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“Take a break,” he said, jerking his thumb in the direction of the stairs.
Without comment, the men threw down their poles and headed past Beth on their way out. Ignoring them, she hurried on toward Ralph. By the time she reached him, he was crouching next to a wooden trunk by the platform steps.
Beth, already breathless, grew even more so when she saw the dart gun he lifted out. “You can’t!” she said.
He glanced at her, the recent anger on his face replaced with his usual expression of kindly wisdom. “I have to. He refuses to get into the cage.”
“But there’s no way to tell how a tranquilizer will affect him. It might hurt or permanently injure him.”
“I doubt it, but even so that’s a risk I’ll have to take.” Ralph rose to his feet, gun still in hand. He reached into the box again for some darts and stuffed them in his pocket as he reminded her, “I need to tend to that wound.”
“But you said his wound was minor.”
He shrugged. “I realized when I saw it again today that I was wrong. But don’t take my word for it. See for yourself.”
He gestured toward the platform, silently inviting her to climb up. Stung by the mockery in his tone, Beth glanced at his face. His expression was polite, concerned—and just the slightest bit condescending. Her fingers curled into fists. Ralph knew she was afraid of the water—not to mention the merman himself. But what he didn’t know was that no Livingston ever backed down from a challenge.
Squaring her shoulders, she stomped toward the wooden steps. Ignoring Ralph’s surprised expression, she climbed up them, aware that he was following right behind her. When she reached the top, she gingerly walked out a few feet onto the platform, careful to stay in the center of the structure. There she paused, and forced herself to look out over the tank for the merman.
For a few dizzying seconds, she couldn’t even find him. All she could see were the undulating peaks and valleys of the restless water. Then a golden flash broke the surface at the far side of the tank. Like a dolphin, the merman suddenly arced high into the air, droplets of water glittering all around him like a shower of diamonds before he disappeared back beneath the surface.
“He’s never done that before!” Ralph exclaimed in surprise, then frowned. From beneath lowered brows, he slanted a considering glance at the woman by his side.
Beth barely noticed. Startled by the merman’s sudden appearance, she’d only caught a glimpse of the red mark high on his left shoulder before he dived underwater. She kept her eyes on his shadowy form, waiting for him to resurface. When he rose into view again, he was much closer, and this time Beth saw his wound clearly. The sight made her stomach lurch. Obscenely red and raw, the gash looked painful—as if someone had crudely slashed a lightning bolt into the merman’s smooth bronzed skin.
“It’s ghastly,” she said huskily as the merman dived back underwater. Turning to confront Ralph, she demanded, “You didn’t see how bad it was yesterday?”
He shrugged, smiling ruefully. “All right, yes. I did. But I didn’t want to worry your father.”
“So you lied.”
His smile faded, and his wide brow creased in a slight frown. Removing a dart from his pocket, Ralph slipped it into the gun before glancing at her again. His voice was very crisp as he retorted, “No, I simply bent the truth a little.”
Snapping the clip down, he strode to the edge of the platform and peered into the water with a narrowed gaze. His jaw tightened as he saw that the merman had swum to the far side of the tank.
With an impatient exclamation, Ralph swung back around to face Beth. His frown darkening at the disapproval on her face, he added, “I’m concerned about your father’s condition, too, Elizabeth. I thought it best to save him as much anxiety as possible. If you can’t understand that—”
“I can,” she interrupted, biting her lip.
He nodded abruptly. “Good. Now go get the Delanos back in here—and perhaps you’d better stay outside a while. This won’t hurt the animal, but—”
Ralph broke off to stare down in stunned surprise at the strong, lean hand grasping his ankle. “What the hell is— Ack!”
The pistol flew into the air, skittering at Beth’s feet as Ralph fell backward. With a huge splash he hit the water.
Beth’s eyes widened and her hand flew up to cover her mouth. Good lord! The merman had jerked Ralph off his feet!
Hurrying to the end of the platform, she looked down over the edge. The merman was swimming away. Ralph was flailing just beneath the surface of the water.
He bobbed up, gasping for air. “Elizabeth! Get the Delanos, I—”
A muscular armed wrapped around his neck, choking the words off. The merman had circled, coming up behind him. With frightening ease, the merman pulled Ralph back against his broad chest, holding him there with one arm across his throat, the other around his ribs. The immense muscles of the merman’s shoulders and biceps leaped into corded knots beneath his gleaming brown skin as slowly, steadily, he tightened his grip.
Beth watched in horror as Ralph’s eyes widened. His round cheeks turned from pink to red as he tore fruitlessly at the muscular forearm locked against his wind-pipe. His eyes rolled then bulged as he fought to escape, his expression filled with panic. But it was the sheer lack of emotion on the merman’s face behind him that finally spurred Beth into action.
“Oh, no. Oh, please no,” she pleaded unconsciously, desperately looking around, trying to decide what to do.
Her frantic glance fell on the tranquilizer gun Ralph had dropped on the wood. Snatching it up, she pointed it with a trembling hand toward the two figures battling in the water.
Ralph’s struggles were growing feebler. His face, held just above the water line, turned from red to purple. On shaking legs, Beth moved to the other side of the platform, trying to get a clear shot at the merman’s back.
She had it—his uninjured shoulder was in her sights. She steadied her hand. But a split second before she pulled the trigger, he swung around again.
The dart hit Ralph, high in the chest.
Beth’s hand fell, the gun dropping from her numb fingers. She could see the dart sticking out from Ralph’s wet shirt, right below the tanned forearm locked around his neck. The blood drained from her face. Now—thanks to her—the merman would finish Ralph off with no problem at all.
“Oh, God, no,” she said, the words emerging huskily from her tight throat. “I’ve as good as killed him.”
The thrashing figures suddenly became ominously still as trapped in the merman’s hold, Ralph went limp. Over his shoulder, Beth’s despairing gaze locked with merciless blue eyes. For a long, endless moment the merman stared at her silently.
Then he slid underwater, carrying Ralph with him. Beth’s hand crept to her throat—then she gasped as a form suddenly burst out of the foamy water. Water flew everywhere as Ralph landed on the platform at her feet.
She quickly bent down over him. Water streamed from his hair, his clothes—dribbled out of his mouth and nose. He was soaked. He was weak. But when she pressed her fingers against the side of his neck, she could feel his pulse beating.
He was alive.
“Oh, thank you, thank you,” she breathed, looking toward the water.
But the merman had glided away.
Chapter Four
Ralph obviously wasn’t going to awaken anytime soon.
“The tranquilizer in that dart you showed me is pretty strong,” Anne, her father’s nurse, informed Beth about an hour later. The nurse straightened and stared down at the man in the bed, shaking her white head. “He’ll probably regain consciousness in about six hours, possibly a little longer.”
Bending over again, she lifted one of Ralph’s eyelids and pointed a tiny flashlight at his pupil. Ralph didn’t move at all. He continued to lie there with a silly grin on his face, as if he’d had a bit too much to drink.
Such a contrast to his usual demeanor, Beth thought, feeling oddly guilty. He was almost unrecognizable. The Delano brothers had stripped his wet clothes off after lugging him to his bedroom while she’d run to get Anne, but they hadn’t bothered to dry Ralph before covering him with a sheet. A wet patch haloed his head on the pillow, and half of his red hair stuck out in greasy spikes, while the other half was plastered to his pale freckled skull.
The Delanos had laid him at a crooked angle on the mattress, too, Beth noticed. She kept wanting to straighten him out, as if doing so would straighten out this whole entire mess.
She watched Anne examine the puncture wound in Ralph’s shoulder. The creases in the nurse’s forehead deepened as she frowned at the tiny red mark, then glanced at Beth.
“You say you accidentally shot him while he was teaching you to use the dart gun?” she asked—for at least the third time.
“Um-hmm.”
“And he acquired the bruises on his chest and neck when he fell?”
Beth nodded, still avoiding the older woman’s eyes. She hated to lie to Anne. Over the years, the nurse had become more of an adopted aunt rather than simply her father’s caretaker and, along with Captain McDugald, was one of the few people Beth considered a friend. Beth knew that Anne’s snowy white hair, plump figure, and absentminded expression hid a very keen mind and equally kind heart.
Yet for some reason, keeping the merman a secret seemed even more important now than before he’d attacked Ralph. Perhaps because a normal merman was bad enough. A savage one was worse.
“Those don’t look like bruises he’d get from a fall,” Anne commented.
“He hit the edge of the platform after I shot him,” Beth explained, trying to make her story a little more believable. Conscious that the other woman was watching her intently, she busied herself by pulling the sheet up higher over Ralph’s milk-white chest. “But you think he’s going to be all right?”
The nurse nodded. “He should be—barring any unforeseen complications,” she added with characteristic caution. “He might have cracked a rib or two—without X rays I can’t tell. He’ll certainly want to take it easy for a week or so. But he’s young, healthy. All he really needs to do right now is sleep it off.” She turned away to repack her equipment in a small, brown case.
Beth gave a sigh of relief. If Anne said that Ralph was going to be all right, then she had no doubts he would.
The merman, however, was another story. A small frown puckered Beth’s brow as she thought about the wound on his shoulder. “Anne…”
“Yes?”
“What would be the best way to treat a gash—say, from a piece of coral or even maybe a piece of wood or steel?”
Anne’s gaze sharpened as she turned to scan Beth up and down. “Are you hurt?” she asked bluntly.
“No.”
“Then who is?”
“No one exactly,” Beth said, waving her hand in a vague gesture. “I was speaking hypothetically.”
“I see.” Anne raised her white brows questioningly. “And is this hypothetical gash infected? Does it need stitches?”
“I’m not sure—that is, I wouldn’t think so.” Good grief, Beth thought. She hoped not. “How would a person tell?”
“It needs stitches if that’s the best or only way to stop the bleeding.”
Beth gnawed on her lower lip, unsure if the merman’s wound had still been bleeding or not. “And if the bleeding has stopped?” she finally asked, hoping for the best.
“Then I’d possibly still administer antibiotics—and a tetanus shot wouldn’t hurt either.”
Beth nodded. Antibiotics in a pill form might be possible to get the merman to eat, but stitches or a tetanus shot had her stumped. She’d administered shots dozens of times at the children’s care facility where Anne had persuaded her to donate time while in college, but giving one to the merman, well, good luck with that.
She was pondering the problem, when Anne interrupted her thoughts.
“Someone should stay with him until he wakes up.” Anne snapped her medical kit shut with a decisive click, then looked back down at Ralph, who’d begun snoring loudly. “And I need to get back to your father.”
Beth nodded. “I’ll stay. Just give me a minute to change. Oh, and Anne— You won’t mention anything to Dad or the captain about Ralph’s accident, will you?”
“Not if you don’t want me to,” the nurse told her. “Frankly, I don’t see a need to get Carl all worked up over it when Ralph will be just fine, and the captain isn’t too fond of the young man as it is. He’ll probably find a way to hold this against him for some reason.”
“Thanks.” Beth gave her a grateful smile, then left the room. She’d go change her clothes—their clammy dampness was becoming more uncomfortable by the second—then she’d talk to the Delanos, she decided. They could take care of the merman, while she stayed with Ralph.
It was a good plan. Except the Delanos wouldn’t have any part of it.
“The pump and filtering device run just fine on their own. We’re not going near that fish freak again,” Dougie told her, spitting on the deck to emphasize his decision. Big Mike did, too, then smiled at her, his head bobbing in benign agreement with his brother’s decree.
“Who knows when he’ll grab one of us? We take our orders from Lesborn, not your father—or you,” Dougie added, “and since Lesborn’s out of commission…” He shrugged.
Beth looked from one to the other, seeing the fear beneath the sullen determination on Dougie’s face and the bewilderment on Big Mike’s. She straightened her shoulders. “Fine. You two take care of Ralph,” she said decisively. “I’ll take care of the merman.”
Night had fallen by the time Beth returned to the hold. She’d settled the grumbling Delanos in with Ralph—ignoring Anne’s look of surprise—then changed into a dress and had dinner as usual with her father, whose joyful expression and expansive plans about his “fantastic find” assured her he had no idea at all of what had transpired that day.
But as soon as the meal was finished, she slipped away, changing once again—this time into black shorts and a gray shirt. The dark clothing would help serve as camouflage, she thought, to prevent anyone noticing her going into the hold at such an unusual hour. And indeed, no one appeared to notice her as she hurried across the deck to the door.
After she unlocked it, she glanced carefully around, then slipped into the room, letting the door close quietly behind her. She paused, taking the time to twist the lock from inside. No way did she want anyone to come in unexpectedly and discover the merman. She had enough to worry about without that.
She started down the stairs, keeping a steadying hand on the railing. The room was darker, more shadowy, than it had been earlier. Only a dark patch of sky was visible through the porthole. The lights along the wall were still on, though, and the powerful filtering pump hummed steadily. With all the uproar over Ralph, neither she nor the Delanos had remembered to dim the lights before leaving the room, Beth realized. They’d all been too upset—and just plain frightened.
She shuddered, remembering Ralph struggling in the merman’s grip. Clutching the bag of medical supplies she’d “borrowed” from Anne a little tighter, she pushed the memory away and forced herself to continue her descent. Halfway down the staircase, she paused to look over at the tank. For once, the merman wasn’t swimming around. For a few seconds, she couldn’t even see him. He had to be in there somewhere, of course, but the surface of the water stirred gently, creating liquid shadows that made it hard to see.
Then she spotted him, lying with his forearms resting on the platform, the human half of his body lifted out of the water. His head lay on his arms, his face hidden in the crook of his elbow.
Beth’s heart skipped a beat. Was he asleep? Unconscious? she wondered, as she hurried down the rest of the stairs. Surely he wasn’t dead? Anxiety quickened her stride as she headed across the room toward the platform. He didn’t move as she climbed the wooden steps, but as soon as she stepped out onto the structure, he lifted his head.
Relief flowed through her. No, not dead, not even unconscious. But definitely hurting. For a split second—before he’d assumed his usual expressionless mask—she’d swear she’d glimpsed suffering in those dark-blue eyes.
“You poor thing,” she said involuntarily. She started toward him—then stopped in midstep as his lip curled, revealing excellent white teeth.
Beth remained frozen in place, uncertain what to do as he continued to watch her unblinkingly. She needed to get closer, to see to his shoulder. But she couldn’t get her feet to move. From across the room, he’d looked formidable. Up close he was totally intimidating.
For one thing he appeared much larger than he had in the water. Nor, in spite of the hints of pain on his face, did he appear at all weak and helpless. Lying with his arms and torso propped on the wood made his shoulders appear broader, his brown chest deeper than Johnny Weissmuller’s in the old Tarzan movies Anne so enjoyed.
But what really made Beth nervous was that unblinking gaze. Something in his unreadable, narrow-eyed stare made her pulse beat faster, kept her rooted in place like a person afraid of being bitten by a dangerous dog. Not that she’d ever had any contact with dogs—well, except for a puppy she’d played with once when The Searcher had anchored for a time near Catalina island. Nor was she exactly worried about being bitten—although the merman’s teeth did look extraordinarily white and strong. No, she was much more concerned about being dragged into the water as he’d done to Ralph.
She couldn’t forget how easily he’d held Ralph, or the strength it must have taken to throw the man—who had to weigh at least two hundred pounds—back up on the platform.
She took a deep breath trying to calm her racing pulse. The point to remember here was that he had thrown Ralph back, she reminded herself. He’d released him. If the merman was truly, knowingly vicious, then surely he wouldn’t have done that.
Taking comfort from the thought, she took a tentative step forward—then paused again as his eyes gleamed in his shadowy face. Well, at least he’d stopped snarling. That was a good sign…wasn’t it? Of course it was, she told herself. Maybe he just needed a few seconds to get used to her. To realize she wanted to help, not hurt him.
They continued to stare at each other as she tried to think of a way to get her goodwill message across. Maybe she should sing—that was said to soothe the wild beasts. It had worked with King Kong, hadn’t it? She cleared her throat, preparing to try, then abandoned the idea. She really had a lousy voice. For all she knew, it might rile him up. Or at the least, send him underwater. Then she’d never get close enough to tend to his wound.
She tried a compromise, speaking in a soothing tone. “Now don’t worry, I’m not here to hurt you,” she said, slowly stepping toward him.
He didn’t move, just continued to watch her. Taking this as an encouraging sign, she crept closer. “All I want to do is help you with that shoulder. I know it hurts you—it has to. But I have stuff here to help it heal. To make it feel better.”
He still didn’t move. She slowly inched forward until she was able to see his expression clearly. She drew in a breath as he turned his head slightly, and the light fell fully across his face.
No doubt about it, he was suffering all right. His dark, wet hair was slicked back from his face, emphasizing the strong cast of his features. Dark shadows lay beneath his deep-set eyes. His skin looked tauter across his high, proud cheekbones, his face leaner than it had before. And even though his eyes were bright, his eyelids drooped heavily.
She drew closer still until she was within touching distance of his arm. Carefully, she crouched down and extended her hand. Slowly…slowly…until her fingers brushed his biceps.
