Children of the Sea 01 - Sea Witch

want to raise questions or waste time and energy in explanations.
     
    She had not come ashore to talk.
     
    Desire swelled inside her like a child, weighting her breasts and her loins.
     
    She picked her way around the base of the rock on tender, unprotected feet. There, clumped like seaweed above the tide line, was that a . . . blanket? She shook it from the sand—a towel—and tucked it around her waist, delighting in the bright orange color. A few feet farther on, in the shadows outside the bonfire, she discovered a gray fleece garment with long sleeves and some kind of hood. Drab. Very drab. But it would serve to disguise her. She pulled the garment over her head, fumbling her arms through the sleeves, and smiled ruefully when the cuffs flopped over her hands.
     
    The unfamiliar friction of the clothing chafed and excited her. She slid through twilight, her pulse quick and hot. Still in the shadows, she
    5
    paused, her widened gaze sweeping the group of six—seven, eight—figures sprawled or standing in the circle of the firelight. Two females.
    Six males. She eyed them avidly.
     
    She sighed. She did not prey on drunks. Or children.
     
    Light stabbed at her pupils, twin white beams and flashing blue lights from the ridge above the beach. She blinked, momentarily disoriented.
     
    A girl yelped.
     
    A boy groaned.
     
    “Run,” someone shouted.
     
    Sand spurted as the humans darted and shifted like fish in the path of a shark. They were caught between the rock and the strand, with the light in their eyes and the sea at their backs. She followed their panicked glances, squinting toward the tree line.
     
    Silhouetted against the high white beams and dark, narrow tree trunks stood a tall, broad figure.
     
    Her blood rushed like the ocean in her ears. Her heart pounded. Even allowing for the distortion of the light, he looked big. Strong. Male. His silly, constraining clothes only emphasized the breadth and power of his chest and shoulders, the thick muscles of his legs and arms.
     
    He moved stiffly down the beach, his face in shadow. As he neared the fire, red light slid greedily over his wide, clear forehead and narrow nose. His mouth was firm and unsmiling.
     
    Her gaze expanded to take him in. Her pulse kicked up again. She felt the vibration to the soles of her feet and the tips of her fingers.
     
    This was a man.
     

     
    Kids .
     
    Caleb shook his head and pulled out his ticket book.
     
    6
     
    Back when he was in high school, you got busted drinking on the beach, you poured your cans on the sand and maybe endured a lecture from your parents. Not that his old man had cared what Caleb did. After Caleb’s mom decamped with his older brother, Bart Hunter hadn’t cared about much of anything except his boat, his bottle, and the tides.
     
    But times—and statutes—had changed.
     
    Caleb confiscated the cooler full of beer.
     
    “You can’t take that,” one punk objected. “I’m twenty-one. It’s mine.”
     
    Caleb arched an eyebrow. “You found it?”
     
    “I bought it.”
     
    Which meant he could be charged with furnishing liquor to minors.
     
    Caleb nodded. “And you are . . . ?”
     
    The kid’s jaw stuck out. “Robert Stowe.”
     
    “Can I see your license, Mr. Stowe?”
     
    He made them put out the fire while he wrote them up: seven citations for possession and—in the case of twenty-one -year-old Robert Stowe—a summons to district court.
     
    He handed back their drivers’ licenses along with the citations. “You boys walk the girls home now. Your cars will still be here in the morning.”
     
    “It’s too far to walk,” a pretty, sulky brunette complained. “And it’s dark.”
     
    Caleb glanced from the last tinge of pink in the sky to the girl.
    Jessica Dalton, her driver’s license read. Eighteen years old. Her daddy was a colorectal surgeon from Boston with a house right on the water, about a mile down the road.
     
    7
    “I’d be happy to call your parents to pick you up,” he offered, straight-faced.
     
    “Screw that,” announced the nineteen-year-old owner of the Jeep.
    “I’m driving.”
     
    "If I start giving Breathalyzer tests for OUIs, it’s going to be a long night,” Caleb said evenly. “Especially when I impound your vehicle.”
     
    “You can’t do that,” Stowe said.
     
    Caleb leveled a look at him.
     
    “Come on, Robbie.” The other girl tugged his arm. “We can go to my place.”
     
    Caleb watched them gather