Marriage & the Mermaid (Hapless Heroes)

by Cusack, Louise

  It was a familiar question, and Rachel’s reply probably didn’t require a great deal of thought. “Nothing’s wrong with you, Wynnie–bear,” she said without looking up. “You’re beautiful, talented and kind. You know that,” she added, then when there was no reply she added “Don’t you?” shafting a pointed glance up at Wynne before she went back to applying base coat.

  Wynne nodded. “I know that,” she replied dutifully.

  “Head still, honey. It moves your hands.”

  I know that too, Wynne thought, wondering why she couldn’t sit still. She couldn’t do anything right.

  “You’re a catch, sweetie,” Rachel added. “And your absent–minded–professor type will wake up to it soon enough.”

  Wynne tried not to frown at that, tried to stay hopeful. She’d always dreamt of being unforgettable, the sort of woman whose shy attentions no man could turn down. And living in her own little fantasy world, she’d almost convinced herself of that.

  Until Balthazar Wilson had walked into her life.

  “You sent him the letter, didn’t you?” Rachel asked, and picked up the nail polish.

  “Registered mail,” Wynne replied, then after a few seconds she added, “You don’t think I’m in danger of becoming obsessed, do you?”

  Rachel smiled at Wynne’s hand. “That’s your mother talking, girl,” she said. “Not you.”

  “But I Googled him to find out what his ex wife looks like. Isn’t that… stalkerish?”

  Rachel looked up at her, still smiling and shook her head. “Sweetie, everyone uses Google. It’s dating foreplay. You’re not crazy. You’re just in love.”

  “Am I?” Wynne asked, and Rachel nodded as if there was no question about it.

  Wynne had to admit she’d never felt this way before she met Baz. Sure, she’d felt sexual attraction and sexual arousal. She’d moaned her head off the first time a boy had gone down on her in bed, and in fact, every other time since. But she’d never ached to return the favor, had never lain in bed dreaming of all the exciting things she wanted to do to her lover’s body.

  Yet from the moment she’d been introduced to Balthazar Wilson and had shaken his firm, sensuous hand in the staff lunchroom, Wynne had been smitten. Her classroom painting examples had suddenly become lush and colorful: flowers with powerful, rigid stamens in the lilies, and trembling rose petals that opened shamelessly to expose the delicate pollen within.

  Still, it was all so tenuous. “But we’ve only spoken twice in the staffroom,” she complained to Rachel. “I’m not even sure he remembers my name.”

  Rachel smirked to herself. “I’ll bet he remembers that raincoat,” she said, painting Wynne’s fingernails a delicate shade of pink.

  Ah, the raincoat debacle. Best not to remember that drunken misadventure. It was at the end of their acquaintance, and such a pity because the beginning had been so promising! Straight after she’d met him she’d spent six hundred dollars darkening her mousy–brown hair to a shimmering burgundy and buying a new set of short skirts and stiletto heels which she’d brazenly wore to school in term three. It was a sharp departure from her previous Laura Ashley style but she’d toughed it out, hoping that anyone who noticed would think that artists – of all people – were allowed to express their creativity visually.

  Baz, ever focused on the job at hand, hadn’t noticed a thing.

  Admittedly it was a large school with over forty teachers, but on three separate occasions Wynne had managed to get him alone in the staffroom and each time she’d forced herself to walk up and back to the refrigerator while engaging him in a conversation so he’d have to notice her legs and…

  Nothing.

  He’d been polite, but eye contact hadn’t been achieved. There’d been no spark of interest such as she’d seen in the eyes of a couple of the other male teachers. No invitation to dinner followed by a roses and romance. No proposal of marriage.

  In short, nothing that Wynne could continue to fantasize about. And as Rachel popped her hands into the nail dryer and stood to get them both a coffee, Wynne had to acknowledge that it was Baz’s indifference that had forced her hand, because everyone knew that desperate situations called for desperate measures.

  And that’s how she’d gotten herself sacked.

  Tuesday

  Chapter Three

  Yes, my father loves classical music,” Baz lied into the phone, wondering how far the little bastard had ingratiated himself with Ted. “And so do you I hear.”

  Randolph arsehole Budjenski made an insipid reply about the raptures of Rachmaninoff and the sensuality of Schubert before Baz could cut him off with, “So that paperwork you sent for dad. It’s being transferred over to me now that I’m home.” No point being specific in case the little shit didn’t realize what he’d sent. “But I really appreciate you helping dad out while he was alone.”

  Point being, that he’s not alone any more, Randy. So he doesn’t need some Internet scum trying to scam him. God, Baz wished he could say that. But until his solicitor had new forms drawn up, signed and lodged, they were still vulnerable.

  Baz felt sick just thinking about it.

  “What are you doing?”

  Baz swiveled around to find his father walking into the library, rubbing his eyes, a halo of disheveled white hair floating around his face while a grey cardigan, buttoned askew, hung over striped pajamas. He stopped in front of the floor–to–ceiling bookshelves looking like a character out of a children’s novel.

  “Who are you talking to?” he asked, more curious than cranky.

  Baz slipped the walk–around phone behind his back and fumbled for the end call button. “What are you doing up so early, dad?” Damn. Too cheery. He sounded like he was hiding something. “I thought you were still asleep.” Baz eased the phone down onto the shelf behind himself and then crossed his arms.

  “I heard someone. Out here.” Ted went over to the French doors and tried to open them.

  “Let me, dad.” Anything to get away from the phone.

  But before Baz had walked two steps they both heard, “Hello! Help! Is anyone home?”

  Baz turned back to the phone, disoriented for a second before he realised it wasn’t that. The plea for help was followed by bashing and yelling from the opposite direction and Baz suddenly realised his father was right. There was someone on the veranda. Baz leap forward and fumbled with the door catch.

  “Who is it?” Ted demanded, as if Baz should know. “Have you invited —”

  “Help me!”

  The sticking catch finally gave way and Baz shoved the door open and fell out. Then he ran — along the side veranda to the back where he found a gasping, bare–chested surfer banging on the windows, shouting.

  “Hey! I’m here,” Baz yelled, hoping his father would stay in the study.

  The surfer turned on him. “My brother,” he gasped, and grabbed Baz by the shoulder. “He’s gone in after a girl. She was drowning. Up the beach a mile. I saw a shark in the water. I ran…”

  “You’re not wet.” It was the first thing that had come into Baz’s head.

  If it sounded like skepticism, the surfer didn’t respond to it. “I can’t swim. Steve’s not much better.” Not a surfer then. Just a young man with sun–bleached hair. “Can you?”

  There was something contagious about his terror. Baz could feel it in the pit of his stomach. “Yeah, I swim,” he said quickly. “I’ve got a car. We’ll take that.” He pointed to the driveway.

  “What’s going on?” Ted came around the corner of the house and practically smacked into them, a walking bundle of querulous flannelette.

  “Someone’s drowning.” Baz tried to push past him.

  Ted’s eyes narrowed. “Where?” he snapped.

  “A mile north,” the young man shouted, as if he was unable to modulate his voice.

  Baz was about to tell his father to stay inside and not panic when Ted replied, “I’ll ring the Bundaberg Police. Balthazar, you take this young man in
the Range Rover.”

  “Where is it?” the blond snapped, but Baz was still trying to get his head around his father’s three hundred and sixty degree turn into common sense.

  “In the garage,” Ted said, then continued speaking calmly to Baz. “Carlos leaves the keys in the ignition.” Then his father turned to go, presumably back inside to phone the police.

  Baz led the surfer at a run across the rattling floorboards of the veranda and down the back stairs, across the rose garden with its bordering hedge to the big garages which were Carlos, the gardener’s, domain. Two minutes later they were in Ted’s pride and joy roaring down a dirt track that led from the cliff Saltwood presided over, to the beach. The young man was a trembling wreck beside Baz, his breathing harsh, his hands knotting against each other as though the lack of running and yelling was too much for him. He looked like he needed some activity to prove to himself that he was helping his brother save the girl. But there was nothing to do except wait.

  “I’m Baz,” Baz said, hoping to distract him.

  “I’m… Matt. My brother’s Steve.”

  “And the girl? In the water?”

  “Don’t know her name,” Matt said, and he turned to look out the window, his palms flat on his thighs now, pressing down. “We only met her last night. She drove up to our campsite and Steve took a shine to her. They went off alone, and he came back all smilin’.” Matt hiccupped a breath then, as if he was going to cry. But he didn’t. Maybe the talking was helping him calm down. “I think he got his end in. But later, after she’d driven off, he couldn’t find his wallet. She’d snitched it while they were… Stupid bastard,” Matt said and shook his head. “He didn’t care. Said she was worth it.”

  Matt looked out the window then, flinching occasionally as a tea–tree smacked into the car. Baz was trying to think of a comment to make when Matt started up again, “Didn’t think we’d ever see her again, but we came out this morning to sit on the beach. Been there an hour I reckon before we saw her in the water, floating face down.”

  Baz frowned, twisting the wheel to avoid another tree, trying to minimize the scratches he was making in the expensive paintwork. “You didn’t see her go in?”

  “Didn’t hear her car. Didn’t see her walk into the water. I reckon she must have gone in further north and floated down. Steve was upset. I told him, you can’t swim, mate. But he… he wanted to get her out.”

  Baz heard the edge of hysteria in the younger man’s voice and decided to shut up and drive. They swung around a corner and side–swiped a tree. Twice the car jolted into potholes and Baz fretted that he’d torn the exhaust system off. But he hadn’t. The Rover kept going and soon they were onto the beach and roaring north, skimming the incoming waves as Baz manhandled the vehicle along the narrow strip of hard–packed wet sand between the bog–able dry sand and the bog–able water.

  Seconds later Matt broke the tense silence. “There!” He pointed, and Baz saw a body on the beach next to some rocks. It wasn’t moving.

  Shit.

  “That’s not him,” Matt added.

  Baz squinted. “It’s the girl,” he said. The naked girl.

  “Steve must have got her out.”

  Baz spun the Rover away from the water in case the tide was coming in. It wouldn’t help to get the car swamped, so he ran it hard up the dry sand and halted on a grassy hillock, then both of them dove out to run back down the beach to the girl. On the way they passed a couple of bundles that Baz recognized as swags, two cowboy hats and a cooler. Baz had a second of realizing they must be country boys, and that would be why they couldn’t swim, then he reached the naked girl beside the rock pool and dropped to her side.

  He winced at the cut on the back of her head, staining her yellow–blonde hair, but it looked crusted, as though the bleeding had stopped. He rolled her from her side onto her back, trying to be professional and not gawp at her nudity while he put a finger to her neck feeling for a heartbeat which was thankfully steady, like her breathing. “She seems okay,” he said, relieved that he didn’t need to use his rusty resuscitation technique.

  “That’s not her,” Matt said. “That’s not the same girl. The one who stole his wallet had shorter, whiter hair and she looked different.” Then he turned away to scan the surf while Baz patted along the girl’s limbs checking for breaks and finding none. A second later he heard a sound that raised the hairs on his arms. Matt was making the same boiling noise cats make in their throat when they’re upset. Baz glanced up to find the young cowboy wringing his hands, not even looking at the girl, his gaze on the waterline, his voice choked, “Steve…”

  Sick premonition squeezed Baz’s gut but he forced himself to turn around, and when he saw the lump of flesh that the last breaker had rolled onto the beach, he felt his stomach twist, as though it had physically clenched and rolled. “Oh God,” he whispered. A head and upper torso. The rest was… gone.

  Matt said nothing, he just fell to his knees and the contents of his stomach ejected with a flood of tears onto the soft sand as he moaned and rocked and retched.

  Baz was up on one knee to go to him when the girl’s hand landed on his arm. He looked back to her fluttering eyelids and saw flashes of silver beneath them that came across sideways, like the nictitating membrane of a lizard. He blinked in shock, then her unnaturally large eyes opened properly and he realised it must have been the sun glinting or contact lenses or something.

  She was clearly struggling for consciousness so he leant closer and said, “Hey, you’re okay,” trying to avoid looking at her body. “In half an hour you’ll be in a nice comfy hospital bed.”

  She shook her head violently and croaked, “No, please. I can’t.” Her breasts jiggled with the movement of her head and he wondered then if he should take off his shirt to cover her, but a second later he stopped worrying about her nudity because a shiver of unease was working its way through his entrails. Another few seconds and he’d registered what it was.

  He knew this girl.

  She was someone from his childhood, here at Saltwood. Only… that couldn’t be. She looked like a teenager, and he’d gone away to boarding school at eight, twenty years ago this year, in fact. This month. God, maybe even this week. So he couldn’t know her, but … he did. The sense of familiar was complete, and not only her face, but her body too, like this, naked.

  The memory was so strong, so sure, that he felt his skin prickling with heat. Not in embarrassment, but anxiety. It wasn’t his mother. She’d been petite and dark haired, not tall and blond like this girl. But what other woman could he possibly have seen naked so long ago? A visitor? He’d locked his childhood memories away for good reason. Baz didn’t want them to re–emerge. Besides, he didn’t have time for this. He had to get Matt away from what was left of his brother, then get the girl into the car so he could take them both back to Saltwood.

  But before he could turn away from her to comfort Matt she snatched at his shoulder and pulled his face down to hers, almost unbalancing him. “Don’t let the authorities take me. Please!”

  Baz shook his head. Was she the thief after all? Maybe Matt had been so upset he hadn’t recognized her. People look different when they’re wet. “I’m sorry,” he said, “But I can’t get involved –”

  Her grip tightened and before he could say any more her lips opened and her hot breath feathered across his face, salty and sweet, along with something that sparkled in front of his eyes like glitter. Was it sand particles? He couldn’t help sucking in a shocked breath, and was still gazing into her strange blue eyes when whatever the hell it was hit his system like a sledgehammer and a wave of sensation flowed over him.

  In the next second his body stiffened.

  Really stiffened.

  And then Matt and his dead brother were the last things on Baz’s mind.

  Chapter Four

  Stay in your room, Dad. I mean it,” Baz said, struggling to pull the old man’s bedroom door shut with trembling hands. “I’ll sort this
out.” But Ted was pulling it open from the other side and he was remarkably strong.

  “What’s that smell on your clothes,” he said, starting to get agitated. “What’s going on? Why haven’t we had breakfast?”

  “You’ve got an emergency stash of muesli bars in your bedside drawer.” Baz tried to sound reasonable but every nerve in his body was screaming for him to stop this and get to the girl. “I’ll call you for lunch.”

  “What do you expect me to do in here?”

  “I don’t care,” Baz snapped at him, wrestling the door. “Read a book. Watch tv. Have a nap. Just let go the door. Now, Dad.” The pressure abruptly released and Baz yanked the door shut and turned to rest his back on it. Then he forced himself to wait. Twenty seconds later the television started up but it was another ten seconds before Baz stepped away from the door and stood by the opposite wall, watching to see if his father was just pretending obedience. Two endless minutes passed while Baz listened to the thundering of his heart before he felt confident to walk away, then he ran. Down the corridor to the guest suite where he’d put the girl, and after letting himself in he locked the door in case Ted decided to get curious. He sure as hell didn’t want his father walking in on… whatever was about to happen.

  Baz took his hand off the doorknob and looked at it. Still trembling. An hour since he’d laid eyes on the girl and he was still shaking. He sucked in a ragged breath. I’ve got to calm down.

  From the moment the girl had breathed on him and lapsed back into unconsciousness Baz had been acting like a lunatic, and all he could assume was that the glittering substance he’d inhaled was some sort of drug. The only thing he’d ever experimented with was marijuana, so he had no idea what cocaine or heroin did to you, although he’d always imagined them to be more of a head rush. This sensation was like a body rush, and unfortunately it was focusing 99% of his brain function on his libido, leaving only 1% available for acting normal. It wasn’t Viagra because he knew from overhearing conversations at school that its effect was localized. This felt as if his whole body was throbbing, and not just for any woman, he was completely focused on the girl from the beach, as if she was the only desirable woman in the world and he had to have her right now!