Date: 2012-09-02 04:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Paranormal Romance; Fantasy; Romance; Shapeshifters; Paranormal; Mermaids; Magic; Mythology; Adult; Erotica
Description: This was supposed to be her year. However, after losing her job and discovering her fiancé cheating, Maggie Collins has her doubts. When her grandmother dies, she hits rock bottom. Maggie travels to her grandmother’s home in Orkney, Scotland to sort through her gran’s things, only to discover the old woman has left her a seal pelt as her inheritance. She also learns that others are after the pelt. To add to her frustration, Maggie’s dreams are filled with luscious images of a long-haired man, images that draw her to the magical beaches in Orkney. Although she’s lost her trust in men, this drea

The Selkie

Rosanna Leo

Published 2012

ISBN: 978-1-59578-972-3

Published by Liquid Silver Books, imprint of Atlantic Bridge Publishing, 10509

Sedgegrass Dr, Indianapolis, Indiana 46235. Copyright © 2012, Rosanna Leo. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the author.

Manufactured in the United States of America

Liquid Silver Books
http://LSbooks.com

This is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents and dialogues in this book are of the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is completely coincidental.

Blurb

This was supposed to be her year. However, after losing her job and discovering her fiancé cheating, Maggie Collins has her doubts. When her grandmother dies, she hits rock bottom. Maggie travels to her grandmother’s home in Orkney, Scotland to sort through her gran’s things, only to discover the old woman has left her a seal pelt as her inheritance. She also learns that others are after the pelt.

To add to her frustration, Maggie’s dreams are filled with luscious images of a long-haired man, images that draw her to the magical beaches in Orkney. Although she’s lost her trust in men, this dream man inspires her with a lust she’s never known before.

Calan Kirk has also been dreaming. Dreaming of Maggie, the mortal woman who arouses him as no other woman ever has. Meeting her in the flesh when she arrives in Orkney is nothing short of spontaneous sexual combustion. But she is a human, and not to be trusted. He needs the seal pelt, not a red-haired temptress.

As a thief ransacks Maggie’s grandmother’s house, Maggie and Calan are thrust together. They must search for the animal skin, a mythical relic which once found, will either bring them together or rip them apart forever.

Dedication

To my mother Louisa, always my biggest fan.

Prologue

This was going to be her year. It had to be.

Maggie Collins washed her hands in the ladies’ room sink and looked at herself in the mirror. There was a buzzing in her purse. Quickly, she dried her hands and fumbled inside her handbag for her phone. She stared at the text from her boss, the city manager.

The one that said My office. 5 mins.

Oh, shoot. I should have guessed I’d get the summons while in the john.

This was it. Darryl was finally going to announce that he’d been able to get her the promotion they’d been discussing. After all, he’d proposed it to city council weeks ago, but with the new mayor coming in, everything had been at a standstill. Every employee at city hall was talking about the hiring freeze, waiting for the day when it would be lifted.

Maggie had been patient.

She bolted out of the restroom, swinging her purse over her shoulder. There was such a spring in her step that her auburn spiral curls were bouncing along with her. As one of the errant curls danced in front of her eye, she tucked it behind her ear. She had to stop herself from smiling too widely or doing a fist pump. After all, a couple of admins had recently been let go in her division. It would be insensitive to beam unnecessarily over her impending good news.

But she was so ready for this.

Darryl had been grooming her for years. He’d seen potential in her when she’d taken her first admin role there as an intern and had backed her ever since, helping her reach the exalted heights of the city manager’s office, arguably the most important one aside from the mayor’s. And when he’d heard the mayor’s assistant was going on leave, he’d been quick to put Maggie’s name forward.

Yes. He’s going to tell me I got the job.

What else could he have to say to her on a Friday at four p.m.?

Maggie blinked, tucked another of her ever-straying curls behind her other ear, and smoothed down her best A-line skirt. And smiled. She was finally going to get some good news. And it was about time. With the way things had been the past couple of years, she needed it.

She turned a corner in the hallway, listening to the echoing clack of her pumps.

Another few steps, and she was walking on the plush carpet leading to the city manager’s office. She made a quick pit stop at her desk and bent down to check herself again in her cubicle mirror, the one bearing the printed message Smile! She ran her tongue over her teeth. “No poppy seeds. No spinach. Check.”

With a wink at her signed fan pic of Ewan McGregor, she launched herself out of the cubicle and toward Darryl’s office.

She couldn’t wait to tell Matthew. Thank God for him. Her fiancé was her rock.

He’d lifted her out of the doldrums and had given her something to hope for.

If only they’d been able to spend more quality time together lately. He’d been busy with his job, and she with hers. But that was to be expected. He was a busy professional, and her work kept her hopping. Once Darryl confirmed her new role, she’d head right over to Matthew’s office to tell him. They could celebrate.

Maybe even get a little frisky tonight. If he wasn’t too tired.

Cut the man some slack, Maggie. He works hard. It’s not his fault he doesn’t have enough energy to jump your bones more than once a month.

Frowning, Maggie dismissed the nagging voice in her head. It wasn’t time to worry about her lack of a sex life with the man who would soon be her husband. So they hadn’t been connecting on a physical level for a while. He loved her, told her often. Once they got over this rocky patch, things would improve.

Yes. Today was a good day and the start of an even better weekend. Now she just had to talk to her boss, sign on the dotted line, and bask in the glory for a while.

Trying not to bubble over with excitement, she practically skipped into Darryl’s office.

The door was already half-open. She heard hushed voices as she approached.

Knocking gently, she poked her head around the open door.

Darryl didn’t look like a man who was about to award his hard-working employee with a promotion. In fact, he looked like he hadn’t slept for weeks. There was a definite, defeated slump to his shoulders and a tightness around his mouth. And he wasn’t alone.

The HR manager was with him.

A bit excessive. Maybe they have to do this formally.

Darryl looked up and blanched. “Maggie. Come in.”

She did, and sat down, her gaze on Erica Ridley from HR. The older woman’s posture was so rigid she resembled more of an aging Russian ballet instructor than an HR
executive. She’d always made Maggie nervous.

Erica blinked. “Thanks for coming, Maggie. I appreciate you meeting us.”

She let out a nervous giggle. “Forgive me. I didn’t realize I was meeting an ‘us.’”

For a moment, no one said anything. Maggie just waited for them to begin. She tried not to play with the hem on her skirt. Instead, she chewed the bronze Rimmel gloss off her lower lip.

Darryl looked as if he wanted the ground to swallow him whole. What was wrong with him? He was an authoritative, professional man. Maggie had never seen him so …

in bits.

Luckily for him, Erica appeared more than willing to take charge. “Maggie. I regret to inform you that your position here has been made redundant.” She paused, letting that sink in.

She stared. “Redundant? You mean I’m not getting the promotion, right?”

“That’s not it, Maggie,” Erica clarified. “You’re being let go from your current position. And there is no promotion.”

Darryl muttered something under his breath. Maggie could have sworn he grumbled something about “HR shitheads.” Erica glared at him, her lips pursed.

Still convinced she’d heard the wrong thing, Maggie was trying really hard not to upchuck the sun-dried tomato bagel from her very late lunch. Because that would make a mess on her best skirt. “You’re firing me?”

“With the reorganizational changes being made, your position is simply not viable.

You’ll be compensated, of course,” Erica continued, as cool as anyone who did this for a living, “and, as part of your benefits package, you’ll have the opportunity to work with one of our career-management counselors.”

Maggie stared down at the limp hands in her lap, not knowing what to do. She loved
her job. Where was she supposed to go from here? It wasn’t as if a job such as hers could be found around every corner.

Suddenly, she really wanted to talk to Gran. Gran always had great words of wisdom.

She’d have to tell Matthew. God, he’d be crushed for her. As someone who spent so many hours at his own office, who was so devoted to his work, he’d understand the devastating sucker punch that was currently pummeling her gut.

She looked at Darryl. His face was white. She just knew from his expression that there wasn’t even any use fighting this. The deep crease between his brows and the bags under his eyes clearly said he had already been fighting this. He’d gone to bat for her, she could tell.

It was done. Over. Finito.

She wanted to wail. Wanted to say she was planning her yearly trip to visit her grandmother in Orkney and needed the money. Wanted to wipe the weird little grin off Erica Ridley’s face. But she didn’t do any of those things.

Instead, she decided to try and maintain her last shred of dignity, even though she had no idea how to go about it. Not once in her life had she ever been fired before. She was about to mumble something stupid about what a pleasure it had been to work there, when the door opened again. It was Mike from security, looking mighty awkward.

Maggie’s heart fell into her size seven patent pumps.

Oh no you’re not. She was not getting escorted out of here. It was fighting time.

“What about all the work I did on the launch of the 311 project? It’s been implemented because of my work. My overtime. The old mayor presented me with an award.”

“Mike here will walk you out,” Erica explained, her smile so unnatural it was practically a grimace. The woman stood and indicated the door just like damn Vanna White.

Mike touched Maggie’s elbow.

“No! I’m not going.” Maggie grabbed onto the edge of Darryl’s desk as he averted his eyes. “I trained every admin in this place. When people have questions, they come to me!”

“Maggie,” Erica cooed. “Let’s not make this any more difficult than it already is.”

“Difficult for you? My ass! I’m not leaving.”

From somewhere behind her, Maggie heard Mike call for backup. Within seconds, another security guard appeared. Sure, it was only white-haired Arnie, the guard closest to retirement, but it was still another guard. For a moment, she expected them to pepper spray her.

She looked at her boss. “Darryl?”

“I’m sorry, Maggie. There’s nothing I can do.”

Somehow, seeing the dark circles under his eyes, those perverse symbols of defeat, brought it all home. She stood, stunned, while Mike quietly cancelled the order for younger reinforcements.

Mortified, Maggie walked out with security, stopping only to grab her handbag and her Ewan McGregor photo. She didn’t touch her computer, didn’t close any open documents, or even turn off her office phone. They weren’t hers to touch anymore.

As she exited city hall for the last time, she wondered if she’d be given a reference
from Darryl, but then realized she didn’t want one.

After all, she had no idea where to go next.

* * * *

Matthew. Matthew will know what to do. He’s an HR manager. He’ll have advice.

Her eyes stinging, she walked the two blocks to his office, not even seeing the crush of humanity on Queen Street. Barely noticing as a homeless guy jostled her while shooing away a pigeon in his path. She just stared straight ahead, wondering how her professional world could crumble so quickly.

She resisted kicking the revolving door leading into Matthew’s office high-rise.

Tried to retain a sense of decorum as she punched his floor number in the elevator.

Attempted to smile politely at the suits crammed into the elevator with her.

Even though she really wanted to hit somebody.

Rein it in, Maggie. Rein it in.

Breathing a sigh of relief as she finally reached the forty-third floor, Maggie marched into Matthew’s waiting area. It struck her as odd that his receptionist, Caitlyn, wasn’t at her post. She didn’t usually leave for the day this early. She tended to work late whenever Matthew needed help. Oh, well. Maybe Matthew didn’t have any more meetings that afternoon and had sent her home.

He was considerate that way. Why, he spent just about as much time mentoring Caitlyn as Darryl had spent mentoring her.

The door to Matthew’s office was slightly ajar. Inside, someone was moaning.

It wasn’t like Maggie to walk in without knocking. Normally, she prided herself on being polite to a fault. But something about that low, satisfied groan set her on edge.

She quietly pushed on the door to her fiancé’s office, letting it swing open.

For a moment, she just stared in wonder at the sight before her. It seemed ridiculous that she should have to confront this today of all days.

Matthew was in. Leaning against his desk, his handsome head thrown back in concentration. His knuckles were white as they gripped the mahogany wood.

Caitlyn was there, too. On her knees in front of him.

For one absurd second, Maggie wondered if Matthew’s fly might be stuck. And whether or not the receptionist was merely helping him unstick it. With her teeth.

But then she realized that even if that implausible scenario were true, there would be no need for Caitlyn to have her boss’s quickly deflating penis in her mouth.

Matthew looked up, his blue eyes bugging out and his mouth hanging open. He couldn’t have looked more shocked if Darth Vader had entered the room wielding a light saber, claiming to be his long lost father.

“Oh my God, Maggie,” he cried, brushing Caitlyn away from him as if she were a stubborn piece of lint clinging to his lap. “It’s not what it seems!”

Maggie clapped her jaw shut and forced herself to look away from the appendage that Matthew had barely let her touch for the last six months. She resumed eye contact.

“You’re busy,” she murmured, amazed at how mental she sounded. “I, uh, just came to tell you I was fired today.”

And then she stared as Caitlyn wiped her mouth, slowly getting up off the floor. A bizarre frisson of vengeance rippled through her as she spied the run in the other woman’s pantyhose.

Getting sexed up on your knees at work will do that.

“You,” she said to the receptionist. “I baked you muffins.”

“Maggie,” Matthew spluttered, as remorse and embarrassment grappled for dominance in his eyes. “Please. I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

“One question.”

He nodded, pale in his mortification.

“How long?”

“Just a little while,” he was quick to reply. “I swear.”

For some reason, she felt compelled to look to Caitlyn for reassurance. The woman nodded, concurring with Matthew. Of course, that didn’t mean anything. He could have been cheating with any number of other women. God only knew he hadn’t been having sex with her, his own fiancée!

And now this all just confirmed suspicions she’d never dreamed of confronting.

Cloying sensations that had been haunting the periphery of her consciousness for some time, teasing her, even though she’d never had the guts to listen to her inner voices. The ones that had been suggesting maybe Matthew Drake wasn’t exactly her soul mate.

Of course, she hadn’t bothered to listened to those instincts. On paper, Matthew had always looked wonderful. Pretty freaking terrific, actually.

Maybe there was something to be said for instinct.

She removed her engagement ring and tossed it to the ground before his feet. “Right.

Well. I guess the only thing left to say, Matthew,” she continued in her best PowerPoint-presentation voice, “is I hope you burn in hell. And that your dick shrivels and falls off.”

Or that a hungry Rottweiler bites it off. Or that you get flesh-eating disease and it crumbles away in moldy, green pieces.

As Maggie contemplated all the imaginative ways Matthew’s traitorous penis could achieve a painful demise, she turned and left. Realizing that her personal world was now just as much in the shitter as her professional world.

* * * *

That was the first night Maggie dreamed of the creature.

A large beast with knowing, brown eyes. Eyes that glimpsed her shame and didn’t judge. Eyes that witnessed her sorrow and sought to comfort. Eyes that somehow understood everything.

He was a dark presence that infiltrated a nightmare brought on by stress and betrayal, a murky shape that hid in the background of her consciousness, yet which felt startlingly real to her. A spirit that was strangely connected to her, although she couldn’t imagine why.

It should have been frightening to her, but it wasn’t. If anything, the sight of the animal made her feel better, calmed her and soothed her.

What she didn’t understand, though, was why it also aroused her.

Perhaps it was because as the dream progressed, the creature changed, taking on the sensual aspect of a man with long, brown hair. An untamed man. One Maggie had never seen anywhere before. A man whose dark eyes seemed to see her in return with startling clarity and raw, reciprocated need.

As the images in the dream swept through her head, Maggie focused on his seductive eyes. And touched herself.

* * * *

From his home, a roiling ocean away, Calan Kirk dreamed of her. The frazzled Canadian redhead who’d lost her job and her lover in one day. The one with the astonishing blue eyes and a body whose curves could inspire love songs. He was immediately drawn to her, though he didn’t understand why.

His keen sense of otherworldly sight recognized her pain and wanted to fight for her.

His sense of chivalry made him want to obliterate the man who’d hurt her. And stronger than anything, a new desire invaded his soul, making him lust for her with a force he could not fathom.

In his own dream, as a bizarre nocturnal communication began between them, Calan watched Maggie’s fingers slide over her moist sex. Saw the delectable dew on the red curls between her legs. She was thinking of him, although she didn’t understand it yet. He heard her whimpers, and they sounded like poignant music to him. He could almost smell her, even from his great distance. That sense, keen as it was, gave way to his sense of taste. Calan swallowed and his saliva was flavored with her sweetness, making him wish he had her under him so he could drink her in properly.

What was he thinking? She was a human. Not his kind and not to be trusted. He’d learned that after what happened to Kyla.

Oh well. It’s just a dream. Not as if you’ll ever meet the lass.

His conscience appeased, he reached for his member. He couldn’t stop himself, couldn’t help groaning as he reached a delirious climax, his dark eyes trained on the tantalizing image of her.

Human or not, real or dreamy wraith, no woman had ever fired up his body with as great a heat or sent such shudders through him. And as her image faded away, he realized no woman had ever left him feeling such an aching sense of loss.

Chapter 1

One night, three months later, Maggie lay in bed, thrashing as she relived the same dream. Only this one was different.

Yes, it still featured the beast with the wildly erotic eyes that managed to undress her even in her sleep. Yes, she could still see its face, the visage of a great seal. But more often than not, he appeared to her as a man. A large man of sinful proportions with long, brown hair that flowed down his muscled back. He had a flirty grin and a body that seemed to glimmer with a soft sheen, as if he were bathed in moonlight.

He always seemed to know just what she needed, offering her friendly companionship when she was beating herself up over what happened at work. Telling her that the idiots at city hall didn’t deserve her. And during those dark, haunted moments when she felt like a total failure as a woman, he came to her as her lover. Whispering sweet words of temptation. Touching her body as no one ever had.

But this time, her Scottish grandmother was there, accompanying him. The great seal standing at her side.

Aw, man, what’s my grandmother doing in my sex dream?

Dream Maggie turned to the old woman. “Gran! You shouldn’t be here.”

The large animal chuckled in its deep human voice, and Maggie felt a stirring in her sex. A low, delicious hum of sexual connectivity. The same potent force that drew her in each time she dreamed of him. Pure magnetism.

“Maggie, lass,” her grandmother’s voice broke through in stiff remonstrance, “listen to me. There’ll be enough time for shenanigans later.”

Good old Nora MacLean. She always managed to bring Maggie back to Earth with her no-nonsense attitudes. She’d been the one to stir Maggie from the depths of her despair at being fired and at being betrayed by Matthew. Her clipped pep talks, laced with the odd Orkney swear word, never failed to make her feel better. But she didn’t really want Gran to see this. Whatever this weird relationship with the seal-man was.

As if sensing that her Gran needed to speak, the seal glided into the background of the dream. Maggie watched it move. For a moment, it seemed to morph into the image of the gorgeous man. But then it became a seal again.

“Maggie,” Nora intoned, her Orcadian accent thick and comforting. “Come to Orkney.”

“I’ll be there soon, Gran. Just a few more weeks until the yearly pilgrimage.” And then she smiled upon hearing the amused huff in her grandmother’s voice.

She couldn’t wait to see her grandmother and the Scottish isle of Orkney again. After finishing another temp job that only went nowhere, after still feeling like such a shmuck for having faith in men who deserved no such faith, Maggie was ready for a good visit and some Nora-isms.

God, first Bobby, then Matthew. I’m such a tool.

Gran would set her straight. She just hoped Gran was up for the visit. The old lady hadn’t felt well for a while. In fact, her most recent phone calls had only added to Maggie’s stress. Her gran had always had a sharp mind, but recently Nora had begun to ramble, sounding confused.

The dream grew darker then, the images more murky and disjointed. And even though she was tucked in her bed in her cramped Toronto apartment, Maggie could suddenly smell the sea.

Orkney, her grandmother’s ancestral home, was calling to her.

“You must come now, lass,” Nora implored.

Even in the dream, Maggie thought she heard a catch in her Gran’s voice. A hitch in her breathing. She ran toward her, and in her mind, she was racing through the dunes on a lonely Scottish beach.

“What’s wrong, Gran?”

As she waited for the response, Maggie turned to the seal creature. Why was it that his huge, brown eyes seemed to see right into her soul?

She was due to visit Nora at the end of summer, but something now told her it might not be soon enough. As an ominous feeling took root in the pit of her stomach, she stared at the animal. He stared back at her, his dark eyes deep and serene, and she felt a strange empathy radiating out from him.

Nora caressed Maggie’s auburn curls. “You mustn’t be sad for me. I’m an old woman, and happy to go. I’ll finally get to see your granddad after all these years, as well as your ma and da.”

Dream Maggie gasped at the mention of her dead parents. As if on cue, the large seal glided over to her and nudged her with his cold nose. She jumped but couldn’t resist reaching out a hand to pat his silky head. The creature pushed against her hand as if soaking up the momentary affection.

Confused, she turned back to Gran. “I don’t understand.”

Nora stepped in front of the seal and grasped her by the shoulders. “I wish I had time to explain. You must come to Orkney. Do a dying woman a final favor. Claim your inheritance. Everything I have is yours. Come, lass. Our little island is just what you need.”

Maggie felt pain slice through her as viciously as a knife. “Dying? Gran, no. I know you haven’t felt well, but…”

“Come,” said Nora with a sad smile. “I have a friend who will help you. Calan Kirk.

You need only call for him and he’ll come to you in Orkney. He’s the answer to your prayers, and my prayers for you. Come, Maggie.”

The seal made a noise of encouragement at the same time Nora began to fade away.

She drifted into the gray background of the dream and the animal followed, morphing once again into the image of the sculpted, naked man.

“No,” Maggie cried into her pillow. “Don’t go!”

With her cry, she awakened. And knew in that moment that Gran was dead.

Even as the grief began to wash over her in overwhelming waves, Maggie couldn’t help noticing the state of her pillowcase. It was wet, but not with her tears. It smelled strangely of seawater.

* * * *

A few days later, Maggie stood in Nora’s parlor. She felt dazed and unable to focus.

“I still can’t believe she left everything to me.”

“She loved you, dear,” said Phyllis Brodie, her grandmother’s elderly friend, smiling through her false teeth.

“More than anyone.” The sentiment was echoed by her other friend, blue-haired Liz Campbell. The two ladies had been chums with Nora MacLean for years. They all lived in close proximity to Kirkwall, and had endeavored to take Maggie under their wings since she’d arrived on Orkney’s mainland island.

The jet lag hadn’t yet hit Maggie, but she knew it would. The flight from Toronto had felt longer than usual, exhausting her, leaving her with heavy eyes and a bad case of bed head. She knew she’d be a complete mess once the denial disappeared, and took a strange comfort in being so numb, if only for what would be a short time.

“Perhaps I’ll brew a nice cuppa,” suggested Liz, her wrinkly hand touching Maggie’s shoulder.

“I’m fine, thank you,” she replied. Maggie was grateful, but wanted nothing more than to be alone with her memories.

She’d almost expected to be met at the Kirkwall Airport by Calan Kirk, the man Gran had mentioned in the dream, but there had been no sign of him. Of course, it had been just a dream, but it had felt more like a prophecy. Especially when a kind Orcadian constable had phoned her afterward with the official news of her Gran’s demise. Even still, Maggie hadn’t spared too many thoughts about the mysterious Calan Kirk. He was probably imaginary, or some old crony of Gran’s. And Maggie already had her hands full with Liz and Phyllis. She glanced at the two venerable ladies in front of her.

As sweet as they were, they wouldn’t stop picking at her.

Liz touched Maggie’s bob. “Such lovely red curls! Just like when Nora was a lass.”

Phyllis concurred. “And bonnie blue eyes. But you look very tired, Maggie, dear.”

“I am a little tired.”

“My peach,” said Phyllis, the more assertive of the two pensioners, “lie down. I’ll see to the house for you. It could use a little dusting and such. Your granny was always such a packrat. I believe they call them ‘hoarders’ nowadays, although it doesn’t sound any more glamorous if you ask me.” She began to usher Maggie toward the stairs.

“No, really, please.” Maggie implored her with eyes, which were now burning.

“You’ve been wonderful, and you were such friends to Gran. But, if it’s okay, I’d like to be alone.”

Phyllis, lips set tight and holding her ground, eyed the younger woman skeptically.

Liz shooed her friend toward the door, waving her hands in a sweeping motion. “Leave the poor, wee thing, Phyllis. She’s suffered enough.”

Maggie blushed. They knew. Nora would have told Liz and Phyllis everything, about Matthew and her job, but she was too exhausted to be mortified.

“Of course.” Phyllis relented, moving reluctantly toward the door. “But if you need any help sorting through Nora’s things, you let me know. Poor Nora. She was a lovely woman, but didn’t possess a single organizational bone in her body.” The old lady scanned the dusty living room one more time, and then shook her head.

“Oh, Phyllis,” Liz chided. “Nora was hardly in any state to clean house. The blessed woman could barely find her spectacles on her head most days.” She offered a sad smile to Maggie. “She wasn’t well at the end, love, wasn’t herself. So confused. She’d just sit and stare and spout old bits of folklore. Such a shame.”

The thought of her gran staring into space recounting Orkney myths was about as heartbreaking as anything. She didn’t want to hear any more.

“We’ll leave you be,” Liz murmured, squeezing Maggie’s biceps.

Maggie tried to smile as they headed out the creaky front door and back to Liz’s car.

She knew they meant well. They’d been close to Nora, and would have wanted to help.

“Just not right now,” she murmured as they disappeared down the road.

She meandered slowly through the old house, quietly touching Nora’s knickknacks, and there were a great many of them. Phyllis was probably right. Gran had been somewhat of a hoarder. She could never resist picking up a pretty bottle or antique necklace from the local market. But Maggie didn’t mind the clutter. Right now, it was comfortable. She almost felt she could absorb her grandmother’s presence through the items she’d left behind.

Nora had been the last surviving member of Maggie’s family. Maggie’s parents had been dead for years, having perished in a car crash together. In a way, this death was harder to take. Nora MacLean had been a larger-than-life personality, a strong woman who’d been passionate about her Orkney heritage and its rugged landscape. She’d played host to her granddaughter many a summer, and Maggie adored her with a fierceness that was unparalleled. The old woman’s death was quickly sucking the life out of her.

She decided she would stay on in Kirkwall for a time after the funeral. Exploring St.

Magnus Cathedral and roaming along the beaches would remind her of the times she’d sat at Nora’s knee, listening to the old woman spin tales of the mythical Finmen and seductive selkie folk.

She just had to get through the funeral now. And try to figure out what she would do with Nora’s estate. She knew Nora would have wanted her to stay in Orkney, but the quiet, seemingly magical, island was worlds away from downtown Toronto.

“Of course,” she reminded herself as she fingered the yellowed piece of lace that acted as a tablecloth on the kitchen table, “there’s really nothing to go home for anyway.”

The idea of heading back was currently as appealing as diving into a pool of piranhas wearing a meat bikini.

The last three months had been some of the worst in Maggie’s life. Losing the job that had been her passion. Being granted the glorious opportunity to see her ex-fiancé cheating on her. And then a series of discouraging temp jobs that never seemed to lead to anything more substantial than one-week assignments. To say nothing about the fact that Matthew wouldn’t leave her alone. He kept calling, kept trying to apologize. Luckily, although she’d had some lows, she never reached the kind of low that might send her tumbling back into a cheater’s arms.

Now, with Gran’s death, it felt like the last possible rug had been pulled out from under her. This was low.

In truth, things had been bad for a while. Before Matthew, there had been another failed engagement to a man who had seemed promising at the time. Sure, at first, Bobby had been all wine and roses, or more like beer and carnations. Still, he’d been kind and sweet.

But it had turned out the salesman had a woman in every port. Her first cheater.

What a milestone.

After that experience, Maggie had figured she could spot a liar at a hundred yards.

So why had her cheater radar failed so spectacularly with Matthew? Perhaps she just hadn’t been willing to see it. Maybe it had just been easier to pretend.

She was now determined to swear off men altogether.

And she couldn’t even run into the welcoming bosom of her family anymore. Mom,

Dad, Gran, they were all gone, and she was reeling from the pain.

She needed ibuprofen. She needed to get her life back in shape. It was all she wanted now. Some semblance of normalcy. A good job. And given her current hatred of the male species, she was seriously contemplating a lesbian love affair.

Her head pounding, Maggie trudged upstairs and threw herself on Nora’s bed. “Just a short nap,” she said to herself, knowing she needed rest before tomorrow’s funeral. “Then Liz and Phyllis can fuss over me again.”

Nora’s pillow felt unfamiliar and she couldn’t get comfortable. She sat up and grabbed the pillow, meaning to give it a good fluffing, but somehow knew sleep wouldn’t come.

It was then that she remembered the cookie jar. Gran had never forgotten her love of sugary cookies, and had had a significant sweet tooth herself. Nothing had given the old lady more pleasure than to sneak cookies to Maggie when she was a little girl. To aid her in this quest, she’d kept her biscuits in a cracked jar on her kitchen counter. Maggie now wondered if she might find a stash in that same jar. Perhaps coming down from a sugar rush might help her sleep.

She padded down to the kitchen, which still appeared well stocked for a nuclear attack, and looked around. The old, red jar was still there. Grinning in spite of herself, Maggie lifted off the cover. There were indeed cookies in there, her favorite kind with the bits of sugar on one side, but there was also a piece of paper wedged at the back. Curious, Maggie stared at the paper while she inserted most of a cookie into her mouth. And then she reached for it.

When she saw it was a note from her Gran, she almost spit out what was left of the cookie. And when she saw what it said, she almost tossed all her cookies.

Maggie, my love. I knew you’d want a wee sweetie, and I thought this was the safest place to leave you a note.

There is a special part of your inheritance that I have had to hide. I dare not even mention the hiding place here. It isn’t safe. I shall have to trust you to find it. Just look in the places that meant the most to me.

It is the skin of a selkie. Once you find it, and find it you must, you are not to give it away until you’re done with it. Keep it hidden. Maggie, trust no one with it. There are those who would go to great lengths to steal such a prize. When I discovered it on the beach, I wanted it for you, and you alone. It can bring you great pleasure, something you haven’t had in a long time.

It belongs to my friend Calan Kirk, but he mustn’t have it back until you’re done with it. I explained that to him. I know he needs it, and he’ll try to get it back. When he realized I didn’t want it for myself, he said it had to be returned to him. I suggested we settle the matter in a friendly game of poker.

Thank the Lord your granddad taught me all those poker tricks!

I won it from Calan fair and square. Don’t get me wrong. Calan is a good man, but even he cannot be trusted with the selkie skin. Do not put it in his hands until you no longer have need of its powers.

You must find it. I won’t rest unless you do.

I love you, my wee one. Stay safe.

Maggie breathed in. “Hidden sealskins? Yuck.”

Surely these were the ramblings of a sick, old woman. And yet her Gran had
mentioned Calan Kirk again, and she wasn’t even dreaming this time. What did she mean when she said she won the sealskin from him? Maggie could just picture the sight. Two old people playing cards for a smelly animal pelt. It was almost sad.

If it weren’t for the parts about not resting and trusting no one. That was just plain scary. What would make her Gran so paranoid?

She sat still, not sure what to do next.

It took all of thirty seconds for her curiosity to get the better of her. She turned and eyed the piles of books and figurines and small appliances ordered from the television.

The mass of stuff around her. Where did one begin in such chaos?

Look in the places that meant the most to me.

Tentatively, as if she were being watched, Maggie took a step into the living room.

Gran had an antique chest, one that had been reclining in the corner longer than Maggie had been alive. She knelt before it, unlatched the rusty latch, and raised the lid. She winced at the loud creak. The smell of old mothballs greeted her. With her nose wrinkled, Maggie reached in and burrowed through the worn blankets and clothing Nora had stopped wearing in the seventies.

“Go-go boots? Please tell me these weren’t yours, Gran.”

There was a noise somewhere outside. Without even thinking, Maggie pulled out her arm and slammed the lid shut. She quickly fastened the old latch. Then, without understanding why, she ran around the small house, locked the door, and shut all the blinds. Only after she was satisfied that no one was about, did she make her way back up to bed.

Yet, as tired as she was, she still could not sleep.

* * * *

“More wine, please, Annette,” called Calan from his place at the end of the bar, “and another oyster platter.”

The pub waitress did her best shimmy as she approached him with an inviting smile.

“Why, Calan Kirk, that’ll be your third oyster platter tonight.” She leaned over his table, giving him an eyeful of carefully propped-up cleavage. “Are you fortifying yourself for the evening’s adventures?” She reached out a finger to twine in his long hair.

He pulled away, but gave her what he hoped was a kind grin. “Not tonight, pet.”

Human women. The grasping, gullible creatures.

She pouted, her rouged lips curling into a perfect, little pucker. “But it’s been so long since you visited me.”

It had been a while. Months, to be cock-teasingly precise. And for someone with his appetites, it was a bloody sacrifice. But as much as a mere whiff of Annette’s perfume used to tighten his trousers, now the sight of her ample bosom left him limp. And it was all Nora MacLean’s fault. Damn that meddling, old woman.

Calan swallowed. He hated making women sad, even the human variety. The very idea grated on his fraught nerves, but it was best to make a clean break of it. “Annette, you know it has to end. We’ve talked about this.”

The waitress blanched. “Is it another woman?”

Shite. He didn’t even know how to answer that question. Was there another woman?

Was it possible that Maggie Collins was more than just a tempting dream? Or was she a sin-inspiring succubus sent by the devil himself to torment him?

Why did his life sometimes seem like an endless cycle of trying to escape those soft-skinned beauties?

He knew the Collins lass was in Kirkwall. It didn’t take long for news to spread on the island, and the place was abuzz with word of Nora’s Canadian granddaughter. He just hadn’t been able to seek her out in person yet, despite his promise to Nora.

He needed Maggie to do a little something for him first.

How on earth would he introduce himself to the petite redhead? Not that introductions would be required. Surely, she’d recognize him as the stranger she’d been having intense, sexual dreams of for months. As the creature who’d been haunting the periphery of her fantasy world, egging her on in her nighttime touch fest because it aroused him as much as her.

He shook his head, wishing he’d never lost that damned card game and subsequently, the pelt. It would teach him to drink and gamble at the same time. But he’d made an oath to the dying woman, hoping to appease her, when all he’d wanted was the pelt.

When Nora had found his pelt on the beach during one of his swims, he’d thought he’d have to entertain the stout, old woman. She’d gotten a strange look in her cloudy eyes then, telling him she wanted him to please her lonely granddaughter instead. He’d explained the magic only compelled him to pleasure the finder of the skin.

“So be it, Calan,” Nora had answered. “You are obliged to pleasure me. However, I daresay my old parts will not accommodate yours, and I shan’t break another hip.

Therefore, the only thing that will give me pleasure is if you satisfy my Maggie.”

The cagey, old woman had found an interesting loophole.

He’d sputtered and griped but it had been hard to argue with her logic. After all, in doing this, he’d be pleasing Nora and the magic would be appeased. Still, he’d argued his point, feeling put in his place.

Nora had tittered. “Poor lad. Would it ease your mind if we played poker for it? If you win, I’ll give you the pelt. If I win, you take care of Maggie.”

“A tad unorthodox,” he’d grumbled. Still, he’d agreed, thinking he’d trounce the old bird.

It hadn’t quite gone that way. Nora had plied him with booze, and he’d lost in a spectacular fashion. The deal had been done. It was his duty to lavish Maggie with some selkie attention, and to look after her, as Nora had requested.

Because he could tell the old woman was dying, he’d given her his word.

And now, for some bizarre reason, he couldn’t think straight for thoughts of Maggie.

Even though he’d only glimpsed her in dreams. Not that it really mattered how he glimpsed her. For someone like him, dreams were a powerful method of communication.

Why, he’d carried on entire conversations with family members in his dreams! And now, he felt as if he already knew Maggie, not that he’d asked to know her, although they hadn’t spoken a single word to each other in the conscious world.

In his dream life, they’d done a lot more than just speak. And that was the only thought nowadays that put a bulge in his pants.

“I asked you a question, Calan.”

He looked up at the barmaid. Damn. He’d forgotten all about her. “I’m sorry, Annette, really I am.” He offered her the charming smile that had raised the skirts of many a barmaid over the years. “But I’ll take that wine and the oyster platter as soon as you’re ready, pet.”

Dumbstruck, Annette stumbled away to place the order.

Calan downed the last scrumptious drop of the red wine in his glass, and his thoughts returned to Maggie Collins. What was it about the woman? Ever since Nora had told him her story, she’d intruded into his dreams. He remembered his brother Angus having that experience when he met his mate Elsie.

Now that was a scary thought.

Angus had been immediately smitten with Elsie and had been following her like a wee pup ever since. Calan had never envisioned himself in that life. If Angus wanted to chain himself to a woman, and a human one to boot, so be it, but that wouldn’t be his fate. For so many years, he’d been more loner, than lonely. He was happy being on his own, shagging whomever he wanted, whenever he wanted. Living wherever his fancy took him. He was a nomad. A Gypsy.

An animal, just as Maggie fancied him in her dreams. And the wee thing didn’t know the half of it.

And the animal in him wanted his damned pelt back. But he wouldn’t get it until he fulfilled his promise to Nora, and that promise involved meeting Maggie in the flesh.

And, by Freyja’s ponderous tits, he was a man who kept his promises. Even the ones made to the blasted humans.

In this case, he certainly had to. Not only was he frustratingly curious about the Canadian redhead, he also needed to go home. It had been ages since he’d returned to his home under the waves and it was calling to him. A summons so strong it was practically a command.

To say nothing of his brother’s situation. Angus had come to him in a dream not long ago, letting him know that Elsie would soon give birth to their firstborn. A huge event in a selkie family, one that all family members attended out of tradition. Angus was the closest of all his brothers, like a second father, and he really wanted Calan there for the birth. Calan couldn’t disappoint him.

But he couldn’t go home without the pelt. He might be an excellent swimmer, but it was the pelt’s power that allowed him to stay underwater for more than a few moments at a time. Without it wrapped around his body, he was as good as landlocked. Sure, he kept a home on land, and could be quite comfortable for a time. However the pull of the sea was great and no earthly home would ever be as welcoming as the embrace of the waves.

He just had to hide the skin better next time. The day he’d lost it to Nora, he’d taken it off so he could sunbathe on a boulder. It had been an unseasonably warm day and after a time, he’d felt the need to dip his toes in the waves again. Damn him for not hiding the pelt better! He’d only gone out waist-deep to cool off, but by the time he noticed Nora creeping up on him, she already had the skin in her wrinkled hands.

He’d been foolish. But when he’d seen the old woman collecting seashells down the beach, he never dreamed she’d try to collect a selkie while she was at it.

Annette arrived with a new oyster platter and a more than a hint of desperation in her eyes. She dropped it in front of him and proceeded to flirt shamelessly with another man at the bar for his benefit. Calan breathed in deeply. He hated breaking it off with a woman. He knew, without any immodesty, that losing someone like him could be devastating to a human. He’d seen it happen countless times. Every time a lass thought she’d sunk her claws into him for good, he’d had to go. A man like him didn’t want to be tied down, not to one place, and certainly not to one woman. It was against his nature.

It was bad enough being forced to stay with one when he couldn’t find his pelt.

When there was no compulsion to stay, his need to escape was heightened.

And what of it? There was no law against being a happy bachelor.

He looked away from the barmaid who was practically sitting on the other man now, so intent was she on gaining Calan’s attention. No matter. He couldn’t afford to worry about Annette now. He had bigger fish to fry and a pelt to find. If he had to, he’d seduce it right out of the Collins woman’s pretty hands.

Of course, without the pelt, he couldn’t give her the whole show, couldn’t do a full transformation for her. And if there was anything he’d learned about women, it was that they appreciated a bit of theater. They loved the idea of an animal becoming man for them. He wouldn’t be able to show Maggie his true selkie face, but he supposed he could harness his powers to fake it a little.

He picked up an oyster shell and slurped the delicious contents down with resolve.

It was time to meet Miss Maggie. In person.

Chapter 2

“And so, dear friends, let us bow our heads and pray for our sister, Nora.”

Maggie listened to the minister, her mind clouded by grief. As each heart-wrenching moment passed, Maggie felt more numb. It was lovely to hear so many friends paying tribute to her gran, but it didn’t deaden the pain.

“Now we’ll hear a few words of tribute from Nora’s granddaughter, Maggie,” the minister said.

She stared, unblinking, and then jumped when she realized he was talking about her.

Taking a big sniff, she slid out of the pew and shuffled toward the lectern as a zombie with a full stomach would toward a brain. She took her place, cleared her throat into the microphone, and winced at the feedback.

The door at the back of the church opened with a sonorous, echoing creak. Maggie looked up.

Standing there, red in the face and puffing, was Matthew. As all the silver-and blue-rinsed heads in the pews turned toward him, he gave Maggie an embarrassed little wave.

Of all the…

What was he doing in Scotland? Sure, Maggie knew Matthew wasn’t taking the breakup well. She’d attributed it to the fact that, in a bizarre twist of fate, life hadn’t been treating him too kindly lately. She’d heard through the grapevine that Caitlyn had made a formal complaint against him at work. In the drama that ensued, the atmosphere had become so uncomfortable Matthew had been forced to quit. The Toronto HR world was smaller than it seemed and Matthew hadn’t found a job since.

Devastated by the loss of employment, and perhaps feeling the hand of divine retribution, he’d come looking for Maggie several times to apologize and make things better. In fact, he hadn’t stopped pestering her since the office fellatio incident. He’d always been the sort who never understood what he had until he lost it. But to haul his flabby ass across the ocean?

Inconceivable.

For a flash of a moment, she wondered if he’d come because he thought he could cash in on her inheritance. He wouldn’t, would he?

Maggie stared at her ex. He was good-looking in a clean-cut way, with his tidy, sandy hair and earnest blue eyes. Matthew was smart and capable. He could be successful again if he put his mind to it.

Why didn’t he just move on? Surely he wasn’t that distraught over losing her? Not with other women lining up to kneel before him. Of course, he’d come from nothing.

Perhaps the idea of having nothing again scared him.

The minister cleared his throat. She was supposed to be eulogizing Gran. But now the words were failing her. She stuttered and blinked and mumbled something unintelligible about sugar cookies. Finally, the solicitous Liz and Phyllis took pity on her and led her back to the pew. She remained cozily phalanxed between them for the rest of the service, glad of their glares at the interloper Matthew.

At the reception afterward, the two ladies took care of her and didn’t let Matthew anywhere near her. They plied her with food she didn’t eat. Regaled her with stories she
barely heard. Protected her in their way.

“If that so-and-so thinks he’s getting anywhere near you, I’ll give him a piece of my mind,” Liz threatened, her wrinkled knuckles curling around her purse handle.

For a moment, Maggie wondered if Liz would brain him with the handbag. She knew for a fact the old lady stowed a bottle of gin in there, so it would hurt.

Phyllis narrowed her eyes at Matthew as he loitered near the sandwich table, trying not to appear conspicuous amongst the horde of pensioners. “Men,” Phyllis muttered.

“You can’t trust them, Maggie. Mother always said so. You leave this one to us.”

But at the end of the exhausting day, Maggie felt the need to escape. Silently, so that her helpful lady wardens didn’t see her, she exited and made her way back to the house.

She threw on a jacket and her gran’s Wellingtons and headed to the nearby beach. As eager as she was for a chance to grieve in peace and quiet, she was also anxious for an opportunity to escape Matthew’s presence. And, she had to admit, she was eager to elude the doting old girls. They’d saved her from having to talk to Matthew, but had been driving Maggie crazy since she’d arrived in Kirkwall. Liz kept trying to feed her, and Phyllis made constant attempts to clean Nora’s house for her.

Even given her frame of mind, Maggie didn’t quite have the heart to tell them she just wanted to be alone.

She wandered the quiet stretch of beach, lonely as it was in the evening. In a strange way, she was happy to stare into its chilly waters again. She drew her anorak about her to fend off the breeze that was ever-present, even now at the height of summer.

Her sore eyes narrowed as she focused in on a bobbing, brown head on the watery horizon a hundred feet away from her. She grinned, and then closed the distance between them by a few feet. “Hi, big guy.”

Out in the water, the large seal watched her with as much interest as she did it. It had huge, limpid eyes, and Maggie could have sworn it was grinning back at her. Even at such a distance, she could see it was as fascinated with her and she was with it.

It reminded her of the seal-man in her sexy dreams. That strange creature who’d watched her with unrelenting interest and more than an undertone of sensuality. The dream man who, over the course of a few months, had watched as she’d bared her soul and her sex to him. She’d never acknowledged it before, even to herself, but the dream seal-man made her uncomfortable. The same sort of uncomfortable she’d felt when she was sixteen and Steven O’Dowd felt her up under the school bleachers.

It was an awakening.

But Steven had been a horny, teenage boy. This was a seal. An animal. How weird was that? Hoping very much that she wasn’t developing some sort of weird marine-life fetish, Maggie tried to put the dream seal out of her mind and allowed her thoughts to drift.

She continued to meander down the beach, taking the odd swig from a flask of brandy she’d pilfered from Nora’s stocked liquor cabinet. However, Maggie soon realized the real seal was following her. With each step she took, he glided through the water as if in step with her.

She nodded toward it. “You’re sweet, but I’m probably not the best playmate for you right now.”

She’d seen seals on the beach before with her gran. The locals were always pointing out spots where one could glimpse the sleek animals, or “selkies” as they called them.

But this one seemed persistent. He seemed to stare back at her, with intensity. As a human would. As if he knew her.

As if he knew every inch of her skin, as well as its feel.

Maggie swallowed. Had she turned against men so definitively that she was turning to the animal kingdom?

And then she laughed at the ludicrous thought. She was grieving. For a lot of things.

No wonder her brains felt just as scrambled as Liz’s breakfast eggs and just as dark as the black pudding she’d plopped on the plate next to them.

“Okay.” She relented, smiling at the seal. “Maybe some company might be nice.”

The animal bobbed in the water, seemingly in agreement. Maggie stared out at the beast, and was lost for a second in his brown eyes. She felt comforted, protected, by his vigilant presence.

For some reason, she felt she knew him, and that she was meant to be in this exact spot at this precise time. For a quick moment, she had the impression she was standing on the edge of a huge cliff, destined to tumble from its heights into the welcoming waves below.

For the first time in her life, Maggie experienced a peculiar sense of destiny.

But then, deciding the brandy was getting the better of her, she dismissed the notion as utter nonsense. There was no destiny. No fate. It was up to her to create her own fate.

And it certainly wasn’t with a big, hairy seal.

Her feet warm in Nora’s green Wellies, she began to walk farther down the isolated beach. It was a beautiful evening, if breezy, and Maggie slung her anorak over her shoulder. Her unruly bob was currently tucked behind her ears, but the auburn curls kept flying into her face. She turned a corner where she could be sheltered by a massive boulder, and enjoyed a brief respite from the wind.

Even there, the seal watched her, his intelligent brown eyes trained only on her.

She walked to the edge of the water, wishing suddenly that she could join him. As she watched him watching her, she felt an unavoidable lump festering in her throat. Her eyes began to sting, and she knew she couldn’t blame it on the wind.

For the first time, Maggie allowed herself to cry over Nora. All the pain from her death and Matthew’s betrayal washed over her. She didn’t even try to wipe away the tears as they tumbled down her freckled cheeks.

Oh, Gran! No more men. I swear it. They’re nothing but trouble. Them, and their damned penises.

Through all of this, the seal watched her, gliding just a little closer in the water as if trying to distract her from her pain.

Maggie suddenly recalled one of the old tales her grandmother used to tell her as a child. Her lips spread into a crooked smile as she listened to her gran’s voice in her head.

“Legend says,” Nora had said, “human women who are unsatisfied with their love lives can seek the love of an immortal selkie man. They need only cry seven tears into the sea to call him. He will then shed his animal skin, come to her in human form, and love her as no human man can. But eventually, he will want to return to his beloved sea.

However, if the woman steals and hides his selkie skin before he can put it back on, he will be her captive until he finds it.”

Maggie sniffed at the memory and rubbed her reddening eyes. “What rubbish, Gran.

Who wants that? I already have trust issues!”

She suddenly remembered the pelt Nora was supposed to have hidden and frowned.

Surely her grandmother hadn’t stolen a selkie man’s skin and kept him as her love slave?

The image was so hilarious it made her laugh out loud. Nora, in her thick, wool sweaters and Wellies, seduced by a buff immortal.

Pure hogwash.

No way. If it even exists, that pelt is just an old relic, something Gran probably found washed up on the beach. One of her tatty treasures. Of sentimental value to a superstitious old lady but no one else.

Gran had obviously lost her mind. And yet, even as Maggie decided searching for the pelt would be as fruitful as searching for the Holy Grail, she knew she had to try.

Whether Gran had been sick or not, it was her last request, and Maggie couldn’t say no.

With a little wave to the seal, who swam even closer now, Maggie returned to the boulder. She laid her anorak down on the sand, but not before having another substantial swig from the flask of brandy. And then she sat, and let the breeze dry her tear-stained face.

For a passing moment, she wondered how many of her tears might have plopped into the sea. But then she realized it didn’t matter. Selkies were nothing more than myth.

* * * *

Maggie awoke some time later with a start, to find that the evening sky had darkened, creating a soft canopy of indigo above her. The moon was high, however, and cast a shimmering light across the water. She looked about, but was relieved to see that the beach was still isolated.

“Boy, drunk and alone on a beach. Charming,” she mumbled, her tongue feeling so thick. “This is a new low.”

Knowing she should head back to the house, she began to gather her things around her. She glanced toward the water, automatically looking for her seal buddy. He was gone. And when the palpable sense of disappointment infiltrated her spirit like a dense fog, she felt like even more of a pathetic lunatic. For some strange reason, she missed him. Felt so alone without the sight of his knowing eyes upon her.

“What did you expect?” she muttered, tucking the flask into her pocket. “That’s men for you. Unreliable. What else is new?”

She was attempting to stand on her wobbly legs, only to fall back down on her bottom, when she heard the sound of splashing water. Thinking it was her seal, Maggie turned to look.

Her breath caught in her throat. It wasn’t the animal at all.

It was a man. He was rising out of the waves, walking toward her. She froze. He was nude, utterly nude, and was staring at her with overflowing intimacy. As if they’d had, God help her, relations.

And she realized, with sudden panic, they’d had! In her dreams. He was the seal-man from all her sex dreams.

No. Impossible.

Her first instinct was to call for help, but there was no one near. And then she realized with frightening awareness that she didn’t want any help anyway. Glued to her spot, she couldn’t help but drink him in.

He was beautiful, if unnervingly wet and naked. He had long, shiny, brown hair that
hung down past his shoulders. His face could have belonged on an ad for expensive cologne, and he had a body to match. Sculpted shoulders gave way to arms corded in muscle. His defined chest was blanketed by a smattering of sparse, brown hair that led tantalizingly to his rock-hard abs.

Maggie held her breath as her gaze traveled lower on his body, taking in trim calves and thighs a quarterback would envy. And, she noted with simultaneous hunger and horror, his penis was the biggest she’d ever had the pleasure of seeing. It was thick and long and glistening with the droplets of water that yet cascaded over his body. And it seemed to be reaching for her. She gulped, and forced herself to look back up at his face.

There was a faint glow about his skin, a shimmery aura. Dismissing it as a trick of the moonlight, she shook her head.

He was almost upon her, and his full lips were taut in a teasing grin. Maybe he was a surfer who’d lost not only his board, but his shorts in the waves. She knew she should be frantic, but wasn’t. There was something in his brown eyes that was so familiar, so soothing, even as they swept over her own body with lustful appreciation.

He stopped in front of her, and stood boldly, unashamed of his glorious nakedness.

She managed to spit out one hushed word. “You.”

“You,” was his equally awed reply.

She blinked, hoping that in the space of that second he’d have thrown some clothes on, but fate chose to mess with her some more. “Who are you anyway?”

He knelt before her in the sand and reached for her shaking hands. “You know who I am,” he replied, his voice lulling her with its deep Orcadian accent, that unique mix of Scottish and Norse inflections. “You called for me.”

“Uh-uh,” she stammered, coming quickly back to her senses. “Look, buddy, this isn’t a nude beach and…”

“Maggie,” he drawled, cutting her off, while bringing her fingers to his lips.

“How do you know my name?” Her eyes widened. Yet even as she knew she should be alarmed by such frank familiarity, she wasn’t afraid of him in the least.

“Hush. I must taste you.” The naked man gently curled her knuckles against his mouth, and then let his tongue glide along each knuckle, from finger to finger. The whole time he kissed her in this intimate manner, he kept his brown eyes on her face.

She couldn’t help groaning, which only made him smile widely. Before she knew what was happening, he laid one hand on the small of her back and lowered her to the anorak that was still pooled around her on the sand. As he leaned over her, his wet hair fell against her shoulders and brushed her cheeks, leaving a cold trail on her skin. Even drenched, his hair was so thick and lush she wanted to grab whole handfuls of it, strip herself and brush it all over her body.

She knew she should be pushing this crazy man off her, anything but submit to what he was doing. But, she realized with something approaching great abandon, she didn’t want to stop him. In fact, she wanted that gorgeous specimen to lay her down and screw her senseless.

He lay atop her, and she gasped at how good his weight felt on top of her body. She writhed below him, suddenly wishing she could tear off her own clothes and burn them.

A deep rumble of laughter reverberated through his chest. He knew she wanted him, and it pleased him.

For a few delirious moments, she forgot her pledge to avoid men.

“Oh my, I can’t believe I’m doing this. Me, the one who’s never had a one-night stand. Even with Matthew and Bobby, I waited weeks to do it.”

His eyes darkened with a strange possessive fire, as he deftly unfastened her shirt buttons. “Those men were fools,” he spat. “I’ll give you so much more pleasure than they ever did.”

Before she could utter another word, his lips were upon hers. They were plump and soft and their silken friction created a heat that elicited an immediate, burning echo between her thighs. Slowly, in the most seductive dance she’d ever experienced, the man eased his tongue between her eager lips. Her mouth opened for him at the same time that he settled his straining cock into the V of her thighs. He was hard, deliciously so, even over her pants. She kicked off her Wellies and wrapped her legs around his naked waist.

And as he began to move himself against her still-clothed sex, his tongue thrust into her mouth, in a delectable foreshadowing of what would happen as soon as he got her clothes off.

Maggie felt herself coming already, flushed, sweaty, as if he’d been pumping into her all night. And her sex was virtually pounding, aching to be unleashed from her trousers. She knew she was on the verge of the most instantaneous, earth-shattering orgasm she’d ever have. This had never happened with Matthew, or that other idiot whose name she’d suddenly forgotten.

“What’s happening to me? This can’t be,” she cried.

There was a noise somewhere down the beach. She blinked a few times. And then, as she lay on her sandy anorak, she realized something was wrong. The heavy weight was no longer on her.

He was gone. Her naked man from the sea was gone.

Maggie sat up, her head darting violently all about her, scanning the beach in the darkness. Sure enough, he’d disappeared. There were no footprints in the sand other than those made by size-seven Wellingtons. And as she looked down, she realized her shirt was undone, and her flesh was still warm from his touch. And her crotch was absolutely pulsing with unfulfilled desire.

“Please tell me I didn’t have a wet dream on this beach,” she whispered, unbelieving.

“Oh my God, I am so done with men. Especially the naked ones.”

Ashamed, Maggie grabbed her things and tore down the beach toward her grandmother’s house. She didn’t even want to look for the seal.

All the same, she couldn’t help noticing that he still wasn’t in the water.

* * * *

Berating herself audibly, Maggie trudged up the path to her gran’s house, not caring if anyone heard her. “Damn brandy. What was I thinking?”

Still, she mused as she stared at the flask in her hand, what a dream. Maybe if she kept drinking, that gorgeous hunk would rematerialize to finish the job.

Her brows knit in confusion, she continued her solitary march to the house. The only sound was of the Wellingtons squishing in the gravel. She felt herself starting to calm down. “You’re okay,” she said, attempting to console herself quietly. “You had a stress-related sex dream, brought on by alcohol and Gran’s stupid selkie skin story. That’s all.”

Even though it had only been a dream, she’d never felt anything so primal. No man had ever inspired such need in her. Sure, she’d loved Matthew, but the man on the beach,
that denuded figment of her imagination, had made her wanton. Brazen.

And she’d liked it.

“Maggie! Stop!”

She turned toward the voice behind her. When she saw Matthew running in her direction, she blushed. And then remembered she had no reason to blush. She didn’t owe him any explanations about her sex dreams!

“Maggie,” he said, catching up to her. “Please. Just give me a minute.”

“I don’t know why you’re here, Matthew. You should be in Toronto, looking for a job.”

He looked at her like he’d been slapped. “Not until I resolve things with you. About Caitlyn … you have to believe me. I didn’t love her.”

“You seemed to be loving her mouth last time I saw her with you.”

It was his turn to blush. “It was a mistake. I swear.” He reached for her hand, frowning when she pulled away. “I’ve been trying to forget you. I know what I did was wrong. But when I heard your grandmother died, I had to be here with you. I still love you, Maggie. That never changed. We were just … in a rut. I was stupid. I got tempted.”

She didn’t reply. Yes, they had been in a rut. But instead of talking to her about it, he chose to insert his dick between another woman’s lips.

“Just give me a chance to make it up to you. Let me help you with your gran’s things. I may be a shitty fiancé, but I rock at organizing. And you must have so much to go through. Besides, you shouldn’t be alone right now.”

“I’m not alone,” she answered tartly. In fact, recalling her time with the imaginary sex god on the beach made her feel less alone than ever before. “You made a mistake coming here, Matthew. You should go home.”

“Not until I know you’re okay,” he replied, looking hurt. “Or, at least, less drunk.”

“I’m not drunk!”

“You smell like a distillery, babe, but I won’t hold it against you right now. Oh, and by the way, you’re not getting rid of me. I have a room at the local hotel, if you can call it that,” he sneered. “I’m not leaving until you come home with me. I’m going to fight for you, Maggie. For us.”

“Argh! Leave me alone, Matthew,” she spat, turning away, stomping farther down the winding path toward the house. Who did he think he was? And how dare he pass judgment on her for having a little beverage after Gran’s funeral?

Men. She definitely despised the species. Thankfully, he didn’t follow her, and headed quickly back toward the main road, the one leading to the only guesthouse in the area.

Within moments, she was opening the gate in front of the house. Without knowing why, she stopped walking. Something just felt wrong. She stood still and peered toward the house, her eyes straining in the faint light of evening.

As quietly as possible, she inched her way toward the house wall, flattening herself against it. With infinite slowness, she leaned out and looked toward the front room window.

Someone was in there.

At first, she thought she was seeing things. The lights were off as she’d left them, but there was definite movement in there. She could make out a shape moving back and forth near the front window. Maggie paled seven shades. Suddenly, the words from her gran’s
letter rang out in her head.

Trust no one.

At that moment, a strong arm grabbed her from behind. Before she could scream, a large hand clamped down on her mouth. “Easy, lass,” whispered a man with a deep voice. “Let me help you.”

Maggie struggled in the man’s grip, but he was too strong. Had Matthew followed her, coming back to plead his insane case again? No. The voice was Orcadian, unfamiliar, yet also somehow recognizable.

He pulled her off the path and behind some shrubbery at the side of the house. She tried to pry his hand away from her mouth, but couldn’t make it budge. The crazy bastard had hands of titanium!

“Och,” he muttered, mildly frustrated. “You’re a spry one, aren’t you?”

Maggie tried to place the voice, but couldn’t, and its familiarity rattled her. The low vibrations of its baritone sensuality even more so. Still, her body automatically fought back, writhing in his grip.

Holding her from behind, the man lowered his head to her ear. “Now look, lass. If you promise to be nice, I’ll take my hand away. I really don’t think you want to be attracting the notice of whoever’s ransacking your granny’s house, do you?”

Although her chest was heaving in fear, she nodded. “Good girl,” he whispered.

“Now, I’ll let you go. But if you make another peep, I’ll sit on you.”

That option doesn’t sound bad coming from that voice. It sounds good.

She caught her breath and felt his large hands slide away. Her head spun a little as she experienced the glide of his fingers on her flesh. Gently, he spun her around to face him. Maggie looked up.

Even in the darkness, she would have recognized his face anywhere. It was the man from her dream on the beach, fully clothed. The man from all her dreams. And he was smiling seductively down at her.

For the first time in her life, Maggie fainted.

Chapter 3

The next morning, Calan watched as she came to in her grandmother’s bed, where he’d tucked her after she’d fainted. And it was about time the lass woke up. His back was sore from sitting in the chair all night, and now he was plain ornery, especially in light of how badly he’d wanted to share that bed with her.

It had been little more than torture watching her sleep, and his erection hadn’t given him a moment’s peace.

Bloody hell.

Slowly he raked his gaze over her form, which looked no less delectable under her granny’s quilt. He hardened again, which was amazing because he’d been hard for her for months, but seeing her on that beach had done things to him. Undeniably, unbelievably carnal things. And now he couldn’t see straight for the thought of having her body under his again.

He cursed under his breath. He needed to focus, to fulfill his oath to Nora, get the pelt, and get out.

So why did he want to stay?

It must be the lure of the skin, of the sea. He’d had many a human woman in order to help him satisfy the urges that possessed men of his kind. This woman was no different.

She shifted in the bed, groggy but not yet awake. As she turned over to hug her pillow, her top blouse buttons popped open and he got an eyeful of lacy black bra over the top of an ample breast.

All of a sudden, every Orcadian swear word he knew came to mind. And he knew a few. Ones even the oldest of Orkney historians would have forgotten.

It’s because she’s beautiful and you’re hard up, that’s all. You should just go back to the pub, fuck Annette until she doesn’t know which side of the bar is up, and get it out of your system. Humans are all the same anyway.

And yet even the idea of making love to anyone but this Collins woman was strangely repulsive. He couldn’t even visualize the act without picturing her auburn curls strewn on his pillow while he buried himself in her warm body. She fired up his imagination, made him wonder what it would be like to put a new light in those extraordinary blue eyes of hers. The light of surprise and ecstasy when she realized what he could do to her.

But why? Why should he want her so much? So much so that he lost control with her on the beach. Thank Odin he’d heard someone passing. The momentary distraction had given him the power to escape before the seduction was complete. And yet, here he was with her again, unsure of who was doing the seducing in their strange scenario.

The fact that he’d felt an overwhelming need to protect her, to stay the night, when he’d seen the prankster in her house was even more disturbing. Why should he care about this woman’s welfare? She was nothing to him! And yet the thought of her running into what was likely only a teenage hooligan still set his blood to boiling.

To say nothing of the storm of furious emotion he’d experienced watching her talk to her ex-fiancé. He’d had to hold himself back.

And what if the intruder was after his pelt? Was there a chance Nora had been less
than discreet, even though she’d promised not to tell anyone about it? What did he do then? Call the police? He couldn’t take a chance his skin might end up in another’s hands, even a police constable’s hands.

He glanced at Maggie again. These feelings he had for her were new, awkward. He didn’t know what to do with them. He supposed he could ask Angus. That is, if his reprobate of a brother would spare him a moment. Since mating with the lovely Elsie a year ago, Angus hadn’t resurfaced. Wouldn’t leave his mate’s side, and especially not now that she was expecting their pup. Why, the only time he’d heard from him was when he’d asked him to attend the birth. His brother chose to spend the rest of his time mooning over his wife.

Damned newlyweds. For the long life of him, he’d never understand them.

Maggie made a small noise, bringing him out of his reverie. He watched and waited through narrowed eyes, and saw how her eyes grew wild at the sight of him. He jumped to calm her. “I won’t hurt you. I’m … a friend. I swear.”

“Yeah, right,” she whispered. “Who the hell are you, and how did you get in my house?”

He could hear her heart racing. He could smell her fear. He could also smell something else. Her sudden arousal. And that delicious fragrance did fuck all for his sore dick. Still, that tangible proof she fancied him made him feel a little cocky. He grinned, sitting back leisurely in the corner wicker chair. “Well, you did have a key in your pocket.”

“My pants pocket, you pervert!” Her voice rose with every word. “I’m not really in the habit of letting strangers get into my pants!”

“I’m no stranger, Maggie Collins,” he replied, seeing the impact of his lilting, deep voice on her. “Certainly not after what happened on the beach.”

“That w-was a dream. I’ve been having a lot of weird dreams lately.”

“And you know I’ve been the star in every one of them. But you can deny it if it makes you feel better.” He shrugged, seeing how she shivered each time he rolled r’s with his Orcadian accent. All the while, he made sure to continue grinning his most devilish grin. The one that had helped him pry his pelt out of feminine hands for centuries. He’d charm this woman too, if he had to. He needed that skin. And if he had to bed Maggie Collins to get it, so be it. It’d be a pleasure for both of them.

With that thought in mind, he leaned back in the chair and spread his legs in a careless pose that drew her attention to his lower half. He licked his lips, enjoying her discomfiture tremendously. “Now, wee Maggie. Let’s have us a nice chat, shall we?”

She shook her head. He tried not to gawk at the way the silky, auburn springs bounced above her shoulders. All of a sudden, he understood why ancient folk used to consider redheads witches. He couldn’t look away from her.

“You’re not supposed to be real,” she whispered, staring at a spot somewhere over his shoulder. “I made you up.”

He cleared his dry throat. “Yes, well, I’d rather hoped you weren’t real either. It appears we were both tragically mistaken.”

*

Maggie stared at him. His long, brown hair was pulled back into a loose ponytail, and the body that was so naked and wet on the beach was now clad in a black T-shirt, jeans, and a leather biker jacket. She felt her heart skip a beat at the sight of him in this
bad-boy garb. She’d always had a thing for bad boys, from the moment Steven O’Dowd played so carelessly with her heart in high school. And while both Matthew and Bobby had been preppy and straitlaced on the outside, on the inside they’d ended up looking really bad after she learned of their philandering inclinations.

So help her, she would not fall for another bad boy. Her plan was not to fall for anyone, period, for a long time.

Especially not men who overpowered her senses and seemed to ooze sex and moonlight. There really was a faint glimmer to his skin. She rubbed her eyes, wondering if she was too young for cataracts to set in.

Despite her determination to make the stranger disappear, he didn’t appear even slightly prepared to go. Her mind raced. “This isn’t happening. I was drunk, grieving. I imagined you. I’m probably imagining you right now. Only with more clothes.”

He moved slowly over to the bed, allowing himself to perch on the edge, still smiling. “I didn’t hear you complaining about my lack of clothes last time.” His gaze dropped to her chest, and he waved his hand in that vicinity. “You might want to fasten your gansey. It’s a wee bit distracting.”

“My … gansey?” She shook her head, annoyed. This man used words even her grandmother hadn’t. “What is that?”

He nodded at her bosom, looking annoyed himself. “Your … jumper.” He seized on the right word as if it had just occurred to him. “Your shirt!”

She looked down, only to see her bra on flagrant display. Damn. Feeling herself turn scarlet, she hurried to button her shirt up. She tried not to make eye contact while she did so, but her gaze inevitably flew to his face.

She watched, helpless, as his tongue darted out again to wet the corner of his full lips. She’d tasted that scrumptious tongue. Couldn’t get the taste out of her head! Without thinking, she blurted, “Stop that!”

“Stop what, love?”

Oh God. Stop being so sexy, she wanted to scream. All the heat in her body seemed to shoot up into her face, and she just knew her shame must be written all over her forehead. “Look, pal, this needs to stop. I don’t know you.” Her hands were trembling now, and her lips were chattering in anger to boot. “I don’t understand…”

“Maggie,” he uttered, grasping her hands. At his touch, her hands stopped shaking and she felt herself calm down once again. His eyes softened as if he almost felt sorry for her. He let go of her hands. From somewhere next to the bed, he produced her flask of brandy. “I’ll explain everything to you, lass. Have a drink first, though. You’ll need it.”

“No drinks.” For all she knew, he’d spiked it. Maybe he was a sex maniac who’d come upon her on the beach, had slipped her something, and was looking to reap the rewards. Yet even as she imagined it, she grabbed the flask. She swallowed a huge gulp of brandy, not caring that it streaked a burning path down her throat.

Once again, his tempting mouth widened in a lascivious grin. “Why don’t I start with my name?”

“Fine.” Her own lips tightened into a straight line, and she tried not to stare at his eyes or his lips or anything that reminded her of how savagely he’d kissed her on the beach. “Who the hell are you?”

“Calan Kirk.” He said it simply, as if that was enough explanation.

She looked blankly at him until the realization set in. “Wait. You’re my
grandmother’s friend?”

“I am,” he whispered. As much as he kept his face serious to match hers, there was a definite laugh in his dark eyes. “Am I not what you expected?”

“It’s not that … I just thought, oh, I don’t know. The past couple of days have been…”

“Hell,” he answered for her, his gaze now seeking to console her, as much as his jaw was still set in tense lines. “You’ve been through bloody hell.”

“Right.” She felt her pulse slowing down. How is it that, as much as he troubled her, he also seemed to understand her? She’d never even met him in person, or had she?

Maybe at the funeral. She’d shaken so many hands that day, she couldn’t even remember the faces that went with them. Was it possible she’d sent him the wrong message there, and not remembered? She couldn’t have. She would have remembered this man. He was too sinful to forget. “Were you at the funeral?”

“I’m sorry, no.”

“That’s too bad.” Boy, if I’d only met this guy before Matthew…

“That piss weasel Matthew’s no good for you,” he said, snarling, as if he’d read her mind. “As I said before, he’s the greatest fool that ever lived.” And then he looked surprised for having said it.

Maggie’s jaw dropped. “How did you do that? It’s like you read my mind.”

“Easily.” He shrugged, his big shoulders shifting under the leather. “I know … your type.”

My type? She knew she should be rattled at the comment, but her heart was still too busy flip-flopping in her chest at his earlier comment about Matthew. “I don’t think so, friend. Not after one drunken romp on the beach.” And then the most horrible realization flew into her head. “Wait! It’s morning! You’ve been here all night? In my grandmother’s bedroom? With me?”

“You fainted,” he said in a rational tone, not appearing in the least concerned with how things appeared. “How did I know you wouldn’t go into some sort of … diabetic shock? I don’t have a copy of your medical chart, you know.”

Maggie felt all the color drain out of her face. “I don’t believe this.”

“Don’t fret,” he replied, glowering. “I’m not a raving sex offender. You were quite safe.”

Maggie calmed her racing heart. This stranger had stayed with her all night, had probably watched her sleep. She knew she should be creeped out. However, she was more creeped out by the fact that she wasn’t so bothered. In a surreal way, it was nice that he’d waited for her to recover. Still, what had Gran been thinking, putting her in touch with this man? “Look, why are you even here? Did my grandmother ask you to come? Is this some sort of weird, beyond-the-grave matchmaking effort on her part?”

He laughed, and the heady sound made a shiver run down her spine, but then his face became serious. “If I were you, I’d be more concerned that someone broke into your house.” He looked toward the window, frowning at the state of the old, rusty locks. “It was probably just bored teenagers, looking for a stash of money in a dead woman’s house, but you should still be careful.” And then he got an odd look on his face, as if he didn’t quite believe his own explanation.

Maggie remembered the shadow she’d seen from outside, and felt herself start to panic again. Once more, each taste bud in her mouth seemed to dry up and her hands
began to shake again. “This is all way too weird for me. What’s happening?”

Obviously recognizing her for the distraught creature she was, Calan frowned. He inched closer to her on the bed. She didn’t resist as he put a leather-clad arm around her and gathered her to his warm chest. He stared down at her, the furrows in his brow making him appear hungry and determined and shocked, all at once. His lip curled and he patted her head, as he would a dog.

“Hush, lass. We scared him away. I would have caught the little bugger, but when you fainted I stayed with you.” He gazed into her eyes, seeking, seeking something she couldn’t name. “Still, better to be safe than sorry. Your granny worried that someone might break into her house. She actually asked me to watch over you. I made her a promise I would until … certain things are returned to me.”

“Why? What was she to you? She was almost ninety.”

His sensual face compressed into a tight mask. “We were friends. Fate brought us together.”

“That’s ridiculous,” she said, pushing away from Calan and jumping out of the bed.

He was too close, emanating too great a heat. Maggie had only ever been with safe-looking, clean-cut men. This Calan was the opposite. All sex, with looks that made her want to dissolve. She couldn’t sit on a bed with him, enfolded in his massive arms. It was far too tempting, and so unlike her to give in to someone like him. “You’re gonna have to do way better than that.”

He let out a long sigh, looking up from under impossibly long, dark lashes. “Oh, you’re not ready for the truth.”

She stood, hands on hips. Of course, she could handle the truth. She’d been fired by the powers that be at city hall. She’d had to confront not one, but two fiancés cheating, and had survived … sort of. She could handle anything. “Try me.”

Looking like he was starting to lose patience, he vaulted off the bed and stood in front of her. He glared down at her, nostrils flaring. “Fine. You want the truth? Your granny certainly didn’t see fit to tell you.” He inhaled deeply, as if unsure how to begin.

“Nora took something that was mine. She got me drunk and won it from me in a card game. Perhaps you’ve seen it? The skin of a selkie?” His brown eyes flashed, boring into hers.

“That smelly, old thing? Is that what all this is about?” Maggie cried. “Have it!”

His eyes widened. “You’d let me take it? Just like that?”

“Look, if she tricked you, I’m sorry. She was old. I think her mind was going. I don’t know why she’d want it.”

“Don’t you? It’s not an ordinary pelt.” He drew closer to her. She could feel his hot breath on her cheeks. “Don’t you know what I am?”

She stared up at him, so lost in his dark eyes that she couldn’t have formed an answer to his question if she had one. Even still, words issued from her mouth of their own petulant accord. “I don’t know. A taxidermist with a grudge?”

“I am,” he continued quietly, ignoring her pert suggestion, “of the selkie race. Your granny took the pelt and hid it as a final gift for you. She wanted you to have some happiness in your life, happiness only a selkie man could provide. I was starting to show you some of that happiness on the beach, when we were interrupted.”

“You’re crazy,” she said, breathing a little harder, all too aware of how close he was to her.

“Oh no, I’m not,” he replied, sanity shining through his eyes like a flashlight being turned on her. “And neither was your gran. I told Nora that’s not how it works. You cannot win a selkie for someone else, but she begged me. Begged me to keep you safe.

She worried others might know of the hidden skin, but not where. And I have to admit, I was curious. My people have … certain gifts. One of them is the ability to see in dreams.

And I began to see you. I’ve been seeing you for months.” He reached two fingers toward her cheek, the lightest of strokes, as if unable to refrain from doing so. “You’ve haunted me like a bewitching phantom.”

The impact of his words hit her, but her brain was too addled to accept the truth.

“Wait. You’re telling me you really were in my dreams, and that you were the seal in the water?”

“That was me, although not fully formed without the pelt. You see, I could never return to the sea without it, but I can still create the odd illusion.”

She shook her head and felt faint. Needing something solid to brace her, she plopped onto the bed again. “This isn’t real. Please go away.”

He grasped her gently by the arms. “I’ll prove it. Look.” He held up his hands, slowly spreading his fingers in front of her. For the first time, she noticed that his large fingers were slightly webbed. A thin membrane of almost translucent skin stretched between the bottom of each finger. One might never notice if one wasn’t close enough to him.

She continued looking at his hands. They were astoundingly beautiful, if unusual, and she wished she could touch them. Wished she could dance her tongue over the sheer membrane while she sucked on those luscious, long fingers.

What is wrong with me? Stop this!

“Okay,” she argued, desperate for reason. “But that doesn’t prove you’re a selkie.

I’ve heard of people with webbed fingers.”

“Oh, I see you have all the answers,” he whispered, his voice thick with what sounded like tightly leashed desire. “Well, according to the old lore, there is another way to prove it to you. Let me love you, Maggie. I’m unlike any lover you’ve ever known.”

She knew she should offer a retort, a smart comment to bring him down a notch for his boastfulness. But all she could do was look up at him in complete wonderment. Her body was already crying for the touch of this clearly insane stranger. She was dying for him to crush her under him and was losing the will to resist.

Something in him spoke to her. And something in her was responding with aching clarity and need.

Calan put a finger under her chin. As he did, she grabbed his hand and stared at the webbing as if it were a beautiful painting. Gently, he encircled her in his other arm and kissed her softly on the forehead. Maggie closed her eyes as he did so, feeling feverish.

Even that innocent kiss made her want to tear her clothes off, straddle him in that bed, and ride him hard. When she opened her eyes, he was staring hotly into her own, as if he had seen the dirty image in her brain.

“What happened on the beach before … I don’t do that sort of thing with just anyone,” she dared to whisper, melting under his enveloping, all-consuming heat. His face was so close, she could already feel her lips and tongue exploding with the flavor of him.

“What happened on the beach was just a taste, love.”

She gulped. “A taste of what?”

He leaned in and let his lips graze hers. His tongue, that tongue she’d fantasized about since first seeing him, darted out and flicked against her upper lip. “It was a taste of what I’m going to do to you now. And I daresay you need and want it as much as I do.”

Yes, she did need it. She needed to be impetuous for once and let this gorgeous man have her. He might not be playing with a full deck, but she could still have some fun.

Then maybe he could help her look for his precious, make-believe selkie pelt, and let him think he’d done his job. What harm was there in that?

But as Calan lowered his lips to her neck, letting his dangerous tongue stroke the soft skin there, her common sense came flooding back, rapping her on the head. “Stop. You need to leave.”

He pulled away, tilted his head, and considered her face for a moment. And grinned.

“That’s fine. I knew you weren’t ready for the truth.” With that, he bounded away from her, out the bedroom door, and down the stairs.

Reeling at his quick change, Maggie almost dropped to the floor. She recovered, chased him down the stairs and toward the front door. He opened it and turned to smile at her again. Her nipples hardened upon seeing the lusty turn of his lips. Infuriated that her body should betray her so, she crossed her arms over her chest.

“I’ll be seeing you, Maggie Collins,” he drawled, clearly amused at her reaction to him. “Be sure to lock the door behind me.”

She closed the door, hating herself for feeling so needy for a man. And then she locked it, wishing the door boasted six or seven industrial-strength locks so she could keep Calan Kirk out for good.

Chapter 4

That evening, when Liz and Phyllis invited themselves over for tea, bringing all the makings of a Buckingham Palace-worthy tea themselves, Maggie found she was glad for the company. It was the strangest sensation, but since Calan Kirk had taken his leave, she realized she felt quite alone. Alone, in a way she’d never experienced before. As if he’d stolen a little piece of her and had carried it away.

“I’m nuts,” she said, as she went to answer the door to the old ladies. “And he’s obviously a lunatic. A sexy, muscled, well-endowed lunatic. Forget him, Collins. He’s no good.”

It was with great relief that Maggie sat down to tea with her gran’s pals. The old women loved nothing more than chatting and gossiping about other pensioners at their church, and the conversation was a pleasant distraction. To say nothing of Phyllis’s oatcakes, which were so delicious Maggie snuck a fourth when they weren’t watching.

“Tell me,” she asked during a momentary lull in the conversation, her mind straying to the topic that had never left her mind. “Do you ladies know Calan Kirk?”

They assumed equally puzzled expressions.

“He was one of Gran’s friends. I just wondered what you knew of him.”

“It’s not a name I know, Maggie,” Liz answered. “Although I daresay there are a number of Kirks in this part of the world.”

“Would you like us to make some discreet inquiries?” asked Phyllis, maneuvering her dentures around an oatcake.

“No. It’s okay. I doubt anyone can answer the questions I have anyway.” She laughed.

“Is he bothering you, this Calan Kirk?” demanded Phyllis, frowning. “I can send my nephews around to talk some sense into him, if you’d like.”

“No! It’s quite all right,” Maggie was quick to respond. That was all she needed.

Brawling men on the front yard. “But I do have a question for you. Did Gran ever mention … any special keepsakes? You know, interesting heirlooms?” She hoped that if the women knew of the selkie pelt they would tell her, but she knew if she asked about it there was a fair chance she’d sound bonkers.

Liz asked, “What kind of keepsakes, dear?”

“Oh, you know, anything of a … zoological nature?”

They stared at her.

“Never mind.” Maggie grabbed a fifth oatcake. “These things are delish!”

After a couple of hours of meandering chatter, in which they mostly discussed nothing, Liz and Phyllis took their leave. Maggie offered once more to drive them to their homes, but they declined, as Liz had driven. As the octogenarians took off at a breakneck speed in a car that resembled a Model T on steroids, Maggie smiled and locked the door.

Her thoughts automatically flew to Calan.

She stomped back through the house and into the kitchen to clear away the remains of the tea. “Stop it, Collins. Stop thinking of him!”

She put the plates in the sink, and within a nanosecond, was remembering the cocky line of his eyebrow when it arched at her. Not to mention his flirty grin, which looked
more suited to a devil than to a man. And to say nothing of the look in his eye when he’d admitted to staying the night with her. A look that seemed guarded, but distinctly protective.

“Oh, pooh,” she muttered. She couldn’t stop thinking of him at all. Resigned, she decided to call it a night, hoping she’d forget him as she slept.

In a cruel trick of fate, Maggie tossed the night away, her dreams perforated by hazy, tantalizing images of him. She dreamed of the seal on the beach. She dreamed of Calan rising nude out of the water, of him touching her in a way no man ever had. And, as she lay there moaning in the darkness, she realized each dream just left her wanting more of him.

The crazy bastard.

* * * *

Around midnight, Calan pulled up to Maggie’s house. He turned off the ignition on his bike and stared toward her temporary residence.

Damn that woman.

He’d gone home and done nothing but obsess over Maggie all night long. Over her particular shade of hair. Over the way she wrinkled her nose when she was frustrated.

And he couldn’t get the sound of her soft voice out of his head, the ginger temptress.

And then he began to worry, not that he should. But something just felt off. It had bothered him to see the prowler in her house. And it alarmed him to think the would-be thief might want the skin. He’d known folk to do strange things to obtain a selkie skin.

The idea of Maggie all alone in that place put a bee in his bonnet. She was just a wee thing, and fairly attractive. What if the eejit came back and decided to try it on with her?

She couldn’t defend herself from a gnat.

And so, against his better judgment, he’d gotten on his bike and headed back over, not quite knowing what he’d do when he got there. He got off the motorcycle and looked around. Spying a boulder about fifty feet from the house, he sat down in front of it and decided to stay the night.

Watching. Just in case.

That way, if she needed anyone, if she needed him, he’d be there.

Another night spent watching over a skeptical lass who clearly wanted nothing to do with him.

More the fool, me.

* * * *

Someone was pounding on her brain. Knock. Knock. Bloody knock.

Maggie started out of bed, not knowing what time it was. Damn jet lag. She looked over at her gran’s cluttered bedside table. The three Mickey Mouse alarm clocks there all seemed to agree it was close to 8:00 a.m.

Knock. Knock.

Who on earth was at the door at this hour?

She dragged her carcass out of the bed and down the stairs, figuring Liz was there with another one of her artery-clogging breakfasts. Maggie knew if she had to swallow any more blood pudding, she’d puke. Rubbing her eyes, she threw open the door.

And saw Calan Kirk standing there. Grinning. Looking like a model from a motorcycle chic photo spread.

“Isn’t it a bit early to harass me?” she said, moaning.

“I need that pelt.” He dragged his gaze up and down her frame and bit his lower lip.

His face turned red. “Christ, woman. Before you answer the door, you should really put some trousers on.”

Maggie looked down at herself and had to refrain from groaning in embarrassment.

She’d slept in a T-shirt and little else. Her legs were completely bare and he could almost see her hoo-ha. Thank God she’d worn panties! “Never mind what I’m wearing! What do you want?”

He walked right in as if he held the deed to the house. “I told you. I want my skin.”

He turned his eye upon the thousands of collectibles and expelled a huge breath. “So, where is it?”

“Ah,” she mumbled, licking her suddenly dry lips. “Somewhere safe.”

He turned to her. Even though she could tell he was struggling to maintain eye contact, his gaze dipped down toward her thighs and lingered there for a moment. She put one bare leg in front of the other, crossing them, not that it was a sufficient barrier to his marauding gaze.

“Let me guess,” he murmured. “She was one of those old ladies who kept important things under her mattress, wasn’t she? Well, I’m sure you won’t mind if I go get it then.”

He bounded up the stairs.

Oh, no! “Calan, wait!” She ran up after him.

He turned on the staircase and she almost bumped into him. “I don’t stand on ceremony, lass. Don’t fret. I can get it myself.”

“No, it’s not that.” She followed him as he marched toward the bedroom and into it.

She was about to say more, but forgot what to say when she saw him staring at her unmade bed. Her warm, unmade bed in which the sheets were still molded to her shape.

Calan seemed lost in the sight and wasn’t moving. His gaze was affixed to an indentation in the worn mattress, the indentation made by her bum. She watched as his fists clenched, at the same moment that his jaw clenched. She began to wobble on her feet as she felt an answering clench in her womb.

Time seemed to stand still in that moment. At least, it did until Calan roused himself and looked at her in confusion. “What were we talking about?”

“Um, the weather?” she lied, hoping to distract him from the subject of the selkie skin.

He laughed. “Funny. This is Orkney. Expect wind and rain. So, Maggie, may I have my skin, please?”

Her heart would have fallen into her shoes if she’d been wearing any. As it was, it just fell somewhere in the vicinity of her bare feet. She’d have to tell him she didn’t know where the skin was. The prospect was not appealing. Even if he was insane, she could tell the pelt meant something to him. And for some weird reason, she didn’t like to disappoint him. “Um, about that…”

There was an aggressive rattle at the front door. Calan’s eyes grew bright, suspicious. “You expecting someone?”

“No. I wasn’t even expecting you.”

“Perhaps our troublemaker has come back.”

She blanched. “Wouldn’t he see your car outside?”

“I parked a ways down the road and approached from the back. He wouldn’t have seen me if he came from the other direction.”

It was just a kid looking for money, right? Yet, even as she told herself that, she didn’t believe it. Maggie felt a tremor of fear whisper through her. Calan must have seen the fear in her eyes. He surprised her by pulling her into an embrace and kissing her softly on the forehead. Somehow, even in her fear, her desire flared.

It felt good in his arms.

“Don’t worry,” he said. “I’ll teach the lad some manners.” With a quick squeeze that did nothing to extinguish the heat in her core, he was out of the bedroom, moving silently down the stairs.

Maggie stood where she was for several minutes. She felt cold, so cold, since he’d removed his arms from her. At that moment, she thought she would move heaven and earth just to have his arms encircle her again.

Totally bizarre.

And yet, it occurred to her she’d never wanted a man so desperately before. Had never wanted a man to be inside her so badly. His every touch made her skin sizzle with a passion she couldn’t explain. It was as if her mind had whipped up a perfect male concoction, one that answered to her every need and whim. His voice made her body hum. His strange webbed hands filled her with a fire as strong as the sun. And his silky tongue had done things to her she didn’t even understand.

She was beginning to think her gran had found a way to give her a titillating parting gift.

Of course, her sensible brain told her it was all rubbish. Calan could even be a con man, someone who’d befriended an old lady for her money. But Maggie didn’t really believe that. And right now, she didn’t really care. She just wanted to see him naked again, and would have gladly handed over Nora’s whole estate for the chance.

Besides, what if he really was Gran’s friend? What if he was chasing away the intruder right now? What if the burglar was armed? Calan could be risking his life!

What if? What if?

What if it was Matthew making another play for her? He could be so hotheaded sometimes. What if he and Calan started fighting?

Feeling sick, Maggie didn’t want to picture it. Sure, Calan was blessed with spectacular muscles, but Matthew was well built too. They could hurt each other.

Although, for some reason, the thought of Calan getting injured upset her more.

It occurred to her that it was too quiet downstairs. Had Calan managed to scare the intruder away? Or was he still waiting to confront him? Was he even armed with anything other than his superstrong, webbed hands?

Maggie was suddenly filled with an urge to protect the captivating stranger, an urge that scared her as much as it inspired her. Deciding she had to try, she ventured slowly into the hallway. Treading lightly on the creaky floorboards, she quietly slid one foot in front of the other, listening.

What am I doing? This is crazy. I know nothing about him! Maybe he’s one of the bad guys.

But as soon as the thought issued in her head, she knew it was wrong. Knew it as well as the fact that she knew Gran loved her. Calan could not be a bad guy. Bad boy,
yes, one hundred and ten percent so, but not a bad guy.

There was silence on the main floor. Perhaps Calan had followed the intruder outside.

Taking a chance, she sailed down the stairs into the living room. She couldn’t see or hear anything out of the usual. Scared, her voice came out as barely a whisper. “Calan?”

There was a movement in the hallway behind her. Big, burly hands came out to grab her. They shook her, bruising her arms.

“Where is it? Where’s the skin?”

Maggie turned in his grip. It was a stocky man, his face cloaked by a mask. She shouted at him. “It’s not yours!” Instinctively, she raised her knee, clobbering the stranger’s balls with as much force as she could muster.

The man let loose a loud string of curses, which, in his heavy Orcadian dialect, sounded even more threatening. He shook her again, hard. This time, she felt her head snap back, bashing against the wall behind her. “You’ll regret that, woman.”

“Maggie!” Calan shouted to her from outside. “I’m coming!”

Giving her face a hard slap that felt more like a punch, the would-be burglar tore through the back door, knocking over lamps and end tables in the process.

Calan bounded through the front door. His face fell as he saw her slump against the living room wall. “Oh, Maggie. I’m so sorry. There were two men, both disguised. I thought I’d chased them both outside. The other must have come back in.” He crouched in front of her, seemingly agonized at the sight of her. “Your face. He hit you. Why didn’t you stay upstairs?”

“I was worried,” she said, groaning, delirious, tasting blood. She’d almost said she was worried about him, but her remaining good sense stopped her. Not that it mattered.

He was eyeing her as if he’d already somehow discerned the implied words.

Calan looked touched, but guilt-ridden over her taking the lumps. “Perhaps it’s better if I take the skin back. Then they’ll leave you alone.”

“No,” she murmured in a small, faraway voice. If you take it, you’ll go away.

Besides, there was the small matter of her not knowing where the thing was.

Immortal selkie or con man, friend to an old lady or devil, she didn’t know what the hell he was. She just knew she wasn’t ready to get rid of him yet. As much as he unsettled her, she sort of liked him there with her.

Sort of.

“I give you my word. I won’t go anywhere until I fulfill my promise to Nora.”

“Why would you?”

He gave her a crooked grin. “I wish I had an answer for that.”

* * * *

After seeing out the local constable, a thickheaded dolt who was more interested in Nora’s Wedgewood teacup collection than an intruder, Calan turned to Maggie in wonderment. Being what he was, he generally avoided contact with the authorities. They sometimes asked too many questions. But seeing Maggie hurt had put a little shift in his priorities. Now he really wanted to catch the bastard who’d harmed her and show him a little selkie retribution.

At least the matter was on record, although he doubted the local constabulary would be spinning its wheels over what they assumed was a drunk getting into mischief.

He followed her upstairs when she went in search of some Tylenol that she said she kept in the bedside table. Within moments, they were sitting on the bed and Calan was inspecting the back of her head, with her approval. He wove his fingers through her hair, searching for bumps and blood. She’d already allowed him to wipe the blood from her lip. Being able to graze his fingers against her plump lower lip had sent him into a state of arousal that was hard to fight. But now, to be allowed to run his fingers through her vibrant curls was enough to make him tortuously mad with desire. He was ready to burst the seam on his jeans.

“Aren’t you done back there?” she demanded, her voice a little hoarse. “It’s taking a while.”

“Be still, lass,” he scolded, his own voice thick with barely hidden lust. “Do you want the job done right? Head injuries are serious business. Look at your Canadian friend Sidney Crosby.”

“Uh, Sidney Crosby got a concussion playing hockey. It’s different,” she responded in a tart tone. But then she trembled, a reaction that was not lost on Calan. “What if they come back?”

“If they come back, I’ll make them regret it,” he snarled, shocked at the intensity of the feeling that coursed through him. “Especially the girl’s blouse that hit you. Hitting a woman. Thank Loki the trickster for your weapon of a knee. I hope you skelped him.”

“I guess that one karate lesson I took paid for itself,” she joked glumly.

“Maggie, they’re gone for now, but they’ll return.” Gently, he spun her around to face him, never letting his hands fall from her shoulders. Why couldn’t he take his hands off her body? “It’s just my humble opinion, but you shouldn’t stay here.”

“It’s my gran’s house,” she spat. “I don’t want criminals rifling through her things!”

Even as she declared it, the uncertainty in her eyes belied her true fear.

“Better that, than putting their paws back on you. No, much as I admire your pluck, I won’t have that.”

She narrowed her eyes at him and pulled away from his touch. “Why do you even care, Calan? You just want the skin, too.”

He wanted to reach for her again but, using all his fortitude, he resisted. Why am I here? I shouldn’t care about this wee mortal woman. She’s nothing to me.

He moved off the bed, hoping his face didn’t reflect the storm of conflict inside him, and went to stare out the window. He placed his hands on either side of the window ledge and hunched over, ripples of tension surging through his shoulder muscles, a strange agony splintering through every bone.

Nora’s bedroom had a view of the beach, of the sea Calan so loved. Now, shimmering under the golden rays of the sun, the waves called to him, spoke his name.

They begged him to return to their dreamy depths, just as a siren might call to a sailor from her rock. He was selkie. And as comfortable and content as he could be on land, ultimately the sea would always seek to claim him. It was part of him, the best part of his soul.

Then why, he wondered as he spun around to face the ginger-haired woman on the other side of the room, did he suddenly not care about the blasted sea? Why did he want to run to her, rather than into the surf?

Fine. She touched him. That, he’d allow. He knew he’d seen something in Maggie, almost before he even saw her. There had been something in the way Nora had described
her that had stirred him from the start. The old woman had told him about Maggie’s youth, about how she lost her parents, yet remained strong. She’d told him stories that illustrated Maggie’s passion, her caring for others, even as those others didn’t always care for her in return. And when Calan had heard how Maggie had been treated by her former fiancés, it had made him seethe with unexpected rage. Of course, selkie folk did feel strongly, but he had still been surprised at how affected he was.

When he began to dream of her, he’d known he was headed for trouble. When he finally saw her that day on the beach, her quiet beauty had brought him to a point of near insanity. He’d forgotten himself and that he had a job to do. It was clear he wanted her with an undeniable, unstoppable force, and it was killing him to keep his hands off her.

If only she didn’t belong to such a greedy, violent race. There was no way in hell he could ever choose a human for something more than a quick shag.

“Hey, are you okay?” Her face had lost its defiance and was molded with concern as she witnessed his internal struggle.

By all the old gods, she’s beautiful. Those curls and those bright eyes. Such fair skin and a voice so sweet, her every word sounds like a poem.

“Aye, I’m fine.” He moved toward her, not stopping until he was right in front of her. He allowed himself to brush aside a stray, auburn curl with one finger. He tucked the lock behind her ear, and tried not to smile as her eyelids fluttered. Her need was clearly written on her delicate face, and was as raw as his own. “Listen to me. Keep the skin.

Burn it for all I care. But we must get you out of this house. I cannot see you hurt again.”

She stared at him, wide eyed. “But don’t you need it? To, uh, go home? Like E.T.?”

“There’s only one thing I need right now, and it has nothing to do with that skin.” He leaned in, his sense losing out to his senses. He was so eager to taste her lips, but Maggie slid out of his grasp. Mentally kicking himself for being a fumbling fool, he watched the object of his reluctant affection.

Without a word, she went to Nora’s closet and leaned in. He could hear muffled noises of frustration as she began to toss articles out of the overburdened closet. Shoes, scarves, and handbags were launched out of the space. Calan had to duck as an ample girdle flew in the direction of his head. He stared, completely at a loss. Not once had his kisses inspired his partners to embark on a spring-cleaning project.

“Reorganizing now, are we, Maggie? Not the moment I would have chosen, but to each his own.”

She didn’t respond until a clunky shoe fell on her foot, eliciting a loud, “Oh, shit!”

Calan stifled a laugh, but apparently not well enough because Maggie just turned and glared at him.

“You could help, you know, instead of cackling at me like an old woman!”

He tried unsuccessfully to look serious as he approached her. “Forgive me, but I have no idea what you’re doing.”

“I’m looking for your bloody pelt!”

Had he heard her right? Calan could have sworn he felt the arteries in his body constrict, cutting off his supply of oxygen. He licked his parched lips. “What do you mean you’re looking for it? Don’t you know where it is?”

She stood and slowly faced him, her face a little pale. “No,” she admitted. “Gran told me she hid it, but not where. She was worried others might find it, so she said I’d have to look for it.”

Calan felt as if the floor had fallen out from under him. Surely he was pitching forward into a deep, dank abyss, because his stomach certainly felt that way. He steadied himself on the open closet door, willing his sudden migraine to disappear. “She didn’t tell you where she put it?”

“No,” came the small reply.

“Feck,” he roared. “Meddling, conniving humans! They’ll be the death of me! You cannot trust a single bloody one. What was that old woman thinking?”

“Hey,” she retorted, insulted. “It’s just an old animal pelt. No reason to be rude.”

“I’m not being…” he began, and then choked off the words in his mouth before he said something he regretted. After all, it wasn’t Maggie’s fault her granny enjoyed messing with men’s minds. He forced himself to calm down, taking a few deep breaths.

He just needed to find the skin. It shouldn’t be hard. How cagey could an old human lady be anyway? It was probably tucked into a hatbox or hidden in her garden shed.

Or buried under one of the million rocks on Orkney. Oh, hell.

“Look,” Maggie said quietly, taking a step toward him. “Why don’t you help me look for it? It can’t be far. She said it would be in one of the places she loved. And when we find it, I promise you can have it back.”

She looked so forlorn then, as if she expected him to disappear with the imagined pelt. Calan just stared at her and considered the possession he’d so bargained over with Nora. No mortal woman in her right mind would return it, knowing the power it wielded.

By keeping that pelt, Maggie could keep him as her very own sexual genie. He was honor bound to obey the keeper of the skin, thanks to some cursed magic that was older than time.

But Maggie was offering it back to him, offering him his potential freedom, though he hadn’t yet fulfilled his duty. When they did find it, it should be so easy to take it and run. He’d be able to keep his promise to Angus. Could swim in the surf he adored until the next time he felt an urge for human food or human women. The waves would swallow him in their welcoming embrace, and he need never see her spellbinding face again. The pelt would be his ticket to his beloved home.

But for the first time in his centuries-old life, Calan hated the thought of it. Hated that it might take him away from her. Feeling more delicious unease than he’d ever felt in his life, he reached for her hand. “That’s kind of you, lass. You’re the only woman who’s ever offered it back to me.” He breathed her in, fighting her magnetic pull on him. “Look, we can search for it later. For now, we should get you settled at a B&B somewhere close.”

“I’m not going anywhere.”

His anger flared again. Stubborn woman! “Oh, yes you are. You can’t stay here with burglars afoot.”

She pulled her hand out of his, making him feel as if she’d slapped his face. “I am not leaving my grandmother’s house. My house.” The tiny white specks in her eyes flashed, making them a shocking blue.

“Well,” he said, quickly pondering his options. “Then I’m staying here with you, and I won’t take no for an answer. I promised Nora I’d watch over you. And if you refuse to see sense, like all the other women I’ve known, then I’ll watch over you here.” She began to protest, but he cut her off. “Besides, this way, I can do a little skin hunting on the premises.” He gave her his best I-will-not-be-defied look.

Her eyes softened, although she still resembled a wild animal looking for an opportunity to pounce. “You’re very stubborn.”

“Back at ya, babe, as they say in America.”

“I’m from Canada,” she muttered.

He picked up a couple of the items she’d tossed during her closet desecration and threw them back in the closet. He looked back at her, letting his gaze travel up and down her form. “Same thing.”

And then he ducked as another gigantic girdle was launched at his head.

Chapter 5

There were no other break-ins that day, which was a blessing because Maggie didn’t think she could handle any more stress. It was bad enough Calan had decided to camp out on her gran’s couch. He’d set aside a couple of blankets for himself in preparation for the evening and was making himself quite comfortable. He’d already raided her cookie jar a few times and had made her a sandwich at lunch. Now he was going through the main floor with a fine-toothed comb, searching for the skin, annoying her with his constant humming and comments about the house needing a maid service.

Maggie tried to ignore him for much of the day, embarking on some little tidy-up projects. She didn’t want to. It was still way too early to be going through Gran’s things, but she wanted to be the one to find the pelt. It had to be there somewhere. Then she could present it to Calan and wish him a not-so-fond adieu.

And yet every time she glanced at him out of the corner of her eye, she realized the sight of him puttering in her house did something to her. It scrambled her brain. It produced wiggly feelings in her stomach. It made her want to keep watching him.

Why did someone so gorgeous have to be so irritating?

Sometime near evening, Calan declared his intention of continuing his search for the pelt outside. Nora had a sizable property, at the end of which was a small greenhouse.

Maggie could see he was beginning to get antsy. It wasn’t easy being in the house of a hoarder, even though Gran would never have called herself such.

“I’m going to search the greenhouse before it gets dark, Maggie.” He headed for the door.

“It’s probably just as messy in there,” she volunteered, trying not to look so eager to join him. “Maybe another pair of hands would be useful to you?”

The corner of his mouth twitched into a lopsided grin. His gaze held hers for a dizzying moment. “Come along, then,” he said in his penetrating, deep voice. “You might want your boots. It’s wet outside.”

It’s wet inside.

Cursing her vagina, which felt all too ready for action in his presence, Maggie followed him out toward the greenhouse. She was careful where she stepped. There were mud puddles everywhere. It must have rained while they were inside. She hadn’t even noticed because she was hyperaware of Calan’s every sinuous move throughout the house. She put her foot down near one mud puddle and went flying, but he caught her and held her up. She froze in his arms, staring up into his face, unable to steady her heartbeat. From the cocky grin on his face, he could hear her heart pumping.

“If I put you down, do you think you can walk the rest of the way? Or shall I call you a carriage, Princess?”

She vaulted out of his arms, suddenly peeved that he’d label her in such a way. “I’m not a princess. I just slipped.”

“Don’t be offended. There’s nothing wrong with being a princess. Nothing wrong with having someone take care of you.”

She stomped away, inexplicably mad. “I don’t need anyone to take care of me. I’ve been taking care of myself for a long time, thank you very much.” She had. With two
dead parents and relatives a world away, she’d always been forced to fend for herself.

And it bothered her when people assumed she couldn’t handle her own business.

It bugged her even more to have Calan presume it. And it had nothing to do with the fact that he was just the sort of man she would have liked as a protector.

Man, her feelings were throwing her under the bus here!

He didn’t follow her right away and hung behind. She could feel his gaze burning into her back. Ignoring his flame-throwing eyes, she plodded on to the greenhouse door.

She didn’t dare look at him as he approached. She didn’t trust herself to look in his direction. For some reason, she wanted to cry.

And it was all his fault. Intruding into her life with his sexiness and devilish smiles.

Damn him. She didn’t want to feel this way, whatever it was she felt.

Calan brushed past her as he entered the greenhouse and just his proximity was enough to make her burst into flames in the little glass structure. It was so small in there, too close. If anyone had been observing from the road, surely they would have seen sparks behind the glass.

He didn’t say a word as he searched for the skin. Just gently moved Nora’s bags of fertilizer and overgrown plants. After a while, it became clear the greenhouse was not the hiding place for the pelt.

Sighing, Calan looked at her. “It’s not here. We might as well go back.”

She didn’t say a word, just walked out and left him there as she tried to stomp away, merely succeeding in squishing away through all the mud.

He deftly caught up to her, his feet seemingly immune to the mud that was dragging her down. God, what was it with the man? He had the grace of a large cat!

“You’re angry with me,” he said.

“No, I’m not.”

“I’ve known a lot of women, dear heart. I can tell when one’s pissed.”

She spared him a glance, righting herself as she slid again. “How wonderful for you that you’ve had so many women! It must be so easy to make comparisons!” She stared him down as he blanched. “Believe me, we’re not all the same.”

He slowly looked up and down the length of her. “Oh, you’re different, all right!”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” And as Maggie turned to confront him, she lost her footing once again. She flailed but there was nothing in grabbing distance to steady her, other than Calan.

Her hands reached out automatically, and she pulled on his jacket. And as time seemed to travel in slow motion, Maggie fell and brought Calan down on top of her. Her boots slid in the mire, making her legs fall open, and Calan fell between them. They landed in the biggest mud puddle of all. The brown goo waved over the two of them like a mucky tsunami, covering them in filth.

She looked up at him as he lay on top of her, catching his breath. He was drenched in it. There was mud in his hair, mud caking his clothing, and she shuddered to notice, mud all through his beautiful leather jacket.

“Oh,” she whispered, waiting for his wrath. The jacket must have cost a fortune. It looked vintage.

He stared at her, shocked, and then his face broke up, splitting into a goopy grin. He began laughing, began howling, in fact.

“What’s so funny?”

“You,” he managed to say through his peals of hilarity. “You look like something out of a nightmare, Maggie. We’d better get you cleaned up or you might frighten the neighbor’s kids.”

She pushed him off her, even though her legs suddenly wanted to clench around his body and keep him there on top of her for a good long while. He helped her up, and they made their way back to the house, the walk back being little more than sticky torture.

Sticky because of the mud, and tortured because Calan kept chortling at her and her new brunette hairdo.

As they both yanked off their mud-encrusted boots at the front door, Maggie felt a little sheepish for her outburst. She couldn’t explain why he fired up her emotions to such a violent degree. Ever since she met him on the beach that night, indeed ever since she’d begun dreaming of him, she felt frazzled.

It had to stop. The man was loony tunes.

“There’s, uh, only one shower,” she admitted quietly. “You go ahead. I’ll wait for my turn.” She opened the door.

And then, to her simultaneous horror and delight, he began to strip out of his clothing. Right there, at the front door. She averted her eyes. It took a moment, but she managed to avert them. “What are you doing?”

“We can’t go in like this, love. We’ll track mud all over your granny’s house. I suggest you do the same. You’re dripping.”

She paled at his choice of words. She was dripping, just not the way he suspected.

But, seeing his logic, she began to slowly disrobe too. Keeping her gaze off him the whole time. By the time she got down to her skivvies, she sensed he’d stopped moving.

She looked up under her muddy lashes at him.

He was nude. Caked in mud in spots, but deliciously nude. As she gawked at him, he cocked a playful eyebrow at her. “You’re as slow as molasses, Maggie. I guess I do get the shower first.”

Before she could stammer any kind of response, he entered the house and ran off toward the upstairs bathroom, his delectable ass tensing as he moved. In her bra and panties, she watched, unable to move. After forcing her useless limbs back into action, she went inside too. Within a couple of seconds, she heard the water turn on. As if pulled by a magnet, she stumbled toward the bathroom.

As she reached the top landing, she poked her head down the hallway. Calan had left the bathroom door wide open, and she wasn’t sure if it was done on purpose or not.

Either way, she meandered toward it, called by the sound of the coursing water and his voice.

He was singing in the shower. That song by the Stones, the one about the devil. She approached, catching garbled bits about the nature of his game, making her wonder if Lucifer himself was in Gran’s shower stall.

She reached the bathroom door, and her gaze flew to the frosted shower curtain, the one that did very little to hide certain details. She could still make out the long, hard length of him, could see the tempting color of his lips and the thick ropes of hair. And she could imagine each drop as it traveled over his sculpted arms and legs and his perfect behind.

She needed to get out of there pronto before he caught her. She turned.

“Maggie?”

Too late.

As she listened to the scrape of the curtain rings on the rod, she felt a shiver of anticipation tickle her spine. She turned back to face him, as ripples of want shook her being. He stood there, unashamed, his eyes hooded and hungry.

“Would you pass me a towel, love?”

She did, hastily, and then froze.

He quickly dried himself off and wrapped his lower half in the terry cloth. He got out of the shower, his gaze always on her, and moved past her. “Your turn. If you’d like, I could stay to hand you a towel when you’re done.”

Mortified beyond belief, Maggie gestured at the door and watched him leave. She then slammed the bathroom door on him. She took the quickest shower known to woman, raced to her bedroom, barricaded the door, and got dressed in her nightgown. Then she got into bed, and didn’t move a muscle until sleep finally overcame her.

* * * *

Maggie woke up the next morning, desperate for three cups of coffee. Or five. It had been, hands down, the most stressful night of her life and she’d barely slept a wink.

And, she realized with dread, it had nothing to do with Gran’s passing. Nothing to do with the burglar or the missing skin she never wanted. Certainly nothing to do with Matthew lurking somewhere on the island.

It was because Calan Kirk, her dead grandmother’s sexiest drinking buddy, had slept under the same roof. Again.

She hadn’t been able to stop picturing him all night. Did he sleep in his clothes? Did he sleep shirtless? In the nude? Did he lie on his stomach with his fine ass in the air, or on his back with his … The pornographic possibilities made her mind spin.

It had been bad enough picturing Calan in his birthday suit because she already knew how infuriatingly flawless he was naked. To make matters worse, he’d kept the television on for much of the night. For two hours straight, he’d roared with laughter as he watched some Three Stooges reruns. When Maggie had finally fallen into a fitful sleep, her dreams had been littered with images of a naked Calan seducing her, until Moe showed up and brained her with a frying pan.

And now she was just ornery.

Clearly, “selkie folk” didn’t need a lot of sleep.

She stumbled downstairs and toward the kitchen, her eyes half-closed. Not caring that she might be disturbing her exhibitionist houseguest. “Serve him right for keeping me up.”

She needed coffee, and she needed it now.

Suddenly, she smelled it. Dark Columbian. And it made her taste buds water.

She peeked around the kitchen wall before entering the room, and the sight made her jaw drop.

Calan was up, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. Washing up some dishes she’d left in the sink yesterday. His hands submerged in suds. Quietly humming what she could have sworn was a Barry Manilow tune this time. Wearing nothing but his mud-caked jeans.

Barefoot. Shirtless. Clean, long hair tied back.

Mind-bogglingly attractive. Drool inspiring. Erotic as all hell, in spite of his sometimes-tragic taste in music.

Her gaze darted about the room. There was a full pot of coffee warming. The room was tidier than either she or Gran had ever left it. And he’d somehow found bacon and eggs in that mess of a kitchen. She could see the bacon frying on the griddle, its happy sizzle welcoming her.

Welcome, Maggie, welcome, it seemed to say.

And as tasty as it smelled, Calan looked tastier. Maggie dragged her gaze back to his long, lean body. And realized she really wanted to lick him.

He looked up at that moment and gave her a smile that made her stomach flip-flop.

And then he frowned, as if realizing he really shouldn’t beam at her like that. Almost angry at himself for grinning at her. “Maggie, you’re up. I hope you’re hungry.”

Oh, I’m hungry, all right.

He dried off his hands and pulled out a chair for her. Hmm, she thought, sexy and chivalrous. She didn’t think Matthew or Bobby had ever pulled out a chair for her. In fact, Bobby had had trouble pulling out his wallet for anything more than a $1.40 coffee at Tim Horton’s.

And before she could even mumble anything resembling a “Good morning,” he’d planted a plate laden with food in front of her, as well as a steaming mug of coffee. She stared at the offerings, flabbergasted. “Uh, thanks. I’ll just get the…”

“Cream and sugar.” He plunked those two items in front of her before she could get up again. “I know how you take it.”

“How would you know?” she asked as he sat opposite her. And tried not to stare at his abs, even though his six-pack rippled as he sat down, inviting her to skim her eager fingers over it.

His perfect face was deadpan, but he winked at her, allowing a hint of amusement to shine through. “I just know.” For a moment he continued to stare at her, taking her in from top to bottom, even darting a look under the table to where her bare legs were crossed. Finally, he dragged his gaze away from her body and made eye contact once again. “Interesting daytime attire.”

She looked down and tried not to cringe. She’d forgotten to change. She’d been too exhausted and had just stumbled out of bed. And now, while Calan sat there resembling a Greek god on holiday, she was wearing her ratty, knee-length, cotton nightgown. The one emblazoned with the old lady from the greeting cards, with a speech bubble that said,

“Give me coffee, or give me death.”

“Yeah, well, someone kept me up last night,” she retorted, wanting to wipe the smug expression off his face. “By the way, you might want to work on your Curly impression.

It lacks a certain je ne sais quoi.”

“I’m sorry I disturbed you, Maggie,” he said as he tucked into his breakfast, not appearing remorseful in the least. “Oh, and I wasn’t suggesting you look bad. Actually, you make cotton nighties sexy. I always liked a woman in a nightgown.” He swallowed and looked up under his eyelashes at her. “Easy access.”

She almost spit out her whole mouthful of bacon. Luckily, the big oaf was decent enough to pretend he hadn’t noticed her wiping bacon bits off her chin. When she’d sufficiently recovered, she said, “Hey. Thanks for the breakfast and the coffee. It’s really good.”

He put down his fork and frowned at her again as if she annoyed him to the extreme.

For a moment, neither of them said a word. And then she watched as the lines around his
eyes softened and a ghost of a smile flitted across his features.

Why was he so reluctant to let his guard down and really smile at her today? Had sleeping over done something to him too? For a hasty moment, Maggie wondered if he’d occupied himself with the Stooges so that he wouldn’t go looking for more enticing occupations.

She watched, unable to look away, as his gaze dropped to the V-neck on her nightie.

Seemingly transfixed by what he saw there. Any hint of a grin disappeared, only to be replaced by what appeared to be stark hunger.

She knew if he kept looking at her like that, she’d throw herself on the kitchen table, smother her body in bacon, and beg him to eat it off her.

The doorbell rang. Maggie jumped, automatically thinking of the intruder, and almost spilled her coffee. Calan was quick to comfort her. “Don’t fret. Criminals don’t tend to ring the doorbell first. They tend to let themselves in. I’ll get it.”

As he walked to the door, Maggie’s gaze flew to his perfect, round glutes. Oh, God, just stop it, will you? Stop looking at his body! She gave her forehead a vigorous, frustrated rub.

He opened the door as Maggie peered around the wall dividing the kitchen and the front room. Liz and Phyllis walked in, their eyes wide, carrying Tupperware containers.

The old ladies stared at Calan’s bare chest, and then eyed Maggie in her nightgown, a nightie that must have looked scandalous to two tweed-clad ladies.

Liz coughed out a greeting as she moved into the kitchen. “Good morning, dearie.

We brought you a wee spot of breakfast, but I see you’ve already … eaten.” She clapped her mouth shut.

Phyllis looked Calan up and down with a stern eye. “Indeed.”

Calan smiled at the visitors. He had no trouble smiling at them apparently. “Now, ladies, there’s enough for everyone. We’d be happy if you joined us. Wouldn’t we, Maggie?”

Maggie wanted to disintegrate. “Of course.”

“We wouldn’t want to interrupt,” Phyllis said. That being said, she still walked over and pulled out a chair at the kitchen table and sat with a huff. While Liz and Calan exchanged pleasantries at the door, Phyllis leaned in to Maggie. “Are you sure you know what you’re doing, dear? He does look like a wild one.”

She grabbed the old woman’s hand. “It’s not what it seems, I swear.”

It’s not what it seems. Matthew had said the same thing to her, and it had turned out exactly as it seemed.

“It isn’t for me to judge,” Phyllis replied, aloof. “Grief can do strange things to a person.”

Maggie just stared down at her bacon and eggs. The comforting food now looked completely indigestible. Her appetite was gone.

Calan and Liz situated themselves at the table, laughing like old friends. It had taken him all of one minute to charm one of the women, at least.

“We won’t stay, love,” Liz cooed. “We just wanted to see if you were well.”

“With two men chasing her skirts, I’d assume the lass is fine,” Phyllis offered in response.

“You’re sure you won’t at least have a coffee,” Calan offered, clearly trying to ease the tension. “It’s nice and hot.”

“Thank you. No,” was Phyllis’s clipped reply.

What the hell? Why should Phyllis care about who joined Maggie for breakfast in a state of near nudity? It was her house! She could be nearly nude with whomever she pleased!

“That’s a shame,” Calan replied, smiling. “Maggie and I were just discussing Nora’s favorite things. We’d planned to visit some of her haunts today, in order to pay homage to the dear, departed woman. You ladies knew her. What would you say were Nora’s favorite places?”

Maggie narrowed her eyes at him. What was he doing?

Liz seized on the topic with enthusiasm. “Oh! Well, Nora loved St. Magnus Cathedral. She belonged to the Society of Friends and even conducted tours. And, of course, she still worked a few hours at the Olde Bookshop. They will miss her there. I understand she was a wonder at sales. Even after she retired, they didn’t want to let her go. But most of all, she loved her pub. The Deacon’s Bench. After all the G and T’s she drank there, they should build the poor dear a shrine.”

“Well, Maggie,” Calan said with determination. “It seems we have some sightseeing to do.”

“Uh, right.”

Phyllis stood. “We shan’t stand in your way. I’m sure you young people want to be moving on. Liz, come.” She marched to the door, opened and paraded through it, and left.

Liz pushed her Tupperware toward Maggie. “This will reheat,” she whispered, as if she were part of some big, sexy conspiracy. “Have a good day!” Then she, too, was gone.

Once Calan locked the door behind them, she pounced on him. “What was that all about?”

“That was a fact-finding mission. I wanted to know where your granny might have hidden the skin. While you were slumbering, like a princess I might add, I took the opportunity to check every last nook and cranny in this house. The skin isn’t here, Maggie.”

She tried not to look disappointed. For a moment, she’d fallen for the illusion that Calan was going to whisk her out for a sexy day soaking in the quaint Kirkwall atmosphere, but that wasn’t his aim at all. He just wanted his skin back.

Like all the other men she’d known of late, he had his own agenda.

“Do those locations match what you knew of your granny’s favorite places?”

“Pretty much.”

“Good. I suggest we start with the Olde Bookshop. I know exactly where it is.”

“Right. Well, I’ll get dressed.”

He looked awkward, almost as if he sensed her disappointment. “Maggie, do you mind if we stop at my place before we get started?” He looked down at his bare chest and grimaced. “I’d like to put on some fresh clothes.”

“Yeah, sure,” she answered with a dismissive hand gesture as she turned and climbed the stairs to the bedroom. “Whatever you want.”

And then she tried really hard not to hate herself for acting like a four-year-old whose ice cream had just fallen on the ground.

* * * *

Maggie had the capacity to dress herself, but beyond that, she barely knew what was

happening. All she knew was that Calan was on her mind and she couldn’t get him out.

When she’d come downstairs, only to find him preparing breakfast in her kitchen, it had filled her with excitement as much as lust. The scene was homey as well as sexy. She couldn’t remember Matthew or any man ever being so solicitous, so kind. God, he’d washed her porridge-encrusted dishes! And it had left her with a nagging, gut-churning sensation.

And she didn’t even know him! It was absurd. She didn’t want this. Was in no way ready for this.

She came back downstairs only to find him locking up the house as best as he could.

He looked awkward and didn’t say much, as if his mind was just as muddled as hers was, and led her outside to where a motorcycle was stowed behind the house.

She stared at the bike. It was the closest she’d ever been to one, and she’d certainly never been on one. Yes, it was a sexy, black Hog, but that didn’t make it any less terrifying. Even though a part of her was intrigued by the concept of riding with Calan on the beast, a bigger part of her was silently screaming “Whoa, Nelly!”

No, she couldn’t get on. She’d once heard of a rider who’d been decapitated in a biking accident, and she didn’t really want to recreate that particular scenario.

“You don’t honestly want me to get on that thing, do you?”

“I’ve been riding these for years. I know how to handle it.”

“Yeah, well I doubt you’ll know how to handle me if I get on that deathtrap.”

“It’s a Harley, and you’re getting on,” he muttered. “My angel wings are in the shop, so sadly we can’t fly today. Relax. I’m a good driver.” Calan approached her with his own helmet. “You wear this. I have another at my house.” He put it on her before she could protest again, taking care to tuck her stray curls behind her ears. He frowned as he tightened it, staring at her hair, seemingly lost in thought.

“You should wear it,” she whispered, feeling so confused. “It’s yours.”

He fixed his gaze on hers. “You’ll wear the helmet. And that’s an end to it. Now climb on behind me.”

Bossy so-and-so. “I’ve never shared a hat, or a helmet, with anyone before. How do I know you don’t have a raging case of lice in that mane of hair?”

His nose wrinkled in annoyance. “You are just about the most frustrating woman I’ve ever met, do you know that?” But then he stared at her mouth and a tiny breath escaped his open lips. A hint of a smile crept into his eyes. “Just get on the bloody bike.”

He got on and then she did, feeling hot moisture between her legs as she straddled the seat behind him. Betraying her feelings, despite her attempts to hate him. Tentatively, feeling oh-so-hot, she touched her fingertips to his waist. He looked back and pulled her arms tight about his middle.

“Hold me tighter, Maggie. Tighter.”

With that, they were off. Frightened by the power of the beast they were riding, Maggie clasped her legs tightly around Calan’s body. She felt him stiffen, and then relax into the curve made by her open legs. He leaned back, pressing his back into her chest, and her nipples pebbled. Even under her shirt and jacket, she could feel his heat seeping through. It seemed in that moment that their bodies were one.

One heart. One sex. One soul.

Oh, God, don’t be such a silly cow. Don’t be so stupid.

She tried to take in the scenery as it flew by, but couldn’t focus. If she’d been
walking, it would have felt as if her feet weren’t touching ground. All she could think of was Calan on the beach, starting to make love to her with his incredible nude body. And the strange emotions that had created in her heart.

How had she arrived at this insane place? All she’d wanted to do was get her life back in order. Take care of Gran’s estate. Find a nice job. And maybe, one day when she’d gotten over her hurt, find a cute, sensible man with whom she could build a stable family life. One who wouldn’t drive her to distraction. Someone who might not be a swashbuckling hero, but who would treat her better than Matthew and Bobby had.

Was it too much to ask?

Instead, she got saddled with an elusive, matted, animal skin, burglars in the house, and a mysterious, sexed-up man who persisted in dragging her around God’s country.

And, Heaven help her, as bizarre as it seemed, she’d never been more exhilarated!

This so wasn’t good. She didn’t want to be exhilarated by Calan Kirk. She preferred to be indifferent.

Even though she knew full well that a man such as him would never inspire indifferent feelings. Lust, rage, euphoria, but never anything vague or bland.

She couldn’t tell how long they’d been riding, but they finally arrived at a stone, one-room cottage on the outskirts of Kirkwall. She spared it a quick glance, noting its quaintness. However, in that moment, all she really saw was Calan.

“Come in. You can sit while I change.”

The cottage had wooden beams and a cozy interior, but again, she didn’t give those details more than a passing look. The only things that stuck in her mind were how Calan’s hair cascaded down his back, tied in its loose ponytail. How his leg muscles flexed as he moved about the room. As he bent over to grab a T-shirt from a trunk, she gazed at his sculpted behind, in awe of how well it filled out his jeans. He turned and grinned, once again as if reading her mind.

He put aside his muddied leather jacket and stripped out of his shirt. Realizing she’d resemble a dog in heat if she kept gawking, she dragged her gaze away from his frame.

For the first time since entering the cottage, she took a good look at the interior. The place seemed ancient. The cracked walls were lined with bookshelves of varying size and shape, all stacked with books that appeared very old. And there was a cabinet that was stocked with what appeared to be some very expensive bottles of red wine. There wasn’t much else in the way of decoration. No family photos. No artwork, other than a couple of pencil sketches peeking out of a folder on a desk. Any clothing must have been tucked into boxes or the decrepit steamer trunk from whence his shirt had come, the one that looked like it belonged in a Titanic memorabilia exhibit.

And, of course, there was a bed. It looked cozy, big enough to accommodate two bodies, but snug enough to throw those bodies together in the night. Covered as it was with a soft white quilt, it was about the most inviting place Maggie had ever seen. So much more appealing than Matthew’s stiff, Scandinavian excuse for a bed.

“So this is your home,” she said.

“My home away from home. I need some place to stay when I…”

“When you’re making love to all the women who steal your pelt?” The words just poured out of her and she hated it. She couldn’t have been more remorseful when she saw how Calan flinched.

And yet she’d meant it in that moment, she had wanted to wound him. She’d felt true
jealousy inside her heart at the idea of Calan shacking up with any number of willing floozies. Green envy was snaking its way through every vein as she pictured him in that lovely bed with all those nameless women.

Why had she said it? Nothing was making sense anymore.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered, feeling a strange pain at putting that hurt in his eyes.

“Your love life is absolutely none of my business.”

“Isn’t it?” His face took on a strange expression. “It’s felt that way for months, like it or not.”

She stared at him. “No. We’re strangers. Ships passing in the night. Call it whatever you want. Give it a couple of weeks and we won’t even remember each other’s names.”

“Is that so?” he said in a low, warning tone.

“That’s right.”

He’d gone from looking hurt to looking angry. Although, for the life of her, she couldn’t figure out why he’d even care. If he was to be believed, he already had plenty of female friends. Maybe he should go act the barbarian with one of them.

“Let’s not fool ourselves, Calan,” she continued, trying hard to ignore the slow burn of desire in his eyes. She walked around his flat, touching the spines of books, feeling a bizarre thrill to be fingering his belongings. “Breakfast was nice. What happened on the beach was … unexpectedly nice, but it can’t happen again. It’s not right. I don’t know you and I just got out of a bad relationship. It wouldn’t end well.”

“Of course, it wouldn’t,” he said, humoring her, his gaze dipping down to caress the curve of her hip, and then slowly back up again.

As yet another quiver of sexual awareness claimed her body, she mentally stamped it into oblivion. Okay, he turned her on. There was no denying it. That didn’t mean she had to give in to it. She walked over to his desk, nose in the air, trying hard to look as if she weren’t affected by the most rampaging case of lust she’d ever known. She spied the folder filled with pencil drawings, saw the edge of one of the pictures. It was of a woman’s foot, dainty and bare. So pretty, she wanted to see the rest of the picture.

She looked at Calan. “You draw?”

His eyes narrowed. Calculating, dark gems. “Only when I’m inspired.”

“May I?”

He inclined his head. “Be my guest.”

Maggie pulled out the sketch of the woman’s foot. As she pulled it slowly from the folder, the pretty foot became a shapely leg, one of two that were splayed across a bedspread. The subject of the drawing was clearly nude. The knowledge made Maggie’s heart begin to beat a little faster. Especially as the rest of the picture was revealed.

The woman was reclining on a bed, her right hand comfortably nestled between her legs. Her fingers were sliding into a pair of swollen lips. Teasing. Pleasuring. The subject’s stomach was tensed. Her left hand grabbed at a fistful of bedspread. Her back was arched and her mouth was open in an expression of rapture.

Maggie looked at the woman’s face, at the spiral curls tumbled across her pillow.

She gasped.

It was her. And the portrait was … beautiful.

She gawked at her portrait, so erotic it was almost pornographic. So accurate it could have been a photograph. She should have been mad. She should have felt as if her privacy was invaded. But she couldn’t feel those things, because it was too exquisite.

It made her feel luminous.

Somehow, Calan Kirk, the man she’d called a stranger, had captured her in her most private moment. And she wanted to cry because he’d made her look so damned radiant.

She put the picture down on the desk and rifled quickly through his folder as he watched. All the other sketches were of her too. Maggie sleeping between rumpled covers. Maggie daydreaming on her apartment balcony, hand propped under her chin.

And so many other sketches of Maggie touching herself. Caressing her breasts, pinching her nipples. Stroking herself.

So intimate, so personal, he might have been there with her. Had he been there with her? God only knew she’d been thinking of him in each of those stolen moments, the attractive seal-man of her dreams. The creature who’d felt so real from the first moment she’d envisioned him.

And here he was, looking at her with such a bizarre mixture of emotions etched into his face. Sympathy and anger and what appeared to be a gut-wrenching need.

“When did you draw these?” she asked, hoping upon hope he’d say they were portraits of an ex-girlfriend who happened to resemble her.

“I’ve been sketching you for a long time,” he admitted in a quiet voice. “Each time I dreamed of you, I’d find it hard to sleep afterward. So I began to draw pictures of you.”

“But these are so lifelike. Even if Gran showed you pictures of me, there’s no way you could have imagined me in all these scenarios.” Especially the sexual ones. There was no way he could have captured her particular ecstasy without seeing her experience it.

He stepped closer, making the air between them sizzle and crack with waves of heat.

“I told you before, Maggie. I’ve been seeing you for months, in all sorts of situations. As you’ve been seeing me.”

She dropped the sketches, not wanting to see the beautiful artworks anymore.

Suddenly, Maggie felt like crying. He saw into her, this Calan. It disturbed and aroused her at the same time. The feeling was so potent, she didn’t know what she would do under the influence.

And she hadn’t forgotten her vow to avoid all men. It was imperative to her sanity that she remember.

It was bad enough with Matthew the Penitent breathing down her back. It had been hard enough deleting his phone messages and avoiding him in Toronto whenever he’d tried to ambush her. Here in Orkney, where the world was so much smaller, she had a feeling he’d be behind her every step of the way. Still, she would not be swayed by him.

But Calan? How was she supposed to avoid him? He saw into her dreams, for God’s sake! His sensuous, dark eyes and flirty smile were certainly the stuff of her dreams. To say nothing of his seductive voice, rock-hard abs and all the wonders below his waistline.

Maggie dropped her gaze, quickly surveying the crotch of his jeans.

Something moved there. Something long and thick. Pulsing. Acknowledging her hungry gaze.

Saints preserve me.

They were supposed to be searching for the pelt, but she couldn’t make her legs move. She should leave his cottage, give him space and privacy, but she didn’t want to go.

If he pressed it, if he tried to seduce her again, she’d be helpless against him. No
matter what he was, the man was clearly worth a roll in the hay. A good, long one. And although she’d never understand why, he seemed more than willing to get the party started. That is, when he wasn’t frowning and furious with her.

Calan took a step toward her, passion blazing in his eyes, making them almost glow with a fiery, orange light. “Maggie. This is foolishness. No matter what you and I think of this situation, of each other, we both want the same thing here.” He drew close and reached a hand toward her curls. Gently, he rolled the hairs between his thumb and index finger, causing an immediate chain reaction in her nipples and pussy. “Is it so wrong to share a moment of pleasure?”

Is it? Surely not. But with a stranger?

He doesn’t feel like a stranger.

“I know this doesn’t make sense. I’m not looking for this. I shouldn’t want you,” he confessed, looking torn. “This is wrong.”

“Well, from where I’m standing, buddy, it’s even more wrong.” she retorted. “I don’t want you.”

Lies, lies. All of it lies.

He leaned toward her, his lips slightly open. She could see the tip of his tongue.

Wanted to taste it again. Wanted him to explore her mouth, each dip and hollow. Needed to feel his teeth scraping against her tongue, nipping at her shoulders. She was almost insane with the desire to feel his stubble rasping against her cheek and her inner thighs.

Why did this crazy Orcadian man have such power over her? She couldn’t see straight. Couldn’t think straight. “Calan, I…”

There was a loud knock on his front door. A pounding, actually.

They stared at each other.

“Maggie,” called someone from outside. “I know you’re in there! Let me in.” A Canadian accent. More pounding.

“Matthew. He must have followed us.” She closed her eyes, willing her ex away.

“This isn’t awkward at all.”

Calan’s lips compressed, a tight, line of frustration. Maggie wondered at what appeared to be a possessive glint in his eye. If she had any doubts as to his sudden case of jealousy, those doubts disappeared when she heard him curse. “I’ll kill the bugger.”

In that second, he was flying toward the front door. Maggie raced after him, very much worried she was about to be witness to a bloodbath. “No. Don’t.”

He turned abruptly to her, his hand on the doorknob. “This is the man who cheated on you. The vile dog who betrayed your trust and wounded your heart.” Not a question.

He knew.

“Yes.”

“Then remind me why I shouldn’t skelp him?”

She paused. She had to admit there was a teeny part of her that really wanted to see Calan skelp Matthew. Skelping was a bad thing. Nora had once threatened to skelp a vendor at the market when he shortchanged her. Needless to say, the man never tried it again.

In this case, she knew skelping involved Calan’s fist meeting with Matthew’s head.

Still, there was an even bigger part of her that didn’t care about Matthew anymore anyway. And didn’t really care to see Calan bruise his perfect knuckles on Matthew’s hard noggin. It was wasted energy, expending his strength and breath on her ex, when he
could be working up a sweat with her instead.

What? Who am I? Where did nice, polite Maggie go?

Out the window, apparently.

“Look,” she said, trying to reason with Calan. “He’s just not worth it. Believe me.”

As she remembered the scene of Matthew’s indiscretion, she felt immeasurable sadness weigh on her shoulders. Not so much at losing Matthew, but at losing so much of herself in the process.

How could she let him do that to her? She couldn’t ever let anyone do that to her again.

Calan must have glimpsed the heaviness in her heart. His face softened and his death-grip on the doorknob loosened. As much as he might be able to read her thoughts, or whatever mind trick he employed, he clearly couldn’t see everything in her brain. Just then he appeared a little crestfallen, as if he feared Matthew meant a great deal to her.

More than she was willing to admit.

The sadness in his eyes touched her, in a way she’d never quite been touched before.

“Calan,” she whispered, wanting to take his sadness away. She put her hand on his arm. “I don’t love…”

He yanked on the door, opening it wide. As if he were a character in a bad eighties sitcom, Matthew fell forward. He’d clearly been listening at the door. Calan watched as he tumbled to the ground before them, unhurt but comically rubbing his ass where he fell.

He glared up at the towering length of Calan, his blue eyes red at the corners.

Calan grinned. “Your peedie friend has come a-callin’, Maggie, love.”

Matthew bristled at the word “peedie.” He stood, dusted himself off and held his head high. He almost reached Calan’s six-plus feet. Almost but not quite. “What does that mean?”

“Oh, I apologize for using the vernacular,” Calan laughed, “here on Orkney, ‘peedie’

means small. Insignificant.”

Matthew glared. “You need to come home, Maggie. This country is full of savages.”

Maggie watched as Calan’s grin shrunk, turning into a thin line of barely disguised fury. To his credit, he was managing it. Sort of. He puffed out a laugh through his flared nostrils, but it only made him resemble a maddened bull preparing to charge.

What happened to the sweet, fuzzy seal? Maggie shook her head. Who was she kidding anyway? Even as an animal, Calan had never been sweet and fuzzy, but warm and erotic.

Hold on! Don’t tell me you’re buying his lies now, too? He’s not a selkie! Dammit.

They don’t exist. He lied, just like Matthew.

At that moment, Maggie heard distant thunder. She stared outside, wondering that the weather should change so swiftly. Every couple of seconds, the thunder grumbled through the sky, seeming to get closer. For some reason, Maggie looked at Calan’s face.

Every time he expelled a breath through his nostrils, the thunder clapped again.

As if it were coming from him.

No way.

She stiffened, coming back to reality. “Okay, that’s enough! I want you both out of here. I have enough on my mind without having to placate a couple of testosterone-charged men!” She put her hand on the door.

Calan eyed her. “It’s my house, love.”

She shrunk a little. “Oh, right.” Trying to retain her bravado, she stepped toward the door. “Fine. I’ll go then.”

His strong hand was on her arm in an instant, not hurting her but not allowing her to leave either. “You’ll stay.”

“I’m not letting her stay with you,” Matthew exploded. “Some … some…” he blubbered, looking Calan up and down, “some backward Scottish biker!”

Calan bit his bottom lip, apparently trying not to laugh. Maggie watched in awe at the way his teeth gripped the flesh of his lower lip, wishing she were biting it instead. She might be biting it right now if Matthew hadn’t spoiled everything.

Wait. This was so wrong. This man had somehow burrowed deep inside her head and had screwed with it. And now she felt her head was screwed on backward. Just the thought of the word “screw” was making her desperate to be alone with Calan again, against her better judgment.

But Matthew didn’t quite look ready to depart. He put his hand on Maggie’s other arm. And pulled.

Calan reacted, his dark eyes burning with anger. At the same time, lightning streaked yellow through the heavens. Thunder boomed, like a bomb being detonated nearby.

He put his firm hand on Matthew’s and removed it from Maggie’s arm. “Do not touch her.”

Matthew flinched, as if Calan’s touch had hurt him, but his pride seemed hurt more than anything else. And as Maggie took in the tense set to Calan’s jaw and the way his hands were now bunched into tight fists, she suspected he’d held back out of respect for her.

He hadn’t hurt Matthew, because of her, but he was more than willing to do it.

He turned away from Matthew, looking at her. He frowned, breathing in and out deeply, and she watched his fists unclench. As he calmed himself, the sudden storm clouds seemed to disperse. He gently cupped her cheek. “If you want to go with him, if you love him, tell me now.”

She stared back, completely lost in his eyes and the feel of his fingers on her cheek.

No feeling had ever felt as good, as delicious, as Calan Kirk’s hands on her skin. It was senseless, and it was magical. “I don’t love him. I haven’t for some time. And I would never go back to anyone who cheated on me. I’m better than that.”

Little by little, the corners of his lips curled into the flirtiest, most enticing smile she’d ever seen. It made her heart leap and brightened her world. In her head, birds sang and flowers sprouted. And between her legs, moisture pooled. Her underwear was a useless barrier against this man.

“Well, then, Maggie Collins,” he drawled, his gaze dipping down to her open lips and lingering there. “What now?”

She swallowed. “Before you put me back on that Harley, I could really use a drink of that wine you have.”

A low rumble of quiet laughter sounded from somewhere deep in his chest, sounding very much like the thunder that had so briefly ravaged the sky. “What the hell? It was a late breakfast. Come.”

He held out his hand, and she took it. Wondering that the touch of his hand should feel so much like home.

They looked at the still-fuming Matthew. “You’ll regret this, Maggie,” he muttered
as he charged down the path away from them. “You will. He’ll use you and toss you to the curb.”

Maggie was too busy admiring Calan’s profile to spare Matthew another glance.

Whatever, Matthew.

Chapter 6

Calan paused in the front hallway of his cottage, cursing his swollen dick for interfering with his brain waves. He’d lost his mind over a woman. A human woman.

What was happening to him? He’d felt a bizarre need to make her breakfast, something he’d never done for anyone other than himself. And now he was ready to knock another man’s block off for her?

He’d almost lost his self-control a few short moments ago. He’d been so enraged by the sight of Matthew’s hand on Maggie’s arm, he would have taken great pains to remove it forcibly. Indeed, he’d almost hurt the daft bugger. Would have if Maggie hadn’t been watching or if he hadn’t been able to harness his self-control.

By all that was sacred, she brought out the beast in him. Made him lose the tight leash he had around his emotions, the ones that were so connected to the elements.

How could that shithead treat her like that? How could any sane man cheat on her?

By Loki’s wiles, five minutes in Maggie’s presence and all he could think of was cheating with her! That is, if he had anyone to cheat on. It wasn’t as if he had any lasting ties to Annette, or to anyone else for that matter.

And now, here he was, in his home with her. Where there was a bed. Her small, cool hand tucked into his, the soft texture making him want to burst with unknown passion.

The sound of her footsteps crossing the threshold making his heart pound.

He’d never brought any woman to this place, no matter what she suspected. No one.

At least, no one other than Kyla. Of course, she’d been different, like him. He hadn’t minded bringing her here. She’d understood that the small cottage was his sanctuary.

But that was a long time ago, and Kyla was gone.

Calan felt a numbing, little jolt of pain near his heart, but ignored it. It did no good to think of Kyla now. Not with Maggie’s hand in his.

He still couldn’t believe she was here with him, in the delectable flesh. In his home away from home. Incredible.

Whenever he’d been captured through time, he’d always stayed at the woman’s abode. And any time he’d gone looking for a spot of fun, again, he’d always ended up back at the woman’s place. Never thought twice about it. He’d always needed a private place to call his own, so his cottage had always remained off-limits.

Why did it make him so happy to bring Maggie home? He felt ready to sing about it.

Had the fucking lyrics and music already composed in his head, and the song was worthy of bloody Barry Manilow.

He closed the door behind them and turned to her. Neither said a word. That was fine with him. Talking was the last thing on his mind at present.

However, she’d expressed her need for a drink. He should probably make some attempt to be a good host, or any kind of host. He moved toward the cabinet that held his stash. “Is red fine?”

She nodded, her eyes wide.

She was nervous. She should be. He was thirsty, but not for wine.

He steadied himself, cursing in his head the whole time, and reached for a bottle and two glasses. He poured, handed one of the goblets to her, and watched as she reached for
it with a shaking hand. Poor thing downed it in one gulp.

“Whoa,” he murmured, removing the glass from her hand and setting it down along with his. “Keep your wits about you, lass. I won’t have it said I compromised a woman in her cups.”

“‘In her cups?’” She snorted. “Haven’t heard that one since the last period drama I watched on the BBC.”

He narrowed his eyes at her. His hands were itching to drag her body closer so he could kiss her. He shoved his hands behind his back. Not that it helped. He began imagining all the things he could do to her with his tongue instead.

“So, are you … going to compromise me?” She looked up at him, the dare flashing in her beautiful, blue eyes. The wine already making her bold.

He drew closer. “The thought had crossed my mind.”

She let out a nervous laugh. “Just checking. That night on the beach, you were all action and no talk. Now you’re all talk and not much action. Do you like to confuse all your conquests? All the other women you seduce?”

In any other woman, jealousy had always been nothing more than a troublesome, flitting emotion. Why was it that, in Maggie, it made him ashamed? And determined to prove she had it wrong. He didn’t want her to equate him with that bastard Matthew and the other goon before him.

He supposed he wanted her to like him. To see beyond what she considered the selkie myth. To know him, Calan Kirk, and to like him as a man.

He’d never quite wanted that before. Had never quite cared who liked him. Kyla had liked him, but that had been different. As he stood before Maggie in his cozy room, smelling the sweet wine on her breath, watching her bosom rise and fall with her uneven breaths, he was resolved. She would like him.

If he had anything to do with it, by the time he was done, Maggie would like him a whole lot.

*

Once again, Maggie felt ashamed for lashing out at Calan, especially after he’d taken her part against Matthew. However, every time she remembered what Calan was supposed to be, each time she pictured him as a womanizing, studly selkie man, she felt gut rot. She shouldn’t care if he slept with every woman up and down the coast.

But she did. She cared. More than she wanted to admit out loud or even in her tumultuous brain. Since she’d been dreaming of him, communing with him at night, she’d thought of him as her own, personal dream man. To be confronted with him in reality, and to discover that he was as randy as Tom Jones, made her eyes turn emerald with searing envy.

“Were you telling the truth,” she whispered, “about all the women?”

He’d been playing with her hand, but he dropped it now. “I can’t help what I am, Maggie.” His brown eyes turned down with a strange sadness. “In the many years that have been my life, yes, it’s happened a few times. I won’t lie to you. And here and there, being captured has even been pleasurable to me. Heaven knows I’ve gone looking for company myself once or twice. There’s nothing wrong with wanting a wee spot of companionship.”

He drew in a deep breath, his gaze never leaving her face. He reached for her hands again, and entwined his fingers with hers. Then slowly, he moved his hands up the length
of her arms and slid her jacket off her shoulders. Maggie thought she was beginning to see that flirtatious smile creep back into his eyes.

“And even though I’ve been fighting it every step of the way, the gods take pity on me,” he continued, leaning to whisper into her ear, “I can no longer deny how much I want you.”

His words sent a rush of feeling through her that began in her core and spread like wildfire as far as the tips of her fingers and toes. She wanted to believe him, that this possibly immortal man could want her so badly. Yet she knew his sensual words were probably only a part of his shtick. If Calan felt it was his mission to bring pleasure to lovelorn women, he would have learned to sweet-talk them along the way.

“Why me?” She couldn’t resist asking.

He drew closer, although she wouldn’t have thought it possible. His chest was upon hers, already crushing her full bosom and making her nipples pebble with delight.

“Perhaps it’s because, as proud and capable a woman as you are, those shits convinced you that you weren’t special. And a wee part of you began to believe it. I plan to show you the error of your ways.”

Without another word, Calan was upon her like a starving man who’d been invited to a sumptuous buffet. Gently, so as not to hurt her, but with a force that would not be denied, he pinned her to the nearest wall. He encircled her with his arms. One hand buried itself in her red curls. The other hand was already reaching down, cupping and squeezing her bottom. He kissed her, ravishing her with his mouth, as if trying to slake a centuries-old thirst.

Maggie could barely breathe. Once again, he’d seen into her. He’d seen that, despite her bravado, she was crushed inside. Used. Needed pampering and possibly some fixing.

Maybe he could fix her. Help her recover from the worst few years of her life. Years that had taught her not to hope anymore. To just be.

Don’t expect excitement or loyalty. Don’t expect five stars. You’re lucky to get three and a half. Hadn’t that inner dialogue plagued her for so long, despite the smile she kept plastered on her face?

And why was it that every time she glanced at Calan, those elusive five stars flashed in front of her eyes?

No. She was just hungry for him, hungry for a man who made her feel beautiful after men such as Matthew and Bobby had merely dropped hints that she could stand to lose a few pounds. She was merely starving for the temporary nourishment only Calan could provide with his lips and roaming fingers. “Oh, Calan,” she uttered, once his lips released hers and blazed a trail down her neck.

“You’re radiant, Maggie.” He combed through her hair with his fingers. “I’ve never seen hair this color, or eyes so blue. You’re the loveliest creature I’ve ever seen.”

The loveliest? It was hard to believe.

He’d known a lot of women. That was one thing he had in common with Matthew.

That, and the lies. Because he had to be lying about the whole selkie thing.

The flaming torch of desire was suddenly doused. Selkie or not, Calan made no bones about the fact that women were his life. His apparent reason for being. That made him as good as a cheater.

How many women were there anyway? She’d be damned if she stuck around long enough to find out.

She pushed away from him. He looked at her, dazed. “Love…” he began.

She tried hard to offer him her best, businesslike smile, knowing it probably looked like a smirk. “With all due respect, Calan, I’m not your love. And I’m not thirsty anymore. We have a pelt to find.”

Maggie didn’t give him a chance to argue. She turned on her heel and headed back outside, standing by the Harley like a prim librarian until he joined her.

* * * *

Calan expected to be angry at Maggie’s change of heart. He even expected to be turned off, ready to walk away from the human woman who’d given him no peace for weeks on end. He was, strangely enough, none of those things.

Instead, he felt nothing but a grim determination, and a little sadness.

Because the other men in her life had disappointed her, hurt her, he was now being deprived of the chance to make her feel better. Sure, it pissed him off. After all, he’d already quietly acknowledged to himself that the only thing that would give him any sort of peace in this world was to be able to sink deep inside Maggie’s luscious body. Even just once. To be able to dig his fingers into her plump hips while he drove them both to dizzying heights of pleasure.

Yes, he was sore about it. But mostly because of the darkness in her eyes. Those men had put that darkness there, had made her distrustful. He wanted to put the light back in her eyes, to see them sparkle with joy.

He shouldn’t want it. When he remembered what the humans did to Kyla, how they used her, he shouldn’t want anything with a human woman.

But he was weak. Men like him needed sweet release. And as much as he despised the race, there was nothing that stoked his fire like the feel of a velvety, human pussy swallowing his cock. And to see Maggie’s eyes light up at the same time … rapture.

But Kyla … He’d promised himself he wouldn’t fall for a human.

Calan looked out the window at Maggie, standing uncomfortably by his Harley.

Bending over to inspect the tires, as if she expected them to suddenly deflate. Her delicious, round arse in the air.

Bloody hell. What he’d give to sink his teeth into that sweet bottom!

He sounded like Angus that day when he’d first seen Elsie strolling along the beach.

“Calan, brother,” he’d uttered, completely in her thrall. “See that gorgeous arse? That arse is mine, and so’s the angel that owns it. By Odin’s great cock, I’m gonna mark her and claim that woman. I’m going to sink my teeth into her and she’ll thank me for it.”

And despite his Alpha-male bravado and boastful words, Angus had smiled like a buffoon and had followed Elsie down the beach like a lost puppy who’d spotted a discarded roast beef sandwich.

Within days, they were mated. Swift and sure as a lightning bolt striking a lone golfer on an open course.

Okay. He didn’t need to mate with Maggie. Didn’t need to profess some emotion he didn’t even feel. He could just do what he’d always done. Fuck her, find his pelt, and disappear. And hopefully feel much better for his efforts.

This should be easy.

So why did he want to go out there and just give the lass a hug? Tell her it would all be well in the end? Make her as happy as an oystercatcher bird with a belly full of
shellfish?

He wanted to be the instrument for a human woman’s happiness. It defied reason. It went against every instinct he’d had for years. Sure, humans were good for a little fun and he’d taken his share. But they were greedy and sometimes just plain evil. If he had any sense, he’d pack Maggie off to a B&B, go find the pelt on his own, and run.

He couldn’t give in to his desire, not when it was clearly poisonous. It was taking over his life, and he liked his life the way it was! Where was his common sense?

He stared at her through the window. Contemplated the soft line of her jaw and the swell of her bosom. His body betrayed him immediately, his cock thumping against the fly of his jeans.

He grabbed his spare leather jacket, trudged out of the cottage, and locked the door behind him.

Ah, fuck common sense.

Chapter 7

Maggie was relieved to finally arrive at the Olde Bookshop, an antiquarian bookstore right in the heart of Kirkwall. Not so much because it was their destination, but because the ride had been little more than sweet torture.

To have to climb on that sexy deathtrap and be forced to cling to Calan’s hard body after being so frustrated had been almost unbearable. Especially because she didn’t really know why she felt so cross. She knew she was taking out her feelings of betrayal on Calan and that he didn’t deserve it. But every time he looked at her with those dark eyes that seemed to know so much about her she wanted to lash out.

Almost as much as she wanted to bury herself in his embrace and forget the rest of the world.

He climbed off the bike and held out a webbed hand to help her.

Webbed hand. She stared at it. Could it really be?

“Thanks,” she whispered, at a loss.

He put his hands on her arms to steady her once she was off, damn her wobbly motorcycle legs! Oh, who was she kidding? She was wobbly because of him, not the bike. Everything would be a whole lot easier if he’d only stop touching her!

“Look,” he murmured, gazing down at her, “let’s just go in, see if your gran left any strange packages for you and leave. The sooner we get this over with, the better.”

“I agree.”

They’d parked a dozen or so spots down the road from the bookstore because the spots in front had been taken. Maggie looked up toward the shop. In that second, an old man swiftly exited the store, locked the door behind him, turned over a homemade sign that said Out For Dinner and disappeared down the road. Chasing down his lunch as if his life depended on it.

“Hey,” Maggie called, but the gentleman had already turned the corner. “Oh, wonderful! Now what?”

Calan proffered her a sly smile, not that he had any other kind. “Follow me, love.”

He took her hand and pulled her along toward the store.

Once at the door, he looked around to make sure no one was watching. He put his hand around the doorknob, not touching it, but surrounded it with his fingers. He closed his eyes as if praying.

“What are you doing? Willing a locked door to open?”

He opened one eye at her. “Hush, please. I need to concentrate.” He closed his eye again.

Good, polite Maggie, by-the-book Maggie, kicked into full force. “I don’t know what you think you’re doing. And it’s not like we should go in anyway. It’s against the law! All I need is to be thrown in the clink over this damned skin. Calan, I mean it. Stop

… stop trying to be a Jedi! It won’t work!”

She heard a click. Calan opened his eyes, looked at her and grinned. He opened the door and held it open. “Your chariot awaits.”

“But … but…” She gawked at him, opening and closing her mouth a few times.

“Well, clearly, the owner didn’t lock it properly.”

Calan scowled. “Oh, it was locked.”

She slid in and he followed. “I don’t think so, because that would make you The Amazing Kreskin.”

“Or a selkie with inhuman powers.” He didn’t lose the grin but his eyes hardened slightly. “Which one is easier to believe, Maggie?”

“Oh, let’s just find the pelt. We can argue about what you are later,” she muttered, at the end of her rope. She looked around the cramped shop. It was filled from top to bottom with books, not just on shelves, but spilling over onto other surfaces too. They were piled on the floor and shoved in every corner. It was a book hoarder’s paradise. It was no wonder Gran loved it here, although Maggie couldn’t figure out how the old woman had avoided breaking her hip whilst maneuvering through the place. “If Gran worked here, maybe she had a little locker or a drawer to put her things.”

“Good idea,” he concurred. “I’ll check in back. You look in the shop. Maybe she stuffed my pelt behind one of those wretched piles of moldy books.” Shaking his head over the clutter, Calan disappeared into the back room.

Maggie wandered, not quite sure where to begin. Should she attack the piles Dewey Decimal style, or just close her eyes and point? She felt guilty even being there. This was breaking and entering, even though all they wanted to take was a sealskin that didn’t belong there. How many years could you get on Orkney for grand theft selkie?

“I can’t believe I’m doing this,” she shouted to him in the back room. “God, I’ve always been the good girl, the one who’s never pilfered so much as a paper clip or pen from work.”

He poked his head out of the back room and glared at her. “Relax.”

Lost in her memories, she continued babbling. “I’ve only stolen once in my life.

When I was eight. I was trying to buy a fifty-cent chocolate from the convenience store.

The clerk ignored me because I was a child. I got so indignant I just slipped the candy bar off the shelf and into my pocket.” She grimaced. “The guilt haunted me for two whole years. I never stole again.”

“You won’t go to hell for it,” he called. “I assure you.”

And now, here she was, repeating her sordid past. Calan Kirk was a bad influence.

Somehow she’d guessed as much as soon as she first saw him.

Telling herself she wouldn’t touch anything she didn’t need to, she spied a couple of storage boxes near the cash counter. She bent over and began to quietly rummage through one of the boxes.

A couple of seconds into her search, she heard the creak of the front door behind her.

Shoot! Hadn’t Calan locked up behind them? Hadn’t she? She couldn’t remember.

Fearing the old proprietor had returned, Maggie slowly lifted her head, ready to confess to her plethora of sins, including the long-digested chocolate from the convenience store.

A shot rang out somewhere over her head. She froze. She’d watched enough Law & Order reruns to know the shot came from a gun.

Maggie flattened herself on the floor, swearing and praying at the same time. Either that old man was really protective of his shop, or someone was trying to kill her!

She waited for another shot to ring out, but all she heard was the door creaking again. Had he left, or was he toying with her?

Trust no one.

Once again, Gran’s words echoed in her brain.

There was a shout from the back room, and she heard Calan’s frantic steps pounding their way back to her. She didn’t move a muscle, just lay crushed against the box on the floor.

“Stay,” she hissed to him. “He has a gun!”

Apparently unperturbed about his own safety, Calan dove behind the counter to join her. He crouched next to her, his hands all over her body, but not in a sexual way. Even in her haze, she knew what he was doing. He was checking for entry wounds, or God help her, exit wounds.

Oh, help.

Someone had tried to shoot her! Why?

Calan gently lifted her from her prostrate position and cradled her in his arms right there on the floor. “Are you hurt, Maggie? Please tell me if you’re hurt. Can you speak?”

She nodded, numb. And then she shook her head.

“Sit tight for a moment. I’ll be right back, I swear.”

As if she could do anything else. Someone had tried to off her! As if she were a narc in a crack house, or Al freaking Capone!

She stared, unable to move, as Calan ran to the shop door, slowly poked his head out and took a cautious look around. The whole time, she prayed the shooter wouldn’t try for a little selkie target practice with Calan’s head.

“It’s such a beautiful head,” she mumbled, her eyes wide.

“What was that?” he asked upon returning to her.

“Nothing.” She stared up at him. “Calan, why?”

He let out big puff of air. “It’s the bloody skin, Maggie. It’s apparent we’re not the only ones who want it. Our friend the burglar must be trying his luck again.” He slowly took in every detail of her appearance and she knew she must look a sight. Her hair was disheveled from her time on the floor. She felt so cold she knew she must be pale. And her damned lip couldn’t stop trembling. “Look. It’s a small back room. No space to hide an animal skin. I don’t think it’s here. We should go. I want you out of here. Let’s go out the back door.”

“Where do we go now? The police?”

He ran a ridiculously steady hand over his forehead. “I don’t think the police will take kindly to the fact that we entered the bookshop under unusual circumstances. I was thinking a crowded pub might be a good option right now.”

A pub. Crowded with people? She knew they had to check out The Deacon’s Bench, but she wasn’t sure she was ready to face people yet. She felt so cold and guessed her face was as white as marble, surely a dead giveaway that something bad had happened.

Maggie didn’t think she could trust herself to keep it together.

Suddenly, she just wanted to go home. With Calan. And have a lengthy cuddle.

Once again, he seemed to read her mind. He put a hand to her cheek, his eyes brimming with an emotion she couldn’t quite discern. Even though she couldn’t make it out, it still made her heart palpitate a little to see it etched into his face.

“I can’t take you to your home yet, Maggie, but I can give you that cuddle.”

And before her sensible head could launch a revolt on her thumping heart, she nodded.

They carefully left the shop, making sure no one was following them. And this time, as she climbed on his motorcycle, Maggie had no trouble holding Calan tightly around
the waist. She inhaled the delicious scent of man under leather and held on for dear life, petrified that someone was following them.

* * * *

It occurred to Maggie as they once again crossed the threshold into Calan’s cottage that it felt oddly like coming home. It shouldn’t. But she couldn’t deny that everything in Orkney was starting to feel homey. Gran’s house. The beach. And even Calan’s house.

That was strangest of all.

She’d been in the cottage for all of five minutes and yet was having trouble remembering what her own apartment in Toronto looked like. Somehow, Calan’s home had overridden any images she had of her own home.

Must be stress. Someone shot at you. No wonder you’re loopy.

Thank Heavens the shooter had had abysmal aim. Or had he just been warning them away?

She watched as Calan locked the door and slowly turned back to her, as if afraid of what he’d find written on her face. As if he, too, was experiencing a tide of emotions that seemed to come out of nowhere, but that were swelling with each moment in each other’s company. Threatening to overtake them.

She wanted to ask for that cuddle, but couldn’t. Because she knew, she just knew in the deepest part of her heart, that it wouldn’t stop at a platonic hug. And so they just stared at one another.

His eyes seemed to grow blacker with each passing second. His fists were clenched.

His lips were pressed tight. And she felt as sturdy as a horse with a broken leg. Ready to collapse against him, into him.

All over him.

“Lass,” he finally breathed, his voice ragged from want, “come to me.”

“Why?” she whispered, knowing she was supposed to fight this. Wasn’t she?

Clearly he understood she was terrified of submitting to her wildest, most urgent need, Calan prowled over to her. He leaned over and grazed his lips against hers, drinking her in as if her scent was a soft, intoxicating perfume. “No more games, Maggie, no more excuses. I’m finally going to do what I was sent here for. It’s time you had your selkie-man.”

“But … we’re so not right for each other.”

“Never mind that,” he uttered. He pulled her to him, and she didn’t resist.

As a satisfied grin spread across his face, she knew he could feel her knees knocking.

He held her against his chest with one arm, and cradled her face with his other hand, seeming to revel in the feel of her skin. He moved the pad of his thumb against her bottom lip, causing her mouth to open. As he stroked her there, Maggie brushed the tip of her tongue against his thumb.

God help her. She couldn’t help herself.

That intimate caress seemed to destroy any resistance Calan had left. He brought his lips down upon hers in a kiss that surprised her, and seemed to surprise him as well, with its force. He nipped, licked, and suckled at her lips, running his tongue along her teeth and her own tongue until they were both breathless. It took all her power not to rip her clothing off her body. The only thing that stopped her was the fervent need to have him rip it all off for her.

“I’ve wanted you from the first moment I saw you, lass.”

“This feels crazy.” She giggled nervously as he began to work on her shirtfront. She reached up to the leather tie that was securing his ponytail. “May I?”

He nodded in response, his eyes fairly blazing with want. She tugged, and his glorious mane came loose, falling over both their shoulders. “Oh my,” she whimpered, finally allowing herself to run her hands through his hair. “It’s like chocolate silk.”

He laughed in a naughty, low rumble that made her pussy hungry. Calan then tore the blouse over her head, having tired of her buttons. “Take the rest of your clothes off, woman. I want to taste your skin.”

She bit her lip so she wouldn’t moan again. No man had ever spoken to her in that way, with such hunger. With no hesitation at all, she removed her jeans, woolly socks, and then slipped out of her red satin bra and panties. She shivered under his gaze, from sweet anticipation.

Calan slid slowly out of his own clothing, as if putting on a show. As he yanked off his leather boots, she noticed his feet were also webbed. Maggie wondered that she hadn’t noticed the webbing before, but didn’t care. He then, with his gaze on her the whole time, dropped his jeans and stepped out of them. He wore no underwear. Surprise, surprise. His appreciation for her was evident. His shaft was thick and seemed to be reaching for her. The sight made her mouth water. She clamped her lips shut. Heavens to Betsy! She was pretty sure she was drooling.

He stood still for a moment, just raking his gaze over her body, as if trying to memorize every curve and freckle. Then Calan clutched her to him, letting one of his hands slide down her belly. He played with her pubic hairs, giving them a frisky tug, as he kissed her left earlobe. With a sigh, Maggie threw herself against him, locking her hands around his neck.

Calan reached behind her to grasp her derriere, and then hoisted her up onto his waist. He carried her over to his plush bed, kissing her the whole time. He lay her down, leaned over and used his knee to spread her legs. As he lay on top of her, she wrapped herself around him, as she had done on the beach. Only now, skin against skin, it was luscious, hotter than hot.

He turned his attention to her lips again, and her mouth opened automatically to him.

As his tongue slid against hers, Maggie thought she’d never tasted anything so good.

Salty and sweet, like her favorite salted-caramel lattes. He nibbled, suckled, and her lips felt swollen from his touch, alive with sensitivity. He pulled away from her for a moment to gaze into her eyes, and she felt an exquisite head rush. She stared up at him in awe.

“What are you really?”

He brushed two fingers against her cheek, his gaze more affectionate than any she’d ever seen. “I’m what you need, love.”

“You’re what I need,” she repeated, dazed.

With a grin, he lowered himself on her body, letting his teasing tongue dart along her every curve. As it rested on her taut right nipple, he gently suckled until she was writhing below him. He moved from one soft mound to the other, nibbling on her nipples and running his fingers along the undersides of her breasts, as ribbons of exquisite pleasure unraveled all through her body.

When he began to creep lower toward her belly, Maggie tensed, wondering if she could bear it. Without thinking, she tried to clamp her legs together.

“Relax, beauty,” he whispered. “Let me pleasure you.”

Slowly, he eased her legs apart, dancing his fingers along the insides of her thighs.

And then, he didn’t move. He just stared at her sex as if it were the most enticing sight in the world. “You’re prettier than any picture, Maggie. Lovelier than any of my dreams.”

Then he did something she’d never have expected. He sniffed her, breathed in her heated scent. Embarrassed beyond measure, she wriggled beneath him. No man she knew would ever do anything so intimate, so animalistic. She tried to pull away, but Calan held her still. “You smell so sweet. I’ve been breathing in your scent since the first dream, but have longed to have you naked so I could do it properly.”

God, did I even spray any perfume down there? “Calan,” she cried, her voice almost frantic. “You don’t have to do that.”

“Oh,” he murmured, bringing his face closer to her moist folds, “I want to.”

He didn’t touch her. For what had to be several tortuous minutes, he just continued to breathe in her scent while she writhed under his heated gaze. “Calan, please.”

Ignoring her, he ran a finger up her thigh. He let it rest near, just not near enough, her pussy. His eyes were dark and distracted. “They say, among my people, that each selkie has a perfect match. Someone whose scent calls only to them. That scent, that heavenly perfume, acts as a brand. The strongest of bonds. I always thought it was an old wives’

tale. Rubbish.” He glanced up at her, his face changed by a new affection. Perhaps the start of a new realization. “Rubbish or not, no scent has ever called to me like yours has.”

Maggie wanted to argue. She wanted to tell him it was garbage. That he was confusing her with someone else, one of his other women perhaps. But then his face changed again. His lips curved into a ravenous grin. And while she was still wiggling in embarrassment, he leaned down and ran his tongue through her wet cleft.

“Oh God,” she cried, her body arching.

He laughed quietly against her sensitive skin, and then used his tongue to seek out the swollen little nub between her lips. Eagerly, he suckled there, his fingers moving along the length of her lips, caressing each fold. Then, boldly, he slid his fingers into her, letting them curl against her insides. He sought out the delicate ridge inside her, and rubbed it as his tongue laved her clit.

Time stopped for Maggie. All she knew was the feel of the most eager tongue she’d ever known. Calan wouldn’t let her out from under him for the longest time, lapping at her as an animal would, not shying away from a single inch of her throbbing skin. It could have been an hour; it could have been days. Either way, she had no recourse but to lie there and accept ecstasy as it claimed her.

A pressure that was shockingly potent, and shockingly emotional, began to build deep inside her writhing body. Maggie didn’t know where to look. Her head flailed from side to side, and she clutched at the sheets, as Calan reduced her even further to mush with his agile tongue. He drove his fingers deeper into her, swirling his tongue around her pearl, almost with fury. Maggie suddenly had a fleeting vision of the waves she’d seen crashing onto shore on the beach. She saw his face, staring out at her from those same waves, strangely morphing with the face of the seal. Then she shuddered as Calan wrought wave after heady wave of unrelenting sensation upon her helpless body.

Only then, did he release her, and begin to climb back up her body. The most delicious smile graced his wet lips. As he leaned in to kiss her, Maggie saw the seal’s brown eyes reflected in his.

And then, as stunning comprehension tried to launch an assault on her brain, she lost consciousness.

Chapter 8

When she came to, he was lying at her side, propped up on one elbow. Still grinning that come-hither grin. “This is the second time you’ve fainted on me. It’s getting to be a habit,” he purred, brushing his fingertips across her stomach under the covers. “Should we check your blood sugar?”

Maggie just stared back, not in fear of him, but of what was happening to her.

Calan’s brow furrowed when he saw the look on her face, and he passed a gentle hand over her hair. “Are you quite well, love?”

She sat up, not even bothering to cover herself when the blanket fell from her breasts. She noted how his gaze dipped to her chest, how he struggled to fight his ever-present hunger. Once again, that ripple of tension shivered through his neck and shoulders, as he clearly sought to control the beast inside.

The one that hadn’t finished ravishing her.

Once his eyes met hers again, she spoke through a dry, but steady, voice. “Tell me the truth, Calan. Who are you? I don’t care if you’re a crook or some kind of con man. I just want to know.”

“You know what I am.” His response shook with a throaty, frustrated growl. “I know you’re confused, but surely you can trust your own senses.”

“It’s not possible.”

He sat up, the flirty, insatiable expression gone from his face. “And is it possible that I’d know you envisioned my selkie face as I rained down the most earth-shattering orgasm you’ve ever had?”

“You really do read minds,” she replied, her voice hushed, goose bumps raised on her bare arms.

“Maybe a little. Call it instinct.” His serious face crumpled with the merest hint of the smile that brought her to her knees. “Look, I’ll tell you whatever you wish to know, lass. I’m Calan of Kirkwall, shortened to Calan Kirk, in keeping with modern practice. I am of the selkie folk, and if I can’t have you, I believe I might die.” He reached out a hand to cup her breast, caressing it with great longing.

“Okay, let’s say for the sake of argument you are selkie. Do you have a family?” she asked, trying to ignore how he brought her nipple to immediate, tortuous hardness under his thumb.

“Aye. Rather a large one. And I’m the baby, the spoiled one according to my six brothers.”

Her mind spun a little. Six brothers. That sounded challenging enough for a human family! Never mind … whatever he was.

“How old are you?” She tried to brush his hand from her breast but it wouldn’t be moved.

“Five hundred seventy-five years old. Like I said, I’m the baby.” He grinned and tweaked her nipple.

A dull pain throbbed in the back of her head, a throb that only intensified each time she glimpsed the soft sheen of his unblemished skin. “You must realize that’s hard to believe.”

“I understand, Maggie. But that doesn’t make it any less true.”

He drew closer and looked at her breast as if he wanted nothing more in life than to suckle at its softness. He licked his lips and Maggie had trouble continuing but she forced herself to forge ahead. “And it’s your … job … to pleasure women?”

“Well,” he drawled, finally leaning down to lick at her nipple, “I wouldn’t call it a job. It’s fate.”

She watched as he flicked out his tongue to tease the nipple that was angrily tight and eager for the scrape of his teeth. She wanted to just lie back and let him have her, in every way possible, in ways she’d never even considered before. But the thought of him with other women, maybe thousands of other women, had her reeling with a jealousy she’d never experienced.

“So what do you do when fate isn’t summoning you?” she asked, and was surprised at the hurt catch in her voice. She pushed his head away from her breast, pulling up the blanket to cover herself. “You know, when you’re not employed as some waterlogged gigolo?”

Calan looked up from her breast through disappointed eyes. “That’s a good one. I must write that down on my résumé.”

Suddenly, Maggie was crying. And not just a demure blubber. Her shoulders shook and her throat felt raw, and the sobs had her gut lurching. She couldn’t even blame it on the gunshot or grief or stupid Matthew anymore. It was Calan, just Calan, who was doing this to her, when she’d sworn to forsake all men. Why couldn’t he be a dentist or in middle management in a nice office somewhere? Why did he have to plague her with all these questions?

She leaped from the bed, pulling the white quilt cover around her. Not knowing where to go, but not wanting to leave, she ended up in the corner of the room. There, she collapsed in a heap of cotton on the floor, and covered her face as she wept.

Calan rose from the bed, still annoyingly nude, and strode over to her crumpled form. He kneeled next to her, wrestling her hands from her face. “Maggie, please don’t.”

She glanced up, taken aback by his fervent plea, and was shocked to see how pale he was.

“Don’t cry,” he begged. “I’ve never been able to endure a woman’s tears, but yours are slicing into me like a shark’s tooth. Please, Maggie.”

The only response she could muster up was to plop more tears into his naked lap.

“Why weep, love?”

“Because one of us is clearly insane!” The pain in her voice shocked her. She hadn’t expected to feel so strongly about Calan, hadn’t expected any of this. And the more time she spent with the mysterious man from the sea, the more she cared about him. It scared her. What kind of future could she possibly have with him? None, she knew, yet she was having trouble envisioning a future without him. “This can’t be real.”

“Oh, it’s real,” he replied, the lust resurfacing in his eyes as he gazed at her surrounded by his blanket. He grabbed her hand, moving it to his thick, aroused cock.

“And this is real too.”

As Maggie encircled the significant girth of his cock, she stared openmouthed at the magnificent creature before her. And wished very much that she could believe.

Please, God. Even just a little.

*

Calan loved a challenge. Yet he’d never had one. Not as far as women were concerned. The few times in his life that his pelt had been pilfered by some enterprising female, there had been no challenge to whet his own appetite. When women saw their selkie prize, they’d given themselves heart and soul to him, eager to believe the myth.

They’d all been so gullible that it had been no trouble stealing his skin back from them.

Maybe it was something about those Orkney lasses. They were more inclined to believe in magic. From the buxom, human barmaid who’d taken his virginity centuries ago to every last lonely sailor’s wife he’d entertained. They’d all fallen for him, hook, line, and sinker.

Not Maggie.

She was different. Maggie wanted him, but railed against the idea that he didn’t fit into her neat, sensible world. Right from the start, he knew her skepticism would make their passion even more fiery, more electric.

Yet now that he felt her soft fingers on his shaft, he knew his world was being altered as much as hers. He stared down at the beautiful woman below him, the one he’d just finished ripping in two with delicious ecstasy. He’d claimed her heart, he could tell.

From the haunted, desperate look in her eyes, and from the impassioned moans that had ensnared his soul.

And he felt absolutely shackled to her. He’d gone from being her reluctant stalker to her very willing prisoner.

It was going to be so hard, he realized with a heavy heart, to leave her.

For, leave her, he must. It was his way. The way of his kind, aside from the unfortunate few who’d been snared by their mates. Of course, Angus wouldn’t describe his relationship with Elsie that way, nor would his parents speak so about their mating.

He knew it was possible to love.

But him? Calan of Kirkwall? Never.

He didn’t know the meaning of the word. And, he suspected, neither did Jamie, Machar, Breannan, Drummond, and Edan, his other wayward brothers. Angus was the only one so far to have fallen. And when he had, spying wee Elsie Tate that first day, he’d plummeted faster than a boulder sinking in water.

And he’d never been happier, the great fool.

Maybe Angus knew something he didn’t.

He looked down at the gentle way Maggie was swirling her fingers around his cock, endured the shards of painful pleasure as they cut through his body. All thoughts of Angus and the rest of his brothers flew away.

Fuck, this woman is sweet.

She was staring at his dick, seemingly entranced. With a tentative shadow in her eye, she finally looked up at him and then moved her hand lower. As she cupped his balls, swirling them with a careful hand, he let out a curse. He’d never felt anything so good, and he wasn’t even inside her yet.

He just knew she would fit him better than any he’d ever known. Better than Daisy, the barmaid who’d taken his virginity when he was a young pup, back when the sixth King Henry was still on the English throne. Daisy had been plump and willing, but had he loved her? No. Even though he’d developed a begrudging fascination with humans because of her, he hadn’t loved her.

Maggie would feel better to him than Mary, the lonely wife of a fisherman whom
he’d entertained back in the early eighteen hundreds. He’d stayed with the buxom wench for four years until he’d found his pelt. And had he loved Mary? No. In fact, after a time, he’d grown tired of her.

And the gods only knew, of all the selkie maids he’d bedded, he’d never felt inspired to mate with a single one.

So why did Maggie, an emotionally scarred mortal, suddenly feel so right? He didn’t know why. She just did.

He looked down at his auburn beauty, at the red curls dancing above her shoulders.

At the echoing red curls at the base of her soft stomach, the ones he could see peeking through the folds of the gathered quilt. He took in the red flush on her sweet chest. Heard her labored breathing. Saw the longing in her eyes, a longing she probably didn’t even know was there.

And knew he wanted her. Badly.

“Maggie,” he murmured.

“Do it,” she challenged, her voice raw with desire. “I need it.”

Damn, he needed it, too. It wasn’t the way he would have wanted, with her eyes still so full of tears. Tears that he’d caused with his so-called outrageous claims. But, by all that was holy, he couldn’t hold back any longer. He needed to feel her swallowing him up.

He laid her down on the floor and moved the cursed blanket away from her tantalizing body. Her tantalizing human body. Suffering one last moment of guilt, he thought of Kyla, remembering what the bastards did to her. He owed it to Kyla to remain strong and aloof.

Forgive me, Kyla.

Feeling like a bastard himself, he looked down at Maggie. Shite, she was exquisite, human or not. He stared down into her perfect face, a face made perfect by all its tiny imperfections. The slightly crooked nose. The many freckles. The funny, little red eyelashes, so wet with tears. The pretty, pale lips. He took in the crooked line as her mouth twitched into an awkward grin.

And realized something was changing in him, whether he wanted it or not.

The gods help him! Was this what Angus felt?

He ran a hand down to her pussy, sliding his finger along her wet seam. He got stiffer just feeling this evidence of her need. Cursing, he moved his hand and let his cock brush against her pussy, teasing her, and making himself mad with passion. Slowly, he prodded her with his tip, and she moved her hips to greet him. He wanted to take this slowly, to bring her to a ravenous breaking point, but he feared they were both already there.

“Calan,” she implored. “Fuck me.”

And so, he did.

Calan drove into the warmth of her body, his body exploding with luscious sensation. She cried out and he couldn’t control his own response. He was quaking in her arms, unable to catch his breath. And still he plunged into her again and again until he was seeing stars. Her perfume was all over him, marking him. Her sweet pussy wrapped around him as if it were part of his own body. And her every cry of delirium bound him to her.

As he felt the explosion rock his body, he held her tighter, breathing against her soft
neck. Her sex tightened around him as she came to orgasm once again, milking him dry and bringing him to the point of lush pain.

Oh shit, he wondered as their bodies stilled. Now what?

*

Maggie was shivering. All over. And it was magical.

What he’d done to her … she’d never felt anything like it. When he’d taken her and delivered her the most pulse-pounding orgasm she’d ever had, she’d begun to think maybe he was telling the truth.

Could selkies really exist?

She caught herself believing the lie for a moment and looked at him as he pulled out.

His eyes were still closed, as if the feeling had been too much to bear. She felt it too. In fact, she’d never experienced anything like it. When Calan had come with her, a circuit inside her had shorted. All the little paths to her heart had been realigned somehow.

Something had changed.

He climbed off her, offering her a strangely shy smile, and helped her sit up. He then grabbed a small towel from his bathroom and insisted on tidying her up, wiping her sex with a gentle hand.

Maggie stared, unable to speak.

Once he was satisfied with his handiwork, he dropped a tender kiss on her lips. He then stood and started to get dressed. She shifted to look at him as he dressed. He leaned over and grabbed his jeans, hoisting them up to his waist, and she swallowed the disappointment she felt in seeing his incredible lower half disappear. Calan was unspeakably gorgeous, fallen angel gorgeous. His dark hair seemed to shimmer with a light of its own. His lips were luscious and his every muscle seemed sculpted by God’s hand.

Surely mortal men don’t look like this.

And that mouth. Kissing and licking at her sex with animalistic fervor. No mortal man had ever left her with such a soul-searing need. It had been sheer agony when he’d removed his hands from her body. God help her, she really wanted to start all over again and see if the second time would be as fiery and turbulent as the first.

But this can’t be right.

He turned to her, once again clearly perceiving her thoughts. With a sad smile, he reached over to brush a curl off her cheek. “Beautiful Maggie. You still don’t believe, do you?”

She couldn’t answer. Didn’t know how to answer. She’d never been much of a believer, not even with a grandmother who talked of fairies and gnomes and magical beings who dwelled under the sea.

How could she believe? God had seen fit to take both her parents, shattering her belief system. And when she’d offered her unquestioning devotion to two men who’d used her, her faith in others had dried up.

She had to protect herself. She couldn’t let Calan touch her again.

He breathed in deeply, as if trying to convince himself to be strong, and handed over her wrinkled clothing. “Come. There’s no sense staying here. Let’s go to The Deacon’s Bench. We have to find that pelt and you must be starving. I know I’m hungry.”

And then he smiled, as if to say, “I’ll make a believer of you yet.”

“How can you even think of eating?” she asked as she began to move.

His rakish grin was now back in full force as he watched her reach for her underwear. “Didn’t I tell you? We selkie men have unending … appetites.”

And despite everything they’d been through, despite the turmoil in her heart, Maggie found herself grinning back as she dressed.

“I just bet you do.”

Chapter 9

Calan pulled Maggie along by the hand and led her toward the busy pub that was The Deacon’s Bench. He was surprised to see it was already nearing six o’clock. Of course, they had begun their day late and then he had entertained Maggie at his home for a time. He grinned at the decadent memory, relishing the lingering taste of her on his lips.

Oh, what he might do to preserve that taste in his mouth.

Breathing in deeply to clear his head, he looked up at the pub door and took note of the activity inside. Even through the frosted windows he could see the patrons. By now, the little tavern would be filled with village folk looking for a meaty pie, a rousing song, and a large ale, and not necessarily in that order.

As they entered, he turned to Maggie. “Did you ever come here with your gran?”

“Oh, yes,” she replied, grinning at her memories. “She used to bring me here for lunch sometimes.” She scanned the pub, raising herself on tiptoes so she could see over some of the heads. “Her favorite spot to sit was at the back, over there.”

Calan looked in the direction where she was pointing and spied a booth with an actual deacon’s bench. One that looked like it had storage underneath. Fortunately, the booth was vacant. “Let’s go. Do you think we could be lucky enough to find a skin under that bench?”

“Yeah,” she answered quietly. “That sure would be lucky.”

He took in the wary, almost rueful darkness in her eyes. Could it be she didn’t want to find the pelt? Could it be Maggie didn’t trust him with the skin now? That had to be a good sign. Perhaps she was starting to believe. He suppressed a grin at the thought. For some reason, the thought of Maggie believing in him made him happy enough to want to clamber up the pub walls and do a jig on the roof.

Fucking insanity.

He really wanted Maggie to believe in him. Needed her to become a convert. Despite his every mental protestation, the wee lass had touched him in a way no woman ever had in all his years. And now that he’d tasted her, now that he’d had the honor of savoring her womanly juices on his tongue and feeling them drenching his cock, he could barely think for wanting her so much.

And not just her body, he was coming to realize. Her heart and soul. He wanted to sit with her for days and find out what sorts of things made her happy, and then make those things happen.

Angus had once said something like that about Elsie. Had said he’d do anything to bring a smile to her face.

Is that what love feels like?

He didn’t know if this was love. In fact, he was fairly sure he wasn’t capable of it.

But there was something going on in his heart that he couldn’t explain. Something new.

Something exotic and potent.

No. He wouldn’t allow it. Wouldn’t allow this thing to go any further. Kyla would be so disappointed. He had to be strong.

But as they made their way through the pub, Calan noticed the way a couple of half-drunk fishermen eyed Maggie’s bottom. He felt his grown hot in sudden, overwhelming
rage.

Love or lust, insanity or reason, whatever it was he was feeling, clearly it was tinged with great jealousy.

He walked Maggie past the two oglers, his hand firmly around her waist. Nodding to one of them, he snarled, “Olaf Hansen, how’s that wee, pregnant wife of yours doing?”

When the man noticed the murder in Calan’s eyes, he turned his attention away from Maggie’s behind.

“What was all that about?” she asked, as Calan led her to the booth in back.

“Nothing,” he replied, and then forced himself to smile at her. As he sat next to her, he gathered her to him fiercely but bestowed a gentle kiss on her forehead. He lingered there for a moment, his face close to hers, and whispered, “No matter what, as long as you’re with me, I’m the only one who gets to look at your sweet arse like that.”

She blushed from tip to toe. Good. His jealousy pleased her. He liked that.

“We should, um, look for the pelt,” she murmured, smiling, her eyes deep blue in the pub light.

He stood, unable to look away from her. “Lift your bum, before I lift it.”

Giggling, she stood. He bent over discreetly and raised the lid on the bench. They both peered inside the storage space. There was nothing there but lint, and an empty pint glass that looked as if it had been stowed there months ago. He lowered the lid and Maggie sat down with a smile on her face.

“Do you know what? I could eat now,” she said sprightly.

Calan grinned as he sat next to her. She definitely didn’t want to find the skin.

As they waited for a waitress to approach, they sat quietly, bodies always touching.

Calan couldn’t stop looking at her. She was the most gorgeous thing he’d ever seen. The way her eyes lit up when she talked. Her easy smile. The flirty side she tried to keep hidden, but couldn’t. She was bloody perfect. Like most women, she probably had any number of complaints about herself, but she was perfect to him.

Every so often, though, the worry crept back into her face. “Maybe we shouldn’t be stopping to eat,” she said. “What if the shooter followed us? What if he’s here right now?

Shouldn’t we be trying to figure out who he is? Maybe we should go to the police. What if one of these people figures out … what you are?”

“We’re fine for now, Maggie. There’s no way he’d attack in the middle of a crowded pub. I wouldn’t have brought you here if I thought he’d followed us. And, as for what I am, I’ve always kept a low profile on the island. Nora was the only one who understood my true nature. Others may think I’m different, odd even, but it’s not as if I advertise my selkie self.” He brushed his fingers against her cheek, hoping for another smile from her.

“Besides, never let it be said that I would not feed a starving woman.”

She did smile, a little. He knew she was worried. By Thor’s cavernous crack, he was worried too. He didn’t know who the shooter was, or who the thieves at Nora’s were, but he knew they’d be back. His concern only intensified when he allowed himself to remember things he’d seen in the past. Why, he’d witnessed humans brought to near lunacy over a selkie skin. He knew the lengths that some would go to in order to obtain one.

That’s why he couldn’t bring Maggie back to Nora’s house. It’d be the first place they’d look. No, they had to keep moving and had to find the skin.

And he had to keep her safe, although it didn’t seem so much a promise to Nora
anymore, as it did to himself.

He pulled her to him and kissed her with all the desperation he suddenly felt, leaving her with an adorable, stunned look on her face. Surely they could forget about the wannabe skin thieves for a little while. Besides, he was on a mission now.

He’d convince Maggie he was a selkie if it killed him.

*

Maggie let her guard down for a moment and allowed herself to just enjoy being in that pub with Calan. It was easy to do. There were lots of colorful locals to watch and a band had started playing some rousing fiddle music. And, of course, being with Calan was an event in and of itself.

Every female eye was upon him, and it was no wonder. He was sinful to look at.

Lust on a plate. And every woman in that bar was obviously hoping to get served a healthy portion. With his long hair, soulful face, and biceps that made his leather jacket bulge, he was easily the most scrumptious man in there. Probably on all of Orkney. Heck, all of Scotland.

And his beautiful brown eyes were trained only on her. Amazing.

If only he didn’t believe he was Shamu’s distant cousin. It was such a shame for someone so sublime to be so certifiable.

She was considering the possibility of living in the cuckoo house with him when a waitress approached. Drooling.

The woman addressed only Calan, as if in a stupor. “What would you like, handsome? Please tell me it’s forty-year-old blondes with a couple of kiddies at home.”

He merely grinned, as if he got that response from women all the time. “A bottle of red wine, please, pet. Oh, and a shrimp plate, the buttered scallops, the lobster pasta, and the oyster special.” He turned to Maggie. “What’ll you have, love?”

She couldn’t stop her eyes from popping. “None of that was for me?”

He leaned over and whispered, grinning lasciviously. “I did warn you about selkie appetites.”

She tried to ignore the luscious ripple of sexual promise that wobbled through her core.

A short time later, Maggie was polishing off her lunch-sized portion of fish and chips, watching as her strange companion swallowed back the last oyster with gusto.

He’d eaten all of it, every last morsel, although he’d tried to share a great deal of it with her. And he’d ordered two more bottles of red wine, too. She’d had a glass. He’d had the rest. And he was as sober as a novice on her first day at the convent.

“Do you always eat like this?”

Calan laughed. “I’ll share something with you. Selkie folk are sensualists. We live to feel, Maggie. We live to touch, to smell, to taste.” He leaned over and gave her a kiss so redolent of buttered shrimp that she almost thought she was at Red Lobster. “And we like to eat, mostly shellfish, but I’d take a good burger any day.”

She couldn’t help laughing at his enthusiasm. It was as infectious as his kisses.

“And,” he continued, “I do have a weakness for fine red wines. And one of the perks of being selkie is that it takes a lot to get me drunk.”

“So, when you lost your skin to Gran, you must have had a lot.”

He rolled his eyes. “Not one of my better moments. That Gran of yours must have been serving me firewater.” And then he smiled at her. An honest-to-goodness, genuine
smile that reached right into her core and snagged her heart. “But I don’t regret it for a second.”

They gazed at each other for a few moments, lost in the heat of their all-too-apparent feelings, until Maggie heard a ruckus near their booth. She looked up, only to find a teary-eyed woman standing before their table.

Calan paled and whispered. “Oh, fuck.”

“Calan Kirk,” the woman blubbered. “I make a point of coming to a different pub, and still I find you here! With your tart. How could you do this to me?”

Maggie’s eyes widened as she took in the other woman. She was stunning, in a made-up way, with streaked hair and eyes lined in heavy black liner. And she had amazing knockers, ones she didn’t mind putting on display. Feeling somehow inadequate, even though she knew she was no slouch in the boob department, Maggie crossed her arms over her chest.

So this was how it would play out. Calan Kirk wasn’t a selkie at all. In actuality, he appeared to be a straying, very human husband with a frantic wife, and likely eleven kids at home. He was using her to get his kicks, while this poor woman waited for him to return.

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Fool me three times, and I’ll pop the bastard if he tries to touch me again.

“Annette,” he warned, his voice low and rumbly. “We’ve spoken about this, pet.”

“Don’t call me your pet,” she cried, pointing at Maggie. “Not while you sit here with your slag!”

“Tart and a slag? I’m outta here.” Maggie blinked, gawked at Calan, and then tried to exit the booth.

His hand was on her arm like a heavy weight, preventing her from leaving. “Maggie.

Don’t.”

“Let the little slut go,” Annette growled. “I made you happier than she does. I know it!”

“This is too much,” Maggie whispered, shaking her head. Once again, she tried to scootch out of the booth but Calan held her fast. Dammit! Did he have to be so freaking strong? “Let me go.”

His nostrils flared. “I will not. You have the wrong idea. I’m not with her.”

Annette laughed, a shrill titter from a clearly frantic woman. “You were certainly with me every time I had my mouth on your nugget!”

Nugget? Maggie knew the woman meant it as an insult, but as a description, it was probably the most inadequate she’d ever heard.

Calan looked as if he wanted the sea to swallow him up. And as much as Maggie wanted to run out of the pub, throw up, and curse her luck with men, she was also strangely captivated by the scene before her. The woman, Annette, looked almost crazed, hypnotized. Haunted, even. Maybe she and Calan didn’t have a relationship now, but it was obvious they’d had something sometime. And she was having trouble getting over it.

Sure, he seemed to have a magical sway over women, but this was just insane.

“Annette,” he said, trying to be calm. “You know as well as I that I broke up with you. And that I haven’t touched you in months.” He turned to Maggie, his eyes earnest.

“You have to believe that. Since my first dream of you, since Nora told me about you, I’ve not touched another woman.”

“It’s okay,” she replied, trying to force a measure of calm into her voice. “You don’t owe me any explanations. I have no ties to you.”

He almost looked tired. “Don’t you?”

Even though Annette was still blabbering to herself about being wronged, Maggie felt lost in Calan’s eyes. Lost in the sense of being totally alone with him, even though they were in a busy pub. She heard the rush of the sea and the pound of the surf in her head, and somehow felt swept away by the feeling that she actually meant something to him.

Heaven help her, she believed him. She totally believed he’d finished with Annette before she’d arrived on the scene.

But Annette interrupted their interlude with her rambling. She put her hand on Maggie’s and yanked hard to get her attention. Calan’s hand was immediately on Annette’s, a gentle but unmovable force, letting her know that she should in no way touch Maggie.

Annette recoiled, as if slapped across the face. She turned to Maggie, despondent, and Maggie almost felt sorry for her.

“I’ll make you regret this,” Annette sobbed. “I’ll make you both regret this.” With that, she ran out of the pub.

Calan turned to her, mortified. “I’m sorry. It’s the selkie in me, Maggie. She doesn’t understand why she wants me that way, she just does. When a love affair ends, it can be hard for some human women to let go of a selkie man.”

And she could only stare back, speechless. Would it be that hard for her when he finally decided to leg it? Would she also become a fragile shell of a woman, clinging to lost dreams and remembered touches?

It was terrifying to consider.

* * * *

Half an hour later, they were still sitting in the booth, virtually silent. Neither of them had said more than two words since Annette’s blubbery departure, and Maggie didn’t know what to say. Luckily, the music in the pub was loud. She could sit there under the pretense of listening, even though her mind was spinning. Calan ordered another bottle of wine, and this time, she polished off two quick glasses herself.

As she downed her last drop, Calan lifted the wine glass out of her hand and placed it at the far end of the table. “Talk to me.”

“I don’t feel like talking,” she said, hating that she sounded like a five-year-old, pouting child.

He looked to be at the end of his rope. “Well, say something, dammit. Anything. Tell me about your hopes. Your dreams.”

“Yeah, right. You claim to know everything about me anyway.”

His face was set in solemn lines. “I do know about you.”

She sniffed. “Calan, let’s be honest. You really don’t know a thing about me.”

He bristled. “Really? I wasn’t lying, Maggie, when I said I was dreaming about you.

Selkie dreams are different. We see things. I’ve seen you. I’ve seen your whole life flash in front of me. Your feelings. Your motivations.”

She leaned back against the booth, crossing her arms. “Right. Any of which could have been learned on Google and LinkedIn.”

His eyes flashed as he met her challenge. “I’m not talking about the things on your résumé. I’m talking about the secret details no one would know about you. Like the fact you took Spanish night school classes for years, but only retained the swear words. Or that when you read a romance novel, you skim it, looking for the filthy parts. You might want to give up that book club you’re in. Those other women are too prudish to read the books you devour in private.”

Her body exploded in embarrassed heat.

“Oh, and you might want to relinquish your slightly unreasonable crush on Ewan McGregor. He’s not coming for you anytime soon. Just as you had to give up your high school campaign to have the piccolo included in the school rock band. You might like the piccolo, Maggie, but no one else does.”

Her jaw dropped. “I don’t under…”

“I’m not done yet,” he said gently, silencing her with an intimate, little smile. “You had to take your driving test five times before you finally got your license because the examiners made you so nervous. You never told anyone about that, aside from your mum and dad.” He paused. “They were very important to you, and you miss them a great deal.”

She nodded, unable to speak.

“They had a whirlwind romance that only got stronger with time. Your dad came to Orkney as a young backpacker and met your mother. They fell madly in love and she left with him, choosing to live a world away in Toronto, rather than not be with him.” He paused. “How am I doing, Maggie?”

She could only look away, stunned. He’d detailed all the secret quirks that made her who she was. Now all she needed to be truly stupefied was to have him recount the shameful history between her and her former boyfriends. She noticed he’d left out that topic, and she had a feeling he’d done it on purpose.

“Oh, I know everything about them, too,” he said, reading her mind. “I just wasn’t willing to waste my breath on them.” Once again, he ignored what had to be the stupefied expression on her face and nodded toward the band. “Listen. They just started one of my favorite ballads.”

Maggie watched in surprise as Calan stood and went to join the band, as if they were expecting him. He listened to the melodic sound as the fiddle sang out the introduction.

And then, to her immense surprise, he began to sing.

Maggie’s heart jumped into her throat. She already knew Calan had a deep, rich voice, but his singing voice was unlike anything she’d ever heard. And everyone in the bar seemed to agree because everything came to a screeching halt on his first note. Every eye was riveted to him and for good reason. His voice was the call of a siren. Profound.

Penetrating. Haunting. It glided over every note with ease and was so resonant it seemed to possess its own echo. It bounced off the walls of that little pub and straight into Maggie’s heart.

His voice was perfect for the song, a lilting ballad that told of lost love and the sea. It was a story of a young woman who, after her sailor husband drowned in the ocean, threw herself into its stormy waves. When Calan sang of lovers being reunited in the murky depths, Maggie felt he was singing only for her.

When the song ended, no one moved, not even to clap. Even the band members were frozen with admiration to their spots. Waitresses, cooks, patrons were all still, as if caught in a trance. Calan stared at Maggie, seemingly just as rapt, but for other reasons. And
then he bounded back to their booth, and everyone in the pub went back to what they were previously doing.

As if he’d never sung at all.

He sat and took Maggie’s hand, grinning. The look on his face said, “See? Told you so.” And then he kissed her before she could argue. He slid his warm tongue into her open mouth and dug his hands into her hair, as if they weren’t meant to be anywhere but on her body.

Immediately, she was on fire for him, all worries about Annette and her make-believe eleven children out the window. When he finally released her, she stared up at him in wonderment. “How did you sing like that?”

He nibbled her earlobe, gently sucking, and then whispered conspiratorially. “I may be selkie, but I’ve always suspected we had some siren in our blood.”

Right there in the confines of their booth, Calan pulled her onto his lap and made her straddle him. Maggie clung to him, not caring that they were in a crowded pub. She let him kiss the length of her neck and reveled in the feel of his tongue on her skin. She wanted that feeling everywhere, wanted him to lick her everywhere. And while he kissed her, she felt his hand dip down between their bodies, caressing her pussy through her jeans. She bucked atop him, as if given an electric shock.

“Oh God, Calan,” she said, her heart giving voice to the thoughts scorching her brain. “I need you now.”

There was a deep, needy noise rumbling in his chest. “Then you’ll have me.”

She watched as he looked up toward the pub door and squeezed his eyes shut, as if concentrating. All of a sudden, one by one, everyone in the pub vacated without a word.

Ladies grabbed their purses and walked out with the men in tow. Even the staff members left. It was as if an air raid siren had sounded and the place was being calmly evacuated.

“What’s going on?” she had enough sense to mumble. “Another Jedi mind trick?”

He opened his eyes as the last person left and closed the door. And then he took her mouth in a savage kiss that ended only when they both ran out of breath. “Why, sweet Maggie. I’m just giving you what you want.” His gaze dipped down to her collar. “Now if you’d just lie back on this table so I can undress you, I’d be much obliged.”

Maggie’s mouth opened and closed a few times, and she worried she very much resembled a cod caught in a fisherman’s net. Even still, she lay back on the booth table.

“But what if everyone comes back?”

Who was she kidding? They weren’t coming back.

Calan undid the snap on her jeans and slowly lowered her zipper, pausing to nip at the exposed skin of her abdomen. “They’re gone for the night. Trust me.”

“But how do you know?” she asked, her brain still reeling.

He looked up, the merest hint of impatience in his eyes. “Maggie, you might not believe I’m selkie, but would you at least concede that I possess … certain abilities?”

She gulped as his fingers skimmed under her shirt, setting her skin ablaze. Oh, he possessed certain abilities, all right. “But how does it work?”

“Let’s just say the song of a selkie leaves humans in somewhat of pliable frame of mind. Open to suggestion. All I did was make a mental suggestion.”

“Oh,” she said, at a loss for words. “And did you use the same trick on me?”

He grinned the sexy grin of a devil, one who was quite fulfilled in his evil line of work. “Do I need to? Do you need persuading?”

Her breath caught. “No.”

He licked his lips. “Then let’s get your clothes off, Maggie. I’m tired of waiting. I need to be inside you again.”

She gulped, all her common sense dissipating like a fine mist. She was tired of waiting too. And she definitely needed Calan inside her.

The door to the pub crashed open. Even as they looked up toward the intruder, Calan was doing up her jeans again, making her look more respectable than she felt. She slid off the table and stared.

The man at the door was drop-dead gorgeous and somehow familiar. Short, fiery red hair. Brooding, blue eyes. And a cheeky grin.

He approached them, one red eyebrow sky high. When he reached the table, he extended his hand toward Maggie. Despite her better judgment, because she really didn’t need to make the acquaintance of yet another devastatingly beautiful man, she took it.

“Well, well,” he said, still grinning. “And are you the lovely lass who’s finally going to make an honest man of my brother here?”

By all that was holy. One of the six brothers. As if the world needed another Calan.

Chapter 10

As much as he very much wanted to get rid of his brother and continue what he’d started with Maggie, Calan launched himself out of the booth. But even though he wanted to swat Angus for his tragic sense of timing, he was happy to see his older brother. They embraced and Angus punched him in the shoulder.

“What did you do that for, daft bugger?”

Angus smiled at him as if he were touched. “A redhead, eh? And a pretty one, too.”

Maggie blushed from tip to toe.

“Don’t mind me, love,” Angus drawled. “I’ve been trying to convince my brother of the natural superiority of gingers for years.” And then he ran his hand through his own flame-tinged locks.

“We could share your opinions with sweet, black-haired Elsie,” Calan teased back.

“I’m sure she’d just love to know how much you appreciate a ginger woman.”

Angus made a face of mock terror. “By Odin’s sagging gonads, don’t say a word to her. The poor dear’s about to burst, and none too thrilled with me right now, that’s for certain. I don’t think she’ll ever forgive me for impregnating her!”

Elsie. Calan uttered a silent blessing for the woman. It couldn’t be easy, falling in love with a sex-crazed selkie man, as they all were, and then becoming pregnant with a child that was more animal than human. It did give one pause. He put a hand on his brother’s shoulder. “How is she?”

Angus nodded, serious now. “Nervous. Scared to death, actually. Ma’s trying to keep her comfortable, but Elsie won’t see sense. We’ve told her it would be best to, how shall I say, have an aquatic birth.” He darted an uneasy look at Maggie.

“You can say whatever you’d like in front of Maggie. She knows the truth about us,”

Calan offered, putting his arm around her, and pretending to ignore the shell-shocked expression on her face. “Even though she hasn’t quite accepted it yet.”

Angus smiled, relieved. “Oh, right, then. Well, my darling wife won’t have any of it.

She’s bound and determined to have this pup on dry land. I’ve got the whole family holed up with her at Breannan’s house. It’s the most central. But she’d really like to see you, Calan. I need you to come home with me.”

Home. Upon hearing the word, he turned to Maggie. Funny how he thought of her when thinking of home. “But we’re in the middle of something, Angus. We’re … looking for something.”

Angus rolled his eyes. “Right. You did appear to be looking for something when I came in but I daresay you can find it at Breannan’s house as well. He does have spare bedrooms.” His brother stared at him for a moment, and Calan made a mental note not to share the vulgar expletives currently peppering Angus’s brainwaves.

“Uh, where are my manners?” Calan stammered, trying to change the topic. “Maggie Collins, this is my oldest, and most annoying, brother. Angus.”

“Charmed.” Angus took her hand, bowed, and kissed it.

In response, Calan swatted him over the head. “Hands off.”

Maggie started to giggle. Despite himself, and his sudden urge to throttle his enchanting brother, he started to laugh too. And it was so good to see her smile, he forgot
any misplaced animosity.

“Even though there’s absolutely no physical resemblance between the two of you,”

Maggie commented, “I can totally tell you’re brothers.”

Angus laughed in a deep booming voice. “Ah, well, that’s because little Calan here takes after our wee mother. Whereas I take after Da. He, too, had the good fortune to be ginger.” He winked at her, and then turned to Calan. “Look, I’m sorry I interrupted …

whatever I interrupted. But are you coming? I really don’t want to be the one to tell Elsie if you’re not.”

Calan turned to Maggie. Fuck. What now? I can’t leave her now.

“Uh, Maggie,” he began.

She looked at him for a moment, her face serious and a little sad, and then she pulled away from his embrace. “Don’t worry about me. I’ll be fine. You need to go. Family’s important.”

And as she said that, her face crumpled. Not on the outside, but he saw the inner crumple in her eyes, despite the falsely brave smile. Here she stood, a woman who’d lost everything, who’d lost her family, and she was giving him the opportunity to be with his.

Knowing full well that she was also giving him the chance to get rid of her.

He just knew that if she’d been in possession of the pelt, she would have taken this opportunity to return it to him. She was as good as offering him his freedom. And he couldn’t have wanted it less.

He wanted her.

And he certainly didn’t want to leave her alone against the threat of burglars and snipers, crazed waitresses, and good-for-fuck-all Matthews.

He reached for her trembling hands. Suddenly, it was really important that she be with him when he went to Breannan’s home. He wanted her to meet his insane family, wanted her to like them. He could see it now. His mother would dote on her. His father would tell her tales of the sea until he was blue in the face. They would love her.

“Maggie. Come with me.”

Her eyes widened. “But I have to find the skin.”

“The skin can wait. Just a little while.” He pulled her closer to him, not stopping until her body was flush against his. As it should be. He resisted kissing her in front of his brother, even though she smelled so good! “Please. I want you to come with me.”

He watched as the varied emotions flitted through her eyes. Doubt, temptation, fear of embarking on an adventure that might end up breaking her heart. “I don’t know.

Meeting the family already? It seems a bit premature.”

He grinned, trying to take her uncertainty away. “You’ll be able to witness the birth of a little selkie. How many humans can say that?”

She looked back and forth between him and Angus, but Angus kindly stepped back, unwilling to interfere.

“But won’t I be intruding? It’s your family, not mine. And at such an important moment,” she argued, looking ready to bail on the whole plan.

“Maggie. Please.”

For the life of him, Calan would never forget the look on her face then. A change, a twinkle in her eye that said she was willing to take a leap with him, a little leap of faith.

The warmth in her smile seared him to the core. And when he glimpsed the way her gaze caressed him with intimacy, with a certain deep something, he grew more excited than
he’d ever been.

“Okay, Calan.” She smiled. “Take me to your brother’s house.”

* * * *

Calan parked his motorcycle in front of a brown stone cottage on the same stretch of beach Nora had lived near. At the same time, Angus parked his own bike. The Kirk men did seem to have a strange appreciation for Harleys. Maggie couldn’t help wondering if the mother and father rode them too. With a baby coming, Angus would certainly need to trade it in for something more sensible.

Or would they all just swim off into the sunset, selkie-style? Oh, brother.

The entire time they’d ridden, the voice in Maggie’s head had kept muttering, “You need to turn around and finally run away from this crazy man and his apparently equally crazy brother.”

She’d kept expecting the two men to turn around, point at her and desert her somewhere along the way, laughing at her gullibility. But they hadn’t. And now they were just walking to the house, talking quietly amongst themselves. Every so often lapsing into a language that seemed archaic, but lovely with its lilting inflections. And she heard them mention what seemed to be other names. Exotic, almost foreign-sounding names. Edan. Drummond. Machar. One that sounded like Jamie. And the previously mentioned Breannan. The other brothers.

She couldn’t even begin to imagine what they must be like. If the two Kirk brothers before her were any indication, their house must be drenched in male pheromones.

They reached the door to the house. This was it. This was where the farce must surely end. The woman inside this house was supposed to give birth to a selkie baby, or so the men said. It was one thing for two individuals to lie about it, but certainly the whole family wouldn’t be in on the joke. Maggie cringed and waited.

But Calan turned to her and smiled, a smile so wide and genuine her heart skipped a few beats. He pulled her into an embrace while Angus did a shoddy job of averting his eyes. He kissed her softly on the lips and whispered, “I’m so happy you’re here with me.

I can’t help it. I am.”

Feeling her body quake the way it always did with his touch, she admitted, “I still don’t know what I’m going to see in there.”

“Oh, nothing too terrible,” he kidded. “Just my family.”

Angus put his hand on the doorknob. “Let’s go. My wee wife needs me.” With that, he entered the home of their brother Breannan.

Calan grabbed her hand and followed Angus inside, while she followed him, feeling a severe need to hide behind his massive back.

She couldn’t hide for long.

“Calan!”

The rapturous cry came from a petite, dark-haired lady standing among a throng of big, male bodies. Maggie stared. The woman looked just like Calan, a daintier, female version. They had the same, penetrating dark eyes and flowing brown hair. She was lovely, perfectly lovely.

The little woman threw herself at Calan. “My son. You’ve returned for the birth.

Elsie will be so pleased. Poor thing’s in the back room. Angus, lovey, you’d better get in there. She’s been asking after you.”

Maggie watched Angus disappear into the back, a worried look on his handsome face.

The dark-haired woman then turned to Maggie and clapped her webbed hands in excitement. “Calan, you’ve brought your beautiful mate!”

A rousing cry went up as Calan’s whole family shouted in delirium. Maggie almost choked on her saliva. “Mate?”

There was no time for Calan to reply. Before either of them knew it, the men of the household picked them up and started to dance them around on their shoulders. Maggie thought she’d somehow fallen into an Orcadian-Jewish wedding. She was waiting for someone to stomp on a wineglass.

As they were bounced on the men’s shoulders, she shouted to Calan over the din.

“They think I’m your mate?”

He grimaced and shouted back at her. “My family. A bit overexuberant.”

He let out a thunderous cry and the wild dancing stopped. “Now if you’d be so kind as to put Maggie and me down, I’ll do some introductions. Perhaps it would be best before anyone gets the wrong idea and starts placing orders for china patterns.”

There was a loud, disappointed-sounding “Oh,” and the couple was set down. Calan pulled her close. As he did, he leaned over and whispered, “Sorry about that.”

She grinned up at him. “It’s okay.”

It was really okay. More okay than she’d have realized. In fact, a shudder of delight had gone through Maggie’s body upon being mistaken for Calan’s mate. She found herself wishing she could go back to that moment.

Calan turned to his family members. “This,” he said, inclining his head toward her,

“is Maggie Collins. A friend, not my mate.”

As she heard the words “not my mate,” Maggie felt the happiness in her gut fizzle as if someone had poked a sharp pin into it. In her mind’s eye, she could see that deflated happiness spin about the room like a balloon losing its air, twirling and twirling around and eventually settling to the floor with a wet plop.

She immediately pasted on a smile and tried not to look like an “eejit,” as her gran used to say.

“Maggie certainly looked like your mate when I first ran into you,” called Angus in jest from the other room. “You were doing things to her that I do to Elsie.”

At that, a female cry sounded from the bedroom and Angus quit joking. Maggie could hear him offering gentle words of encouragement to his pregnant wife, and it warmed her right through. She could almost see the couple in her mind’s eye, Angus smoothing Elsie’s hair with his hand, kissing the side of her face. Telling her he loved her.

The image pleased and disturbed her at the same time. Perhaps because of how much she wanted that scene for herself. For her and Calan.

Once again, he read her mind and put a hand on the small of her back. As he gazed at her, he rubbed his thumb over the bottom of her spine, sending delicious chills right up her back.

His parents approached her. His mother darted a warm look at him, and then smiled at her. “Welcome, Maggie, dear. I’m Fae and this is my husband Alun.”

Maggie looked up at the massive man before her. Redheaded, like Angus, and twice as hairy as any of them. He had a long mane that flowed down his back and a wild, red
beard. His blue eyes twinkled with the same flirty mischief that regularly shone from Calan’s eyes. He leaned down and gave Maggie a kiss on the top of her head and grinned.

“You’re welcome here, lass. We haven’t seen Calan with a woman since Kyla, you know.”

“Da.” Calan’s eyes flashed in warning.

Okay, this is worse than the whole “not my mate” thing. Way worse. Who’s Kyla?

She swallowed the horrible punching sensation in her gut. Sure, she’d known Calan had had other women, lots of women, but had never heard a name applied to any of them other than the heart-broken Annette. He’d never mentioned this Kyla. God, even her name sounded beautiful and exotic. And from Calan’s reaction to hearing her name, she must have really meant something to him.

Maggie dug deep into her soul for a shred of composure as she faced Calan’s father.

“Thank you, Mr. Kirk.”

The big man elbowed her gently. “Alun. I insist. Mr. Kirk sounds like someone off of that god-awful telly show about the aliens. The one with the green women.”

Despite herself, Maggie laughed. Man, his whole freaking family was too charming.

Suddenly, she was confronted by a wall of large men. She felt Calan’s arm wind around her in a possessive grip. He eyed the other men with one eyebrow cocked.

“Maggie, I’d like to introduce you to my other brothers. At least, I think I’d like to do so.

They’re such randy buggers, I may live to regret the decision.” He nodded toward the man on their left. “That’s Breannan, the man of this house.”

“A pleasure,” Breannan drawled, kissing her hand.

Maggie stared at him. He was a slightly smaller version of Calan, only slightly, but with short brown hair, and just as gorgeous. “Um, nice to meet you.”

“Next to him is Jamie,” Calan continued, indicating a hard-bodied strawberry blond.

“When you’re ready for a real man, Miss Maggie,” Jamie joked, “just call my name.”

Calan took a moment to whack his brother, making them all laugh. He composed himself, and then pointed a thumb at the next brother, a startlingly attractive man with black hair and blacker eyes. “That’s Machar.”

Machar shook her hand, holding it for a moment. “You can call me ‘Mack.’ My friends all do.”

“She’s not your friend yet, Machar,” Calan threatened in a good-humored tone.

“Onward and upward then. Next we have Drummond.”

Maggie grinned at the brunette with the buzz cut and shook his strong hand. “It’s a pleasure.”

Drummond smiled back through shiny blue eyes. “The pleasure’s all mine, believe me.”

Maggie felt her cheeks glow as Calan impatiently introduced the last of the brothers, another tall redhead with long hair like their father. “And finally, completing this peanut gallery, we have Edan.”

“Don’t listen to him, Maggie love,” Edan said in a deep, resonating voice that shivered her timbers. “Our boy Calan has always been the jealous sort. He has good reason with such fine specimens as brothers.”

“I’ll give you a fine specimen, you peedie piss weasel,” Calan muttered.

Maggie couldn’t help laughing at him, as they all did. Poor man! He really did look
flustered in front of his brothers, and who could blame him? As sexy as Calan was, it must be hard to be the baby brother of all those other sexy, flirty men. No wonder he never brought women home.

Other than Kyla.

Maggie stopped laughing at the thought. Who was she?

She didn’t have time to ask. From the back room, a shattered cry erupted. Elsie. The woman in labor.

Calan’s mother inserted herself in front of her huge sons. “I’m sorry to rush the introductions, Maggie dear, but Elsie needs me. A selkie labor can be a long, drawn-out affair. Poor Elsie has suffered with the contractions for two days now.”

Two days? God help her.

Fae continued. “We’ve told her time and again that it would be best to birth underwater, but she’s got a notion that the babe won’t be able to swim. Imagine! A selkie babe unable to swim.”

Maggie stared at the woman. Either the whole family was delusional over this selkie thing, or they were all drinking the same Kool-Aid. For a second, Maggie decided to chalk it up to Scottish eccentricity. It was the only explanation she could stomach.

But then again … maybe this selkie thing could be real.

Fae nodded at Calan. “Elsie needs you, my love. We’re hoping your special talent will calm the poor lass.”

With that, the family dispersed into the back room.

Maggie turned to Calan. “Are you a midwife or something?”

“Funny. Do I look like one?” He smiled. “No. But I do have a bit of a bond with Elsie. And she has an appreciation for my singing voice.”

“Okay,” she replied, still not understanding.

“Come,” he said, holding her hand and leading her into the other room.

Maggie sucked in a breath. After having treated her to the most stressful meet-the-family moment of her life, he was going to make her witness a stranger in labor. It didn’t seem right. She felt as if she were invading Elsie’s sacred space.

But as she entered the room full of supposed selkies, the space didn’t feel all that sacred anymore.

Especially as Elsie took one look at her and screamed, “A human!”

All the selkie heads turned to stare at her, and Maggie uttered a silent prayer, wishing she could disappear.

Chapter 11

“Uh, hi,” Maggie said, waving like a lunatic at the red-faced Elsie. “Congrats.”

“Bring her. To me,” Elsie panted in Angus’s direction.

Okay, it’s about to get real.

Angus stood and motioned to her and Calan. “Would you mind?”

They approached the bed and Elsie grabbed for Maggie’s hand. Not knowing what else to do, and not wanting to further upset the pregnant woman, Maggie just held it, giving her hand a little squeeze. In too much pain to smile, Elsie blinked her dark eyes at her.

Elsie then turned to Calan and forced out a few labored breaths. “Took you. Long enough. You big shit.”

Calan exploded into a laugh. “I’m sorry, Elsie, love. How are you?”

“I’m about to pass. A selkie watermelon. Through my ass. What do you think?”

He smiled. Angus resumed his seat near Elsie’s head and wiped her wet brow.

Maggie couldn’t help smiling, too. She liked this Elsie. Even though she seemed all too willing to continue the selkie charade.

Maybe this was one of those prank shows where everyone was in on the act except her. Was it possible?

But as she gazed upon all the earnest, concerned faces in the room, she knew deep down this could not be a charade.

“Sing for me, Calan,” Elsie pleaded, gasping. “Please.”

Angus gave him a frantic look that echoed the sentiment.

“Of course, love,” Calan said softly. He turned and nodded to his other family members. Everyone vacated the room, leaving her alone with Calan, Elsie, and Angus.

And then he began to sing. Maggie wished she knew what he was saying, but it was in some language she’d never heard before. It wasn’t even Orcadian. But it was haunting and sweet and had the same effect as a lullaby on a tired child.

Within seconds, Elsie stopped panting and her pain seemed to subside. She just stared at Calan, rapt, her eyes drooping a little with every lovely note. Eventually, as his beautiful song reached its lilting cadence, Elsie’s eyes closed. Maggie felt the death grip on her hand subside, but she didn’t let go of Elsie, just in case.

As the poignant song ended, as Calan breathed into his final gorgeous note, they all watched as Elsie’s head relaxed into the pillow. She seemed to be sleeping, getting some much-needed rest in a labor that was winding her, to say the least. No one said a word; they all just watched her for a moment.

And then Maggie started when she felt Calan turn his gaze upon her and smile. The most beautiful, heart-warming smile. She smiled back, smitten. She felt her eyes tear up and blinked the tears away. It didn’t matter because the tears just filled up her eyes once more. He’d done something wonderful for Elsie. He’d taken her pain away. Like some crazy, musical anesthesiologist.

Maggie wanted to hug him, but didn’t dare let go of Elsie’s hand.

Wiping at her eyes with her other hand, Maggie turned to Angus. “Why don’t you take her to the hospital?”

He reddened, clearly feeling at a loss. “I can’t, Maggie, because of what we are.

When this baby arrives, well, it won’t look like other babes.”

You’ll be able to witness the birth of a little selkie. How many humans can say that?

Oh, God, this was way too much to absorb.

Maggie frowned, feeling the weight of the world upon her all of a sudden. “But, it can’t be…”

“Maggie,” Calan said quietly. “It’s time to face the truth.”

She stared at him, the man with whom she was falling in love, and felt her eyes water even more. “I’m afraid.”

She felt Elsie’s hand move in hers, pressing with urgency. Maggie turned to the sleeping woman, only to find her awake. At peace, but awake. “Angus. Calan. Let me have a chat with Maggie.”

The men stood. Angus dropped a kiss onto Elsie’s brow. Calan stood before Maggie, tipped up her chin, and claimed her mouth. Then he kissed the tip of her nose. “I’ll be in the other room.”

She watched the two men leave, and then turned to Elsie. “I don’t know what you think you can say to convince me.”

“I don’t have to say anything,” Elsie replied, her voice tired. “Pretty soon this massive seal baby is going to claw its way out of me, and you’ll have all the proof you need. Still, I find it always helps to talk with someone who understands.”

Maggie shook her head. “How could you understand? Aren’t you like them?”

“No. A year ago, I was like you.” She grinned at the memories, but then her grin faded as if a blacker memory had infiltrated her mind. “I’m an archaeologist and had come to Orkney to do some work at Skara Brae.”

“The Neolithic ruins?”

“The very ones. I was here with a team. A team that included my husband.” She paused. “My husband who beat me.”

Maggie suddenly didn’t know where to look, but returned Elsie’s gaze anyway, eyes wide. “I’m so sorry.”

Elsie smiled softly at her. “It’s okay. Things were really bad for a while, and I just couldn’t seem to break free. I needed help and didn’t know where to turn. I was embarrassed, ashamed. One day, I took a few hours off from the site and went to Scapa Beach. I remember staring out at the sea and it looked so inviting. And then I remembered that old wives’ tale about crying seven tears into the sea to call a selkie man.” She laughed at her story. “I knew how stupid it sounded, and yet I just started crying at the edge of the water. I wasn’t trying to tempt fate or to prove the legend wrong.

Everything just came to a head in that moment and I couldn’t stop crying.”

“What happened?”

“Angus happened.” She grinned. “The next day, this huge redheaded beast appeared out of nowhere, telling me this unbelievable tale about who he was. What he was. And that he was there to change my life.” She shook her head, still mystified. “Maggie, I know it sounds crazy, but I fell for him in that moment. I took one look at that gorgeous man and knew I had to run with him. I felt the urge just as strongly as I felt the urge to breathe.”

“But your husband?”

Elsie’s face fell. “John didn’t react well. He came after me and tried to hurt me. It
was a very bad scene.” She swallowed. “Put it this way. Angus let John know, in no uncertain terms, that he was to forget about me, to divorce me. John may have escaped with his legs intact that day, but he won’t be so lucky next time. He knows Angus will never let any man hurt his mate. Angus saved me. And then he made me his selkie wife, and now I’m having his selkie baby.” She put a hand on her swollen stomach and smiled at the unborn child. “I’ve never been happier, despite my screams of pain. You’ve seen the Kirks. This is one big baby.”

Maggie reached out and hugged Elsie. Poor little Elsie who looked all of five feet tall in that massive bed. “So, this is all real? You’re telling me Calan isn’t lying about being selkie?”

“Calan, lie?” She made a face. “God, no. The Kirks may all be tremendous flirts, but they are all honorable and they protect their own. Calan would cut off his hand before he lied to you. He’s a good man.”

“But…”

“No buts, Maggie. It’s true.” She yawned and stretched uncomfortably under the covers. “This kid isn’t coming tonight. I can just tell. Calan’s music can be very persuasive. He must have convinced the baby to give me a little break. Can you tell my husband to come back in here? I miss that redheaded bastard, even if he did knock me up.”

With another hug, Maggie got up and went to look for the others. She sent Angus in to Elsie. Upon hearing that she’d settled down for the night, the others dispersed. The parents moved into yet another room to read together. The other brothers headed outside to have a beer on the nearby beach.

Maggie approached Calan, feeling bold, deciding she needed to act before she changed her mind.

“Maggie, love, are you okay?” he whispered, taking her hand.

“Yes. No.” She gazed at him, knowing nothing other than she needed to be with him.

“Is there some place we can go?”

Calan’s face changed, reflecting his desire for her. “It’s a mite crowded in here.

There’s an empty stable out back where Breannan used to keep a couple of horses.”

She fisted her hand in his shirt. “Take me to the stable, Calan. Now.”

Without another word, he did.

* * * *

They practically ran into the now-dark evening, passion illuminating their way to the old stable. Calan had hold of her hand, and she moved under his guidance as fleetly as if she could see each pockmark in the ground below them. She loved how her hand just seemed to fit into his strong one. Curious, she ran the tip of her finger along the webbing between his. Clearly aroused by this intimate gesture, he turned to look at her and stifled a deep groan.

They reached the stable and Calan threw open the creaking door. She felt rather than saw him rummage for something near the door. She heard a faint click and a flashlight lit up their surroundings. Calan turned the bright light away from her and toward the wall.

He quickly found a few flannel blankets and a discarded cotton shirt. He tossed the shirt over the flashlight’s beam so the light wouldn’t be so harsh. Immediately a soft glow descended on the interior of the stable.

Maggie watched as he finished his hasty preparations. There were a couple of old bales of hay sitting on the ground. Calan covered these with the blankets. Even while covered, she could smell the sweet perfume of hay. Somehow, the fragrance only served to arouse her to a greater degree. She’d always had a fantasy of being taken in a stable, and it appeared that fantasy was about to come true.

Calan stopped what he was doing and looked at her. His lips slightly open, his eyes dark and hungry, he advanced on her, backing her up to one of the larger bales of hay.

She could smell him now. Delicious man and leather, the sea and hay and desire. Totally scrumptious.

He cupped her face in both his hands, while one of his legs slid between her thighs.

And then he kissed her. Not asking permission, just taking what she was so ecstatic to give. Devouring her. Gliding his tongue between her lips, opening her up to him.

Claiming her as effectively as Angus had claimed Elsie.

And Maggie had never been so happy to be so vulnerable. She licked at his lips, putting her own stamp on his body, marking him in her mind. She leaned in to nibble at his full bottom lip and he pulled away, moving his mouth out of her reach. She leaned in farther, tried to kiss him again, and once more he retreated. She looked up at him in question. Calan grinned at her like a fiend.

“You tease,” she whispered with a smile.

“Just trying to make you want me, lass,” he murmured, his hands probing her lower back. He moved his right hand over her ass, and she felt his middle finger slide along the center seam of her jeans, between her cheeks.

Her entire body erupted into flames.

“You do want me, don’t you?” he whispered.

Maggie could only nod. Her voice had escaped her the moment she felt his finger in her ass crack.

Seeing that she was temporarily incapacitated, Calan stepped back. Her body felt so cold without his touch. Luckily, she started to warm up again when she saw him begin to strip. He took his time disrobing. He toed off his biker boots and peeled the leather jacket off his shoulders, his gaze always on her. These items he tossed onto another bale of straw. Teasing her, he slowly removed his T-shirt, lifting it casually over his head. She watched as his dark hair lifted with it, and then cascaded back down over his shoulders.

She wished she could lie down and feel those silky strands all over her body.

Grinning, reading her mind as well as ever, Calan unbuttoned his jeans and let them fall to his ankles. As he stepped out of them, he kept his hooded eyes trained on her. His expression redolent of sex and pulsing, screaming desire. As he threw the last articles of clothing behind him, she took in the long, lean lines of his form. The strong thighs, the perfect round behind. His mouthwatering erection.

He turned to her, crooked a finger in her direction, and said, “Come.”

She did. She walked over to him with no hesitation at all.

He kissed her again, letting his nude body graze against hers, allowing her to feel the swell of his cock against her belly. He then motioned for her to lie down on the hay bale, which she did.

Lying there, completely at his mercy, Maggie watched him approach. Watched in delight as his sexy body moved for her. Only for her.

He stood in front of her and wedged himself between her legs. And proceeded to
undress her.

He yanked off her Wellies and socks, and then turned his attention to her jeans. She couldn’t wait for him to pull them off. They felt like a denim prison, one she needed to escape. He tugged at the snaps and pulled them slowly from her body, stopping only to lay a soft kiss on her exposed belly, to lick at her thigh, to nip at her calf. Once the hated jeans were off, he disposed of her shirt and bra.

In that moment, Calan’s gaze roved over her breasts and he looked as if he wanted nothing more than to capture her nipples in his mouth. But he held back, eyeing her panties. He wasn’t done undressing her.

Finally, he ripped the panties from her, leaving her stark naked on the bale. Calan was standing still, inspecting every last inch of her with great appreciation. She felt the goose pimples rise on her skin as his gaze traveled lower and lower on her body. She knew she should feel self-conscious.

But she didn’t. She felt like a princess on parade. There for his viewing pleasure.

He reached out a finger and traced her areola, bringing her nipple to a stiff point.

“Now, if I’d only seen your fascination for stables before, I would have brought you here from the start.”

He leaned over and took her nipple into his mouth, laving and gently abrading the little nub until it was bright rose in hue. Maggie held his head to her breast and let her legs open under his delicious weight. His cock felt huge and eager, thick muscle under supple skin. He ground himself against her pussy, and the friction of skin on skin only aroused her further.

Calan reached a finger toward her slit. “Fuck, you’re so wet.”

With that, his hands were all over her. Palming her breasts, caressing her rib cage.

Torturing her pussy with eager fingers. Maggie watched, splayed open on the blanket before him, needing him to finish agonizing her and just be inside her.

God, she needed him inside her. “Calan.”

“I’m coming, lass,” he grunted. But, rather than sink deep inside her, he surprised her by flipping her belly down onto the bale. “As it happens, Maggie love, despite all that food at the pub, I could still eat.”

He knelt on the floor, situating himself between her legs again, and drew her bottom toward his face. Gripping her by her ass, he thrust his face into her cleft and licked.

Maggie grasped the edges of the bale, insane with pleasure, as he ate her pussy from behind. Over and over, his tongue penetrated her slit and slid through each wet fold.

She’d never felt wetter and more aroused, and gasped as he drank up each last drop of her womanly essence.

He was insatiable, and Maggie didn’t think she’d ever felt anything so decadent.

Until his tongue moved toward her ass.

He planted a soft kiss on each of her ass cheeks, and then he retraced his steps and nibbled the fleshy globes. Not an inch of skin there was left untouched or unkissed. He ran his tongue along the seam joining her cheeks to her thighs, and then made his way leisurely toward her crack. Maggie held her breath, never dreaming anyone would caress her so intimately.

She realized she’d always wanted to be touched this way. Once, sheepishly, she’d mentioned the idea to Matthew, who’d only grimaced and called her desires “dirty.” But there was nothing dirty about the way Calan was licking and kissing her. It made her feel
closer to him than she’d ever felt to anyone else. He now knew her body better than anyone knew it, probably even her, and she felt completely cherished and loved in his hands.

Loved.

She wondered that the thought should spring so easily into her thoughts, but it felt right. Allowing Calan to love her felt right, and she wanted nothing more than to return the feeling, to hell with his possible insanity. She didn’t really care anymore. She just wanted to be with this man who managed to surprise her and make her feel secure all at once.

And she didn’t ever want him to stop doing what he was doing with his tongue.

Within moments, the softness of his tongue was replaced by the pricking of his teeth.

He gently grazed her flesh, tugging and sucking on her cheeks, moaning the whole while.

His bites grew sharper, making her catch her breath. She clutched the straw in anticipation, while he continued to nip at her ass. She gasped, and accepted him, submitting to this tender invasion of such an intimate place.

And then, when Maggie thought he’d finished with this play, Calan slapped her bottom, making it sting. She was about to cry out, in pleasure, only in pleasure. But before she could say anything, he bit her. Hard.

Maggie froze as she felt his teeth break the skin on her right ass cheek. Part of her wanted to reach behind and slap him. Mostly, she just wanted to lie there and have him do it again, it felt so good. So right.

She felt him lean back and take a breath, felt his hand smooth the spot where he’d broken the skin. And then all she felt was his tongue again on the same spot, gently soothing. Sweet, warm flicking movements around the little wound. At the same time, his hand came around to play with her clit, echoing the movements his tongue was making on her ass.

As the first of several orgasms that night reduced her to mush, she lay in his arms, unable to move or reciprocate. Eventually, he removed his lips from her skin. He turned her gently around, sat on the bale and pulled her into his lap, making her straddle him.

Her head fell onto his strong shoulders, and she breathed him in. He smelled of the sea.

He smelled of her. He smelled wonderful. She embraced him with all the strength she had left, which wasn’t much.

Calan laughed, and her chest moved as his rumbled. “Don’t tell me you’re worn out, dear heart. I’m not done pleasuring you,” he threatened in silky tones.

“Please,” she managed to spit out, not even sure how she was planning to end her sentence.

He gripped her hips and guided her to his cock. She looked down between their bodies. It seemed bigger than ever, formidable. However, there was no hesitation on Calan’s part as he positioned her above him. Holding her there, he whispered, “Maggie, look at me.”

She did. And he impaled her on his body.

As her voice escaped as a near sob, she threw her head back down on his shoulder and held him tight. Calan would have none of it. “Woman,” he commanded, “I said, look at me.”

She lifted her eyes toward his and kept them trained on him as he fucked her hard.

His eyes were large and dark and full of adoration for her. A faint sheen of sweat broke
out on his face, and she leaned forward and licked it from him, making him thrust even harder. He felt so good, filled her so completely. She felt embraced by a warm sea, buoyed up by salty waves.

Before she knew what was happening, she felt submerged in deep water. Swimming with Calan, his arms wrapped around her. His cock still joined to her, making her ache with the pleasure. She didn’t know where they were, but it was beautiful.

They continued swimming in the darkness, through what appeared to be a seemingly endless cavern. Maggie wondered at the dark shapes made in the water as Calan’s strong head cut through the brine, leading them onward. She looked around them. Clearly, they were soaked, but she felt strangely dry and warm, even as they drove deeper and deeper into the sea.

It seemed they were swimming forever. Time felt skewed. Unimportant.

All she knew was that she was wrapped up with Calan, surrounded by his body, and nothing else seemed to matter.

She nestled in closer to his body and looked up at his face, feeling his heat. She rubbed her hands down his strong back, luxuriating in the feel of his skin, in the ripple of each strong muscle as he moved against her. He felt so good. Naked and hard. His arms clasped about her, holding her more tightly than anyone had ever held her. Still propelling through the water, kicking his webbed feet behind him with a powerful force, yet still able to kiss her and fuck her senseless.

Even though she worried about opening her mouth to him, in case a rushing flood of water finally decided to bombard her body, she let his lips nudge hers apart. When she opened to him, she didn’t taste seawater at all. The water had become like air. All she tasted was Calan. Hot and salty and sweet.

Delicious.

His cock pressed deeper into her body, seeking sanctuary in her bower. She slid her hands down to his ass, feeling, wanting him closer. He gripped her, one hand behind her head, the other wrapped around her back. Swimming with him in such an intimate fashion, she’d never felt so close to another being in her life.

She wanted the feeling to last forever.

However, within moments, Calan stopped kicking. And just as her pussy began to clench with the most delicious agony imaginable, he dared her to look at him again and she did.

And knew she loved Calan Kirk with all her heart. Somehow, it had happened.

As their bodies both began to cease their trembling, he gently laid her down on the hay bale. The sea had disappeared, and Maggie felt a strange sorrow. Even still, he was with her, so she couldn’t feel sad for long. He cradled her in his arms and she felt safe enough to sleep there in the stable with him. She was with Calan, no matter who or what he was, and that was all that mattered.

Right before she closed her eyes, Maggie happened to look up toward a small window on the nearby wall. Took note of how dazzling the stars appeared, as if fueled by their passion. And she noticed, full of wonder, how a perfect rainbow arched across the night sky.

A rainbow at night. Miraculous.

But then she looked at Calan, felt the warmth in his eyes as he gazed at her, and everything made sense. The rainbow came from him, just as surely as the thunder and
lightning had before.

At peace, she closed her eyes.

Chapter 12

When she opened them, it was still night. She found she was covered with the flannel blanket and Calan’s leather jacket. The large garment was tucked all around her and was as warm and comfy as a quilt. It also smelled like him, which was an added plus. She looked up, dying to throw her arms around him and saw him standing at the little window, gazing out into the darkness. He was nude, his long hair trailing down his back, over the dips and curves of his musculature.

He looked so beautiful, but the turn of his shoulders was inexpressively sad. She’d only ever seen him with a posture that was proud and almost regal. This was the bearing of a man who seemed hopeless.

Why?

Then she realized. He was staring out at the beach. Could it be the lure of the sea was ripping him to shreds inside? Could it be he wanted to leave her? No thought had ever made her feel more dead inside.

Eventually, he will want to return to his beloved sea. Her gran’s words came back to taunt her.

Dismissing the notion, Maggie padded over to him. She didn’t care that she was still nude as well, she just wanted to make him feel better. He heard her approach and turned, sucking in a quick breath at the sight of her naked form. “You’re a sight for sore eyes, pet.”

He enveloped her in his strong arms, and Maggie wrapped her arms around his waist.

She breathed him in, burying her face in his chest hairs, and listened to the steady thumping of his heart.

The most precious sound she’d ever heard.

Little by little, standing on her toes, she kissed her way up to his neck and then licked at the little hollow under his Adam’s apple. As she did, she felt his hard shaft pulse against her stomach.

Bliss. How she wanted him to lay her down once again, to plunge inside her, and make her feel as if she were coursing through the black waves of the sea again.

But she needed to know what was saddening him. Needed to know if it was something she could fix. Or if it was about her. “Tell me about Kyla.”

Calan held her away from him for a moment, looking severely down at her, as a teacher would a student who’d let a bad word slip. But then his face softened. “There’s not much to tell.”

“Calan, please.”

He seemed to be considering whether or not he could trust her with the information.

It didn’t take long. “Kyla was a friend of mine, for many years. She was selkie. We grew up together. Did everything together. She was there when I discovered humans for the first time. There, when I had my first sip of wine. There, for everything.”

“She must have meant a lot to you.”

“She meant the world to me.” He squeezed her arms gently. “As a friend, Maggie, only as a friend. But I haven’t had a lot of those, so it pains me she’s gone.”

As much as it bothered her, she couldn’t deny the rush of relief she felt upon hearing
the words as a friend. “What happened to her?”

He paused, and then launched into the tale. “Just as a selkie man can be captured, so can a selkie woman. Two fisherman came upon her pelt a year ago. They claimed her and she went with them, figuring she’d have a spot of fun and then return home with her skin.” There was a sheen of tears in his eyes. “It didn’t quite work out that way. The men who’d found her abused her terribly. They kept her locked up for weeks on end and treated her like a dog. Angus and I found her body on the beach one day soon afterward.

Dumped like a piece of trash.”

Maggie’s heart grew heavy at the vision of the dead selkie girl on the beach, lying used and abused.

“I’m sorry, Calan. No wonder you’ve been distrustful.”

He held her close. “Not of you, Maggie. Never of you. You’re different. You’re kind and gentle, and you make my heart soar.”

Just as hers was soaring.

So Kyla was a sad memory to him. Then what was making him stare out at the sea with such longing?

Turning in his arms, so that he was embracing her from behind, she looked out the stable window. Out in the surf, playing like a group of puppies, were some seals.

“Selkies,” she said, gasping.

“Aye,” he murmured against her ear, capturing her lobe between his teeth and tugging gently. Maggie stiffened as a sensual shiver rippled through her body. The shiver became a quake as his right hand snaked its way down her belly, kneading its fullness, and then dipping down between her wet lips.

Maggie parted her legs for him. She had no choice. All Calan had to do was whisper her name and her legs automatically spread for him.

He slid a webbed finger inside her core, penetrating her with delicious ease, and then drew it out again. Just when she suspected he might be done doling out his sweet torture, he circled her clit with that same finger, making her knees buckle.

The whole time Calan stared out the window with her. “See the big black one?

That’s Machar. With Angus occupied with Elsie, he fancies himself the boss man. Look at the way he’s frolicking.”

Maggie could barely see. With the way Calan was touching her, she could barely think.

He kissed her shoulder and groaned, sliding two fingers inside her. “The one with the lighter streaks in his fur is Jamie. And the one with the ginger shimmer is Edan.” He stroked and stroked.

“Uh-huh,” she barely managed to say.

A third, marauding finger joined the others, stretching her, making her sigh. “The two brown ones are Breannan and Drummond. In their selkie form, they look like twins.”

He pulled his wet fingers out of her pussy, found her clit once again, and lightly tugged.

“Oh God!”

Calan spun her around, backed her up to the stable wall, and got down on his knees in front of her. Before she could say a word, before she could ask if the sight of his brothers swimming in the surf made him depressed, Calan spread her legs and embraced her with his mouth. Drinking her in. Sucking and sucking until she came against that wooden wall.

And as her spine-shredding orgasm leveled her, Maggie forgot to ask anything.

* * * *

When she woke up the next time, the sun starting to illuminate the corners in the little stable, Calan was fast asleep.

Maggie turned over in his arms and raised herself up on her elbow so she could look at him. Really look at him.

The gentle rays of sun were sneaking between the wood slats that made up the walls of the stable, streaking across his face. His chocolate hair was tousled behind him, a wave of brown silk across the hay bale. Sculpted shoulders were peeking out from under the blankets, begging her to lower her lips to his skin. And yet, she refrained, not wanting to wake him. Not wishing to disturb the picture of the sensual, slumbering angel.

He was perfect. At the same time, he was perfectly wrong for her.

He was selkie. He had to be.

What possible future could she have with him? None. Could she seriously run away with him the way Elsie had with Angus, knowing that at any time his skin could be pilfered by someone else? That he could be impelled to jump into another woman’s bed, just because she might happen upon his discarded skin on the beach? Maybe Elsie could live with that sort of uncertainty, but Maggie? The woman who’d already been tossed aside by two other lovers?

Still, that not-so-quiet voice inside her railed against whatever logic she was using to justify her actions. The voice that dared to proclaim, “You love him. You know you’ve loved him from the first day you saw him in your dreams.”

It defied all reason and sense.

She couldn’t let herself be hurt again. No. She’d run now, before things went too far.

They’ve already gone too far. The moment he first called my name, they went too far.

Maggie silenced the voice in her head. With slow, subtle movements, she pulled away from his arms and got off the bale, and then quietly dressed so he wouldn’t awaken.

As she did, she gazed down at his face, the face she’d seen in both incarnations. Seal and man.

And tried so hard not to fall back into his arms.

The best thing she could do was find his skin for him. Then she could help him return to the sea and set him free. He would be happier in the sea, she could tell. When she’d glimpsed that momentary sadness in him as he gazed out at his brothers in the waves, it had almost killed her.

Anyway, it wasn’t as if he loved her.

Before he ever started rustling in their makeshift bed, Maggie slipped out the stable and ran down the beach toward Gran’s house, away from her selkie lover.

* * * *

Calan awoke, needing her already.

In his very long life, he’d had a few dandy moments. An assortment of good times.

Nothing had been as mind-bogglingly fulfilling and marvelous as being able to make love to Maggie Collins. To be able to fall asleep with her bundled in his arms had been even better.

Life-changing. Life-affirming.

He reached for her, wanting to feel the brush of her soft skin against his fingertips.

“Maggie?”

He opened his eyes, squinting in the light. She was gone. Her clothes, her boots. The sweet smell of her. All gone.

“No,” he growled, as thunder grumbled in the distance. Ignoring that elemental manifestation of his temper, he jumped off the hay bed they’d shared, and rummaged for his clothing. As he did, he tried in vain to dismiss the nagging, splintering sensation in his chest. The one that dared to suggest she might leave him.

No. Not after what they’d shared. Not after he’d put his teeth to her fine arse and marked her as his own. Sure, their love affair was improbable, to say nothing of hasty.

Still, it had penetrated him, fusing him to her. She was his, plain and simple. And if he had to spend the rest of his life proving that to her, he would.

Anything but let her go. He couldn’t let her go.

If it had been one-sided, fine. He could release her under those circumstances. But not after witnessing the need in her eyes. Not after hearing her sighs in his ears, or after tasting her kisses. They were all scrumptious indications that she needed him as much as he needed her.

And yet, she’d run from him. It was a novel, horrible concept. No woman had ever run from him. To think Maggie would break that mold was enough to break his heart.

Why would she leave? Did the idea of falling for a selkie finally turn her off? He knew she was falling for him.

“I don’t know what sort of game you’re playing at, wee Maggie,” he muttered as he threw open the door to the stable and raced outside, “but you won’t win.”

He tore across the stretch of land between the stable and Breannan’s house, only to find his family exiting the house. All nude, headed for the beach, carrying their pelts.

Even Elsie was with them, moaning as Angus carried her in his arms. Her head slumped against his chest.

“Calan,” his mother said, approaching. “We’re taking Elsie home. She needs to be underwater for the birth.”

“The pain’s too much for her here,” Angus concurred in a quiet voice. “She thought she could do it, but we’ve finally made her see sense.”

From somewhere against the wall of Angus’s chest, Elsie groaned an unintelligible reproach.

Angus kissed her wet brow. “I’m going to take your pain away, love. I promise.”

With that, Angus trudged into the water, not stopping until he and Elsie were shoulder-deep. Calan watched his brother whisper a few words to his wife, and then he set her down. Gently, he pulled Elsie deeper into the water until they both disappeared under the waves.

Fae touched Calan’s face. “Are you coming, son? It might be some time before we resurface, what with the wee babe.”

“No. I’m sorry.” He stared out toward the spot where Angus and Elsie had vanished.

“I don’t have my skin. And I have to find Maggie.”

Fae kissed him, as his brothers all began plunging into the cold sea. “Go find her, Calan. Bring her home.”

His father put a hand on his shoulder. “Mates aren’t easy to find. Fight for her.”

Hand-in-hand, Fae and Alun stepped into the surf. Within seconds, they were gone.

Calan turned and looked down the long stretch of beach. He could make out her footprints. Sighing in relief, he followed them.

Mates aren’t easy to find.

Could she really be his mate? The one destined to share life with him? He’d certainly believed it as he broke the skin on her sweet cheek, the traditional selkie method of declaring oneself.

Knowing he didn’t need to debate the topic any further, for the answer was already in his heart, Calan tore into a sprint and followed the track from her Wellies.

Chapter 13

Maggie wobbled down the beach, her ankles hurting from running in her gran’s rubber boots. Her eyes stinging, more from the loss of Calan, than from the spray of saltwater from the sea. Her legs were ready to buckle. She felt like a big, soft buffoon.

“Dammit,” she grunted. “Why did I always choose debate team over track and field in school?”

She took another step in the squishy sand and tripped over her own feet. As she tumbled to the sandy ground, she wondered why she was running. For the umpteenth time.

Oh, yeah. To get away from Calan, the love of my life. To find his pelt so I can send him back to Atlantis or wherever he comes from.

She felt like such a fool. Her reasoning had made sense back in the stable. Now it all just seemed rubbish.

Every inch of her skin was screaming to be returned to Calan. Every vein was pumping for him. Each sinew and fiber wanted to wrap itself around him. Her body already believed in him even if her head was fighting against the belief. Even now, she felt him calling to her. His voice was reverberating inside her body and in her head.

Making her see pictures she didn’t understand. Forcing her to confront truths she’d never comprehended.

She’d never believed in magic in her life. Even though Gran had peddled all those old myths so long ago, Maggie had never once stopped to think they might contain a grain of truth. And then Calan walked into her life, making her question, making her wonder.

Making her want.

And now, she knew without a doubt there was something else out there. Not in an Area 51 sort of way. No, this was different. Mystical. Ancient. The sort of something that left her dumbstruck, and wanting to believe in fairies and centaurs and giants.

Running from him was causing the greatest, most mind-splitting ache she’d ever suffered. And she didn’t even understand it.

She picked up a handful of sand and tossed it, even though it did nothing to satisfy her need to throw something really big and heavy.

Cursing, she pulled herself up and continued down the beach. Luckily, Nora hadn’t lived far. Indeed, everyone in Orkney seemed to live within twenty minutes of each other.

She was already approaching the small rise that led to her gran’s house. It was a stretch of ground that led to a small precipice overlooking the water. Maggie swore she saw storm clouds gathering over the waves, but paid them no attention. Her plan was to grab Gran’s car, head into town, and scour St. Magnus Cathedral, the last spot on the hit list she’d devised with Calan.

The pelt had to be there.

She forced her legs to move her body uphill, as much as it hurt, and approached the bluff. Looking down, so that she didn’t trip again, she ran straight into Matthew.

Her ex looked as if he hadn’t slept in weeks and his eyes were wild. He steadied her with his hands. “Whoa, Maggie.”

It occurred to her in that second that his touch had never felt quite so wrong, and Calan’s so right. “What are you still doing here, Matthew? Go home.” She pulled out of his grip and turned away.

He grabbed at her hand and pulled her back. “Oh no you don’t. I came all this way to reconcile with you. You’re not turning your back on me again.”

She looked at him, her eyes burning. “I didn’t ask to reconcile with you. I don’t want to. I don’t even understand why you’re trying so hard. It’s over.”

His grip on her arm tightened. Somewhere out at sea, thunder rumbled.

“Do I need a reason, other than loving you?”

Her shoulders dropped in exasperation. “You don’t love me. You’re just afraid to be on your own. You stopped loving me the moment you contemplated putting your dick down Caitlyn’s gullet.” She shook her head at him. “Just go home and see if you can salvage what’s left of your vacation days.”

“I’m not going anywhere without you. It’s time you stopped acting like a child, chasing ridiculous men, and avoiding reality,” he uttered. “You’re coming home with me.” He yanked her arm to drag her away from the bluff.

A streak of lightning illuminated the gray sky, making Maggie’s eyes hurt even more. She was all of a sudden conscious of another presence, and turned to look behind them.

Standing near the edge of the precipice was Calan. His face red. His jaw tight. His hair blowing in the breeze. He looked like a tempest. He slowly blinked his eyes, and each time he did, lightning flashed.

“Get your hands off her.”

Maggie swallowed. His voice was dripping murder. Okay, clearly selkie folk could be truly badass when they wanted to be.

Matthew released her, but only apparently so he could finally have it out with the man he considered to be the “backward Scottish biker.” Maggie could only watch as he launched himself at Calan with a battle cry, could only stare as she saw the grim smile on Calan’s face.

“Oh, come on, guys,” she called. “Don’t do this.”

It was too late. As the thunder rang out above them, Matthew hurled his fist toward Calan, but Calan caught it easily in his hand. Enraged, Matthew tried again with his other hand, but Calan caught it as well. After a tense moment, the selkie released him.

“You need to go home, my friend,” Calan warned, “before I lose my temper.”

Grunting, moving in a black, irrational fury, Matthew attempted to batter Calan once more. Each assault was to no avail. It was clear from the start that Calan had the more practiced technique. Matthew might have liked talking sports with his buddies at the gym, but he never exactly spent all his time bench-pressing. Calan’s body was muscular, and he moved with the easy grace of an animal.

Of course, he was one.

They circled each other for a moment, making Maggie think of a couple of hungry sharks. Matthew kept trying to get in a couple of jabs, but Calan responded by ducking.

At one point, looking frustrated, Calan put his hands on Matthew’s shoulders and thrust him away. Matthew reeled, spilling backward. For a split second, his feet fumbled and he struggled to maintain his balance. But not before reaching the edge of the bluff. He stumbled yet again, trying to right himself like a cartoon character waving its arms
propeller-style, and plunged over the bluff. Calan reached out for him but not in time, and watched in shock as his adversary toppled into the water below.

“Matthew!” Maggie shouted and ran to the edge, feeling Calan pull her back.

Matthew was thrashing and sputtering in the waves below. Maggie turned to Calan. “He can’t swim!”

Calan just stared at her, his face a mixture of disappointment and remorse. He took a deep breath, and then leaned over and yanked off his boots. Without a word, he turned and dove off the bluff, doing a perfect swan dive into the chilly water.

Maggie cried out for him, but within moments, he was hauling a drenched, waterlogged Matthew onto the beach. Heaving a huge sigh of relief, she raced down the rise to the beach. Calan deposited a spitting Matthew onto the sand, and whacked him on the back a couple of times to help him dislodge the seaweed in his throat. At least, she thought that was why he whacked him. There was a certain, satisfied gleam in his eyes that indicated he enjoyed giving Matthew a skelping, even if it was in the name of saving him.

Maggie touched Calan’s arm and felt her body go up in flames. She pulled herself together enough to whisper, “Thank you. I know he didn’t deserve it, but thanks all the same.”

Calan just stared at her, ignoring the drips of seawater trickling all over his face.

“Why did you leave?”

She felt her lip tremble. “I don’t know anymore.”

He enfolded her in his wet arms, holding her tightly to his frame, running one hand through her hair. After a couple of minutes, she heard the low rumble of his laughter against her ear. “Woman, you almost gave me a stroke.”

She looked up and noticed the sky had cleared. Any trace of storm clouds had dissipated. And Calan was smiling at her.

Calan was smiling at her. It was the best feeling in the world.

Matthew chose that moment to cough up a third lung. With a sigh, Calan pulled him up and checked to see he was okay. Matthew nodded and looked over to Maggie. He resembled a sorry dog who’d fallen into the lake.

He was shaking his head and his shoulders were drooping. He looked utterly defeated. “Maggie,” he babbled, “I lost my job. I lost everything. I just wanted something nice back in my life, and you were the nicest thing I ever had.” He took a deep breath.

“I’ve fucked up, haven’t I?”

She nodded. “Yeah. But now you get to go home and fix it. It’s time to start over, Matthew.”

They walked him the rest of the way to Nora’s house. After making sure he was okay, Calan nudged him into his rental car, turned the ignition for him, and leaned over to say a few quiet words.

She didn’t know what he said, but whatever it was, it prompted Matthew to drive away. For good. Calan then turned to her, one eyebrow cocked, and said, “Lass, I’m soaked. Perhaps you’d be kind enough to towel me off.”

God, it was so tempting. Still she buried the lust that was already threatening to overtake her. Maggie just couldn’t forget the mournful look in Calan’s eyes when he’d been staring out to sea from the stable window. That look haunted her. And she knew in her soul that the only thing that could ever erase that look for good was for him to have
his pelt back. He might think he wanted her. He might even think he was fond of her, but it was the sea he needed.

She would not be the one to take it from him. Matthew was going home. Now Calan needed to go home, too.

She pasted on a loopy grin that probably did nothing to hide the turmoil inside her.

She pushed him toward Nora’s house. “I bet you’d just love me to towel you off right now, but it’s not going to happen.”

He turned and frowned at her.

“You can frown all you want, buddy. You’re going to dry yourself off, and we’re going to St. Magnus. This needs to end.”

He stood as still as a post. “What exactly needs to end?”

This. Us. The way my heart’s already breaking. “This deranged quest to find your matted, old skin.” She prodded him toward the door. “It looks pretty quiet in there. Let’s grab you a towel.”

He stared at her, his face a blank slate, his voice cold. “Never mind, Maggie. I’ll air dry.” With that, he walked over to her car. “Shall we?”

What was wrong with him? Could it be he didn’t want the skin anymore?

He opened the driver side door for her and she slid in, shaking her head.

Men. She’d never understand them.

* * * *

Maggie experienced a strange relief when, two hours later, they pulled onto Broad Street in the heart of Kirkwall. They were finally headed for the cathedral. The journey over had been excruciating.

Back at the house, after Calan had escorted her to her car, he’d shut the door and left her inside it, and then walked away. He hadn’t gone far. He’d found himself a good-sized boulder about twenty feet from the car and had leaned against it, looking back only once to glare at her.

She’d made him mad. Oh well, it had given him a chance to cool down and to air dry.

Then, postponing the inevitable and making her more nervous, Calan had insisted on stopping somewhere to eat. And as much as Maggie just wanted to be done with their skin adventure, she’d also been starving. They’d stopped at another cozy pub, this one blessedly Annette-free, and had eaten. A great deal, in Calan’s case.

He’d taken his time eating, too, and she suspected it was to get her goat. It had worked. Maggie had never known a sexier eater than Calan Kirk. He relished his food, oohed and aahed over it, even going so far as to lick his fingers suggestively when she was looking. He’d had an enormous, juicy burger, one that dripped juices. Maggie had had to quietly stamp on her own foot so she wouldn’t propel herself over the table at him to lick the juices from the corners of his mouth.

Now she was fit to be tied. Thank God they were headed for a church. Hopefully the atmosphere of religion and devotion would douse the flames of eroticism ripping through her.

Although she seriously doubted it.

As if to taunt her further, Calan put his hand on the small of her back as they made their way to the massive doors. She bristled. “What are you doing?”

He looked down at her, his eyes hooded and shrewd. “I’m just touching you, lass. Is there a problem?”

The bugger. He was trying to get under her skin so she’d cave in and wrap herself around him, rather than being the dignified, detached person she wanted to be. If she was going to relinquish the pelt to him, she couldn’t get any more attached to him than she was. It was clean break time. “No problem,” she retorted, lying through her teeth. “Only we’re entering a church so you might want to keep your hands to yourself.”

Calan’s only response was a growl. The great big beast.

He yanked on the door and it creaked open. They entered. For a moment, they both just stood there at the top of the nave, taking in the view.

The cathedral was empty and silent, as it was between services. Maggie wondered at the beauty of the building with its mix of red and yellow sandstone. As eroded as it was on the exterior, after centuries of exposure to the harsh Orcadian winds and rain, inside it was pure majesty. With thick columns lining the nave and Gothic pointed arches, it took her breath away. Her gaze flew to the magnificent stained-glass window of St. Magnus and she smiled at the blond hair under his crown. He looked like a Viking saint.

“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” Calan asked, gazing down at her.

She nodded, unable to speak.

“Where do you think we should start?”

“Well,” she said, roused out of her reverie by his question. “Gran volunteered as a tour guide here. She would have known every nook and cranny in this place.”

His gaze bore into her. Intruded into her core and on her wellbeing, making her break out in a sweat. Maggie was fairly certain that if Calan kept looking at her like that, as if her clothing were no impediment to his appraisal of her assets, she would lay herself down on the cold cathedral floor and beg him to take her.

“Would you rather start with the nooks,” he whispered close to her ear, “or the crannies?”

She gulped and walked with purpose down the aisle. He followed her slowly, and she could hear the echo of his footsteps on the floor. Taking his time, as if he just knew she couldn’t get away from him. “Maggie,” he called from down the aisle, “you’re avoiding me. Why?”

She bent over and scanned the area under the wooden pews. “I’m not avoiding you.

We have a job to do.”

She spied Calan popping into the St. Rognvald Chapel, dedicated to the Earl of Orkney who was canonized in 1192. And felt his gaze on her the whole time, rather than on the statue of the saint. “I know you’re afraid. You won’t convince me you’re not.”

Damn his mind-reading skills! Gritting her teeth, Maggie inspected the aisle that led to the monument of the Arctic explorer John Rae. She walked around the reclining stone figure, keeping an eye out for recesses or spots where a pelt could be tucked.

“Admit you’re scared, Maggie. You’re afraid to trust yourself with me,” he called from the altar area.

“I will not dignify that with a response.” She wandered from the nave to the choir aisle, tucked behind a decorative screen. She searched each seat and even around the organ. “Shoot! Why did my grandmother have to make this so difficult?”

There were footsteps behind her. And then there were hands upon her, soothing her.

He ran them up and down her arms, making her skin explode with goose bumps and
making her breath catch. “Huss, lass. We’ll find it.”

Dammit, why was she fighting this? He made her feel so good.

He spun her around and her knees almost buckled at the warmth in his eyes. “Look.

We’ve searched the whole main floor. Why don’t we call off the hunt?”

“No. Calan, if it’s not here, I don’t know where it is.” Her emotions bubbled up inside her, making her quiver when she wanted to be strong and decisive. She took a deep breath to steady herself. “We have to find it. It belongs to you. You need it.”

He stared at her, seeming to understand how badly she wanted to give him the pelt.

Realizing she needed the completion of this quest. “Well, we could try the tower.”

She swallowed the lump in her throat. “Right. The tower. Okay.” And this time, as they walked together to the ancient stone staircase leading to the upper level, Maggie didn’t object as he placed his hand on her back.

As they trudged up the two hundred stairs to the top floor, she felt her heart sink.

This chase was starting to feel distinctly goosy. Even still, they maneuvered each tight, spiral staircase, walked the balcony in front of the massive rose window, and completed their search of the cathedral.

All in vain.

Finally, Calan turned to her, resigned. “Look, love. Perhaps we’re not meant to find it.”

“No,” she replied, angry now. “It’s yours, and you’ll have it.” She shook her head, mystified. “I just wish Gran had left some other sort of message. If she couldn’t come out with the info, why couldn’t she leave some sort of clue? I feel like I’m the loser on the bloody Amazing Race. This is insane.”

“We did our best, Maggie,” he said, trying to console her. “We looked in the places that meant the most to her.”

“The places that meant the most,” she repeated, dazed. “The places that meant the most…”

Maggie scoured her memory, searching for a kernel of information. Something she might have missed. Gran was almost ninety, after all. It wasn’t as if she spent her days gallivanting. She was mostly a homebody, just like Granddad had been.

Granddad. The places that meant the most…

“Oh my God,” she whispered.

“What is it?” Calan asked.

She looked up at him, her eyes widening. “We need to go home. I think the skin was there all the time.”

Chapter 14

As soon as they were back in Nora’s house, Maggie bounded up the stairs to the bedroom she’d been sleeping in since she’d arrived. With Calan following her, she headed for the bed.

“Don’t tell me I missed it under that mattress,” he said in a wry tone.

She didn’t answer, but gave the bed a great shove. “My Gran loved my grandfather more than anything,” she said by way of explanation. “So much so, that when he died, she couldn’t bear to let him go. He was cremated, but Gran refused to put his urn on the mantelpiece. She was always worried she’d knock him over one day and have to vacuum him up.”

Calan cocked an eyebrow at her.

“Anyway, there’s a small crawlspace under her bed. She put him there, figuring he’d be safe, and he’d also always be close to her when she slept. I haven’t seen her open the space for years, and forgot about it.”

Calan didn’t move. His every muscle was tense in anticipation. She turned from him and sought out the floorboard that covered the crawlspace. Sure enough, there was still a little hole in the wooden floor, one that served as a handle. Notching her finger in it, she gave it a little pull and it lifted.

It was dark inside the recess, and Maggie didn’t really want to reach in, just in case she tipped Granddad over. Straining her eyes, she peered in until she got used to the darkness in the hole, and then extended a tentative hand.

Her fingers closed in on a soft pelt. It felt so luxurious she couldn’t resist pulling it from the nook. Her eyes grew wide as she saw its enormous size. It was beautiful, dark brown and soft. Holding it as if it were a delicate, breakable thing, she looked up at Calan, its rightful owner.

His face was tight, stunned. Regretful.

“Here,” she whispered. “Take it.”

He shook his head. “No. I don’t want it.”

“What do you mean, you don’t want it?”

He stared at her and a single tear escaped from his sad, brown eyes. The crease in his brow making him appear humbled and amazed and terrified at the same time. “I meant what I said. Keep the pelt. I’d rather have…”

She felt tears well up in her eyes too, she wanted him so badly. She had to concentrate to form her next words. “What would you rather have?”

“You,” he whispered. “You. I want you.”

Maggie let the pelt fall to the floor and moved to him as quickly as her body would allow. Their mouths came together, seeking, searching that which they could only find in the yielding warmth of each other’s bodies. He lowered her gently to the floor, kissing her madly the whole time, and onto the pelt itself. With his skin cushioning her from behind, and his wonderful weight pressing into her from the front, Maggie closed her eyes and relished each sensation.

*

Home, Calan thought as he trailed his tongue down to her cleavage. I’m home.

He’d been so worried, so nervous, that in giving himself to a woman, he’d somehow lose himself. With Maggie, he just seemed to understand new facets to his life, new possibilities. He forgot old grudges when she gazed at him with her sparkling eyes. And when she touched him, whispering his name, everything seemed good in the world.

She’d offered him his skin, had offered him his life. And for the first time ever, he’d realized with startling lucidity how much his life was caught up in hers. Without her, without his mate, there was no life. He couldn’t go on without her. He knew it as well as he knew each hair on his pelt.

Feeling such joy in his gut, he removed all her clothing and then ripped off his own clothes, needing to feel the soft slide of her skin on his.

“Calan, take me,” she begged, writhing under him on the skin, seemingly unable to breathe without him inside her.

He reached his hand down between their bodies to caress the sweet lips of her pussy.

So silky and wet, so responsive. So delectable. He brought his hand up to his mouth, and then paused. Rather than licking off her moisture himself, Calan put his fingers to her lips and watched her lick her own juices from his fingers. And then she grinned at him, a coy, teasing grin that made him as hard as a tree trunk.

Fuck.

Without further ado, he buried himself inside her pussy, plunging in as far as he could. And gave himself over to the waves of pleasure building inside him.

Maggie might think she was the only one who glimpsed those strange images of the sea when they’d made love before. In truth, Calan had seen them too, and had felt the pull of the surf as he made love to her. Reinforcing the knowledge that, as long as he had her, he would always have the sea as well.

She grabbed at his ass, holding him tighter, and he shifted his weight, thrusting deeper. And as he did, he felt only peace, as if surrounded by a lovely cocoon of warm bathwater. Flowing over them, flowing between their bodies, flowing into them. Joining them as effectively as a ring might join a married human couple.

Her breath caught. She cried out with an ecstasy so raw and powerful it astounded him. And then she whispered into his ear, “Calan. My selkie man.”

Buoyed by her belief, swept up by her excitement, he came with his own cry and a rapture that thundered in his ears.

And as he held her afterward, still warmly snuggled on his pelt on the floor, Calan knew he loved Maggie more than life itself.

*

Maggie had never felt so warm, so alive. She turned in his arms and buried her face against his chest, loving the smell of him, the feel of him, the taste of him.

Loving him, period.

She needed to tell him. He’d probably think she was the lunatic this time, with such absurd, premature exclamations, but she couldn’t keep it in any longer. Somehow, over the course of a few short days, she’d fallen for him. He’d restored her faith in men and she’d fallen in love. Of course, he’d been making her fall for him slowly over the course of several months in her dreams anyway.

She ran her finger over his left nipple and watched it harden for her. Then she leaned over and kissed it. “Calan, I…”

He tipped her face up, his eyes so serious. “Maggie, I love you.”

It felt as if a huge rose were blossoming inside her core, opening its petals for her.

Her heart was pumping madly, almost beating out of her chest. Surely he could feel it against his own chest! She felt as excited as a child racing out of school on the first day of summer.

He kissed her, all softness and luscious heat, and her head swam. She smiled. “I love you, too, my selkie man.”

With a happy cry, he vaulted off the floor and picked her up, spinning her around in his arms, and then depositing her on the bed. “I can’t tell you how happy it makes me to hear you say you believe.”

“I believe,” she said, laughing between his fevered kisses. “I believe you’re selkie.”

There was a noise at the door, the sound of squeaky hinges, followed by the sound of big, shuffling feet. “Oh, he’s selkie, all right.”

Both of them looked up to see who’d intruded, and were shocked at the sight of old Phyllis Brodie, flanked by two formidable thugs. Thugs with guns pointed at Maggie and Calan. At first, Maggie just wanted to laugh at the sight of cardigan-wearing, tea-toting Phyllis with such goons. “Phyllis, what’s going on?”

“Put your clothes on, you little slut. Then I’ll fill you in.”

And as Maggie’s jaw hit the floor, Phyllis calmly turned and locked the door.

“Slut? What the…?”

“Maggie,” Calan ventured calmly, passing her clothing to her, “oblige the dear soul.

There’s a good lass.” As calm as his voice was, Maggie noticed how his keen eyes were trained on the two men.

She threw her shirt and pants on, trying hard to ignore the filthy leers of the two men.

“There. Happy? Now what the hell’s going on? And could you tell your friends to lower their guns?”

Phyllis proffered her the same false-toothy smile that she had on meeting her. “Oh, I’m afraid not. You see, I’m here for the skin. And my two nephews have been instructed to keep you in line until I get it.” The old woman let out a bitter laugh. “Why didn’t you just go home, Maggie? Even after I told my Donald and Malcolm to give you a little scare at the house, you stayed. You didn’t even leave after they shot at you in the bookshop. Stubborn thing.”

Maggie uttered a strangled half laugh of disbelief. “Seriously? You want the skin now? He may be good, but somehow I can’t see the two of you together.”

Phyllis frowned. “Don’t be ridiculous, girl. I doona want it for myself.” She sat on a chair and brushed a hand over her tweed skirt, smoothing the fabric. Then she took a deep breath. “Your grandmother was a foolish woman in many ways, but the most foolhardy thing she ever did was blather to Liz and me about the selkie skin. I don’t think Liz believed her, but I kept my thoughts to myself. It occurred to me soon afterward that the skin could provide me with a tidy income. I am a pensioner, after all. And my nephews, dears that they are, tend to get into scrapes. I’m growing weary of bailing them out.”

Maggie stared wide-eyed, not sure what to make of this info. “So, what does that have to do with the skin? Are you hoping to sell it? Is there a black market for the pelts of mythological creatures?”

“I don’t like your tone, miss,” Phyllis replied with Puritan severity. “I would never sell such a thing unless I had to. But I could make use of it. Think of all the lonely, pathetic women in the world. Like you. Think of the money I could make utilizing

Calan’s special skills to cater to them.”

“Omigod, you wanna be his pimp,” Maggie whispered.

“Pimp is such a harsh word, dear. I think I prefer ‘madam.’” She nodded primly, as if about to accept a second biscuit at a church social. “I’m merely being practical, Maggie. I grew up in poverty, after all. I know what it is to live without. My father left our family when I was nothing more than a babe. My dear mother had to prostitute herself in order to put bread on our table. Don’t think for a moment that, because I’m old, I don’t know the power that sex has over people. A desperate idiot will pay for anything, and I’ve known many a woman who would pay dearly for the chance to rut with a selkie man.”

She nodded to her nephews. “Get the skin.”

Maggie turned to face Calan, the would-be selkie prostitute, but his expression revealed little. He was merely watching the scene unfold, the picture of serenity.

Although he didn’t appear concerned, there was something about the brightness of his eyes that made him look hyper aware. If there really was any animal in him, it looked ready to pounce. He calmly put his jeans on, sticking close to her, his gaze always on the two men and their weapons.

At the sight of Phyllis’s nephews manhandling the skin, Maggie felt her stomach lurch. Even to her, it felt invasive, wrong.

“That’s it, boys. Bring it here,” Phyllis cooed. The skin was tossed to her, and the old lady petted it like she would a small dog. “Now kill the lass.”

Calan, still bare-chested, jumped as fast as lightning to shield Maggie. “I wouldn’t do that if I were you, boys.”

Phyllis’s nephews looked at each other nervously, but kept their guns trained on them.

“Now, now, Calan,” Phyllis said. “You’re mine now. You do what I say. You’ve had your fun with the trollop, but it’s done.”

“It doesn’t work that way, old woman,” he growled in warning. “You’ll not touch her.”

The old lady advanced a step. “I don’t wish to kill you, selkie. I wish to use you, after all. However, if I have no choice, I’ll kill you too. I could still fetch a nice price for your skin from some gullible collector. Now move away from her.”

“Never,” Calan replied, one arm reaching around to grab Maggie’s hand. “Never.”

“Fine,” Phyllis said with a little shrug. “Donald, Malcolm, kill them both.” With that, she turned and shuffled out of the room with the skin.

“No,” Maggie heard herself scream. She tried to shove Calan away, but he was unmovable, a stubborn boulder of muscle in front of her.

As the barrage of bullets hailed down on them, Maggie felt nothing but the most unimaginable sadness of her life. Sadness and horror that Calan was sacrificing himself for her, using his own body as a shield. Grief because she would surely lose him. And guilt because she’d led him to this.

But what she didn’t feel was the pain of gunfire. She was jolted, as his body was jolted by the gunshots. And she felt blood, his blood, all over her as it sprayed from his body. But no bullet touched her, as much as she wished they were tearing through her own flesh instead of his.

Why, her mind railed, did they have to use so many bullets? He was one man!

Couldn’t they see he was already dead?

Once the men ran out of ammo, she felt him fall and she fell with him. She tore her gaze away from the killers as they surveyed the scene. Her heart rent in two, she still clung to Calan’s collapsed body. His mutilated body. Bullet holes covered him like a gruesome, bloody patchwork. “No,” she wailed, wiping blood off his face as best as she could with her shaking hands. “Not you. It should have been me.”

Donald leaned over to Malcolm. “Get more bullets. Auntie wants her dead too.”

Malcolm grunted. “Just strangle her and finish it.”

Maggie could barely watch, uncaring, as Donald lumbered toward her. But when he stopped a foot or two away, she looked up at him. His bushy eyebrows shot up, and a look of something approaching terror filled his eyes. He motioned to Malcolm and they both stared at Calan.

Calan moved, stood. Maggie shrieked.

He shot her a glance, his face breaking into the flirty grin he’d used so much with her. “Don’t faint now.” He turned to the two men, and his smile hardened with a new vicious gleam. He moved toward the petrified thugs, breathing heavily, but seemingly unfazed by the bullets in his body. “You tried to kill my woman,” he said, his Orcadian accent sounding harsher, more guttural. “Not a wise decision.”

As Calan advanced on Donald and Malcolm, Maggie wondered at the clear lines of dread on their faces. Both men had broken into a nervous sweat. Of course, the Orcadians could be a superstitious people. They would have heard tales of unforgiving selkie and Finmen. Creatures who, when provoked, could sink ships with their control over the weather. Before Calan could reach them, the men ran screaming from the room. Maggie watched them through the window as they raced out of the house, practically falling over themselves to escape.

Only then did Calan allow himself to fall back with a huge exhalation of breath.

Maggie ran to his side. “Help me up, love. I may be selkie, but I’ll die without that skin.

We need to find that old harpy.”

Trying not to touch any of his still-bleeding wounds, Maggie propped herself under his shoulder and helped him up. Together, they hobbled off in search of Phyllis.

* * * *

It was almost twilight as the pair tore out of the house toward the sea. On a normal day, Maggie would have stopped to admire the coral-tinged sunset, but she only had eyes for Calan. She was still waiting for him to fall down dead at any moment.

“This way,” he whispered, his breath growing more ragged, as if he were asthmatic.

“I can smell her.”

“You should sit,” Maggie said in a small voice, more scared now than ever. She couldn’t lose him again.

“I need the skin!” He picked up his pace and his body quaked in response.

“Okay.” Maggie held on to him, soaked through in his blood, praying God might intercede.

They traveled over a small, grassy rise that led toward Phyllis’s house near one of Orkney’s breathtaking cliffs. At the cliff’s edge stood an old woman holding the pelt, staring into the white-capped sea. She turned to face them as they approached.

It wasn’t Phyllis. It was Liz.

Maggie and Calan moved slowly toward the grim-faced woman, assuming they had
another elderly adversary. But as they moved closer, she smiled sweetly, as if about to serve them tea. “Maggie, dear, I was so worried about you.” She shot Calan a look. “Och, I don’t know as I have enough first-aid skills to help you, lad.”

“Never mind that. But I would have the skin back if you don’t mind,” Calan replied, grinning weakly as Liz handed it to him. He wrapped it around his shoulders, closed his eyes, and a clear shudder of contentment passed through him.

Maggie’s head spun. “Where’s Phyllis? How did you get the skin?”

Liz moved to the cliff’s edge and looked into the surf. Maggie and Calan joined her, only to see Phyllis’s cardigan-wrapped body floating two hundred feet below them. “I was suspicious of Phyllis as soon as Nora told us her selkie story. Phyllis has always been a grasping busybody, but I saw her change for the worse. She was a woman obsessed, coveting that skin. So, I’ve been keeping my eye on her.”

Maggie and Calan just stared in amazement.

“She believed she was part selkie, you know,” the old lady continued. “Her mother lived a very rough life. For a time, after her father deserted them, Phyllis’s mother told her that her real father was a selkie man who’d gone back to the sea. I think it was part of the reason she was so crazed over the skin. She wanted revenge on the selkie race.”

“That’s insane,” Maggie whispered.

“It is what it is. I only wish,” Liz continued, gesturing to Calan’s wounds, “that I could have prevented this. But, I did manage to follow her here. We had a bit of a row as I tried to persuade her to give me the skin. Sadly, she fell into the sea.”

“Fell?” Calan repeated, his voice skeptical.

Liz stared at them knowingly, one dainty white eyebrow raised. “I never liked Phyllis. She was bossy, and she cheated at euchre.”

Maggie covered her mouth with her hand, although she knew it would do little to conceal what must be the gob-smacked expression on her face.

Liz rushed to console her. “Now, dear. All will be well. Perhaps you will allow me to help you do a little clean up? Besides, my grandson is the chief of police here. He’s quite familiar with Donald’s and Malcolm’s unsavory reputations, and I’ve told him how Phyllis can be. I daresay we’ll sort everything out quite tidily. It’s the least I could do for poor Nora.” She beamed at them. With that, the old woman toddled off to rest on a large rock a few feet away.

Maggie turned to Calan who encircled her in his arms and the skin. It was warm in there, so warm. “You see,” he breathed into her ear, “I promised I’d take care of you. I just didn’t know we’d get help from Old Mother Hubbard over there.”

Maggie wanted to laugh but couldn’t. Not while he was still wheezing and bleeding all over. “We need to get you to a hospital.”

He sighed, running a hand over her curls. “I don’t need one, Maggie. I only need the sea and the skin. They’ll heal me.”

“That’s rubbish. You need a surgeon … and lots of Band-Aids.” Her words came out choked.

He smiled tenderly at her. “Have faith in me, Maggie.” He kissed her gently on the mouth, allowing his tongue to slide between her lips to melt with her own. And then, he drew away from her with reluctance and moved toward the cliff’s edge, staring into the waves.

Maggie reached out a trembling hand. “What are you doing? You can’t jump. We’re
too high. You’ll die!”

Suddenly her grandmother’s tale of the selkie came rushing back to her. Especially the part about them always wanting to return to the sea.

He really was leaving her.

“I love you, Maggie. Don’t ever forget it.” With another of his heart-wrenching smiles, Calan turned and dove off the cliff.

“No!” Maggie screamed, and threw herself down on the ground at the cliff’s edge.

She watched in horror as he plunged headlong toward the surf below, thinking he was a goner. “Calan!”

But, about twenty feet above the waves, Maggie saw something incredible. His jeans somehow flew off, and his body twisted, curled up in the sealskin. His limbs seemed to shorten, flatten. His glorious mane of hair retreated into his scalp, until all that was left was the soft fuzz of the pelt. He became the seal. And just before he hit the water, Maggie saw the limpid eyes of the animal turn once more toward her.

Then he broke through the waves and was gone.

Maggie didn’t know how long she lay there on the cold ground, staring. Eventually, Liz came and put a hand on her back. She cooed and patted Maggie’s back until Maggie finally turned and rolled into Liz’s arms, sobbing.

“Well,” Liz said, stifling a tear herself, “if anything calls for a cuppa, this does.”

Chapter 15

Maggie returned to the sea every day and night, aching for a glimpse of that bobbing head in the waves. For two weeks, she’d walked around in a stupor, craving his touch.

Needing to hear his deep, lilting voice. She endlessly walked the stretch of beach where she’d first seen him arise nude out of the water.

But he never came.

Liz began to worry about her. “The selkie are an unpredictable race. Of course, they are part animal. You can’t keep them on land,” she’d confided. “He was never meant to stay.”

Still Maggie waited, while Liz waited for her to stop grieving.

The old lady had been wonderfully true to her word, even finding a way to explain the bloodbath at the house to her police chief grandson. She claimed the men killed their auntie Phyllis out of greed, and that her body had been conveniently swept out to sea.

When local law enforcement found Donald and Malcolm, cowering in their home, the men were happy to be led away by the police. The nephews seemed crazed, both muttering nonsense about a selkie man coming back to life, wanting to haunt them. They eagerly confessed to all their crimes and seemed keen on finding sanctuary in the local prison, so they might escape the wrath of the vengeful selkie. Local law enforcement was so pleased to be rid of Donald and Malcolm that they happily swept the whole matter under the carpet, glad in obtaining confessions to so many previously unsolved crimes.

Not being accused of homicide was the one bright point for Maggie. Now, as she once again pounded the beach in her gran’s Wellies, she was mad. Mad that she missed Calan, a man she could never have. And mad that her heart ached for him so much.

She found the spot where she’d first seen the seal. Even now, in the blue of evening, the water shimmered and danced, playing tricks with her eyes. But as much as she peered into its depths, no Calan appeared.

She walked to the water’s edge, tempted to walk into the frigid deep, wondering if he’d come to find her then. Would he swim to her, and carry her away to whatever Atlantean home he inhabited? It seemed too ridiculous to contemplate.

No, she told herself for the umpteenth time, he’s dead. How could someone, even someone like him, survive a hailstorm of bullets and plummeting into the sea? Would the sea really have healed him, or was his body moldering somewhere under its depths, after having endured unspeakable agony?

That was the part that really hurt. Maggie couldn’t bear the thought that Calan was dead.

She loved him, after all.

She hadn’t cried since the day he left. She’d been too dazed. But now that she really contemplated his demise, the tears poured from her and she wiped feverishly at her face.

“It’s no good,” she whispered, sniffling. “I love you, Calan. Good-bye.”

And then she turned and began the lonely walk back to Nora’s house.

* * * *

The house was cloaked in blackness as she approached, but she felt no jitters. She felt nothing. Nothing but the great, anguished void left by Calan.

Without thinking, she stuck her key in the lock and entered. Without turning on any lights, she plodded through the main floor and up the stairs. Wanting only her bed, and the sweet oblivion of sleep, she stepped into the bedroom and made her way over to the window. She slipped out of all her clothes by the light of the moon, and then collapsed into bed. Only then did she flick the switch on her bedside lamp.

And saw Calan.

He was standing by the window, not far from where she’d stood, looking utterly beautiful. Nude. And healed.

Maggie couldn’t move, sure she was seeing things. She’d had that sip of brandy earlier.

Angling his eyebrow slyly, he grinned at her. “Now what kind of greeting is that?”

With a squeal, she jumped out of bed and ran to him, wrapping herself around his body and holding on for dear life.

Calan’s chest rumbled with deep laughter, no longer sounding wheezy and racked.

He crushed her into his arms and carried her to bed. As he slid his body over hers, he groaned with pleasure. “How I’ve missed you.”

He covered her in kisses, and she lay there smiling, taking him in. He smelled so good, salty and sweet at once, and completely manly. Hungry. And she hungered for him just as much. He kissed away her tears, and ran his hands through her curls. And then he stopped to just gaze at her. As if she were the apparition, not him.

“Where were you, Calan? I thought you were dead.”

“That’s the fortunate part of being mostly immortal. You don’t die,” he teased, nipping softly at her earlobe.

She put her hands on either side of his face, feeling for any leftover wounds. “But how?”

“Hmm,” he murmured, cupping her breast. He tweaked her nipple, making her convulse. He laughed quietly at her body’s immediate response. “Always with the questions, eh? Well, I suppose you deserve a few answers.”

He pulled himself off her and sat on the bed, drawing her on top of him so that she was sitting on his legs. She crossed her legs behind his back, and he enfolded her in his arms, holding her close to his chest. “Selkie folk do have ridiculously long lives, but I could have died from those wounds. In order for me to heal, I needed to be back in the sea.” He looked sad then, remorseful. “I just wish I’d been able to tell you more at the time. But, if there had been a chance I was too far gone, a possibility that I might not heal, I couldn’t bear to give you false hope. So, I waited until I was strong enough. I just needed you to cry those tears into the sea to call me back.”

She was crying way more than seven tears now.

Calan smiled and wiped her tears away. “I was fine. I found my family and my mother took infinite satisfaction in tending to me, as much as I would rather have had you do it for me. But, on the plus side, I did get to see Elsie’s wee babe. A lovely little girl.”

“That’s wonderful,” Maggie cried, happy Elsie was no longer in agony. Despite the short time she’d known her, she felt an indescribable affinity for the other woman.

“So, I’m all yours now,” Calan said, sighing, his voice a silky promise.

Maggie ran a hand up and down his spine, not really caring at the implausibility of
his existence anymore. She was just happy he was there. “But aren’t you supposed to return to the sea anyway? The selkie never stay on land, right?”

He breathed in deeply, gazing at her through hooded, sexy eyes. “Ah. Well, that only goes for selkies who haven’t mated. It’s always been convenient for me to escape into the sea, but that was before knowing and wanting you. When I bit you that time, Maggie, when we made love, I was marking you as my mate.”

Maggie thought her heart stopped in that moment. Certainly her breath stopped.

“Really?”

He held her even tighter to his lap, and she felt his cock pushing against her derriere.

He cupped her bottom, squeezing it. “Be my mate, Maggie. My selkie wife.”

“How?”

“When a selkie man falls in love, he can bind his woman to him by mating with her in the sea. She then becomes selkie too, and he can never lose his skin to another. They mate for life. Just like Angus and Elsie did.” He slid his hands up to her shoulders, and his face crinkled with a sad smile. “Be my goddess of the sea. I know it’s a lot I ask.

You’d be giving up the life you know. But we’d be together forever.”

He kissed her then, a sweet, innocent kiss that made her heart fly into her throat. And then she laughed nervously. “Me. A seal?”

“That’s the best part. You’d be able to change forms as I do, and yes, the call of the sea would be strong for you too. But we could be human as much as we like. We could live here, in your gran’s house.” He pulled away a fraction. “I know you’ll need time to think on it.”

Maggie did take time to think about it. All of ten seconds.

“I love you, Calan,” she said, smiling. “And I’ll be your mate.”

He’d been holding his own breath just then, but it now poured out of him in a long sigh. “I love you, Maggie Collins.” He slid out from under her, stood and carried her away, kissing her all the while. Out of the room, out of the house, and down the path to the shoreline. Only when they’d reached the sand did he set her down, reaching for her hand.

They walked to the water and she jumped when she felt its cold kiss on her bare toes.

“You sure this’ll work?”

“Oh, yes,” he replied, turning to her with his devilish grin. “I worked out all the details with my uncle, King Neptune. I’ve arranged for the mermaids to be your bridesmaids, but if you prefer, we can just find some agreeable salmon.”

Maggie rolled her eyes. “Nice. I managed to find the only selkie comedian.”

“Have faith, love.” He squeezed her hand, and then looked at something over their shoulders.

Maggie turned and saw Liz watching them from the path in front of the house. Even in the darkness, she could see the old lady was wondering what possessed her to go skinny-dipping at night, and with a supposedly dead man. She raised a tentative hand and waved. Maggie waved back, and they watched as Liz walked away.

And then, Calan lead her into the black sea. It was colder than anything she’d ever felt. But as soon as they were waist-deep, Calan encircled her in his arms, and she felt his heat seeping through her pores. Within moments, it felt as if they’d entered the most luxurious, blissfully hot sauna. He leaned in to kiss her, drawing her deeper into the welcoming waters. Once they were shoulder-deep, he lifted her onto his waist, onto his
eager shaft.

Maggie felt him penetrate her, and like a bolt of lightning, his energy shot up through her core, searing her with his undying love. She felt complete, utterly at one with Calan.

She was selkie.

*

As she headed back to her home, Liz suddenly felt the urge to look back at the young lovers. She craned her head, her gaze scanning the water’s edge, but didn’t see them.

Only two seal heads bobbing in the water at her. One large one, one smaller, with distinctive auburn streaks to its pelt that shone under the moonlight. They seemed to stare back at her for a moment, and then swam away.

At first, her heart felt heavy, but then, she realized it was just as Nora would have wanted.

“Besides,” she told herself as she walked with a new spring in her step, “something tells me I’ll see those two again.”

The End

About the Author

Rosanna Leo has her degree in history and literature, as well as in classical singing.

She currently resides in Toronto, Canada. Her favorite things are her family, libraries, and her mother's gnocchi. Rosanna loves it when the geeky, awkward girl gets the hot guy, and has made it her mission to see this happen in her books as much as possible.

Sweet Hell is her third book published with Liquid Silver Books. She is also the author of For the Love of a God and Up in Flames.