Swimming Without a Net (5 page)

“Will Prince Artur be there?”

Fred groaned. “Yes.”

“It’s a regular Hottie Convention,” Jonas said. “It’s just stupid how all the Undersea Folk are gorgeous.”

“Hmmm,” her mother said.

“What, ‘hmmm’?”

“It’s amazing how a person such as myself, generally open and friendly, could have raised such a suspicious creature.”

“Well, so what if you did?” Fred snapped. “Who cares if Artur’s there? Not me! I haven’t even thought about the guy since he said he wanted me to be a princess and then swam out of town. And I don’t
want
to think about him, and I’ll thank you two to stop cramming him down my throat!”

Jonas and Moon blinked at her.

Fred coughed and lowered her voice. “Also, I’d like to use Sam’s office for a minute. And also the bathroom. And then we’re out of here.”

“Well, that’s fine, sweetie. Have fun at your Pelican.”

“Oh, sure,” Fred muttered. “Tons of fun at the Pelican. Pelican, here I come.”

“Here
we
come,” Jonas corrected her, cheerfully.

Fred bit back several retorts, contented herself with a final baleful glare, and exited the kitchen.

The van pulled up to the Pirate’s Cove Resort on
Little Cayman Island with its engine laboring. It was painted serial killer green, and smelled like feet.

“Finally!” Jonas said, peering out a dirty window. “I thought we’d never get here.”

“And I thought you’d never shut up.” It had been an excruciating twelve hours, made more difficult by the fact that Fred was not a fan of flying. But she only had herself to blame for the long day. She had declined the Grim Duo’s offers to lead her to the meeting place via the ocean. She didn’t think she could swim all the way to the Caymans in less than four days. In fact, she’d never been farther south than Florida. And she sure as hell couldn’t keep up with a couple of full-blooded Undersea Folk. She’d pass on the humiliation, thanks.

As he had promised, Jonas had fixed her time off with Dr. Barb. He’d even packed their bags and cleaned out their fridges. Fred just sat back and let him organize her life. It made things easier on her, and seemed to calm him down.

She and Jonas climbed out of the van, fetched their luggage, then coughed as the driver roared off in a spume of dust.

“Real friendly around here, aren’t they?” Jonas gasped, waving the cloud of dust away from his face.

“Well, we were promised privacy. Can’t have mermaids beaching themselves on public property.”

Jonas snickered and slung his bag over one shoulder. He was bizarrely attired in a yellow Hawaiian shirt, buttercup yellow shorts, and penny loafers without socks. He had forgotten his sunglasses, and so he squinted. His hair, as always, looked perfect.

Fred, by contrast, felt as wrung out as an old washcloth. Her green hair was matted to her head, she needed a shower, and her shorts kept trying to climb into her ass. If she actually cared about her appearance, this could be—

“Hey! You’re here!”

And before she could say anything, or step out of reach, Dr. Thomas Pearson ran up to her and planted a kiss on her mouth.

“Wh-what?” She dropped her bag. On her foot, unfortunately
, but she was too amazed to reach for her throbbing toes. “What are you doing here?”

“You kidding? Who do you think is paying for the resort?” Thomas spread his arms, indicating the deserted buildings and empty beach. “I promised Artur I’d clear out the resort so you guys could have your big meeting. Booked the whole place for a month and gave the staff paid time off. Bad news is, we have to do our own cooking.”

“You
know
about the Pelagic?”

Her fellow marine biologist laughed hard. “Yeah, is that a great name, or what?”

“I don’t get it,” Jonas complained. “Stop talking in your secret marine biologist language, you geeks. But it’s nice to see you again, Dr. Moneybags.”

“You, too, Jonas.” The two men shook hands. “You still seeing Barb?”

“Ohhhh, yes!”

“Don’t get him started,” Fred begged.

She made a mighty effort to recover from her shock. As if the upcoming Pelagic wasn’t unnerving enough, as if the Grim Duo hadn’t been annoying, now here was Thomas, friendly as a puppy and ten times as cute. Her mouth actually burned from his kiss.

She tried again. “What are you doing here?”

He slung an arm around her and she shook him off. “You’ve only got yourself to blame,” he said cheerfully. “Artur tracked me down in England and invited me to the meeting. Apparently it’s bad form among mer-people to pursue a lady while fixing it so your rival
can’t
.”

“What?” Fred was having a terrible time tracking the conversation.

“Oh ho!” Jonas cried, and she was annoyed to see that her friend was having zero trouble tracking the conversation. “Artur won’t try to get Fred into bed unless you’re also trying?”

“Basically.”

“What?”

Jonas cringed away from her, but Thomas, to his credit, stood his ground. “Who am I to argue with Undersea Folk tradition?”

“I think I could take a crack at it,” Fred retorted.

“Hey, it’s actually pretty civilized when you think about it.”

“Too bad,” she grated, “no one ran it by me.”

“Besides, you think I’d miss this chance? No way in hell!”

“The chance to try to bone Fred?” Jonas asked, wiggling his blond brows. “Or to see a thousand topless mermaids?”

“Whatever.” Thomas beamed. “It’s all good.”

“I’m getting a migraine,” Fred muttered. “Which hut is mine?”

“The one I’m sleeping in,” Thomas said hopefully.

“Nice try. I’ll take that one.” And she marched toward number six.

The insistent banging on her hut door woke Fred
from an uneasy nap. In fact, at first the pounding incorporated itself into her dream.

It was thirty years ago and she was trying to break into her mother’s house to warn her not not
not
to have sex with the merman she found on the beach. But no matter how hard she pounded, her mother didn’t heed, or even turn her head. Fred pounded harder—

—and woke up.

Her door was actually rattling on the hinges; whoever was outside was in a hell of a hurry to talk to her (or possibly to use her bathroom). She rolled off the bed and staggered to the door.

“All right, hold your pee!” She yanked the door open and felt herself seized, lifted off her feet, and squeezed in a mighty bear hug.

She punched the Prince of the Undersea Folk in his left eye, and he set her down. “Ah, my Rika. How nice to see you again.” He touched his eye, which was starting to swell. “As gracious as ever.”

“That’s what you get, Grabby Pants.” She tried to sound grudging, but was quite pleased to see him again. And he looked wonderful, as always. Big. Vibrant. Hair and beard those unbelievable shades of red. Like King Neptune in the flesh. And speaking of flesh, he was clothed (barely) in a pair of tattered khaki shorts and that was it. He wiggled his sand-covered toes in her direction. “What’s the big rush?”

“Only to see you, Little Rika. I am pleased you accepted our invitation.”

“The Grim Duo didn’t make it sound like I had much choice.”

“Grim?” Artur’s kingly brow furrowed, then smoothed. “Ah, Tennian and that other fellow, what’s-his-name.”

“Comforting that you can’t remember them all, either. Anyway, they sort of goose-stepped me until I showed up.”

Artur threw his head back and laughed. “As if anyone could force your hand, Fredrika Bimm!”

“I think that was a compliment.”

He beamed at her. “And how is your lady mother?”

“She’s great. She and my stepdad have started taking in foster kids.”

Artur’s brow wrinkled. “Foster…?”

“Kids whose parents beat on them or are orphans or whatever.”

“Your people…
beat
children?
Your own children?
”

“Well.” She coughed. “Yeah. Some of them. Us.”

Artur made a mighty effort and managed to clear the look of horror from his face. “Well, that is a fine thing your mother does. A great lady.”

“Thanks. You’re looking good.” Mild understatement.

“And you, Little Rika,
you
look good enough to gobble up raw.”

“How sweet. You want to explain what Thomas is doing here?”

Artur scowled, and Fred barely swallowed the giggle that tried to escape. “He is my chief rival for your affections.”

“Yeah, okay, keep going.”

“It would be unseemly to whisk you away somewhere he could not access. I must show every courtesy to my rival. Also,” Artur added thoughtfully, “I wish for my father to meet him. He is a formidable warrior. For a biped.”

“So you said last year.”

“Ah, your wound.” He poked her shoulder, and she restrained the urge to punch him in the other eye. These people had no sense of personal space. “You have healed well?”

“Sure. No thanks to you two psychos.”

“You cannot fault our concern.”

There was plenty she could fault them with. But now wasn’t the time. “Well, brace yourself. Not only is Thomas here, but you’re stuck with Jonas, too. He sort of came with the package.”

Artur didn’t smile, but he didn’t freak out, either. “Your friend has behaved honorably in the past, and has kept your secret for…what?”

“Going on twenty-five years.”

“I do not fear Jonas; he is discreet.”

“Discreet? You must be thinking of another Jonas.”

“It was good that Thomas accepted my invitation,” Artur continued. “He and Jonas will be the first surface dwellers in the history of our kind to come to a Pelagic.”

“Yeah, and it’s all gone straight to his head.”

“That would be because of your presence, Little Rika, not mine.”

“Ha,” she said sourly. “And speaking of my presence, you want to explain why it was so hot-damn important for me to come to your meeting?”

“Ah…yes. But later. Have you dined?”

“I had some Pringles on one of the planes.”

“I do not know what a Pringle is, but it sounds vile. Come.” He held out a large hand, and she took it. Her own paw was swallowed in an instant. She sensed rather than felt the crushing power held in check. She was strong, but Artur was a redheaded Superman. “We will eat.”

“Don’t think I don’t know I’m getting the runaround on this Pelagic thing,” she warned him as he practically dragged her out the door. “I keep asking and people keep blowing me off.”

Artur beamed at her. “We have grouper.”

Artur led her past the swimming pool to the main
hut—the lodge, in other words—which had the largest bar she’d ever seen. The thing was the size of her living room, and at least twenty of the bottles were rum. And, like her home, it was set up as one big room…the bar led into the cocktail lounge, which led into the dining room, which led into the kitchen. All tastefully decorated with plastic dolls strung up in fishnets. Sort of an
Alice in Wonderland
meets
CSI
crime scene look.

Supper had been set up buffet style and Fred didn’t hesitate to dig in. Thomas had warned there wasn’t a cook, but someone was sure doing a great job with the kitchen. She had been so hungry she’d forgotten she was hungry—funny how that happened sometimes—but the minute she had smelled the savory grilled vegetables she’d started drooling like a hyena.

As she dished up salad and vegetables, the only other diners—Jonas and Thomas—raised hands in greeting. Jonas quit eating his grouper long enough to lope over to the bar, fix her a vodka sour, and lope back. He plunked the glass down in front of her and went back to shoveling in fish.

“Thanks. Where is everybody?” she asked as she and Artur sat across from them. She glanced out the large windows and saw what she had seen when the van dropped them off: absolutely nothing and no one.

“Mmmph,” Jonas replied.

“Oh, they’re around here somewhere,” Thomas said with a calculated vagueness that didn’t fool Fred. No way would a mermaid geek
not
know where at least a few of the Undersea Folk were.

“Eat your salad,” was Artur’s answer.

If she hadn’t been so hungry, she’d have firmly plonked her fork on the table as a dramatic attention-getting device and refused to pick it up again until she had answers. As it was, she barely had enough time between forkfuls to mumble, “What’s going on? What are you guys hiding? Badly?”

“Eat your asparagus,” Jonas replied.

“Who’s hiding?” Thomas asked, looking guilty.

Artur loudly cleared his throat, a noise that sounded like a cement truck going up a gravelly hill in low gear. “What do you bipeds call this?”

“We call it strawberry pie,” Fred answered. “And seriously, this changing the subject thing…You guys are terrible at this.”

“So, my new book debuted at number twenty-six on the
USA Today
list,” Thomas remarked, scraping his plate.

“I assume you bring up such a thing to garner praise?” Artur asked.

“Yeah, he’s garnering,” Jonas said, draining his rum and Coke. “That means a bunch of bipeds bought his tree-murdering book.”

“Well, jeez, when you put it that way,” Thomas mumbled, crestfallen, and Fred snorted into her drink.

“It’s a good thing,” Jonas finished, quoting one of his idols, Martha Stewart. He still maintained she’d been framed by the bigwigs at Enron to take the heat off themselves. “That’s part of the reason he was able to fix it so we’d have this whole resort to ourselves.”

“Yes, and although my lord father gave thanks, I myself have not done so yet,” Artur pointed out. “We are not without funds, and if you do not mind being compensated in gold, we can—”

Thomas started to demur, when Fred interrupted. “You’ve met the king?” she gasped. “
I
haven’t even met the king!”

“Well, you should,” Thomas said, trying (and failing) not to sound smug. “He’s a great guy. Managed not to vomit at the thought of a disgusting surface dweller muddying up his Pelagic.”

“What’s he look like?” Jonas asked.

Thomas pointed his fork at the prince. “Picture Artur here in another thirty years.”

“I do not think we count time the same way,” Artur said, pausing before demolishing his third piece of pie. “My lord father had sixty-two years when I was born.”

Fred and the bipeds—err, her friends—gaped at the prince. “You—what? Seriously?” she asked.

“We have discussed this before,” Artur said mildly, his princely aura dimmed by the glob of strawberry preserves on his upper lip. “Undersea Folk live longer and age slower.”

“And are super strong and have gorgeous coloring and gravity is kind to them because they don’t need bras,” Jonas said in one breath. “At least, the two mer-
maids
I’ve seen—Fred and Tennian—sure don’t.”

“Gosh, I’m all atwitter.” She chewed furiously on a broccoli head. “And speaking for Tennian, mutter, mumble, mumble.”

“Hey, they can’t all be as charming and warmhearted as you,” Jonas said, leaning forward and spearing a baby carrot off her plate.

“Are you talking about that gorgeous blue-haired girl?” Thomas asked, visibly surprised. “Don’t knock her, you horrible woman. She’s sweet.”

“How can you tell? She never raises her voice. I don’t even think she has teeth. You know those people who are so quiet they make me nervous? I was actually wishing one of
those
was in my apartment at the time. She doesn’t talk!”

“As opposed to some of my folk, who continually speak,” Artur teased. “And of course she has teeth. You should see her in a school of shrimp.”

“Is today ‘shit on Fred and steal her food’ day?” she demanded. “Because nobody told me.”

“My lord father is coming a-land tonight and would like to see you then,” Artur explained. “Right now he is dining with some council members.”

“Hey, you got out of a state dinner,” Jonas pointed out.

“Yes, and I have my biped friends and Little Rika to thank for it.”

“Gee,” Thomas said, coughing into his napkin. “That gets me right here.”

“I’m thinking about getting you right there,” Fred warned, waving her fork threateningly. “So where is everybody?”

All three spoke in unison:

“Eating.”

“Sleeping.”

“Exploring.”

Fred sighed into the embarrassed silence. “Well? Which is it?”

“Well, first they ate, and then they took naps…” Jonas was clearly making it up as he went along. “Then they, um, explored. Because there’s all kinds of stuff to explore here. In the Caymans.”

“Undersea trenches and such,” Thomas added, trying to help Jonas.

“You guys. It’s just so sad. I’m embarrassed for you, I really am.” She savagely chewed a final asparagus tip, swallowed, and added, “Fine, don’t tell me. But I’m gonna find out.” She shook her head and got up to get a slice of pie.