Chapter Seventeen
“Where were you last night?” Shannon’s father asked while he drenched a pancake in strawberry syrup.
Shannon tried to formulate a lie, but functioning on little sleep wasn’t conducive to creativity.
“Uh…” She cut a piece of her pancake pile and shoved it in her mouth.
Her father stopped chewing. His eyes narrowed. “You were next door with him, weren’t you?”
Oh, God. Not the don’t-lie-to-me stare. That one look from her father reduced her to an eight-year-old caught midnight snacking on pie. Pie. Focus on pie. She forced her mouth into a smile and asked, “How was the pie last night?”
His index finger shot out to point her way. “Your mother used to pull the smile and ask a question to distract me. It won’t work on me this morning.”
“So, you didn’t like the pie.”
“Of course I did. It was excellent, as always. Reminded me of her.” His face fell.
“I miss her too. We’ve never really talked about it.”
“She did what she had to do. What she said she’d do. She always told me one day something would threaten you and, if it came to a decision between you and her, well, she’d save you. It was the way of things. But...” He wiped at his eyes and stared at the ceiling fan. “I love you both.”
“I’m sorry. It was my fault. If I hadn’t been there, then she would be with us still.”
He shook his head. “The gods deemed it to be this way. We had a long run. Thirty-five years together. That’s a lot longer than most of you ladies get.” He was trying to hide his agony, but it was in his tone.
She jumped up and ran around the table to hug him. “I love you. I’m sorry to make you nuts, but you’re driving me nuts too.”
He hugged her back and whispered, “She was my soul and you’re my heart. With the boys gone…”
“Yeah.” She resumed her seat and cut another bite of pancake. A huge weight seemed to have lifted in the air between them.
“The pie was good.” He sipped cranberry juice.
Thoughts of pie made it impossible not to remember and obsess over what she’d done with Merck before pie. And after pie. Her mind constantly replayed the experience. She couldn’t go there right now, not at the breakfast table with her father.
“Shannon?” He cleared his throat.
“Yes?”
“Last night…”
So he wasn’t dropping the line of conversation, even though it’d detoured. She shoved an overlarge pancake bite into her mouth and chewed. Seconds later, when her father didn’t offer to change the subject, she said, “You know I’m almost thirty years old. If I decide I want to go out for a while, take pie to a friend or whatever, then I’ll do it.”
“You took him pie?” His look. Oh God, now he was giving her the heart-wrenching, disappointed look.
“Yes.” Good. That came out with more confidence than she felt. She took another bite, even though her stomach identified itself as full.
“Eli picked you up sometime after two in the morning. You slept with him?”
“Who? Eli?”
“Don’t play dense. Eli doesn’t have a real thing for you. You went next door. You brought him pie…”
She covered her face with her hand. “Dad, we’re not talking about this. I mean…seriously?”
“It’s a conversation we’re going to have because I don’t trust him. I don’t know what the hell he is or his motive for being around you. He’s got a bad reputation with women and he’s always had a thing for you.”
Merck had always had a thing for her? Even as a flattered thrill flooded her, she wondered how many dealings her father had had with him. Had he tried to ask her out more than once and her father blocked?
She put down her fork, careful to avoid clinking it against the plate. “I know this comes from your need to protect me. Mom sent me down here to find help, which I’m pretty sure is Merck. He’s a key part of understanding all of this.” Only, I might’ve messed up any chance of him helping by sleeping with him. “We don’t know if the gods are messing with his life or mine.”
“Why would they mess with his life?”
“He’s Poseidon’s descendant.”
“What? That doesn’t make him any better. The bastard could be in cahoots with Poseidon. What the hell were you thinking?”
She bit her tongue against giggling. Only her dad would say “cahoots.” She touched her father’s hand. “Please, calm down. I know you and he had some sort of fight when he was younger, and you don’t like him. I’m worried having you down here. There’s so much going on. I don’t want you hurt.”
He sandwiched her hand between his. “I’m here. I’m not leaving. You’re all I’ve got left. If you died and I wasn’t here…well, I couldn’t live with that.”
“Then you have to let me do what’s needed to figure this out, even if it involves working with Merck. You have to trust me.”
“All right.” He nodded. “I still don’t like you dealing with him.”
“Did Merck really ask to take me out in high school?” She pulled her hand from between his.
Her father’s gaze dropped. “You were too young for him.”
It’d happened. Merck had marched across the creek, knocked on her front door, and intended something more. So many years lost. If they’d had a bit more time together back then, she might’ve discovered they were destined. Sure they’d been so young, but her life may have gone differently. Her mother might still be here.
She and Merck weren’t over. The horror of both of them on a countdown to death meant figuring all this out had to happen right now. “Why did you call him a criminal? What’d he do?”
“He egged my car. He and his friend Chad. Do you know what egg does to a car’s paint?”
She struggled to keep her face serious. “He threw an egg at your car? What’d you do to the poor guy after this dire incident?”
“Poor guy? He was a menace. I hauled them to the police station.”
“Did you press charges?”
He shook his head. “I asked the police to keep them locked up overnight so they wouldn’t do something worse. It was Halloween, and they were fifteen. I had to save us from the toilet paper and who knows what else was on their agenda.” He waved his fork in the air at her. “He was a bad egg.” A smile broke across his face. “Bad pun. Sorry.”
“Oh my God. He egged your car and you flipped out. You were so psychotic about that BMW.”
“The car was one of a kind.”
“Isn’t that the truth. It was in the shop every other week. Lordy, remember when you turned it on, the exhaust smoked like a rocket at takeoff? A real gem.” She burst into laughter.
“You just don’t get it,” he grumbled.
“It almost exploded that one time when Mom drove me to go shopping.”
“Your mother didn’t know how to drive a stick shift.”
“You’re holding a grudge over a kid prank that happened over fifteen years ago?”
He smiled. “Yep.”
She released a pent-up breath, knowing her father was willing to let it go. He might not like Merck or trust him, but he’d trust her.
Eli breezed in and loaded a pancake onto his plate from the pile of cooked ones. “Pancakes. I love your pancakes, Shannon.”
“Thanks.”
“And your strawberry sauce. Bloody hell, I missed this stuff.” He licked the spoon after drowning his pancakes.
Her father didn’t bark at Eli to leave as Shannon was sure he wanted to do.
Eli glanced between the two of them. “What’s on tap for today?”
“Dad said he found someone I can talk to. We’re Skyping in an hour.”
***
Merck’s boat rocked on the offshore waves while he gazed up into the sunny morning sky. The light was so bright it burned his retinas. A few scant clouds lazed high overhead. He leaned over the side and touched the water. All still remained stable. Two dolphins appeared. He recognized their leader, having known the old guy since he was a teenager. The whole pod swam around the boat. He touched the nose of the leader, instantly understanding one of the younger dolphins had an injury. The hurt dolphin bobbed too far away for Merck to reach it.
“I’m not going to hurt you, buddy. If you want help, it’s yours.”
The juvenile didn’t move to get closer.
“Show me what’s wrong.”
The young dolphin surfaced, exposing his tail and entire backside, which were covered in fresh, deep lacerations indicative of a propeller collision. The leader of this pod kept his group away from all boats except Merck’s. This meant someone ventured close, maybe even chased them. He wanted to hit something, but took a deep breath, knowing any outward sign of anger would terrify the young dolphin.
“I’ll help you.”
The older dolphin pushed the juvenile toward Merck. He kept his hand steady, hovering a few inches above the water. The juvie touched his nose to Merck’s fingers. Merck envisioned the wounds healed, and within seconds the dolphin scurried away. It did a flip and chirp before disappearing below. He smiled, relieved to see the damage repaired.
The older dolphin returned to Merck and touched him in thanks. As if the dolphin spoke, he heard a warning in his mind. Athena. Ericthonians. Onshore and fighting.
His heart pumped hard as worst-case scenario images flickered through his mind. Stupid of him to think Athena done. What better time to go after Shannon than when he was offshore.
Damn it.
He whipped out his phone. No text from Danny. The Ericthonians must’ve come in from the shore side then.
He said to the dolphins, “This fight is about more than the Trident. I don’t know if Athena understands that.” The pod leader blinked up at him, offering help. “I don’t want you or your pod hurt. I need to convince Athena this is much bigger than getting the Trident for its power.”
He waited for the dolphins to swim away before cranking the boat and pushing her to top speed. It wasn’t a speedboat, but she could move when asked. Merck calculated time to shore at fifteen minutes. The bow slapped against the water. He wove through the familiar buoys into the coastal channel and toward the Randolph property dock.
He hoped he wouldn’t arrive too late.