Page 3 of SEAL'S Baby Surprise
Ark continues to bounce around the woman, making sharp puppy barks, and doing “come play with me” bow downs.
Belatedly, I realize that I should probably interfere, in case she doesn’t like dogs. I’m not sure what she’s been through, exactly, but I know it can’t be good.
Women don’t exactly appear in the surf for fun.
“Ark! Sit!” I say, crouching down beside the woman so I don’t loom over her. Just because I don’t like face-to-face interaction with adult humans doesn’t mean I don’t know how to do it. “Hey, there,” I say slowly, hopeful that I won’t scare her. “What happened? Why are you out here?”
“Because I couldn’t,” she says with a very soft sigh. “I just couldn’t. I came out here and lay down on the sand. I thought the ocean would sweep me away, and I’d be done with everything.”
Her voice is musical. It’s nice. Sad, definitely, but nice.
“Fortunately,” I say, “You are just at the edge of the high tide mark. So, you probably aren’t going anywhere.”
“I’m not?” She looks up at me with huge blue eyes the color of the sky above the ocean on a clear, sunny day. Her makeup has run, giving a clown-like appearance to her little round face.
She has a sweet rosebud of a mouth, an up-tilted nose, and a cute little chin, kind of like a cherub painted by one of the old masters, or one of those big-eyed religious dolls from that place out in the Midwest.
It’s unconventional, but on her, it works.
“Not under waterpower,” I say with a smile. “And if you stay out here in that get-up, you are going to get one heck of a sunburn.”
“I am?” the words come out of her mouth, as if she’s never heard of sunburn. Then, “Oh, I guess I might. But I don’t know what to do now.”
I stand up and hold my hand out. “Come on,” I say. “You can shower at my place and borrow some clothes. I’ll make breakfast for you, and then we can figure out what comes next
Cautiously, she takes my hand.
“Okay,” she says in that same tone.
I pull her up, and take her back.
My day, which had started so normally, has taken a hell of a turn.
However, I can’t deny that it’s exciting.
I can’t wait to hear more about this strange woman that I found in the surf.” ?
2
AUSTIN
Our walkback to the van is slow. This big-eyed waif of a woman struggles in her dress, and she has to stop every ten feet to brush sand off her skirt.
The dress she is wearing has a satin sweetheart top that cradles and supports her breasts, barely covering her nipples.
The skirt is a gauzy affair that is gathered at the waist. Both are studded with glittery stones and seed pearls stitched on in the shape of hummingbirds and flowers. It should have been gaudy, but somehow, it suits her. It makes her look like some kind of elf or faerie.
Or like a nymph. I didn’t do so great in high school English, but I’m pretty sure that’s what you call the magic creatures who look like women but are actually water spirits or something. Something out of a fairy tale, for sure.
Her hair is a color that is definitely magical, and it adds to the allure. She has seaweed mixed in with her long, pink hair, along with strands of more of those seed pearls and glittering stones.If those things were real gems, she was wearing a fortune. So, whatever has happened to her, she has not been robbed.
That’s good.
It rules out one of the thousand things that could have happened.
She is, however, barefoot and has no purse — that’s something of a puzzle. In my experience, women rarely go about without a purse.
But I guess they don’t always lie in the ocean fully clothed either.
