Marcus wished there was something he could do. He’d heard stories from the other fishermen about how tough things had been—for years, really, but even worse now. Men like his father were having to go farther and farther away to catch fish, sometimes being away from home for days as they competed with fishermen farther up the coast for a dwindling supply of fish. But if the plant closed, that would be a disaster for everyone.
Still, if there was one thing he’d learned in the service, it was that there was no point in fretting about the things you had no control over. As his old sarge used to say, “Figure out what you can do, then f-ing do it!”
So Marcus gave Tito his biggest grin and said, “I guess we’re going to have to find us some fish, isn’t that right?” And he was going to do it, too, even if he had to beg Beka to talk to her damned dolphins again. He’d never live it down, but it would be worth it to see a smile on Tito’s and his mom’s faces.
*
BEKA WAS GLAD to hear that Marcus’s father was okay, and just as happy to discover that the Wily Serpent wasn’t going to head out to sea until the very reasonable hour of ten o’clock. That meant she could actually get in a morning of surfing, which she’d been pining for. It wasn’t as though she wasn’t spending every day in the ocean; hell, during yesterday’s storm she thought she might have absorbed half of it through her skin. But that wasn’t the same thing as catching a wave and riding it halfway up to the sky.
Something about challenging the wild, untamed foamy sea made her feel completely alive, and for just a while, let her stop worrying about who and what she was, and just be.
She was so eager to breach the blue-green depths, she must not have been watching where she was going as she moved purposefully toward the surf. Another body slammed into hers, two boards tumbling down to batter them both. A gallant hand reached down to help her to her feet, and she found herself gazing into the face of a god.
Or maybe a movie star. It was California, after all, and anyone that good-looking was likely to be famous, or on his way to being so. He reminded her a bit of that guy who’d played a private detective, and then James Bond. His dark hair was smooth and silky looking, and his gray eyes gazed at her with admiration and no little amusement. After days of Marcus’s clearly expressed disdain and annoyance, it was kind of nice to see a man look at her that way. Even if she had just run him down with her surfboard.
“Oh, hell,” she said. “I’m so sorry.”
“I’m not,” her victim said with the flash of a dimpled grin. An Irish accent made the simple words pleasantly exotic. “Otherwise, we might never have met.”
Something about him tugged at her senses. “I’m Beka,” she said, tilting her head to get a better look as she sat up straight. “Have we met before?”
The dark-haired man gave her a hand up, then leaned over to kiss her fingers with a gallant bow. “Not as such, Baba Yaga,” he said. “But you know my father, Gwrtheyrn, King of the Selkies. I am Kesh, and I am very pleased to make your acquaintance.”
Ah, a Selkie. No wonder he gave her tingles. Of the supernatural kind, anyway. Not like the tingles she got around Marcus. Dammit. Why couldn’t she be attracted to the gorgeous guy who actually seemed to like her?
“Um, me too,” she said. Suddenly she felt self-conscious, out cavorting on the beach when she was supposed to be working on solving the Selkie and Merpeople’s problem. “I hope you don’t think I’m goofing off; really, I’ve been out diving every day, trying to find out what is wrong with the water in the Selkie home, and I’m going out again later today. I just had a couple of hours first and thought I’d come catch a wave or two. It helps me think, you know what I mean?”
Kesh didn’t seem at all disturbed by what might have been interpreted by some as a frivolous distraction. Of course, he was obviously a surfer, too, so maybe he understood how addictive it could be. A little farther down the beach, the froth danced up on the wet sand in beckoning invitation.
“So, are you making any progress?” Kesh asked casually as they picked up their boards and strolled closer to the water. Seagulls practiced aeronautical displays overhead, alert for the tasty tidbits dropped by early morning donut eaters.
Beka bit her lip. “Well, it’s too soon to say for sure. Like I said, I’ve been diving every day, and taking samples from a few different spots. I can’t get down as deep as your home crevasse, of course, but I’ve collected kelp and other sea life from nearby and sent it off to a lab to be tested. I’m just waiting for the results.”
“Oh?” Kesh put one warm hand on her arm to steer her around a curly-haired toddler who was chasing a small dog, both sets of stubby legs churning up sand as they went. “Which lab?”
“The one at the university,” Beka said. “I have a friend there.”