Children of the Sea 02 - Sea Fever

mother had brought: black sweatpants, a tank top, a hoodie.
    She needed to get dressed. In a minute. Just . . . one . . . minute . . .
     
    She slept.
     
    Donna came back with Regina’s discharge instructions and scrawled something on her chart. “I want you to come back tomorrow for more tests.”
     
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    Regina struggled to sit. She didn’t want more tests. She wanted to go home, back to her real life and her regular routines, Nicky running up and down the stairs to the apartment and her mother driving her crazy in the kitchen.
     
    “Can’t we . . . get them over with now?”
     
    “I’m afraid not. All the fluids you’ve had will affect your hormone levels.” The doctor’s voice was brisk and professional, her eyes sympathetic. “Although if you’d prefer to take a home pregnancy test tomorrow morning, the results should be fairly accurate.”
     
    Regina’s breath caught painfully. Pregnancy test.
     
    Donna knew.
     
    Dylan knew.
     
    “I’m not . . .” she’d said to him. “The baby.”
     
    Realization crashed through her careful pretense.
     
    Things were never going back to normal again.
     
    *
     
    Regina hobbled into the waiting room on Donna’s arm, clutching a plastic bag full of her old, wet clothes.
     
    She stopped dead at the door. They were both there, waiting for her, Caleb, wearing his uniform and a thoughtful, guarded expression, and . . .
     
    Dylan.
     
    Her heart pumped. He was taller than his brother, darker, leaner.
    Younger, until you looked in his eyes. His eyes were flat black and dangerous.
     
    She moistened her lips and looked away. “Where’s Ma?”
     
    Caleb moved forward. “I told her I would bring you home.”
     
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    Regina tightened her grip on Donna’s arm.
     
    “She can’t answer questions now,” the doctor said. “Her throat’s bruised. She needs to rest.”
     
    “Understood. I can take your statement in the morning,” he said to Regina. “Tonight I’m just your taxi driver.”
     
    Her gaze flicked back to Dylan, black and brooding beside him.
    “What’s he? My bodyguard?”
     
    “Yes,” Dylan said. He wasn’t smiling.
     
    Regina drew a shaky breath. O-kay. She didn’t feel up for an argument. Besides . . .
     
    “Should . . . say thanks,” she croaked.
     
    “No, you shouldn’t,” Dylan said, relieving her of the bag. He hesitated and then put his free arm awkwardly around her waist. “You’re not supposed to talk.”
     
    She snuck another glance at his hard profile. Was he kidding? She didn’t know him well enough to tell. She didn’t know him at all, really.
    The thought depressed her.
     
    Donna unlocked the clinic doors. The evening air blew in, cool and moist. In mid-August, the days were already shortening, the sunset almost an hour earlier than a month ago. Regina shivered, grateful for Dylan’s warmth as he helped her out to the curb and into Caleb’s Jeep.
     
    She eyed the grill separating the front and back seats and tried not to feel like she was under arrest. She didn’t need a police escort. Or a bodyguard.
     
    Why was he here?
     
    “He rescued you,” Nick had said.
     
    And now he wouldn’t even look at her.
     
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    Caleb glanced in the rearview mirror, like a cop, like a father driving his fourteen-year-old on a date. “All set back there?”
     
    Regina nodded. Dylan had withdrawn to his side of the car. Fine.
    She hadn’t asked for his company. She wasn’t going to cling. She pressed her lips together, pressed her hands together, keeping them warm between her legs.
     
    They rode to the restaurant in silence.
     
    *
     
    Dylan gazed out at the unlit streets, his heart a live coal in his chest.
    He needed to talk to her. He had to explain, to win her over somehow, to make her accept . . .
     
    Not him. Dylan scowled. His experience with his own family, with his father and his brother, made him despair of Regina ever accepting him.
     
    But she had to accept his protection, the necessity of it. For the sake of the child she carried. Whether she liked it or not.
     
    His hands closed into fists. When he had led her to the Jeep, she had leaned on him. Just for a moment. He could still feel her slight weight against his side, the pressure of her arm.
     
    He glanced at her, her clasped hands nestled between her thighs as if she sought to warm them, and fought a completely uncharacteristic urge to cover them with one of his own.
     
    The merfolk did not touch. Yet as the road wound