by Judi Fennell
"Thank you. I appreciate it." In more ways than he could know. She did not want to pass up an oppor tunity like this. Especially when she found a row of sequined cropped pants. She stroked a finger over the shiny faux-scales.
Clothing was a relatively new concept among Mers. Many still used their long hair for covering up or the shell-and-kelp method, but that was mostly the older generations. She had a wonderful collection of Human clothing at home from sale day at the Salvager Market, but it paled in comparison to this selection. Dresses, skirts, bathing suits, shorts, tops, pants… racks and racks of everything… She'd died and gone to Shopping Olympus.
Then she found a rack of tiny, silky shorts in vibrant colors and patterns with matching bikini tops next to them. She let the silky fabric flow through her fingers and over the back of her hand. It felt so different dry than when it was waterlogged. She loved her home, wouldn't give up the beauty of Atlantis for anything, with all the different hues of coral and patterns of brightly colored fish and the jewel-toned tails of her people, but fabric had a much better consistency out of the sea.
"Blech." Michael knocked his hat sideways. "Girl stuff."
"Girls like girl stuff, Michael," his father said, straight ening the hat. "Someday you'll be glad about that."
"Nuh-uh. Girl stuff is yucky."
"Not if you're a girl." Angel reached in front of him for the perfect pair of purple shorts, a few shades darker than her amethyst tail, with delicate filigree like lace coral around the edges, then held them against the tops of her legs. "What to do you think of these?"
Michael shrugged his shoulders, but Logan turned the most interesting shade of red and walked away without a word. An odd garbled sound, but no word. Was that some Human language she wasn't familiar with?
Michael just giggled. "Logan still doesn't know you're a mermaid, does he?"
She shook her head. "No. And you have to remember not to say anything."
"I won't. I promise. I always wanted my very own mermaid. I hope you get your tail back soon. I liked it."
She was going to have to remind him about that word, mermaid. Mer. Period. As for the my part? She wasn't a pet, for Apollo's sake. "I like it too, Michael, but right now it's probably not a good—"
"Oh, that's a lovely style," said the Human approach ing them, "but you're right, it's not exactly the best color for you. And I don't think a sixteen is the size you want." The woman took the garment and pointed to a selection beside her. "Here. This rack has your size. I would go with a softer color. Lavender, perhaps."
Logan arrived behind the woman with such a look of relief on his face Angel might have thought he'd discovered Captain Kidd's treasure, except that wasn't possible because the pirate's bounty was on display in Atlantis, and Humans didn't know about it.
"Angel, this is Wendy. She'll help you with what you need. Michael and I have a few things to pick up. We'll be back in"—he looked at Wendy and pulled a small, rectangular piece of shiny plastic from his wallet—"an hour?"
Ugh. Plastic. One of her brother's reasons for starting the Mer-Human Coalition was to combat Humans' dis posal of the vile compound. And now Logan wanted her to use it? Well, she'd use all of it so there'd be nothing left to contaminate the environment.
"I think we can manage to occupy our time," Wendy said, taking the plastic from him.
"I'm sure you will." Logan's smile thinned as he called a reluctant Michael to him.
"But I don't wanna go!" Michael took a step behind Angel.
A hurt look crossed Logan's face.
Angel couldn't have that. She was here to observe and report, not influence their lives. Coming between a parent and a child was forbidden in any world.
She put a hand on Michael's head and tilted it back. "It's okay, Michael. I told you I'm not going anywhere."
"You promise?"
"Of course I do." Especially since she didn't have a clue where she'd go or how she'd get there. "Now, go with your father and let me finish up here."
Logan smiled at her, and Angel had the oddest sensation in her toes. They tingled. No one had men tioned that in any study she'd read.
"Okay." Michael stepped out from behind her and headed toward Logan. "But we're gonna come back real soon."
She certainly hoped so. She really had no other choice but to trust Logan when he said she was in Wendy's capable hands. It wasn't as if she'd be going anywhere without him.
"So, my dear." Wendy flashed the plastic thing again after Logan and Michael left. "Let's begin, shall we? Mr. Hardington said a complete wardrobe, and we might as well start from the inside out."
Angel really hoped a literal translation of that phase was not what the woman meant.
Chapter 5
THANK GOD SHE'D SAT IN THE BACK.
Logan rushed out of the boutique with the image of Angel's shapely, toned legs peeking out from beneath the hem of his shirt searing his brain and shooting straight to his groin. Yeah, as if the hardening of her nipples from the store's air-conditioning and that jumble of hair—not to mention the sexy lingerie she'd held against her body and that kiss they'd almost shared—had nothing to do with his condition.
God help him, he couldn't forget one single detail, and his body's reaction was making walking damn difficult. He angled away from Michael before adjusting his shorts, not wanting to contemplate what he'd be going through if she'd sat next to him in the SUV, those thighs inches from his—especially after watching them ascend the dock steps, then having her in his arms, almost kissing her… He'd been utterly relieved by Michael's seating arrangements.
And thank God for the store clerk. If he'd had to spend one more minute with Angel holding lingerie up to that body, it would have been the death of him. Even the hot Florida air felt cool compared to the way his body temp had soared when she'd done that.
Purple. Jeez. Might as well have been black lace. Or red.
"She's really cool, isn't she, Logan?" Michael hopped from sidewalk block to sidewalk block, bypassing the cracks with the exuberance of the unin formed and innocent.
Logan had never done that as a kid. Hadn't known it was something kids did, thanks to his unorthodox upbringing—in the circus.
He would have laughed if there'd been something funny about it. God knew, you couldn't get more un orthodox than growing up with carnies. A troupe—not a family.
Logan settled a palm between Michael's shoulder blades. "She's definitely cool, but I don't want you to become too attached. She's going to have to leave at some point." Sooner rather than later if he had anything to say about it. For Michael's sake—and his sanity.
"Nuh-uh. She promised she wouldn't. Remember?"
"I know, but sometimes grown-ups say things they don't really mean." How well he knew that. Firsthand.
Oh, sure, Goran and Nadia Harsányis, his "par ents," had said they loved him, but then, they'd said that to all the runaways they'd taken in. Even run aways' babies, like him. But it'd seemed to have been more a way to get workers for their shows than any idea of family.
Case in point: he'd been one master prestidigitator until he'd realized that was all there would ever be for him. A nomadic, itinerant, sporadic existence.
He'd wanted more. Roots. A sense of belonging somewhere. Normalcy.
Life with the Harsányis troupe was none of those things.
He'd finally done his own running away at fifteen. Run away from the circus. How ironic was that? Gotten himself declared an emancipated minor, changed his name, and worked his way through school, planning for the day when he could have a normal life.
He was so close. Partner in a venture capital firm that was on the cutting edge of green technology—life expe riences providing as much of that education as college courses—judicious spending practices, friends, vaca tions, retirement accounts…
He'd only needed a wife to complete his vision. Enter Christine. They'd been on the right track for a few months, but then she'd broken out the incense and love beads, talked abou
t joining a commune to practice her performance art, and he'd been plunged right back into that insane spiral again. Her name change was proof positive. He'd gotten out cleanly.
Or so he'd thought.
And now here was Michael. Logan was going to give the kid as much Normal as was in his power.
Michael jumped from one block of concrete onto an other. At least his son was starting out on the right foot. And the left. Then the right… Logan allowed himself a small smile.
Then Michael landed on the block in front of him. "So Rainbow didn't mean it when she said I might not be here for long?"
Logan's smile disappeared. "She said what?"
Michael readjusted the baseball cap he hadn't taken off since he'd arrived and shuffled to another block, no longer paying attention to the cracks. He grabbed a crum pled piece of newspaper off the sidewalk and stuffed it in his pocket. "Um, she said you might send me away."
"What?" Logan reached for Michael's shoulder. "Where did she think I would send you?"
His son shrugged and pulled away. "I dunno. Wherever they send kids whose parents can't keep them. There are places, I know. She told me. She said they have lots of other kids and nice houses and good food and stuff, so it wouldn't be that bad. And I can bring Rocky."
Logan couldn't believe it. He didn't need this. First he had a son he'd never known about show up out of no where, then a complication at work, a destitute woman show up on his boat—naked—and now his ex had put the idea in his son's head that he wouldn't be wanted?
Logan wanted to kill her. He wanted to wrap his hands around her throat and choke the life out of her for even putting that idea in his son's head.
For not trusting in him enough to keep the child they'd made.
She'd known how he'd been raised. What he'd missed out on, growing up with the troupe and then later on his own. How he'd vowed never to do that to another per son. One night, after too much wine and a sweet round of lovemaking, he'd opened up and told her about his shitty childhood and everything he'd overcome to get where he was.
Bad enough she'd kept Michael from him; now she'd dared question whether he'd keep his son? The anger and bitterness threatened to choke him, but Logan had to swallow it. None of this was Michael's fault.
No, the blame rested firmly on the shoulders of the woman he never should have trusted. Just add Christine to the list of people who'd let him down. It wasn't as if being let down was new, and Logan had gotten over being disappointed in people a long time ago, but he'd be damned if he'd allow anyone to disappoint Michael.
He opened the door to the next shop and motioned Michael inside. Ice cream was the perfect panacea for this conversation. The question was, who was he trying to make feel better?
"Rainbow was wrong, Michael. I'm not going to send you away. Isn't that why we have Angel? So you can stay with me while I work?"
"Cool!"
So, yes, it was cool that there'd been a naked woman on his boat. Not the optimum way to go about getting child care, but Michael liked her, she was well-educated and ambitious, and seriously, anyone was better equipped to watch Michael than the kid's own mother.
Aside from the fact that Logan had almost kissed a complete stranger in front of his son, maybe, finally, someone Up There was on his side.
Chapter 6
ANGEL WAS GONE.
Mariana swam through her sister's condo, making a mental list of what was missing: the slate tablets of notes Angel kept stacked on the desk in the study, the box of urchin spines she stored next to the Human perfume bottle of octopus ink, that bottle of octopus ink, and the sea-pak from the foyer closet.
The shutters were closed on every window, and cloth ing was strewn all over the bedroom, the Human shirts Angel had bought at the Salvager's Market floating atop the furniture in the soft current that wended through downtown Atlantis. This mess wasn't like Angel. She was a total neat freak about her "treasures," only getting maniacal like this for one reason.
Mariana somersaulted back to the living room. The sea stars were missing. The little colony of colorful echinoderms Angel had recently adopted from Rod's office usually spent the day wandering around the coral sculpture Mariana had designed for just that purpose.
She swam over to the kitchen sink. Yep. The herd of sea horses who roosted on the anemones in the window boxes were gone, too, as were the hatchetfish who lit the place at night. The transparent squid mantle that amplified their glow was now hanging empty from the ceiling.
Even the annoyingly deaf flounder under the front door had been missing when she'd let herself in. The fish was a stupid idea for a welcome mat, but that was Angel—all about helping the helpless.
Angel had gone on an expedition.
As sure as Mariana was swimming here, she knew that Angel had disobeyed The Council's orders and was off, somewhere in the ocean, meandering after Humans. It was what Angel did. The fact that it had been prohib ited by The Council wouldn't have stopped her.
Zeus. Couldn't one member of this family stay away from Humans? First Reel, then Rod. Now Angel was swimming after them like a dogfish with a whale bone. What was so appealing about those bipedal land- dwellers? Mariana had yet to meet one worth endanger ing her life for.
She dove over the sofa, her flukes startling the sea cucumbers residing there into doing The Wave—poor things had so little to amuse themselves—and lifted the lid on the sea chest Angel used as a table.
It figured. Angel hadn't taken the harpoon.
Mariana took the monstrosity out, giving wide berth to the sharp point. Raised with stories of the damage these could do, she had a healthy respect for the Human weapon.
Which was why Angel should know better. No one set off into the wild blue under without one. Especially not alone. But Angel was so Hades-bent on proving herself, she'd probably considered her profession's tools more important than the one thing that could save her life.
Mariana wanted to hook her. Besides the fact that Angel could, at this very minute, be fighting off a shark or sailfish or orca without the harpoon, their brother was going to pop a fin when he heard about this. Gods knew, he already had enough stress dealing with the increase in iceberg calving rates; he didn't need this added mess.
And that's what it would turn into. Hades, they'd just gotten their parents off on the trip through the Seven Seas that they'd put off far too long. One hint of dis sension among the Tritone offspring would have their parents Travel-Chambering home in no time flat.
And that was the last thing Mariana wanted.
Because, while her family waited for some sea creature to show up with Angel in tow, they'd all end up sitting around, kumbaya-ing in their parents' living room, and the conversation would turn, as it always did now that her brothers were happily married, to Mariana's work.
Mariana took the quiver out of the treasure chest and slung it over her shoulder. Let Angel have a fit that she was using this thing as Humans intended; Mariana didn't care. Her work wouldn't stand up to the family's scrutiny. Not this project.
That's why she had to get Angel back here—without anyone knowing her sister had been gone.
Mariana tucked the harpoon in the quiver, unable to repress a shiver as the sheathed steel slid against her skin. She worked with molten lava, so she was used to eruptions. Knew how to protect herself from getting burned.
But if anyone found out Angel was gone—or that Mariana had known and hadn't said anything—she wasn't sure she could manage the fallout from this one.
Chapter 7
ANGEL FELT LIKE A PRINCESS.
Okay, so, technically, since her family was royalty, she was a princess. But other than the occasional "my lady," the title didn't mean a hill of shells in her world. Here, though… wow.
Wendy must have melted that plastic with all these clothes. Angel knew it'd be fun to try on silky item after silky item, then put more on top of those. Swishy dresses, flowing skirts, lightweight pants, colorful tops. They were all so beautiful, like a tropical c
oral reef on a sunny day. That Humans could create such beautiful products said a lot about them—and gave her hope for the future.
And the shoes! Oh, the shoes. The flats came in so many colors, and Wendy had insisted she try on a pair for each outfit. Really, Angel hadn't needed much convincing. She loved the flamingo-colored sandals the saleswoman had said were the latest style. They were comfortable and looked so very pretty on her new feet.
And then, the high heels! All different heights, some thick-heeled, some as thin as an anemone ten tacle. Made from cork and wood and even that loath some plastic, decorated with sequins and braiding and bows… she was going to have to practice walking in them when she was alone. They were absolutely ador able. The saleswoman had suggested a pale oyster colored pair for casual and a shiny pair of black ones for evening. Angel had never realized Humans changed shoes according to the time. All these neat things that came with legs. And firsthand experience.
