Lilian Darcy - For the Taking

His thick, dark hair was pulled into a short, tight braid that lay against the back of his neck, making him look like an English sailor from two hundred years ago. The style revealed the regal height and breadth of his forehead and emphasized his square jaw and very masculine bone structure.

He’d frightened her on the beach the other night, from the moment his strong, deep voice had uttered her name. Her full, real name. No one had used it since Cyria died.

Thalassa.

It meant “one who comes from the sea.”

She shivered a little, and wished she was wearing something more substantial than this snug top this morning. She felt vulnerable, physically and emotionally, but wasn’t going to let it show if she could possibly help it.

“Show me the photos!” she demanded.

In his hand she caught the tiniest glimpse of a gorgeous couple dressed in wedding finery, and her heart did a flip against her rib cage. Was that lovely woman with the honey-colored hair Phoebe? Or was it Kai? Oh lord, she should know! A woman should be able to recognize her own sisters!

The phone rang—so perfectly timed that she almost suspected Loucan of engineering the call somehow.

She was tempted to let it ring, except that when you ran a small business essentially on your own, you couldn’t afford to do that. All her calls were potentially important. In any case, Loucan had taken advantage of the moment and had hidden the photos back in their packet.

“Take the call,” he said. “This can wait.”

She was already running to the phone that was fixed to the kitchen wall. It was her decision to take the call, not his! She refused to respond to his arrogant orders, and she wasn’t going to let him underestimate her.

“Lass?” The voice on the other end of the line was shaky, but she recognized it right away.

“Susie? What’s up?”

“We’ve just had an accident. Rob was driving, but it wasn’t his fault….”

“Oh, Lord, Susie, are you all okay?”

Susie and her sister Megan helped in the tearoom kitchen every day, while Susie’s husband, Rob, came part-time to keep the garden in shape and handle maintenance. Susie and Rob were in their late twenties, hoping to start a family soon, and Lass was close to them.

Well, as close as she ever let herself get to anybody.

“We’re fine.” Susie burst into tears.

They were obviously not fine. In a rambling account, Lass heard the details. Susie had lacerations on her face, Megan was being assessed for a head injury and Rob had probably broken something, but they weren’t yet sure what. They were at the emergency department of the local hospital.

“I’ll try to get out to you as soon as I can,” Susie promised, “but they want to put dressings on the cuts, and—”

“Susie, you’re not coming in today, okay? None of you. Or tomorrow. Not till you’re ready. It should be quiet. I’ll—”

“Quiet? It’s the middle of school summer break!”

“I’ll manage. We can still get quiet days sometimes. You just look after yourself and Megan and Rob.”

The fact that Susie stopped arguing at once was proof that neither she, her sister nor Rob were fit to come in. Lass put down the phone, and faced the knowledge that “managing” wouldn’t be nearly as easy as she’d claimed. She opened in less than an hour, and still had the salads and sandwich ingredients to set out, the quiche fillings to prepare, the coffee machine to start, the scones to make, the cream to whip….

And she didn’t care.

“Show me the photos, Loucan.”

Coming through the doorway from the kitchen, her bare feet cool on the polished hardwood floor, she found him standing in front of one of the two sets of French doors that opened onto the veranda, in the direction of the sea.

He was watching the sparkling blue ocean, just the way she always did. Silent, still and totally absorbed. Hungry for it. Listening to its call.

But he couldn’t hate the power of that call, the way she did.

He turned at her words, and he wasn’t holding the photos anymore. Where had he hidden them? She couldn’t tell. Not in the T-shirt pocket.

“I heard your conversation,” he said. “Your help can’t make it today?”

She shrugged. “It’s okay. I’m worried about them, not me. It seems as if none of them is seriously hurt, fortunately. Please show me the photos of Phoebe and Kai. And—and Saegar, too.” The brother and playmate she’d loved. “Do you have pictures of him?”

“No, I’m sorry. I don’t.”

“News about him, then? You told me the other day you were in touch with him.”

“You didn’t believe me.”

“I do now. Tell me. Show me.”

“Not yet. Tell me what’s in it for me, first, Thalassa.” His blue eyes burned with a cool fire, an assessing look she didn’t trust. “Meet me halfway. If I give you what you want, will you listen to me? Will you give me—?”

“No!” she cried, pressing her palms to her ears. “How can you talk about giving? Your father and his supporters took from me something that can never be replaced. They took my mother’s life with unspeakable violence, and without warning.” She drew a shuddery breath and had to struggle to keep going. “I’m giving you nothing, Loucan!”

As always, when she thought about her mother’s death, she couldn’t fight the secret, nightmare memory. Cyria—she’d only ever called her guardian Aunt Catherine in public—was the only other person who knew what Lass had witnessed as an eight-year-old child, and now Cyria was dead, too. That death, at least, had been peaceful.

Her mother’s, Wailele’s, wasn’t.

Oh, dear God, must I see it in my memory for the rest of my life?

Still, after twenty-five years, the sight of blood in the water panicked and terrified her, and she had told Cyria time and again that she would never go back to Pacifica, where such violence might happen once more.

“Then I guess the photos aren’t needed today,” Loucan said, cutting across her relentless unfolding of memory. He still seemed cool and totally in control.

“How do I even know they’re genuine?” she argued. “I haven’t seen Phoebe or Kai in so long, those couples could be anyone.” She didn’t really believe that. She knew in her heart that they were Phoebe and Kai, and their new husbands. All the same… “I don’t trust you, Loucan!”

“That’s obvious,” he said. “And I can understand it.”

“I hope so!”

“What I can’t understand is that you’d deny yourself the chance to connect with your brother and your sisters purely because you don’t want to have anything to do with me.”

“Not so surprising, if you’d think about it a little more.” Deliberately, she kept her voice hard. “You’re apparently willing to blackmail me by keeping me in ignorance of the only family I have left. What that says about your character doesn’t inspire me to get to know you any better. But you’ve given me some facts about Phoebe and Kai and Saegar. Where they’re living. The names they use. I’ll be patient.”

“You’re saying—”

“Yes. I’ll track them down myself, or I’ll employ someone to do it. I don’t need you, Loucan. Your blackmail attempt has failed. And now I need to open up the tearoom. You can let yourself out.”

She slipped her feet into her sandals, pulled a bunch of keys from her pocket and opened the door, quaking inside. What would he do? Would he call her bluff? Could she bear it if he gave up and left, without telling her more about her siblings and without showing her the photos? Would the facts she now had be enough to trace her family on her own, as she’d suggested?

The heels of her silly, impractical shoes rapped like gunshots on the stone flagging of the veranda. Why did she buy these things? She had a dozen pairs and they killed her feet all day. Her clientele wouldn’t raise their eyebrows if she wore flats. Half the time she kicked her shoes off behind the counter and didn’t even notice.