Heads or Tails (2 page)

Lincoln’s mouth fell open. ‘That was
two
months ago? So hang on…’ he frowned, glancing at the little magnetic calendar on the side of the till, calculating the dates. ‘What’s the date?’

‘March eleventh.’ Adele said quickly.

Lincoln was thunderstruck. ‘It’s been
three weeks
since the engagement party?!’

Adele nodded. ‘Yep... Why?’

Lincoln turned away from the calendar. ‘Because... because…’ he dropped his chin into his hands glumly. ‘The last time Ivyanne and I, uh... you know... was the night
before
that. So it’s been three weeks for
me
.’ He didn’t add that the new moon had come and gone again, meaning he hadn’t struck the biological lottery with Ivyanne when they’d been actively sleeping with each other. In addition, the March full moon had come and gone days ago, meaning she wouldn’t be fertile again for
another
three weeks.

‘I should probably stop watching the clock like a human, right?’ he asked her. ‘Time doesn’t have the same meaning now.’

‘True.’

Lincoln’s head snapped up. ‘Hang on! I just realized that when I asked you who was better in bed-you didn’t give me an actual answer!’

Adele turned her back to him and said under her breath: ‘And I don’t plan to….’

Lincoln made a face. If that was her stance on the matter, he sensed that he didn’t
want
to know the answer.

Okay so I need to think of some kind of sexual battle plan too now? Beat the apparent master at his own game?
Lincoln reflected on his time with Ivyanne, and the sound of her gasping his name was as audible as though she were whispering in his ear. He hadn’t done badly at all-she’d
melted
in his arms. But that didn’t mean he couldn’t improve, did it?

Then, he frowned. What if it did? What if he’d had his shot and would never get another? The idea made him feel green and desolate. And
impatient
-Why was he wasting time worrying about Adele’s feelings towards their shared past, when he had a
future
to net?  He glanced around the empty room.

‘Are you sure you’re right here alone?’ he asked quickly, suddenly desperate to get to Ivyanne before Tristan showed up. She’d invited them both, in what was apparently a cursory measure.

Adele waved her hand. ‘Marcus is keeping a look-out and Bane will be back with Grace soon.’

Lincoln smiled when he thought of Grace Londeree. She was a sly, quick witted girl who always seemed to have an agenda up her sleeve, and Lincoln got the impression that she hadn’t heard the word ‘No’ much in her short life. It made her dizzying, but perky company.

Grace had apparently blown sixty years of tradition out of the water by moving from Hawaii to Australia-dragging her older brother along as a chaperone, who Lincoln had promptly employed. Grace had claimed to have fallen in love with Australia, and because she was one of the few mers who could sing well without wiping people’s brains, she’d enrolled at the exclusive music conservatorium in River City to commence studying for a bachelors degree in musical theatre three weeks from then.

It was good to have them around-the Londeree’s were a lighthearted, easy-going family, and Bane’s background in hotel management made him the perfect replacement for Lincoln’s father, who had just begun a forced vacation for his own safety.

But as fun as it was to have fresh mermaid faces around, Grace made Lincoln very nervous. She had a slight crush on him, and made no attempt to hide it. Everybody laughed it off, dismissing her as a flirt with eyes too big for her stomach, but Lincoln couldn’t help but feel on edge when that tummy rumbled for
him
.

‘Well, good.’ Lincoln said, jangling the keys to his Celica, excited to finally get behind the wheel again. He’d only bought the car six months before, and yet he’d almost forgotten all about it during the initial Ivyanne madness. Now, he had a terrific reason for taking it out for a much needed spin. ‘I’ll be back in the morning.’

‘Take until tomorrow night-we’ll be fine here,’ Adele said, lifting one corner of her mouth. ‘Have, uh, fun. Good
clean
fun, of course.’

Lincoln rolled his eyes. ‘I’ll try.’ He waved and loped out of the bar, nodding as Mr Achen, a balding German man and one of their few remaining guests, passed him by, cinching a towel around his generous waist. Because the temperature of the region was dropping steadily, it meant that the majority of their Australian tourists had gone into hibernation until late October. Autumn was always a quiet period which had always caused him and his father stress in the past-but now it was a blessing because he had more time off to play with. He’d have to think of a way to draw in more business when his future was more certain.

‘Link! Hey Link!’

Lincoln paused, then felt his stomach churn in that familiar way when he saw Grace Londeree flying after him down the path. As always, she looked incredible in high waisted crisp white linen shorts and a skimpy floral top that was cut just below the ribs, showing plenty of her deep brown skin which seemed to glow against the white shorts. Black oversized glasses rested over her face, and her long treacle colored hair streamed behind her like a cape as she ran, much too agilely, for a mermaid in wedge sandals. If The Londeree's ever felt uncomfortable on land, it didn’t show.

In fact, Grace was nothing like the other mermaids he’d met. She lived to shop, sing and watch television. She deplored the healthy food the others favored and always had a sneaky beer or two when her brother wasn’t on duty. Lincoln felt like he should police her better, now that she was living in his house and partially his charge, but he saw no reason to do so. Westernized as she was, she was still twice as mature as any human eighteen year old girl he’d ever met.

Until it came to her pursuit of him. Apparently infatuation made her blind to actual true love when it was before her, deaf to his rejections and immune to any sort of personal humiliation-just like every other teenager that had ever walked the earth, or swum off the edge of it.

Lincoln suddenly realized that it had been a mistake to pause-now he’d cornered himself and accidentally checked her out. He crossed his arms as she came to a breathless halt before him and tried to look impatient.

‘What’s up Grace?’

‘You’re not calling me Lolita today?’ She already had her composure back. Even through the dark tint of her glasses, he could see that her eyes were dancing as merrily as always, unperturbed by his offhand greeting. She rested her hand on his forearm.‘That’s a shame. I kind of liked it.’

‘You like a lot of things you ought to ignore.’ Lincoln lifted his hand to scratch his neck again, breaking the contact between them. The moment he’d jokingly referred to her as Lolita the day before, he knew it had been a mistake. ‘Anyway, I’m sort of in a hurry. Ivyanne’s invited me up to her place so I’ll be spending the night. Try and stay out of trouble until then, okay?’

Grace’s expression finally lost some of it’s animation. ‘Oh, that’s right….’ But then she crossed her own arms and smiled slyly. ‘I hear uncle Tristan’s going too. That should make for an interesting evening, huh?’

Lincoln wanted to scowl at her, but what was the point? She saw the calculation as simple-She wanted him, her uncle wanted Ivyanne. Everyone would win apparently, if Lincoln could just let go…

But it wasn’t that simple. When it came to Ivyanne, there was no wriggle room in his heart-no gap to invite Grace in. She was a princess. But Ivyanne Court was a queen. And she ruled his heart as wholly as she now ruled her kingdom.

To be king, he had to rule hers equally. And he was determined to do just that-fate had brought him to this moment and he was never backing down from fate again. He’d made Tristan flee once, and he knew he could do it a second time-and he wasn’t going to let one startlingly pretty little temptress steer him off course. He’d been taken in by both Sherri and Lux-he’d never live with himself if he hurt Ivyanne again for the sake of a frustrated body!

He stepped closer to Grace, reached out and stroked a glossy lock of her hair behind her ear. She froze, clearly clueless as to how he’d respond-just as he’d anticipated she would be.

‘Your bloodline, you and Tristan...you’re so beautiful, you know? So damn tempting…’ He spoke in the husky voice he knew had once driven Adele wild, lifting Grace’s glasses with the other hand so he could stare deeply into her bewildered gaze. A ripple of power rushed through him as he felt the temperature of her face rise against the back of his hand. There was no energy quite like mer to mer energy, and inexperienced little Grace was quaking from it. It was thrilling, and the first time Lincoln had ever flexed his siren energy. For the briefest of moments, he thought of how easy it would be to lean in and kiss her…

‘The pull to you...it’s so strong. So raw. You feel it don’t you?’

Grace nodded gently, her expression captivated, her chin tilting invitingly.

Lincoln smiled at her. ‘Well..Ivyanne and I are stronger.’ With that, he pinched her cheek as an uncle would and stepped back. ‘So both of you do your worst. I’m done worrying about it. And done with this conversation.’

He turned before the gathering clouds behind her eyes could evolve into the full-blown storm they threatened. His stomach churned again, this time driven by guilt not apprehension, but he breathed through it, feeling the daggers on his back that he’d earned but knowing that hurting her was his only option. Polite ignorance hadn’t worked, nor had stern reprisals. Mermaids had thick skin, so the triton had to sink deep to have effect-he’d learned that much from Tristan.

Lincoln thought of Ivyanne and smiled, needing the memory of her exquisite face to block the recollection of Grace’s hurt one. It had been a stressful three weeks, the early autumn chill in the air seeping into his bones and to his heart, but Ivyanne was like the sunshine, and in mere hours he would bask in it once more.

And not even Tristan’s presence could diminish that.

*

After scaling the eight foot fence at the street corner of the property, Tristan dropped himself into some bushes and hid there, his eyes raking across the lawn, searching for the two Alsatians his uncle had special ordered for securing the boundary.

He saw them eventually, fast asleep up on the driveway in front of the triple garage doors. Being careful to stay low to the ground and close to the stone wall, out of view from the security camera he saw perched amongst the trees, Tristan side-stepped his way up along the stone filled garden, staying behind the small manicured trees that dotted the wall.

Soon enough, he’d made it to the spiked, powder-coated fence which separated the front yard from the back. He looked up and saw another camera on the corner of the roof, which was swinging very slowly-and automatically- from side to side. When it came his way, he crouched down behind the bush, waiting until it pointed away from him again to scale up the fence with a lot more difficulty than the first had offered. It was slippery, and the spikes were perilous, and getting over them as silently as he could took more time than he almost had.

That’s a good one,
he thought.
If that bush wasn’t there, and the camera was a little faster...
Tristan got onto the edge of the roof, behind the camera, and surveyed his surroundings. The roof seemed to go on and on, awning after awning, eave after eave, and the steel made a slight warping sound as he put his weight on it that he knew would echo through the massive house. That was good too-tiles would have muffled the noises, so at least he could cross out the possibility of someone accessing the house from above. He’d wondered why such an exquisite mansion had such standard roofing before, but now he understood-the house had been built to keep the occupants safe.

Tristan stayed where he was, perched like a gargoyle, and peeked over the fence line. A sheer, twenty meter drop separated the front of the property from the swampy mangroves to the side-there was no way he would have made it if he’d tried sneaking up this side of the fence from the driveway. But since he’d managed to avoid the cameras on the long and overgrown drive, that comforted him little. Who cared about sneaking up the side, when entry through the front fence was as simple as he’d just proven?

Tristan sighed and looked behind him, turning slowly that way, getting his bearings. All he could see was a small clothesline area and a few air-conditioning units, which were humming just loud enough to conceal the noise he was making. He swung himself off the gutter and landed on the pebbles, pressing his back to the wall and inching along until he could see the layered and landscaped gardens emerging, the bay glistening just beyond, a yacht he didn’t recognize bobbing in the private mooring beyond the pool.

Nicer than it looked in the pictures.
Tristan thought, whistling lowly under his breath, covering the next ten minutes much faster than the previous. He’d seen pictures of course, but they hadn’t done the property justice.
Be careful Ivyanne-your blue blood is starting to shine through!

He peeked his head around the corner, his mouth growing dry when he spotted Ivyanne on the opposite side of the pool, flat on her back on a canopied day bed, one arm slung over her eyes, the other dangling over the edge. She wore a pink and white checkered bikini cut in a retro style with a moulded top and boy-leg bottoms, making her look curvier than usual, her long blonde hair pulled up high on her head in a ponytail which flopped over an oiled arm. She was, as always, a vision. All he wanted to do was reach out and stroke her stomach, maybe sneak up and nibble on her perfect toes.