Somehow she had taken her Fal from grace and the trauma of her childhood to forge herself into the woman who stood before him, brave, clear-eyed, and strong.
He didn’t deserve her.
“Whatever brought us together — choice or chance or God
— I’m grateful.” He rested his hand at the smal of her back to steer her across the ramp to the dock. “But I don’t know if I belong here. I don’t know where I belong.”
She looked back at him, her smile misty around the edges.
“That’s why we came, isn’t it? To find out.”
She made it sound so simple. His gut churned. He scanned beyond her to the ragged line of rooftops climbing above the parking strip. World’s End wasn’t Sanctuary. No seals played in the harbor, no castle stood upon the hil, no shimmer of magic hung like mist around the rocks.
But despite his words to Lara a moment ago, something tightened his chest and his throat. Longing. Anticipation.
A woman swung down from her landscaping truck—
cora’s floras was painted on the side — to sign for a pal-let of mulch being offloaded from the ferry. Iestyn caught a flash of blond braid beneath her cap and stiffened like Madagh spotting a hare.
Lara glanced over quickly. “Is that her? Lucy Hunter?”
He took a second, longer look. Sure, there was a resemblance, but. This woman’s face was too ful, her eyes too green. “No.”
“I thought I recognized her,” Lara said. “From your dream.”
She was a Seeker, Iestyn remembered. “You didn’t pick up some kind of vibe?”
Regretful y, she shook her head. “Only with you. Usual y I need physical contact to identify the presence of another elemental.”
His mind stumbled on that only with you before he grinned.
“That’s your plan? Walk around the island groping people?”
“I don’t have a plan,” Lara admitted rueful y. “I was sort of hoping that when we final y got here, it would be like the return of the prodigal son.”
He raised an eyebrow. “ ‘Father, I have sinned against Heaven and in thy sight’?”
Her laughter bubbled, surprising them both. “I was thinking more along the lines of kil ing the fatted calf.”
“Hungry, are you?”
Her cheeks turned pink. “I’m fine. Don’t worry about it.”
She was brushing him off. Just the way he’d brushed aside her concerns on the boat.
He hadn’t given a thought to where they would eat tonight.
Where they would sleep.
For years, he hadn’t bothered to plan ahead. Hadn’t needed to think about anyone but himself. The fact that he was now, that he wanted to now, was something else he’d have to think about. Later.
“I’l take you out to eat as soon as we find a place to stay,”
he promised.
She glanced around the emptying wharf. “Shouldn’t we stick around here? In case someone shows up with the welcome selkies banner?”
“Berth first. Search later.”
“It’s the middle of the season,” Lara said. “It might be hard to find a vacancy.”
He regarded the picture postcard view, the parked cars and storefronts staggering up the hil, the snapping flags and spil ing window boxes. She had a point. He didn’t know much about vacation rentals. But he knew rich people.
Yacht people. There would be a room somewhere, for a price.
He nodded at the big white elephant overlooking the harbor. “So we’l start at the top.”
The Island Inn was undergoing renovations, red-haired Kate Begley told them when she final y answered the bel at the front desk. She was a younger woman, wiry and energetic. Judging from the paint in her hair and under her nails, she was doing at least some of those renovations herself.
“I’d hoped to have more of the guest rooms open by now.
But we do have a king suite available on the third floor,” she said, regarding them over the top of her little black glasses.
“Private bath, great ocean view.”
“How much?” Iestyn asked.
Her gaze flickered to the plastic Walmart bags in his hand.
“The suite lists for three fifty-five a night. But I can let it go for three hundred.”
He winced inwardly, doing the mental calculations. Beside him Lara had the fine-boned, fragile appearance of an angel in a stained glass window, her skin pale and transparent, every shadow showing. After al he’d put her through, she deserved the best the inn could offer. The best he had to offer.
He stil had most of his rol from his last job. He could swing at least a couple of nights.
“One fifty cash in advance,” Lara said.
They both regarded her with varying degrees of surprise and respect.
“We came in on the four o’clock ferry,” Lara said, suddenly looking a lot less unworldly. “It’s highly unlikely you’re going to see any more late drop-ins tonight. You can either leave the room empty or take our money.”
“Two hundred,” Kate Begley said. “That includes breakfast in the bar in the morning. Our dining room’s closed during renovations. But I can set you up with coffee, bagels, fruit, stuff like that.”
Lara looked at Iestyn.
“That’d be great,” he said. “What about dinner?”
“Antonia’s on Main Street is very good. A lot of the locals eat there.”
Iestyn peeled a couple big bil s off his rol. “You’re not a local?”
Kate’s face set. “I am for now.”
It was an opening. He dived right through. “It must be hard moving into a place like this where everybody knows everybody else.”
“I don’t plan on staying.” She wiped her hands, fished a key from a cubby. “My parents bought this place ten years ago.
I’m just trying to turn enough of a profit to sel.”
Iestyn ran his tongue over his teeth. “So, I guess you don’t know Lucy Hunter.”
“Hunter. I know Caleb Hunter. The chief of police,”
Kate explained in response to Iestyn’s lifted brow. “And the chef at Antonia’s is a Hunter, too. His sister-in-law, I think.
Regina.”
Memories scuttled like crabs on the sea bottom, stirring him up.
Caleb Hunter.
Regina Hunter. “His sister-in-law, I think.”
Which meant. The connections pinched at Iestyn with razor-sharp claws. Which meant.
“Dylan’s wife.” He forced the words from his thick tongue.
Kate Begley shrugged, pushing two keys across the counter. “Maybe. I haven’t met her husband.”
Iestyn’s head pounded. He couldn’t breathe.
Lara slipped her hand into his arm. He looked down at her, abruptly recal ed to the present.
“Thanks.” He pocketed the keys. “Antonia’s, you said?”
Kate’s glasses glinted as she nodded. “Order the swordfish. Or the lobster fra diavolo.”
The stair carpet was covered in plaster dust. An empty utility bucket sat out on the second floor landing. But their room was large and clean, with a thick white comforter on the bed and thin white sheers at the windows framing a spectacular view of the harbor.
As soon as the door closed behind them, Lara asked,
“What was that about?”
Iestyn crossed the window and stood looking out at the sea.
“It appears we have a lead.”
“The police chief. Caleb Hunter?”
“Yes.”
“He’s selkie?”
“No.” Iestyn jammed his hands in his pockets. “But his brother Dylan is.”
“How does that work?”
“Their father was human. Their mother was the sea witch Atargatis. Halfbloods are more often human than not. It is one of the reasons the merfolk are dying out.”