Porpoiseful Intent [Placida Pod 2] (Siren Publishing Everlasting Classic ManLove) (6 page)

“What about you volunteering to marry him?”

“I said I thought about it. Never said I’d follow through with it. I do love him. And I finally made him take up a hobby to get him out of the house and out of my hair. He’s not built to remain idle.”

Emery emerged from his shower ten minutes later. At the half-hour mark, Louise texted both Joseph and Christopher to call her, after leaving voice mails for them. Even Emery was starting to worry when an hour had gone by with no word from their family.

Sean pulled him aside. “Why don’t we take a ride out there and see what’s going on?”

Emery looked like he was about to answer when Louise’s phone rang. Both men turned to watch her answer.

“Joseph? Oh, thank goodness. What? What happened?”

Emery stepped into the living room. Sean followed him. He didn’t need to have super-duper dolphin senses to see Louise was upset.

“Oh my goodness. Do you want me to have Sean get his boat?…Okay. See you shortly.” She hung up and looked at them. “Barry Dorsette didn’t return from the hunt.” She stood and picked up her purse. “Everyone is going back out now to look for him.”

Sean grabbed his keys while Emery headed for the front door. “Where are they? What happened?” Emery asked.

“I don’t know all the details. The two friends Barry swam out with lost track of him during the hunt. They figured he was hanging with some of his relatives or something. But he didn’t return to their swim-out point. They swam in near where Joseph, Christopher, and the girls did.”

Sean locked the door behind them and they all piled into Emery’s Mustang again. “Have I met this Barry guy?” Sean asked Emery from the backseat.

“No. He wasn’t at the two full moon swims you went to.”

“Is he a youngling?”

“Technically,” Louise said. “He’s thirty-four, though. This isn’t like him, either. He’s a very responsible man. I’ve known him since he was born.”

They reached the marina. Sean ran on ahead to make sure his boat hadn’t been put up yet even though it was so late. Fortunately, it hadn’t. He found a night watchman to get him his keys from the drop box after showing his ID. Emery helped him quickly hook the electronics back up, and within a few minutes, they were back on the water and speeding out toward Lemon Bay.

Sean let Emery and Louise guide him toward the pod. When they drew close, he shut the engine off. Three of the dolphins swam up to the boat. Joseph shifted back to human form while Emery stripped and dove in to join them.

“Any sign of him?” Louise asked him.

“No.” Even in the dark, Sean could see how worried the older man looked. “This isn’t like him at all. No one remembers seeing him after we herded the school in Boca Grande Pass.”

“Do you want me to shift?” Louise asked him.

“No. You stay up here with Sean and help him follow us.” He ducked under and shifted again. Emery had already shifted and taken off toward the others.

They spent all night on the water, Sean keeping a close eye on his fuel gauge so he didn’t get stranded on an empty tank. By the time the sky began turning grey in the east, there was still no sign of the missing shifter. Emery rejoined them in the boat.

“What do we do now?” Sean asked as they headed back to the marina.

Emery looked frustrated. “We start calling everyone to come help look for him. Not exactly like we can file a missing person report on him.”

“Is it possible he went home with someone else?”

“No,” Louise said. “He would have let his friends know so exactly this kind of situation didn’t happen.” She looked thoughtful. “Is it possible that shark might have gotten him, Emery? The one that attacked Billy?”

“I doubt it. Someone would have heard something, you’d think. Denby and I put a hurting on it when we ran it off. I wouldn’t be surprised if it didn’t survive.”

“What can I do to help?” Sean asked. “I mean, besides playing water chauffer?”

“I need to get you home so you can get some sleep, babe,” Emery said. “We need time to organize an official search party.”

* * * *

Erik poked his head out of the water and carefully looked around the shallow canal for any signs of life before shifting and boosting himself up on the sea wall. He’d rented the tiny, fully furnished trailer in the rundown park not too far from the southern tip of the Cape Haze peninsula under an assumed name. He’d paid cash for three months. With the summer slump, the agent hadn’t been eager to ask too many questions.

The best part, the canals led out to the harbor. Screw shopping, he could hunt every night and sleep all day.

Hunt for food…
and
for revenge.

He slipped inside the trailer, locked the door behind him, and grabbed a quick shower. He wondered how long until the pod realized they had a missing member and launched a search.

He smiled. That would guarantee more time on the water for Emery. Maybe even that damn human of his, too. He didn’t dare try to follow them home. He knew because of the accident he’d caused that the Highway Patrol was after him, too.

They didn’t concern him. He couldn’t, however, let the pod catch him.

Not that he thought they could.

I’m smarter and faster than most of them.
He stepped out of the shower and wiped condensation off the mirror with his hand.
What the fuck does Em see in that human? I’m twice the man, at the very least, that he is.

Sean slept until early Sunday afternoon. When he dragged himself out of bed, he turned on the TV to listen to the Weather Channel while he put on a pot of coffee.

“…and Tropical Storm Franklin has been upgraded to Hurricane Franklin by the National Hurricane Center. It’s a Category 1 storm, and on the move and gaining speed. The entire west coast of Florida needs to closely monitor this system.”

Now wide awake, he turned on his heel and returned to the TV. Sure enough, Englewood lay dead center in the middle of the cone of anxiety, as locals liked to call the National Hurricane Center’s forecasted track.

“…with forward motion possibly bringing Franklin onshore sometime late Tuesday or early Wednesday.”

“Fuck!” Sean, the coffee forgotten, grabbed his phone from where he’d left it charging on the counter and checked for texts from Emery. The last one had been sent two hours earlier.

Back in water. Text me when ur up.

Sean shot him a quick text about the storm and headed for the shower. His phone was ringing when he stepped out a few minutes later. He grabbed it and answered without looking at the screen.

Helen Morita’s anxious voice blasted at him through the phone. “Sean? Have you seen the weather report?”

He closed his eyes and silently swore. “Yes, Mom. I saw it.” That was another task to add to his list, helping his parents put up their storm shutters.

“Your father asked me to call you to come help him. He’s already out there. I tried to get him to wait a day, but you know how he is.”

Yes, he knew all too well.
This I sooo don’t need today.
“Tell him I’ll be there in about an hour. I was asleep and just woke up.”

“Asleep? Are you okay? You’re not sick, are you?”

Crap.
“No, Mom. I’m fine. Emery and I were out really late with some friends last night.” That was close enough to the truth that he didn’t feel guilty about the lie. Not that he could exactly tell her the truth anyway.

“Oh. Okay. I’ll tell him.”

“See you shortly.”

He dressed quickly and made himself a sandwich to eat on the trip over. He had to drive past the marina, which was on the causeway leading to the Tom Adams drawbridge that connected the south end of Manasota Key to the mainland. Sam and Helen Morita lived on the Sarasota County end of the island, not too far north of the county line, in a yellow stilt house on the Gulf side of the road.

When he pulled in the drive, he spotted his dad precariously perched on the top rung of a twelve-foot ladder set on the wraparound deck, with his mom alternately yelling instructions and cautions to him.

Oy.
He got out and climbed the stairs to the deck level. “Hi, Mom.” He kissed her on the cheek. “Hey, Dad?” he called up to him. “Why don’t you let me get up there and do that?”

His father squinted down at him. “I didn’t have time to wait all day for you to get here.” Sam Morita was, if nothing else, efficient at everything he did. He didn’t, however, understand his son’s need for little things like sleep or relaxation.

“Sam! You get down here right this instant!” his mom yelled. “You let Sean do that!”

Grumbling, his father propped the storm shutter panel he was trying to install against the window, in the sill, and slowly made his way down to the ground. He handed Sean the cordless drill and wing nuts used to secure each corrugated panel section to the tracks fixed at the top and bottom of each window. “About time you got here.”

“You’re welcome, Dad.” Sean scaled the ladder and finished covering the window. When he finished all the panels on that window and once again returned to ground level, he checked his phone. Still no texts or calls from Emery. “Dad, tell me why, again, you don’t have the automatic roll-down storm shutters?”

“Because they’re too expensive,” his father said as he handed him the first panel for the next window. “Besides, these came with the house. They are fine. Less talk, Sean.” He grabbed the ladder and moved it to the next window. “And when you finish that window, you can help me haul the other shutter panels up here.”

Sean swallowed a sarcastic retort. “Yes, Dad.”

* * * *

Emery had texted him back when Sean next checked his phone three windows later. He’d told his parents Em was at the office, handling paperwork ahead of the storm, a story they’d readily believed.

No sign yet. R U home?

Sean quickly texted him back that he was at his parents, and the fib he’d told them about Emery being at work.

Ok. I’ll be there soon.

Sean studied the phone before looking at the house. There were still twenty windows to go, most of them on the second and third levels.

I won’t refuse the help,
he texted back.

Emery arrived fifteen minutes later. Helen’s face lit up when she stepped outside and saw Emery. “I’m so glad you’re here! I’ve got a brisket that’ll be ready in a few minutes.”

He smiled. “Thanks.” He leaned in to Sean, who was getting ready to go back up the ladder, and silently said,
“I still can’t believe she served ham last week.”

Sean stifled his laugh and silently replied,
“I told you, she’s not exactly a kosher Jew.”

“I’m getting that.”

With Emery’s help, they quickly finished installing the rest of the shutters. Sean was eager to get dinner over with so he could get Emery alone and talk with him about the search. When they finally returned home a little before dark, Emery had bad news for him.

“I’m going out again with the pod to search tonight.”

“The marina office is closed,” Sean said. “I won’t be able to get my boat.”

“No, it’s okay. We’ve had people searching today. We’ve got people coming in from all over to help, including some with boats. There’s still no sign of him.”

“Are you sure it’s not possible he met someone and went off with them?”

“No. All his stuff was still in his friend’s car. Keys, cell, all that.”

“You went off with me when we first met,” Sean pointed out.

“Uh, yeah, but Erik and Denby saw where I went. And I called them and told them I was okay.”

“I’m just saying, it’s not beyond the realm of possibility.”

“It’s totally out of character for him to disappear like this.” Emery frowned. “Speaking of Erik, no one’s heard anything about him lately, either.” Jealous about Emery’s mate-bond with Sean, Erik had sabotaged Sean’s truck and caused an accident in an attempt to get Sean out of the way. Fortunately for Sean, he wasn’t injured nearly as badly as he could have been. But both shifters and traditional law enforcement were on the hunt for the dolphin shifter. Law enforcement wanted to arrest him.

The dolphin shifters wouldn’t be as forgiving if they caught up with him first.

“What was that frown for?” Sean asked.

“What frown?”

“That one. The one you made when you mentioned Erik.”

“It has to be a coincidence.”

“What does?”

“Nothing. Erik isn’t stupid enough to come back here. He has to know what would happen if the pod catches up with him before the cops do.”

Sean studied Emery’s expression. “You aren’t totally convinced of that, though, are you?”

Emery shrugged, which always made Sean’s heart flutter. “Maybe I’m not.” He leaned in and kissed Sean. “Don’t wait up for me, babe. I’ll probably be out until morning.”

“When are you going to sleep?”

“I’ll catch a nap before I go into work in the morning. I’ll be okay.”

Sean didn’t like it, but knew Emery was dedicated to helping find the missing shifter. As he tried to go to sleep, he thought about Louise and her premonition about something going wrong at the hunt.