Siren. Part 12

"Just skip the stone." Josh's voice seemed to whisper now in his head, a ghost who refused to lose. Evan did, and watched as the thin rock bounced across the waves four, five, six, seven and finally eight times before disappearing into the black.

"Ha!" Evan shouted, oblivious that there was n.o.body else in sight. "I did it, I did it," he laughed. "I win," he whispered in a voice that bordered on maniacal.

Then he looked around and the sun of his daydream faded. The sound of his son was gone, and all that he could see were the endless black waves of the ocean and the dark, cold sand beneath the unforgiving night sky.

He opened his hand and the remaining rocks and sand trickled out. "d.a.m.n," Evan whispered. As he stared out at the water, he could see his son's hand opening and closing in the air, just before it disappeared from sight for the last time. His eyes misted over, and he choked as again he said aloud, "d.a.m.n."

He clenched his fists and tried not to remember, tried to push that day off. He had relived it too many times and he refused to succ.u.mb again tonight. He had a difficult enough thing to do tonight without seeing his boy die, again and again, before his eyes. The chest heaves began again anyway, as they always did. Evan doubled over and choked, trying unsuccessfully to stem the tears. And finally, he just gave in, and let them all out like a slow sprinkler on the sand. "Josh, baby, I miss you," he cried, and clenched his arms to his own chest in a mock hug. "I love you, buddy," he whispered, though n.o.body was there to hear. "I love you so much."

Once Evan had regained control, he looked at his watch and saw that it was past ten o'clock. He'd been waiting for Ligeia almost an hour. A first.

Standing up, he walked up to the narrow path that led onto the gray shale of the point. He stepped over white and green piles of gull s.h.i.+t and made his way to the finger's far edge, where the black depth of the ocean merged with the sky in a claustrophobic trick of emptiness that felt ultimately close.

"Ligeia?" he called out to the ocean.

His voice was only greeted in a whoos.h.i.+ng quiet. But Evan wasn't content. He tried again and again, struggling to make his voice heard over the rush of the surf. Evan called until his voice cracked, and he realized the futility of what he was doing.

She wasn't coming.

He had a.s.sumed that she would just be here, as she had every other time he'd come to the beach over the past few weeks...but...not tonight.

Evan threaded his way back to the beach and stood again on the sand, looking out at the hungry, dark water ahead. He prayed she was just busy tonight, but he worried that Ligeia was angry with him for taking Sarah on the trip. When he had told her the last time they had been together that he was going to be gone for a few days, Ligeia had not looked pleased. If anything, she looked cheated on. How ironic was that?

Dismayed, he began slowly walking back down the beach toward the road that led home. He could just stop taking this walk and the end result would be the same. He would have broken things off with his "mistress." He laughed bitterly to himself. Mistress. The word sounded ridiculous when used by him to talk about someone related to him. He was not the kind of guy who would ever cheat on his wife, he thought. But yet he had. Many times now. He remembered again their first night together on the sand and shrugged. For the amount of s.e.x that had been doled out over the past year of their marriage, n.o.body would blame him. Still...it wasn't who he wanted to be. It wasn't what Sarah deserved.

He couldn't break it off with someone by simply not showing up. He needed to close this chapter of his life. He needed to say good-bye to Ligeia. He owed it to her, and needed it for himself.

When Evan got home, Sarah was waiting, sitting in the easy chair, sipping a cup of Earl Grey. She looked up at him as he closed the sliding gla.s.s door and said simply, "Hey."

"Hey," he answered, and knelt by her chair. On TV, the weatherman was calling for rain tomorrow afternoon.

"Gonna be a slow day for you tomorrow, I think," she said. Her voice was warm with the threat of sleep.

"Doubt it," he said. "Big s.h.i.+pment from Oregon due in tomorrow. Rain or s.h.i.+ne, we're on the dock."

"Ugh," she murmured. Then she put a cool finger to his face. "You've been crying," she said softly.

"Yeah," Evan said. "Sometimes you just have to let it out."

"I know," she said, and set down her tea. Then she held her arms out. "But you're supposed to let it out with me," she said.

He s.h.i.+fted into her embrace and laid his head on her chest. She smelled warm and sweet, of lavender and honey. He felt his eyes well up for the third time tonight, and let go again.

"I love you," he whispered, and felt his heart choke beneath the words.

Her hand stroked his hair. "I know, baby. And I love you too."

Ligeia didn't come the next night. Or the next.

Evan started to wonder if he was really whacked-maybe she had simply been a fever dream, a warped hallucination to force him to refocus his priorities and fix things with his wife before it was too late.

He had promised Sarah in San Francisco that he would stop hanging out half the night on the beach, and so far he'd not kept it. He had to stop going there, but he couldn't without saying good-bye. Unless she had already gone. Moved on to some other guy while he'd been in San Francisco, a.s.suming if he was taking an anniversary trip, that he'd be rekindling with his wife and would have no need of a mistress anymore.

That had turned out to be true, in the end, and perhaps she had seen the writing on the wall.

On Wednesday night, he tossed a hundred stones into the ocean and vowed that he would stop coming after one more night.

On Thursday night, Ligeia was waiting for him.

"I was beginning to think you were nothing but a dream," Evan said, as he walked up to her. She stood like a sentinel on the sand. A gorgeous, nude statue. A perfect sculpture of s.e.x incarnate. When he spoke, she smiled, and his heart melted along with his groin.

"I'll always be here for you," she said. Her voice echoed in his brain, ripples of meaning spreading down his spine like a drug. The warmth of joy at seeing her spread through every pore.

"Ligeia," he began, holding out his arms to hug her.

She pressed herself against him, and he felt the wetness of her body soak into his clothes. Her lips brushed at his ear, and he shook his head, taking her arm with his hand to pull her back.

But she stepped back on her own and smiled at him. She looked almost like a child with the grace and innocence of that smile, and she took his right hand in both of hers. She pressed her hand against the cool velvet of her belly, brus.h.i.+ng his fingers up and down on her skin. Not childish at all.

Evan felt his resolve weakening with the tantalizing feel of her flesh against him. But no, he knew this had to stop. He tried to get himself under control, but before he could say a word, Ligeia spoke again.

"You're going to be a daddy," she said, putting her hands on his shoulders and moving her face in close to his.

"Huh?" Evan gulped.

She ran his hand back and forth across her abdomen and said it again. "You're going to be a daddy. I'm pregnant with your child."

"Oh s.h.i.+t," Evan said. The words fell out before he could stop them, and he saw the pain crease her forehead as he said them.

"It's not that I-" he started.

She put a finger to his lips. "You don't want a baby?" she asked quietly.

"I want my baby back," he gasped, and pulled away from her. He turned his back and looked toward his house, so far down the beach.

"I don't want to start over," he said. "I did it once, and I don't want to do it again. I just want my boy back."

Ligeia's hands wrapped around his chest, moving from under his armpits to rub his belly and reach all the way up to cup his chin. At his back, he felt the cus.h.i.+on of her b.r.e.a.s.t.s, and hated himself for how much he wanted her right now.

"Ligeia," he began.

"Shhhh," she said, and unbuckled his pants. "You are confused. I am here now, and you are mine now. That's all you need to think about."

Evan struggled to say no, but then his pants were on the sand. His s.h.i.+rt slipped over his head, and her b.r.e.a.s.t.s were against his chest. He felt the warmth of her tongue and the world began to tilt sideways yet again.

"We will raise a family together," Ligeia said, as he entered her there on the sand. She was wet and open to him, and he found her talk of children and future somehow even more erotic than the simple promise of enjoying the salty taste of her b.r.e.a.s.t.s in his mouth forever. He rode her quick and desperate on the cold sand and kissed her longer afterward than before, as the sweat cooled on his back and raised a chill.

Ligeia's eyes locked on his and with a knowing grin, she raised an eyebrow. "You will come with me now, yes?"

"No," Evan said, brus.h.i.+ng his lips to her cheek. Then he pulled back and met the intensity of her gaze with the look of a wounded puppy. "I can't. I love Sarah. And she needs me now, more than ever."

"I need you," Ligeia hissed, and pushed him off her. Then she rounded on him and pressed him to the beach beneath her.

"You need me," she insisted. "You know that. Your time with her is through. She had you for that time, but that time is done. My child is yours. Will you just walk away from that?"

He lay back on the cold sand and stared into the dark between the pinpoints of stars above.

"I have to," he whispered. "I don't want to...but I need to."

Evan rolled to his side and looked at the woman who lay on the beach, offering herself to him, not only tonight, but forever. Offering him...everything.

"Ligeia...I barely know you," he began, and instantly regretted it.

"You know me more than any man has known me in a century," she hissed.

"A century?" Evan laughed. "You don't even look..." His retort was stopped by the press of her lips to his own. When she drew back, she sounded angry.

"Come with me," she said. "Come with me and raise our child. Don't make me do this alone."

"I'll help you how I can," Evan began. "But first I'll need to know your address. h.e.l.l, I don't even know where you live and you say you're having my baby..."

"I live in your heart," Ligeia said, and tried to press him again to the sand. "And I always will."

"I have to go," Evan said, and pushed away from her to grab at his s.h.i.+rt. He shook the sand free and stood up. "I can't be with you for this," he said. "I have to take care of my wife now."

He stepped clumsily into his pants and felt the dampness of their s.e.x saturate his underwear and then rub back accusingly against his skin as he b.u.t.toned his jeans.

Ligeia didn't move from her p.r.o.ne position on the sand. Her eyes flashed with anger.

"You are mine now," she said tersely.

Evan shook his head. "No," he said. "No, I'm not. I'm sorry. I can't do this anymore. That's what I came to say tonight. We have to end this. Good night, Ligeia. Good-bye."

He closed his eyes and couldn't believe how cold he was being in walking away, but was there any way to walk away that wasn't cold? When you were done, you were done and that was that. There was really no nice way to couch it.

Evan walked down the beach toward home, while a cold, horrible lump grew in his belly. He forced himself not to look behind him because if he did...he was afraid he would stop and return to her. Was it true? Did she carry his baby? Could she know already? That seemed unlikely. Was she just hoping?

How stupid he had been to have s.e.x with her over and over, a.s.suming that she was using protection. "d.a.m.n it," he cursed under his breath. If there'd been a wall nearby, he would have punched it. The anger-at himself, as much as at her for tricking him this way-grew inside him until the cold sickness melted, replaced by fire. If Ligeia were pregnant, and decided to make an issue about it...

He turned around and looked back at the beach, to where he had left her.

The beach was empty for as far as he could see. The waves rushed the sh.o.r.e in dirty white explosions of foam, and rolled back again, up and down on the sand, the empty sand from here to the shadow of the point.

Evan wiped a spot of water from his eye and shook his head. What was done was done. He prayed his weakness wouldn't come back at him to ruin what he needed to try to fix. And he needed to start that fixing now.

He turned back toward Delilah and began walking. In a minute, that determined walk turned to a slow and then more urgent jog. He had to get back to Sarah. A kaleidoscope of feelings fought for voice in his heart: guilt, l.u.s.t, love and hope all mixed into a warring cloud of pain. "I'll never do this to you again," he promised aloud, as he ran. As soon as he said it, a piece of him railed, wanting desperately to do it again. He shook his head violently, trying to argue away the desire.

Behind him, a shadow slipped out of the waves to move swiftly across the beach. Far behind, but not so far as to lose sight, a figure fell in step to keep pace with Evan, padding softly, wetly across the sand and up the walking path that led to Fifth Street.

If Evan had not been so lost in his internal war of emotions, he might have noticed that the shadow followed him all the way home.

Chapter Twenty-Seven.

June 10, 1887 The storm hit with hardly any warning. If the fury of the wind hadn't howled through the s.h.i.+p like a banshee, the crew might have been more attuned to what happened in the captain's cabin. But by the time the screaming began, their hands and ears were locked to other tasks. Tasks like keeping the s.h.i.+p above water. n.o.body had any interest in visiting Davy Jones's locker in the dead of night. And running shorthanded in a storm was a recipe for a voyage to the bottom of the sea.

It had been a sullen, quiet evening on the Lady Luck as she slipped through low breakers, easily on course to dock by morning. The crew, what was left of it, had watched Travers follow the captain out of the galley. They'd also seen him return a couple minutes later, and silently climb the ladder up top. Reg pushed back from the table and followed the first mate. "I'll see what's what," he told the rest.

Travers stood at the bow of the Lady Luck, staring out across the waves. He didn't say anything when Reg stumped across the deck to join him.

Reg stood next to the first mate for a few seconds, watching the waves, and Travers didn't volunteer a word. He looked lost in some private war.

"Clouds gatherin' fast," Reg observed.

Travers nodded, and a gust of wind blew a long twine of hair across his mouth. "Storm brewing," he said.

"What'd he say?" Reg asked.

Travers shook his head. "Nothing at all."

"We need to all corner him," Reg answered. There was steel in his voice.

"He's always been a good captain."

"That was then. This is today. We don't live in then."

Travers didn't say anything more, and Reg didn't press him. After another silent minute, he pushed away from the bow and slipped back belowdecks.

"Well?" Jensen said upon his return. Reg rolled his eyes and choked a bit for effect as he relayed, "'e says the captain's always been a good egg."

Cauldry smirked and hissed. "Tell that to Rogers."

"So much for talking to the captain," Jensen grumbled.

"Looks like I'm elected," Reg announced. "And I ain't taking no for an answer." A peal of thunder shook the boat, and the flash of lightning flickered through the dark galley.

Just as Reg stood, Travers yelled down to the men. "All hands on deck," he bellowed. "We got a storm on us. She's brewin' up fast!"

Cauldry and Jensen leaped up and started toward the ladder.

"I'll get the captain...after we have a word or two," Reg promised, and left in the other direction.

The s.h.i.+p yawed and s.h.i.+fted beneath his feet as Reg walked the narrow corridor to the captain's cabin. Another dull thunderclap sounded in the distance, and he felt the planks s.h.i.+ver. Maybe there would be no time to talk tonight after all, he thought. This felt like one wicked squall comin' on. He raised his hand to knock on the captain's cabin, but then paused.