Caught By Surprise. Sandra Paul

he’s not a dolphin or a chimp! He’s half-human—”

      “Shush, you’re getting all excited.” Draping the towel around her, Ralph brought the ends together beneath her chin and looked down into her face. “Don’t be deceived by appearances,” he chided softly. “It’s not a man, just a fish. With no more sensibility than a cichlid in a bowl.”

      His thick knuckles nudged her chin, encouraging her to meet his eyes. Aware of her father watching, Beth forced herself to do so. Ralph’s pale eyes looked sincere, confident. Her worry eased a little…yet refused to disappear completely. The merman had looked so—so intense.

      She stepped away, forcing Ralph to release his grip. Clutching the towel closer around her, she turned back to her father. “Even a fish can feel pain.”

      Carl smiled reassuringly at her. “Of course they can, my dear. But he’s not in pain…or at least—” he hesitated, glancing at his assistant “—did you tend to that wound yet, Ralph?”

      “No, not yet, sir.”

      “He’s hurt?” Beth glanced at Ralph in concern. “Where? I didn’t see anything.”

      “It’s on his back. High up on his shoulder. Rather minor, in my opinion.”

      “How did it happen?”

      Ralph shrugged, spreading his hands in puzzlement. “Who knows? Maybe he scraped himself on some coral. Or possibly got bitten by another fish. It’s hard to say until I have a chance to examine the injury more closely.”

      He glanced over at her father as he added, “I’ll have to contain him in a smaller crate in order to do that, sir. We’ll get right on it tomorrow. I thought it would be best to give him a chance to settle down in the tank today. To acclimate himself to his new environment.”

      Carl nodded with approval. “Good idea.”

      “Yes, that is a good idea,” Beth agreed. “If the wound needs attention, then take care of it. And after that…” Taking a deep breath, she resolutely met her father’s eyes. “Well, after that, I think you should let him go.”

      “Let him go!” Carl’s incredulous tones cut off Ralph’s exclamation of protest. He stared at his daughter in amazement. “Elizabeth, do you realize what you’re asking?”

      She clasped her hands tightly together. “I know this has been your lifelong quest—”

      “Not just my quest—the quest of every man throughout history who’s ever glimpsed the creatures,” Carl said, his voice rising sharply. “The Greeks—the Romans. Even Captain John Smith spied a mermaid in 1614 when he reached the coast of Maine. But I am the first—the very first man in thousands of years—to actually manage to capture one of the creatures.” His thin chest heaved as he gasped for breath, but the intensity of his gaze didn’t ease. “And you want me to let him go?”

      Beth stared back at him helplessly. “Yes. It’s amazing—wonderful—that you found him,” she said, trying to calm him down. “But we can’t just kidnap him—”

      “Kidnap!” Ralph laughed heartily. Putting his arm around her shoulders, he gave her a squeeze. “Elizabeth, Elizabeth. Your imagination is running wild. You can’t kidnap a sea animal. We’re simply holding him in the name of science.”

      “Well, can’t we simply videotape him?” she asked with sudden inspiration. “Take some pictures and release him?”

      Ralph released her instead. “You’re being naive,” he told her, with a hint of contempt. “No one will believe a videotape. This is the kind of find that scientists will insist on seeing for themselves.”

      Carl nodded somberly. “He’s right, Elizabeth. No one knows that better than I do. In fact, Ralph has convinced me to keep our find a secret for a couple of weeks until the Fall Science Exposition opens in San Diego. We’ll gain more validity by revealing the merman there, where the world’s scientists can see for themselves that it isn’t a hoax.”

      “But, Dad…”

      He waved her to silence, and lay quietly for a moment. Staring unseeingly ahead, he collected his thoughts, his thin, restless fingers plucking at the blue silk bedspread lying across his legs. Then he looked back at Beth. His mouth twisted as he slowly admitted, “It hurt, daughter, to have lifelong colleagues turn away from me the way they did when I announced my belief in the existence of mermaids. I don’t know what I would have done if you hadn’t believed in me, and I want your support now, too.”

      Guilt—hot and heavy—flooded Beth’s chest. The truth was, she hadn’t believed in him. She loved him with all her heart—she worried about him constantly—but not since she was a little girl had she considered the notion that his claim might be valid.

      Until today.

      She stifled a sigh. Who was she to think she knew better than he did? She’d majored in sociology, not marine biology. Besides, she’d only seen the merman for a minute or so—met his eyes for barely seconds. Even if it had been anger in his gaze, that didn’t make him human. Animals got angry, too. Maybe he didn’t mind being in the tank as much as she thought. If Ralph—who’d worked with sea mammals for over a decade—was sure the merman had the sensibility of a fish, then who was she to say differently?

      In fact, maybe it was even a good thing that they’d caught him, so Ralph could tend to the wound on his shoulder. Perhaps the merman would have died if they hadn’t captured him.

      She looked over at her father, lying there so pale and thin. So sick with his damaged heart. She thought of the years, the decades, he’d been on his search. All he’d given up to pursue it. If she hadn’t had faith in him before, wouldn’t now be a good time to start?

      Her father met her gaze, entreaty and pride combined in his own. “Don’t you understand, Bethie? This find will restore my reputation, my standing in the scientific community. You want that, don’t you?”

      Tears prickled behind her eyelids. Did he really need to ask? “Of course I do.”

      The tension eased from his body. With a sigh, he shut his eyes.

      Weariness washed over Beth as well. Suddenly conscious of her wet clothes, she turned to leave. “I’d better go change.”

      She reached for the doorknob, and Ralph immediately stepped forward to open it for her. Perhaps he saw the trouble on her face, because he suggested, “Why don’t you come and watch us work with the merman tomorrow, Elizabeth? It will give you a chance to learn a thing or two about the creatures.”

      “I don’t think so,” she said quietly as she slipped past. “I already know enough as it is.”

      Down in the hold, the merman circled the tank, flashes of rage still surging through him. The saltwater whipped along his skin, stung his open wound, but still he kept going. Ignoring the increasing pain in his torn shoulder, he let each powerful motion of his arms and tail flow fluidly into the next.

      Such a deceitfully sweet face his captor had. Such false distress in her sea-colored eyes.

      He churned the water harder—faster. Yet even its loud grumbling in his ears could not drown out the thoughts of the little female tumbling through his mind.

      Her voice had been soft yet lilting, like water murmuring merrily over sea stones. She’d stared at him as if she knew him—yet feigned surprise at the sight of his tail.

      He passed the place where she’d stood. Then passed it again. From the corner of his eye, he glimpsed a mark on the tank’s clear wall. He faltered, destroying his rhythm. Jerking to a halt, he stared at the circle she’d made with her small hand, her image surfacing in his mind once again.

      Slim arched brows. A delicate nose and winsome red mouth. Smooth skin that glowed like a pearl. She wore her thick brown hair long, like the females of his people. Streaked with the mellow gold of ancient doubloons, it cascaded