Marty looked at her thoughtfully, deeply gazing into her eyes as she placed her scarf on the arm of the couch. “Are you sure you’re okay, Esther? I know it’s a lot when you first see all the commotion and snarling and hair and teeth. There’s lots and lots of hair and teeth, but we’re really no different than you.”
But Nina swatted her on the back, jolting Esther forward with her strength. “Aw, she’s fucking fine, Marty. Right, Esther? Took that shit like a total champ. If we gave out awards, I’d give you one for best non-freak-the-fuck-out in a real-life performance.”
Rather than fill the shot glass again, Esther grabbed for the whole bottle of Cuervo and took a long slug, letting the heat of the alcohol warm her from the inside. “Do I get a trophy?”
Nina cackled, tucking her fangs back into her mouth and slapping her on the back again. “See? She’s fucking fine. She’s got chops. That’s good. You’ll need ’em.”
Wanda took Esther’s hand and began rubbing it to warm her cold fingers, while taking the tequila away from her, handing it to Nina, and replacing it with the warm tea. “Esther, you can tell us if you’re not okay. You can also ask us questions, if you’d like. Nothing’s too risqué or off-limits.”
“How?” She squeaked the word out. How had all these women come to be?
Marty stretched her arms up toward the ceiling. “Long story short, an accident. Probably something similar to yours.”
“So, chemical spill, nuclear power plant explosion, bad pharmaceuticals?” she joked.
Wanda chuckled softly and smiled warmly. “No, but we can tell you the stories, if you’d like. It happens in all sorts of ways. An accidental biting, a scratch, you name it, it’s happened. But that’s why we do what we do. Because we had something life-altering happen to us and we didn’t know where to turn. Now we help people with the same sensitive issues.”
Now Esther, her mouth falling open, breathed, “There are other people like you? Like me?”
Nina cracked her neck by rolling it from side to side. “If you only fucking knew. Listen, let’s get on with this shit already. We need to find your people so we can hand your ass off to them and they can take care of you so we don’t fucking have to. We have enough of you crazies running amok to last more than ten eternities. I don’t think we’re going to be able to rent a fucking hall big enough to hold all of us for barbecues and bullshit if we add someone new. Especially if the dragons come. Shit gets real when the dragons come. Something’s always goddamn on fire.”
She was just going to flat-out ignore the reference to dragons for now. Vampires and werewolves were plenty to process, thank you very much. “My people? I don’t have any people. I mean, my parents and grandparents are gone, and my uncle Gomez, my father’s brother, died a few days ago. I have no one…”
When she said those words out loud, she realized for the first time just how alone she really was. There was no one left but Mooky and Marsha and her.
Just her.
Not that her uncle’s passing had made a big difference in her life, unfortunately. He’d never been interested in communicating with her. She’d hardly known him.
Emptiness settled deep in her chest, poking at her vulnerability and making her swallow hard. She had friends, and Mooky and Marsha. That was plenty, and she’d damn well be grateful.
Noting her hand trembled, Wanda squeezed it tight. “I’m so sorry about your uncle, Esther.”
She shook off the despair threatening to take over and squared her shoulders. “No, no. It’s okay. We were never very close. He was a little kooky. A nice enough guy, from what I understand, but very introverted with his work. He was a scientist we hardly ever saw.” Apparently, according to his suicide note, a very depressed scientist. But she couldn’t dwell on that now, and she didn’t want to offer TMI.
After her grandparents’ deaths, she’d tried to get her uncle to meet her for lunch or maybe even just some coffee or a drink. The hope was, they’d at least connect on some level and neither of them would be all alone in the world. But he’d been as introverted as her family had always said he was. He’d never returned any of her calls, and aside from the few colleagues from the lab he’d worked for and herself in attendance, his funeral had been a desolate one.
Her perspective on losing her uncle felt more as though she were on the outside looking in. It was almost as if she’d come across his death by overdose in a newspaper article, and she had fleeting feelings of sympathy in the way she would if he were a complete stranger.
In fact, she’d only actually been in his presence three times in her life. At her parents’ and grandparents’ funerals, and once at a family barbecue. But her grandfather had always spoken of Gomez with such pride, she’d attended his funeral out of respect for him.
When his attorney had notified her of his death, he’d told her Uncle Gomez had left instructions to notify his closest living relative, whoever that was at the time, and that he’d left his worldly goods to science and his funeral arrangements were all pre-planned. All she’d had to do was show up.
She hadn’t asked many questions because, in her mind, there wasn’t much to ask. But now she was vaguely curious about how he’d come to that point in his life.
Nina sat at the edge of the coffee table, scooping a bewildered Marsha off the floor and rubbing her chin on the feline’s head. “But you do have people, dude. You must. Otherwise, how the fuck did this happen?”
Esther shook her head. “Maybe I’m just tired, but how could my people be the ones responsible for this?” She waved a hand down the length of her tail. “I don’t have people who are mermaids. I have people who were immigrants from Venezuela who came to this country for a better life and ran a shoe store for almost fifty years before they retired.”
Nina shook a finger at her, waving it under her nose. “I mean your new people, Esther Williams Sanchez. Your mermaid fucking people. Believe me, they’re out there, and I don’t GD well know how or when, but you can bet your sweet, slimy ass, they’re gonna show up sometime soon. They always damn well show up. Now, they could be good people or they could be bad—”
“Nina!” Wanda chastised with a stern tone—just like the ones the nuns from Catholic school used. “Don’t frighten her. For the love of Pete, let her adjust.”
But Nina scoffed, now scooping up a stiff Mooky, too, easing her magic hands along his back until he relaxed. “Please. Adjust. Hah! We all know how that fucking goes, Wanda. Let’s just tell her the truth and stop easing her into it. It’s better than fucking sprinkling that shit with sugar all the time. Her life’s going to change in a big damn way. Some good. Some bad. Probably a whole lot of bad before it gets good. So lay off the bowl of sunshine with whipped cream on top and—”
Her doorbell rang, interrupting Nina’s tirade about sunshine and sugar and shit and a lot of words Esther couldn’t process for the tequila she’d consumed.
“I hope that’s Arch,” Marty murmured as she rose to answer the door. “I texted him about an hour ago now. Darnell, too. We need to find some information on merpeople and who can help us get Esther’s legs back.”
But Esther, suddenly petrified it could be a neighbor, cringed, pulling the blanket from the back of the couch and attempting to cover her tail with it.
Which was rather like trying to cover a beached whale with a hand towel, but whatever. “What if it’s not the people you texted?” she asked, terrified.
Nina smiled at her with confidence, rolling her shoulders as she set Mooky and Marsha down on the floor. “Then we’ll fucking handle it, of course.”
As the door swung open, and the cold wind rushed in, a very large, very good-looking man literally pushed past Marty until he was almost inside the cottage.
But Marty, clearly offended, shoved a hand into his shoulder and frowned disapprovingly. “Excuse me, but who the hell are you and how dare you push your way in here like you own the joint?”
“Is this where Esther Sanchez lives?” he asked in a very d
istinct but light Australian accent that, under normal circumstances, would have sent shivers along her spine—because sexy. Very sexy.
Instead, it wrought panic and fear in her.
“Who the fuck are you and why the fuck do you want to know?” Nina asked, bouncing from foot to foot like a jazzed-for-fight-night boxer.
“I’m Tucker Pearce, and I need to speak to Esther Sanchez immediately,” he insisted, his square jaw clenching.
Nina instantly went into attack mode, sidling up to him and giving him a wild-eyed stare. “Yeah? Well, I’m Hits First Asks Questions Later, and if you don’t back the fuck off, mate, your intestines are gonna be the shrimp on my barbie.”
And then he saw Esther, her fins draping over the end of the sofa, her hair falling down along her lap, and his eyes—his beautiful hazel eyes, with just a fleck of gold in them—went wide.
That’s when he said, “Well, fuck all.”
Chapter 4
Yeah, fuck all.
As the gorgeous man stood frozen on the spot, quite out of the blue, Nina paused for a moment then threw her head back and laughed. “Oh shit, dude! Ding-dong, Esther’s people calling!”
And then Marty began to laugh as well, her chuckle hearty and rich to Esther’s ears. She slapped Nina on the back and nodded. “Oh my God! I bet you twenty and a pint of blood, you’re right! I can’t wait to hear this one!” she said on a sputter before she collapsed against Nina in a fit of hysterical laughing.
Esther looked helplessly to Wanda, the only sane one of the bunch because she was currently the only one not laughing. “Wanda?”
Until she was.
She doubled over and laughed, too, eloquently, of course—and all this while Esther and Tucker stared at them and then at each other, perplexed.
“Well, don’t just stand there, dude. Get the fuck in here before your mermaid mama catches a cold,” Nina instructed, her nostrils flaring.
The man looked at her, a question in his eyes, but Nina broke from laughing to say, “I know you’re a merdude. I can smell you, man.” She pointed to her nose then resumed laughing.
Tucker took two long strides, his thick thighs bulging beneath his jeans, placing himself by the kitchen’s peninsula as he openly gawked at Esther, who’d suddenly become very aware the only thing between her and total upper-body nudity was her hair.
“What the hell…?” he muttered.
She hauled the blanket up over her chest and gave Tucker a sheepish glance. “Um, g’day, mate?”
And that made the women laugh all over again—laugh until tears fell from Marty’s and Wanda’s eyes and Nina dry heaved.
But Tucker didn’t laugh. He didn’t even smirk.
He ran a hand through his chocolate-brown hair and began to approach her, then clearly thought twice because he took a step backward. “You’re Esther Sanchez, yes? Gomez Sanchez’s niece?”
She nodded numbly, unclear why he seemed vaguely familiar. He was incredibly good-looking in a rough, edgy kind of way, but everything before tonight was a total blur at this point. She was having a hard time remembering anything before she’d inherited a tail.
But she answered with caution. “I am. Actually, it’s Esther Williams Sanchez. Who are you, and why are you here?”
“As in—”
She held up a hand to stop him. “Yes,” she snapped “As in the synchronized swimmer, okay? Now, who are you?”
His strong jaw twitched. “We met briefly at your uncle’s funeral the other day.”
Huh. She frowned. Why couldn’t she remember that? Certainly a man like this stood out in a crowd, and there hadn’t even been a crowd at her uncle’s funeral.
“And?”
“And I have some questions for you.”
The lingering laughter in the air evaporated instantly as Nina strode up to Tucker and eyeballed him with clear irritation. “Hold the fuck up, mate,” she sneered. “You have some questions for her? For her? That’s a joke, right? Correct me if I’m wrong, but you did this to her, didn’t you?”
Tucker’s nod was curt, but he didn’t back down. Instead, he stared right back at Nina. “I think it was in fact me. So, to answer your question, yes.”
“Then slow your roll and use your fucking words, pal. Apologetic words. Like, oops, I’m sorry I turned you into Tina The Tuna. My apologies. How can I fix this?”
Inhaling deeply, Tucker held up an enormously wide hand. “Allow me to begin again. I’m Tucker Pearson, and I met you at your uncle’s funeral. We brushed up against one another, and…”
“And?” Nina prodded, crossing her arms over her chest.
“And that’s how this happened,” he confessed.
Esther’s hair stood up on the back of her neck and arms. She didn’t remember brushing up against anyone. Especially not someone as good-looking as this man. “I don’t remember that at all, and believe me, you’re not hard on the eyes. I’d remember brushing up against you. You’re at least seven inches taller than me and the size of a bulldozer. How could I forget you?”
Crossing his arms—his big, bulging—with-muscles arms—over his chest, Tucker sighed. “I did brush against you when you were getting up to leave the pew in the church, at the service. I rose from my seat out of respect for a lady, and because I’m a rather large man, and the pews were crammed together quite tightly, you faltered, I righted you, we brushed against one another.”
Esther’s eyes went wide in disbelief. He’d only brushed up against her? But…she brushed up against people all the time. In a crowded elevator, a busy street. Would she turn everyone and everything she bumped up against into a mermaid?
“So, what happens if you actually touch me-touch me? Do I turn into the Loch Ness Monster?”
Now Tucker smirked. “No. You won’t turn into Nessie, but there’s a strong possibility you could turn into Willy, as in Free.”
“Hah!” Nina barked then rolled her eyes when Wanda hushed her with a frown. “What? It was fucking funny.”
But Marty wasn’t laughing anymore. She planted her hands on her hips and popped her lips. “Are you seriously telling me that all you did was brush up against Esther and she turned into a mermaid? Seriously?”
“I’m quite serious, Miss…?” He held out his tanned hand to Marty and smiled for the first time, and it was a doozy. All teeth and dimples and sexy-sexy.
“Marty. Marty Flaherty.” She put her hand in Tucker’s and lifted her chin, narrowing her gaze. “Explain the science behind this, please? I’m not sure I understand how brushing up against someone can turn them into a mermaid.”
Esther struggled to sit up in order to address Tucker in a manner that at least hinted at some sense of authority, but as she did, she slid to the floor, knocking the handspun candleholders on her coffee table to the floor.
Her tail reacted, flopping awkwardly with a thud, nearly wiping out Mooky and Marsha. “Oh!”
Mooky and Marsha scattered as though a bomb had gone off, but surprisingly, Tucker was the first to help her get back on the couch. “Allow me,” he offered when Nina reached down for her, stepping in front of Nina and scooping her up as though she were lighter than air.
And that was when she remembered brushing up against him at the church.
She’d been trying to get out of the pew to take an urgent phone call from work, a difficult, very high-profile divorce case she’d been mediating for almost two months, when she’d stumbled in her heels and fallen into him. She’d only looked up for a mere moment before she’d been looking back down at her phone.
But his scent, a slight whiff of something woodsy and fresh, had obviously stuck after their first encounter. She recognized it immediately now.
“I do remember that day,” she whispered as Tucker repositioned her back on the couch, tucking pillows around her to keep her upright. “How did something so small turn into this?”
Tucker eyed her as he straightened, his hard face not emoting a single expression. “Sometimes, when emotions are heightene
d, things happen.”
“What the fuck are you talking about, dude?” Nina asked, her face riddled with skepticism. “Things happen? Things? You better get explaining, buddy, because I have little time for this shit.”
But Tucker didn’t waver under Nina’s penetrating gaze. “It was a sad occasion. Sometimes when a merman—or mermaiden, for that matter—is at the height of a particular emotion, it plays with the chemistry of their bodies, and scales can pop out. Unlike mermaids, mermen also have bands of scales around their wrists. They’re meant to protect us in underwater battles—”
“You have underwater battles?” Esther gripped the blanket, that dark fear returning.
“No. Not in this day and age. Though, back in the day of the Vikings, I hear the wars were quite something. The point is, we’ve evolved, and they’re just a byproduct of who we are as mermaids now. But when they scratch someone…well, this is the result. I’m sure you must have noticed a small scratch on your wrist, Esther?”
He said it all so matter-of-factly, it almost made sense. But not quite. Though, as she looked at her wrist, she noted the faint scratch that had now begun to heal—one she thought she’d gotten from Marsha and had hardly paid any attention to at all.
“Okay, big guy, first things first. Where are my legs, and are they ever coming back? Because if they aren’t, you’re in for some lawsuit. A big, fat, ugly lawsuit.”
He conceded by nodding his head with amused eyes. “That’ll certainly be one for Judge Judy, won’t it?”
“Where are my legs?” she yelped, frustrated from sitting on the couch. Never mind the fact that she had to figure out, if she’d always be like this, what the hell she was going to do.
“They’ll return shortly, I promise you,” Tucker assured, as though they were talking about a dog that had gotten out of the yard. “Sometimes, as a first-time mermaid, it takes a bit longer to return to your human form.”
The Accidental Mermaid (Accidentally Paranormal Series Book 16) Page 4
