Dylan was struck with an intense urge to take a shower, to wash the last stink of the hospital off his skin. He ran a hand through his hair, feeling the dry texture of it with displeasure. They had washed it for him at the clinic, while he was unconscious, but used some sort of soap that took the natural oils out, so the strands felt brittle. Worse, his skin felt almost as dry; he wasn’t used to spending this much time out of the water. Not that he couldn’t—one of his sisters used to routinely go off for months at a time when she went to college, and his oldest brother worked on an oil rig, where shedding your human form to go diving into the ocean at a moment’s whim was not exactly a good idea. But Dylan was used to spending most of his time with his cousins, in his other skin. Being caught in human form endlessly was … itchy.
He looked out the window again, judging how far this building was from the shoreline, then shrugged and went in search of the shared bathroom down the hall he had been shown the night before. A good soak in a tub wouldn’t be the same, but it would get him clean, anyway.
A low scream made him jump back into his room, slamming the door shut behind him. His heart pounding, Dylan tried to determine where the threat was coming from. Then he looked down, and a red flush stained his pale skin.
He had forgotten for a moment that he wasn’t home, and had gone outside without any clothing.
“Sorry,” he called out to the unsuspecting fellow guest in the hallway, reaching out to grab the drawstring blue pants and drag them back up his legs. “Wasn’t quite awake yet.”
By the time he made it downstairs, his skin comfortably soaked and his black hair slicked back away from his face, the woman he had startled and two other guests were in quiet conversation—about him, clearly, from the laughter that broke out when he appeared. Dylan felt himself blush again, and a wave of irritation followed. It had been an easy enough mistake to make; he wasn’t exactly used to wearing clothing, after all. At home, people were more comfortable with skin, theirs and others', in any form.
“Glad you could join us,” Mr. Brandt—Mike—said, only a trace of teasing in his voice, although he was clearly hard-pressed to keep from smiling. “I held over some food from breakfast, as Doc Alden said you’d probably be hungry. Breads and whatnot are on the buffet, and everything else is family-style on the table.”
“Everything else” included a platter of salmon piled high and red, and what looked like smoked chub, and Dylan felt his mouth start to water. He hadn’t realized how hungry he was. The rest of the foods—scrambled eggs, bacon and fresh fruits—were added to his plate more cautiously. They were treats to his people, not everyday meals, and he was almost afraid to take too much, for fear of doing something wrong, or rude.
“How are you feeling?” Mike asked, reaching over to drop another two slices of the crisp pork onto his plate with a wink. “Doc says you were pretty beat up when they brought you in, but you look fine now.”
“More exhausted than anything else. They warned me I may be sleeping a lot for a while, to recover.”
“So what are your plans today?” Mike asked as Dylan sat down at the table with his plate. “Other than clothes shopping?”
That started everyone laughing again, and even Dylan, despite his blush, acknowledged now that it was amusing.
“I really don’t know,” he said. “Get my bearings, figure out what I’m going to do.”
“Have they found any trace of your boat?”
It took Dylan a moment to remember what boat the woman was talking about, then remembered his lie to the doctor. Another thing humans had in common with seal-kin, then; gossip spread faster than illness.
“Not that I have heard,” he said truthfully. “I suspect they won’t. I was an idiot, pushing through the storm like that.” Also true.
“You lived to learn from it, so that’s the important thing,” the woman said. “I’m Gert, and this is Sarah.” The look she cast Sarah made it clear that there was an implied lesson for more than Dylan in that fact. He wondered what the two women were to each other; not mother and daughter, no, nor sisters. He didn’t know enough about human society to understand, and for the first time, doubt struck. Being brought here … that implied that the female he had come to find was human. Everything he knew, everything he understood about females … would it apply to a human woman?
“There’s no job waiting for you? No family?” the other man, Jonah, asked.
“No job,” Dylan answered truthfully. “My family are fishermen, and they know I’ll be back when I’m back.”
Mike laughed. “Had enough of hauling nets and soaking in brine, did you? I spent a few summers working at a packing plant, and I swore the smell of fish would never get out of my pores. Money was good, though.”
Money. He was going to need money. He should have thought of that before he let his hormones take over his brains, should have brought more to barter with than just his sister’s anklet. Idiot. “I thought I might go into town and see if anyone needs a handyman. I’m pretty good with building and fixing.”
“It’s spring,” Mike said thoughtfully. “Tourists’ll be coming soon in hordes—sorry, folk,” he said to the others, who merely laughed, not taking offense, “and everything needs to look pretty. You should be able to find some work pretty easily around here, if you’re handy with a hammer.” He eyed Dylan, as though judging how much of his sleek build was actually muscle. Dylan resisted the urge to stand up and try to present a larger silhouette, like a fur-cousin spoiling for a fight. At five-ten, he wasn’t terribly impressive, until you looked more closely at his build. He wasn’t sure he wanted anyone looking that closely at him.
“I haven’t lost a thumb yet” was all he said.
“And if you’ve been a fisherman you’re not afraid of hard work. Then you’ll do.” Mike nodded, coming to a decision. “I’ll give you a list of folk you should talk to. Can’t have a long-term boarder out of work now, can I?”
Everything was falling into place: the storm sending him here, of all the villages he might have come to, to the very beach where his mate waited. This man, giving him shelter and a reason to linger, to find her again.
Yes. He felt his impatience and restlessness stir again under his skin, and whispered to it the way he might a seal-pup, counseling patience. There would be time to swim in the great waters soon enough. Patience, for now.
And like a pup, his restlessness did not want to listen. Now, it insisted. Find her now. He could practically feel her in the air. She was close, close … all he had to do was find her.
After finishing her breakfast and coffee, Beth ran her assigned errand, strolling to the post office and standing on the line that had, wonders of wonders, actually formed. All of three people were in front of her, but in this town, before tourist season started, that was a notable wait.
Beth gave Ben’s package over and asked for her own boxed mail, as well, when it was her turn.
While he went to fetch it, she leaned against the counter of the post office, her head turned just enough that she could watch people passing on the sidewalk beyond the plate-glass window of the storefront. She saw two friends walking past on the other side of the street going into the café, and realized that she hadn’t seen either of them in weeks.
A dark-haired man walked past, on this side of the street, right in front of the post office, and Beth felt herself come to attention, somehow. A stranger with thick black hair down to his collar and a slender-hipped and yet sturdy build that caught her eye.
“No.” It wasn’t the stranger from the beach. It couldn’t be. Or it could but even if it was, so what? Beth licked her lips, suddenly tasting salt and sea-musk on her skin, as though she had been out swimming, or washed her face with seawater. It reminded her of her dream, and