Sins Against the Sea (25 page)

“I know,” Cuan told him. “I planned to boat over to Eige later today to tell you all about it, but…”

He stopped talking when he realized, with a stab of alarm, that Cordelia might be in danger.

“What is it, Cuan?”

“Cordelia went to Benbecula to confront the president of Conch.”

Shan’s brow furrowed. “Why would she do that?”

“Because she works for him.”

“Wait a minute,” Shan said, eyes darkening. “Did I hear you right? The woman you love, the woman you’re leaving your home and your clan to be with, works for our enemies?”

“Aye, but not for long. She went there to quit her job.” He started to rise. “I must go to her, in case her employer makes trouble for her.”

Cuan jogged into the bathroom, where he’d hung his jeans to dry over the shower-curtain rail. Pulling them down, he was pleased to find the denim was mostly dry. With adrenaline pumping through his bloodstream, he shoved one leg in, then the other, hopping as he pulled them to his waist. As he buttoned his fly, Shan posted himself in the doorway.

Bitterness permeated his voice as he said, “I cannot believe you chose a lowly half-blood female—who works for Conch Oil, no less—over me.”

“She’s a good person,” Cuan said in Cordelia’s defense, “and she makes me happy, which you said you wanted. Are you telling me now they were only pretty words?”

“No, Cuan. While I meant what I said, that doesn’t mean your choice has not wounded my heart.” Shan looked at the floor as he added, “Or my ego.”

Going to him, Cuan tipped up his chin and looked deeply into eyes the same shade of blue-green as his own. There was sorrow in them, but also deep affection, which he returned. “It was never my intent to hurt you, Shan.”

“I know that, and will move on in time. For now, however, we’d better get ourselves to Benbecula and protect your mate from her employer.”

Surprise widened Cuan’s eyes. “You mean to go with me?”

“We are still friends, as far as I am concerned, and friends help each other, do they not?”

“Aye, they do.” Cuan grinned at Shan before lowering his gaze. “Though I was rather hoping I might borrow your shoes.” As an afterthought, he added, “Oh, and now that you are the clan chieftain, you might consider relaxing our policy towards humans who sin against the sea. Perhaps, instead of killing them, we could look for ways to help them reconnect with the sacred in nature.”

Shan smiled at him—not the reaction he expected at all. “You sound just like a Nic I mated with a few springtides back.”

“Was her name Meredith, by any chance?”

“Aye. That was it, exactly, and the things she said made a lot of sense—a surprise considering they came from a female.”

* * * *

By the time Corey exited the car outside the Dark Island Inn, her mouth was a desert, her palms were a swamp, and her stomach felt like she’d swallowed a gallon of gasoline. She followed the signs to the press conference and took a moment to pluck up her courage before stepping through the door.

The scene that greeted her gave her heart a jolt. There must have been two hundred journalists packed into the room, all teeming around and talking over one another. Television cameras, their lights as bright as the sun, lined the back wall.

As she stood there, paralyzed by anxiety, Peter took the podium and blew into the microphones sprouting from the lectern. “It seems my press representative has abandoned me,” he said with a nervous chuckle, “so I hope you won’t mind hearing the good news straight from the horse’s mouth.” He cleared his throat. “The first thing I want to share is that we’ve completed the clean-up operation in record time. Ronay is now free of oil—insofar as is humanly possible. The second thing I want you to know is that the spill caused no significant long-term population-level impact to species either on the island or in the Minch. The underwater coral populations were equally unaffected…”

Corey strode to the lone microphone at the head of the aisle. Obviously, Peter expected the journalists to put their questions to him in an orderly fashion. Good luck with that, especially when she got through with him.

“You don’t give a damn about the marine ecosystems.” Her voice boomed from the sound system. “You only care about making money—even if you have to break the law and destroy the environment to do it. Admit it…and, while you’re at it, tell them what
Ketos
was really doing in the Minch.”

Every eye in the room turned on her. Holy shit. Now she’d done it. She’d stuck her neck out and had nothing to back up her accusations.

“What do you mean?” someone asked. “What was the tanker doing in the Minch?”

Before Corey could answer, Peter shouted from the sound system, “Don’t listen to her. She doesn’t know what she’s talking about. She’s been too busy with her new lover to do her job. That’s right, Miss Parker, we know all about the man you’ve been sleeping with at the cottage your employer is paying for. Dereliction of duty. Fraternizing on company time. These are serious offenses. How do you justify your unconscionable actions?”

Corey, mortified, stepped away from the mic.

More reporters jumped to their feet and started lobbing questions at Peter about
Ketos.
Somehow, miraculously, he managed to field them all.

Shit.

She’d so wanted to see Peter Blackwell strung up by his thumbs, but the man was as slick as the products he peddled to his drill-happy customers. She’d been wrong. He wasn’t an artful dodger; he was an eel in a Teflon suit.

Just as it seemed he would get away with everything, the rear doors burst open. When she turned to see who’d come in, she couldn’t believe her eyes.

Hope took root in her heart. Never did she dream she’d be so happy to see Lachlan MacInnes, especially when standing squarely in his path. But there he was, arm in a sling, charging up the aisle toward her.

“What are you doing here?” she asked when he was standing in front of her. “Not that I’m unhappy to see you…but you had an exclusive. If you call him out here, the story will go global.”

He gave her a smile. “Screw the exclusive. Sometimes, the greater good matters more than our own selfish ambitions.” Stepping around her toward the microphone, he said, to Peter, “Mr. Blackwell, how do you respond to the charge that your company has built a self-contained underwater drilling platform in protected waters for the express purpose of unlawfully harvesting oil from an area where off-shore drilling is prohibited?”

Pandemonium erupted all around them. The journalists, like sharks scenting blood in the water, rushed toward Peter, firing questions like harpoons. Corey, satisfied he’d be crucified, made a bee-line for the exit.

As she made her escape into the hall, she saw Kew-in coming toward her in the same jeans and t-shirt he’d had on earlier—and a pair of sneakers she’d never seen before. Lifting her puzzled gaze to his face, she saw strain there, along with concern.

She stopped where she was and waited for him to come to her. When they were eye to eye, he said, in an adorably human way, “Hi.”

“Hi,” she replied. “Why have you come?”

“I was worried…”

“I appreciate your concern—a lot, but, as you can see, I’m fine, which is more than I can say for Peter Blackwell, I’m happy to report. I hope those reporters boil him alive in his own oil.”

Reaching up, she touched Kew-in’s handsome face, feeling stubble, which surprised her. She’d assumed storm kelpies had no body hair, like other marine mammals.

“You need a shave.”

Smiling, he rubbed his sandpaper cheek against her hand. “I need a lot more than that.”

Taking her hand, he pulled her into an embrace. She went willingly, despite the few people milling about. She didn’t care what they thought. Not when being in his arms brought her so much unspeakable joy. His ocean scent engulfed her. It was the most sensual fragrance in all of God’s creation.

“Did you quit your job?” he asked against her hair.

“Yes,” she said with a smile. “By default.”

Far from regretting her decision, she felt a hundred pounds lighter.

Pulling back a little, he bent and kissed her on the mouth. “Good. Because Conch Oil and Peter Blackwell are going down like a leaky boat. Shan is the new chieftain of my clan, and I’ve told him everything we’ve learned about
Ketos
and the drilling platform. He will order the fiana to disable one of the coastguard cruisers before raising a squall to blow it towards the drilling platform, which the wind will reveal to them. When the world discovers what Conch has done, they will be called to account for their sins against the sea.” With a smile, he added, “And I wouldn’t want you on the leaky boat with them when it sinks.”

“I wouldn’t want that either,” she said. “Especially now that you’re stuck on dry land.”

“I would not call it stuck, Cordelia.” He stroked her cheek. “I love you with all of my heart…and have never felt more at home.”

Corey touched his face, pouring all the love she felt into her touch, into her gaze, and into the kiss she pressed to his lips. As her heart overflowed with joy, the ocean just outside the inn whispered,
I have given you so much more than I ever took away.

Epilogue

Five years later

Already in her nightgown, Corey paused outside the door to Muriel’s room and listened through the gap as Cuan played his
cleasaiche
and sang an old island ballad in his ethereally beautiful voice. When he finished the song, he picked up a book and began to read to their daughter from the place he’d left off the night before. The reading, she presumed, was more for his benefit than their little girl’s, given that Muriel was already fast asleep.

As it turned out,
Twenty-Thousand Leagues under the Sea
had been her husband’s kind of book. He’d read it at least a dozen times in the five years since they’d exchanged their vows—on the edge of the cliff overlooking Vaternish Point, while his clansmen and other friends looked up from the sea below. Her mother was there, too, and now made regular visits to her daughter and granddaughter.

Cuan.

He looked up from the book and gave Corey one of those sexy smiles of his that still turned her insides to jelly. He closed the book, set it down soundlessly, and tiptoed to the door. He was such a perfect husband it was hard not to be madly in love with him. Or to bless another child with such a wonderful father.

Upon entering the hallway, Cuan pulled her into his arms—still her favorite place in the world, though not as easy to fit into with her watermelon belly. The new one was a boy, the obstetrician in Benbecula had told them that morning, which had Corey worried. If he were born with a tail, what would they do with him? They could hardly raise an obvious merman on dry land—but neither would she be able to bear giving him up to the sea.

“What is it, dearest?” Cuan tightened his hold on her. “You are trembling all of a sudden.”

“I’m worried about the baby.” She bit back her tears. “What if he’s born with a tail?”

Cuan spreading his long, webbed fingers across her belly. “I have seen him with legs, playing in the surf with our daughter. In my dreams. So, you have no cause for worry.”

His reassurance reminded her of her own dream five years ago of all of them playing together in the loch outside the cottage. Relieved, she snuggled against him, burying her nose in his hair, which, even after all his years on dry land, still smelled as strongly as ever of the sea. “I know a way you can stop me from worrying.”

“What way is that?”

His words, soft and sensuous, sent a thrilling quiver through her.

“By giving me something much more pleasant to focus upon.”

“I believe that can be arranged.”

Turning his head, he kissed her deeply, his tongue invading her mouth. She made a small noise of approval as he gripped her ass with both hands and pulled her against him, crushing her pregnant belly between them.

Don’t forget we have our monthly Ocean Watch meeting in the morning.

I haven’t forgotten.

While they’d not yet succeeded in getting the Minch declared a marine protected area, they had been instrumental in getting legislation passed to protect all resident and migrating cetaceans in British waters from capture, killing, injury, or deliberate harassment or degradation of their habitats.

She set her hands on his chest and teased his nipples. He wore only the bottoms of the tartan pajamas she’d given him for Christmas.

Shouldn’t we move this party to our bedroom?

Mmm
, he said, his tongue still dancing with hers.
Perhaps we should
.

Freeing his mouth, he nipped her jaw before trailing kisses down her throat and across her collarbone. She let her head fall back, exposing more of her throat to him as she entangled her fingers in his hair. He slid his hands up her body, and untied the drawstring on her nightgown. Pushing the thin cotton off her shoulders, he bared her breasts to his view and admired them a moment before bending to take a nipple into his mouth.

Moving her hands to his hips, she hooked her fingers in the elastic waistband of his pajama pants and pulled him toward the bedroom. Inside, she shut the door with her foot, walked him backward to the foot of the bed, and gave him a shove. He landed flat on his back with a laugh.