ANGEL DECIDED SHE WOULD JUST LIE ON THE BEACH ALL DAY.
Right here, at the water’s edge. Listen to the waves, enjoy the tranquility, the solitude, and maybe then she could forget everything that had happened.
“You’re kidding me, right? You’re taking a
vacation?”
So much for solitude. Who in Hades had found her here?
She lifted her head—only to have it snap back when her hair got caught under her—just like it had when she and Logan—
Maybe she’d cut her hair.
She rolled to the side and yanked the soggy mess out with a grunt, holding up her hand to block the sunlight that bounced off the water and into her eyes, blinding her.
“Zeus, Angel. What happened?”
Not that she needed sight to recognize that voice.
Mariana. Great. Just who she needed.
“Nothing happened, Mariana.” Unless you called your life’s work going down the cosmic drain nothing.
Angel wiggled herself back into the water just to prove she was fine.
Maybe she could swim away fast enough so she wouldn’t have to answer any questions—at least until she got back to Atlantis. Then there’d be no escaping
the questions. And the accusations and the disappoint-ment and some kind of censure. And that was if she was lucky.
“Uh huh. Nothing. Right.” Mariana had trained for marathons while Angel had been immersed in her stud-ies, so it was no surprise she didn’t get very far before her sister was swimming beside her. “Last you told me, you were all about living with Humans. One in particu-lar, and I don’t see him around.”
Angel brushed the hair out of her face, trying not to remember how Logan had played with it. That didn’t work well, though, since the whole awful story came tumbling out.
Well, maybe not all of it. Some things were a little
too personal, even for a sister to know.
“You slept with him, didn’t you?” Mariana asked as they hit the drop-off to deeper water.
Then again, why even bother to try?
Angel did a swan dive off the edge, skimming past her sister and hoping to lose her completely in the schools of fish hanging around.
A wasted effort since Mariana caught up to her quickly. These deeper-water basslets, though numerous, weren’t large enough to hide a full-grown Mer, and her sister was as tenacious as a hungry octopus.
“So go back and talk to him.” “He thinks I’m a freak.”
“So? I think you’re a freak, and you still talk to me.” “Very funny.”
“I thought it was. And it got you to smile.”
Angel arched her eyebrows at her sister, then somer-saulted beneath Mariana’s tail, knowing the extra whip
she put on the end would churn the water and knock her sister off-kilter, if not flip her belly-up.
“Fine. Be that way,” said Mariana, managing to keep herself upright even after Angel whipped again.
It figured. While Angel was Just Angel, Mariana was Miss Perfect. Always had been. She never found herself in these kinds of situations.
Of course, that could be because she actually fol-lowed the rules.
Yeah, yeah. Angel didn’t need any lectures from her conscience. Nor a repeat of the waterworks. She wasn’t about to dissolve into a puddle of tears—especially in front of Mariana.
“And it got a grimace out of you, too,” Mariana continued, waving a passing barracuda away. “That’s a reaction, at least. I don’t need you moping for the entire trip back. I don’t know what you expected, Angel, and frankly, I don’t really care. You shouldn’t have gone in the first place. You’ve annoyed every¬one. Well, everyone except Mom and Dad. They don’t know yet, but when they do, they won’t be happy ei¬ther. Especially since your Human found out you’re a Mer.”
Mariana cursed. “Gods, Ang. I came all this way to tell you Rod has consented to give you an interview, but I think that’s the least of our worries now. I hope The Council will be as lenient with you as they were with Reel, but he, at least, had Erica with him. You left your Human out there with the knowledge. I don’t know how they’re going to react at all.”
Did she really need this abuse? Angel waited for a dozen groupers to pass. Bad enough all of Atlantis
had known Rod’s thoughts on her career choice; she didn’t need the whole Atlantic Ocean knowing about her disastrous love life, too. “I’m sorry you got dragged into this, Mariana, but I’m a big girl. I can take my lumps.”
“If only it were lumps. You know the punishment as well as I do. Gods, Angel, I covered for you with Rod. Told him I’d talked to you, and that you knew what you were doing. That there was no way you’d fall for a Human. That you saw what it had done to Mom and Dad when Reel did and were too smart for that.” Mariana snorted. “And now look at you. Mooning over a Human, of all things. What is it that has three of my siblings passing up perfectly good Mers for them?”
“Valerie is only half-Human.” Not that you could tell any-more. Rod’s wife had embraced her Mer half seamlessly.
“Semantics, Angel.” “No, actually, genetics.”
“Don’t get all professorial on me, sis. Save that for Rod and The Council. If I were you, I’d start thinking up my defense instead of getting defensive. And ways to get over him.”
“Get over him? I don’t need to get over him. Logan is a non-issue.” That was what she’d tried telling herself back on the cay before Mariana showed up—too bad saying it out loud didn’t make it any more believable.
“Sure. Okay. Whatever you say.” Mariana swam past her, yanking the tip of one of Angel’s flukes on her way by. “You forget. I know you, Ang. When you put your heart into something, you do it all the way. There’s no way you’re going to get over him quickly, and moping is only going to make it harder.”
“And what do you know about it?” Angel kicked into action and tried to catch up.
“I’ve had my share of heartbreak. And even if I didn’t, all anyone has to do is take one look at your face. Even a blind whale shark could tell something’s wrong. I’d like to see you happy again.”
So would Angel. That was the thing. She didn’t like
moping. She never moped.
She also didn’t let people swim rough-shad over her, either—yet Logan had.