A week later
“WHEN IS SHE COMING BACK?” IT WAS THE SAME QUESTION
Michael asked him every night.
Logan set the beers down on the hall table out-side Michael’s bedroom door. His son shouldn’t see him drinking.
He shouldn’t be drinking.
But it made thoughts of her so much easier to take. No. Not easier. Less difficult. Bearable.
Almost.
“I don’t know when, Michael.” That was the same answer Logan gave him every night. “Do you want to talk about it?”
Michael slouched further under his covers, the stuffed raccoon falling on his head from atop the pillow. “I dunno.”
Which meant yes in kid-speak.
Logan pushed the door open and walked over to Michael’s bed, nudging his son’s legs over so he could sit. “I’m sure she’s fine, Michael.”
“Do you think Ceto put her in a cage like Joey?” “Joey was in a cage?”
Michael had told him about the friend he’d met there, this Joey, but this was the first he’d heard about any cage. It made him shudder to think of what he and Michael had narrowly escaped.
Only… Angel hadn’t.
“Yup. It was a big room with a bed and everything, but with handcuffs on the bed and bars on his door. He kept asking me to get him out, so I don’t think he liked being in there.”
Logan didn’t know which revelation to react to first. A bed with handcuffs was not an image he wanted Michael to have in his head. Logan hoped Michael would forget about it after a while, but Logan wouldn’t. Ceto was one sick son-of-a-bitch. No, scratch that. Make that one sick bitch.
And he’d left Angel down there.
“Angel said being in a cage would be yucky, so I hope Ceto didn’t do that to her.”
Logan did, too. But, God, this was just tearing him up. He’d left her in the depths with that sea monster. In a whirlpool that had sucked everything around it straight down.
She couldn’t have survived that… could she? And if she had, was she a prisoner?
“And A.C. was in a cage, too.”
As far as Logan was concerned, the damned shark that started this nightmare could rot in that cage for all he cared. Hell, that was too good for the fish, but Michael had cared about the shark. Had sung the hammerhead’s praises about finding Angel until Logan couldn’t bear to hear anymore.
They’d had several chats about not accepting rides with strangers—or sharks. Logan had considered tak¬ing Michael to see someone professional about the or¬deal, but who’d believe him? Worse, they might find something wrong with his parenting skills and he’d end
up losing his son. No, so far, Michael seemed to have adjusted well—other than pining for Angel.
“I know you miss her, Michael.”
“She promised she’d stay with me,” Michael said half under his breath.
“I know. But sometimes, even when we want to, we can’t keep our promises. She might not be able to come back.” Logan didn’t want to contemplate why she wouldn’t be able to.
“Like Rainbow?”
Another woman he didn’t want to think about. His re-lationships needed a serious overhaul. A flighty woman with zero parenting skills and a mermaid. His life was as much a circus now as it’d been growing up.
He would probably do best by his son to remain sin-gle. After all, he hadn’t exactly had the best role models and would probably do a better job alone than Goran and Nadia had done together. As long as he stayed away from mermaids…
He squeezed Michael’s leg through the covers. “Rainbow will come back someday.”
Probably when Michael turned eighteen and was an adult who’d be able to support her, but Logan realized he was going to have to hunt her down before that. She couldn’t abandon their son.
Michael reached for Rocky and tucked him against his chest so tightly that if the animal were real, he’d suf-focate. “Nuh-uh. Rainbow said she couldn’t come back. That’s why she gave me the hat. For frembrance. ’Cause she had to meet someone.”
“Meet someone? Who?”
“I dunno, and she didn’t want to talk about it. Mr.
Ray said it was about a big sea and Rainbow didn’t really want to go. Then he laughed, but it wasn’t a funny laugh. When Angel comes back, can she live in Rainbow’s sea? That’s why I wanted a mermaid for my birthday, so Rainbow would have a friend.”
Logan’s blood ran cold. “She had to meet someone about a big sea?”
“That’s what Mr. Ray said.” The big… C?
Oh, God. He’d misjudged her. Christine hadn’t abandoned Michael out of selfishness, but selflessness. She’d spared their son the agony and worry of watching her go through cancer—and dying from it, by the sound of it.
She’d given Michael to him because she wasn’t going to be around.
Logan blinked back the wetness that sprang to his eyes and inhaled a deep, shaky breath.
Hell. He’d misjudged her. And Angel, too. Badly. Logan cleared his throat and leaned over to kiss
Michael’s forehead, putting the baseball cap back in place afterward. “I think Angel would love to live in Rainbow’s sea, son.”
If she’d somehow survived Ceto’s.
He had to find out. He had to give Michael something to believe in. Both women couldn’t be lost to his son. Or to him.
“Night, Logan.”
Logan. “Dad” had lasted until Angel hadn’t shown up that next day.
“Good night, Michael. I love you.”
Michael murmured something. He always did.
Never clear and never loud, but Logan chose to think of it as a “Me, too.” The pretense helped him sleep at night.
So did the beers he picked up when he walked out of Michael’s room. He headed down the hallway, through his bedroom without a glance at the bed he hadn’t been able to sleep in, then onto his deck.
Again.
It was a damn familiar and painful routine.
He sat on the decking and stretched one leg out in front of him, the other bent so he could rest his beer arm on it, dangling the bottle against his thigh, swirling the contents around after each swig.
Six nights now. Six nights on his deck, staring out at the silvery water.
Alone.
Between Christine’s—no, Rainbow’s, he owed her that—illness and Angel’s disappearance, well, Logan wasn’t quite sure where to begin his penance.
He’d have to see if he could track down Christine’s family, though the effort would be futile at best. She’d been a free spirit and hadn’t claimed any ties to anyone or anything—something they had in com-mon since he hadn’t liked claiming his. It was why he hadn’t blinked when he’d read her note about Michael—it fit her perfectly.
As for finding her now… She and Michael had lived so many places, according to Michael, that he didn’t have a clue where to begin. And with that baseball cap for “frembrance,” she obviously didn’t want him to. Michael—and he—would have to remember her as they’d known her, not as she was at the end.