Three Rings (The Fairytail Saga) (5 page)

I guess I do protect him.
She thought, ashamed without knowing why.
But, I just try to give what’s needed of me. And Tristan is a rock. All he wants is my hand, and since I can’t give him that yet, what other compensation is there? He’s had my time. Just not alone time. It wouldn’t be fitting, not in light of what happened the last time...

‘I’ll come too.’ Saraya came barreling down the stairs. ‘This whole situation would be so much easier to live with if I was hammered.’ She looked to the queen. ‘With uh, your permission of course, highness.’

Vana nodded, still not looking away from Tristan. ‘Of course. I think Ivyanne and I could do with a bit of time to ourselves.’ She turned to Lincoln. ‘If I give you the keys to my boat, to take them over, will you be capable of driving them back? I won’t have drunken mermaids navigating themselves home.’

I’m not even queen yet, and I’m driving my people to drink!
She thought morosely.
Some leader I’ll be!

Lincoln paused, eyebrows drawing together tightly. ‘Is it hard?’

‘I’ll show you on the way over. If you can’t work it out, Lux and I can just crash there.’ Saraya said. ‘That way she and I can dress first.’

Lincoln nodded. ‘Okay. Either sounds good.’

Ivyanne’s breathing hitched. ‘You’re going to drive a
boat
?’

Lincoln smiled tightly. ‘Don’t be protecting me again, my love.’ He said this as though he were oblivious to Tristan and his phobia of marine craft, but the trembling hand he extended to Vana to take the silvery keys, said otherwise. ‘A mer king ought to know how to do these sorts of things.’

There was a blur of activity as Tristan spun and pushed open the screen door, stomped out, and let it slam shut behind him. Silence followed his exit. Everyone looked everywhere, but each other.

‘Okay so…’ Lincoln was too busy watching Lux and Saraya drinking up a storm in the centre most table of the room to focus completely on the new girl ringing up the order at his elbow. The dazzling mermaids looked like they were having so much fun, and Lincoln longed to be with them. He could almost taste the rum sloshing down the back of his throat. He knew it would smooth the residual tremble from his hands-the result of having steered Vana’s sleek white motorboat to the resort at Saraya’s breakneck pace.

It had been..an experience. Not an awful one, but all consuming. So consuming, in fact, that he hadn’t even begun to fret about what was going on back on Bracken until they’d docked down at the marina.

I can’t believe I had to leave her almost completely alone with him.
He thought morosely, scratching the back of his head in agitation. Sand slid under his fingernails.
What if she’s trying to comfort him now? How will she be going about it?

How about, how are your staff going to go about making you money when you’re too spacey to show them how? Another thought intervened. Get a grip man!

‘….So you hit the buttons for the meals on this side of the register...and then the drinks on the other….then sub-total-’

‘-Done.’

Lincoln looked down at Sherri’s smiling, pixie-like face and blinked back his surprise. ‘What?’

She smiled, indicating to the sale she’d rung up. ‘I watched you do it with the first order, remember?’

‘And you
remembered
it? Just like that?’ Lincoln was surprised. He’d had to show Ivyanne several times...
after
Adele had shown her several times. And she still made constant errors! Technology of any sort just wasn’t her thing. ‘Are you rain man or something?’

Sherri laughed. ‘No, sorry. Can’t do long division to save my life. But work in bars long enough and you go through a few systems. They’ve all got something in common.’ She tore the docket out of the printer teeth and placed it on her tray. ‘By the way, have you considered using an LRS Coaster Paging System during the day for meal collection instead of table service? It’s a bistro set up in here so you could get away with it, and free up the bartenders for pouring drinks-which is where you seem to make most of your money in the afternoons.’

‘Actually, I have.’ Lincoln said, glancing at the docket in her hand. The couple at table three had ordered two pots of gold. He moved to the tap and picked up a glass with one hand as he yanked down on the lever of the other. ‘We’re going to wait until the modifications are finished in the function room next door. We’ll offer silver service in there as a restaurant when the room isn’t booked for a party, and make this entire side bistro.’

‘Great idea. I had a peek in there before-it looks incredibly elegant. Beachy but…’

‘Swish.’ Lincoln finished, thinking of the space Lydia from the coffee shop had been slaving over for a week. She worked fast, and was doing a brilliant job.
And
it was coming in well under budget already. ‘I can’t wait to start advertising it.’

‘Do up some fliers tonight.’ Sherri said.

Lincoln looked at her. ‘Huh?’

She pushed a strand of short ash-blonde hair out of her eyes and tucked it behind her ear as she took the first beer from him. ‘Tomorrow is Australia Day. I saw in the book that you have eleven massive tables booked with local guests, not just in-room tourists. Locals are your target clientele for functions, aren’t they? It would be a prime opportunity to get some buzz started, to hit ‘em with it when they’re already here.’

Lincoln poured the second beer, shaking his head. ‘I still think you’re rain man.’

‘That’s because you haven’t seen me parallel park yet.’ Sherri said, matter-of-factly. But she treated him to a sidelong smile. Her eyes were grey, the pupils ringed with a trace of hazel. She was pretty in a pint-sized, delicate sort of way. Not his type, contrary to Tristan’s earlier jibes, but still a looker. His dad had hit a home run again!

‘But thanks. Anyway, I better get these beers to the peops.’

Lincoln handed her the XXXX Gold and watched her place it and then saunter off, tray balanced perfectly on her upraised fingers, trying to pretend not to notice Lux’s striking lilac eyes scanning him for the seventh time since she’d arrived. He liked the boost to his ego, but the woman’s blatant flirtations made him nervous.

Lux had talked the whole way over, and now Lincoln had a better idea of who she was, and how she’d come to be that way. Apparently, she had been swimming in a loch in Scotland-pretending to be a mermaid-as a nineteen year old woman, when she’d gotten a cramp, and had begun to drown.

A little boy, a local and a mer, had come to her aid-resuscitating her as he’d been instructed at a very young age, unbeknownst to the fact that he was a mystic mermaid-capable of turning. Lux’s transition brought this to light, and the boy, Roan, had been betrothed to a princess he’d never met later that day. A marriage that would be thwarted by the Indian Ocean Tsunami, almost two decades later.

Like with Lincoln, Lux had need training-and cousins of Roan Fire-the Kayu-Api’s, had offered their tuition in exchange for her caring for their little boy. As Ardhi had grown, he and Lux had remained close, despite the fact that they had no common ground but a deep affection for one another. Sort of like the strange bond between Vana and Tristan, and the one that had existed between Ardhi and Ivyanne.

They hadn’t lived on the same continents much-Lux was a performer of sorts and like Tristan, based in L.A, though she did travel frequently. She’d been a burlesque dancer, an actress, a writer of steamy mermaid-themed erotic novels and nowadays, she posed as a cosplay mermaid ‘performer’. They were careers centering around sensuality, and Lux played the part accordingly. Her sex drive was high, but because she’d had bone cancer in her youth, her fertility was non-existent. The upshot of this, was that Lux Scarberry, could bed any man she saw fit.
And did.

Lincoln had decided within two minutes of meeting her that it was best to avoid eye-contact, and shrug her remarks off, but once he’d learned about her free pass (making what she and Tristan did natural, and not the breaking of a rule) he’d realized he’d have to feign indifference to stay off her radar. Apparently, she’d
just
dyed her naturally red hair the platinum strawberry color that so closely matched her skin, and joked that now that she had the passion of a red-head, with the appeal of a blonde, she would be unstoppable.

Lincoln hoped not. She eyed him the way she eyed her frothy cocktail, and the platter of deep friend camembert she’d ordered-
lustily
. And despite her larger frame and arrogant nature, Link had to admit that she was hot. He could see why Tristan had gone there.

‘Cute new girl.’ Remi, their resident redhead, strolled in behind the bar, her eyes following Sherri. ‘But another blonde Link? Really?’

‘Dad’s doing. And don’t even
suggest
what I almost knocked Tristan out for suggesting.’ Lincoln grumbled. ‘She’d have to shoot up four inches, grow her hair to her waist and swallow Ivyanne
whole
to appeal to me.’

‘Touchy! But point taken!’ Remi’s eyes scanned the room and landed on the table in the centre. ‘Hey...is that
Lux
?’

‘Yep.’ Lincoln went back to busying himself. ‘She just arrived this afternoon to pay her respects to Ivyanne over, um, Ardhi.’

‘And she’s already drinking.’ Remi clucked her tongue. ‘That girl has no sense of self preservation.’

‘Probably because she’s already been close to death twice.’ Lincoln pointed out, thinking of his own circumstances. Wasn’t that why he’d taken the wheel of the boat that day? Because the worst thing that could happened to him in the water had already happened,
twice?

‘True.’ Remi sighed. ‘I just can’t drink. My husband doesn’t drink often, but when he does, he makes a mess of himself. Every time I get stressed out about having to leave him, and consider knocking one back, I remember hosing the vomit out of his hair in the backyard, and change my mind.’

‘Humans.’ Lincoln winked at her. ‘Crazy bastards.’

‘Absolutely.’

‘So what’s the new girl like?’

Lincoln looked up, watching Sherri work, thinking it over. She was a quirky little thing-her hair was cut short so that the ends flipped out, and she’d chosen to pair her uniform with pink and black checked knee socks. The ring on her right hand was a chunky skull, that served to open beers as well, and she had one of those stretcher things in her right ear which he
hated
, but Sherri managed to pull it off without looking menacing. She was like no one he’d ever met before-and it was funny because he’d expected something completely different after reading her resume.

According to that, she’d grown up on a farm, had managed a country tavern for eight years, spent the past year on a Greenpeace ship and had half-completed a degree in agricultural studies. She’d been backpacking around the east coast of Australia for a month, and had only been looking for temporary work when his father had offered for her to train as management and fill Adele’s role. She’d accepted on a trial basis. If she didn’t like it or they her-she’d be happy to sever ties and continue on her way.

‘She’s great.’ He said honestly. ‘Polite and naturally just
good
at this. I hope she decides to stay on, but she’s an actual backpacker, so who knows?’

‘As good as Adele?’ Remi was winding her wild red waves up with a pencil, watching Sherri as well.

‘Better.’As he said it, Lincoln felt a pang of guilt in his chest. Was he a horrible person for being so eager to give away Adele’s job without actually learning where his ex was and if she was okay first?

He’d heard that she’d been in contact with her parents and had withdrawn a few large sums of money from her trust account-but Walter and Brenda Knightly hadn’t given him any more information than that. Whether it was because she’d asked them not to, or they were angry at him, or they simply didn’t
know
was a mystery, but the established theory was that she was on a bender of sorts, drinking and partying him out of her head.

That made Lincoln feel bad, but then again, Adele loved to party and it was technically her break between years at university, so whatever it took for her to get over him, was okay with him-so long as she wasn’t living it up
too
much. Or, more succinctly- with too
many
.

Especially while
he
wasn’t getting any.

And that thought triggered a recollection of his dream and he flushed instantly, all thoughts of Sherri, Adele, Lux, the world and the bar leaving his mind. He missed Ivyanne already. And he missed what they were missing out on while they weren’t officially together.

‘Sweet.’ Remi picked up her tray. ‘I’m going to go clear the glasses from round the pool.’

‘Kay.’ Lincoln could feel those eyes on him again from the restaurant, and he pulled his phone out, mindlessly checking for messages, needing to appear as oblivious as he wasn’t feeling. Heat creeped up his neck. Was Lux a mystic too? Of the sexual variety? Or were the withdrawals messing with him once more? It was strange to be so aware of her, seeing that Ivyanne had been the only person on his mind for over a month.

The two waitresses narrowly missed one another as Remi exited the bar, and Sherri rushed back in. They exchanged brief greetings.