Her gaze flew to his face. Her hands stilled on his chest.
Mermaid. He still thought of her as the fantasy creature he had caught on his line. And maybe it was just as well. She forced herself to smile and swam a few feet away from him. Catching onto the air tanks they had let go of earlier, she lifted them onto the shore, set her floating mask and snorkel beside them, out of reach of the waves, then flipped onto her back, stroking away from him, thinking about what he had said—not that she needed his encouragement. She’d thought about little else since she’d last seen him.
Mark grinned and dove after her, lifting her high as he carried her carefully up over the rocks until they were lying on the hot shale with the sun beating down on them. He closed his hands over hers, flattening them to his chest. She wanted to pull away, but her strength was puny compared to his, and her will was even more so as she lost herself in the blue of his eyes.
Mark swallowed hard, his eyes burning into hers as he tugged her hands up around his neck. “Jillian. When?”
“When?” she echoed, her heart going wild.
“Yes, when,” he said impatiently. “When can we be together?”
“We... we are together, Mark,” she said. “I mean... we’re in the same place.”
“That’s not what I mean. Not what I want. I want—” Dammit, he hadn’t meant to do it this way! He had planned it so differently, all slow and soft and sweet with candlelight and music. But his need for her overwhelmed him and he heard himself blurt out, “I’m in love with you, Jillian. I want to marry you. I want you. And I know you want me.”
“No! No, you don’t want to marry me!” She pushed him away. “You said you never wanted to get married again. And you don’t know anything about me, Mark. You don’t know—
“I know I love you,” he said. “Sure, until today I didn’t think I wanted to get married again. But while I was waiting for you, watching what was going on out there, thinking of you down in the cold water where you didn’t want to be, I wished there was some way I could have the right to demand that those men get you out of there. I realized that there was only one way for me to have that right, that marriage is the only thing that makes any sense for us.”
“Mark, no, we—”
“We have to be together, Jillian. You know we do. Because not only do I love you, but you love me, don’t you? Tell me,” he said hoarsely. “Jilly, tell me you love me!”
It was true, but she didn’t want to admit it. She had never felt more frightened. Reaching up, she pulled his head down and kissed him, curving her body to fit the hardness of his. She didn’t want to think. She didn’t want to talk. She simply wanted to feel the things that only he could make her feel. She wanted to be stirred as only he could stir her. She had adored her late husband, Lance, but never once had his lovemaking done to her what even one of Mark’s kisses could do.
He broke the kiss and lifted his head, gazing at her, enraptured. “I didn’t think I’d ever think in terms of forever, Mermaid, but now I am.”
“Oh, Mark...” She wanted to cry. Didn’t he understand? This couldn’t last. He was looking at a mermaid, for heaven’s sake, and it was the fantasy he thought he loved. But when he knew the reality, when he saw the real Jillian, his love would come crashing down with a roar like the shotgun blast that had roared in her ears as it changed her life forever.
“Mark...Please. Stop it. We aren’t going to be together. Not the way you mean. We aren’t going to make love. This is something that will pass. Okay, so we’re both attracted to each other, but it isn’t real. It’s all part of the pretense of my act. That’s what you have to understand. None of what you’re feeling is real.”
He snatched her close again, kissing her until her head spun. He dragged her hand down his body, placed it where it was most needed, and said in a raspy voice, “Oh yes it is! If that’s not real, Jillian, then I don’t know what is.”
It was real. And so was her reaction, so were her feelings. She swallowed hard and forced herself away from him.
She started to say something, but he cut her off, wrapping his arms around her and carrying her higher up the rocks to sit in a little crevice out of the wind. He hauled her air tanks above the high tide mark, and then returned to her, folding her close in his arms.
“Listen to me,” he said. “I want you to know how sorry I am, how I wish I’d kept my mouth shut instead of spouting off like I did last Sunday. I got carried away by my feelings. I said things I shouldn’t have said. I said things it was too soon to say, and you got the wrong impression of me. Hell, it’s still too soon, but I can’t help myself any more than I could then. But believe this, I wasn’t trying to buy you, Jillian. I wasn’t trying to act like one of those creeps who send notes to your dressing room. I was trying to get you out of that dressing room, out of that tank where they can all ogle you and make crude comments about you. All right, so I didn’t know it at the time, but I wanted all that because I love you. If I’d known did, I’d have said so, and it wouldn’t have sounded so bad, so cold and calculating.
“I spent all week telling myself to let you go, that this was all just a passing thing, but all that time, too, I wanted to phone you and was afraid to. I didn’t want to hear you say you wouldn’t talk to me. For the same warped reasons, I didn’t follow you home the last two nights, but let the taxi driver do it. But I was there, Jilly. In the club. I was there all Friday evening, all Saturday evening, through each of your shows and listened to the speculation, listened to the filthy fantasies those men spouted, and I wanted to kill. I want you out of there. I want you safe. I just...want you. But I’m not like them, love. I don’t want to buy you. I just want to marry you.”
“Oh, Mark, I know that.” Tears flooded her eyes, and he kissed them away. “I’m sorry too,” she told him finally, when she could speak. “I said awful things to you, accused you of things I know you didn’t mean. Mark, forgive me.”
“I’ll forgive you anything, if you’ll just say you love me and will marry me!”
She looked at him and hoped he could see the love in her eyes, because she couldn’t say the words. Nor could she tell him that to be married to him was the thing she wanted most in the world. She could feel the tension in him as he waited for her response, feel the hurt in him when it didn’t come, but then he smiled and touched her face with the broad tip of one thumb, drawing a line from her brow to her chin.
“Okay,” he said, “I can wait.” He scooped her up and carried her toward the house, hearing the clang of the gate as it shut behind them, locking them in.
Together. He smiled in satisfaction. He had brought his mermaid home, and this time he wasn’t going to toss her back. This time she really was a keeper.
Chapter Eight
HE TOOK HER BACK to the patio and sat her on a chair near the pool, crouching beside her, stroking her damp hair back with a tenderness that made her ache inside.
“How about we get you out of that suit?”
Suddenly she went white, then her cheeks flared with color. Mark remembered the last time he had suggested she remove her costume and her sharp, almost panicked refusal. He frowned and cradled her cheek on one hand. “What’s wrong, Jillian?”
“Nothing. Nothing at all,” she said, but he was sure she was lying and was about to call her on it when she laughed, seeing Amber come out of the house wearing a huge gray sweatshirt with the sleeves rolled up and a blue silk tie tied around the middle. Her feet were bare, and her legs stuck out from beneath the big shirt like little sticks.
“Hey, Amber! Nice dress,” she commented, reaching out to hug her daughter.
“You feeling okay now, love? Mr. Larson told me you got sick and that Mark came to get you. Why didn’t you tell me you didn’t feel well? I thought you were having a great time.”
“I was, Mom, honest. It was lots of fun when we went fast and bounced and there was wind in my hair the way it was with those ladies. It was just when the little boat rocked and rocked and rocked an
d nothing made it sit still that I got sick. I sure was glad to see Mark, Mom.”
“I bet you were, hon. Did you tell him thanks?”
“Yes, and Mr. Carson gave me peppermint tea to make my tummy feel better, and Mark gave me a present. Want to see?”
“Sure, but you’ll have to bring it to me. I don’t want to go inside in my suit.”
“Why don’t you take it off, then you can come and play with me and Mr. Carson. He found me some things to wear, and I bet he could get you something too. Come on, Mom, I want to—” Amber broke off. “Oh,” she added softly. “I forgot.” Then, turning, she tore away, calling over her shoulder, “I’ll get Mr. Carson to help me bring it all out.”
She was back before Mark could think of a way to phrase the question that was running through his mind. What was it about Jillian and that mermaid suit that Amber had “forgot” and what was it made Jillian pale at the very thought of removing it?
Amber returned with her arms full carrying a moving van, followed by Edward with the big log house.
“Mark!” Jillian didn’t know whether to laugh or cry or get mad. “I said I’d get her one for Christmas. You didn’t have to do this.” She slithered off lounge chair onto the pool deck and watched as Amber carefully placed sofas and chairs and beds and tables and refrigerators in appropriate places. Then, when she’d had it all neatly arranged, she carefully dismantled each room and loaded the furniture into the van.
“Where’s Chris?” Jillian asked, hoping he wasn’t in his room brooding while the rest of them were out here having fun.
“He’s spending the weekend sailing with friends of mine,” Mark explained. “They have a son his age who’s celebrating a birthday this weekend.”
Suddenly Amber leaped to her feet and said, “Mom! What time is it?”
“Oh, my gosh! Billy’s birthday party! Amber, I...I forgot! Mark...?” She gestured at Mark’s wristwatch.
“It’s half-past twelve,” he said.
“It’s okay, hon. You can make it. If Mark would be good enough to drive us home, we’ll have plenty of time. Billy lives next door,” she added for Mark’s benefit.
“Why not let Edward take her?” Mark asked quickly as the elderly man came out pushing a cart filled with sandwiches, a salad, and glasses of iced tea. “You’d do that, wouldn’t you, Edward? Take Amber home in time to get to a birthday party?” He gave the man Jillian’s address. “Didn’t you plan to go to your daughter’s place for dinner this evening? You could go early and spend the whole afternoon with her.”
Edward smiled blandly as he looked from Mark to Jillian and back again. “Yes, sir. I could do that, and I’d be happy to take Amber home on my way.” Then he narrowed his eyes on Mark and added, “One condition, though?”
Mark grinned. “All right, all right. Take the Mercedes.”
“Now, wait a minute,” said Jillian, feeling that this entire thing was being arranged without her having any kind of a say in the matter. “I need to get home, too, you know. I want to get...changed.”
“If you want to get changed, I have plenty more bathrobes, any of which are yours to keep,” said Mark, lifting her back onto her chair and handing her a plate of salad with a sandwich alongside. “We can’t waste all this food. Okay?”
“Okay, Mom? Please? I don’t want to be late for Billy’s party.” Amber was bouncing up and down, holding Edward Carson’s hand.
Jillian looked from Amber to Edward to Mark and caved in like a popped balloon. “Okay,” she whispered, feeling sick with apprehension as she saw her daughter walk off hand in hand with her new friend, leaving Jillian and Mark completely alone together for the very first time.
She wondered if Edward even had a daughter with whom he had planned to spend the evening, or if the whole thing had been neatly arranged in a manner long since perfected by him and his boss.
“You see?” Mark said when the Mercedes had been gone for fifteen minutes and he had eaten his lunch, Amber’s, and half of Jillian’s. “You see how well Amber and I get along? How much she likes Edward? I like her, and I like your mother. I saw how well you got along with Chris, how he responded to you. You and he clicked, Jillian. We could do it, sweetheart. Be a family. All of us together, loving, learning, growing, being complete together.”
She shook her head then slid from her chair to deck and into the pool, where she felt more sure of herself. In the water she truly was complete as she swam expertly toward the bottom, curved her tail and surfaced, pushing her hair back from her brow, looking at him as if she didn’t quite know where they were going to go I from there. She looked like a cross between a frightened girl and a seductive temptress, and he thought that maybe even she wasn’t sure just which she was at the moment.
There was still a faint, pink scar where her cut scalp had healed. Even from where he stood Mark could see it, and it reminded him of the day he had caught her. That day he had hated the thought of having to let her go because she was a novelty. Now he knew he would never be able to let her go because she was his life.
But something was wrong, and if she wouldn’t let him in on it, there was no way he could make it better.
“Jillian,” he said, “Come out. Please, love. We have to talk.”
Again she bent and dove to the bottom, sweeping from one end of the pool to the other before coming up for breath in the center.
“Come in with me, Mark. Come and fulfill every man’s fantasy. Swim with the mermaid.”
He stripped off his shorts and dove in naked, letting her catch his hand and draw him under the surface. Opening his eyes, he saw her hair swirling around her face, saw her beautiful mermaid body curling and twisting as she slid around him, arousing him as her mouth came to his and she kissed him deeply, silently speaking of the love she felt for him, the need, the desire. Her arms clung to him, her fingers stroking his back, his naked buttocks, and he hated the suit she wore as he had never hated anything else before, because somehow he sensed that it had something to do with her reluctance to believe in his love, to accept it, and to become part of his life.
When his feet touched bottom, he kicked hard and shot to the surface, still holding her, their mouths still locked together. As the air hit their laces, they broke apart, gasping.
Catching her hands in his he said, “I don’t want you to be a mermaid, Jillian, whatever you think, that’s not what I want of you. I don’t want a fantasy. I want the real thing. I want it all.”
She looked at him silently for a long time, and then he realized the beads of water running down her cheeks weren’t coming from her wet hair but from her eyes.
He swam with her to the shallow end, where she had sat once before.
“What is it, my darling?” he said, wiping her face with the palms of his hands. “Jillian, let me in. Let me help. Oh, sweetheart, I want so badly to fix it!”
“You can’t fix it, Mark. Nobody can. And you can’t love me, either, because I only have one leg.”
“What?” Mark’s look of shocked horror undid her completely, and she wrenched herself away him, diving underwater, swimming fast and furiously, her massive tail pumping as it pushed her in long, sweeping glides that he was incapable of keeping up with. He chased her until he was exhausted and had to cling to the side of the pool.
Finally, getting out, walking unsteadily up the steps, he stood leaning on the back of a chair, gasping for breath. “All right, Jillian. So you can out-swim me the way a porpoise can outswim a slug. But you can’t make a statement like that and then run away from the consequences. You—”
She dove under the water again, back to where she didn’t have to hear him, back to where she didn’t have to see him, back to where she could try to forget the look on his face when she told him the truth about herself. She didn’t know why he wanted to talk about it. Couldn’t he see that there was nothing to say?
She surfaced at the center, well out of his reach, and saw him standing there waiting. As soon as her head was out, he went on a
s if she hadn’t interrupted him by diving. “You have to come out of there sooner or later, because if you don’t, I’m going to drain the pool.”
She dove again. He wouldn’t do that. She knew he wouldn’t do that to her, leave her high and dry and stranded in the bottom of an empty pool. At least she understood that much about him; he understood that she needed the cloak of her costume and the water. She wanted to be able to shed both, but it was simply too hard. Why didn’t she have enough courage? Wasn’t she woman enough to do what had to be done, to find out once and for all if she could? If he could? She surfaced, her eyes closed, wondering if he would come swimming after her again—and if he did, whether she would try to escape.
The sun was hot on her face. She moved her arms and her tail only slightly, holding herself where she floated. Was he watching her? Was he fantasizing about the mermaid, or was he picturing her as she really was, without the concealing suit, without the long pants she always wore. How could he possibly know what she looked like? How could he begin to imagine what she had imagined every night since she had met him?
She let her tail sink and her head come erect. He was gone, and she wondered if maybe he really had gone to turn on the pumps that would drain the water. She listened and watched. There was no sound of a motor, and the water level remained the same. Maybe he had simply...gone. Maybe, for both their sakes, it was easier that way. Of course it was. He wouldn’t have to suffer through the embarrassment of trying and failing, and she wouldn’t have to suffer through the agony of seeing revulsion on his face.
But, oh, God! How she wanted to be beautiful lot him. More than anything else, she wanted that, and there was nothing she could do to make it so. She was what she was. She thought she had faced it. She thought she had dealt with it.
And then Mark Forsythe had come into her life and everything had changed. She was right back at square one, right back in the hospital when she had looked down and saw the way the covers lay over her on the bed.
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