Anna Leonard - The Hunted

“Have they found any trace of your boat?”

It took Dylan a moment to remember what boat the woman was talking about, then remembered his lie to the doctor. Another thing humans had in common with seal-kin, then; gossip spread faster than illness.

“Not that I have heard,” he said truthfully. “I suspect they won’t. I was an idiot, pushing through the storm like that.” Also true.

“You lived to learn from it, so that’s the important thing,” the woman said. “I’m Gert, and this is Sarah.” The look she cast Sarah made it clear that there was an implied lesson for more than Dylan in that fact. He wondered what the two women were to each other; not mother and daughter, no, nor sisters. He didn’t know enough about human society to understand, and for the first time, doubt struck. Being brought here … that implied that the female he had come to find was human. Everything he knew, everything he understood about females … would it apply to a human woman?

“There’s no job waiting for you? No family?” the other man, Jonah, asked.

“No job,” Dylan answered truthfully. “My family are fishermen, and they know I’ll be back when I’m back.”

Mike laughed. “Had enough of hauling nets and soaking in brine, did you? I spent a few summers working at a packing plant, and I swore the smell of fish would never get out of my pores. Money was good, though.”

Money. He was going to need money. He should have thought of that before he let his hormones take over his brains, should have brought more to barter with than just his sister’s anklet. Idiot. “I thought I might go into town and see if anyone needs a handyman. I’m pretty good with building and fixing.”

“It’s spring,” Mike said thoughtfully. “Tourists’ll be coming soon in hordes—sorry, folk,” he said to the others, who merely laughed, not taking offense, “and everything needs to look pretty. You should be able to find some work pretty easily around here, if you’re handy with a hammer.” He eyed Dylan, as though judging how much of his sleek build was actually muscle. Dylan resisted the urge to stand up and try to present a larger silhouette, like a fur-cousin spoiling for a fight. At five-ten, he wasn’t terribly impressive, until you looked more closely at his build. He wasn’t sure he wanted anyone looking that closely at him.

“I haven’t lost a thumb yet” was all he said.

“And if you’ve been a fisherman you’re not afraid of hard work. Then you’ll do.” Mike nodded, coming to a decision. “I’ll give you a list of folk you should talk to. Can’t have a long-term boarder out of work now, can I?”

Everything was falling into place: the storm sending him here, of all the villages he might have come to, to the very beach where his mate waited. This man, giving him shelter and a reason to linger, to find her again.

Yes. He felt his impatience and restlessness stir again under his skin, and whispered to it the way he might a seal-pup, counseling patience. There would be time to swim in the great waters soon enough. Patience, for now.

And like a pup, his restlessness did not want to listen. Now, it insisted. Find her now. He could practically feel her in the air. She was close, close … all he had to do was find her.

After finishing her breakfast and coffee, Beth ran her assigned errand, strolling to the post office and standing on the line that had, wonders of wonders, actually formed. All of three people were in front of her, but in this town, before tourist season started, that was a notable wait.

Beth gave Ben’s package over and asked for her own boxed mail, as well, when it was her turn.

While he went to fetch it, she leaned against the counter of the post office, her head turned just enough that she could watch people passing on the sidewalk beyond the plate-glass window of the storefront. She saw two friends walking past on the other side of the street going into the café, and realized that she hadn’t seen either of them in weeks.

A dark-haired man walked past, on this side of the street, right in front of the post office, and Beth felt herself come to attention, somehow. A stranger with thick black hair down to his collar and a slender-hipped and yet sturdy build that caught her eye.

“No.” It wasn’t the stranger from the beach. It couldn’t be. Or it could but even if it was, so what? Beth licked her lips, suddenly tasting salt and sea-musk on her skin, as though she had been out swimming, or washed her face with seawater. It reminded her of her dream, and her internal temperature rose several notches. The flush she felt inside was more annoying; what was she, sixteen again, to get so flustered at the sight of a good-looking stranger, dressed and ambulatory, or otherwise? And what the hell was she doing, walking out of the post office just to get a better look at him? Hello? Earth to Elizabeth?

Her feet weren’t listening to her head, but she moved too slowly. By the time she went out the door, the bell jingling overhead, he was gone.

Beth stared down the street, wondering at herself, and the aching disappointment she felt. Was she that hard up, that a good-looking stranger got her juices running? Pitiful. But there was something about the figure, even glimpsed out of the corner of her eye … She had to fight the urge to run after him, ask him his name, anything to get him to notice her. She’d never felt any pull that hard, like the lure of fine chocolate at three in the morning, multiplied by ten.

“Oh, he was pretty, wasn’t he?”

Beth flushed, and laughed at being caught—and by Sarah, of all people.

“Is the town starting a new beautification project?” she asked her old schoolmate and current Beautification Board member, who had also stopped on the sidewalk, apparently to watch the stranger walk by. Humor was better than admitting she had been caught in the act of goggling. “Because if so,” she continued, “I gotta say, I approve.”

“I wish,” Sarah said. “But we’d have to raise taxes too much to afford that kind of pretty. You know who he is?”

“No ….” Honesty forced her to add, “I think he’s our newest resident, the guy who washed up on shore.”

“Really? Is he single?”

“You’re not,” Beth pointed out, fighting a surge of bitterness in her gut that surprised her. Was the eggroll suddenly disagreeing with her stomach?

“Oh. Right. Darn. And I was supposed to meet the hubby and the brats ten minutes ago. Don’t be such a stranger!”

Beth promised, and then the postmaster waved from the counter, a large brown envelope in his hand. She went back in to pick up her packages, but her mind remained on the stranger in the street. Who was he? Why had such a quick glimpse of a stranger gotten her so worked up?

Maybe she had been running a fever, some kind of twenty-four-hour bug. That would explain everything, the weird twitches, the visual fluctuations, even the acid churning in her stomach. Maybe.

She walked out of the post office, her mail in hand, and looked across the street at the café where her friends had grabbed a table. She could see them inside, gesturing and laughing over their coffee. It was still early. Her bike was still locked up outside the diner. She should retrieve it and her safety helmet, go back to the house and get some work done. But even as she thought that, clutching her mail in one hand, Beth found herself torn between responsibility and a renewed restlessness.

Should, should … Suddenly, she didn’t care so much about “should.”

She tucked the packages into her bag and stepped off the curb, walking across the street to the café. She would take some time off, have a nice pot of tea with friends, instead of her usual solitary coffee. All in the name of taking care of her health, of course …