Immortal Sea

by Virginia Kantra

  She looked around, evaluating the crowded shelter, the dark beach. Dear God.

  “What do you need?” Dylan asked.

  “Light. Drapes. Pads. Those tablecloths? Clean ones, if you’ve got them. And my bag. In my car.” She reached automatically for her keys, but the pretty blue dress lacked pockets. Half-rising, she craned her neck for her purse.

  “Here.” Her black medical bag appeared as if by magic, held in a strong, long-fingered hand. She looked up and met Morgan’s eyes.

  Her heart lurched. How did he . . .

  He smiled thinly. “Your back window is broken.”

  Her mouth jarred open.

  Margred grunted.

  Liz’s head snapped back around. She focused on her patient. “Don’t push.”

  “I am having a baby,” Margred said with some irritation. “I must push sometime.”

  “Not yet,” Liz said firmly.

  Not until, please God, they got to the clinic, where she had IVs. Oxygen. Clean sheets.

  She scrubbed her hands and arms liberally with hand sanitizer, prepared to do a quick check and transport. A cursory examination, however, revealed Margred and her baby had no intention of waiting for sterile surroundings. The child was already crowning, each contraction forcing its damp, dark head to the entrance of the birth canal.

  Liz’s stomach rolled and then settled. She was trained for this. Not practiced, perhaps, but trained.

  Margred panted, her hair sticking to her flushed face.

  “The Jeep?” Caleb said.

  Liz inhaled, her mind racing. This was an emergency, not a disaster. Margred was in good health. Excellent history. Normal fetal presentation. Women had babies away from the hospital all the time.

  But Liz hadn’t delivered one since her OB rotation more than ten years ago.

  And she’d never delivered a selkie baby.

  She gave herself a mental shake. She’d seen the ultrasound images. Margred’s baby was human. As human as Zack.

  She summoned a reassuring smile. “I think we’ll all be fine here.”

  “Here,” Caleb said sharply.

  “Mm.” Liz completed her examination, patted Margred’s foot. They had a few minutes to prepare. “Dylan, can you move people . . . Thanks.”

  Under the swathing tablecloth, she adjusted Margred’s clothing.

  “Mommy?” Emily’s voice was high and thin.

  “Your mommy’s busy right now, kiddo,” Regina said. “Come wait with me and Nick over here. You’ve seen our baby, right? Grace, this is . . .”

  Their voices faded away.

  Thank God for Regina. Liz ran through the remembered birth protocol in her head while she sorted through her kit for the supplies she would need. Gloves, alcohol, bulb syringe, scissors . . . First pregnancy, she thought. No known problems, due date . . . Well, the date was irrelevant now.

  Time slowed. Her world narrowed to the laboring woman on the beach, Caleb supporting her back. Lanterns cast pools of light on hard gray sand, the checkered tablecloths. Margred arched, strained, panted, pushed, her hands gripping her knees, her body rippling as contractions rolled through her.

  “Good job,” Liz murmured. Sweat rolled down her back and dampened her bra. Her skirt was smeared with blood and fluid. “Another push, now. Gently.”

  The crown, the brow, small, dark, scrunched . . . No cord. Good. Liz slipped her hand to support the baby’s head, easing it to the side, remembering the pain of her own babies’ births, the pain and the joy.

  Margred groaned, deep and guttural. Her war-hardened husband turned pale.

  Stroking her hair from her sweaty face, he pressed a kiss to her forehead. “You’re doing great.”

  But she wasn’t.

  Tension seized Liz. The head was free, but the baby’s shoulders hadn’t cleared the birth canal. Margred’s face was ashen, her lips cracked. Her blood pressure could be dropping. She needed fluids. She needed . . .

  “Can you push?” Liz asked, keeping her voice steady. “Margred, you have to push now.”

  A great cry burst from her.

  Liz winced. “Easy,” she soothed.

  God damn it, she wanted her equipment. Monitors, fluids, an operating room . . .

  Caleb held his wife. “Maggie.”

  She writhed. A long shadow fell across her swollen belly. Morgan, striding from the sea, water dripping from his cupped hands.

  “Get out of my light,” Liz snapped.

  He ignored her, kneeling by Margred as she labored. Her dark eyes were wide, her mouth open in distress. He dipped into his palm, laid his finger on her tongue, murmuring as he did so.

  She gasped. Her bowed body suddenly sagged as she gripped her husband’s hand. Her face flushed. And her child was delivered into Liz’s hands, perfect, slippery. Beautiful.

  Wonder shuddered through her. But her reaction was unimportant. Nothing mattered but the infant in her care. She concentrated on her job, support, wipe, suction.

  Caleb met Morgan’s eyes. “What did you say?”

  Morgan shrugged. “Nothing. A blessing.”

  “ ‘Born of water, for the water,’ ” Dylan translated. “ ‘Drink deep and live.’ ”

  “Congratulations, you have a son,” Liz announced. Blinking tears from her eyes, she leaned forward to lay the wet, dusky infant, still attached to his cord, on Margred’s tummy, skin to skin.

  Holding her own breath, Liz listened for his first cry.

  Waited, her heart racing. Her jaw tensed. Firmly, she stroked the infant’s back.

  Margred struggled to sit up. “What is it? What’s wrong?”

  Liz stroked again, harder, willing him to breathe. “Come on, little guy.”

  Caleb’s big hand cupped the small, damp skull. “Born of water . . .” His voice cracked.

  Liz reached for the baby to straighten his airway, to force air into his tiny lungs.

  Margred’s hand covered her husband’s. She touched the baby’s dark, pursed lips. “For the water,” she whispered. “Drink deep and live.”

  Their son’s wavering cry rose to the stars and the sea.

  Morgan’s arms flexed as he carried the washtub over his head from the beach to the catering van. Elizabeth was in the parking lot, leaning in the window of Caleb’s Jeep, speaking to Margred in the back seat.

  Elizabeth. Admiration for her moved him, for her calm in a crisis, her steady hands, her clear head, her warm heart. She was a remarkable woman.

  His woman.

  He slammed the van’s doors.

  “Nancy’s getting your exam room all ready.” Her voice carried across the gravel and under the trees. “I’ll meet you there.”

  A murmur from Margred.

  “As soon as we get you both checked out, you can go home,” Elizabeth said, brisk and reassuring. “You drive carefully.”

  “I didn’t think we’d be using the infant seat this soon,” Caleb said. “Thanks, Liz.”

  “My pleasure. What are you going to name him?”

  “Calder.” Margred’s voice came clearly from the backseat.

  From the wild water, Morgan translated silently.

  “Nice,” Elizabeth said. She stepped back with a wave as they drove away. Turning toward her own car, she saw Morgan.

  She still wore her professional face, he saw, but behind her cool composure emotion flickered. He took a step closer for the simple pleasure of hearing her breath hitch, of seeing her eyes darken before she wrested her mask back into place.

  “Nice job, Doctor.”

  Some of the wariness left her shoulders. She smiled, the lines digging deeper at the corners of her eyes. “Margred did the work.”

  “The bulk of it,” he acknowledged. “But you helped.”

  “So did you.”

  He moved in, stalking her. “We were good together.”

  “Yes.” She cleared her throat, edging toward her vehicle.

  “Thanks. You’ll have to tell me sometime how that trick with the water works.
But right now, I have to—”

  He fingered a strand of her hair, cutting off her voice. He heard the quick intake of her breath. He knew her adrenaline was still high, her pulse still racing. She was ripe with sweat and salt and birth, earth and sea commingled.

  He wanted her, craved her, the way he had never craved anything but the sea.

  He had not seen their son born, his and Elizabeth’s. He had not thought about it before, what it must have been like for her, what he had missed.

  All he was missing.

  He thought of Caleb tenderly supporting Margred’s wracked body, of Dylan and Regina working instinctively as a team.

  Elizabeth’s words teased him. “Is that what you want?”

  “Was he there with you when our son was born?” he asked. “Your husband.”

  “I, um . . .” It pleased him that it took her a moment to focus, to find her place in the conversation. “No. Ben and I weren’t . . . We were just friends then. We got married about a year later.”

  She had told him once she was estranged from her parents. Did that mean . . .

  “You were alone,” he said.

  Elizabeth’s brows twitched together. She raised her chin, on the defensive. “The nurses were there for me. The doctor on call. I was a student there. I knew people.”

  His jaw set until it cracked. She would not admit to being vulnerable. She would not admit to needing him.

  Her strength was laudable. Her pride was understandable. He had the same strength, the same pride. He must persuade her to lean on him, to trust in him.

  He raised his arms, caging her against the side of her SUV. She stiffened. “I will be there for you,” he murmured. He pressed his lips to her cheek, her brow. “I will stay with you.” Remembering her words, he amended quickly. “I want to stay.” He nuzzled her throat, delighting in the wild leap of her pulse, her involuntary tremble. “You need me.”

  Her hands tightened in his hair. “I need you.”

  He kissed the tender hollow under her ear, scenting her capitulation, tasting victory. “Yes.”

  She tugged, pulling back his head. “I need you.”

  He nodded cautiously, alerted by the shift in her emphasis, the spark in her eyes. “Yes. There is no harm, no shame, in needing someone.”

  Her gaze was pointed, her smile rueful. “Not unless he doesn’t need you back.”

  Morgan gaped. She had played him. With one neat sentence, in one swift reversal, he was hooked. Reeled in. Eviscerated.

  “I won’t ask you to be anything less than what you are,” Elizabeth continued, inexorable as the tide. “But I can’t be less than who I am either. I’m not some coddled, weak woman in need of protection. I’m a woman who’s made a career for herself, a life, and a home for her babies. I don’t need you to take care of me. To take care of us. I need you to love me.”

  He floundered, out of his element. “I do not see you as weak. I want to care for you because you are . . . precious to me. You and your children.”

  “But do you love me? Can you love us?”

  Fear and frustration churned inside him. His head was reeling, his heart in turmoil, his pride in tatters. “I want you. I trust you. I need you.” He shot the words at her. “Is that love?”

  Her breathing hitched.

  She held his gaze, her brown eyes softening, glistening with tears. Morgan cursed silently. He had not meant to make her cry.

  But slowly, her lips curved. “It’ll do. Thank you. It will do wonderfully. For now.”

  He did not understand her. His heart banged in his chest as it did during battle.

  One of them had won, he thought. But he didn’t know who.

  She sighed. “I have to go now. I promised to meet Margred and Caleb at the clinic. Can I drop you at the inn?”

  He stared at her blindly, trying not to shake, trying not to panic, wanting her desperately, needing . . .

  What?

  Her. Only her. But she had no time for him, she was going to care for Margred and her baby. As she should, as she must. “I can’t be less than who I am either.”

  He shook his head, disgusted with himself. There was no shame in needing someone.

  Not unless she didn’t need you back.

  She did need him. She had said so.

  “I will walk,” he said. “To clear my head.”

  She smiled again, hesitantly. “Zack does that. I thought it was a boy thing, but maybe he gets it from you.”

  Zachary.

  His mind cleared, sharpened.

  “Where is he?”

  Elizabeth blinked. “I don’t know. I lost track of him during dinner, and after Margred started labor, I didn’t have time to look.” She bit her lip. “I should have. Regina and Dylan are watching Emily, but—”

  “I will find him,” he interrupted. “We will wait for you at home.”

  The water wrapped Zack like a fist, tight and comforting. Familiar. He shuddered in relief as it sheathed his sensitized skin, as the current yanked him along into cool, dark oblivion.

  He didn’t need Stephanie. He didn’t need anybody. If she had places to go, so did he.

  Places she would never go.

  He didn’t mean to swim so far. It just sort of happened, like staying out too late or drinking too much, the situation under control until you stopped paying attention and then, oops, there you were, staring at seven messages from home or puking vodka and Gatorade into the toilet of the Stoddards’ basement powder room.

  Or sliding through the liquid dark toward a crevice in the rock, heart thumping, blood pumping, the beat of the orb pulsing like the surge of the ocean.

  He flicked his tail, and smaller fish scattered. Ha.

  “You must not go into the water until you have learned to defend yourself.”

  He was fine. He could go back. Anytime. He would go back, as soon as he saw it again. That big shiny garden globe. The orb.

  He could feel it vibrating like music, like heavy bass, in the cavities of his skull and along his skin. It drew him like a current closer to the roots of the island, closer to a fissure in the rock.

  Closer.

  Was that a glow? Pretty blue playing over the sandy bottom, exposing a litter of empty shells, a decaying skeleton. Caution brushed him like seaweed swaying in the dark.

  Morgan didn’t want him to be here.

  Morgan could go fuck himself.

  The thought slid into Zack’s mind, not really his thought. Funny. Rude. Wrong.

  He glided closer. The sand had drifted, exposing a slice of the glowing globe, like a sickle moon, like a dragon’s half-shut eye. Colors swirled and throbbed in its depths, luring him on, luring him in. The rhythm of the orb grew stronger, catching up and overtaking the rhythm of his heart. Like he had two hearts. Two pulses. Two minds.

  Who did Morgan think he was anyway?

  My father, he thought.

  Some father. Just because he’s screwing your mother . . .

  Zack thrashed and the pulse faltered, finding a subtly different rhythm, stirring up memories and resentment like sediment on the ocean floor. His emotions churned.

  Ben was your father. The thought hooked him, drew him closer. The fisherman, not the fish.

  Zack struggled, but the light of the orb was in his eyes, the throb of the orb was in his blood, the voice of the orb was in his head, implacable, inescapable.

  Closer. Touch me. You don’t have to be alone.

  Closer. Release me. I can give you what you want. Women. Stephanie.

  He drifted, dazzled.

  Caught.

  A terrible jerk seized his body, immobilized his will. Pain lanced through him, pitiless, paralyzing. The orb drew him closer, reeled him in like a fish flailing on the end of a line.

  He touched it and it shattered. The shock jolted through him, convulsing his body, stunning his mind. He fought, screaming inside his head. But the Thing that had him wouldn’t let go.

  Liz smiled as she locked the clinic doors. Des
pite her assurance that she would be fine, Caleb had insisted she leave with them.

  “I’m a cop,” he explained simply. “I don’t want to get in a situation where I left you alone and something happened.”

  Liz tucked her keys into her purse. “No middle-of-the-night phone calls?” she teased.

  His smile crinkled his warm green eyes. “I think we’ve had enough excitement for one night.”

  “And we will have our sleep interrupted enough as it is,” Margred added, cuddling their newborn son against her shoulder.

  “It’ll take a little time to get in a routine,” Liz said. “Just rest when he does, and you’ll be fine. Tired, but fine. I’ll drop by tomorrow and see how you’re all doing.”

  They walked together to their cars. Observing the new family, Liz felt a lump rise in her throat. Their joy, warm and real and palpable, wrapped them as securely as the baby’s receiving blanket. Love was so often in the details, she thought. In the tender touch of Caleb’s hand on the small of Margred’s back or the way she leaned her cheek against his arm. In their laughter as they fumbled with the new infant seat. In their tenderness with each other and with their baby.

  She could have that, Liz thought as she drove through the moon-washed night. A life, a home, a family, with Morgan. Maybe he didn’t have all the right words yet to tell her that he loved her. But he needed her. He trusted her. He wanted to stay. It was enough, more than enough, for now.

  Anticipation tingled through her. She was glad Regina had called to tell her Emily had fallen asleep watching a movie and could stay until morning. Not that Liz intended to, well, do anything with their fifteen-year-old son upstairs. She might want to rip Morgan’s clothes off, but she still had to set an example. And Zack still needed time to adjust to Morgan’s presence in their lives.

  She smiled. Maybe she and Morgan could neck in the hammock. Assuming Zack was home and asleep, of course.

  Oh, she hoped he was home and asleep.

  But when she pulled into the driveway, all the windows were blazing. All the windows. Every light in the house must be on.

  Liz frowned. Zack was definitely home. Only a teenager was that careless with utilities.

  She climbed the porch steps, an odd misgiving squeezing her lungs, dragging at her feet. The front door was unlocked. Her heart thumped. Really, that was too careless. She’d told Zack and told him . . .