SeaChange Read online

  Sea Change

  Cindy Spencer Pape

  Shot at by drug dealers and left to drown, marine biologist Heidi is rescued by the hottest boat bum she’s ever seen. Tall, dark and handsome, Jake is every girl’s dream. But with her best friend missing or dead and the bad guys still after her, the last thing she has time for is romance.

  As a merman, exiled from his colony and cursed to shapeshift with the moon, Jake can’t afford to be around humans, especially a marine biologist who might discover his species. But he can’t throw Heidi to the drug dealers and the possibly corrupt law enforcement. He’ll fight drug lords, pirates and even the gods to protect her. More complications arise when Jake’s family shows up looking for help, but the biggest problem of all is whether Jake and Heidi can resist the massive attraction that grows between them.

  A Romantica® paranormal erotic romance from Ellora’s Cave

  Sea Change

  Cindy Spencer Pape

  Chapter One

  Heidi knew they were in trouble before the first crate hit the water.

  It had been a great day right up until it went to hell. The night was warm and clear, the water calm as a lake. She loved the sun, the sea, and especially her post-doctoral research project recording the behaviors and social activities of dolphins. She got to sit in a boat in the sunshine for hours on end with her favorite person in the world and study her favorite animal. In fact, she’d been so caught up in tonight’s research that she’d ignored the seaplane circling the cove where they floated in a rocky, cliff-lined inlet, just south of Ensenada. A pod of Pacific white-sided dolphins had played in the cove all day, providing an ideal observation opportunity. A few minutes before midnight, though, when the plane started dropping wooden crates wrapped in inflatable sleeves into the glassy, black water, Heidi’s gut clenched. Things were about to get messy.

  “Brad, we need to get out of here. Fast.” She packed up her camera and notebook, her fingers shaking with haste. “I mean it.” Couldn’t he hear the terror making her voice quaver? Later, she might be embarrassed about being so scared. Right now she just wanted to be gone.

  “Just a minute.” Lost in the research “zone”, Brad continued to scan the horizon. “I’ve got two adults and a juvenile…”

  He was her best friend and she loved him like a brother, but right now Heidi longed to shake him into action. “Dude, we’ve got a freaking drug deal going down in this cove. Ignore the dolphins and start the damn engine. Now.” She secured the last of her equipment and yanked the binoculars out of Brad’s hands.

  “What the hell?” He looked to where she pointed, saw the plane, gulped, and then turned his back to her to start up the small boat’s outboard engine.

  “Strange planes dropping crates at midnight can’t be good. We’ve got to get out of here before the retrieval team shows up.” Heidi mentally willed the temperamental motor to start. Please don’t let us die!

  No luck. He pulled the cord but the engine didn’t make a sound.

  “Goddamn it, the crappy-assed thing’s flooded again,” Brad grumbled. Since their Zodiac was really nothing more than a giant rubber raft with a plywood floor, they hadn’t invested in a big motor, just a used one that would let them putter from place to place, watching the dolphins.

  Dumb, dumb, dumb. “Of course it is. It always is when we need it most.” She watched as the plane disappeared. “Try priming it.”

  As Brad primed the motor, Heidi picked up the plastic oars from the bottom of the boat and shoved them into the oarlocks. If nothing else, she’d row. One good thing about being almost six feet tall with the shoulders of a linebacker was that she could row as well as most of the guys in the marine biology department—better than some. Thank you, Viking ancestors.

  While Brad messed with the motor, she began to pull in long strokes toward the nearest shore.

  She’d only made it about a quarter of the distance when the sound of a different, bigger engine caught Heidi’s ears. From the south, she saw the running lights of a fast, slim cigarette boat. The low, sleek watercraft, about twice the size of their inflatable, sped into the cove then slowed to an idle near the southern shoreline where the crates bobbed in the waves.

  “Shit, they’re here. They’re picking up the crates.” She could hear her voice rising in pitch, even as she tried to keep the volume down. Heidi rowed even harder toward the northern point of the cove. “Come on, buddy, this is bad. We’ve got to get out of here. Fast.”

  There was a chance, just a slim one, that in the meager light of the moon, they’d blend in with the rocky coast enough to be overlooked while they rowed around the nearby outcropping and out of the cove.

  Shouts in angry Spanish emerged from the other boat.

  Heidi groaned. She recognized a few of those words. “Shit, we’ve been spotted. Hurry.”

  Brad just grunted and kept working.

  “Why the hell did I have to pick tonight to watch the dolphins? And why did you have to agree with me?” Duh, because the full moon and the calm seas made for excellent viewing conditions. Apparently they were also good conditions for a drug deal. “Come on, Brad. We’ve got to move!” She could see the headlines: “University Scientists Killed in International Drug-related Shootout.” Not good.

  “No luck.” Brad turned to her as the powerful speed boat gunned its engines and headed toward them. “Any ideas?”

  “Kick it!” It was a last-ditch play, one she’d seen her father use back in Minnesota once or twice, but this was a time for a Hail Mary if there ever was one. Her arms were beginning to ache—these oars weren’t designed for speed.

  “Aye-aye, cap’n.” Brad hauled off and kicked the old Evinrude with his sneaker-clad foot. And glory be, it started. Heidi pulled up the oars and held on to her seat as Brad cranked it up to full throttle and they turned toward the tip of the cove. There was a resort just a little way up the coast, with lots and lots of people around. “We can make it.”

  “Maybe,” Heidi conceded. But she didn’t believe it. The cigarette boat drew closer, and the shouts, now in a mixture of Spanish and English, carried across the unusually placid waters of the Pacific. Desperate to do something, anything, Heidi grabbed the emergency kit and scrabbled for the flare gun.

  Her words were choked off as she heard a sharp report, felt something whiz by her left ear. “Oh, fuck, they’re shooting!”

  “And gaining on us.” Brad swore in a steady stream. “Get down, Heidi!”

  She did, falling to her knees between the seats and tugging at his shirt. “Get down yourself, you idiot!” She’d worked with Brad since they were undergrads. He was her best friend in the world, and she was every bit as terrified for him as she was for herself.

  Their inflatable craft was more maneuverable than the power boat, but that didn’t help in the open ocean, and the other boat blew it away for speed. The bad guys were gaining quickly and shooting as they came.

  She fired a flare back at the boat, but it fell short and she heard their raucous laughter ring out over the water. Damn, there were only two flares. She took a steady aim—as steady as she could get in a boat chopping through the waves, anyway, and waited until the other boat closed. Then she aimed at the shooter.

  He screamed and toppled into the water, but the boat still kept coming. Another man produced a gun.

  Heidi barely remembered how to pray, but right now she was sending off maydays to every god, goddess or other spirit she could think of.

  There was a jarring thud followed by a sickening ripping sound and the grinding crunch of plywood being shredded. She could hear the roar and smell the gas fumes from the cigarette boat’s powerful engine. The impact threw her forward, smacking her head on the seat in front of her. She heard a scream, thought it might h
ave been herself. The Zodiac spun in distorted circles no amusement park ride would ever want to duplicate, hissing and spitting as it went.

  But it was only half of the Zodiac, Heidi saw in one heart-rending moment of visual clarity. A scream of anguish tore from her throat. “Brad!”

  She couldn’t see the other half of their boat through the spray and smoke. There were more shots, some of them probably at her. And then the torn bow of the inflatable spun and flipped, flinging Heidi into the air before dropping her under the oily black waves. Just before she hit the water, she felt something strike the side of her head.

  The world went black.

  * * * * *

  Jake felt the tingles coursing through his skin and knew midnight was near. He dove naked off the rear deck of his boat, slicing cleanly into the calm, dark waters off Ensenada. His eyes adjusted easily to the moonlit night as soon as he surfaced, inhaling great gulps of the warm salt air. He reveled in the feel of the gentle waves caressing his skin. They felt like—like home. He sucked in a big breath, then dove deep and swam out toward the horizon, away from his boat and the lights of the town.

  A pod of dolphins had been frolicking in this area since early afternoon—that was why Jake had anchored so far out from shore and stayed there all day. He’d planned to duck into town for supplies but he hadn’t been able to resist watching the show. Besides, whenever he was around dolphins, he felt a little like he was with family. Maybe this time there’d even be a message from his mother or sister. There was always hope, but it hadn’t happened today or any other day in the past several years. Still, the dolphins would be welcome company on his midnight swim.

  He’d gone a few hundred yards when he felt the change come over him. His leg muscles stretched and morphed, knees and feet fusing together as his spine lengthened, forming the powerful arched back and dorsal fin of a white-sided dolphin. His chest, shoulders and head remained human, but he drew in deep, deep breaths to fill the air sacs that now nestled below his rib cage. Then, once the transformation was complete, he allowed himself one joyful breach, leaping clear out of the water before diving below the surface and using his powerful tail flukes to propel him through the warm, wet night.

  He swam south toward a secluded cove, hoping the pair of researchers he’d seen earlier had abandoned their studies for the night. Being seen by human eyes was one risk he couldn’t take. Fortunately his vision now surpassed that of humans, allowing him to see them before they spotted him. He took the time to carefully scan the area before venturing forward.

  He heard boat engines, one smooth and powerful, one old and hesitant, interrupting the quiet, and he started to turn back, away from the noise. Suddenly, much more violent sounds ripped through the night and he heard the agitated screech of the dolphins as one streaked past him out of the cove. He identified the harsh noise as gunfire and chattered back at the dolphins, urging them to flee to safety further out in the open ocean. Several bulls surrounded a group of females and calves, nosing them ruthlessly forward, and Jake lent his own muscle to the task, grabbing a wayward calf in his arms and returning it to the pod, propelling it seaward away from the thundering weapons and speeding vessels.

  When the pod was clear, Jake moved to follow them away, though he was hard-pressed to take his eyes from the violent chase going on in the cove. A single, younger bull swam up next to him and chattered to Jake, whose ears, despite their still-human appearance, were now tuned to pick up the high-frequency sounds.

  Hunters, the dolphin told him, in the mix of sound and telepathy that was their language.

  I know, Jake responded in the same manner, the squeals coming naturally from his human-looking throat. Dolphins referred to all humans with guns as hunters. A safe enough assumption on their part. Let’s get out of here.

  Hurt, the dolphin added. Help them.

  Help the hunters? Or were some of the dolphins shot?

  No. The swimmers.

  Swimmers. Someone who’d swum with the pod, been accepted by them. Maybe the researchers Jake had seen earlier, which was probably who the hunters were shooting at. The dolphin streaked past him on its way back into the combat zone. Shit. Mentally cursing himself for giving a damn, Jake flicked his tail and followed. The boat being chased was a Zodiac, the one Jake had seen earlier. The shooters were in a sleek cigarette boat. Drug deal? Immigrant smuggling? Ah hell, there was no way of knowing. You never knew what to expect in Mexico.

  The cigarette boat occupants kept shooting right up until they rammed the Zodiac, slicing it in half with a sickening crunch. Jake couldn’t see the occupants from his position at the mouth of the cove, but the churning black waves didn’t bode well. There were a few more shots at fragments of the wreckage, and Jake’s inhumanly keen ears picked up a volley of cursing in gutter Spanglish.

  A minute or so later, the cigarette boat sped off to the south, shouts and laughter trailing behind like an oily residue in their wake. “Needs a tune-up,” Jake muttered to himself as he slowly approached the remains of the Zodiac, checking for survivors. There’d been two researchers in the inflatable boat he’d seen earlier, one man and one woman. He remembered sitting on his sundeck and waving at the pair as they’d passed. He also remembered the woman’s figure, sweet and curvy under the half-wetsuit, and her long, sun-streaked blonde hair. They’d waved back, a couple of friendly kids with serious-looking equipment. Probably not even thirty. Fuck. Jake really hated to see a young life wasted. He swam toward the shredded boat.

  A chitter from the right told him that his companion had found something. Jake swam over to the dolphin, who was using his nose and flippers to hold a limp human form above the water. Long strands of light-colored hair drifted on the surface. Yep, this was definitely the woman he’d noticed before.

  Jake took her in his arms, holding his ear against her chest. She was choking up seawater, but she was breathing and her heart rate seemed to be fine.

  “Bad?” Her voice was slurred, the word unclear. Jake didn’t think she was making a comment about his morality. She drifted out of consciousness again before he could say anything anyway.

  Jake thought about taking the woman to the nearest beach, but his conscience held him back. She was hurt and alone, and this was Mexico. He didn’t know who’d been shooting at her or how much pull they had with the Mexican government. Hell, she could be the drug smuggler for all Jake knew, but somehow he doubted it. Swearing in Greek, he held her unresisting body to his chest and swam back to his boat, asking his dolphin friend to keep looking for the man.

  He’d bought his cabin cruiser, the Siren, partly because of her aft swim deck. A low, narrow platform stretched across the stern of the old wooden boat. That was convenient, since Jake could reach it when he didn’t have legs. He laid the woman across the deck, noting that her bare feet hung slightly over the end. She must be close to six feet tall. He didn’t know why that made him smile, but it did. At six-foot-six in his human form, there weren’t too many women who could look him in the eye, or even come close.

  He smoothed the tangles of her hair away from her face, checking for any obvious head wounds. On her right temple he found an angry scrape with a lump swelling rapidly beneath it. She lay limp and still, which was worrisome, especially since he really couldn’t do much else to help her until his hour was up. A quick glance at the clock on the outside wall of the cabin told him that he had another forty minutes before he changed back to human form. One thing he could do, however, was find her friend. So after making sure she was tucked as close to the hull as possible for safety, he went back to searching the waves and debris, even diving down to the sea grass beds to look for a body. Nothing. His friend the dolphin had left to join his pod, so Jake couldn’t even rely on sonar to help.

  By the time the hour was up, Jake knew it was useless. Odds were, even if the guy had been alive after the wreck, he’d have drowned by now. He sure wasn’t floating on debris anywhere in the cove.

  At the first tingles along his spine, Ja
ke swam back to his boat and waited for the change. Leaning his elbows on the swim deck, he slowly swished his tail to and fro beneath the water to hold himself upright while he watched the woman, who was still out cold. He tried to resist the urge to touch her, to stroke the tanned skin and silky blonde hair, but the desire was too visceral to be refused. Slowly, carefully, he removed the rubber band from her hair and allowed his fingers to work some of the tangles from the long strands.

  She stirred once, whimpering when she smacked her hand against the hull of the boat. He whispered something soothing, stroked her hair and sent a mental message of well-being. One of those actions must have worked, since she settled back down into an easier sleep, he hoped, this time. Two or three minutes later, he had legs again; his body was back in human form. He climbed on board, lifted the woman in his arms and carried her up to the deck, then down the steps to the boat’s cabin. After laying her on a long leather-covered banquette in the salon, he washed her face, examining the vicious abrasion at her right temple along with a few other cuts and bruises.

  Worried about hypothermia, he got her wet clothes off, trying to maintain a clinical detachment even as he stripped away a sky-blue bikini. No way that was going to work. She was built like a Viking warrior queen, tall and strong, but with well-padded curves made to drive a man insane. Despite the urge to drool, he managed to stay on task. After cleaning her up the best he could, he dotted antiseptic on the cuts and scrapes, then carried her to his bed. One of his T-shirts would do as a nightgown; he got that over her head without jostling her too much. He didn’t like her continued unconsciousness, but her pulse, respiration and color were good.

  After pulling on a pair of cut-off jeans, he stood at the foot of the bed, watching her. What was it about her that drew him, more than any woman had in a long, long time? Was it just because she was hurt, or because the dolphin had liked her enough to risk a rescue? There was something about her that was just too appealing to be safe. He should get the hell away from her as fast as possible. He should take her straight into Ensenada, to the hospital, then be on his merry way. But this was still Mexico, and he trusted the medics about as much as he trusted the cops. So he headed up the stairs to set a course for San Diego.