Read Online An Ordinary Drowning, Book One of The Mermaid's Pendant by LeAnn Neal Reilly - Free Book Online

his head. He flipped over onto his back and
floated, his hearing muffled by seawater and his eyes dazzled by the sun.
Seabirds streamed overhead like bits of windblown confetti. He tried to
distinguish different species, but outside of the laughing gulls he was
familiar with and a variety of pelican, the rest remained unknown—just as his
rescuer remained unknown. She was one more element of nature, inextricably
linked to Culebra’s beauty and serenity.
    As if
conjured up by this thought, an upside-down face blocked his view of the sky.
    “Ahhh!”
He pulled his feet to the sandy bottom to right himself. His heart zigzagged
and his breathing sped up.
    Saltwater
streamed into his eyes and blinded him. He swiped at the water running down his
forehead. When he could see again, he realized that a young woman swam nearby.
    “You
scared the shit out of me.” Even as he said this, his heart righted itself and
his breathing calmed.
    She
flinched and backed away from him.
    He
regretted his words, the sharpness of his voice. He extended a hand toward her.
“No, don’t go. I didn’t mean to yell at you. You just surprised me, that’s
all.” Could this be his mystery woman? Only her face, her hair plastered to her
head, appeared above the water’s surface. Hard to know if she had the hair or
the breasts to be the one.
    She
stopped backing away and came closer. She certainly had the eyes, though. Her
eyes mirrored the color of the sea. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I wanted to make
sure you’re all right.” Innocent concern turned her musical voice grave.
    “All
right? Why wouldn’t I be all right?” Confusion and discomfort tangled his
voice. His thoughts were as opaque as the water around him, full of the sand
that he’d stirred up, shielding his nakedness only temporarily. He refused to
look down, to call her attention to it.
    “The
last time I saw someone floating alone, she—well, she didn’t need any help.”
Something in her voice, some slight hitch, alerted him. He saw unhappiness
cloud her wonderful eyes.
    “I take
it she’d drowned?” He asked this gently, as if the word might startle her into
darting away. She couldn’t go until he knew for certain if she were the one
that he’d been looking for, if she were the one who’d saved him from
drowning.
    The
unhappiness surged into tears; she nodded but said nothing. He wanted to wipe
them away, but he didn’t dare touch her. He tried to console her with words
instead. “It wasn’t your fault, you know.”
    Again
she nodded and the tears shone on her cheeks. He looked beyond her and then
over his shoulder to the beach. He saw no other kayak and he was sure that he
would have heard a water taxi or other boat.
    Seeing
him searching, she looked away and said in slow words as though uncertain that
she should admit to such a fabulous tale, “I swam from the other side of the
cay.” She’d stopped crying. Her brief tears struck him as natural as a summer
shower.
    “Really?
I was told no one swam alone around here.”
    “I don’t
do it often. My father doesn’t like me to go far from my family.” Her
remarkable blue eyes, like stained glass, held his. An electric shock leapt
between them.
    “Ah.” It
was his turn to look away. He knew that the water around him had cleared and he
was entirely at her mercy. He knew what she would see if he didn’t get a handle
on himself. He had to keep her talking, had to work up the courage to ask her
if she’d pulled him from the canal. “So you live around here?”
    “Yes.”
Her eyes slid away again, fortunately not down. “My father’s a fisherman.”
    So far so
good. Time for introductions.
    “I’m
John.” When she said nothing, he continued, “Do you have a name?”
    She bit
her lower lip, reminding him of his sister Cassie when she was in high school.
He wasn’t any good at guessing a woman’s age, except for some vague sense that
she was too young or too old, some rough guideline for the tenor of