throwing in the towel?” Loucan felt his scalp tighten with anger. “Giving up the search? This is because of Phoebe!”
“It’s not,” Kevin insisted. “And I’m not throwing it in. I’ve got one thing left to suggest, the only thing I believe can get a result.”
“Yeah? Then I want to hear it. Straight.”
“You knew Thalassa,” Kevin said. “How old was she when you left Pacifica that first time?
Loucan shrugged impatiently. “That was twenty-five years ago. She was eight and I was fourteen. What does that have to do with anything?”
“You knew her then,” Kevin repeated. “And you knew Cyria, who was her guardian. And whatever has happened to both of them since, there are ways in which people don’t change. Think, Loucan!” It wasn’t quite a command, yet much more than a plea. “You’re the one with something to go on. Memories. Impressions. Things you couldn’t communicate to me even if you tried, because you’re not going to realize what’s significant until you’re actually living the search.”
“Me? Living the search? You want me to find her?”
“Yes. If anyone can find Thalassa after all this time, it’s you.”
Kevin’s eyes blazed intently, and he’d balled one hand into a fist. Given the kind of man Kevin Cartwright was, that meant the idea deserved at least Loucan’s consideration.
He nodded slowly and narrowed his eyes, thinking, struggling….
Memories? Impressions? Lord, it was hard! He’d last seen Thalassa twenty-five years ago, back in Pacifica, when he was just a boy. Since then, he’d had adventures enough for three lifetimes.
He’d spent ten years, and more, roaming the world. He’d swum with pods of whales on their great migrations around the Pacific rim, until he knew every current in that vast ocean. Living on land, he’d worked as a commercial fisherman, an Arizona ranch hand and a Wall Street bond trader. He’d swapped identities easily, and he had hungrily absorbed knowledge and understanding from every experience.
He’d never done anything seriously illegal, but he had been in prison once for several days, arrested by mistake. He’d even been married. That wasn’t a memory he liked to dwell on, since it carried with it so much guilt and grief.
For the past fifteen years, he’d spent most of his time in Pacifica, relearning its ways, working to bring together the two warring factions that had divided the mer people for a generation.
But before all of that…
Yes, he realized. He still had memories. One in particular flooded into his mind as he sat and thought, his beer untouched on the table in front of him.
His parents and Thalassa’s had been friends once, before Lass’s father, King Okeana, had come under the malign influence of an evil, manipulative merman named Joran, and his dangerous ideas. The friendship had already begun to fracture by the time Loucan reached his teens, but the two women, Okeana’s wife, Wailele, and Loucan’s own mother, Ondina, were still managing to hold it together, the way women sometimes did. There had been no open rift, and no violence, as yet.
The two families had left the safe confines of Pacifica’s underwater world and gone on a picnic together, at a secret coral island beach. Around a closed fire made from phosphorus distilled out of the ocean itself, they’d feasted on freshly cooked marine delicacies as well as the exotic and expensive treats of earth-grown foods—bananas, coconuts and baked yams.
Loucan remembered Wailele’s frailty. She’d never fully recovered from the difficult birth of the twins, Phoebe and Kai, and could take little part in the day-to-day rearing of her children, particularly lively Lass. Cyria, he remembered, was the dominant influence in Lass’s life even then. He remembered her doting strictness. He wouldn’t have put up with it, he’d thought at fourteen. He remembered Cyria’s unwillingness to share Thalassa with others, and her pride in the bright, pretty child.
Take Lass’s long, rippling, red-gold hair, for example. It had never been cut.
“And never will, while I have breath in my body!” Cyria had declared in his hearing. “It’s far too beautiful, and it sets her apart, as a princess should be.”
Lass had seemed unconcerned by Cyria’s attitude back then. She had delighted in playing with her toddling sisters, entertaining them by building sand castles and digging holes for the sea to fill.
She’d casually obeyed Cyria’s order, “Braid your hair! Keep it out of the sand!” then had gone back to her sisters, with a laugh and a kiss for each of them. She’d made herself a frivolous pair of “shoes” out of shells and strips of seaweed, and all three sisters had giggled as she pranced around in them on the beach. She’d been so full of life and happiness.
But what might have changed since? Cyria and Lass had left Pacifica together, just the two of them, and Cyria’s influence could only have grown stronger.
Still, Lass’s spirit would have been hard to break. Loucan remembered how she’d left the beach and swum far out into the ocean, lazing there during the minutes it took for her tail membrane to form. He had followed her at a distance, unwillingly impressed by her boldness. She was only a little kid!
Then some dolphins had swum past and she’d joined them, surfing and frolicking in the waves….
Yes, Kevin was right. There were memories.
Kevin was watching him. And watching his untouched beer. Loucan blinked and quirked his lips in a reluctant and self-conscious smile. His voice came out slightly husky as he told the younger man, “I see what you mean. You’re right. Maybe I am the only one who has a chance of finding her.”
And with Kevin’s thoughtful and curious gaze still fixed on him, Loucan was struck by a sudden intuition that, after all, finding Thalassa was going to be the easy part.
Chapter One
Thalassa came toward Loucan across a lush field of green grass, where several sleek and well-fed horses grazed.
Her red-gold hair, which still shocked him with its almost boyish length, glinted like polished copper. A clingy, cream knit tank top showed off smooth pale skin and a figure that was just as shapely above the waist as it was below. Her legs were neat and athletic in a pair of khaki stretch pants, and she had brown leather boots on her feet, making her walk easy and confident. She was as graceful and sure in her body as one of the horses she’d just been tending.
Something stirred inside Loucan, and he recognized the feeling with ease. He’d felt it the other night, too—the night they’d first met. He could be attracted to this woman. Very easily. There was something so lush and physical about her. The rich color of her hair. The fullness of her breasts.
There was something very contained and self-sufficient in her emotional makeup, as well. He suspected she wouldn’t open up to him easily. She had reasons for that—reasons to do with the past. She’d probably trained herself to be mistrustful.
But it wasn’t just a matter of history, of discordant beliefs and opposing factions. It went deeper than that, to the very heart of her. The powerful sensuality he detected in her seemed dormant, as if she hadn’t yet discovered it.
Or
