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Uneasiness roiled my gut, and I frowned as I covered his legs. What was I doing, ogling someone half-dead and unconscious?
Even if he was awake, there was no way a guy like him would have ever looked at me twice. Sure, I could scrub up nicely if I had a reason to, but there was always more work to get done, and as a fisher’s daughter, my hands and face were always coated in layers of brine.
Releasing a long sigh, I cradled the final blanket around his neck and snaked it over his head. Honey-brown strands of hair fell over his eyes, and I swept them back gently, tucking them into the folds of the blanket. I had to admit, he was rather handsome for discarded jetsam.
“Hmm.” With a soft face like his, he wouldn’t make a convincing crime lord. So I guess that left alcohol, drugs, or maybe a jilted lover that sent him for a dip in the sea?
Concentrating on his features for the very first time, my head tilted in awe.
The arch of his thick eyebrows. The tiny mole that dotted his left cheek. All of it brought on a sense of nostalgia. How strange.
“Wait—” I gasped in realization.
The curve of his jaw might have sharpened since his youth, but I knew this man’s face, and he was never a man to begin with.
“Poseidon help me.”
Good thing I hadn’t called for an ambulance. Even if I had, they wouldn’t have known how to treat him.
My stomach sank. It had been eleven years since the last time I’d seen him, but even a hundred years wouldn’t have been long enough. Glaring at that pretty boy face of his, my lips curled over my teeth in disgust. His was a face meant to be perfect, to allure and entice any unfortunate soul that happened to look at it.
Oh, he was handsome all right, and I had almost fallen for the facade, but I wouldn’t let it sway me again. He was going to wake up, and then he was going to leave. Even if I had to toss him back into the ocean myself.
He’d survive it, that much was certain. Water or air. He would be all right either way, so maybe it would be better to hoist him over right now so I’d never have to dwell on memories of him again.
A raspy breath echoed through his chest.
That didn’t sound good. His lips were so, so blue.
I opened and closed my fists in irritation, wracking my brain for what to do next. The cold shouldn’t have bothered him like this, and the wind wasn’t something he would be used to above water.
My eyes fell on my fish cart, and I shook my head. No. There was no way Gram would let me through the front door carting that smelly, old thing. The wheels were caked with sludge, and fish goo clung to every hole and crevice no matter how many times I scrubbed and hosed it down.
I drifted back to my catch’s stupidly handsome face and eased in a slow breath. His lips sure didn’t look right.
After debating whether my conscience would let me hurl him back over the side of the boat, I relented with a huff and got to my feet.
“Smelly fish cart it is.” Maybe I could dump him in my room before Dad or Gram noticed.
Wheeling the cart to the edge of the lift net, I stooped over my catch. “Today is your lucky day, pretty boy.” Still covered in blankets, his shuttered eyelids tensed. “Because if any other fisherman had found you and taken you to the hospital… Well, one saline drip, and you’d have wound up a gutted merman.”
3
Claira
My room reeked of fish. Spoiled, vile, acrid fish guts. Channeling my inner peace, I took in a deep breath and held it. He wasn’t worth all this trouble. Not even a little bit.
Sure, I had managed to heave his smelly carcass into the fish cart, and yeah, I had somehow jerked the wheels over the little lip of the front steps without bursting a tire. Plus, Gram hadn’t even come out of her room in the time it took me to dump the evidence and fly the cart back out to my boat, but still…
My bedroom. My carpet.My shaggy, pink rug that he rudely flopped out onto instead of landing on the nice plastic tarp I’d set out on the floor for him.
Well—I knew I’d be cursing his pretty face for at least a week while I scrubbed and shampooed every inch of it to get his stench out. Fan-freaking-tastic. I should have dumped him in the sand and let the crabs have their way with him. They would’ve let him wash back out to sea… eventually.
Heaving a sigh, I stepped over the mass of blankets and naked man-ass to strip the sheets from my bed. Pretty boy wasn’t going to sleep on them—no, he had the nice floor tarp I had painstakingly laid out for him—but I didn’t want him seeing my cupcake sheets and unicorn comforter.
My cheeks heated as I wadded them into a ball and shoved them into the clothes hamper, scooting the entire container to the darkest corner of my closet.
I might have been twenty years old, but Dad knew how much I loved the color pink and enjoyed spoiling me. And really, is anyone ever too old for unicorns and cupcakes? But for some reason, my stomach lurched at the thought of a man my own age seeing them—not that I expected a beached merman to know a unicorn from a cupcake if he saw one.
