She watched the three of them playing amid the waves. Marcus, Tito, and Candace looked like a not-so-unusual California family, the dark-skinned boy and his mother romping alongside the tanned sailor. Beka wondered what it felt like to be a family; that wasn’t something she had ever experienced. Obviously, no family was perfect; Tito only had a mom, albeit one who clearly adored him, and Marcus and his father barely spoke most days. Still, Marcus had come back to take care of the older man when he was needed, because that was what family did.
Beka couldn’t imagine having someone who would do that for her. Her own family was long gone. Brenna had followed a silent call of magic one day twenty-five years before and found Beka at the other end, crying piteously next to her dead mother’s stiffening body in the back corner of a dank, abandoned building full of empty-eyed druggies. No one had known who Beka’s father was or cared that Brenna was taking her away. Even her original name was lost in misty memories of hunger, loneliness, and vague fears that probably meant something to her four-year-old self.
Brenna had renamed her Beka and raised her in the hut-turned-painted bus as they traveled around the country. The old Baba Yaga had trained Beka to be her successor, and taught her everything she’d deemed important for a Baba to know—but she hadn’t taught her anything about what it meant to be a part of a Human family. Sometimes, Beka thought it was probably far too late for her to figure it out on her own.
*
MARCUS LEFT TITO and his mother giggling as they took turns being knocked off the surfboard into the low breakers near the shore. He’d turned around to wave at Beka, and there was something so sad about the way she was sitting all by herself on the blanket watching them romp, he’d moved without thinking about it, drawn to her like a magnet to a lodestone.
Her eyes were hidden behind the dark lenses of her sunglasses, and her thoughts were hidden behind her usual cheerful expression, but something about the way she sat, still and silent, made him certain that her thoughts were less than pleasant. He didn’t know why, but he didn’t question it either.
“Heya,” he said, plopping down next to her on the wide woven cloth, its bright black and yellow stripes making it look like she was riding a giant bumblebee. Considering the bizarre effect she seemed to have on him, maybe it would be more appropriate to envision her riding a broom. God knows, she had cast some kind of spell on him; he hadn’t stopped thinking about her since the day they’d pulled her up in the net, like a Mermaid captured from the arms of the sea.
“Heya,” she said back, stretching her long legs out in front of her and distracting him even further with the sight of all that tanned, sleek flesh.
“Penny for your thoughts,” he said, reaching into the cooler for a bottle of iced tea. The elusive scent of strawberries briefly triumphed over the suntan lotion emanating from the baking bodies next to them, then disappeared like a mirage. He peered deeper into the cooler. No strawberries.
“I’m not sure they’re worth that much,” Beka said, flashing him a pale imitation of her typical grin.
“Really, what were you thinking?”
She tilted her head down the beach at Tito and his mom. “Just that they’re good people.”
“They are,” Marcus agreed. He’d been drawn to the boy since the day they met. The military shrink would probably say it had something to do with losing his brother at an age not much older than Tito was now, and maybe that was part of it. But he respected the way the kid was handling a tough situation; he didn’t wallow in self-pity, tried to keep a positive attitude, and worried more about his mother than he did himself. Not bad for someone who hadn’t even hit puberty yet.
Beka stole Marcus’s iced tea and held the cold bottle against her neck, letting droplets of condensation trickle down into her cleavage. He shifted slightly, his denim cutoffs suddenly tighter. Luckily, Beka was still gazing out at the water and didn’t seem to notice the effect she was having on him. Of course, she never did. Clearly, the intense physical attraction was all on his side. Just as well, really, under the circumstances, although it was hard not to feel a twinge of disappointed male ego.
He grabbed another iced tea for himself and they sat there for a moment in companionable silence.
“You’re good people too,” Beka said after a minute. “I think what you’re doing for them is really terrific. I know you’ve already got your hands full dealing with your dad’s illness and the boat and everything. It’s nice of you to take the time to treat them to a day at the beach. Poor Candace looks like she hasn’t done anything fun in ages, and Tito is having a blast.”
“Good people, huh?” Marcus felt the edge of his mouth curving up in a smile and forced it back, giving Beka an exaggerated scowl instead as she turned to look at him. “I thought you considered me to be cranky and unpleasant. I believe the term ‘stick-up-the-butt’ might have been used.”
She snorted. “You’ve got to admit, we got off to a rocky start. But you’re kind of growing on me.”
The smile slid out despite his best intentions. “Yeah, you’re kind of growing on me too.”