Wickedly Wonderful(6)

You’d think she’d purposely set out to ruin his day. Of course, she couldn’t exactly explain what she had been doing, so she’d just have to give him some money and hope that he’d let it go at that. At least the Mermaid and her son seemed to be long gone, so Beka had done something right. Too bad she’d screwed everything else up in the process. As usual. Maybe her mentor had been right, and she simply wasn’t ready to be out on her own. The old Baba probably would have figured out a way to save the little one without ever alerting the fishermen to her presence.

Still, she thought, brightening a little as her naturally cheerful disposition reasserted itself, she had actually gotten the job done. Now she had a lovely boat ride back to the shore, with the glorious ocean all around her. Sunlight glinted off the green-blue water with its dancing waves. The salt-laden breeze ran soft fingers through her hair as she sat on the prow. Warm sun caressed her skin where she’d peeled back the top of the wet suit, and her companion was quite nice to look at as long as he didn’t actually speak.

“Do you have a name?” he asked.

So much for that.

“A number of them, in fact,” she said with perfect honesty. She always tried to speak the truth if possible; there was power in words, and it didn’t do to misuse them. “You can call me Beka. Beka Yancy.”

He hesitated, and then stuck out one large, calloused hand. A tingle ran through her as she took it. “Marcus Dermott. The charming gentleman you met before is my father, Marcus Senior.”

A scowl marred his otherwise attractive visage. “I’m helping him out temporarily. This is his boat.” Something about the way he said it made her think he’d rather be anywhere but here, doing anything but this.

“He’s sick, isn’t he?” she said softly. Even without the heightened sensitivity of a Baba, she would have noticed the obvious pallor under the older man’s weathered skin, and the way his well-worn clothes hung on a frame that looked as though it had lost much of its original bulk. “What’s wrong with him?”

Marcus stared at her, then out at sea. “Advanced lung cancer. He’d been fighting it for a few months before I got home from my last tour of duty. Trying to work this boat with only two crew, one of them barely out of school.” Beka could see the muscles in his shoulders bunching up under the dark tee shirt he wore.

“I’m sorry,” she said. Babas didn’t suffer from Human illnesses much; one of the benefits of being a powerful witch. But that didn’t make it any easier to watch the people around you suffer. Her mentor used to warn her away from close friendships with Humans, said they were too fragile and short-lived for folks like them. Beka was almost thirty but still looked like she was in her early twenties. Yet another reason not to get attached—sooner or later, someone would notice. But that didn’t mean she didn’t like Humans. After all, she’d been born one.

Marcus shrugged, still not looking at her. But his shoulders hunched a little more, making a lie of his casual tone. “I told him that the cigarettes would catch up with him someday. He tells me he quit a couple of years ago, but I guess it was too late.”

Something about that rang strangely. “He told you? You didn’t know?”

“I did three hitches in the Marines,” he said. His back straightened as if just saying the word made him stronger. “Only got out a little while ago. While I was trying to figure out what I was going to do with myself, some busybody called to tell me my father was sick. So I came here to pitch in. Not that the old man wants my aid.”

He snorted. “You should have seen his face when I showed up. Cursed that doctor up, down, and sideways.” A crooked grin relaxed the grim lines set into his face and startled Beka into realizing he was actually quite handsome. If you liked your men tough and muscular and just a little scruffy around the edges. Which she didn’t, thankfully.

She turned a little so she could see his face better, enjoying the light touch of the spray on her skin. All Baba Yagas were in tune with the elements, but each tended to be drawn more strongly to one in particular. Her sister Baba, Barbara Yager, who had just relocated to New York State, was tied to the earth. Beka, on the other hand, was water all the way. Although she traveled around as Babas did, she slept the most soundly when she could hear the ocean singing a lullaby through her open windows.

“How long had it been since you’d seen him?” she asked, more because she was enjoying the deep rumble of his voice than out of any desire to know. Soon they’d be onshore; she’d pay him off and then she’d never see him again. An odd shivery melancholy ran through her at the thought, but she shrugged it away.