The Summer of Chasing Mermaids (26 page)

Suddenly they changed course.

With renewed determination Noah was approaching our starboard side from behind, closing in fast.

My heart sped up again as I awaited Christian's next orders. But above me at the boom, Christian only laughed.

“I was hoping he'd fall for this. We're going to lee-bow him. Hold her steady, and trust me.” Christian adjusted the sails. “Okay, time to get closer. Go.” He pointed at Noah's boat.

I steered us as he directed, sending the
Queen of Cups
careening toward
Never Flounder
, so close it seemed we were on an unavoidable collision course.

At what felt like the last possible second, Christian shifted the boom, I pushed the tiller, and we swerved away, almost as if we'd bounced right off
Never Flounder
.

Noah's boat slowed considerably, rocking unevenly in the water.

We'd trapped him in a pocket of bad air, all but killing his chances at a win.

“Go, go, go!” Christian jerked the sails again. We picked up speed as the wind carried us forward, and within minutes
Never Flounder
became a yellow-blue blur behind us.

Hope rose in my chest like a wave, even as the sun hid behind a wall of thick, gray clouds. The temperature dropped, wind picking up again. But not even those icy gusts could dampen our mood.

“We're doing this, Elyse. We're doing this!” Christian secured the sails and leaped down from the boom, capturing me in another embrace. Ahead, the marina docks shone like a beacon, calling us back to the harbor. To the win that was just within our grasp.

The sea was calm, the wind strong enough to push us forward unaided.

Christian grabbed my hand, squeezed.

Standing on the aqua-blue coamings, smiles bright enough to keep the gathering clouds at bay, we sailed past the final buoys and cruised into the harbor.

Never Flounder
came in behind us.

Cheers floated on the wind, welcomed us ashore.

We did it.

We beat the
Never Flounder
.

Chapter 34

“What a race it's
been!”
the announcer boomed. “That's the
Queen of Cups
, captained by Christian Kane and first mate Elyse d'Abreau, trailed by our own Mayor Wesley Katzenberg's son Noah and first mate Wayne Prentice in the
Never Flounder
. It's official, ladies and gentlemen of the Cove. The three-year Pirate Regatta champion,
Never Flounder
, has finally been dethroned.”

The crowd whooped and roared, cheers crashing over us in waves.

“Congratulations,
Queen of Cups
. You've earned second place with a time of two hours seven minutes, putting
Never Flounder
in third with two hours nine minutes.”

Christian lifted me off my feet, pressing his lips to mine. It wasn't until our kiss ended that I processed the words.

Second place.

His confusion set in at the same time, a mirror. We separated and
looked out across the harbor, and sure enough, she was there. The
Black Star
. The dark horse must've overtaken us after I'd frozen on the deck, totally paralyzed. In the short time that Christian's attention was focused on me, talking me through it. Trying to save me when I didn't need saving after all.

Shocked and wordless, we docked the
Queen of Cups
, tied her up. Shed our life jackets and disembarked, footsteps as heavy as our hearts as we marched along the dock toward the marina lot.

“You guys rocked out there,” Vanessa said. She'd been waiting in the crowd with Gracie and Brenda, all of them hugging us. “Kirby's with her mom at the booth, but I texted them the news. They'll meet us at the Black Pearl later.”

We nodded mutely, trying to smile through the crushing ­disappointment. Up ahead Noah was elbowing his way through the crowd. When he finally reached us, he had only one word.

“Dude.”

Christian pulled him into a hug, the two of them clinging to each other like they were trying to make up for lost time.

“Get a room, y'all,” Vanessa said, and finally they broke it off.

The regatta award ceremony was a blur, the crowd cheering and chanting, trophies passed along, pirates and mermaids showering us with congratulatory wishes, saving the biggest and the best for the
Black Star
. Christian and Noah didn't recognize the guy—just another summer renter, passing through. No idea how his win had changed the fate of the entire town.

Christian, Noah, and I seemed to be the only ones who'd realized what our loss meant. None of the cheers around us would save Lemon's house, would keep Mr. Kane from holding up his end of the bargain. Noah hadn't won either, but those weren't the terms. I'd been there when the men shook on it. I remembered, too late.

Christian wins, he walks away with the
Never Flounder
.

Christian loses, his father sells the property.

No matter that he'd beaten Noah, he lost the race.

The loophole was only obvious now.

Christian and I still hadn't spoken a word to each other when, soon after the ceremony, our friends wandered into the Black Pearl and Christian's father called out from the other side of the mob. We followed the sound of his command, the tight wave of his arm. In the midst of the celebration, Mr. Kane stood grim faced and cold, his hand tight on Sebastian's.

My little mermaid offered a weak smile. “Congratulations,” he said. “You guys beat
Never Flounder
!”

Christian high-fived him, lacking the heart to tell him it hadn't been good enough.

“And guess what?” Sebastian beamed. “I won too!” He pointed at his crown, and for a moment Christian seemed to forget about our loss.

Before Christian could officially congratulate his little brother, his father sighed loudly, shaking his head. He didn't have a smile for me this time. He looked at me, almost sneered, raising Sebastian's hand near my face. “I understand this is your doing.”

I hated him for that tone, how he'd made the word “this” sound like a piece of rubbish, some great inconvenience he'd have to deal with.

This.

His youngest son.

My mermaid.

Sebastian's head sagged under the weight of his father's endless disappointment.

Christian stepped in front of me, grabbed my hand. “Dad, not now.”

I looked at Sebastian, the sadness in him, only hours after his triumphant parade win, after he'd stood up to the mayor. I saw Christian, the tick in his jaw, the tense set of his shoulders, and I knew that it would always be this way for them, for my Kane boys. That their father would always have the last word, the final say. And that nothing either of them did would ever be good enough to make up for their parents' mistakes.

It was a losing game.

With a surge of adrenaline I stepped in front of Christian, grabbed Sebastian's hand. I was holding the Kane brothers at my sides, staring down their father, my heartbeat ragged.

I met Mr. Kane's eyes, let the fire blaze in mine.

He looked at me like he'd never seen me before.

But he didn't speak.

Call it off,
I mouthed.

“All of what?” he said.

I tried again, slowly.
Call off the bet.

The man bristled, taking a step back. “You don't call off a bet the moment you lose it, Elyse d'Abreau. That's not how things work.”

But
—

He silenced my lips with a wave of his hand, turning to his eldest as if I wasn't even there. A smudge, a wisp, a nothing.

I shrank.

Again.

Failed.

“Christian,” he said firmly, “it was a decent effort, but you didn't follow through. I understand you're all disappointed, but the bet is over, and the houses are going to P and D. That's final.” He looked at me again, his tone leaving no room for argument. “Elyse, I'm sorry that you and your family might be inconvenienced by the development plans, but it is what it is. Boys, let's go.”

It is what it is?

When Andy Kane talked, people listened. His voice preceded him, and when he walked into a room, people stood up and took notice. I imagined it had always been like that for him. All of his business dealings. His first job interviews out of graduate school. Defending his ­thesis. Debate team in college. Even when he was a kid, I bet he always got his way, always got his say.

No wonder the mayor was so bent on burying him.

The funny thing was, for someone with so much power, so much conviction in his words, he sure did waste them.

If I had a voice like that, I wouldn't waste it.

My lips formed the words, but Mr. Kane wasn't listening. He'd already turned away, dragging Sebastian by the hand.

My body shivered beneath damp clothes and a fresh splattering of rain, and instinctively I moved closer to Christian, tucked myself under the familiar comfort of his shoulder. I'd learned the skies of Atargatis Cove well enough to know that this was just a warning, that we had about thirty seconds to seek shelter before the downpour.

The excitement of the day quickly fizzled. Parents grabbed up sticky child hands and herded everyone to their cars, to the Black Pearl for the last party, to Kat and Ava's Sweet Pacific for their famous mermaid cookies. Mr. Kane was already partway down the shore with Sebastian in tow, and the Mermaid Queen of Atargatis Cove looked back at me with a blank expression, blue-green swirls of makeup running down his cheeks.

I turned my face to the sky.

Drench me,
I willed it.

Pour your heart out; soak me through.

Wash away the makeup, the tears, the blood,

the day, the week, the month.

Wash away the entire last year and bring us all back to where we began.

As if to answer, the rain sluiced from the gray mist, pelted my eyelids and lips. Salt-tinged water ran in rivulets down my chin, my neck, my pale silver scar.

But it didn't change anything.

The marina was nearly empty, but Christian was still next to me, his arm around me like a life preserver, and when I turned toward him, I saw his face tipped toward the sky too. Eyes closed, mouth open to catch the rain on his tongue.

Sebastian and his father were two dots in the distance now, one gray and tall, the other tiny and silver-blue, and in that moment I knew without a doubt that for the rest of forever, I'd look back on this moment as my one regret, the one thing—unlike so many other events in my life—I could've done something about if only I'd been brave.

If only I'd found my voice.

Wordlessly I laced my fingers through Christian's and caught his sigh on my shoulders, slumping beside him.
Black Star
couldn't have been more than five minutes ahead, ten at most. It was less than the amount of time I'd spent frozen on the deck, paralyzed by fear. It was less than the time it had taken Christian to talk me down, to convince me to trust him, to trust the
Queen of Cups
, trust my sailing skills, my own deep, lost love for the sea.

It was less time than it had taken for him to kiss me, to tell me that he knew I had the strength to do it. That he believed in me.

I tightened my grip on his hand.

Christian turned, pressed his mouth to mine, his kiss cool and wet from the rain. “I can't think about this right now,” he said. “I just want to spend as much time with you as possible. Okay?”

My eyes drifted back to the
Queen of Cups
. I mouthed,
Go back out?

“Back out? In this weather?”

I nodded.
Anchor. Sleep. Watch the sunrise. Do-over?

Christian looked exhausted and half-wrecked, but he tightened his arm around me anyway, leading us back to the
Queen
to shelter from the gathering storm.

Chapter 35

The ocean was placid
and sleepy, as if it had been worn ragged by today's regatta and the rain, which had thankfully passed quickly, and it needed time to regain its strength. Christian and I sailed back out and watched the Mermaid Festival fireworks from a distance, but we agreed not to talk about the regatta, about what the loss meant, about what tomorrow or the next day would bring. So after the smoke faded from the sky, after we shared a sailor's meal of canned stew and oyster crackers, Christian and I floated wordlessly above deck, shoulder to shoulder, fingers intertwined as we watched the stars blink to life in the deep blue sky.

When the moon was high over the marina, we retreated to the saloon, sitting again in comfortable silence. I thought of the first night I'd met Christian, how I'd watched him at the Solstice party, jealous that he and Vanessa seemed to have so much history together. I'd been
wrong about them, of course. I saw it now, felt it, knew it by heart. The sign of a deep connection wasn't necessarily outward affection, but silence. The ability to sit still with another, wholly aware of him, neither needing nor desiring anything but his presence, the shape of him, his breath in the air between you.

A wave jostled our little vessel, and I finally stirred, looking up to meet Christian's eyes. He'd been watching me, I realized, and when I rose from the cushion, his smile turned wolfish. I grabbed his hand, leading us both to the berth.

Despite the exhaustion of the day, my body was wild with wanting, my own breath ragged and rough as I slid my hands inside his sweatshirt. My touch lingered only a moment before I pushed his sweatshirt up, slipped it over his head, and tossed it on the floor. The rest of our clothing quickly followed, and then he was, blissfully, inside me.

His kisses were more hungry, more desperate, more devouring than ever.

Our time together, we both knew, was finite.

I closed my eyes, searing this moment into my mind, committing his touch to eternal memory.

Hours later something tugged me from a deep sleep, and when I opened my eyes, I saw that it was the moon, shining down on me in a silver beam. I rose from the bed, careful not to disturb Christian as I slipped out from our warm cocoon.

In the saloon my mermaid dress hung from the hook where I'd put it before the race, blue silk spilling down the wall like water, just as shimmery. For a moment I thought I could put my hand through it, feel the cool wetness run through my fingers. But it was only my old familiar dress after all, and I lifted it carefully from the hook and pulled it up over my nakedness. If the night air was chilly, I no longer noticed.

I crept out through the companionway, silent as the stars on the sea. Out on the deck, alone, I heard nothing but the gentle lapping of water against the hull, and beneath the vast diamond sky I felt both all important and utterly insignificant, the goddess and the damned in equal measure.

I thought about Lemon's tarot cards, the deceiving moon, the call of something deep within, and wondered for a long moment whether looking at a reflection of the moon in the water made it the opposite of deceiving. I wanted to trust this pale and lovely moon, the flicker of starlight that seemed to glow from the bottom of the ocean. The sea was so impossibly still, so dark, that the longer I stared, the more uncertain I became. Was the night sky reflected in the Pacific, or was the Pacific reflected in the heavens? Had they switched places as I slept?

How had everything I'd ever known been turned upside down?

When I'd volunteered as Christian's first mate—despite my reservations about sailing—I truly believed I could help. That we might actually win this thing, prove Christian's father and the mayor wrong.
Show them all by saving Lemon's house, Christian's house, the fate of the entire mystical town.

But again, the ocean had other plans.

Again, I'd failed. The people I loved. Myself.

And again, everything would change.

The night was so calm, the ocean so inviting, offering none of its usual warnings and threats. Entranced, I reached my fingers out and trailed them through the black soup, through the moonlight, as though I could capture the stars beneath the sea.

Soon I was in up to my wrist. My elbow. The tender skin of my underarm didn't register the cold, though I thought it should.

I am a mermaid, goddess of the sea.

Midnight is upon me.

Her lover is near.

Death, come to take me home.

And then I was slipping into the void, a tipping forth that seemed both uneventful and inevitable, not even a splash to mark my descent.

Silent, as ever.