I’ve never heard any rumors about the Mattaquason police, but…” She let the rest of the sentence hang, for him to pick up if he chose.

  Rob shook his head. “I thought of that. But I haven’t heard any rumors either. As police departments go, ours seems to be fairly honest. Something personal, maybe?”

  “Maybe. But then shouldn’t he have said something if he knew them? Unless where he knew him from is something—”

  “Something an officer of the law shouldn’t be mixed up in,” Rob finished for her. “In which case, we’d best not get involved and move this guy and his kid out of here as quickly as possible.”

  “But I can’t just toss them out! What if Howe—”

  “All the more reason to get them out and not get involved, then.”

  “Then you do think there’s something going on?”

  Rob sighed. “I have no idea, Garland. I’m still fairly new here myself. Two years in a town like Mattaquason don’t make you an old-timer. Twenty years aren’t enough, sometimes. All I’m saying is if there is something unsavory going on, I don’t want you getting caught in it unawares.”

  “My friend Kathy Hayes was here this morning.” Garland pursued a piece of mushroom around her nearly empty plate and speared it. “She said more or less the same thing but I got the feeling that she was hiding something too. She threatened to call Captain Howe and force him to bring them to the hospital.” She shook her head impatiently. “I wish we knew who they are.”

  “That would make things easier, wouldn’t it?” Rob commented dryly as they carried their plates into the kitchen.

  They washed their few dishes in companionable silence then went to sit in front of the great room fireplace with brandies and a plate of exquisite truffles from the Candy Castle in downtown Mattaquason. “I cheated,” Rob had said with a grin. “Their chocolate is light-years better than anything I could come up with for dessert.”

  They sat on the blue and white couch where Conn had lain earlier that day, not touching but not far apart. Garland curled her legs under her and stared out the sliding doors into the night, too relaxed to get up and pull the curtains shut. She was here. All the months of emotional upheaval and wrangling with lawyers over the petty details of the dissolution of her and Derek’s marriage were over. She was ready to get on with the rest of her life.

  “Tired?” Rob’s voice was low and lazy. She looked up and saw that he was watching her reflection in the glass door.

  “A bit. I was just thinking that it’s been a long few months.” She leaned her head back. “And now I’m here.”

  “And now you’re here,” Rob agreed. “Getting mixed up in Lord-knows-what when you ought to be taking a breather.”

  She smiled. “But I like Lord-knows-what. I wasn’t able to get mixed up in it back in Chestnut Hill. Being the perfect corporate wife didn’t leave much time for it.”

  “‘Be careful what you wish for, because you might get it.’” He held the plate of truffles out to her. She took one and bit into it, then took a sip of her cognac. The dark chocolate and brandy melted together on her tongue in a decadent blend.

  “What about you?” she asked when the chocolate orgasm in her mouth faded. “Have you been less careful than you should have about wishing for things?”

  “Not at all. I’m quite content with getting what I wished for.” He raised one eyebrow at her suggestively, then laughed. “And not just right this minute.”

  “Behold, that rarest of creatures—a truly happy man.”

  “Well, yeah, I guess I am.” He paused, staring into the fire, and stretched his arm out along the back of the couch, close to her head. “As long as I can remember, I wanted to be a doctor like one of my uncles. And I wanted to live by the ocean some day. My dad’s a Patrick O’Brian fanatic, so I grew up reading about Captain Aubrey and Mr. Maturin. And the Captain Drinkwater novels. For a boy from Iowa, there wasn’t anything more romantic than the thought of the deep blue sea. I actually thought about joining the navy, but decided that living next to it, rather than on it, was a better bet for an ex-farm boy.”

  “Farm boy? Really?”

  The grin came back. “Okay, so I’m exaggerating a little. We did have a small flock of chickens in the backyard, though. And I belonged to 4-H in junior high. Does that count? I got my undergraduate degree in Indiana, went to med school in New York—all gradually heading eastward, toward the sea. I can’t get much more east than Cape Cod, so I guess I’m finally where I want to be.”

  The humor in his voice ebbed, and his face grew thoughtful. “It was funny. When I first came here to look the town over, it was like I was coming home. I’d been missing the ocean all my life, without ever having seen it. Some people go to church on Sundays. I walk on the beach.”

  He began to toy absent-mindedly with a lock of her hair as he gazed into the fire. Garland held her breath as little electric shivers of pleasure ran over her scalp and down her back.

  “Do you have a boat, so you can do more than walk?” she managed to say, after a moment.

  “No. I’ve been too busy getting established in town. Summer’s the crazy season here, as you know. No time for learning how to handle a boat. I’m not only taking care of my regular patients during prime boating season, but the summer folks too. Like the people who go barefoot at Amy Nickerson’s cocktail parties and get splinters.” He grinned.

  Garland felt herself blush. “I had to take my shoes off that night. They were giving me blisters. Tell you what, Doctor Mowbray. If you’ll promise not to tease me about that, I’ll teach you how to sail this summer.”

  “It’s a deal. But I wasn’t teasing you. I couldn’t help being glad that you got that splinter, even if saying so bends my Hippocratic Oath a little.” He looked away. “You have no idea how disappointed I was that evening when your husband came up looking like thunder after I’d bandaged your foot with one of Amy’s linen napkins. Only then did I realize that you were Mrs. Durrell. I’d been about two seconds from suggesting we blow off the party and go out for dinner when he arrived.”

  A warm glow spread through her
. “Really?”

  “Napkin-wrapped foot and all. So you see, I do get what I wish for. Eventually. Anyway, digging a splinter out of your foot was a great way to meet you without all the usual horrible small talk that I had to go through with everyone else. You did me a favor. So do I still get sailing lessons after that confession?”

  “Well…” She pretended to consider the question.

  “How about if I throw in that dinner afterwards?”

  Garland smiled. “You drive a hard bargain, but I accept.”

  * * *

  After Rob left, Garland made sure the fires in the fireplaces were safely banked for the evening, turned out the lights, and went up to change into her favorite flannel pajamas, the blue ones with the black and white cartoon cows filing their hooves and applying lipstick.

  So that had been her first date, post-Derek. In her wildest dreams she couldn’t have had a better time. She and Rob had danced a careful, courteous conversational dance around each other, listening and learning, feeling each other out, testing—tasting, in a way. She liked his flavor very much, which made him sound like ice cream. She shook her head at herself in the mirror as she brushed her teeth. Ice cream was cold and could induce a headache. She didn’t think Rob would ever do that. Well, she’d find out. It appeared that she would be seeing a lot of him from now on.

  She looked at herself in the mirror again. There was a lift to the corners of her mouth and the tilt of her chin that hadn’t been there for months. Maybe Rob’s half-joke about being under a doctor’s care wasn’t so facetious after all.

  Had he really been so attracted to her when they first met at that party? She remembered Derek’s being sulky for the rest of that evening, so maybe Rob’s interest had been obvious. Except to her. It had been so long since she’d thought of herself as a desirable woman that she hadn’t even noticed. She turned off the light, pulled on her electric blue chenille robe and went to check on Alasdair and Conn before she went to bed.

  Rob had looked in on them before leaving and left a lamp across the room turned on low. By its dim light she could just see Alasdair’s form, long and straight, under the covers. He seemed to be sleeping peacefully. But Conn…he’d not wakened, but was tossing and squirming on his bed, rolling his head fitfully from side to side on the pillow. As she bent over him he cried out weakly and then muttered something in a high, piping little boy’s voice that sounded like pleading. The pitiful sound went straight to Garland’s heart. Had his injuries started to hurt enough to rouse him from his sleep? Or was he dreaming about how he’d gotten them?

  She carried the small yellow and blue toile wingback chair from the corner over to his bedside, careful not to let it drag on the floor and make a noise, and sat down. “Hey, it’s okay,” she murmured, smoothing his tangled hair off his forehead then laying her hand on it. No fever, which was amazing. Most people would have come down with pneumonia after spending a night in conditions not nearly as harsh as the ones he’d been in.

  As her hand rested on his brow he stilled, and his whimpers faded into a sigh. She hesitated, then stroked his forehead again. He seemed to lean into her hand, like a plant following the light.

  Something caught in her throat. Before she could remind herself that she was a failure in the maternity department and had no experience in comforting children, she bent over and scooped him onto her lap, still wrapped in her flannel shirt and the blankets from the bed. He turned toward her and buried his face in her neck, and the tension leached from him in a long, shuddering sigh. After a few minutes, his breathing was deep and even again and his little body was limp and relaxed.

  She held him, hardly daring to breathe. Derek had needed her because she was presentable and socially well connected and could entertain his business associates. But this boy needed her because she cared. She’d been right not to send them to the hospital. Conn needed more than just doctoring. He needed someone to hold him when he cried in his sleep. Let Rob say what he wanted about strays. She’d taken responsibility for these two as soon as she’d seen them lying in the sand, and she wasn’t going to abandon them now.

  And maybe she needed them, too. Had she been adamant about keeping them here and nursing them herself because maybe she needed to be needed in this way? They all had their wounds to recover from, didn’t they?

  She lifted one of his hands and examined the odd webs of skin between his fingers that Rob had mentioned. Strange. She’d never seen anything like that before. And Alasdair had them too. She glanced across at him, asleep in the other bed and looking relaxed and absurdly like his son. His hands were hidden, one pillowed under his cheek and the other tucked against his chest, clutching the lapel of his robe. Maybe she’d get a better look at them tomorrow, before he left. Surely by tomorrow Captain Howe would have found out who they were and where they belonged, and they could return home. And she—she could start rebuilding her life in earnest.

  Chapter 5

  Alasdair awoke abruptly, called by the morning light and an achy, all-over stiffness in his body that screeched into downright pain in places. He groaned softly as he stretched, then opened his eyes. Instead of sky, a blank, flat whiteness spread above him, held up by soft yellow walls with long windows divided into rectangles…walls?

  Then memory returned. He was in a human dwelling, the house of the blue-eyed human who’d found them on the beach. And Mahtahdou had evidently not found them during the night, for his sleep had been deep and restful. He’d been right to go with her. With any luck her magic would shield them from Mahtahdou for as long as they stayed.

  He stretched again, taking inventory. The cuts in his feet were the worst, sending intermittent stabbing pains up his legs. It was hard to breathe through his broken nose but that would ease with time. The cuts on his body itched as much as they ached, which meant they’d begun to heal. Another few days and he could begin to plan his revenge—if his remaining warriors would still follow a selkie lord who’d lost his sealskin.

  He closed his eyes, as if he could escape the thought. The pain in his body was nothing compared to that. And Conn—he turned his head and looked at the platform where Conn had slept. It was empty.

  He sat up in alarm, then fell back against his head-cushion. Conn, still wrapped in the soft purple skin that was full of magic, was cuddled in Garland’s arms. She was sitting in a chair, and the two of them were soundly, peacefully asleep. Her hair, the same rich brownish gold as the kelp forests to the north of his home-waters, tumbled over Conn’s darker head.

  As he stared at them in astonishment, he saw her frown then open her eyes and blink a few times. She looked down at Conn and he tried to decipher her expression. Surprise? Concern? Maybe even a hint of tenderness? Then she carefully rose and bent to put him on the platform again. As she did, he sighed and groped for her in his sleep.

  She smiled and touched his cheek. “I won’t go far,” she murmured, then glanced up and met his eyes. And turned a deep pink color, like a delicate sea anemone.

  “I’m sorry,” she whispered, and pulled the coverings back over Conn. Then she came to kneel by him. “I—he was whimpering in his sleep last night when I came to check on him, and I—I thought maybe he needed comforting so I picked him up and held him, and them we both fell asleep. I didn’t mean to…”

  “You didn’t mean to what?” he prompted when she trailed into silence.

  “To be inappropriate,” she finished, and turned even pinker. It intensified the fascinating blue of her eyes. He wished he could reach out and hold her face still between his hands and gaze his fill at those eyes.

  Then her words registered. Inappropriate? Did humans have some taboo about children? “Is it inappropriate to comfort a hurt child?”

  “No…it’s just that I don’t want you to think I’m trying to”—she shrugged and looked even more uncomfortable—“to take anyone’s place.”

  So that was what had troubled her. “Conn’s mother is dead,” he said, his voice hardening as it did whenever he
had to speak of Finna. “You did him a kindness. He’s known no woman’s touch since he was very small.”

  “I’m sorry,” she said again, then blinked. “You remember that? Do you remember your last name? Or your address or phone number?”

  Shark’s teeth, he had to be careful. “No, I don’t remember anything else. But I could not forget losing my wife. Could you forget losing your husband?”

  An odd change came over her face. “I’m trying to,” she muttered.

  A sudden loud sound, like a brief whir, came from the table next to him. He tensed, but she quickly rose as the sound came again and reached for something black on it.

  “I’ve got to get a new phone for up here. The ring tone on this one is hideous,” she said as she lifted an oblong object from it, poked at it with one finger—it made another short, peculiar noise—and held it to the side of her head. “Hello? Oh, good morning to you too, Rob. No, it’s not too early. I’m awake, sort of.”

  Rob. That was the healer’s name. Was she communicating with him through the little black oblong? He’d heard humans did things like that, just as they had boats that moved without the wind and silver metal birds that they flew through the air. It was fascinating to see some of their handiwork up close.

  But what was even more interesting was Garland. She’d just said she was trying to forget her husband…might he be dead, too? He touched the skin she’d given him to wear. She must have loved him very much, to judge by the feeling she’d woven into this. No wonder she had seemed so sad when she spoke of forgetting. By Lir, he had to remember that he wasn’t the only creature in the world grieving for a lost love. How long ago had her husband died? Not very long ago, for surely other men would be eager to pay court to a beautiful widow like her. Perhaps one already was. He’d seen the way the healer had looked at her—