Children of the Sea 03 - Sea Lord

Llyr.”
    Lucy watched the two men size each other up like ten-year-olds on the playground. Only ten-year-olds never left her feeling shaky and breathless, as if they’d sucked up all the available oxygen.
    Few men had the height or the balls to look down on her brother. Conn ap Llyr apparently possessed both. “And you are . . . ?”
    “Caleb Hunter. Chief of Police.”
    Neither man offered to shake hands.
    Lucy reminded herself to breathe. She had brought this stranger here. It was her responsibility to smooth things over. “He knows Dylan, he said.”
    Caleb aimed a look over her shoulder at Regina. “Where is Dylan?”
    Regina pressed her lips together. “In back. With—”

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    “Get him,” Caleb ordered before she could say Maggie’s name.
    Regina disappeared through the kitchen door without a backward glance, leaving Lucy alone with the two men. And no idea what was going on.
    It was like a scene out of some old Western, she thought fancifully. The local sheriff facing down the visiting gun-slinger in the bar. Her heart bumped. She had never liked confrontation. Still, she could appreciate the picture they made, solid Caleb in his wrinkled uniform, the big stranger in his elegant suit.
    Her brother’s suit.
    Dylan swung through the kitchen door and completed the set: tall, dark, and lean in a black T-shirt tucked into faded khaki shorts.
    The air fairly boiled with tension and pheromones, almost too thick to breathe. Lucy shrank into herself, retreating to the line of booths along one wall.
    “Is it just me,” Regina asked from the doorway behind him, “or is it crowded in here?”
    Caleb’s wife, Maggie, spoke from the kitchen, amusement smooth in her voice. “Crowded and hot.”
    She strolled forward, and every man in the room watched her move. Lucy sighed. Caleb’s new wife was exotically beautiful, full-lipped, full-bosomed, with masses of wavy dark hair and sleek, female confidence.
    She took her place by her husband and smiled around the room. “Very hot.”
    “Margred,” Conn said gravely. “You look . . . recovered.”
    Caleb jammed his hands in his pockets, his shoulders squared.
    Conn knew her, Lucy realized. How did he know her? Maggie was a newcomer to the island, a victim of the violence earlier in the summer. Caleb had found her, bloodied, dazed and naked on the beach, and brought her home. Maggie said that the attack had robbed her of her memory. But she certainly seemed to recognize Conn.
    “I am well.” Margred touched her husband’s arm, a subtle gesture of restraint or support. “As you see.”
    It really was like watching a movie, Lucy thought. Or taking part in a play. Only she’d wandered into the second act, and nobody had handed her a script.
    Red stained Dylan’s high cheekbones. “My Lord,” he exclaimed. “Conn.” Except he ran the phrases together: My Lord Conn. “What are you doing here?”
    Conn raised his eyebrows. “Have you forgotten your responsibilities, that you must ask?”
    Lucy looked at her brother’s face. Ouch, she thought.
    Regina stuck out her chin. “Maybe he has other responsibilities now.”
    “Then I should have been informed.”
    Dylan took Regina’s hand and pulled her to his side. “Regina is to be my wife.”
    “Ah.” Conn’s gaze, light as frost, surveyed her face; dropped briefly to her belly. “Congratulations. You will want this, then.”
    He slipped a silver chain from under his shirt and around his neck, and laid it on the glass display case.
    Lucy heard the clink of metal and felt a buzzing in her head like a hive of bees. Her fingertips tingled.
    Through the swarming in her head, she saw Caleb step closer to the counter. “What is it?” he asked.
    “A warden’s mark,” Margred breathed.
    A what?
    “A wedding present,” Conn said at the same time.
    Dylan’s face went from red to white. Whatever it was, Lucy thought, her brother wanted it very badly.
    She blinked, trying to clear the cloud from her eyes, to quiet the hum inside her.
    Caleb rocked back on his heels and shot him a challenging glance. “A present? Or a bribe?”
    Conn’s mouth became a hard, flat line. “You underestimate the gift. And your brother.”
    “Say, instead, that my husband does not underestimate you,” Margred murmured. “The timing—”
    “Dylan earned this.”
    Forgotten in her corner, Lucy wondered, Earned what? Earned it how?
    She