Dragon Warrior (Midnight Bay) by Janet Chapman Read Free Book Online

cousin.
    “They’ll be here soon. When they arrive you should probably check them for sunburn, and if anyone’s tired, tell them they can have supper in their rooms.”
    “I’ll get them settled in for the evening,” Katy promised.
    Maddy gave her a nod and started down the hall again. “Instead of taking us out to eat, you can follow me home when I get off work in an hour, and I’ll feed you ,” she told Trace, leading him outside into the bright August sun. She stopped to make a face at him. “Mom said you bought a fishing boat. Mind telling me what in hell possessed you to become a fisherman?”
    “There’s not much call for soldiering around here,” he snapped. “And I’m sure as hell not going to work at the textile mill.”
    “That mill closed two years ago,” Maddy whispered.
    He gave her hand a squeeze. “I’m sorry, Peeps. That was an uncivilized response to a very reasonable question.” He started them off again, and they walked across the lawn in companionable silence. “Do you have any plans for this Saturday?” he asked when they reached the gazebo overlooking the river.
    “Nothing pressing. Why?”
    “Can you get a babysitter for Sarah?”
    “She stays with Billy most weekends. Why? What’s up?”
    He sat down on the gazebo step and stared out at the gently flowing water. “I’d like you to spend the day with me on my boat.”
    She snorted. “You know I love you to pieces, and that I’m dying for us to catch up, but you also know that the smell of bait makes me puke out my guts. Why don’t we just take a ride to Acadia National Park? I’m sure we can find a lobster shack in Bar Harbor that’s falling-down dirty like old man Walsh’s.”
    Trace shot her a quick glance before looking away again, but it was long enough for Maddy to see the guarded look in his eyes. “Because what I want to show you is out on the water,” he said quietly. “And because you’re the only person I can trust to tell me the truth.”
    “The truth about what?”
    “About whether or not I’ve gone insane.”
    “Excuse me?” She reached out to grasp his forearm. “Trace, what are you talking about?”
    “Have you heard a rumor going around town about a . . . mermaid being spotted ten miles offshore early last week?”
    “I’ve only heard bits and pieces.”
    “Well, I’m the one who started it.”
    Caught completely off guard again, Maddy could only gape at him.
    He looked down at her hand on his arm, then took it between his callused palms and turned on the step to face her. “When I was out putting my new boat through its paces last Monday, I spotted something splashing in the distance off my port side, so I headed toward it. But when I reached where it should have been, whatever had been making those splashes had vanished. Only it reappeared not fifty yards off my stern, and I saw . . .” His hands tightened on hers. “I saw a woman in the water, watching me.”
    “A woman ? Ten miles out? Were there any other boats around?”
    He shook his head. “And when I shouted at her to hold on, that I’d throw her a buoy, she looked as startled as I was, and suddenly started swimming away. I dug around for a buoy, but when I went to throw it, she’d disappeared again. So I stripped down to just my jeans, and dove in.”
    “Trace! The ocean is freezing!”
    “It sure as hell wasn’t bathwater. But what else could I do? I had no idea how long she’d been out there. She was in a lot more danger of getting hypothermia than I was.” He shook his head, dropping his gaze to her hand still clasped in his. “I dove again and again searching for her. I swear I’d catch a glimpse of something out of the corner of my eye, but when I swam toward it, there was never anything there.”
    He looked up at her, and if he’d been guarded before, he appeared positively haunted now. “One time when I came up for air, I found her treading water not twenty feet away from me and realized she was as naked as