by Judi Fennell
Geez. Could the woman give her a few minutes on her own?
Wait a minute.
Val held up a finger toward… Rod. Right. That was his name. “Can you excuse me for a sec?”
He inclined that gorgeous head of black waves with an almost royal nod, and she spun around to steer the grinning Tricia over to a wall draped in fishing nets and sea-themed, stained-glass pieces.
“What do you know about this, Tricia?” she whispered.
“I believe it’s called a windfall, Val,” Tricia stage-whispered back, waggling her eyebrows and doing a really bad surreptitious head nod toward Rod. As if the guy didn’t already get that Tricia found him attractive.
A dead man would get that Tricia found him attractive.
“Seriously, Tricia, is this another of your set-ups?” Val tried to keep her voice down. No sense in embarrassing everyone.
Tricia had no such compunction. “Valerie Hope Dumere, I would never do that.”
Val arched an eyebrow. Tricia had done it more than Val cared to think about since she’d been home. Matter of fact, she had a date tonight.
“Well, okay, I’ve set you up before, but I wouldn’t do it with you in that.”
Val rolled her eyes. So much for the cute top. Now she had to add burning cheeks to the equation. “So you don’t know him?”
“Trust me. If I knew him, you wouldn’t be going out with Glen.” Tricia took Val by the shoulders and turned her back around. “‘Take you away from all this’? ‘Make all your dreams come true’? And you’re standing here talking to me? I think you’ve been smelling the paint fumes in this place for too long. Go talk to him.”
Good point.
Especially when he gave her that sexy grin again as she faced him.
Even though turnabout was fair play, she tried not to give him the once-over—but failed miserably. So instead, she plastered a smile on her face, rolled her shoulders back—Oh, wait. No need to draw attention to the girls…
She nibbled her upper lip and fiddled with the lay of her shirt again, then headed back over to him.
“Let’s try this again, shall we?” She stuck out her hand. “Hi. I’m Valerie Dumere. Is there something I can do for you?”
She really hadn’t stuck out her hand because she’d wanted to touch him again, but her nerve endings were still happy with the result when he took it.
“No, there isn’t, but there is something I can do for you.”
He certainly could…
Focus, Dumere.
She tugged her hand gently, almost disappointed when he let go, and stepped back. “Oh?”
“I’m here about your father.”
And there went that moment.
“Her father?” Tricia squeaked, and Val knew why.
No one could have seen that coming—because no one had known her father. Herself included. The bastard had left before she was born. “My father? You know him?”
“No, I don’t—didn’t. Lance Dumere was… a friend of the family.”
“Was?”
Rod nodded.
Ah, so Lance was dead. She’d never liked thinking her mother had lied to her all those years, even if she’d done it for a good reason. At least now, it was the truth.
And, no, that wasn’t a hollow thud in the vicinity of her heart. The man had no claim on her heart whatsoever. He’d given up that right when he’d walked out.
Val nibbled her lip again and tucked her hair behind her ears. “So… what does he have to do with you being here?”
Rod set his duffel bag on the glass-topped register counter and unzipped it, removing a stack of papers bound in a blue cover. “I’m here to give you this.”
“What is it?” Val took it, totally ignoring the sparks that zipped along her happy nerve endings where their skin touched. Well, trying to ignore them.
“Your father’s legacy.”
And there went any sparks.
Her father had a legacy?
“That’s not something tangible one usually puts on paper,” she said, flipping the cover open to find the obligatory lawyerly mumbo-jumbo.
Tricia leaned over her shoulder. “Hey, maybe he wrote a book. Or a song. A screenplay. Just think, Val, your dad actually left you something. And maybe… maybe it couldn’t be delivered until you’re—”
“Twenty-nine and three months? Right, Tricia. That’s the usual stipulation on long-lost inheritances from dead fathers. You’ve been reading Princess Diaries again, haven’t you?”
“Hey, the dad doesn’t die in the book. Just the movie.”
“It’s a shame a grown woman knows that.” Especially when Tricia knew the man had been a rat-bastard family-abandoner. Val had shared the comment she’d overheard her grandmother make the one and only time Mom and she had visited her mother’s parents. But then, Tricia always was a sucker for happy endings. Val, on the other hand, wasn’t. Dad was a case in point.
“Ladies, I assure you, I haven’t been reading any royal diaries lately, but this is, indeed, an estate for Valerie.”
One she didn’t want.
And regardless that the messenger was a guy a woman could fantasize over, nothing changed the fact that Lance Dumere—the one man in the world she should have been able to count on but couldn’t—was posthumously asking for forgiveness for something she couldn’t forgive.
She was about to fling the papers back into the duffel bag when something behind Rod caught her eye.
A stuffed seagull. Standing on the shelf by the window.
She definitely hadn’t ordered that. She wasn’t into taxidermy, though seagulls were, now, appropriate subjects in her opinion.
Mom must have ordered it and Tricia must have unpacked it today because it definitely hadn’t been there when she’d locked up last night. With the way her life had gone to the birds—and specifically seagulls—recently Val would have remembered finding that.
“Valerie?” Rod’s fingers ignited another small fire under her skin when he touched her upper arm. “Is something wrong?”
“Wrong?” She looked up at the concern in his voice. If not for the seagull and Lance butting in where he was no longer wanted, she’d have said absolutely nothing was wrong at that moment with Rod’s hand on her arm and his eyes staring intently into hers, concern etched into the vee of his brow…
But there was.
And it had a yellow beak, and gray and white feathers, and was standing in her shop.
“It’s just that…” Hold on. She couldn’t explain her recent bout of paranoia to Rod. He was going to think she was crazy enough when she told him what he could do with Lance’s legacy.
“No. Nothing’s wrong.” She glanced back at the bird.
Wait a minute. Hadn’t that thing been facing left? She could have sworn it’d been turned toward the register.
“Val? What’s going on?” Tricia asked.
Val shook her head. She was seeing things.
“Valerie?” This from Rod.
She set the papers on the counter then put a finger to her lips and walked toward the thing. She had to be imagining this. The bird hadn’t been on one leg before… Had it?
Taking a deep breath, Val stopped. What was wrong with her? Taxidermic birds didn’t switch legs. They didn’t move, and they didn’t stalk people.
Just to prove it to herself, she picked up the bird…
And the freaking thing started squawking and flapping—and most definitely moving.
Which was a good thing because she dropped that sucker at the first squawk.
It fluttered around them like something from a Hitchcock movie, knocking items off the displays with its feet as it tried to gain speed, and she could have sworn it was screeching, “Help!” but that could have been her as she dodged the thing, wanting to keep what hair she still had on he
r head away from that beak.
Tricia ducked behind the counter, while Rod tried to avoid both of them and lunged for the bird.
Half a dozen sand globes hit the floor with a domino-like series of crashes, and a wooden lighthouse teetered off a shelf, smashing onto a pile of spoon rests below it.
How the hell had the thing gotten in here, and more importantly, why?
The bird swooped toward her, knocking a pile of shell necklaces onto the floor. Val headed left and ran smack! into Rod, who was heading right.
Her five-six, one-twenty self shouldn’t have been able to knock over a guy like him, but apparently, when fueled by broken necklaces that acted like marbles beneath her feet, she became a roller-derby chick.
She tried to break her fall and ended up breaking a few faux coral pieces instead, landing on top of Rod with an “Oomph!”—and unsure which one of them said it.
“Sorry.” She scrambled off him, thinking she was more bummed that she couldn’t stay sprawled on top of him than she was at having knocked him over.
Then she really was sorry she’d scrambled off him because she tripped over his leg, slid on a necklace, and went sprawling—though not on top of him this time. No, this time she hit the carpet head on, with a nasty wrench of her ankle, and knocked over a carton of T-shirts that spilled over her like very large and very heavy confetti.
“I’ll get it!” Tricia jumped up from behind the counter, waving a wreath covered in seashells above her head, and ran toward the bird, shooing it toward the back, while Rod dashed over to Val.
“Are you okay?” He dug her out from under the shirts.
“Okay is a subjective term,” she mumbled as he helped her sit. Damn, her ankle hurt and she’d probably looked like a ditz falling all over the place. She really wasn’t liking seagulls these days.
A squawk emanated from the back room, and Val looked behind her. Thank God Tricia had unlashed the curtains. At least the thing would stay back there, though Val could only imagine the mess it’d leave.
Seemed like she couldn’t avoid bird droppings after all.
“I need to help Tricia,” she said, struggling.
“You sit here. The bird’s not going anywhere.”
“That’s what I’m afraid of.”
“And he’s not going to hurt you.”
“Oh really? Did you see that beak? Trust me. I know exactly how painful that beak can be.” She rubbed the back of her head where the stubble was just starting to grow back. “And I wouldn’t exactly call this”—she lifted her sore appendage—“not hurting me.”
God. Her life really was going to the birds. Talk about bad luck.
And then Rod lifted her leg in his hands. “Let me take a look.”
Hmmm, maybe her luck was about to change…
Chapter 3
Rod ran his fingers over Valerie’s smooth leg, down the curve of her calf, around the heel, and gently probed the indentation below the anklebone.
“I don’t think it’s broken.” Zeus, there were so many little bones in there.
And if he focused on that, instead of the soft puffs of breath brushing his cheek and the scent of flowers clinging to her skin, he might be able to ignore the heat radiating from her like the volcanic rock that lit his world.
Then he touched another spot that made her flinch and she grabbed his arm. Electricity raced from her fingers straight to his groin.
There was no ignoring that.
But he had a job to do, not to mention a throne to inherit by doing it, and he’d focus on that, and not the fact that her shell-fillers—breasts, Reel said Humans called them—were mere inches from him.
He shifted another inch or two away from her just to ensure he stayed focused, which also ensured that she’d remove her fingers from his arm.
A High Councilman did have to make sacrifices for his people.
“Rod, I’ll be fine.” She tried to stand and nibbled her upper lip again, an action so insignificant it shouldn’t have caught his attention—but did.
Especially when she did it again.
Chum’s words about falling in love with her came back to taunt him.
But that was ridiculous. He wasn’t falling in love with her because she was beautiful. He’d been around beautiful women before. Hades, all Mer women were beautiful.
It was just that Humans weren’t beautiful, and he hadn’t expected her to be.
Her Mer blood must be shining through. Just like her eyes, blue as the Tyrrhenian Sea, shone beneath the jumble of blonde curls that framed her face with those adorable sun-dots bridging her nose.
“Um… Rod?” She tapped his shoulder this time, and, clothing or not, it had the same effect as when she’d touched his bare skin.
Not a thought he needed at the moment.
“Yes?” He cleared his throat and willed his body to simmer down. This attraction was odd. Stronger than he’d had to anyone before. Must have something to do with the air…
“Could you help me up? The shirts… they’re too soft to push off of.”
Then she nibbled her lip again. Good gods.
But what could he say? No?
So instead, he prepared himself to touch her again, stood up, and held out his hand. “Uh, certainly.”
Her fingers rested in his palm. Yeah, there was no preparation for that…
“Thanks. I’m sorry for knocking you down—”
“It was nothing, Valerie.”
She arched an eyebrow at him, steadying herself with yet another touch to his shoulder. “Really? You have women bowling you over all the time, do you?”
None before her, and he didn’t mean the incident on the floor.
Zeus. What was wrong with him? She was just another female. Half-Human at that, and he was the next High Councilman. He needed to back off.
But then she stumbled as she tried to take a step, and he instead swung her up in his arms. Big mistake. It was as big a gesture on land as his brother had said.
He deposited her on top of the counter. “You should stay off that leg.” And out of his arms.
Valerie looked up at him with those beautiful blue eyes, startled wide now, and a blush tinged her cheeks before she quickly lowered her golden lashes. “Um, thanks, but I have work to do. This mess has got to go.”
And she had to go, too; that was the thing.
That bird, whoever he was, had a lot of explaining to do, and Rod would put out a call to Air Security to follow up once he and Val were on their way to the ocean. But right now, Val had something more pressing to deal with.
“Don’t worry about it, Valerie. You have your father’s estate to concern yourself with now.”
She licked her lips, moistening their soft pink sheen, then nibbled one again. He still found the action mesmerizing.
“Right. My father’s estate. Um, listen. I appreciate you coming here to tell me about it, Rod, but I’m going to pass.”
“What?” That statement got his eyes off those perfect lips. “You can’t.”
“Yes, I can. I don’t want it. At all.” She slid to the edge of the counter. “Thank you for stopping by, but as you can see, I’ve got my work cut out for me, so if you don’t mind…”
She was refusing?
No. That wasn’t possible. She had to accompany him.
“Valerie, you don’t understand. You must accept this inheritance. And soon. Time’s running out. Just come with me to New Jersey, and the estate will be all yours.”
In Rod’s experience, the words “legacy,” “inheritance,” and “dreams come true” brought people swimming—make that, running. The Council had fabricated this story for that very reason.
He’d hated the thought of lying to her. Oh, there was an estate. But it wasn’t a cherished memento or a bag of currency he could hand over. No, Valerie stood to in
herit the governorship of the Southern Ocean. They’d all agreed, however, that spouting off about Mers and Atlantis to an unsuspecting Human would damage Rod’s credibility and risk her refusal. Not to mention break that rule again—and that was not an option.
Hades, they’d gone to the trouble of manufacturing those papers to make the story seem legitimate in Human terms. All he needed to do was get her to the ocean where one drop of seawater would begin her transformation so she could learn—and believe—the truth. A tail was very convincing. But if he couldn’t even get her to come with him…
No. That was not even a consideration.
“Thanks, really, Rod, but I want nothing from that man. Just take the inheritance and… I don’t know, donate it to a children’s hospital or something.”
“Donate it?” An entire ocean and the fact that she was the salvation of their world? Right.
The gods had to have gotten this wrong. She couldn’t be the answer to The Prophecy.
He felt a rumble beneath the store. Ah, they’d followed him even here.
“Yes. Donate it. Let him do good for somebody’s kids before it’s too late, but he missed the boat with me.”
Rod stared at her. No one had seen this coming. What person—Mer or Human—wouldn’t want wealth?
Valerie, apparently, as she picked up the papers, rolled them, and tapped them against her lips.
“Seriously, Rod, pretend you didn’t find me. Let it revert to the state, or whatever happens to unclaimed inheritances. Give it to the kids, a college… I don’t care. I don’t want to see any part of it. I’ll stay here and run Mom’s shop, and Lance can do with his inheritance what he’s done for me my whole life.” She slid off the counter, making him back up, and handed him the papers.
“Absolutely nothing.”
Chapter 4
Of every scenario they’d run, refusal wasn’t one Rod or The Council had anticipated—and one he had to find a way around because he couldn’t fulfill The Prophecy and claim the throne without Valerie.
Bundling up the papers with his bag, Rod told her he’d be back tomorrow and walked out. This wasn’t over just because she didn’t want to go. No way. He had too much at stake for that.
