by Judi Fennell
She looked out over the water beyond the stone wall surrounding Logan's backyard to where the rays of the sun sparkled across the tips of the waves that were gently rolling ashore. A pair of pelicans flew in shadow against the sunlight in the distance, one taking a sudden dive. A pod of dolphins swam offshore, their fins breaking the surface—
No. Those weren't dolphins.
They were sharks.
Hammerheads.
Harry.
Godsdammit.
Just like that, her peace shattered. For all she'd like to think that she was here for a greater purpose, the truth was that she was stranded here—all thanks to Harry.
And herself.
Angel sighed. Right. She was ultimately respon sible for what had happened and where she was. Rod and The Council weren't going to let her forget that when she returned home—which was why she had to return triumphant.
She brushed her fingers over the notebook again. This would be her defense when she faced them.
"How long was that, Angel?" Michael sputtered as he surfaced, gulping in big breaths.
"Uh, thirty seconds, Michael. Good job! But I think you should to take a break."
"Yeah. That's a good record for today. Now I'm gonna see how long I can float on my back, 'kay?"
Angel hid her smile. How well she remembered that recuperative tactic from physical education class. "Okay. Go ahead."
She picked up her notebook and opened it to the page comparing Mer and Human offspring. Aside from the obvious differences of food, shelter, and legs, she hadn't listed much else. Treats, cajoling to get their way, being the light of their parents' lives… all the similarities sup ported her idea of using children to advance the purpose of the Coalition.
She clicked her pen to add Michael's flotation tactic and paper animals to her list when, "Could it really be? Angel Tritone?" almost had her jumping out of the chair.
She turned around. Then back. Who-in-Hades had said that?
"Psst! My dear girl!" Something small and brown waved green front legs at her from atop the wall. A lizard. An anole, to be exact, the brown coloring camouflaging him against the stone. He must have turned his limbs back to green to catch her attention.
"How are you?" The dewlap beneath his chin turned a vibrant orange as the green color slowly slipped over the rest of his body. "I'm Stewart. It's a pleasure to finally meet you. I've heard so much about your studies. Is this one of them? I could help, you know. I have been living amongst Humankind for quite a few selinos." Stewart's gesticulating hand moved as quickly as his words.
"They're not all as nice as this gentleman, if I do say so, and that child worries me. Why, before I ended up here, I'd gone through three tails at the hands of children. Three!" A shudder rippled down his body. "Vicious creatures, I tell you. Worse than any house cat. Well, perhaps not cats."
Angel glanced at Michael, who was happily spouting water from his mouth like a whale, and opened her note book to shield the talking lizard. Bad enough Michael knew about Mers; the fact that animals could speak was just as top secret. "Hi, Stewart. I can't really talk right now." She motioned to Michael.
"Ah yes. Bipeds." Stewart gave her a thumbs-up with a tiny digit. "But I can be of assistance, you know. I've had extensive fieldwork in the strolling habits of Humans and ways to avoid them. Plus, I did my disserta tion on escape tactics from the captivity their young find such delight in subjecting anoles to." He shuddered, a brown line of pigment zigzagging over his back.
"I'll take up residence in this lovely gardenia bush for the duration of your stay." Stewart shook his elon gated head, then tapped the side of it with another bony digit. "But how silly of me. That won't be long at all, will it? You'll be leaving tomorrow because of that tail thing your kind has to deal with. I'm quite glad that doesn't apply to anolis carolinensis. I'd hate to think of my life being governed by tail issues. Whenever my tail becomes a problem, I simply leave it. How utterly horrifying to have to live your life according to your inability to do so. How do you stand it?"
The tail was nothing compared to Stewart's loud, godlier-than-thou attitude and the threat of her study being interrupted by an overzealous, self-important lizard.
"Hey, Angel!" Michael climbed onto the lip of the pool, and Angel flipped her hair back—and over— the stone wall, hiding Stewart from view. "Didya see me? Watch this!" Michael jumped in, shouting, "Cannonball!"
Funny. Mer children did the same thing off buildings in Atlantis—though they were usually holding cannon balls. She'd add that to the list.
Stewart coughed behind her and pfft-ed the strands of her hair out of his face. "As I was saying—"
"Thank you for your offer, Stewart, but if you don't mind, the less interaction I have with wildlife, the less chance there is for one of you to slip up in front of the Humans and speak. Think of what that would do for your avoidance tactics around them."
Stewart stroked his pink dewlap, his eyes hooded. "Hmm. Good point. I'll just keep an eye out for any thing interesting then and report in when I see it. Good evening, Your Highness." He straightened his tail, the tip turning brown first as he faded, limb by limb, into the background of stone. "Oh. A mention or two of my name in your report wouldn't be remiss, you know."
A mention? For almost breaking another Mer rule? Angel didn't think so. She'd be in enough hot water when she got back; she didn't need Stewart's help. She was about to tell him so when Michael popped up by the edge of the pool again, saving her from breaking that rule.
"How was that, Angel—oh cool! A chameleon! My friend Evan had one. Let's catch it so I can have a pet, too!"
Stewart mumbled something about heathens and children in the same breath as the tip of his tail twitched up—a sure sign he was ready to take off. While it was an idea Angel heartily endorsed, it wouldn't teach Michael anything.
"Michael, remember what you said about the mon keys in the cage? How you wouldn't like that?" She reached for the little boy's arm to stop him from rushing to the wall. "He wouldn't either."
"But I'd make it just like his home."
"Except he wouldn't be free."
"Oh. You mean it'd be like he was in jail?"
She hadn't meant to remind him about his mother, but no matter how self-aggrandizing Stewart was, liz ards deserved the same freedoms as other beings.
And maybe, she grudgingly noted, even a mention in her report since he had—albeit inadvertently—brought about this lesson with Michael. "That's right, Michael. It would be like locking him up. And that's not fair since he hasn't done anything but walk on the wall. There's nothing wrong with that."
She uncrossed her ankles and put her feet in the grass, scooting to the edge of the chair. "So let's just enjoy watching him in the wild. That way you get to see what an anole is like, and he gets to live his life how he wants and do his part for the environment. Everyone's happy."
Michael licked his lips, his eyes darting from Stewart to her.
Stewart tensed, his tail inching higher, his back legs flexing…
"Okay." Michael shrugged. "He's kinda boring anyway. Just sitting there, looking scared. Besides, I'm gonna go play with my animals." With that, the little boy ran to the other side of the pool, grabbed Rocky, plunked the baseball cap on his head, then headed to the patio table for his paper menagerie.
"Boring?" Stewart's dewlap morphed to a brilliant red. "I'll have him know I've verbally sparred with the best and the brightest of the lizard world. I've—"
Angel managed to shush Stewart when she caught sight of Logan at his office door. She grabbed her note book and opened it, once more shielding Stewart from Human eyes. After all the strange questions she'd asked Logan today, the last thing he needed to see was her talking to a lizard.
She could only imagine what he'd think of her then.
***
Logan took one look at Angel and changed his mind again; someone Up There was on his side after all.
Having her here to take care of Michael whil
e he'd put out those seventeen or so fires on the project was a godsend. Now the lead scientist was back on the job, R&D was on track, all the investors were happy with the results of the latest solar-chip testing, and he could relax and enjoy the rest of Michael's birthday.
Then Angel flipped her hair to the side, a curtain of golden silk flowing over her shoulders and Logan's re laxation took a hike.
Her hair was gorgeous and he simply could not stop wondering what it'd feel like falling across his chest. Intertwined in his fingers. Caressing his skin—
Hell.
He had to stop. She was here to help him with Michael and nothing else.
If only he wasn't aware of her all the time. Even with her nose buried in her book, something about Angel just reeled him in. Something called to him. Made him see her as a beautiful woman and not the hired help.
But she'd given no indication that she saw him the same way, and, really, the last few hours proved that he needed her here in a babysitting capacity, so he had to get his frustrated, testosterone-laden mind off her.
Deciding that checking what Michael was up to was the safer thing to do at the moment, Logan climbed the steps to the patio outside the kitchen. "Hey, sport. What are you doing?" He picked up one of the folded pieces of paper that was lying on top of a leather-bound notebook. "This is really good. It's a goose, right?"
Michael took the paper animal from him, unfolded it, smoothed it, then refolded it. "It's a swan. I taught Angel how to make it, but she didn't do it good."
Logan pulled out a seat next to Michael. "So where'd you learn to do that?"
Origami was a pretty impressive feat for a six-year old. Logan let a little parental pride shine through. He may not have had a chance to help with the nurture part of making Michael who he was, but he'd been pretty dexterous with his fingers growing up. Michael had ob viously inherited those genes from him.
"At the soup kitchen. Ms. Narita showed me."
Thank God Logan was sitting down. Unlike with the jail announcement. "What were you doing in a soup kitchen? Did Christi—I mean, Rainbow work there?"
Michael shrugged and kept his face lowered. "We went there a lot 'cause Rainbow said they cooked better than she did. They had ice cream, too. But not peppermint. When I get bigger I'm gonna work real hard so I can buy my own peppermint and have a big house to live in with a pet and Rainbow and everything." Michael put another bend in the swan. "See this? It can flap its wings."
The folded paper swan went up and down when he pulled on the tail. Logan took it from him to try it out, all the while trying to keep his shock at what Michael had said out of his voice. "That's really neat, sport. I'm proud of you."
He also ached for the child who'd had to eat in soup kitchens. Whose tattered wardrobe fit in a shabby pil lowcase. Who was already planning to work hard so he could provide for his own mother—a mother who, while Logan was no longer her biggest fan, appeared to have gone to jail despite what he was beginning to suspect were mitigating circumstances.
But why hadn't she come to him? He would have helped.
"Logan?" Michael asked. "Can we have burgers to night? On the grill? Mr. Ray made them that way once and they were good."
"Sure thing. Who's Mr. Ray?" Logan was almost afraid to ask.
Michael picked up something that looked like an aardvark. Or maybe it was a mouse. "The landlord. He used to give me hotdogs sometimes. 'Til we moved. So, can we?"
Logan would give the kid prime rib every night for the rest of his life if that's what he wanted. "Sure." He cleared his throat. "Would you like to help me make them?"
Michael looked up then. He even pushed the rim of the baseball cap back. Then he looked at Angel. "Can Angel help?"
Logan closed his eyes for a second. What was it about Angel that made Michael cling to her instead of him? She wasn't even related.
Then he looked over at her and knew why he'd cling to her—"Of course she can. Why don't you ask her?"
"Cool!" Michael hopped up off the chair and ran down the steps.
Logan opened the grill, unable to prevent himself from watching Angel smile as she took Michael's hand. She was one of the most beautiful women he'd ever seen, if not the most beautiful.
He turned on the propane and lit the burner, her laughter doing all sorts of babysitter-inappropriate things to his insides. He didn't know whether he should be grateful or worried that the sight of her had pushed thoughts of Michael's upbringing out of his mind. Then the setting sun backlit her dress as she walked toward him and Logan groaned.
Worried. He should be worried.
Every single curve. Right there. As if she weren't wearing a thing.
And, man, did he remember how she looked wearing nothing.
He eased the grill cover down, trying to concentrate on not burning himself instead of on her.
Why couldn't he get over the fact that she'd been naked? He'd seen naked women before. Okay, not strange ones on his boat. But the image of her would not leave him—and the dress only enhanced it, teasing him with that damn little cutout on her chest and covering curves he could probably draw perfectly. If he could draw.
"How about some help?" she asked, her hair falling down her back, the ends swaying by her hips.
Her smile was soft and beautiful; it reached her in credibly blue eyes, and her voice… It was so lyrical—
"Logan?" Michael tugged on his shorts. "Angel wants to know if we can help."
His son. Touching him. Asking a question.
Logan found saliva somewhere in his mouth and used it to form a coherent—he hoped—reply. "Dishes. We could use those." His arm even worked to gesture toward the table. His lips worked, too, as they returned the smile his son gave him.
"Race ya into the kitchen, Angel!"
And just like that, Michael and his touch were gone.
But Logan could still feel the warmth where their skin had met, and, in a way he'd never imagined, it filled his heart.
"He's a wonderful child." Angel's voice filled him in a whole other way.
He looked down at her. She was so small. Almost a child herself—but not. A fact he couldn't seem to forget. Or disregard. Or even want to disregard.
"Don't you think?"
Think what? Oh. Michael. He cleared his throat. "Yeah, he is. I just wish I'd gotten to know him sooner. Like six years sooner."
And he was admitting this to a total stranger, why?
"Angel, why don't you help him? The dishes are in the upper cabinets and I haven't gotten around to child proofing just yet. They're pottery and heavy and if he breaks them—"
"Aye, aye, captain." She kicked her heels together and saluted him before hurrying inside.
He watched her all the way.
The fire crackled behind him and Logan laughed at himself. He was acting like a teenager with his first crush.
Too bad he'd broken up with Joanne last month. If he hadn't, maybe he'd be a little better equipped to deal with the wallop Angel packed, but Joanne had started getting serious and he'd had to end it. She wasn't the woman for him; he'd known that. He wanted a woman he could envision having children with, and Joanne's idea of motherhood was nannies and boarding schools. He was not sending Michael away to any boarding school.
He'd always wanted kids. Wanted a traditional, nor mal family. One that included little league teams and sleepovers. A family that had meals together as his friend Drew's did. A family who read stories at bedtime, vacationed in campgrounds, and went to amusement parks. Joanne hadn't had the same vision.
So, he'd ended it, and when Michael had shown up, he'd decided to put dating on hold. Bringing random women around wasn't in his son's best interests, nor was spending nights out on dates.
And then… enter Angel.
Something inside him thudded. What an entrance she'd made. Naked, gorgeous, and good with kids… could any woman be more perfect?
Except that she was his son's babysitter. Getting in volved with her would be worse than the wor
st cliché— again, not that she showed any signs of wanting to be involved with him. So, for Michael's—and his—sake, he'd just have to suck up the frustration and live with it. God had given him two hands for a reason.
But why couldn't the new babysitter look like Marilyn Manson instead of Marilyn Monroe?
