Drake Sisters 04 - Dangerous Tides

he pointed out. He allowed the strands of silky hair to slip through his fingers.

    Her heart jumped. "I actually had two hermit crabs as pets and they must have both been males because they didn't drag each other around. They were named Toothbrush and Toothpaste. They escaped and went on a suicide mission right off the deck. I cried for a week."

    His eyebrow shot up. "You cried over a crab?"

    "Well, of course, they were my pets."

    "You aren't normal, Libby," he said with a faint smile, his tone affectionate.

    "I suppose not. Everyone teased me." She pointed to the tide pool. "I've moved on to starfish, but I leave them in their own environment."

    "Starfish?" He gave a little sigh. "That isn't saying much for your taste. Starfish are carnivorous. They eat whatever they get their feet on. They flip their stomachs outside their mouth and digest prey from the inside out. Only after the animal is completely digested do they pull their stomachs back inside."

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    "Ew. You sound like Abigail. Leave me some illusions."

    Tyson laughed aloud and it startled him. He didn't laugh. He pretended to laugh at appropriate times for the sake of his cousin, one of his small concessions to social niceties, but it was never genuine. Libby actually made him laugh for real. She fascinated him. She was a woman born into a family of con artists.
    Just knowing that should be reason enough to stay away from her, but he never could. She was just so…
    so nice. So real. Over the years he'd come to believe she wasn't part of her family's con, but was, instead, a victim of the very people who should have loved her, just as he was to some extent. Without the influence of his aunt, he doubted if he could even function in society at all.

    "You're getting sunburned. I think we need to get you into the shade."

    "I used sunscreen."

    "Well, your nose is getting red."

    "Great." Of course her nose had to be burned. She had such fair skin that every time she removed her sunglasses she looked like a raccoon. Her glasses were staying firmly in place. "I'm not certain there's much shade on this part of the beach." For some silly reason she wanted to stay in his company just a little while longer, even though she knew she should get out of the sun.

    He took her hand and gently tugged until she followed him back to the chairs. "Where's your sunscreen?" He picked both chairs up as if they weighed nothing and moved them against the wall of the cliff in the shade. "Sit down here. You really need sunscreen but maybe this will do."

    She was not going to have her nose be white, covered in zinc while she sat there talking to him. "I left it up at the house."

    He folded his arms across his chest. He had great arms, all rippling muscle. He was a biochemist. How did he get arms like that? Libby bit her lip to keep from sighing. She needed darker glasses so she could just get away with staring. If he kept his mouth shut, she could fantasize and then life would be great again. If only he wouldn't talk.

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    "I saw the brain scans of my head after the accident."

    Libby stiffened. All at once she was totally tense, leery of the real reason he must have sought her out.
    There was belligerence in his voice. She remained silent and pinned her gaze on the foaming surf.

    "Shayner tells me I had major head trauma. Fractures, swelling of the brain, blood clots, that sort of thing. Basically, I had scrambled eggs for a cerebellum."

    "Interesting."

    "He said I should be a vegetable. Instead, I'm walking around with a smashed chest and a few broken ribs."

    "I see."

    "What do you see?" Tyson leaned close to her, his piercing eyes boring into her. "What the hell did you do? And don't give me any of your magic crap. I don't believe in it and I want the real explanation. You did something. You had to have. Shayner said before you were in that room with me, I was a vegetable.
    After, other than a few cracked ribs and other minor injuries, I was perfectly fine. What the hell did you do?"

    "Crap?" Libby repeated. "Our magic crap?" Fury shimmered through her body, gripped her hard so that she actually looked around for something to throw at him. She'd endangered her sisters as well as her own life and he called what she did crap . "Is that what you call what I do?"

    He ran a hand through his hair. "You know, I'm not