Children of the Sea 01 - Sea Witch

Something about those brooding black eyes, that tumbled dark hair, that slightly sullen mouth . . .
     
    Her heart beat faster. Would that explain . . . ? No. Yes.
     
    No.
     
    “What is his name?” she asked.
     
    But she knew. In her heart, she knew.
     
    “Dylan.”
     
    83
     

Seven
     
    CALEB WATCHED LUCY BUSTLE AROUND THE kitchen, touched and more than a little amused by her attempts to mother him.
    Like they were four and fourteen again, and she’d coaxed him to one of her teddy bear tea parties.
     
    “Ice.” She plunked a plastic bag on the table in front of him. “For your leg.”
     
    “My leg is fine,” he lied. He balanced the ice on his knee.
     
    “Tea?” she offered next, brandishing the kettle.
     
    He needed coffee. Or a Scotch.
     
    But he still had a long night ahead, and he never drank in front of his sister. In her eyes, at least, he wanted to be different from their father.
     
    “Tea would be great. Thanks.”
     
    She dropped two tea bags into mugs and then hesitated, her hand hovering over the canister. “Do you think Maggie would like a cup?”
     
    “Not yet,” Caleb said. “She wanted to wash up. I got her some towels and showed her the bathroom.”
     
    “ You are very kind, ” Maggie had said as he turned on the taps and adjusted the water temperature.
     
    Kind, hell.
     
    He wanted to see her naked. He wanted to undress and bathe her himself, to touch her pretty breasts with their pale pink nipples, her smooth, amazing skin.
     
    No, he wasn’t kind. But he wasn’t a total jerk either. So he told her to call if she needed anything and he’d left, unable to trust his own control.
     
    84
    Lucy nibbled her lower lip. “Do you think that’s a good idea? She could faint. Slip.”
     
    “The door’s open.” Visions of Maggie, naked, wet, and vulnerable, invaded his brain. He cleared his throat. “I told her to use your soap and stuff.”
     
    “Of course.”
     
    He watched his sister’s face, trying to see if she minded having her sleep interrupted and her home invaded. When she was a big-eyed little kid, he’d known what made her laugh. What made her cry. What made her tick. Now . . . He didn’t know. Hadn’t made the effort to know, for too many years. “I’m sorry to dump this on you.”
     
    “You’re not dumping.”
     
    Truth? Or just the desire to please? Except for a few anxious occasions when Lucy was in her teens, she’d never liked to make trouble, never wanted to call attention to herself.
     
    “But she must have family somewhere who will be worried about her. Friends.” Lucy set his tea in front of him and added sugar and milk to her cup, not meeting his eyes. “A husband.”
     
    “She’s not married,” came out of his mouth.
     
    Lucy laid down her spoon. “How do you know?”
     
    How did he? Did he? His ignorance chafed him.
     
    “She told me.”
     
    “But . . . on the phone you said she couldn’t remember anything.”
     
    Tension crept into his shoulders. “She told me before,” he said evenly. “When we had dinner.”
     
    “Cal!” His sister’s eyes brightened. “Is Maggie the one? The one you said wasn’t coming . . .”
     
    “Back,” he finished for her. “Yeah.”
     
    85
    “That’s fan—” Lucy’s brow pleated. “Wait. You had dinner, and you don’t know her last name?”
     
    Worse. They’d had sex, and he didn’t know her last name.
     
    Which had to be on the Top Ten List of Things You Don’t Say to Your Sister. Hell, it was something Caleb hated admitting to himself.
     
    “We had dinner,” he repeated. “We didn’t swap life stories. ”
     
    Just bodily fluids.
     
    Shit.
     
    “So, how will you find her family?” Lucy asked.
     
    “I’ll call the sheriff’s office on the mainland in the morning. ” Caleb sipped his tea. Too hot. “He’ll run her description through the NCIC
    database, see if he can find a match in missing persons.”
     
    “How long will that take?”
     
    “Depends on what he turns up. If I have to chase down partial matches in several states, it could be days.”
     
    Lucy twisted her napkin in her lap. “Can’t you, I don’t know, take her fingerprints or something?”
     
    Caleb was used to working in a department, as part of a unit, a team.
    He’d had female partners—good ones. But he wasn’t used to kicking cases around with his baby sister, or discussing his love life. “You sure ask a lot of questions.”
     
    Lucy shook out her napkin.