LOGAN WOKE UP WITH A HELL OF A HANGOVER. AND
he hadn’t even been drinking—how was that for
fucking sucks?
No, it wasn’t a hangover. He was drained. Physically from one of the best nights of his life—before her reve-lation—and emotionally… from, well…
The damn revelation itself.
She was a mermaid. A mermaid.
He wouldn’t have believed it if he hadn’t seen it with his own eyes. He almost wished he’d touched her tail—
No he didn’t. She was a mermaid, for chrissake.
Mermaids were myths. Legends. Sirens. They lured ships onto rocks and sailors to their deaths by promis-ing nights of deadly delight. Which she’d proved in that damn kitchen.
He knew something weird had been going on. He didn’t attack women. No matter how gorgeous they were.
And yet, he’d slept with her. Was he out of his mind?
He had to be. She had to have cast some spell over him to make him fall—oh, shit.
Logan threw the covers off, one half of his brain call-ing him all sorts of idiot for even thinking what he was thinking, the other half terrified she had actually done something to him.
He looked down. Normal. Thank God.
Tired and worn out, but normal. Je-sus.
Logan dropped his head back on the pillow, his arms flopping to the sides, his hand curling into an indenta-tion he found on his left. When he realized what he was doing, he yanked it away.
She. Was. A. Mermaid.
Logan ran a hand over his face. He needed a shave. Hell, he needed a lot of things. A shave, a shower,
a drink, and a trip out of town. Not necessarily in that order.
Michael.
Logan closed his eyes, groaning. How was he going to tell Michael about Angel leaving?
How was he going to tell Michael about Angel?
Uh, son? Remember when I said mermaids don’t exist? Well, I was wrong. They do, and they’re every bit as sensuous and desirable as the legends say.
Yeah. Not kid material.
Seriously, what was he going to tell Michael?
Kicking the rest of the sheet off, Logan groaned his way to sitting. He dropped his hands between his legs, resting his elbows on his thighs, chin to his chest, and took a deep breath.
And another.
Somehow he was going to have to explain to his son that the woman he’d come to care about was gone. Logan wasn’t sure if that “he” referred to Michael, or to him.
Logan stood up. It didn’t matter who it referred to. She was gone. It was over—and there was a mer-maid swimming somewhere out in the water off the
coast of Florida and he was the only one who knew about it.
As if anyone would believe him anyway.
He turned on the shower, the quick hiss of the cold spray hitting his skin with the brutality he needed to really wake up and get out of this fog. So, okay, he wouldn’t be telling anyone he’d seen—slept with—a mermaid. Life could go on just as it always had. As it had before she’d shown up.
Ignoring the fact that the shampoo in his shower was the same one he’d stocked the guesthouse with—he was not going to remember what she’d smelled like—Logan poured some onto his palm, then rubbed it into his hair— a little too vigorously.
Good job on the ignoring…
He took a breath. Life would go on as it had before she’d shown up.
Except life wasn’t the same, and she had shown up—
And he’d gone and fallen in love with her.
His eyes started to burn. Shit. He’d gotten shampoo in them.
Logan ducked his face beneath the spray, gritting his teeth against the pain.
In his eyes. The pain in his eyes.
Yeah, right.
Okay, so what? Yeah, it hurt. He’d never been in love with anyone before, not even Christine, and now, when he did go and fall in love, she was a freaking mermaid? Talk about fucked up. And he’d thought the circus was bad. Wouldn’t his parents just love to get their
hands on her? The perfect sideshow.
Hell. That damn prediction of Nadia’s. She’d actually been right.
But so what? There could never be anything between him and Angel. She was a mermaid.
Maybe if he said it enough, it’d start to make sense.
Blinking his eyes, Logan turned off the shower and grabbed a towel, scrubbing his face with it, trying to stop the pain.
If only it were that easy with his heart. How the hell did you fall out of love?
He wrapped the towel around his waist, tossed back a few aspirin, then headed to his closet. However you fell out of love, he was going to do it. He wanted Normal. Not the sideshow. Not a scientific anomaly or a legend come to life. Normal. Was that too much to ask?
Apparently it was, and now he had to tell Michael.
He was probably looking forward to that less than trying to get last night out of his head. All of last night.
Logan pulled on his shorts and grabbed a button-down off a hanger, folding the sleeves back on his forearms as he walked down the hallway to his son’s room. Ten o’clock. They’d both overslept. No surprise why he had. But, Michael? Actually, that was surprising.
Logan opened the door. “Hey, Mi—”
The bed was empty. Great. Real responsible, Hardington, letting a six-year-old get up for breakfast on his own.
And he thought he could do this parenting thing, how?
Logan scratched his chest, then looked down. He’d buttoned the damn buttons wrong. And he wondered how
he could sleep through Michael getting up? Obviously too damn easily.
Reworking the buttons, Logan headed downstairs, checking the kitchen and finding it empty. No cereal bowl in the sink. He opened the dishwasher.
Not there either.
He walked down the half-flight of stairs to the family room. “Michael?”
No answer.
Now he was worried.
Logan ran out the back and headed to the pool, dread pulling at him, weighing down his legs.
He jumped the gate and ran to the edge. Oh thank God. No Michael.
So where the hell was he— The ocean!
Logan ran across the flagstone path, down the steps, and onto the beach. Sand filled his shoes as he ran. He kicked them off.
“Michael!”
God, had Michael wandered down here? Had he seen Angel?
Had she taken him?
The thought punched him in the gut, and he stumbled to a stop.
Had that been her plan all along?
The thought sucked the rest of the wind out of him.
No. She wouldn’t do that. She couldn’t do that. Not after last night.
But what did he really know about last night? Hell, what did he really know about mermaids? They had to have gotten their reputation somehow.
Oh, God… he’d willingly brought her into his home.
Set the stage for this… Then he saw Rocky. And the sneakers. “Michael!”
The word tore from his throat, burning raw with re¬gret as he fell to his knees at the water’s edge.