by Elle James
“So you made out with a secretary in the stairwell?”
“She at least pays attention to me.” He shook his head. “I should have broken our engagement first, but every time I tried, you'd bury yourself in this lab.” He ran a hand through his hair and stepped closer. “It would never have worked between us. I couldn't compete with your first love.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Your obsession with science.” He inhaled deeply and looked at the ceiling, before his gaze came back to her. “Face it, Elaine, you low science more than you ever loved me.”
“No, I don't!” Her denial was swift, followed closely by the thought, Do I?
He crossed his arms over his chest and stood with his feet spread slightly. “Then say it.”
“Say what?”
“Say, I love you.” Brian stood still waiting for her response.
Elaine summoned righteous indignation, puffed out her chest and prepared to say the words he'd asked for. She opened her mouth, but the words stuck in her throat like a nasty-tasting wad of guilt. Instead of saying anything, she exhaled.
Had she ever really loved Brian? She stared across at his rounded face and curly blond hair. He had the geeky-boy-next-door look, and he'd made her smile on occasion. She'd enjoyed the feeling of having someone to call her own, and to fill the lonely gap in her everyday existence.
But did she love him? After all the years of living in relative isolation from any meaningful relationships, was she capable of feeling love?
Her chest felt as empty as her roiling stomach. He was right. She couldn't say she loved him when she knew those words were a lie. And as much as she didn't like conflict, she disliked lying more. How long had she been deluding herself into thinking they were the perfect couple?
“It's no use, Elaine. Our marriage would be a huge mistake. The only way you'd look at me is if I were a specimen under your microscope. It's not enough. I need more. I need someone who isn't afraid to get out and experience the world beyond this lab.”
Brian turned and walked out, leaving a quiet room full of scientific equipment and one confused woman.
Afraid to get out? Elaine glanced around the stark clean walls of the laboratory, the one place she could escape to when she wanted to feel safe.
Dear God, why can't I be like normal people? Brian was right. She felt more comfortable behind the lab door than in the world outside.
When she stared down at the litter of items on the table, blinking to clear the tears from her eyes, she spied the jar labeled Bayou Miste. The container had come to her in the mail, an anonymous sample of Louisiana swamp water. She stood, momentarily transfixed by the sight of the plain mason jar, a strange thrumming sound echoing in her subconscious, almost like drums beating. Probably some punk with his woofers too loud in the parking lot.
With an odd sense of fate, she leaned over the microscope, dried her tear from the lens with a tissue, and studied the slide. Her skin tingled and her heartbeat amplified. Here was her opportunity to get away from the lab. If she couldn't solve the microcosm of her love life, she could help solve the pollution problems of an ecosystem.
CHAPTER TWO
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Light glinted off the mirror on the eastern wall of the tiny bedroom, nudging Craig out of a deep sleep. He cracked an eyelid and stared at the persistent glare. Sunlight on the mirror? The sun never shown directly into this room in the morning, only in the late afternoon. Glancing at the clock on the nightstand, he jerked awake - groggy, but awake.
Eight-thirty? As in eight-thirty in the evening? He squinted at the clock. Yes, the little red light indicating P.m. glowed and the sun only shone into his room on its way to the western horizon. Damn. His uncle knew he'd had a meeting with Jason Littington at one o'clock this afternoon. Why didn't he wake him earlier?
Craig stretched and flexed his muscles, surprised how agile he felt after being fled to a tree. He felt woozy, not like a concussion, but more like a hangover from too much alcohol and not enough water to replenish his brain cells. But, all in all, no harm had been done in last night's fracas.
Fuzzyheaded, but definitely hungry, he rolled out of bed - and fell a long way down to the floor, Too late, he realized he should have put his feet down first. As he fell, his body tensed, and his muscles braced for impact.
Craig landed on all fours, the wind temporarily knocked out of him. When his breathing returned to normal, he looked around.
Huh? He hadn't been drunk when he went to sleep the previous night. But here he was, crouched on the floor looking up. The bed he'd just vacated and the wooden nightstand towered over him. He shook his head to clear the haze. Something wasn't right. Perhaps it was because he was squatting.
Squatting? Why am I squatting?
He attempted to straighten, his muscles bunching in an unfamiliar way. When he tried to stand, he only leaped to another squatting position, and he was no taller than before. The nightstand and bed still loomed next to him.
Noises from the front of the store alerted him to his uncle's presence, and he crawled for the door, forcing his arms and legs to propel him. He'd never noticed how dusty and bumpy the wooden planks were. The going was slow and tedious, but eventually he made it to the doorway leading from the back room into the bait shop.
Craig opened his mouth to cry, “Uncle Joe!” but his voice croaked.
“I don't know where that boy gets off, leaving me here to answer to Littington,” the old man muttered.
Craig forced air past his vocal chords, only to emit another croak. I'm here, Uncle Joe, he thought, willing his uncle to turn his way. I was here all day. Why didn't you wake me up?
Joe Thibodeaux had his back to him, rooting around behind the counter, shifting small boxes of weights and hooks, searching for something.
“Damn!” Uncle Joe pulled back his hand. A hook protruded from his thumb, blood oozing around the gold metal. “This place needs a good cleaning. Couldn't find a snake if it stuck its head out and bit my hind end.”
He gingerly eased the hook from the digit and dabbed the blood against his T-shirt. Then, he turned and circled the counter, practically stepping on Craig. “What the heck?” Uncle Joe used the tip of his sneaker to push Craig out of his way. “You don't belong in here. Go on. Get on out of here. I ain't got time to mess with you.” His uncle strode for the door leading out to the dock.
A fly buzzed past Craig's head and he froze, his gaze tracking the insect's flight. An urge so powerful, a primal instinct older than time, erupted in his brain. He struggled to control it, fought to stop it, but he couldn't help himself. How could he deny what his body insisted on doing? He watched in horror as his tongue snaked out to snatch the fly from the air, and he swallowed it whole.
His eyes bulged. Was that my tongue? I saw my tongue out in front of my face? Making the next logical connection, Craig gagged. Bluck! He'd swallowed a fly! He stuck his tongue out and pawed at it with his hand to remove the bug guts and germs. It was then he noticed his skin.
The room spun and Craig sat down on the floor. He blinked his eyes several times, and then held out his arm again. It wasn't tanned and sprinkled with manly black hairs, like it had the night before. His skin was smooth, shiny and – and - green!
Numb with shock, he crawled to the glass display cabinet with the expensive fishing reels. He bunched the muscles in his legs and jumped high enough to peer at his reflection in the glass. A mottled green water frog looked back at him.
No way!
He jumped again. The frog came into view again.
This couldn't be happening. He was still asleep and this was just a continuation of the whole voodoo thing one long crazy nightmare. People just didn't change into frogs overnight - no matter what that voodoo witch would have him believe. He was asleep, right? He bunched his legs to take another look. Propelling himself off the ground, he realized a little too late that h
e'd miscalculated and whacked his head into the glass.
Damn!
Not only did he see the frog again but, based on the pain in his head, he wasn't asleep either.
His legs trembled and he leaned against the cabinet, feeling his miniscule frog heart pounding against his slick white chest. A chest like the one on the frog he'd dissected in high school. Not a chest a man could pound his fist against.
Heck. Now what was he supposed to do? Somehow, he had to find that voodoo witch and get her to undo what she'd done.
Shadows lengthened in the bait shop. The sun was setting and Uncle Joe hadn't turned on the inside lights.
Craig's skin tightened, stretching and pulling. He trembled with the force of every cell in his body splitting and changing in a miraculous metamorphosis. A roaring sound filled his ears and he watched as everything around him shrank.
Focus, Elaine. She had a mission to accomplish, come hell or high water. By the looks of the long causeways she'd crossed getting here, high water it was. If she concentrated on her mission, she wouldn't keep thinking of Brian's betrayal or the millions of gallons of water surrounding her.
With a shiver coursing down her spine, she sent a fervent prayer to the heavens that she wouldn't have to get in it. She hoped everything she had to do, she could do from a boat or dry land. Egad, a boat. Another shiver shook her body.
Elaine had inherited her mother's cursed fear of water. No one incident could be blamed for her irrational panic in regard to getting in over her head, much to her chagrin. There was no logic in this crippling fear. Ever since she was a child, she'd been deathly afraid of entering water deeper than her bathtub, much preferring to shower.
Then why the hell didn't she send a graduate student to the bayous instead of coming herself? She sighed. She'd face a thousand miles of swamp filled with water just to get away from the university and the disaster of her love life.
Elaine had spent the entire trip from Tulane to Bayou Miste fuming and berating her blind stupidity Why hadn't she seen through Brian's lies? Throughout their four-month courtship and ultimate engagement, he'd been kind, attentive and accommodating of her need for space to do her work. What more could she want?
Passion, love, and most of all fidelity? Was that too much to ask? They'd been engaged, for heaven's sake.
She slammed her palm against the steering wheel. If she hadn't seen it with her own eyes, she'd never have believed Brian was having an affair. Right under her nose!
No mallet She was much better off without him.
When Elaine pulled into the little town of Bayou Miste, Louisiana, on the edge of the Atchafalaya Basin, she ha completed her self-coaching session. She was a worthy and intelligent scientist whose work was important to the protection of a fragile ecosystem. She would locate the source of pollution killing the creatures that lived in the swamps. Once her research was complete, she would document her findings and take whatever action was necessary to dose down the source and force them to clean up the mess they'd made.
But, as much as she tried to use logic and reason, Brian's rejection still stung. Was something wrong with her? Would she ever feel more passionate about a man than science?
The trip had taken longer than Elaine had anticipated. She hoped the marina was still open. She wanted to move into her rental cottage and set up her lab as soon as possible.
Bayou Miste could barely be called a town. Main Street ended in the parking lot of Thibodeaux Marina, beyond which spread endless miles of swamp. Dilapidated houses lined both sides of the street for the equivalent of one city block. It was a good thing she'd made her arrangements before she came. Only one rental house existed in the entire town and it was all hers for the next three weeks.
An unsettling thought struck her and she glanced up, breathing a sigh of relief when she saw electrical lines. By the looks of the buildings, the town had to have been built more than seventy years ago, maybe a hundred. Peeling paint curled off the sides of a few houses. Weather and the swamp humidity had done their job to try to convert the structures into recycled compost.
The marina's bait shop was in the same condition, except where someone had applied a fresh coat of white paint to a square patch about seven feet tall and seven feet wide. The bright white contrasted sharply with the graying boards. The can and paint brush stood against the wall, waiting for the painter to pick up where he'd left off.
The dock stretched to the side and behind the bait shop located at the center of the marina. No one stirred in the lingering heat of the late evening. She understood why. She flipped her visor down and checked her appearance, attempting to smooth the fizz her hair had become in the moist air. It was no use. Her hair knew no boundaries with one hundred percent humidity She gave up.
Much as she hated to admit it, Brian had a point. She hadn't been out of the laboratory in a while. Mixing with people and being sociable were not easy for her in the best of circumstances. Invariably, she clammed up and stood like a lump or, on occasion, she blurted out her opinions and alienated everyone within earshot. She preferred to read or walk alone. She didn't mind chatting with other scientists, sharing information on past experiments or theories.
Outside the university environment, though, she felt lost. What did normal people talk about? What could she find in common with them? Well, it wouldn't be an issue while she was in Bayou Miste. She would collect her speclinens, conduct her studies and not be bothered by social obligations.
Elaine pushed her glasses up on her nose, gathered her purse and her courage and climbed out of her practical, four-door sedan. After a few deep breaths of thick swamp air, she almost gagged. The rank smell of fish and stagnant water almost had her retreating to the car again. She squared her shoulders and marched up to the door of the bait shop, pointedly ignoring the water beyond.
Mr. Thibodeaux had said she could find him here. Not only did he own the marina, dilapidated as it was, but he was also the landlord of the house she'd be living in during her stay. She prayed the house was in better shape.
She pulled at the rusty handle on the screen door, hoping the inside of the bait shop didn't smell as bad as the outside. When the door swung wide, she stepped into the dark interior and inhaled deeply Again, she choked. A combination of earthy, fishy, musty odors assailed her nostrils.
Her eyes slowly adjusted to the darkness after the waning light from the setting sun. Soft thumping noises emanated from the far end of the store, but she couldn't see well enough in the dim interior to make out a person. Why hadn't anyone turned on the lights?
“Excuse me,” she called softly
More thumping and scuffling ensued. Elaine thought she heard a faint moan, but nobody appeared.
She cleared her throat and fried again. “Excuse me.” Her voice echoed off the walls, and she cringed.
Still no response.
What was wrong with these people? She knew she'd spoken loud enough this time to wake hail the town. Perhaps the person behind the counter wasn't a person.
Maybe it was a dog or cat.
A frown settled between her brows. Whatever it was might be trapped or hurt and need her help. She strode across the room and had almost reached the other end of the building when a man rose from behind the counter, his back to her.
Elaine stopped so fast she almost tipped over. Her eyes widened and her mouth fell open.
Wow!
She'd never seen such a beautiful specimen of the human male in all her twenty-six years. His broad, bare shoulders were solid and tanned, each muscle neatly defined and precisely curved. His back tapered down to a trim waistline, disappearing below the top of the counter to what promised to be sexy buttocks of firm proportions.
With his back still to her, he cleared his throat. “Am I. . ?” He held his hands up to the meager light from the windows and flexed his fingers. Then, holding his arms in front of him, he plucked a hair. “Ouch!” He laughed out loud and shouted, “Thank God!”
Elaine stood in a silent
stupor as the muscles in his shoulders flexed and extended with each movement. Her mouth went dry and not a single coherent thought surfaced.
He turned and treated her to the full force of his ice-blue stare. Ebony hair hung long around his ears and curled down the nape of his neck in dark waves. A single lock fell across his forehead and he pushed it back with a broad hand.
Elaine's fingers itched to pull the curl back down on his forehead. Her stomach turned flip-flops at the expanse of hard-muscled chest only a few feet away.
Startled by her reaction to the half-naked man standing in front of her, her eyes widened and she licked her lips. At least she thought he was half naked. Was that a bare leg she could see through the glass case standing between them? Her gaze slid downward.
The man glanced down, his eyes widening. A faint red stained his cheeks. He folded his arms across his chest and quickly leaned against the counter “Can I help you?”
It took her several seconds to locate her tongue before she could reply. “I need you,” she stammered.
The man smiled and a wicked eyebrow rose up under the stray lock of hair that had fallen back over his forehead. He didn't comment, nor did he move. He stayed firmly in place, the counter covering him from the waist down. “You need me?”
Heat crept up her neck and into her face when Elaine realized what she'd said and what she'd tried to see. “I mean I'm here about the bed.”
His smile broadened.
Elaine pressed her hands to her cheeks, her mortification complete. Where had her intellectual vocabulary and scientific mind gone? She felt like a giddy, hormonal teenager instead of a revered scientist with numerous research articles and a book under her belt. “Oh, good grief, let me start over.”
“Perhaps you should.” His words seeped into every pore of her skin like butter on a hot potato. He could have mocked her sudden inability to articulate. Instead, he graced her with an encouraging grin.
