SeaChange (12 page)

Jake thanked his friend for the information and for the
company. Before his vocal chords transformed, he also asked the dolphin to keep
an eye out for Brad, alive or dead. The young bull agreed, then chirped a
farewell to Jake before swimming off into the night. With too much on his mind,
Jake swam slowly back to the boat, stretching his flukes and flippers one last
time. He was almost there when the change occurred, but that slowed him only a
little, as he’d spent plenty of time swimming in his human form as well. As
soon as he reached the
Siren
, he hauled himself up onto the swim deck.
He stood slowly, making sure his newly re-formed legs were steady as he shook
the water out of his hair. Then taking the steps two at a time, he climbed to
the main deck, for one last look around before joining Heidi in his bunk for
the rest of the night.

As he stepped onto the main deck, he heard a noise, like the
clearing of a throat. He stopped and pivoted, only to find a towel thrust in
front of his nose.

Heidi. Oh, shit! Heidi!

“Heidi?” He wasn’t proud of the fact that his voice broke.

“Jake.” Hers sounded gravelly, and none too steady, either.
But she wasn’t screaming, and she hadn’t locked herself in the cabin with his
gun. Those were probably the best signs he could hope for right about now.

He dried himself off, then wrapped the towel around his
waist before stepping the rest of the way onto the deck. Only then did he look
up at Heidi. She was leaning against the rail, wearing nothing but one of his
T-shirts and an itty-bitty pair of panties. Somehow, he was pretty sure that
this wasn’t the right time to be noticing that.

“How long have you been up?” Translated to
how much did
you see
?

“About an hour.” Translation:
everything
.
Shit!

He moved to sit on a bench, gestured for Heidi to have a
seat across from him. She did, which he figured boded well. At least she was
willing to talk. And her expression was more pissed than frightened, another
good sign.

But how did you tell the woman you might be falling in love
with that you weren’t exactly human? Jake opened his mouth, but no sound
emerged. He just didn’t know where to start.

Heidi rubbed her eyes, and with his better-than-human night
vision, Jake could see the lines of strain and fatigue on her face. She’d had a
rough few days, and he felt guilty as hell for adding to it.

“You were talking to that dolphin.”

Okay, so that’s where she wanted to begin. He could work
with that. “Yeah.”

“Not just like I might talk to my dog, if I had one, but
actually conversing.”

“Yeah.” That was him, Mr. Articulate.

“What did he have to say?”

Jake tilted his head, eyes wide. That wasn’t where he’d
expected her to go. But it was her ballgame at the moment, so he answered. “The
drug runners haven’t been back, but the pod has moved out to safer waters, just
in case.”

“He was here the other night?”

“Yeah. He’s the one who told me you needed help.”

She nodded, her lips pressed together in a thin white line. “Tell
him thanks, next time you see him. He’s a white-sided, one of the pod we were
studying, right?”

“Right. Young adult bull. Long white propeller scar on his
back.”

“Ah. Tough Guy.” She smiled for a moment. “We swam with him
the day before. We were in the water and he came up and joined us with a couple
of juvenile males. It was awesome.”

“The name suits him.” Since dolphin names were squeals that
didn’t translate into human speech, the name was as good as any for Jake’s
flippered friend. “He liked you too, by the way.” He decided not to mention
that the dolphin thought she was hot, for a human. Or what he’d thought Jake
and Heidi should be doing right about now.

Heidi shook her head and rolled her eyes. “Cool, I guess.”
Then her expression hardened. “Did you ask if he’s seen Brad? Does he know what
happened to him?”

“Of course I asked him.” He tried not to sound defensive,
but really, how could she think that wouldn’t have been the first thing he’d
asked? “He helped me search that night. He hasn’t seen him, but he’s going to
keep looking, ask any other dolphins he runs into.”

“O—kay.” She exhaled slowly. “Wow.”

“And he saved your life, by the way. He was holding you up
out of the water when I found you.”

“Ummm—tell him thanks, if you talk to him again.”

There was a long moment of silence before Jake said, “I know
it’s a lot to absorb in one night. Would you rather wait and finish this in the
morning?”

She shot him a sardonic glance. “Nice try, but I don’t think
so.”

He shrugged. “A guy can hope.”

“Yeah.” She dragged in a deep breath, and Jake had to fight
to ignore the way her delectable breasts pressed against the thin cotton of her
shirt. “So you wanna tell me how you do it? I saw the flukes, Jake.”

“I figured.” He paused to marshal his thoughts. “Do you mean
how I talk to the dolphin, or how I change?”

“Both, I guess. I assume the two are related.”

“Intimately.” He ran a hand through his hair. “What you saw,
Heidi, that’s what I really am. This shape,” he gestured down at his legs. “It’s
only temporary. I’m not a human.”

She squeezed her eyes shut, choked off a high-pitched
giggle. “So you’re what? A mermaid? Half man, half fish?”

“Mer
man
would be the proper term. I’m not a girl, as
I’d hoped you’d noticed. And the bottom half is dolphin, thank you very much. I
may not be human, but I am a mammal. I’d think you, of all people, would know
the difference.”

“Fair enough.” She leaned her elbows on her knees, buried
her face in her hands. With her hair falling loose, he couldn’t see her face,
and that bothered him.

He reached over and tucked one silky lock behind her ear. He
really missed the blonde and hoped the dye washed out soon. “You okay?”

“Just ducky.” Her snort of laughter wasn’t quite hysterical,
and her sarcasm was reassuring. “It isn’t every day a girl finds out she’s been
sleeping with a merman.”

“I know.” The tiny of quiver of hurt in her voice shot into
him like a harpoon. “And I’m sorry, Heidi. But it’s not something I can just
tell people.”

“Yeah, I guess not.” She nodded and propped her chin on her
fists to look up at him. “How the hell can you exist without science knowing
about it?”

“Very carefully.” His lips twisted into a wry grin, and his
tone was dry. The combination drew a hint of a smile from her lips, making his
grin a little wider. “And there’s a good bit of magic involved.”

“Magic,” she repeated, shaking her head. “Of course. Why
not?”

“Is that harder to accept than talking to dolphins?”

She shrugged. “Yeah. Not sure why, but it is.”

“Maybe because you come awfully close to talking to the
dolphins yourself. You’re not crazy when you think you understand them, Heidi.
They can tell you have some sort of psychic link. It’s one of the reasons they
like you so much.”

“Christ!” Her face fell back into her hands, but just for a
second. Then she looked up at him with a rueful grin. “I don’t suppose there’s
any chance that I just drank one too many margaritas tonight, and that this is
all a really wild alcohol-induced dream?”

He shook his head. “Sorry.”

“Figures. Drug runners, CIA agents, why the hell not
mermaids?”

He cleared his throat.

“Sorry. Mermen.”

“Thank you. If nothing else, I’d think you could attest to
the fact that I’m not a girl.”

Her laugh was like a cool drink after a long swim. If she
could laugh, he knew she’d be okay. His Heidi was tough and resilient; she
could handle whatever crap life threw at her. Even his.

“So tell me, Jake. If you can turn into Flipper, why the
boat? Why hang out on land at all?”

“It’s a long, ugly story.” And one he hated to talk about. “Sure
you want it at one o’clock in the morning?”

“Hell yes. No way will I be able to sleep now, anyway.”

“Then would you mind if I got some pants? I feel a bit
stupid sitting here in a towel.”

“Fair enough.” She gave him a lopsided grin. “Though you
haven’t seemed to mind being naked before. You get some clothes on, I’ll make
some coffee. Meet me in the galley in five.”

He stood and held out his right hand, while his left held
the towel in place. The fact that she accepted his help was another good sign.
Wasn’t it? He let her precede him down the stairs, then he ducked into the main
cabin to throw on a pair of cut-offs and a shirt. When he returned to the
galley, the coffeemaker was already beginning to hiss, and Heidi had pulled out
the leftover doughnuts from that morning. He slid into the seat across from her
and reached over the table to take her hands, which were busily mutilating a
cruller.

“Where would you like me to start?”

“The beginning is usually a good place.” Her words were
cautious, but she didn’t pull her hands away, so he held on, and gazed into her
ocean-blue eyes.

“My birth?”

She laughed. “If that’s what it takes to make any sense of
this.”

He nodded. “Okay. I was born in a merfolk settlement a long,
long time ago. We have a pretty long lifespan, so I’m older than I look.”

“Merfolk. Okay, that makes sense. So how old are you?”

“That isn’t really important.” He didn’t want her focusing
on that, not just yet. Admitting to the age gap between them made him feel like
a pervert. “The thing is, I was still young and stupid. My mother is the ruler
of our people, and like a lot of young people, I was a little too rebellious
for my own good. I wanted out, wanted to experience life on land, try out all
the wonders I imagined that the surface-dwellers had.”

She nodded in what looked like understanding, so he
continued.

“So I went to my uncle, who’s a wizard. He offered me a
spell. If I took it, I would be human for the next hundred years. But there was
a price. Magic is never free. In my case, the price was that for the full
hundred years, I couldn’t contact my family or enter any merfolk settlement. I
also have to transform back into my original shape five times a month, on the
full moon and the two nights before and after.”

She scrunched up her eyes and snickered.

“What’s so funny?” He wasn’t sure whether or not to be
insulted.

“One week a month?” She laughed. “You must be the only man
in the world who has a period.”

Jake rolled his eyes, but he couldn’t help a small chuckle
of his own. “Let’s not go there, okay? I’m enough of a guy to be creeped out by
that particular thought.”

“Gotcha. And that’s why you live on a boat, isn’t it? You
need to be by the ocean in order to do that, to make the change or whatever?”

“Right. If I’m not in the sea, salt water of some variety,
the change can’t happen. And if the change doesn’t happen, I’ll be stuck in
human form permanently.”

“So you’d never be able to go home.”

“Right.”

“Man that would suck.”

He nodded, pleased by her perceptive nature.

She continued. “No wonder you live on a boat.”

“It sure makes it easier.”

“So how far are you into this hundred years?”

“Seventy-eight,” he replied. “Twenty-two to go.” He could
actually cite the time remaining to the day, if not the hour, but he didn’t
think she needed to hear that.

“Wow, you do look good for your age,” she teased, but there
was an undertone of sadness to her words. “Who knew I had a thing for older
men?”

“Sorry.” He wasn’t sure what for, but he still felt like he’d
somehow let her down.

“No.” She squeezed his hand and shook her head. “Don’t be. I
understand, I think. Would you look the same if you hadn’t been turned human?”

“Pretty much,” he admitted. “From the waist up, anyway.”

“Okay, I
really
don’t want to be thinking about
that
!”
He guessed he understood. Sex in his native form was a little different. The
parts were similar, but not exactly the same. And Heidi would know, being a
specialist in marine mammals.

“If it helps, all merfolk spend some time on two legs.” He
wasn’t sure why he cared so much about her reaction. Maybe it was because she
was the first human he’d ever shared his heritage with, or maybe he just wasn’t
ready to give up their weird relationship. “Our settlements have humans in
them, most of whom were rescued from shipwrecks or storms. My father, for
example, really was a sailor from Argentina—or what would later be called
Argentina, anyway. Without a steady influx of human DNA, our gene pool would be
awfully shallow. Being with humans, it’s normal for us.”

“So why did you need the spell to live on land?”

“Time limits. My own magic wasn’t powerful enough to
maintain human form for more than a few days at a time.”

“Right.” The coffeemaker stopped spitting, so she stood and
poured two mugs of coffee, then returned and handed him one. He took it, but
missed the feel of her hands in his.

“Heidi—”

“Look, Jake—”

They spoke at once, and then both paused. He smiled softly,
almost afraid to hope she might be able to accept him. “Go on.”

She nodded and took a small sip of coffee. “This is all just
too much, you know? These last few days… Nothing seems real anymore.”

“I understand.” His heart dropped into his gut with a
practically audible clunk. So much for hope.

“I think my brain has just completely shut down, if you know
what I mean. I want to finish sorting everything out, but I don’t think I can
process any more. Not right now.”

“Understood. It’s late, and we’re both wiped. Why don’t you
get some sleep?” He nodded toward the cabin. “I can crash in the hammock up on
deck. Won’t be the first time.”

She nodded, sent him a shy, grateful smile. “I’m not mad at
you, Jake. I understand why you couldn’t tell me. Especially since I’m a marine
biologist. And I know I’m the one who started…things between us, so I can’t
blame you for that either. I just need some time to sort things out.”

Her words were a balm, renewing his hope. What had he ever
done to deserve even one night with this goddess of the sea? He stood, and then
leaned across the table to give her a hug. “Sleep tight, Freya.” He brushed a
kiss across her forehead before pulling away. “And for the record? I’ve never
told anyone else the things I told you tonight. Ever. I trust you.” Oddly
enough, he did. Even though she was a scientist, he knew she’d never betray
him.

“Thank you, Jake. Or should I call you Che?”

“Good memory. It’s been Jake for the last decade or so. And
there were other names in between. But you, goddess, can call me whatever you’d
like.” The sound of his childhood name on her lips was almost too seductive to
handle.

“Good night, Che.” She stood, hovered by the cabin door
worrying her lower lip with her teeth. “Are you sure you’ll be all right on
deck?”