Page 54 of Stranded With the Grumpy Mermaid

A sound comes out of me that is suspiciously close to the one I made over his muffins.

“There she is,” Rafe says softly, and he does not mean the planet.

I stay at the eyepiece until my eye waters.

He shows me a double star, gold and sapphire, and a globular cluster like spilled salt frozen mid-fall, and the whole time his hand rests warm on my shoulder, steady and familiar.

On the island, he stood beside me while I found my way back to the ocean. Tonight, he gives me the sky.

“Okay,” I whisper, straightening at last, still staring up through the open slit. “Your sea’s almost as good as mine.”

“Almost,” he agrees instantly.

I smile and bend to the eyepiece again.

I’m keeping every single piece.

Epilogue

Rafe

The ring has been in the left pocket of my jacket for three hours, and I must have checked on it a dozen times.

I am not nervous. I am perfectly calm.

Right. If I lie to myself enough times, maybe I’ll start believing it.

This morning I put my glasses in the freezer and stood in front of the open door for a full minute wondering who did that, but otherwise, sure. I’m calm.

The New Belle sits at the Saltford Bay pier looking better than any of its counterparts. White hull, navy trim, paint so fresh it still smells like a hardware store, and her name across the stern in the same cream block letters as the boat that came before her. Captain Fergus swears the lettering was the painter's idea. Captain Fergus is a liar.

Our bags are stacked beside the gangway, which is to say my bags are stacked beside the gangway with Neri's one sensible duffel sitting on top of the pile like a reproach.

Fergus is prodding the stack with his boot.

"Six cases," he says. "The Belle is a working boat, Professor, not a moving van."

"Two of those are instrument cases going back to the lab. One is food."

"One is food," he repeats, to the harbor at large, so the gulls can share his suffering. "For a four-hour crossing."

“I’m bringing food to hungry scientists, Fergus. Sue me.”

He mutters something in which the words blasted and patisserie both feature, and turns to where Neri stands with her hair down, teal catching the morning sun like jewels. She's watching us with her arms crossed and a smile she's trying to hide.

"What's the water saying today, girl?" Fergus asks her.

Neri tips her head, and for a second her eyes go somewhere past the harbor mouth, out where the swell is just a texture on the horizon. A year ago, she wouldn’t have answered him.

"Flat and lazy clear to the mainland," she says. "You'll be bored."

"Bored is my favorite weather." He nods, satisfied. "And California? Still treating you properly?"

"California is treating me fine." Her grin widens. "The funding office is treating me better."

"That sounds about right to me.” Fergus shakes his whiskered head slowly. “They’d be fools not to treat you so well you’d never want to leave.”

"And this one." The boot swings my way. “I hope he’s treating you as well as you deserve, too.”