Children of the Sea 01 - Sea Witch

must.”
     
    He held her gaze, desperate to make her understand. “You said we were in this together. Damn it, Maggie—”
     
    “She’s leaving,” Dylan interrupted. “Get over it. It’s not the first time.”
     
    “You shut the fuck up,” Caleb snarled.
     
    Maggie gripped the side of the boat, her knuckles white. “I love you,” she said across the yards of open water.
     
    The words should have made him feel better. They made everything worse. A storm of need and rage and terrible fear howled in his empty chest.
     
    “You picked a hell of a way to show it,” he said.
     
    Did he imagine it, or did her eyes fill with tears?
     
    “You will be safe here,” she assured him, while the boat strained and shuddered against Dylan’s hold. The sail flapped frantically behind her like a trapped bird. “The glamour will shield you until I come back.”
     
    “When?” The single word cracked like a gunshot.
     
    She flinched. “After. As soon as I can.”
     
    After she confronted the demon, she meant.
     
    267
    Assuming she survived.
     
    “Maggie, for God’s sake . . .” He was terrified for her. Furious. “If you love me, you’ve got to trust me. Trust us. Don’t do this alone.”
     
    Dylan stood beside her, a possessive hand on her shoulder. “She’s not alone. She’s with her own kind now.”
     
    “You son of a bitch .” Caleb lurched for the end of the dock.
     
    And the boat leapt into the wind and away.
     
    Caleb leaned over the exposed power head of the outboard motor, scowling at the tangle of loose wire where the spark plugs should be.
     
    He wanted to rip something—the engine, his brother— apart with his bare hands.
     
    Maggie was gone.
     
    And he was trapped on fricking Brigadoon, unable to protect her, too far away to help her, deprived of the resources and procedures that would let him maintain even the reassurance of action, the illusion of control.
     
    His hand tightened on the wrench. He’d scraped his knuckles on the swivel bracket. Blood and marine grease smeared his hands.
     
    He should have told her about the pelt.
     
    She hadn’t stayed for him, but she might have for the pelt. He could have used it as a bargaining chip to force her to take him with her. If that didn’t work, he would have given her the damn thing to protect her.
     
    He would have given anything, done anything, to protect her.
     
    But she was gone.
     
    He rubbed at his face, at his eyes, which burned from the glare off the water and stung with unshed tears.
     
    “ Get over it. It’s not the first time . . . She’s with her own kind now .”
     
    Why the hell hadn’t Dylan given her the pelt?
     
    268
     
    Caleb squinted out to sea, the gears of his cop’s mind turning and engaging. What had his brother worn on the boat? Not a lot. Some kind of caveman fur at his waist.
     
    So the pelt wasn’t his.
     
    Did he even know it was hidden in his bedroom? Or had Gwyneth placed the sealskin in the chest herself?
     
    A blaze on the water riveted Caleb’s gaze—the sun, striking a fiberglass hull or a lifted sail. His chest expanded with sudden, stupid hope.
     
    Not a sail, he saw as the boat approached over the waves. The profile—red and fast—was too low. He could hear the buzz of a motor.
     
    Caleb straightened slowly, prepared to watch the vessel pass him by.
     
    But as the boat streaked closer without shifting course, his hoped morphed and grew. This could be his ticket off the island.
     
    Caleb raised an arm to wave, but the boatman, a stick figure in the cockpit, didn’t respond to his hail.
     
    Of course not. “ The glamour will shield you until I come back .”
     
    He reached for the open emergency kit on the deck behind him.
    Caulking gun, screwdriver, flashlight, matches . . .
     
    Flares.
     
    His hand closed on a long gold cylinder.
     
    Glamour this , he thought with grim satisfaction.
     
    The red signal arced and smoked into the sky.
     
    Caleb watched the oncoming boat, his heart in his throat and the sun in his eyes, and all he could think was, Please— a prayer to the God he hadn’t had time for since Mrs. Pruitt’s long-ago Sunday school class.
     
    Please, God, let him see me .
     
    269
    Please let me get back in time to save her .
     
    The boat slowed and swerved to approach the dock.
     
    Caleb expelled his breath in a rush of relief and gratitude. Thank you, thank you, thank—
    He froze.
     
    God hadn’t answered his prayers after