Marcus high-fived Tito over the top of the table, trying not to notice how thin the boy’s hands were. “No trouble at all, ma’am. I hope you like fish, because we’re going to do our best to catch you a few for dinner.”
“That would be great,” she said. “We used to be able to bring home a fish here and there from work, but since the catches lately have been so small, there simply isn’t anything extra.”
“My father has been saying this is the worst year he can ever remember, and the other guys all pretty much agree.”
Candace shook her head, looking grim. “It’s bad, all right. There are so few fish being brought in, they’re talking about shutting down the plant. There’s some guy who has been bugging the owners to sell; he wants to turn the space into luxury waterfront condos or something.” Her full lips pressed together. “The owners are third generation. They don’t want to lose the place. They know the locals need the jobs. But they may not have any choice if the fish don’t start running again soon.”
She gave a sideways glance toward her son, blinking away tears before the boy could see them. “I don’t know what I’ll do if I lose that job. We need the health insurance to pay for Tito’s treatments. As it is, I’m barely covering the copays.”
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?