Chapter 10
Itook my morning coffee outside to drink in the garden.
The hammock hadn’t survived its brief stint as a stretcher and I’d ordered a new one.
Until it arrived next week, the sun lounger was perfectly adequate.
I checked the news on my phone—always the wrong move—replied to a text from Marcy, skimmed a couple of articles in The Economist—about as good an idea as checking the news—finished my coffee, and then I did it.
I brushed my fingers over the scar to check in on Dave.
I’ll admit that my mood deflated when the brief flash showed him out at sea. Part of me had hoped that I’d find him watching me, as he had been at the rock pool. Failing that, I’d hoped that he was at least nearby.
No.
He was…?
It looked as if…?
My heart plunged, rebounded, and tried to escape my throat as he crept up on a large, dark shadow.
When I realised he was sneaking up on the hull of a boat and not, in fact, a kraken, I collapsed back in the sun lounger with a wheeze of relief and a hand to my fluttery chest.
Goddammit.
The next flash I got of him, he’d cruised off to one side of the boat and was cheerfully ripping a hole in a net.
Uh-oh.
He shoved an arm in, snagged what looked like a huge bass, and thrust upward to the surface. I got a very quick glimpse of daylight as he broke through.
Daylight, and Jerry’s bug-eyed, outraged face, which quickly scrunched up as Dave slapped a fin full of water up over the side of the Mary Jane.
Filtered through Dave’s hearing, Jerry’s bellow of rage sounded more like a lowing cow than human speech.
Make that an angry bull, I thought five hours later. Jerry whacked the garden gate open, making it squeal on its hinges before it ricocheted to a pistol-shot close, and stomped down the garden path to stand in front of me, hands on his hips and steam coming out his ears.
“Good day at work, dear?” I asked, and sipped my beer.
Jerry pointed a stiff arm in a seaward direction and growled out, “Do you know what your arsehole boyfriend has been doing all day?”
Stealing Jerry’s catch and scoffing every last fish.
I’d checked on him multiple times, absolutely fascinated. Every single time, he was helping himself to a new snack.
“No,” I said. “What has he been doing?”
“Stealing my catch, that’s what! Don’t you dare go laughing at me, Joe McKenzie. It’s not funny!”
“It’s a little funny.”
“No, it’s not. He fucking tracked the Mary Jane all day, and when we pulled the net up, do you know how much we caught?”
“No.”
“Neither do I, because he ate it all.”
I laughed.
“I’m offended,” Jerry said, and sat heavily on the lounger next to mine. “Get me a damn beer.”
I was ahead of him. I’d brought a couple of bottles out in my little Yeti cooler. I snagged one, popped the lid off for him, and handed it over.
Jerry glared at me and took a good long pull before throwing himself sulkily back in the lounger.
It was a sturdy, solid steamer chair, and I’d had it made by the same guy who’d made my bed frame.
The loungers I’d bought from B twisting and turning, darting and diving as he chased his prey.
They showed me that his wounds had healed to harsh, raspberry-pink lines criss-crossing his abdomen and upper body.
The bruising still mottled his torso and left him patchy but it was, I thought, fainter.
And his face…
It wasn’t the face of my playful, sexual Dave. It was the face of a predator. Of a creature on a mission.
The temperature had dropped as full night drew in, and I shivered in a sudden cold wind. I got to my feet and headed inside, pausing to take one last look out across the headland and to the sea. The sky was a deep indigo, freckled with silvery pinpricks. The colour of Dave’s eyes.
You couldn’t see the stars during the day but they were there nonetheless.
Dave wasn’t here with me yet, but he would be.
He would be.
Once a predator knows where to get easy food, he’ll go back for it.
So it wasn’t the biggest surprise when Dave decided that the Mary Jane was fair game.
I’d just finished doing my usual morning routine at the computer. I leaned back in my padded office chair, took a sip of coffee while gazing out of the window at the cool grey mist that had swept in from the sea at dawn and would be on its way by lunch, and did my hourly check on Dave.
I couldn’t do it more often than that. I’d learned the hard way that it gave me severe vertigo, followed by a migraine, followed by a miserable hour or two on my knees, cradling the toilet in the bathroom.
It was strange to think that I’d barely ever used our link before this year. Then again, I hadn’t had any need to. Dave was with me most of the time, and when he wasn’t, I was secure in the knowledge that he would be soon. Once he left for the year, it didn’t work anyway.
I thought that a quick peek every hour was reasonable. Dave was doing his own thing on his own timetable but dammit, even if he wasn’t here with me where he belonged, I’d at least seize every available opportunity to see his beloved face.
I’d also seen a lot of things I’d rather not have, but beggars can’t be choosers.
Today, he was back to stealing Jerry’s catch, and Jerry was indeed having those words he’d threatened to have.
I couldn’t hear exactly what Jerry was saying, although I could guess.
He was yelling angrily over the side of the Mary Jane, and he got a face full of water for his trouble.
His eyes were in furious little slits and he leaned threateningly over the gunwale, waving his arms around with lots of pointing and gesticulating.
The Mary Jane wallowed in the choppy sea, and Jerry nearly went overboard.
I heard a shout of caution as Patrick appeared behind Jerry, hauling him away from the gunwale. The brothers yelled at each other. Vinny joined in.
Dave joined in.
He dove deep, powered up, and slammed into the bottom of the trawler with a great boom that I somehow felt.
When he broke through the surface, Patrick and Vinny were shouting, their voices shrill and panicked, and Jerry was gone.
I stood up, knocking my chair over as I clapped my hand to the scar and all but throttled myself trying to see.
Jerry fell through the water. His stout, flailing figure grew closer and clearer as Dave sliced through the distance between them, wound around him in one sinuous twist, and shot the pair of them back up to the surface.
Jerry sucked in a breath, and one more, and then he unleashed an absolute tirade on Dave, who watched Jerry for a moment as he bobbed about in the waves like a little cork, then put a hand on top of his head and ducked him.
I had both hands clutching my neck now. The Mary Jane was visible in the distance—at least Dave had the brains not to surface directly in front of Patrick and Vinny, I thought hysterically—but it was on the turn and heading for Jerry.
Who was still yelling.
He’d popped back up and slung a double handful of water in Dave’s face. Of course, he didn’t even blink. Jerry lurched forwards, finger pointing at Dave’s nose, and yelled some more.
Dave ducked him.
Jerry reappeared with a strangled scream of fury, and Dave sternly told him to, “Shhh.”
Jerry opened his mouth to no doubt tell Dave where he could stick his Shhh, and instead swallowed a mouthful of seawater that had him hacking and coughing.
Dave immediately rolled beneath him and rose up until Jerry was riding him like a surfboard, mostly clear of the rough waves.
Jerry froze, realised he was astride a giant and beautiful merman, and tittered and blushed like a schoolgirl.
Dave snorted a laugh, and flipped Jerry in the back of the head with a teasing flick of his tail.
Jerry’s shocked titter cut off and he went right back to his scolding. He wasn’t shouting anymore. Patrick and Vinny were, their frantic voices growing louder and louder as the Mary Jane approached at speed.
Dave slowly sank beneath the water out of sight but continued to hold Jerry firmly until the lifebelt came whistling through the air
Then he went back to hunting.